#60510
03/11/2002 12:24 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My hubby and I were coming back from Ottawa this afternoon when we drove right into a windstorm; one of those that blow over power lines, weaker trees and anything that isn't tied down in your yard. We were nearly blown off the road a couple of times and my hubby had to hold the wheels at a 20-degree angle to keep the car on the straight line. So I say, "I can't believe how easily our car gets buffeted around." To which he replies, "Oh sure, buffeted, yup we're buffeted alright, that was buffeting if I’ve ever seen it." Which is his charming way of telling me that I was using a word people don’t usually use (dontcha just wanna smack em sometimes  ) But it got me to thinking…how DOES one come up with the adequate word for a situation. You don’t stop to search your memory banks when you’re talking, you just spit it out. I could have said blown about or knocked or pushed or any number or words BUT without consciously thinking I said buffeted – which to me is the perfect word. Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words? How does our mind, without us consciously thinking about it, choose the words that we use?
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#60511
03/11/2002 12:31 AM
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Joined: Jun 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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I can't answer your question, Bel, but I have had similar thoughts, especially when I write something, then re-read it and discover that I have subconsciously included a pun or some similarly serendipitous combination. I just sit back and chuckle at myself and say "Now, how did I do that!
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#60512
03/11/2002 12:45 AM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear belMarduk: as a jest, "buffet" ought to come easily to you, since it is derived from an old French word:
ME < OFr, dim. of buffe, a blow:
Since most storms have isolated gusts, "buffet" is a perfect word to describe the sensation.
It used to puzzle me why a side table in diningroom with extra silverware, condiments, beverages, dessert awaiting end of meal was called a "buffet". Turns out to be an entirely unrelated homonym
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#60513
03/11/2002 1:07 AM
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Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words?
It does?
Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
I think of what I might have said
When others were around me.
At such a woeful waste of wit
Constructively I weep,
And often, in the still of night,
I kick myself to sleep.
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#60514
03/11/2002 1:03 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
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Perfect poem keiva, to whom do we owe the thanks?  Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words?Well bel, in simple form, this is what I think... The brain stores and therefore retrieves information by association. This filing system is complex but in general it is temporal in nature, that is, it files by date. Most of the sorting and filing is done while we sleep, subconsciously. When we are awake fighting wars, the assault of information overwhelms, so we put these bits of environmental stimuli into short term storage until the relative calm of dreamtime. Then the filling clerk on the night shift can began sorting them into strings and packets by category, and while he's at it he can start retrieving stuff from closets that we have told him that we will need in the coming day. Perfect words and perfect thoughts almost always come in the early morning or late at night.
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#60515
03/11/2002 1:20 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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Bel, i am with you, you get buffeted by the wind..
once coming into manhattan, the two lane exit ramp from the bridge, met the two lane highway, to become a three lane highway. traffice was heavy (isn't always?) but it was moving.. the middle lane drivers (the merge lane) keep neatly letting alternate traffic in. (one car from bridge, one car from highway, *followed by one car from bridge, one car from highway(repeat from *))
I commented the traffic was neatly collating..
"collating? what do mean collating? how can cars collate?"
but isn't that what they were doing? what word would you use? and why can't cars collate?
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#60516
03/11/2002 1:46 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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M-W says: to arrange in proper order, with an emphasis on pages being ordered for printing. I've only used it in making multiple copies of a multi-page documant on a photocopier. Print five copies of page one and put them in five different output slots, five copies of page two and put them each on the five copies of page one, etc., rather than five copies of page one followed by five copies of page two. Your cars were sort of collating in that they were doing the same sort of thing physically and metaphorically, but it's a bit of a stretch, I think. Interleave might work better as the "right" word. That said I think your companion was a little brain dead not to see what you meant by collate in this context.
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#60517
03/11/2002 2:32 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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About Keiva's poem:
What are all those stairs that tsuwm writes about? I think he's got French stairs and German stairs and mebbe some others--those stairs we go down mentally after having left a social situation when we realize what we should have said? I know tsuwm has these stairs on the tip of his tongue.
