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Sesquipedalian, Volume III, Number 3
The SESQUIPEDALIAN WEEKLY HERALD Volume III, Number 3
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October 13, 1992
WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THOSE LITTLE HOTEL SOAPS-- Part One of Two
With all the travelling so many of you are gearing up to do, going to
all those conferences and whatnot, we thought you could appreciate
this topic. The following is an actual series of correspondence which
occured between a London hotel's staff and one of its guests (the
entire exchange was of such a length that the second half will have to
be run next week!). The name of the hotel was, regrettably, not
mentioned. (From the Sunday Times)
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Dear Maid,
Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my
bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove
the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest
and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way.
Thank you,
S. Berman
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Dear Room 635,
I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from
her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as
you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and
put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your
mind. This leaves only the three bars I left today which my
instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. (sic)
I hope this is satisfactory.
Kathy, Relief Maid
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Dear Maid-- I hope you are my regular maid.
Apparently, Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the
little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found
you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet.
I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my
own bath-size Dial so I won't need those 6 little Camays which are on
the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc.
Please remove them.
S. Berman
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Dear Mr. Berman,
My day off was last Wednesday so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps
which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which
were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your
Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your
convenience. I didn't remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are
always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and
which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please
let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Your regular maid, Dotty
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Dear Mr. Berman,
The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this A.M. that you
called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid
service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will
accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any
future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal
attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.
Elaine Carmen, Housekeeper
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Dear Miss Carmen,
It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for
business at 745 am and don't get back before 530 or 6 pm. That's the
reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty.
I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little
bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a
new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my
medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the
bathroom shelf. In just five days her I have accumulated 24 little
bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?
S. Berman
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To be continued...
-/-/-/ GRADUATE ADVISER'S MESSAGE: ELIZABETH TRAUGOTT /-/-/-
This is to let you know that Eve Clark has asked me to be Graduate
Adviser this year. This means that I am here to support your progress
to the degree. I am the principal adviser for first year students,
until they select their individual adviser; for other students, I am
here supplement and complement the work of other advisers-- answer
questions about academic requirements, make exceptions where
warranted, etc.
In addition, I am working with Eve Clark to improve advising
in general, and would appreciate any suggestions you might have on
this matter.
Starting this month, I will be coordinating a series of
workshops and other activities that have to do with graduate
professional development. Suggestions for topics would be most
welcome (the grad reps and the committee on graduate studies of the
department will be working with me to plan the topics, presenters,
etc., so you may wish to discuss topics with them, too). Suggestions
I have heard include: proposal writing (for field work, fellowships,
postdocs, and of course the dissertation), job application letters,
non-academic jobs (Charlotte Linde has volunteered to talk about this
from first-hand experience), publication (where to send a paper, what
journals to look for, the process of revision, proofreading, etc.).
We will be kicking off the series on Tuesday, October 27th at
noon in 90-91A. Topic: The Curriculum Vitae-- purposes, audience,
format. The following people whose CV's were part of successful
applications for advanced fellowships and jobs will share their CV's
and talk about the process of developing the CV: Chris Golston, Bonnie
McElhinny, John McWhorter. While this topic is most particularly
relevant for students at or close to the TGR stage, it is never too
soon to start, so everyone is urged to attend.
Elizabeth Traugott
-/-/-/ LOOK WHO'S TALKING /-/-/-
-- PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP: Paul Kiparsky will kick-off this year's
phonology workshop with a talk on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 pm in
VENTURA 17.
Catalexis
Phonological theory allows, as a parametric option, an extra metrical
constituent to appear at the edge of a prosodic domain
(extrametricality). I present evidence that languages may also allow
a metrical constituent to be missing at the edge of a prosodic domain
(catalexis). Enriching the theory with this parameter allows
degenerate feet to be eliminated entirely, tightens the typology of
stress systems, and obviates the need for several unprincipled
descriptive devices. At the same time, it brings phonological theory
another step closer to the theory of metrical verse.
-- "ENGLISH ONLY": James Crawford, former Washington editor of
Education Week and author of the new book 'Hold Your Tongue:
Bilingualism and the Politics of "English Only,"' will be speaking on
the 'English Only' movement in the US. The talk will be on
Wednesday, October 21, in the Kimball Hall lounge at 6:30 pm.
