http://www.edwardtufte.com/

some of you may already be aware of this guy; I discovered him from a mention on the MacFixit forums, when Powerpoint presentations came up.
it's not words per se, but it is some fascinating stuff. the "Ask E.T." section has some great discussions going...

Deep stuff shrdlu ... considering I just spilled apple juice on the keyboard. I think I'm too "right-brain" to follow it all.

And messy!

Are you sure that's not Bill Murray? It *looks like Bill Murray.

I despair of my ability to learn anything new. I am a primitive.

Worth quoting:

"A pangram is a sentence that contains all letters of the alphabet. Less frequently, such sentences are called holalphabetic sentences. Interesting pangrams are generally short ones; constructing a sentence that includes the fewest repeat letters possible is a challenging task. However, pangrams that are slightly longer yet enlightening, humorous, or eccentric are noteworthy in their own right.

By far the most well-known pangram is, "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." Frequently this is the sentence used to test out new typewriters, presumably because it includes every letter of the alphabet. Curiously, this sentence is often misquoted by changing "jumps" to "jumped." The past tense version, lacking an s, is not a pangram. Often, too, it is misquoted as "the lazy dog" rather than "a lazy dog." This error is not as grievous; the sentence remains a pangram, just a slightly longer one.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no particularly clever 26 letter pangrams in English. Constructing a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet once and no more -- essentially an anagram of the alphabet -- seems to require the use of acronyms, initials, and strange punctuation. The most interesting I've seen is, "Glum Schwartzkopf vex'd by NJ IQ."

Also note the section on autograms, as that contains some autograms (sentences that self-document their letter content) that are also pangrams."

http://rinkworks.com/words/pangrams.shtml

Bill Murray

That is very cool, wordwind, about the pangrams, and the autograms.

Now, about those Mayan codices (am having some trouble locating their whole shebangs online for free, in color, big, etc.): One of them -- the Borgia codex? is apparently meant to be read "in a meandering manner, from right to left." This strikes me as "just plain interesting," and therefore belongs in this thread.

It struck me when looking at an excerpt and thinking about the meandering manner that "This is what happened to me" (or to you, or us, or them) is what's taking place. Obvious, perhaps, but! how to present it? What to tell, what to leave out, and in what order?

So there we are with information display, Mr. Shrdlu ...

I will, on occasion, read(attempt) by "meandering"; left to right, then right to left, etc. it makes it interesting to store future words while you're reading things that actually come first.
maybe I just create too much free time for myself...

I don't think there is any such thing as too much free time, but there might be such a thing as too much information. Or is it how it's presented? Hey, can you get Edward Tufte to be a visiting lecturer here?

Interesting, yes. But somehow I can't avoid the conclusion that someone has WAY, WAY too much time on his hands !

There is no such thing as WAY too much time on one's hands, when talking of the pursuit of the arts and sciences. Speaking as a visual artist, I've found that, in middle age, I am barely beginning to get to work. One could have five lifetimes and not get to the bottom of the infinite well.

that's it! meandereading® is a creative process! I'm exercising my dexterity.

In some circles Tufte's name is mentioned in reverence. I took a phd course called statistical visualization. I thought the prof would orgasm every time he said the guy's name. One of my buddies at work - a cartographer - said he had a prof who was the same way. I can recognize the guy's a genius, and he's got important stuff to say, but a lotta time I sensed there must be more to what he was saying that what I was reading.

k

I wonder if Tufte would talk to me about ancient Mayan codices.

I wonder if Tufte would talk to me

worth a try!

Sorry, everybody. I posted whatever I posted above on the wrong thread. Sheesh.

...and seduced us into a whole subsequent thread after it. Now that's POWER!

In reply to:

---

Now, about those Mayan codices (am having some trouble locating their whole shebangs online for free, in color, big, etc.): One of them -- the Borgia codex? is apparently meant to be read "in a meandering manner, from right to left." This strikes me as "just plain interesting," and therefore belongs in this thread.

---

Are we talking about boustrophedon writing here?

Bingley

meandereading® - - - I'm exercising my dexterity.

