From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #271 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, July 11 2001 Volume 10 : Number 271 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Final Fantasy spoiler? [steve ] I am robot, but I am also Teddy [steve ] [Brett Cooper ] Re: ae [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: we're just ... a minor threat (0%RH) [JH3 ] cho cho cho ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] Re: speaking of spoilers.... [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: we're just ... a minor threat (0%RH) [Capuchin ] Re: My dad reviews "A.I: No spoiler ["Brian Hoare" ] ...that's a promise! ["Sirloin Stockade" ] Re: For you librarians ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: I am robot, but I am also Teddy [scary mary ] more remarks about a.i. (no spoilers) [Marshall Needleman Armintor ] A.I. Fight Club, now with dinosaurs! [The Great Quail ] Re: ae [Michael R Godwin ] Re: For you librarians [Capuchin ] Re: A.I. Fight Club, now with dinosaurs! [JH3 ] Re: ae [Ken Weingold ] diphthongs and ITA-? thought you might find interesting [lj lindhurst ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 21:38:43 -0500 From: steve Subject: Final Fantasy spoiler? http://www.killermovies.com/articles/newsid_98782089517799.shtm - - Steve __________ He's sort of like this great symbol of inversion to me  the inverse of the truth. It's like the ethics of the new millennium. All you have to do is say something and it's true. 'I'm Muslim.' But you don't actually ever go to a mosque. You don't have to give up pork. You don't have to do anything. You just say it. That's the level of the hypocrisy and stupidity that's going on right now. - John Cusack, on George W. Bush ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 21:56:16 -0500 From: steve Subject: I am robot, but I am also Teddy http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue220/news.html > A.I. Teddy Due In Stores > > Tiger Electronics--makers of the Furby toy--will bring out a version of > Teddy, the talking "supertoy" from Steven Spielberg's SF film A.I. > Artificial Intelligence, TV Guide Online reported. The toymaker hopes to > have Teddy dolls on store shelves by late July. > > Four versions of Teddy will range in size from 4 to 15 inches and carry a > price of $4.99 to $29.99, the site reported. The larger dolls will utter > such phrases as "I am robot, but I am also Teddy," "You have a trusting > hand, my friend" and "What's new, super friend?" The bigger models won't > be out until fall, TV Guide reported. Jack Angel, who voiced Teddy in the > film, will also provide the voice for the dolls. - - Steve __________ Able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis so that they can provide for their own retirement and, for that matter, health and medical needs. - Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, on his vision for Social Security and Medicare ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 19:29:40 -0800 From: Brett Cooper Subject: Am I the only one who finds the blank no-focus saccarhin shit-eating ecstasy-induced smile that Janet Jackson is always sporting in her music videos so damn annoying?!?! Brett ******************************************** Cooper Collections http://home.gci.net/~coopercollections ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 15:48:59 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: ae >What is the proper term for that half-a, half-e character you see in Latin? >You know, like in "Aeneid" and "Caesar"? Does it start with "elig..."? they're called diphthongs or ligatures. Still used (but dying out) in British English in places where Americans have dropped to just using an 'e' (like encyclopaedia, haemophilia, amoeba, anaesthetic, etc). Technically ligatures are any combination of two letters written as one - diphthongs are only the ae and oe combinations. James (who writes an occasional fanzine called Amoeba, using the oe diphthong) James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:40:02 -0500 From: JH3 Subject: Re: we're just ... a minor threat (0%RH) From: steve : > Spot the loony - [various links excised for the sake of brevity] I'd urge everyone to check out http://www.jesus.com - apparently this guy is completely legitimate, though I've no clue as to how he managed to snag that domain name. (A...