h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oooh *seriously impressed face* I have found someone else interested in language, woohoo! From your George Bernard Shaw quote does this mean you've read Steven Pinkers Language Instinct? I ask as I'm in the midst of reading it (having just finished one of David Crystals books) and was telling someone about it on my homepage yesterday, that exact same example. They'd never heard of the book but I assume you have? Fancy a long winded discussion about syntactic oddities and lexical fields?

Hi, Tinkerbell.

Yes, I have a copy of Steven PinkerÕs ÔThe Language InstinctÕ, but I havenÕt read it. Well, thatÕs not exactly true. I bought it because I was working on a particular project and went through it at high speed sucking out the stuff I was interested in (a particular talent of mine). Seen at high speed it looked pretty good, a lot better than his ÔHow the Mind WorksÕ.

I got Shaw's GHOTI from the horseÕs mouth, as it were. It was mentioned in the preface of a copy of his play ÔAndrocles and the LionÕ. The whole text of the play was printed side-by-side in standard English and the Shaw Alphabet, which I remember as being very well constructed and completely phonetic (for instance a ÔDÕ was a ÔTÕ upside down, because your mouth makes the same shape for each sound while the D is vocalised and the T is not). It never caught on, and I toyed for a while with the idea of taking advantage of its failure by memorising it and using it as a code nobody else could read, but I got fed up with it.

IÕm not sure I could match you head-to-head on syntactic oddities and lexical fields, as English is only a side-subject of mine, but IÕm willing to give it a try.

I've not heard about Shaws alternative alphabet but I had enough problems grasping the phonetic alphabet so it's probably just as well as I would have just got confused Is it based on all the bilabial and palatal sounds and stuff? Sounds very complex!

You should read Steven Pinkers book properly, it's really interesting, despite the fact he's more of a scientist than a linguist it reads alot better than some of David Crystals stuff and is actually understandable without serious concentration unlike most of Chomskys stuff which shouldn't even be attempted

I doubt I would know that much more than you about language as I've only been teaching myself for a couple years and have only got really interested in the past year or so. I'd reckon that your side line is probably better than my full time Do you want to discuss here or on a homepage?

I have tried to learn the "Shavian" alphabet by borrowing a copy of "Androcles and the Lion" from my library. Unfortunately, I found the pronounciation guide in my copy almost useless because it only listed one word as an example of how to pronounce a sound. So, basically, if I'm a little unsure about how to pronounce that one word, then I don't get it. I also found it rather hard to write. I wonder if there is a cursive version? There is another phonetic alphabet for English called "Unifon." (Actually, it may have been created as an American English alphabet instead of an English English one.) As far as phonetic alphabets go, though, perhaps shorthand is the leading contender.

Hi, heironymous. The problem with shorthand as a phonetic system is that over time it becomes illegible, as shorthand-writers only use it for things theyÕre going to read themselves. I once wanted to tell a joke to some secretaries that their bosses wouldnÕt understand, so I got it written down in Pitman and pinned it up on a notice board. About two thirds of them laughed, but the other third couldnÕt read it at all. At first I thought they might have been trained in Gregg or Teeline, but it turned out they were Pitman users whose style had drifted so far they couldnÕt read one anothersÕ writing.

In answer to your question Tinkerbell, come round to EeyoreÕs home and post your thoughts there. Then other researchers can read them if the mood takes them, leaving the Oddities of English area free for, well, oddities of English . I agree with you about Chomsky, but I resolutely refuse to re-read Pinker. I have sucked the goodness out of it to my own satisfaction, and it is currently doing a useful job propping a door open.

Why do all of Eeyores apostrophies appear as a capital O with a funny accent over the top on my browser. Am I alone in noticing this?

CH

Hi, C Hawke . Lots of weird things happened when h2g2 brought in the new skin, Alabaster, a few weeks ago. I noticed that double inverted commas became an "i" with an accent, and that dashes became an "n" with an accent. But apostrophes as an "o" with an accent is new to me.

Everything seems OK when I type it here. I'm a Mac user, so I wonder if that makes any difference?

Failing that, it must be down to the Putney telephone exchange.

Do Mac's use Alt code for characters like PCs, ie hold ALT down tap the number, get the charater. If so it would be worth checking what ALT codes your apostrophes are in the font you use (if any). Here for me the Õ character I see is ALT 230.

CH

Macs have an option key for lesser-used characters. So e with an acute accent, for instance, is keyed in with option-e and then e, making Ž, which looks OK as I type it, and fine when I press the PREVIEW MESSAGE button, though what it will actually look like to you is anybody's guess.

To get an apostrophe (or single quotation mark) I just press the apostrophe key, two spaces to the right of the L on my keyboard.

My Powerbook is so reliable and user-friendly that weeks can go by without the slightest hitch, so I shouldn't complain. But every now and then it turns into a surly beast that won't do what I want and won't say why it's unhappy (it decided yesterday that it no longer recognised my scanner, and had to be rebooted twice before it came to its senses).

Computers will be wonderful when they get them to work properly, won't they?

'Z' is how your acute-accented e appears on my screen.

Incidentally, does anyone know where the f sound in lieutenant comes from?
And why do Americans use intransitive verbs as if they were transitive? (Go figure ).

Also, why do they not put the second 'i' in 'aluminium'?

I don't remember the details, but I once read an essay by Isaac Asimov that discussed the aluminium point. His point was that the American spelling was correct. Has anyone got on their shelves the book that I've only got kicking about the back of my memory?

To paraphrase someone in an important trial: he was an American chemist, so he would say that, wouldn't he?

(Oh, alright then, he was born in Smolensk , but I think he's generally accepted as having been American. He certainly got his education there.)