In a sinister fashion, starting on the left ...

boustrophedon

that's the word! I'll have to pull out GEB by Hofstader again.
...meandereading® like of sort do I though

sinister

right, Rhuby!

(tsuwm, I wish you'd post that poem again!)

I thought boustrophedonic was a strict alternation of left-right, right-left. That is not meandering.

Note to musick: Honey, better start tooting your horn a little bit: websafe's flirting with eta right and left!

strict alternation of left-right, right-left. That is not meandering

squash that nit!
.corrected stand I
I still like meandereading.®

flirting with eta

I like meandereading®, too. And hey, you're fun to flirt with! (Boy, bet he REALLY blushes, now!) <eg>

hey, would marching(the actual activity of marching, like a marching band, not the word(!)) be boustrophedonic?

Dear Bingley:
Are we talking about boustrophedon writing here?
See http://pages.prodigy.net/gbonline/madridpg.htm

madridpg.htm

the Borgia Codex is read in a BOUSTROPHEDONIC manner; that is, in a meandering pattern, typically from right to left like the Mixtec codices

That doesn't make any sense. Jackie is right about boustrophedon. The metaphor is that of an ox plowing a field, starting in one direction and turning around at the end of a furrow and coming back in the other direction on the next furrow. Whether a marching band would do that would depend on a lot of things. Meandering would be the same thing as boustrophedon but not as tight. The metaphor there is of the Meander River, which flows in great curves across a plain turning back on itself, but not in a tight pattern that covers all the ground in the manner of an ox plowing a field.

J, I assume (with no great trepidation in this case) that this is the poem of which you make mention:

strange new words I relish
like nectar or tonic
I now know my line printer
is boustrophedonic

David P. Stern
Science magazine

Whether a marching band would do that

actually, I was just thinking of the strict right, left, of their stepping...

the strict right, left, of their stepping

That doesn't define boustrophedon any more than does dropping little bundles along the way.

strange new words I relish
like nectar or tonic
I now know my line printer
is boustrophedonic
Yes! Thank you, M.

Here's what A.W.A.D. had for meander:
Date: Sun Oct 31 00:03:29 EDT 1999
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--meander
X-Bonus: The quiet and solitary man apprehends the inscrutable. He seeks nothing, holds to the mean, and remains free from entanglements. -I Ching (BCE 1150?)

meander (mee-AN-duhr) verb intr.

1. To follow a winding and turning course.

2. To move aimlessly and idly without fixed direction.

noun

1. meanders. Circuitous windings or sinuosities, as of a stream or path.

2. Often meanders. A circuitous journey or excursion; ramble.

3. The Greek fret or key pattern, used in art and architecture.

[From Latin maeander, circuitous windings, from Greek maiandros after the
Maeander River in Phrygia.]
Hmm--the more common meaning of meander certainly carries the connotation of no set pattern. Perhaps that codex thing refers to def. 3 above, which I may say I had not known.

Thanks, Faldage and Jackie, for your clarification and definitions.

No set pattern -- rambling -- allowing oneself to be drawn onward, instinctively, by Nature's patterns, and/or some inner sense. Some feel chaos is negative and call it aimless, shapeless, and its devotees idle.

Why not let the form happen? Why not go by feel? Are there things which can't be said in English?

Why not let the form happen? Why not go by feel? Are there things which can't be said in English?
In one of Dick Francis' more recent novels, the main character is a glassblower, who does exactly that.

Jackie, the Dick Francis character sounds intriguing! I'll have to look at the book next time I'm at the library.