*miracle*, perhaps?) What's more, I've personally eaten in at least five of the Northern VA restaurants endorsed by Jesus himself, and I've even read three of the books on his book list. (However, I don't own any of Jesus's favorite CD's.) And on top of that, I also personally met three of the members of Minor Threat, back when they were still actually in Minor Threat! And it's true that they wanted to overthrow the government and start a Nazi-Communist dictatorship, but of course we were all into that sort of thing back then. Ah, the memories. John "otherwise not especially Christ-like" Hedges III ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 23:29:06 -0700 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: cho cho cho > From: Eb > In da house: the bulky Margaret Cho, the bonny Steve McDonald (Redd Kross), > the Bunny's Rick Gershon and the Bangles' Michael Steele. Me, to Steele: > "You must be a big fan -- I saw you mouthing words!" Her: "Sad, but true." > Heh. (Sorry Margaret...I couldn't think of a better adjective which started > with "b.") "boss" "bodacious" "babelicious" > From: bayard [some new Star Drek series] > according to the article, scott bakula will star YES. Now if they can actually churn out some decent sci-fi into the bargain I might actually watch for a change. A remark about suspension of disbelief: I just read _Anonymous Rex_ and I enjoyed it, but (this ain't no spoiler, because it's given away on like the second or third page) I repeatedly had trouble buying the idea of dinosaurs in human suits. As the novel goes on, I had more and more of the "but why would they..." type questions bugging me. It's still a fun book, if a bit too similar in ways to Jonathan Lethem's superior but colder _Gun, With Occasional Music_, but still. - -- Andrew D. Simchik, drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:08:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: speaking of spoilers.... bayard wrote: > here's a good site for looking up surprise endings. why would you > want to do that, you ask? why, for learning all the films macaulay > culkin dies in, of course! > http://moviepooper.com/ my brother is a dead ringer for macauley culkin, except he's 6 years older; almost the the day, creepily enough. on a few occasions, he even got asked for autographs. being the evil bastard he is, he would sign them (but he signed his name, not macauley culkin). Brian was also once told by Boy George that he was "gorgeous." we, obviously, do not look related. ===== "Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul." Mark Twain "The jury is the last line of defense against corporate misconduct." Craig McDonald Texans for Public Justice Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:37:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: we're just ... a minor threat (0%RH) On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, JH3 wrote: > I'd urge everyone to check out http://www.jesus.com - apparently this > guy is completely legitimate, though I've no clue as to how he managed > to snag that domain name. (A...*miracle*, perhaps?) This has been circulating for some time. I got it on my local "geek list" a few weeks ago. I'm really impressed with the domain name, too. Oddly, whois.internic.net is not responding right now. Another miracle? I was also rather disturbed that "bathe with Jesus" features a naked girl from ... well, the nearest large city to my home town. By the way, is your "home town" where you live, where you spent more of your formative years, or where you were born? > What's more, I've personally eaten in at least five of the Northern VA > restaurants endorsed by Jesus himself, and I've even read three of the > books on his book list. (However, I don't own any of Jesus's favorite > CD's.) Three of the books on his list are on my coffee table right now! Weird. And the only CD I own from his list is Mozart's Requiem. > And on top of that, I also personally met three of the members of > Minor Threat, back when they were still actually in Minor Threat! And > it's true that they wanted to overthrow the government and start a > Nazi-Communist dictatorship, but of course we were all into that sort > of thing back then. Ah, the memories. I KNEW it! How many others were prevented from joining the Straight Edge due to their need for Holy Communion sacramental wine? J. (esus) - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 07:34:06 -0000 From: "Brian Hoare" Subject: Re: My dad reviews "A.I: No spoiler >From: steve >Subject: Re: My dad reviews "A.I."... >Too bad he didn't get Sterling or Gibson or Ian Watson or Iain Banks or >somebody competent at SF to help him make some sense of what he was trying >to get at. > Ian Watson _was_ involved in developing the story with Kubrick. I dont believe that he had anything to do with it after it passed to Spielberg. Brian _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:11:24 -0700 From: "Sirloin Stockade" Subject: ...that's a promise! <"* No goths, atheists, intellectuals, homosexuals or Jews are allowed to enter our premisses." well that counts out most or all of the fegs, i guess....