About the words we use: This is the turf of the psycholinguist, isn't it? Those word psychologists who study the language patterns of inidividuals and can even identify people by the language they use and the way they use it.
Best regards,
WindWrecked
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#60518
03/11/2002 8:49 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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French stairs and German stairs
French stairs: l'esprit de l'escalier
German stairs: treppenwitz
I have to agree with Keiva's poem in this case-- I'm more likely to be descending those ol' stairs than dazzling the company with a word aptly spoken. But I have my moments.
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#60519
03/11/2002 9:01 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Dear Keiva: That's carrying l'ésprit de l'escalier too far.
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#60520
03/11/2002 11:03 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
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Milum, the prior poem is by that prolific author, Anon. But in the spirit of stairs, perhaps this will get a riser out of you.
As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd stay away
---Hughes Mearns (1875-1965)
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#60521
03/11/2002 11:43 PM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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old hand
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In the spirit of the original post, but with a slight twist: does anyone ever find him/herself self-editing? depending on your company? Occasionally I will be chatting away to someone and a word I want to use will occur to me, but I'm sure that either the person won't understand it, or will think me the most unmitigated linguasnob for using it. Then I pause and riffle through the thesaurus in my head - during which exercise I gape and wind up looking like I'm catching flies - and ultimately I use the word anyway, because it seems perfect. Often the person will make some comment but praise God, most of my friends and acquaintances don't ride me down for it! Although sometimes they act like bel's hubby, and start using the word over and over for a little while....Maybe they're just trying to commit it to memory, like some oral-tradition form of Increase Your Word Power.
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#60522
03/12/2002 12:14 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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#60523
03/12/2002 1:33 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
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In the immortal words of Sybil Fawlty: "pretentious - moi?"
Many years ago, when I ran a small automobile repair shop, I had a customer named Nicholas Salgo, a Hungarian by birth, but a US citizen, who spoke more languages than I have digits (roughly ten). Trying to follow Mr. Salgo in conversation was akin to William F. Buckley talking to a kindergarten class. When a concept didn't come to him in one language, he simply switched languages. Not just the occasional Italian or French or Russian word, but whole sentences did he use. This is to illustrate that even those of great erudition may be insensitive to the abilitities of their audience, and, ironically, become poor communicators by their very linguistic mastery.
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#60524
03/12/2002 2:31 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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You are so sweet MG but I have to say that my hubby isn't trying to commit it to memory. He is teasing me for using what he calls my "dictionary words" that aren't used in everyday conversation. (except in conversations with me of course )
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#60525
03/12/2002 12:55 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Rapunzel,
Thanks for these stairway expressions:
French stairs: l'esprit de l'escalier
German stairs: treppenwitz
I'd wanted to commit them to memory, but didn't. Will this time!
Best regards,
WordWayfarer
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#60526
03/12/2002 1:10 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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And since we're talking about thought processes, what do you call it when you go up that staircase into the room with something important to say, but, once entering the room, you can't remember what it was that you wanted to say?
Best regards,
WordWon't
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#60527
03/12/2002 1:15 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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a senior moment?
long ago, here, i pointed out Its not any one senior momemt that bother me, Its the momentum!
or something like that.. i am not sure.. i think i said it? am i repeating myself.. mumble. grumble..
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#60528
03/12/2002 1:50 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
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This filing system is ..temporal in nature, that is, it files by date. I rather question this hypothesis. From my experience, the mind constructs "search trees" by association, weighted by emotional loading. Yesterday, at work, I had to talk English the whole day with visitors from another company, and at some point, I asked them, referring to some other firm: "Why do you want to sidestep them?" - I swear I had never used that word in my life. In the evening, I looked it up in the OED, and it means exactly what I wanted to say . Sometimes words which you last used as a five-year old come spontaneously to your lips .
