tom@uwai.UUCP (11/11/84)
> > -- > > En j0diske kvinde der hedder "Maria"? Det er da noget du tror!! > > Jeg kende en finske kvinde som hedder Maria. Hvorfor skulle den j0diske vaere > umulig? > -- > Dr Memory > ...{amd,ucbvax,ihnp4}!qubix!jdb Ok, all right already. Enough is enough. net.jokes is no place to submit articles written in non-English languages. Very few people can read them, and since NO ONE EVER BOTHERS TO SUPPLY TRANSLATIONS, this is very frustrating to the majority of us. I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, net.flang.yiddish, net.flang.norwegian, etc. Articles posted to these groups would not necessarily be about that particular language, but they would be written *in* that language. This way those of us with more than one tongue might communicate between ourselves w/o driving the rest of the net crazy. I must admit that while I believe that this idea has much merit, I somewhat doubt whether it shall be implemented. I can't help remembering the old joke: What do you call a man who speaks three languages: trilingual. What do you call a man who speaks two languages: bilingual. What do you call a man who speaks one language: American. tom -- Tom Christiansen University of Wisconsin Computer Science Systems Lab ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!tom tom@wisc-crys.arpa
steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) (11/12/84)
In article <154@uwai.UUCP> tom@uwai.UUCP suggests: > I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups > such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, [etc etc] ... > What do you call a man who speaks one language: > American. And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, French, Russian (etc) _f_o_r_e_i_g_n languages?
steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) (11/13/84)
<6173@mcvax.UUCP> cancelled from rn.
aeb@turing.UUCP (11/13/84)
> I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups > such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, > net.flang.yiddish, net.flang.norwegian, etc. Articles posted to these > groups would not necessarily be about that particular language, but they > would be written *in* that language. And next each of these groups would get subgroups about politics, games, jokes, unix-wizards, math ? And where do you put the followup written in spanish to an article written in danish ? No, a much better idea would be to ask people writing in e.g. german to add (german) in the subject line, just as people now add (rot13) when a joke is encrypted. That way people that do not understand that particular language can hit 'n', or even write a filter to throw such articles away. -- Andries Brouwer -- CWI, Amsterdam -- {philabs,decvax}!mcvax!aeb
nabiel@erix.UUCP (Nabiel Elshiewy) (11/13/84)
>And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, >French, Russian (etc) _f_o_r_e_i_g_n languages? Is it really an international network ????
tom@uwai.UUCP (11/13/84)
> In article <154@uwai.UUCP> tom@uwai.UUCP suggests: > > I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups > > such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, [etc etc] > ... > > What do you call a man who speaks one language: > > American. > > And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, > French, Russian (etc) foreign languages? Ok, I'm embarassed. I guess my only plea is that while this *is* an inter- national network, the primary language used on it is English, thus making others ``foreign'' to it. Call it net.nlang.french if net.flang.french is offensive. I really *try* to be more sensitive to this than the "average fellow American", even to the point of avoiding reserving the word "American" to US citizens, since this tends to enfuriate the Argentines and Chileans I know. Having lived in Europe for an extended length of time, I *am* aware that Europeans often take offense, and rightly so, to having their tongue referred to as foreign. In summary, forgive the slip of the ``tongue''. tom -- Tom Christiansen University of Wisconsin Computer Science Systems Lab ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!tom tom@wisc-crys.arpa
tom@uwai.UUCP (11/13/84)
> > I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups > > such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, > > net.flang.yiddish, net.flang.norwegian, etc. Articles posted to these > > groups would not necessarily be about that particular language, but they > > would be written *in* that language. > > And next each of these groups would get subgroups about politics, games, > jokes, unix-wizards, math ? And where do you put the followup written in > spanish to an article written in danish ? > No, a much better idea would be to ask people writing in e.g. german to > add (german) in the subject line, just as people now add (rot13) when > a joke is encrypted. That way people that do not understand that particular > language can hit 'n', or even write a filter to throw such articles away. > -- > Andries Brouwer -- CWI, Amsterdam -- {philabs,decvax}!mcvax!aeb Great idea! I withdraw my earlier suggestion and 2nd Andries'. tom -- Tom Christiansen University of Wisconsin Computer Science Systems Lab ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!tom tom@wisc-crys.arpa
presley@mhuxj.UUCP (Joe Presley) (11/13/84)
> And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, > French, Russian (etc) foreign languages? Paraphrasing an * book: "Mind you, I have nothing against foreigners, but these foreigners aren't from our country!" :-) -- -> Joe Presley (ihnp4!j.presley)
keld@diku.UUCP (Keld J|rn Simonsen) (11/14/84)
