| Author |
Message |
Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:09 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:03:14 -0600, "Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net>
wrote:
| Quote: |
I have already explicitly specified this about a dozen times.
This is used for formal documents such as business contracts
and scientific studies.
|
I have the impression that science, pure and applied, already has a
precise specialist vocabulary. Where a term in physics, engineering,
pharmacology, etc., is imprecise that is because of the underlying
imprecision in, or lack of detailed knowledge of, the thing to which the
term applies.
I'll say more in a later message.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
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Peter Olcott
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:17 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message news:082vm1pa704o6grlfe1cmvt7rks3t2s5dk@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:03:14 -0600, "Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net
wrote:
I have already explicitly specified this about a dozen times.
This is used for formal documents such as business contracts
and scientific studies.
I have the impression that science, pure and applied, already has a
precise specialist vocabulary. Where a term in physics, engineering,
pharmacology, etc., is imprecise that is because of the underlying
imprecision in, or lack of detailed knowledge of, the thing to which the
term applies.
I'll say more in a later message.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
|
Well then legal documents. Also textbooks on any subject. |
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Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:19 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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"Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net> writes:
| Quote: | "Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote
The more I read your messages the less clear I am about who will
use your proposed highly regimented and formalised dialect of
English.
I have already explicitly specified this about a dozen times.
This is used for formal documents such as business contracts
and scientific studies.
|
Ah! Like end-user license agreements and insurance policies. "You
thought it said 'pay(3)'? I'm sorry, the document clearly says
'pay(17)', so if you'll consult the standard dictionary, you'll see
that *you* owe *us* ten thousand dollars. Will that be cash, check,
or a term of indenture?"
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Code should be designed to make it
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |easy to get it right, not to work
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |if you get it right.
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
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Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:23 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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Robert Lieblich <robert.lieblich@verizon.net> writes:
| Quote: | Peter Olcott wrote:
Well in that case simply choose one of these arbitrary systems as
the standard, thus making all others incorrect. The others could
co-exist, but, not in formal communications such as contracts.
Old Steve Martin routine:
"You can make a million dollars and not pay taxes. Here's how --
First you make a million dollars. Then ..."
|
"How to make a small fortune: Start with a large fortune ..."
| Quote: | I did particularly enjoy that "simply."
|
It clearly reflects a wealth of experience with standardization
processes.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If to "man" a phone implies handing
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it over to a person of the male
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |gender, then to "monitor" it
|suggests handing it over to a
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |lizard.
(650)857-7572 | Rohan Oberoi
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:35 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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"Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net> writes:
| Quote: | "The Grammer Genious" <washcourthouse@yahoo.com> wrote
Robert Lieblich <robert.lieblich@verizon.net> wrote
You, sir, are either the most naive person in the world or insane.
Your choice.
I remember reading a good example for the task we are setting the
machine up to do. The machine must be able to comprehend this
exchange. (Not just translate it -- comprehend it.)
Woman: "I'm leaving you."
Man: "Who is he?"
Sure and this all boils down to the structure of the knowledge
representation. Once the KR is right, everything else falls right
into place.
|
Not since Marvin Minsky gave undergrad Gerald Sussman a summer project
to design a machine that could visually recognize objects has the
world seen someone with such a clear grasp of the complexity of a
problem.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |On a scale of one to ten...
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it sucked.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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Richard R. Hershberger
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:07 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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Peter Olcott wrote:
| Quote: | "Linz" <spam@lindsayendell.org.uk> wrote in message news:dknpih$elb$1@fiasco.xenopsyche.net...
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:b27tm1pvqoefb7vsv1jlc3cmsofobdlogp@4ax.com...
The more I read your messages the less clear I am about who will use
your proposed highly regimented and formalised dialect of English.
I have already explicitly specified this about a dozen times.
This is used for formal documents such as business contracts
and scientific studies.
'Is', or 'hope it will be'?