> robyn h., 1997: "I basically play for intellectuals, hippies, dissidents, and perverts." jeme already owns such a suit. . "Flesh Hotel". what happened, just out of curiosity? i quit watching at the scene where brad pitt put the acid on edward norton, and edward norton kept whining about how much it hurt instead of leaping over the table and beating the shit out of him (which he OBVIOUSLY would have done had it hurt as much as he we're supposed to believe it did). i mean, the movie sucked up to that point anyway. but the was the final straw. did you turn it in? if not, you can get busted. it's true. one of the people in the "consumer awareness" class i had to take after i got caught shoplifting had picked up some money (in fact, i do believe it was $20) he'd found laying on the ground...and got his ass hauled in for it (hence, his presence in the "consumer awareness" class). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:33:57 +0100 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: For you librarians Capuchin wrote: > > Usually I hear the ae character (that's ascii 198, so you can put > Æ in your html... or just \ae, if I recall) Aiee! (or should I say, "ae!"?) No! Numeric entity references are bad bad bad. Use 'æ'. > refered to usually as the ay-ee ligature we call 'em "ash", but that could be old typesetter's terminology. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 08:56:14 -0400 From: scary mary Subject: Re: I am robot, but I am also Teddy I thought Teddy's have been on the market for a long time: http://www.mindspring.com/~mathue/illiop.html ; ) s.m At 09:56 PM 7/10/2001 -0500, steve wrote: >http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue220/news.html > > >>A.I. Teddy Due In Stores ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 17:37:36 -0500 (CDT) From: Marshall Needleman Armintor Subject: more remarks about a.i. (no spoilers) First off, excellent reportage from the Fischer/Johnston show, Eb -- thanks for taking the bullet for us all. About A.I.: I'll open myself to some criticism, if not unbridled derision, by saying I absolutely loved _A.I._ and I think it's brilliant, with very few qualifications. (I had some problems with the coda of the film and found myself thinking frequently "This is intriguing, but why the hell is he doing this?", but I thought if Spielberg had to end it some way, that it wasn't a bad way to let it coast to a stop.) This is the first movie of his that I've ever seen, with the exception of _Close Encounters_, where I didn't feel totally manipulated by his maudlin flourishes and then just cast aside at the end -- I felt Spielberg actually gave me something to chew on in return, and came by the emotional notes in the story honestly. Recently, after reading the Aldiss story on which it's based (it's somewhere online), I felt this sense of dread going in...that there was no way Spielberg could live up to that little seven-page parable. But I think he succeeded in cashing out the premise and all its implications fairly well; going by _Eyes Wide Shut_ (which I also liked, but it's Kubrick's worst movie) I was glad Kubrick didn't get any farther than he did. Considering the speed with which Spielberg put it together, it's pretty amazing. I absolutely understand if people had huge problems with the plot and setup of the movie -- Ebert spent most of his print review of A.I. openly mocking the logic of some of David's behavior in the light of the fact that he's a programmable machine. Fair enough, I guess, but I always assumed part of the whole point of speculative fiction is that, in exchange for indulging the author/filmmaker some well-considered "what if"s, you let her/him tell you a good story. In A.I.'s case, perhaps the premise is still too hard to swallow, but...anyway, I bit, and was satisfied. marshall William's score did kinda suck, though, I agree with everyone...generally, if I even notice the music in a film, I notice it sucks. At best it was merely serviceable. A.I.'s an instance, I think, where a more electronic or spare approach would've been welcome...perhaps Howard Shore would've been a better choice, I loved the score for _Crash_. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 08:51:17 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: My dad reviews "A.I: No spoiler On Wednesday, July 11, 2001, at 02:34 AM, Brian Hoare wrote: > Ian Watson _was_ involved in developing the story with Kubrick. I dont > believe that he had anything to do with it after it passed to Spielberg. Yes, he has story credit for the film. - - Steve __________ [The Court searched] mightily for a way, any way at all, to aid their choice for president, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their judicial coup d'Itat, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause... - Vincent Buglioso, on Bush v. Gore ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 10:02:48 -0700 From: The Great Quail Subject: A.I. Fight Club, now with dinosaurs! Eddie says: >what happened, just out of curiosity? i quit watching at the scene >where brad pitt put the acid on edward norton, and edward norton >kept whining about how much it hurt instead of leaping over the >table and beating the shit out of him (which he OBVIOUSLY would have >done had it hurt as much as he we're supposed to believe it did). i >mean, the movie sucked up to that point anyway. but the was the >final straw. (There is no Fight Club spoiler ahead) Wow! I can't believe that you didn't like Fight Club -- which, by the way, is one of my personal favorite movies. But if you didn't get past that part (and lye is a base, not an acid, as the pedantic chemistry teacher in me feels driven to correct) I can certainly see your confusion as to why Ed Norton didn't react differently. THOUGH I still think it makes a lot of sense -- that sort of ritual by pain-->enlightenment is part of many initiation ceremonies, from Bush magic to the Gom Jabbar. But still -- wow! Eddie, how can you not like Fight Club? Crazy insomniacs? Therapy-group junkies? Unfocused white male rage? And then it even drifts into anarchism! It has one of the best endings I can think of in recent cinema. I honestly would have though you'd love this movie. Now, about AI: (Spoilers ahead!) * * * * * * * * * * * * First of all, I really liked A.I. I thought Senor Spielbergo did a fine job, and I always enjoy movies that have several clearly-defined "parts," a definite Kubrick trope. While there were some plot holes, and I think the ending was marred by too much clunky exposition and redundancies, overall it's one of my favorite movies this year. (Momento and Moulin Rouge are the other two.) I thought the first sequence was terrific and very Kubrickesque, the middle Pinnochio wanderings were dreamy, scary and strange, and the ending was genuinely poignant. (Though I wish Spielberg would have made it more clear that they were evolved AIs rather than aliens -- especially given all that exposition!) I also think that the strange "mom-world" at the end was a simulation; and if we believe the AI's odd claims that DNA contains memories, a sample of DNA would be appropriate for them to get a "fix" on Mommy outside of David's memories. But still, I admit this is shaky, and it depends on the AI's wanting to observe David's reactions rather than make him truly happy. But I love movies that have some ambiguity, and cause you to discuss them for weeks afterwards. That makes me happy! I have read a lot about the original screenplay(s), and I am surprised how much of what I thought was Spielberg was actually Kubrick, including the whole Pinnochio theme, the Blue Fairy, the evolved AIs, and the Mommy for a Day thing. I do miss a few elements from Kubrick that Spielberg toned down, such as Gigolo Joe, who was originally darker, more sexual, and a bit "twisted;" and the David/Mommy relationship. As mentioned, Mommy was an alcoholic, and David pleased her by making her perfect bloody marys, not coffee -- in other words, Little Robot Boy willingly participated in his Mommy's destruction in order to ingratiate himself! Anyway, I am happy with the film in general, but I wish the ending would have skipped the DNA mess, and had no dialogue at all with the AIs. Imaginehow mysterious and weird that would have been! Much more Kubricky. Oh, and Michael Wolfe rails against John Williams, also one of my favorite targets. But I was actually surprised at how much he restrained himself on this score. Yes, he did rip-off Ligeti and Bartok and other Kubrick favorites, but at least he didn't drown the movie in saccharine, as he did "Private Ryan" and so many other movies of late. And though you praise his "Jaws," listen to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," where he ripped off a hell of a lot of the main theme. Oh, well -- he's better than James Horner, at least. And hey -- Elfman is doing the score to "Planet of the Apes!" Woo-hoo! - --Quail PS: I am really looking forward to Jurassic Park III. It looks like they have finally jettisoned all plot and just gone straight for the DINOSAURS! Big, scary, man-eating dinosaurs on land, air and sea! DINOSAURS, Eddie! - -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.TheModernWord.com If I have said anything to the contrary I was mistaken. If I say anything to the contrary again I shall be mistaken again. Unless I am mistaken now. Into the dossier with it in any case, in support of whatever thesis you fancy. --Samuel Beckett, "The Unnamable" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 09:16:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: ...that's a promise! On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Sirloin Stockade wrote: > feeling insecure.