<dette er en test> Well, I consider the net.flang.all groups as another American imperialist gimmick. Danish is by no means *foreign* to me ! I think the national language could be used on the net in several ways: one is to have a national subgroup with only distribution in the country, in Denmark we have the dk. group. Then you could have all kinds of subgroups to that. That would be an elaborate scheme if you would like to have all the groups of net. Another way is to post discussion to the net group, but restrict distribution to the national group, in casu dk. On the European net, eunet, we have seen discussions in other languages, e.g. German, French and Finnish(!), but as Europe is more oriented to more languages, I think this is OK. Keld Simonsen, DIKU keld@diku.UUCP
upen@watarts.UUCP (Ue-Li Pen (Willie)) (11/14/84)
or even better, have a command in the readnews interface to translate on the run, just like rot13 jokes get decoded... (actually, I heard that there are some people in Europe trying to write databases that can be used in several different languages by translating automatically). :-) Ue-Li Pen
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (11/14/84)
Former-Newsgroups: net.jokes,net.jokes.d,net.news.group,net.nlang I hate to be a spoilsport, but shouldn't this discussion be moved to net.nlang?
hans@log-hb.UUCP (Hans Albertsson) (11/14/84)
In article <220@turing.UUCP> aeb@turing.UUCP writes: >No, a much better idea would be to ask people writing in e.g. german to >add (german) in the subject line, just as people now add (rot13) when >a joke is encrypted. That way people that do not understand that particular >language can hit 'n', or even write a filter to throw such articles away. Then we add a command ( ^G ? ) to do the decryption for us.... :-) -- Hans Albertsson, USENET/uucp: {decvax,philabs}!mcvax!enea!log-hb!hans Real World: TeleLOGIC AB, Box 1001, S-14901 Nynashamn,SWEDEN
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (11/14/84)
There are already a group of newsgroups net.nlang.all which were created for this exact purpose. "nlang" stands for "natural language" to distinguish it from "lang" which already existed and means "computer language." Certainly there is no need for a net.flang.all in addition. However, the suggestion that articles written in a language other than the default (this means English for most net.all groups) be marked "(auf Deutsch)" or whatever in the subject line seems like a good one. Unless someone can argue that the message should be in English "(in German)" so non-speakers can pick it out and understand it. I am still, however, unclear on the advantage to posting such messages in the first place. If you want to be understood by all the people on the net, use English. If there is some reason why an article really needs to be in another language, perhaps a joke that doesn't translate well, then I think it would be best to post it to the newsgroup appropriate to the topic (e.g. net.jokes) and restrict the distribution. The benefit to those few speakers of that language who live outside the area where that language is used is probably outweighed by the cost to transmit your article to over 1000 machines, most of which are populated by people who won't understand your message. Of course, for articles that are for local distribution anyway (such as dk.all) local customs should apply. Mark Horton
tom@uwai.UUCP (11/15/84)
> Well, I consider the net.flang.all groups as another American > imperialist gimmick. Danish is by no means *foreign* to me ! ``another American imperialist gimmick''?????? This sounds *exactly* like some mccarthyist spouting off with the equally ludicrous ``another red Communist plot''; surely there are alternatives to these trite, over-used political cliches? -- Tom Christiansen University of Wisconsin Computer Science Systems Lab ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!tom tom@wisc-crys.arpa
davis@hplabs.UUCP (Jim Davis) (11/15/84)
[line eater's] Jim4> What about a new keyword "Language:" for the header. Jim4> I think that that would be an even better solution than Andries'. Jim4> It could be automatic at sites that do all their work in a Jim4> particular language, overridden only on demand. It would Jim4> allow automatic filtering, and those great AI projects Jim4> could try out automatic translation on news. Tom1> I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups Tom1> such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, Tom1> net.flang.yiddish, net.flang.norwegian, etc. Articles posted to these Tom1> groups would not necessarily be about that particular language, but they Tom1> would be written *in* that language. AB2> No, a much better idea would be to ask people writing in e.g. german to AB2> add (german) in the subject line, just as people now add (rot13) when AB2> a joke is encrypted. That way people that do not understand that particular AB2> language can hit 'n', or even write a filter to throw such articles away. AB2> Andries Brouwer -- CWI, Amsterdam -- {philabs,decvax}!mcvax!aeb Tom3> Great idea! I withdraw my earlier suggestion and 2nd Andries'. Tom3> Tom Christiansen University of Wisconsin -- Jim Davis (James W Davis) {any_of_the_biggies} !hplabs!davis davis%hp-labs@csnet-relay ------------------------------------------------------------------
christer@ttds.UUCP (Christer Johansson) (11/15/84)
In article <6175@mcvax.UUCP> steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) writes: >In article <154@uwai.UUCP> tom@uwai.UUCP suggests: >> I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups >> such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, [etc etc] >... >> What do you call a man who speaks one language: >> American. > >And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, >French, Russian (etc) _f_o_r_e_i_g_n languages? Esperantist?