Intended to be.
|
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger |
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Richard R. Hershberger
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:11 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
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Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
| Quote: | On 06 Nov 2005, Paul Wolff wrote
-snip-
I work on the basis that most people have a "nice" layer, and
when one has found it, one shouldn't upset the applecart by
seeking to penetrate further (farther?).
I'd use "further"; "farther" implies physical rather than
metaphorical distance to me.
|
Whereas in my idiolect the two words are true synonyms. Can we still
be friends? |
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Peter Olcott
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:43 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
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"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131390470.917424.158130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: |
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Linz" <spam@lindsayendell.org.uk> wrote in message news:dknpih$elb$1@fiasco.xenopsyche.net...
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:b27tm1pvqoefb7vsv1jlc3cmsofobdlogp@4ax.com...
The more I read your messages the less clear I am about who will use
your proposed highly regimented and formalised dialect of English.
I have already explicitly specified this about a dozen times.
This is used for formal documents such as business contracts
and scientific studies.
'Is', or 'hope it will be'?
Intended to be.
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger
To make completely unambiguous business contracts, and any other |
case where accurate communication is worth the extra trouble. It is
not a completely artificial language. It is merely adding another layer
of precision, and rigor to English. There are two core aspect to this:
(1) Explicitly stating which sense meaning of a word is intended. This
might be limited to only cases where the most common sense meaning
is not intended. It would be nice to have an ISO standard dictionary
for this purpose. Lacking this, one would be required to place the body
of the sense meaning in the document, and refer to it in a footnote.
(2) Explicitly specifying which words apply to which other words by some
sort of sentence diagramming method. This might be limited to only those
cases where there is ambiguity of reference.
Richard Maurer derived this last aspect in his 2005-11-05 3:19 PM message
Even if we only use the stripped down version of this system, if nothing else
it might cause people to be a little more clear. If they merely proofread
a document with the idea in mind of catching these sorts of ambiguities,
communication will become a more exact science. |
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:03 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
On Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:35:44 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
<kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net> writes:
"The Grammer Genious" <washcourthouse@yahoo.com> wrote
Robert Lieblich <robert.lieblich@verizon.net> wrote
You, sir, are either the most naive person in the world or insane.
Your choice.
I remember reading a good example for the task we are setting the
machine up to do. The machine must be able to comprehend this
exchange. (Not just translate it -- comprehend it.)
Woman: "I'm leaving you."
Man: "Who is he?"
Sure and this all boils down to the structure of the knowledge
representation. Once the KR is right, everything else falls right
into place.
Not since Marvin Minsky gave undergrad Gerald Sussman a summer project
to design a machine that could visually recognize objects has the
world seen someone with such a clear grasp of the complexity of a
problem.
|
I think one of these is justifiable  )
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u) |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:14 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
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On 07 Nov 2005, Richard R. Hershberger wrote
| Quote: |
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 06 Nov 2005, Paul Wolff wrote
-snip-
I work on the basis that most people have a "nice" layer,
and when one has found it, one shouldn't upset the applecart
by seeking to penetrate further (farther?).
I'd use "further"; "farther" implies physical rather than
metaphorical distance to me.
Whereas in my idiolect the two words are true synonyms. Can
we still be friends?
|
As long as we don't take it any further than that -- sure!
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van |
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Richard R. Hershberger
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:37 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
Peter Olcott wrote:
| Quote: | "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131390470.917424.158130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger
To make completely unambiguous business contracts, and any other
case where accurate communication is worth the extra trouble. It is
not a completely artificial language. It is merely adding another layer
of precision, and rigor to English. There are two core aspect to this:
(1) Explicitly stating which sense meaning of a word is intended. This
might be limited to only cases where the most common sense meaning
is not intended. It would be nice to have an ISO standard dictionary
for this purpose. Lacking this, one would be required to place the body
of the sense meaning in the document, and refer to it in a footnote.
(2) Explicitly specifying which words apply to which other words by some
sort of sentence diagramming method. This might be limited to only those
cases where there is ambiguity of reference.
|
I don't know how familiar you are with legal documents, but they
routinely include definitions. Pull up your state's legal code some
time and you will find innumerable examples. And if a sentence
genuinely lends itself to multiple syntactic interpretations it can
(and should) be re-written, unless the ambiguity is intentional. You
don't need diagrams to do this. Of course for both lexical and
syntactic issues, it is the unforeseen ambiguity that trips you up. |
|
| Back to top |
|
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Peter Olcott
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:01 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131395825.975685.108750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: |
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131390470.917424.158130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger
To make completely unambiguous business contracts, and any other
case where accurate communication is worth the extra trouble. It is
not a completely artificial language. It is merely adding another layer
of precision, and rigor to English. There are two core aspect to this:
(1) Explicitly stating which sense meaning of a word is intended. This
might be limited to only cases where the most common sense meaning
is not intended. It would be nice to have an ISO standard dictionary
for this purpose. Lacking this, one would be required to place the body
of the sense meaning in the document, and refer to it in a footnote.
(2) Explicitly specifying which words apply to which other words by some
sort of sentence diagramming method. This might be limited to only those
cases where there is ambiguity of reference.
I don't know how familiar you are with legal documents, but they
routinely include definitions. Pull up your state's legal code some
time and you will find innumerable examples. And if a sentence
genuinely lends itself to multiple syntactic interpretations it can
(and should) be re-written, unless the ambiguity is intentional. You
don't need diagrams to do this. Of course for both lexical and
syntactic issues, it is the unforeseen ambiguity that trips you up.
Yes but didn't you read the reply by a Navy attorney where they |
can't resolve exactly and precisely what a price of a ship is?
There are many millions of dollars that hang in the balance all because
of ambiguity that was not explicitly specified. If a person were to have
rigorously went through the contract word-by-word, explicitly making
sure that there is no ambiguity, this problem would have never arisen. |
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| Back to top |
|
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Peter Olcott
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:04 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message news:vlcvm195fkmhhk822u2m21d0q6vajmvb4h@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:35:44 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
"Peter Olcott" <olcott@att.net> writes:
"The Grammer Genious" <washcourthouse@yahoo.com> wrote
Robert Lieblich <robert.lieblich@verizon.net> wrote
You, sir, are either the most naive person in the world or insane.
Your choice.
I remember reading a good example for the task we are setting the
machine up to do. The machine must be able to comprehend this
exchange. (Not just translate it -- comprehend it.)
Woman: "I'm leaving you."
Man: "Who is he?"
Sure and this all boils down to the structure of the knowledge
representation. Once the KR is right, everything else falls right
into place.
Not since Marvin Minsky gave undergrad Gerald Sussman a summer project
to design a machine that could visually recognize objects has the
world seen someone with such a clear grasp of the complexity of a
problem.
I think one of these is justifiable )
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
|
I have some heuristics that might greatly simplify this problem.
It would still be an enormous problem. The heuristics merely
reduce the problem to manifold less complexity. |
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Richard R. Hershberger
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:51 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
Peter Olcott wrote:
| Quote: | "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131395825.975685.108750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131390470.917424.158130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger
To make completely unambiguous business contracts, and any other
case where accurate communication is worth the extra trouble. It is
not a completely artificial language. It is merely adding another layer
of precision, and rigor to English. There are two core aspect to this:
(1) Explicitly stating which sense meaning of a word is intended. This
might be limited to only cases where the most common sense meaning
is not intended. It would be nice to have an ISO standard dictionary
for this purpose. Lacking this, one would be required to place the body
of the sense meaning in the document, and refer to it in a footnote.
(2) Explicitly specifying which words apply to which other words by some
sort of sentence diagramming method. This might be limited to only those
cases where there is ambiguity of reference.
I don't know how familiar you are with legal documents, but they
routinely include definitions. Pull up your state's legal code some
time and you will find innumerable examples. And if a sentence
genuinely lends itself to multiple syntactic interpretations it can
(and should) be re-written, unless the ambiguity is intentional. You
don't need diagrams to do this. Of course for both lexical and
syntactic issues, it is the unforeseen ambiguity that trips you up.
