[1] From: Gregory Rice <gregrice@earthlink.net> (23)
Subject: Re: 12.0370 binary not other
[2] From: Domenico Fiormonte <mc9809@mail.mclink.it> (6)
Subject: Re: 12.0372 the Double-Dative
[3] From: Domenico Fiormonte <mc9809@mail.mclink.it> (14)
Subject: Re: 12.0364 how computers can change your prose
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:29:20 +0000
From: Gregory Rice <gregrice@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: 12.0370 binary not other
Humanist Discussion Group wrote:
> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:25:16 +0000
> From: Francois Lachance <lachance@chass.utoronto.ca>
> >
> Willard,
>
> I am provoked by a recent posting to Humanist by
> Jim Marchand to distinguish between the digital and
> the binary. He did draw attention to the importance of labels and
> argumentation.
> x
> The binary (I/O) builds the digital. From rudimentary finger counting
> to random number generation, a computer, human or machine, operates by
> manipulating sequences. The digital works at the level of sequences.
Binary systems were adopted for their simple, direct representation by
electromechanical "open" and "closed" circuits (On and Off), now
electronic rahther than electromechanical. The base 10 counting system
is the one employed at the typical end-user of computers, but
hexadecimal systems and others have been employed in digital systems as
well.
Multiple "speed" bicycles are digital. Discrete levels of operation, a
singel gear for a specific ratio of gears per inch (or whatever measure
you care to apply).
Greg
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:30:06 +0000
From: Domenico Fiormonte <mc9809@mail.mclink.it>
Subject: Re: 12.0372 the Double-Dative
> Those humanists who are also Latinists should note that cui bono is
> incorrectly rendered here: this is the double-dative construction always
> missed by students; best rendering would be something like "who benefits?"
>
I am not sure here (I am not a Latinist, though a Roman), but "who
benefits" isn't the translation of "cui prodest?"
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:30:23 +0000
From: Domenico Fiormonte <mc9809@mail.mclink.it>
Subject: Re: 12.0364 how computers can change your prose
> If we adapt our writing to the
> medium, how is our actual use of language changed? Do our sentences
> become shorter? more colloquial? tend to become fragmented into list
> items? What about paragraphs? How, if at all, is syntax affected?
> Does our vocabulary tend to change, and if so, how?
>
I wrote my "Laurea" thesis (1994) on 'the influence of computers on
writing'. I took three published Italian publishers and studied how
their prose has (or has not) changed when they started writing with a computer.
An English abstract of this research is available at:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~esit04/case_st.htm
More information is available upon request, and the abstract is
linked to online portions of the original work (in Italian, I am
afraid).
Domenico Fiormonte
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