Are there things which can't be said in English? ~websafe

As coincidence would have it, in his weekly commentary on the NPR program "Fresh Air," Geoff Nunberg addresses the concept of words and concepts, whence this quote:

"The fact is that people have plenty of concepts that their language doesn't happen to have a single word for. Take the German word Schadenfreude, which denotes the pleasure we take in the misfortunes of others. True, it's a nice item to have handy in a pre-packaged form. But that doesn't mean that Red Sox fans have to learn German before they can enjoy watching the Yankees lose eight straight at home."

http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/compromise.html

re: Are there things which can't be said in English? ~websafe

but we can say "i enjoy seeing team X lose"-- but are there philosophies we can't understand, or express?

in theory, there are no 'foriegn' cultures here on earth, since all culture is human culture, and we should be able to understand it..

but there are ideas, that are difficult to express and understand, with whole books, let alone single words. (take Hawking's thoughts on the Big Bang!)

i don't know if his ideas (if other ideas) can be better expressed in other languages.. but.

but we can say "i enjoy seeing team X lose"

Which is exactly Nunberg's point. Simply not having a word for it doesn't stop us from thinking or talking about it.

Case in point:

Just look at what we did with the parent who has lost a child.

I could be completely wrong here, but my understanding of "schadenfreude" is that it means "a malicious and vicarious pleasure in the suffering of others". Is that really what USns feel when the Red Sox lose eight straight games, no matter how badly their name is spelt? What the hell have they done to you?

Just asking, like.

>Is that really what USns feel when the Red Sox lose eight straight games...

Cap'a, the example presented was how Red Sox fans feel when the Yankees lose eight straight games (as just happened); and schadenfreude is pretty much exactly what they felt, and it is based on a long history of frustration over losing out to the Yankees that goes back to the giving away of Babe Ruth.

Pfranz & tsuwm (latter: your excellent explanation notwithstanding),

How bout we ask Geoff at the next chat?

Sorry, baseball means nothing to me and I didn't even retain the team names long enough to make the post, but the statement (or rather, question) still stands. Makes Bush's family grudge against Saddam Hussein look positively benign, if you ask me!

Kind of interesting, Capfka: You don't like the word "sox"? It brings a smile to my lips.

Strokes/folks. Just plain wrong where I come from! Not so much a smile as a grimace ...

Totally off topic alert!!
Makes me think of Dr. Suess and "Fox in sox on box . . ."
Now there is a man who loved words. Did you know he wrote 2 adult books. (er um make that books for adults)

And I quote:

Neither is the primary act of scanning the page with our eyes a continuous, systematic process. It is usually assumed that, when we are reading, our eyes travel smoothly, without interruptions, along the lines of a page, and that, when we are reading Western writing, for instance, our eyes go from left to right. This isn't so. A century ago, the French opthalmologist Emile Javal discovered that our eyes actually jump about the page; these jumps or saccades take place three of four times per second... The speed of the eye's motion across the page - but not the motion itself - interferes with perception, and it is only during the brief pause between movements that we actually 'read'.

From A History of Reading , lauded by me in Info and Announcements... So meandereading is a pretty good description, really.

in elementary school, back in the beginning of the second half of the last century (god, i sound old!) i participated in a program, 'controlled reading'.

we were broken up into groups of about 20, (2 row of 5 pairs allong an center aisle) in the center aisle, a 'film strip' type projector, that displayed a few words at a time, (from a single row of text,) then, moved back to the left, and slid again across a slot, and showed again one to three words of a row at a time, and moved right, all at a controlled speed..
so a line of type// was displayed as// a group of words//
sometimes two or// three words, sometimes//more. with the//
double slashes// simulating the size of // the slot.

we started 'controlled reading' in about 3rd grade, and began by just learning, at a slow speed to move our eyes, and 'go with the flow' as we went up in grade, the speed and complexity of the reading matter increased, and we were tested on comprehension. by the time i finished eight grade, i was reading with 90% comprehension, at over 1000 words per minute. i still read incredible fast. i don't know much about the controlled reading program -- our school, a parocial one, used to make money by testing out new books and programs (most of the test books of my childhood were soft cover, not hard!) we had "new math" years before the rest of the nation.. i suspect controlled reading was one of these programs (i have never met anyone who has ever heard of it!- and my ex, and most of his friends were all teachers!)

i'll go and look to see it there is anything on controlled reading, but when i read, i still am very methodical about moving only my eyes, and i move,stop,move stop, just as the projector did, across the line and whip through text.

i have no doubt, that most people read as as Emil Javal found them to, but i know i have learned to do differently!