> > > jeme already owns such a suit. > . No, no...that's the suit for when I'm feeling like a captive princess in a metal bikini. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 17:36:20 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: ae On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, James Dignan wrote: > they're called diphthongs or ligatures. Still used (but dying out) in > British English in places where Americans have dropped to just using an 'e' > (like encyclopaedia, haemophilia, amoeba, anaesthetic, etc). The Brits stopped using the oe diphthong in a lot of words like oecumenical and oeconomical quite a long time ago (19th C? 18th?) although oenology (study of wine) is still in current UK use. We still tend to keep the ae in a lot of words. I've never seen aesthetics spelt as esthetics except by Americans. But how do they spell anaesthetic? For consistency it would have to be anesthetic, but that looks totally wrong. And do they seriously spell aegis (a shield) as egis? - - Mike Godwin PS Bad news about Fred Neil: 'The other side of this life' was always a favourite song of mine. Apparently he spent the last 20 years playing music to dolphins rather than people. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 09:55:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: For you librarians On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > Capuchin wrote: > > Usually I hear the ae character (that's ascii 198, so you can put > > Æ in your html) > > Aiee! (or should I say, "ae!"?) No! Numeric entity references are bad > bad bad. Use 'æ'. So how are you supposed to get a capital? By the way, I firmly believe in numerical references. I've thought about incorporating simpe routines into my cgis that make every character a numerical reference. I wonder why more folks don't do that... I always just assumed there are certain sets of people that only want you to use their information in exactly the way they intend... after all, why else would there be browser-specific tags in the first place? > > refered to usually as the ay-ee ligature > we call 'em "ash", but that could be old typesetter's terminology. That sounds very familiar. What do you call the oe ligature? Oh, and I just saw today that Collins belongs to NewsCorp. Yipes! I'm sure it's a good job, Stewart, but... J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 10:58:07 -0500 From: JH3 Subject: Re: A.I. Fight Club, now with dinosaurs! TGQ writes: > But still -- wow! Eddie, how can you not like Fight Club? Crazy > insomniacs? Therapy-group junkies? Unfocused white male rage? And > then it even drifts into anarchism! It has one of the best endings I > can think of in recent cinema. I honestly would have though you'd > love this movie. [Is "spoiler space" really necessary for a year-old movie?] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I shouldn't speak on Eddie's behalf, but why should any self- respecting political dissident enjoy a movie that suggests that wanting to dismantle or demolish the trappings of modern corporatized "culture" must somehow require you to be a totally fucked-up schizophrenic? Or, in the case of Brad Pitt's army of followers, an unquestioning skinhead thug? Mind you, that's the only major issue *I* had with what I thought was (for the most part) an extremely interesting flim [sic]. Actually, I may be assuming that Eddie is more concerned about the corporatized culture thing than he actually is; there are those who might consider it a mere distraction from the more pressing concerns of military interventionism, environmental degradation, and everybody's big fave, the overpopulation problem. (Not me, though. Of course, I'm far less self-respecting than most.) And the scene with the lye didn't ring true with me either, but I was willing to forgive that for some reason - probably because I already had a good idea as to what was going to happen later on. Or maybe I just personally enjoy the feeling of fresh lye against my skin... John "hey wait, I'm not supposed to talk about Fight Club" Hedges ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 12:50:40 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: ae On Wed, Jul 11, 2001, Michael R Godwin wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, James Dignan wrote: > > they're called diphthongs or ligatures. Still used (but dying