esa@kvvax4.UUCP (Esa K Viitala) (11/15/84)
> On the European net, eunet, we have seen discussions in other >languages, e.g. German, French and Finnish(!), but as Europe is ^ What is this supposed to mean??? A danish (&$#%!!) special char? >more oriented to more languages, I think this is OK. Discussions! Far from it! I'd call them monologues. I was the one to post an article in Finnish and the answers I got were generated by crypt or some such thing. So, enough is enough, let's stick to one *foreign* language only: English. National and more local groups may use what ever language they find fit. -- ---ekv, {seismo,decvax,philabs}!mcvax!kvport!{kvvax4,kvvax9}!esa
crandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell) (11/15/84)
Wow, what a relief! I thought my D key was broken. -- Jim Crandell, C. S. Dept., The University of Texas at Austin {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!crandell
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (11/16/84)
Please delete net.jokes from the newsgroup list if you follow up this subject. Net.jokes is for jokes ONLY, not discussions. So why isn't there a joke here? What makes you think there isn't? Can't you read invisiblish? Who, me? Jeff Winslow
gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg) (11/17/84)
> In article <154@uwai.UUCP> tom@uwai.UUCP suggests: > > I therefore propose the creation of a new group, net.flang, with subgroups > > such as net.flang.spanish, net.flang.french, net.flang.russian, [etc etc] > ... > > What do you call a man who speaks one language: > > American. > > And what do you call someone on an international network who calls Spanish, > French, Russian (etc) _f_o_r_e_i_g_n languages? Let's go by majority rule here. How many sites are there outside of Europe? You can almost count them on your fingers (you may need your toes). More seriously, one reason that most Americans don't speak a foreign language is that the while then non-English Occident is certainly more populous than the English-speaking countries, the English-speaking countries have more money than the rest of the West. Now you might think that that's a snotty attitude (and you're right), but I counter: How many Europeans speak Chinese?
dt@ist.UUCP (David Tilbrook) (11/18/84)
>> Well, I consider the net.flang.all groups as another American >> imperialist gimmick. Danish is by no means *foreign* to me ! > ``another American imperialist gimmick''?????? This sounds *exactly* like > some mccarthyist spouting off with the equally ludicrous ``another red > Communist plot''; surely there are alternatives to these trite, over-used > political cliches? Better yet what about alternatives for trite, over-used politicians? Like Keld, I don't see the necessity for using the funny face to indicate this is Dane tongue in cheek. But I do ask our expert on American foreign relationship from Wisconsin to give us another phrase to describe Americans using muscle to protect their own vested interest. It is one of those phrases the rest of the world needs, somewhat like slop-bucket. -- David Tilbrook {inset, root44, mcvax, qtlon}!ist!dt Imperial Software Technology, London England
nabiel@erix.UUCP (Nabiel Elshiewy) (11/20/84)
> How many Europeans speak Chinese?
They don't speak Chinese. Europeans EAT Chinese and they are MANY.
[I am the cannibal who ate up the missioner and digested all his knowledge.]
raghu@rlgvax.UUCP (Raghu Raghunathan) (11/22/84)
> > More seriously, one reason that most Americans don't speak a foreign > language is that the while then non-English Occident is certainly more > populous than the English-speaking countries, the English-speaking > countries have more money than the rest of the West. Seems to me some Amelicans don't wlite English well either. :-)
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (11/23/84)
> > How many Europeans speak Chinese? > > They don't speak Chinese. Europeans EAT Chinese and they are MANY. Why don't you eat me, white boy? -- California Immigrant Phil Ngai (408) 749-5790 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA