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

Love to, if I knew anything about him!

I had a book once. It was *completely* unreadable. He must know everything about language except how to use one to communicate without putting his audience to sleep!

Jack, if you want to argue about Chomsky, it ought to be done somewhere else besides a Peer Review forum.

I agree with the suggestion that this entry is ready for the guide if it could get a more focused title, to explain that it deals mostly with his politics, and leave Chomsky's linguistic career for a separate entry.

...Make that "somewhere else besides a Writing Workshop forum."

there is a problem in the bit where it says "Books such as 'Manufacturing Consent,' in which he describes" doesn't realy work.

how about making a heading of books, and then seperating the bits about 'manufacturing consent' and 'Necessary Illusions' into seperate paragraphs with subheadings?

Ashley, Subcom, I think this kind of debate is great for the WW. There is little enough action there as it is. No need to cut any out.

This is the kind of thing that can be discussed before getting an entry into that 'nearly finished' state that pr supposedly wants.

just my thoughts
spiff

For the purpose of keeping the WW active, an argument might be good. For the purpose of helping this entry become ready for the Edited Guide, it will be at best a distraction, at worst, something that might discourage the author of the entry from submitting it to the Guide.

that seems a bit harsh when Jack actually revived this thread in the WW after several months silence...

... and at the end of the day, his 'Doesn't anybody want to argue...' comment was just a gag.

Purple J *appears* to be absent but the entry is still being talked about. seems relatively constructive to me.

Certainly not putting off the original author, in any way. Shirely?


spiff
*should have been in bed 3 hours ago*

"For the purpose of helping this entry become ready for the Edited Guide, ..."

I think this entry *is* ready for the Edited Guide, except for having the title changed and spending the obligatory week in PR. I don't think Miss Purple is onsite a terrible lot these days, but she'll notice this thread when she comes back around, no doubt.

I thought there were different standards for the review fora, but I couldn't find anything in the FAQ asking people to stay on topic. So...

Let Mortal Kombat begin! (just kidding)

*leaps in with a karate kick. In high heels*

HIYA!



I've been through the backlog with a notepad, am gonna make some edits now.

Nice re-entrance, pj. Very dramatic.

glad to see you back here jenny.

I didn't realise that we had covered such a renge of stuff in this forum. When you manage to get it all sorted it should be a fairly comprehensive entry covering most of the stuff chomsky has done.

I look forward to reading it after it has had a polishing before it spends a very short time in peer review on its way into the edited guide.

keep up the good work.

This post has been removed.

I've made some alterations, and it still needs a polish, but I think have covered most of the bases. Its now split into sections. Whaddaya think

J

I think you have got all the political stuff worked out about right, but there is an error in the linguistics stuff.

you credit his idea of a universal grammer as being fundamental to computer programming, but it was his ideas on transformational grammers which appeared in the four papers which allowed for the classification of grammers into four different types, and which were then used as the basis for research into how to write better compilers and interpreters for computers.

this work is still pretty much at the basis of a lot of modern linguistics, wheras his ideas about universal grammers are much more controversial, and the idea that they are inborn are getting very discredited (not the principle that such a thing may be true, but his specific suggestions which are little more than wild speculation).

I think you will have to do a little more tidying up, as you currently have the same bits appearing in multiple places, but on the whole I think this is shaping up very very nicely.

keep up the good work.

Subcom - I obviously didn't read the small print that says topic drift's allowed anywhere except in writer's workshop. Discussing Chomsky's liguistic contribution is hardly irrelevant, is it? *rhubarb rhubarb mumble mumble*

Jenny - I've been thinking about my attitude towards this man's ideas and some of my prejudices have lessened. If you are going to include his linguistic work, good luck - you've got a pretty big entry on your hands! I'm willing to help in any way I can

"Discussing Chomsky's liguistic contribution is hardly irrelevant, is it?"

Maybe you meant something innocent when you invited an argument on the subject. I didn't think you were worried about improving the entry at all, just enjoying a fun argument.

Well, kind of. I wanted to improve the entry in any way at all (it was my virulent opinions on the subject which led to my initial reactivation of the entry ) by argument if necessary. Mostly, I wanted to make sure that the entry didn't give what I would regard as a distorted view of Chomsky's contribution to linguistics. I was pleased when I saw this was not going to happen.

Anyway, we're now having an argument about having an argument. It's all getting a bit



Jack

I've only had some slight brushes with Chomsky during the little formal education I've received. I'm interested in both his Linguistic and Political theories. This entry looks like a good introduction to both, but it does get a bit choppy near the end. Smooth that out and it can go straight into PR.

Anything happening with this?