out) in > > British English in places where Americans have dropped to just using an 'e' > > (like encyclopaedia, haemophilia, amoeba, anaesthetic, etc). > > The Brits stopped using the oe diphthong in a lot of words like > oecumenical and oeconomical quite a long time ago (19th C? 18th?) > although oenology (study of wine) is still in current UK use. > > We still tend to keep the ae in a lot of words. I've never seen aesthetics > spelt as esthetics except by Americans. But how do they spell anaesthetic? > For consistency it would have to be anesthetic, but that looks totally > wrong. And do they seriously spell aegis (a shield) as egis? Are something like 'encyclopaedia' and 'encyclopedia' actually pronounced differently? - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:04:52 -0400 From: lj lindhurst Subject: diphthongs and ITA-? thought you might find interesting When I was in kindergarten, they taught us "ITA"--apparently, some kind of British phonetic-based system to prepare kids for the alphabet. (This is extremely odd, considering I went to one of the poorest, most rural and backwards-assed elementary schools you can imagine.) Most of the letters of the alphabet were the same, but then there was the combined "ae" symbol, as well as "ie," "oe," "oi," "ou," just to name a few. Very wierd, and I can't really figure how this was supposed to make it EASIER for kindergarteners to learn the alphabet. My parents, by the way, were totally PISSED about this! I had already learned to read, and could read quite well, and then I had to learn this whole new bunch of symbols and stuff. (I didn't really care or have any problems with it, but they complained to high heaven)(I thought it was kind of fun to draw that graceful "ae" symbol!) Was anyone else subjected to this system? Brits, maybe? I have never met anyone who's even HEARD of ITA, muchless forced to learn it in Kindergarten... Anyone who is more interested can see their Web site: http://www.itafoundation.org/i.t.a.htm . Copied and pasted from there: The Initial Teaching Alphabet is a phonemic alphabet based on the phonemic sound system of the English language. It was designed to present the beginning reader and writer with a logical and reliable reading and writing system. The phonemic alphabet consists of 44 sound-symbols with each symbol or character representing one sound in a word. The alphabet adheres closely to traditional orthography. The symbols are lowercase. Certain conventional English spellings have been retained such as the c and k, which have the same sound. When students understand that print is speech written down, that words are made up of speech sounds, that the symbols and the speech sounds agree, they can read anything that they understand. When they know how to form the symbols, they can write anything they can say. As they become fluent readers and writers in i.t.a., they become aware of the conventional spellings in traditional orthography. They know that they can write one third of the words that are similar and the one third that are slightly different. The rest of the words they know they must learn to spell. They become proficient readers and writers without struggling with complex spelling patterns in the beginning stages of literacy development. - -- ******************************** LJ Lindhurst White Rabbit Graphic Design http://www.w-rabbit.com NYC ljl@w-rabbit.com ******************************** "And American Clock has my Social Security Account numbers and it is engraved on one of American Clock's Grandfather Clock Movements." --Yukio Murakami ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 13:07:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: ae On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Michael R Godwin wrote: > We still tend to keep the ae in a lot of words. I've never seen aesthetics > spelt as esthetics except by Americans. I don't think I've ever seen that spelling used by *anyone*. Maybe I'm just blocking out the memory, since it's so aesthetically unappealing.... The ae ligature *usually* becomes a simple e in American English, but there are exceptions. > But how do they spell anaesthetic? > For consistency it would have to be anesthetic, but that looks totally > wrong. And do they seriously spell aegis (a shield) as egis? "Anesthetic" is the normal spelling in the US, but I've seen "anaesthetic" in use as well. "Aegis" is always spelled that way, so far as I know. What I want to know is, when British newspapers write about the US Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Labor, do they use the spellings "Defence" and "Labour"? - --Curious Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #271 ********************************