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From: gilbert@aimmi.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng,net.research
Subject: Re: Utterances
Message-ID: <792@aimmi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Aug-86 05:11:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: aimmi.792
Posted: Wed Aug 20 05:11:55 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Aug-86 21:23:46 EDT
References: <639@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: gilbert@aimmi.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton)
Distribution: net
Organization: Heriot-Watt/Strathclyde Alvey MMI Unit, Scotland
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Xref: mnetor net.cog-eng:260 net.research:407

In article <639@bcsaic.UUCP> douglas@bcsaic.UUCP writes:
>
>What percentage of the utterances made in the world have been made before?
>
Depends where you are and how clockwork the people are. Put yourself
amongst a group of high conformers and you could be up to 80%. I find
some stereotype-fitting groups (e.g. Sloans, provincial business men,
Militants, Born-again Christians, worn out Trade Unionists,
politicians, usenet policemen, etc. etc. ad nauseam) boringly predictable.

Repeated utterances are linguistic reflections of stable shared beliefs.
Sociologists and cultural anthropologists have been modelling this for
years (its called ideology), which makes the current frantic search
(blind) for knowledge acquistion techniques a little ironic.

Knowledge engineers! Pah, read Malinowski, then if you can handle big
words, try some recent sociological theory on ideology.