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#60529
03/12/2002 3:02 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
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what do you call it when you go into the room with something important to say, but, once entering the room, you can't remember what it was that you wanted to say? -WordWind Distracted. That's what I use. An example... When Paulb posted the name of the movie I saw and loved, and thought that you would like as well, I was elated. I was running some bath water upstairs when I got his post, after reading it, I went downstairs on filled the tub with water and jumped in. Then, in a flash of brilliance, I remembered the tub upstairs and so went upstairs and turned off the water. Now I had two tubs full of hot water. I looked at the cat...no, not worth it. And so, not knowing what else to do, I simply finished my bathing upstairs. But at that time I made a promise to myself- never, ever, would I tell anyone about this episode. On the other hand, I've never had a senior moment. Why should I? I am four months younger than Faldage and his mind is clear as a bell.
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#60530
03/12/2002 3:30 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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TEd
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#60531
03/12/2002 3:52 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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clear as a bell
Perfectly clear! The only thing that's *perfectly clear is a vacuum.
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#60532
03/12/2002 3:59 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...and besides paramnesia (deja vu), there is presque vu (nearly seen), the feeling that you are on the edge of grasping something very, very important, and jamais vu, the denial of something actually seen. http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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#60533
03/12/2002 4:20 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
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This filing system is ..temporal in nature, that is, it files by date. -milum I rather question this hypothesis. From my experience, the mind constructs "search trees" by association, weighted by emotional loading. -wsieber Dear wsieber, Yes  I fear my remarks were poorly stated. What I think is that -events in time have a commonality that the mind stores by that association, so associated thoughts can be said to be packaged in Time Units. This is one way to enhance recall. Of course, there are many other ways as well. Now will you please explain what you mean by "emotional loading"? milo
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#60534
03/12/2002 4:40 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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(I typed a message similar to this yesterday, but I must have forgotten to actually post it.)
I haven't read "The Language Instinct" yet, but it's on my list. Meanwhile, the author (Steven Pinker) has another book that I have read called "How the Mind Works."
His view is that there are numerous autonomous agents that perform very specialized functions in the brain, very much the same as Marvin Minsky outlined in his much earlier "The Society of Mind." This view, predominant among cognitive scientists and AI experts, is crucially different than what many people intuitively believe about the brain. Previously people believed that the brain was a general purpose computer. (In fact, I've read a number of articles over the years that refered to the brain as a general purpose computer.) The new view is that it is actually a highly specially computer composed of a conglomeration of highly specialized, autonomous agents.
Heavily used neural pathways get stronger. In youth, new neural pathways can form (possibly in adulthood as well, but doubtfully so quickly).
We speak for the most part what we hear and what we read and what we have spoken and written previously. I imagine it's analogous to chess, but vastly more complicated. Players play speed chess to burn in the traps in the openings and to have a feel for the possibilities where certain paths will lead. Maybe they do a similar thing in, say, a creative writing course. I can imagine an exercise in such a class where a teacher presents a topic and the students have to think of as many ways as they can of describing the topic.
We can't even follow every path in advance, let alone memorize it. But we don't have to play chess or to write well. With a lot of practice we can gain an understanding of how certain words fit together and of where they might lead us. A good chess player, doesn't consider anywhere close to every possibility. A good writer doesn't consider every possible word. But some combinations (of movements or of words) are right at the tip.
Some people will have astonishing natural ability. They will play a relatively few games and become class B or A or maybe even expert players. It's doubtful that even the person with the greatest natural ability, though, could become a master, much less a grandmaster, without considerable study and practice. And some people will just have a knack for words, but will still have to practice to be really good.
At the other end of the spectrum, in either venue, some people will practice and practice and it will never come to them. They might become capable, but they won't become artists.
The vast majority of people will have a range of abilities that are neither very low nor very high. If they practice hard, they'll become highly proficient.
I think the different things that one does with words, the people with whom one converses, the topics that one discusses, the books one reads, the problems one addresses, the solutions one pursues, all of these things and probably much, much more will have some effect on one's diction, grammar, and overall style.
Things like repetition, reaching (stretching one's limits), failure (exceeding one's limits), reflection (hopefully understanding the points of failure) all increase the repertoire that one has at one's disposal.
I reckon there are agents that collect and classify, some that select and mask, some that organize, some that test, recognize, filter. I think as well there must be some kind of uber-agents that tell the other guys what to do by fiat or perhaps by voting. Agents and uber-agents and uber-uber-agents get stronger by getting used. And the roles of agent and uber-agent can be reversed and augmented, because agents are not arranged in a hierarchy, but in a tangled web.