Yes but didn't you read the reply by a Navy attorney where they
can't resolve exactly and precisely what a price of a ship is?
There are many millions of dollars that hang in the balance all because
of ambiguity that was not explicitly specified. If a person were to have
rigorously went through the contract word-by-word, explicitly making
sure that there is no ambiguity, this problem would have never arisen.
|
Sure. That kind of stuff happens all the time. But you yourself said
of your super-duper-English that "This might be limited to only cases
where the most common sense meaning is not intended". In other words,
it is only used when someone notices the ambiguity. Presumably had
someone noticed the ambiguity in Bob's navy contract they would have
fixed it without using super-duper-English, and having
super-duper-English available wouldn't help if no one noticed that
there was ambiguity to be slain.
Richard R. Hershberger |
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| Back to top |
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Peter Olcott
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 5:17 am
Post subject: Re: The Literal Meaning of Words |
|
|
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131400311.557350.211630@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: |
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131395825.975685.108750@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Peter Olcott wrote:
"Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhersh@acme.com> wrote in message news:1131390470.917424.158130@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I've come late to this discussion and perhaps I have missed something,
but you wrote a couple days ago of 'natural language'. But you seem
instead to be designing an artificial language which people will adopt
because of, oh, I don't know: your winning smile perhaps? Maybe that
is what the Esperantists are lacking...
Richard R. Hershberger
To make completely unambiguous business contracts, and any other
case where accurate communication is worth the extra trouble. It is
not a completely artificial language. It is merely adding another layer
of precision, and rigor to English. There are two core aspect to this:
(1) Explicitly stating which sense meaning of a word is intended. This
might be limited to only cases where the most common sense meaning
is not intended. It would be nice to have an ISO standard dictionary
for this purpose. Lacking this, one would be required to place the body
of the sense meaning in the document, and refer to it in a footnote.
(2) Explicitly specifying which words apply to which other words by some
sort of sentence diagramming method. This might be limited to only those
cases where there is ambiguity of reference.
I don't know how familiar you are with legal documents, but they
routinely include definitions. Pull up your state's legal code some
time and you will find innumerable examples. And if a sentence
genuinely lends itself to multiple syntactic interpretations it can
(and should) be re-written, unless the ambiguity is intentional. You
don't need diagrams to do this. Of course for both lexical and
syntactic issues, it is the unforeseen ambiguity that trips you up.
Yes but didn't you read the reply by a Navy attorney where they
can't resolve exactly and precisely what a price of a ship is?
There are many millions of dollars that hang in the balance all because
of ambiguity that was not explicitly specified. If a person were to have
rigorously went through the contract word-by-word, explicitly making
sure that there is no ambiguity, this problem would have never arisen.
Sure. That kind of stuff happens all the time. But you yourself said
of your super-duper-English that "This might be limited to only cases
where the most common sense meaning is not intended". In other words,
it is only used when someone notices the ambiguity. Presumably had
|
No it would be more disciplined than that. One must specify the ISO
sense meaning unless after an exhaustive search it can be proven that
only the common meaning is intended. In other words the new process
requires an exhaustive word-by-word search for ambiguity. Every single
word must always be tested. Even in the case where the word is not
explicitly specified, there is no ambiguity, because the precise meaning
as defined in the ISO dictionary for the first sense meaning is the standard.
Without the ISO dictionary, one would be free to use any source for
vague terms. With the dictionary, only one source is allowed. This
ordinary meaning of the word price, while refusing other definitions
would have been sufficient to rule in the Navy's favor. The alternative
meaning was more obscure.
| Quote: | someone noticed the ambiguity in Bob's navy contract they would have
fixed it without using super-duper-English, and having
super-duper-English available wouldn't help if no one noticed that
there was ambiguity to be slain.
Richard R. Hershberger
|
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