Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!scubed!warner
From: warner@scubed.SCUBED.COM (Ken Warner)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Noun-Verb vs Verb-Noun
Message-ID: <307@scubed.SCUBED.COM>
Date: 19 Jul 90 15:05:12 GMT
References: <1990Jul16.214644.3009@ee.rochester.edu> <OGDEN.90Jul18112959@aigyptos.nmsu.edu>
Followup-To: comp.cog-eng
Distribution: usa
Organization: S-CUBED, A Division of Maxwell Labs; San Diego CA
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>Jackson (1983) compaired performance of users of verb-noun
>commands (e.g "Find the VW ads") to users of noun-verb
>commands (e.g. "VW ads find") etc.....
>Bill Ogden

Noun-verb looks a lot like message passing in Smalltalk.  In particular, unary
messages (method selectors of methods without parameters) look very much like 
the example.  VW would be the object; ads would be a method that perhaps would
return a collection of ads relating to VW's.  The difference, not illuminated in
the example, would be that VW might be an element of a set of cars and find
would be redundant as the method "ads" would return the ads.  So in Smalltalk:

Cars VW ads.

would be the statement one would use.

After a couple of years of Smalltalk'ing, I find noun-verb at least as 
evocative as "natural language."  Maybe I should go out more.

Ken Warner