I've seen this bit of text, or another clearly from the same original work, on countless spam mails I've gotten over the last couple of years. Anyone have any clues as to what work it comes from, or why someone would include this kind of thing in an unsolicited email. I find it entertaining that it appears to come from a work on linguistics.
(quote)
In theory, the independent functional principle adds explicit performance contours to Krapp's Last Tape. From the intercultural viewpoint, further and associated contradictory elements necessitates that coagulative measures be applied to the anticipated epistemological repercussions. For example, the incorporation of agonistic cultural constraints adds overwhelming Folkloristic significance to any discrete configuration modality. As a result, any associated supporting element requires considerable performance analysis and computer studies to arrive at the profound meaning of "The Raw and the Cooked". However, initiation of basic charismatic subculture development recognizes the importance of other disciplines, while taking into account any communicatively-programmed computer techniques. We can see, in retrospect, a primary interrelationship of system and/or subsystem logistics is functionally equivalent to (though formally distinct from) all deeper structuralistic conceptualization.
(End quote)
Thanks much, and re-hi to all. Been a couple of months.
Slovovoi
Dear slovovoi: I read your quote, and found it obfuscating. I read Krapp's Last Tape, but did not enjoy it. Here is the URL for those who may wish to read it
http://www.msu.edu/user/sullivan/BeckettKrapp.html
I once heard someone say that some of the words William Buckley liked to emit to make his interlocutor feel stupid on Firing Line were made up on the spot. Were it not for its inelegance, I would say he might have written this crapp, too.
some of the words William Buckley liked to emit to make his interlocutor feel stupid
Which brings up a question/point...do you (not you specifically insel. but folks on Board) feel stupid when you don't know what a word means.
Maybe it is just the way I was raised but I never feel stupid about those things. I just say "excuse me, but what does that word mean?" Nobody can be expected to know everything. If someone is trying to make me feel ignorant by uttering whole sentences like those above I will make them repeat, and explain it in other words, until I understand. I don't really care who is speaking.
One teacher I had in CEGEP told me (not just about words but any other subject) that if I asked it was certain that there were 20 people in class who had not understood and were afraid to look bad by speaking up.
You don't look stupid...the person who refuses to explain looks arrogant.
I would welcome from slovovoi some clarification of his quotations. I feel a bit better knowing that I am not the only one who chooses not to pretend to understand them.
<<I would welcome from slovovoi some clarification of his quotations.>>
Dear Dr. Bill,
I don't know; I though slovovoi found it 'entertaining that it appears to come from a work on *linguistics,' [emphasis mine] because it don't make no damn sense. And anyway, even if it does make sense, it would make *more sense if it made sense to more people. This ain't the kind of writing I scratch *my head over.
IP
I tend to agree with you there inselpeter. I rarely scratch my head over that type of writing either.
Generally I find that people who write like that have either a) an over-inflated sense of self that is *totally unjustified OR b) are insecure to the point of trying to cover it with big, important sounding words.
Okay, Max, you're a champion explicator. What do you make of the quotes?
You attention is directed to
http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern, which will generate for you, as often as you like, a serious-sounding, but random and meaningless, critical essay in the academic style.
To date it has generated over 330,000 such essays.
And it
still doesn't have tenure.
Could one argue that the sample text at that site, Keiva, is nonsense but not meaningless?
Dear inselpeter: I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.
Dear Keiva: Your analysis of the problem seems to be right on target. Good work.
In reply to:
I once heard someone say that some of the words William Buckley liked to emit to make his interlocutor feel stupid on Firing Line were made up on the spot.
Reminds me of Blackadder: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/8889/bladder/ba3-2.txt (About 1/4 of the way down the page, Edmund Blackadder congratulates Dr Johnson on his Dictionary. The whole script is amusing (of course), but only that part is related.)
<<I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.>>
I can extract no meaning from it. Mine was just a lazy poke at a speculation whether one can distinguish between meaning and sense. I confess, I do not know what "recursive grammar" means, but the grammar of those sentences seems structurally to mean, but to have no refererant and so, to have no sense.
Dr. Bill says:
Dear inselpeter: I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.Warning, guys: the site I cited generates a different essay each time.
(I was sorely tempted not to mention this: it would be hilarious to see board members present conflicting analyses of a text, unaware that they had differing texts before them. But that, however tempting, would be unfair.