Well, this is a vague, non-answer from someone reading at and beyond the periphery of his expertise. I'm guessing if we really knew how our own brains selected just the right words (or just as often, just the wrong words), we might expect that AI would have progressed a bit farther than what it has.
k
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#60535
03/12/2002 4:53 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
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The only thing that is perfectly clear is a vacuum. -Faldage Can a word like "vacuum", defined as the absence of everything, have a quality such as "clear"? and jamais vu, the denial of something actually seen. -tsuwn Too true, Mr. tsuwm. Here,s one, but I don't know the French... How does a ignorant man recognize a wise man when he sees him?
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#60536
03/12/2002 5:02 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Can a word like "vacuum", defined as the absence of everything, have a quality such as "clear"?
It has the quality of the absence of everything.
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#60537
03/12/2002 6:15 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Both wsieber and TheFallibleFiend have described one of the most successful ways I've experienced teaching music... quite similar to the way I learn it.
With a piece of music in mind, the focus of the student, the skill or idea to get accross to the student, and a bit of an insight to the difficulties not specific to the student, we start the lesson!
Were off! I don't have a chronology of what to teach in what order. I certainly can't anticipate precisely the troubles a student will be having. Knowing the "hard parts" it gives me the ability to praise at a moments notice (we *all know the momentum of that) and knowing the goals of the student I can direct them toward acheivement... but the specifics of the lesson are improvised! The connections are made through preparation internally and just *happen externally... I am just there to experience it with the student.
'Random events' breed as well as enable creativity!
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#60538
03/12/2002 6:36 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Repetition can be valuable in the learning process.Everbody knows it, and old education systems relied too unimaginatively on it. I was night switchboard operator in a hospital, and after a couple months was surprised how much my ability to learn phone numbers increased, so that I needed fewer repetitons to remember names and phone numbers associated with them. But after I left the switchboard job, that ability withered rapidly.
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#60539
03/12/2002 9:35 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 11,071 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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of Troy writes of traffic ... neatly collating..."collating? what do mean collating? how can cars collate?"...but isn't that what they were doing? what word would you use? and why can't cars collate?
I think the standard designation is "alternate feed." (and no wise remarks about strange things to give the animals, thank you!) (unless, of couse, they're very, very clever) :-)
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#60540
03/12/2002 10:02 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
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I agree on both counts. Repetition is valuable (and I will say even necessary) and it is overused. Maybe overused, or maybe it's that it was used to the exclusion of everything else. I wonder if it is because people didn't really give a lot of thought to how to teach.
I think the experiment is important -- the playing with ideas, which can happen mentally or physically. It's not just that repetition is important as in how one might practice the times tables. It's also necessary to have variation in the repetition - at least for some skills. I look at these like trials in an experiment. A baseball player may not learn something every single time he hits the ball, but over time he might recognize a few things, like where the ball lands when he hits a certain way. A chess player might realize that a certain line of play leads to a less constrained situation for him. A speaker (or writer) may realize that some phraseology is evocative.
And others repeat the idea or the phrase, sometimes consciously and sometimes not. Pretty soon uncommon words and phrases and neologisms become commonplace and then everyone's using infrastructure and baud rate and everything-gate and gradually the novel twist of phrase becomes hackney.
I say this as if it were purely calculated, because it often is, but I reckon the process is commonly unconscious. The tune we have blissfully enjoyed for so long grows tedious. The evocative phrase fails to evoke.
For some people. Maybe for all people at some times.
Example: children can listen to the same damned story night after night for weeks, or even months. (I confess I have never wearied of "The Butter Battle Book.")
There's considerable comfort in saying what everyone else is saying, or what has always been said. But for some people that's not sufficient. So they write poems or they make puns or they read eclectically or they solve crosswords and suddenly their agents are hypothesizing new associations and assimilating new patterns. I wonder sometimes if they might be forming new agents in their brains.
k
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#60541
03/13/2002 2:56 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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what do you call it when you go up that staircase into the room with something important to say, but, once entering the room, you can't remember what it was that you wanted to say?
