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From: gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Change the software or the alphabet?
Message-ID: <338@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Date: Thu, 22-Oct-87 14:34:28 EST
Article-I.D.: odyssey.338
Posted: Thu Oct 22 14:34:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 10:17:38 EST
References: <1446@haddock.ISC.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Middletown, NJ
Lines: 28
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:291 sci.lang:1605

> It's true that a computer is a tool.  What nobody seems to have noticed is
> that *natural language is also a tool*.  The alphabet is the servant of Man,
> not the other way around; thus it is appropriate to suggest that it should
> evolve to meet Man's changing needs.

What Karl says is true, but it might be well to distinguish the alphabet
from natural language.  Alphabetic writing is highly unnatural.  Historically,
when alphabets were introduced they proved as revolutionary as computers are
proving now.  Remember the story of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth?

> I learned from the textbooks that English has certain rules concerning whether
> punctuation goes inside or outside of quotes.  As a computer user, I regularly
> break these rules and instead apply a more sensible one: ...

Naturally.  Programmers cannot afford to position their "punctuation marks"
wherever they will look best.  Move the semicolon outside the right brace
and you have a syntax error.

With truly "natural" language--that is, speech--the problem does not arise.
As McLuhan says, Shakespeare never heard a grammatical error.  (There were
none!)

---

		"No more `mutiny'!"	--A. Razaf, "Christopher Columbus"
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...!ihnp4!odyssey!gls