)
Maybe I'm naturally oversensitive, or maybe someone just slipped me decaf coffee this morning, but you have my word that Hon. Max Quordlespleen has always used animalism as his moorings. Without going into all the gory details, let's just say that if Quordlespleen had even a shred of intellectual integrity, he'd admit that once you understand his snow jobs, you have a responsibility to do something about them. To know, to understand, and not to act, is an egregious sin of omission. It is the sin of silence. It is the sin of letting Quordlespleen destroy the natural beauty of our parks and forests. Quite simply, I need your help if I'm ever to champion the force of goodness against the greed of materialistic nabobs of sadism. "But I'm only one person," you might protest. "What difference can I make?" The answer is: a lot more than you think. You see, we can divide Quordlespleen's plans for the future into three categories: stentorian, avaricious, and unforgiving. The salient point here is that Quordlespleen seems to have a bitter ideological conflict with my statement that his mercenaries are more determined than most raucous, conniving Luddites. But there's the rub; my general thesis is that it strikes me as amusing that he complains about people who do nothing but complain. Well, news flash! Quordlespleen does nothing but complain. I'll talk a lot more about that later, but first let me finish my general thesis: If you were to tell him that he is a tremendous deadweight on our will and morale, he'd just pull his security blanket a little tighter around himself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world.
Though I am not a proponent of conflict, the objection may still be raised that things have never been better. At first glance, this sounds almost believable. Yet the following must be borne in mind: I am not trying to save the world -- I gave up that pursuit a long time ago. But I am trying to straighten out Quordlespleen's thinking. Quordlespleen's pranks are not pedantic treatises expressing theories or extravaganzas dealing in fables or fancies. They are substantial, sober outpourings from the very soul of Stalinism.
I appreciate feedback and other people's views on subjects. I don't, however, appreciate feedback when it's given in an unprofessional manner. Quordlespleen's functionaries suspect that "everything Quordlespleen says is completely and utterly true." First off, that's a lousy sentence. If they had written that there is no evidence to support Quordlespleen's accusations, then that quote would have had more validity. As it stands, Quordlespleen's lies come in many forms. Some of his lies are in the form of reports. Others are in the form of ultimata. Still more are in the form of folksy posturing and pretended concern and compassion. A final note: Neurotic, pouty scalawags have no business here.
Thanks, Max! I should be able to make professional use of that site - such is the world of lawyers.
All right, you guys are going straight to hell, no stopping at go, no getting out of jail for 200$
Good grief. I finally get back to the board and here I read Jackie's post in I&A about how a person is leaving because the board is too tough and there I am telling Insel. he must be mistaken cause I think people are kindhearted then I read Max's post and, after I finish picking myself off the floor from having nearly fainted, I read Keiva's and have to dust myself off all over again.
I don't know Keiva but Maxie sure enough and thought 'this can't be the Max I know, he's a great guy, and what on earth did Keiva do to him to make him write this."
Good God I'm so glad I highlighted the post and found that web site in white text.
You guys are in so much trouble. Hell I tell you, mumble mumble mumble, giving me such a fright, mumble, mumble.
And another thing, somebody better dang well come on over here and wipe the coffee off the carpet...dictatorial generalizations, mumble mumble, and, and the splatter on the computer screen...mumble,,,animalism as his moorings...mumble.
It reminds me of the famous radio programme by HGW.
jmh
It reminds me of the famous radio programme by HGW.
Thanks jmh for the reminder. I live near the area where HGW set his play(?) and one night when I drove out of a suprmarket's parking lot, I turned on NPR and they had that show on (marking its anniversary). I came on in the middle of it and thought it was for real and wondered why there was no panic on the roadways.
Since this is a word site, I took the liberty of correcting the typo in the title. And I hope all that red stuff was really ketchup, not blood. Jackie might get upset again.
All right, you guys are going straight to hell, no stopping at go, no getting out of jail for 200$Hello, BelM!
Actually, Max with his "pseudo-rant" was paying me the supreme compliment of trusting that I'd get the joke. Max, I am sincerely flattered.
Ok, Max and Kieva... when you are in New Hampshire as candidates in the Presidential Preferential Primary, do stop by and say hello!
I googled "Krapp's Last Tape" AND ""The Raw and the Cooked", mostly because I didn't get the juxtapositioning of these two works. I got two hits, one an example of the offending emails, and the other a collection of similar quotes, all quite obviously the work of the same AU¹. why someone would go to the trouble of collecting these (without comment) is beyond me.²
http://www.stanford.edu/~axlee/¹Artificial Unintelligence
²this phrase is lifted verbatim from several emails I have received³ over the years.
³in another context!
I've never seen such a 'creative' site. It's too bad one cannot input certain characteristics and invite the site to spew a more pointed complaint. For instance, I have a co-worker that is both long-winded and famous for name-dropping (and not very good at that either). How I would love to fashion a 'complaint letter' in that regard.
Does a similar URL have those capabilities?
http://www.velvet.com/barb/humor/flaming.html(see particularly nos. 9,10 & 12; cross-threads to Animal Safari & In Defense of the President)
I expect that either Keiva or Max (or both) will be approached by the Bush campaign to work as speechwriters for the next presidential election. Their style suits Bush very well. And Keiva -- take the job. If you help get him reelected, you will be a shoo-in for the next opening on the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court
Ah, 'twould be sweet to be infallible - a true Brigadoon.
As one of the Justices (Jackson?) said, "We are not made final because we are infallible; we are infallible because we are made final."