Destinesia
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#60542
03/13/2002 4:47 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618
addict
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addict
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I think there is an entendre vu as well. Something to do with experiencing a situation in two different ways.
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#60543
03/13/2002 1:56 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
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Now will you please explain what you mean by "emotional loading"?If I have had a thought during a heated argument or a passionate love affair, a higher "emotional loading" is attached to it than if it occurred during an instruction how to fill in an innovation process form or a tax questionnaire  . It will be burned into memory more durably and be of faster access.
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#60544
03/13/2002 2:33 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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There's probably strong evolutionary advantage to this method of mental organization. We ignore most of the raw data we receive. It never gets converted to information or assimilated into knowledge. It's doubtful we could function well (or at all) if this filtering mechanism were not in place. And I vaguely recall reading about certain mental illnesses where it wasn't and the afflicted was bombarded with too many signals. (I imagine the mental state of a person with such an illness or condition might be like three mile island where they had hundreds of alarms going off at once and no way to prioritize them.)
Even after the data gets perceived and assimilated, some of it is vastly more important than others. Emotional tagging is not a perfect mechanism, but it wouldn't have to be to give early animals competitive advantage.
k
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#60545
03/13/2002 5:40 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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It's doubtful we could function well (or at all) if this filtering mechanism were not in place.
Indeed, this inability to filter input seems to be one of the foundations of the pattern of disabilities we label "autism." People with autistic spectrum disorders seem to be unable to ignore sensory input, no matter how repetitive or trivial, and their perceptions also seem to be more sensitive. For instance, many autistic people are overwhelmingly distracted by fluorescent lights, because they can see the lights flicker, even though people of normal perception cannot detect the rapid flicker.
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#60546
03/13/2002 6:23 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Uh oh, acording to sparteye, distracted by fluorescent lights, because they can see the lights flicker, even though people of normal perception cannot detect the rapid flicker, --ergo, i am not normal
well, yes, i knew that to be true, but really, Sparteye! did you have to tell everyone?
actually, a percentage of the population notices the flicker of light bulbs, (and moniters that refresh at 60 Hz.. new ones allow for other frequentcies,) and lots of people hear electricity.. (i just read a confirmation of that recently, too. i don't usually, but i do often hear dimmer switches)
humans exist on a continuum.. those of us only two standard deviation from the mean can pass as normal, at least most of the time. but when people function 3 or 4 deviation from the norm, we usually notice it.. an label it. autism is just one of those cases.
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#60547
03/13/2002 6:53 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Doc,
You wrote: Re: what it was that you wanted to say?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think there is an entendre vu as well. Something to do with experiencing a situation in two different ways.
Many more than two ways, I would suggest! There's some theory of scaffolding in which the situation, say, of reading a novel is expienced in multiple ways--that are constantly changing as long as the novel's still being read. There's the experience of reading it as conceived by the author who imagines the various audiences reading the work---but there are the experiences of future kinds of audiences the author never could have conceived of out of the period in which he/she lived. And there are the experiences of readers discussing the work that are in no way related to what the writer was thinking because the readers are completely insane, uneducated, misinformed, or just having a good time warping the material at hand.
This make me think of people witnessing an accident--and there being so many different versions of what happened. And sometimes the truth gets stomped under altogether.
Best regards,
Wordweary
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#60548
03/13/2002 7:18 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
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#60549
03/13/2002 10:57 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
flicker of lights
Flickering lights can also cause some people to have epileptic fits or bring on migraines.
We had one odd incident here in Montréal when a our tunnel crossing to South Shore was renovated. The tunnel is quite long and was always kinda dark. So, the city decided to put in much more lights. Unfortunately, the lights were placed in such a way that going through the tunnel at the speed limit created the same speed of flikering required to trigger epileptic seizures and migraines.
I didn't know that was what was happening but had taken to avoiding the tunnel since I'd always come out with a migraine on the other side.
It was only when they finally fixed it and the explanation appeared in the papers that I understood why it was happening.
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