NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/lang/8701

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-08 | 1.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!darwin.sura.net!cs.utk.edu!memstvx1!connolly
From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Bah! to bhaashaa
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 8 Jan 93 14:15:23 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University
Lines: 29

Two comments:

1. If you consult any professor of education, you will discover that it
has long been known that people read English by recognizing whole words.
In fact, it was at one time usua;lly taught that way: the "look-and-say"
method.  And most teachers do teach a lot of sight words.

2. The point of phonetic spelling is simply this: there is no other way
to dope out a word you have never seen before but may have heard.  And
for consistency's sake, the more phonetic a spelling system is, the
better, though in fact the Devanagari system for Sanskrit goes over-
board in writing precise sounds -- if only it had also deigned to
separate words, it would have been marvelous!

3. A pictographic system such as Chinese has one very large drawback
(well, several).  One is that dictionaries are extremely cumbersome
to use because there's nothing like our alphabetical order.

4. You're not the only computer engineer on this board.  Many of the
posters are computer professionals, and I myself, though a professor
of German and linguistics by trade, hold an M.S. in computer science
as well.  So don't think you have extraordinary insights simply be-
cause you're a computer engineer.  It just ain't so, regardless of
how your grandmother used to read.


I know that's four comments, but two didn't suffice.

--Leo Connolly