Frank,
Please ask that language-teaching daughter of yours if “impersonal” is a “voice”. The French adore impersonals. “Il me faut que” = I must” “Qu-est-ce que c’est que” = “What is it” (literally “What is it that it is” I suspect that part of why Americans are thought to be so assertive is that we use impersonals less? Polite writers often try to obfuscate the agent of an action, making prose inpenetrable. “It would appear that” (Appear to whom? For God’s) sake!) And my favorite, “Mistakes were made” In my never-to-be written book, Who Was This Old White Guy and Why Do We Need to Read His Stupid Book? (About the current implications of Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style”, I want to explore the degree to which there are any universal dictates of clarity that go beyond cultural dictates of deference or politeness. White would say that “Mistakes Were Made” is unclear; to understand what happened we need to know the agent of those mistakes. A defender of that obfuscation might call it a “gentle style”. Using “they” as a gender=neutral singular deprives a writer of one of the methods by which to thread agent and recipient of action in in describing a complex scenario. Other priorities trump clarity? Why not? Some times clarity isn’t faithful to a writer’s purpose. Yet to me there is some fundamental violation, a logical contradiction, in speaking unclearly. If one is not going to communicate a meaning unambiguously, why speak at all. Ach! There is a reason that 80 years is a normal lifetime. Some day somebody is going to make a heluva lot money by writing a book entitled “Brown and White: Elements of Woke Style.” It could be YOU! Or your daughter, for that matter. Nick Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2020 7:47 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Abducktion It's usually obvious from.the context who/what "it" is. People do say "yo gusto" but like "yo te gusto?" Do you like me? And sometimes to be cute "tu gustas?" which is incorrect. These examples are not passive voice. "Se gusta?" meaning "is it liked?" is passive voice. Any disagreements will be referred to my daughter, the Spanish teacher. An improvement on my earlier comment "se me cayó la taza" would be "the cup was fallen on me" which is also passive voice and also makes responsibility ambiguous. Every time I write "passive", Android mail client auto-completes it as "passive aggressive". Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 4:43 PM Edward Angel <an...@cs.unm.edu <mailto:an...@cs.unm.edu> > wrote: Literally it says “it pleases me” which is the passive voice leading to the question who is “it?" _______________________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu <mailto:an...@cs.unm.edu> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel On Aug 7, 2020, at 4:30 PM, Gary Schiltz <g...@naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:g...@naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote: I'm no grammar expert, even in my native English, but I don't believe "me gusta el cafe" is using passive voice. It literally says "coffee pleases me". Comments, Frank? But then, I may be confused about what passive voice is. On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 5:23 PM Angel Edward <edward.an...@gmail.com <mailto:edward.an...@gmail.com> > wrote: Isn’t it a consequence of the routine use of the passive voice in Spanish as in “me gusta” instead of “yo gusto?” The passive voice is pretty much gone in textbooks but I occasionally I get objections from Spanish speakers who claim my textbook can’t be serious because I don’t use the passive voice. Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) edward.an...@gmail.com <mailto:edward.an...@gmail.com> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel On Aug 7, 2020, at 4:17 PM, Gary Schiltz <g...@naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:g...@naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote: Despite living in a Spanish speaking country for 12 years, I still struggle mightily with Spanish grammar. This is mainly due to laziness on my part, as well as lack of necessity to immerse myself in the language (there are a lot of English speakers here, not to mention expat groups on Facebook in English). Still, Spanish is *so* much more consistent in all respects than English - pronunciation especially. But the reflexive verbs are still somewhat of a mystery to me. I've wondered exactly the same thing that Frank mentioned: does "the cup fell itself on me" and "the pencil broke itself on mf" represent desire to avoid responsibility? Maybe even blame the victim? Ouch! Your nose nearly broke my fist! On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 2:06 PM Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > wrote: Or the equally famous Spanish phrase, "The pencil broke itself." A phrase which you think I would remember. TJ ============================================ Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) <http://nmfog.org/> NM Foundation for Open Government Check out It's The People's Data <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671> ============================================ <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon> Virus-free. <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link> www.avast.com On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:55 PM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com> > wrote: In Spanish if you drop your cup you say, "See me cayó la taza". A literal word--for-word translation is "The cup fell itself on me". Some people say this is an effort to avoid responsibility. Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Fri, Aug 7, 2020, 9:01 AM Barry MacKichan <barry.mackic...@mackichan.com <mailto:barry.mackic...@mackichan.com> > wrote: Very much so. We hired a grad student a long time ago (he stayed with us until he retired). He wrote great Pascal programs. He wrote great Pascal programs in C++, and in JavaScript. The effect of your first programming language on style, idioms, and your feelings about recursion and encapsulation. —Barry On 6 Aug 2020, at 23:24, thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: Nah. He means more than that. Even ordinary languages predispose users to one kind of discourse or another. I assume that programming languages do the same. N - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . 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