Bilingualism in America and the Politics of the English Only Movement
The movement to legislate English as the official US language may be
viewed in two ways: (1) as an attempt to ratify a language policy that
will speed the assimilation of new immigrants and slow the erosion of
English as a unifying bond; or (2) as a campaign that exploits raw
emotions about language to divide Americans along ethnic lines and
promote an immigration-restrictionist agenda. Evidence strongly
supports the latter analysis.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, however, the English Only
movement is not a far right phenomenon, or even a consistently
conservative one. It is an ideological hybrid that combines liberal
paternalism, racist populism, demographic fears and status anxieties,
and a sense of cultural loss among middle-class Anglos. As in earlier
such episodes, today's conflicts over bilingualism symbolize a range
of concerns that have little to do with language. Perceptions of a
sudden 'threat' to English reflect increased immigration and increased
bilingual services (even though anglicization rates appear to be
higher than ever). Invidious and inaccurate comparisons are drawn
between the 'new' immigrants who resist assimilation (Hispanics and
Asians) and the 'old' immigrants who understood their obligation to
learn English (Euro-ethnics).
The official English movement has less to do with promoting
English than with restricting the rights of unpopular minorities. Yet
voter enthusiasm-- on average, about 75% in public opinion polls-- is
driven not only by nativism, but also by pervasive myths about
American history, the immigrant experience, and second-language
acquisition.
In this talk, I will discuss the recent political and social
background of the movement, and suggest some of the reasons for its
appeal. I'll argue that despite recent scandals involving its racial
views, funding sources and illegal contributions, the movement remains
a threat to bilingual education and other programs aimed at assisting
language minorities.
-- HILP! 1: Daniel Dor presents his paper, 'Deriving the verbal
paradigm of Modern Hebrew: a constraint-based approach,' at the HILP!
conference at the University of Leiden (NL), 14-16 January 1993.
Congratulations, Daniel! Be sure to send us a postcard. Chris
Golston's paper, 'Tone Sandhi and the OCP in Ancient Greek,' has been
selected as an alternate. Former Stanford-ites who are also
presenting papers at this conference are Rene Kager, Jim Scobbie, and
K.P. Mohanan.
-- NWAV-XXI: John Rickford, Tom Wasow, Norma Mendoza-Denton and Juli
Espinoza are coauthors of a paper to be presented at NWAV this week on
variation in complements of the as-far-as construction, entitled
'Bridging the Gap, as far as Sociolinguistics and Syntax -0-.' Bonnie
McElhinny will also be there presenting her paper, '"I don't smile
much anymore": Affect, gender, and the discourse of Pittsburgh police
officers.' Tom Veatch will present his paper 'Racial Barriers and
Phonological Merger.' (Tom, busy guy, will then present 'A Theory of
Humor' at the Speech Communication Association Seminar on Humor and
Communication in Chicago on October 28th.)
-- IRCS and the School of Arts and Sciences are hosting the Second
Diachronic Generative Syntax Workshop at the University of
Pennsylvania, November 5-8 1992. There will be twelve papers
presented, each one followed by a commentary and a general discussion.
Ex-Stanfordite Andrew Garrett will serve as commentator for Ann
Taylor's paper, 'The Change from Verb Final to Verb Medial Word Order
in Ancient Greek.'
-- The 22nd Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL '92) will be held
this weekend, October 16-18, 1992, at the Doubletree Hotel, Tuscon,
Arizona, featuring 'Russian Psych Verbs and Refining the UTAH' by
Tracy King.
-/-/-/ CALL FOR PAPERS /-/-/-
-- EUROSLA CONFERENCE: Call for papers for the Third Annual EUROSLA
conference, sponsored by the European Second Language Association:
June 17-20, 1993, Sofia, Bulgaria. Please submit abstracts and future
correspondence to
Professor-Doctor Andrei Danchev
University of Sofia
Faculty of Classical and Modern Languages
15 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd
Sofia 1000 BULGARIA
(359) 2-431291; fax (359) 2-463589
For any further information about EUROSLA, please contact Dr. Vera
Regan, French Department, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin
4, Ireland. email: vmregan@irlearn.ucd.ie. Fax: (353) 1-269-4409
-- 2nd Annual Stanford Interdisciplinary Symposium in the Arts:
Following the resounding response to last year's 'Visualizing the
Body,' the Stanford Art Department is sponsoring another symposium on
the arts. The aim is to encourage interdisciplinary graduate research
working with visual materials. This year the theme is 'Images of
Death.' Graduate students from all departments of the university are
invited to submit one page proposals for 20-minute presentations of
research, performance, film or reading on this theme. Support is
available for projects which involve special audio-visual equipment.
Please submit proposals to Elizabeth Hutchinson, Art Department
(Stanford 2018) by December 10th.
-/-/-/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM /-/-/-
The colloquium committee wishes to remind everyone that there will be
no happy hour this week due to conflicting conferences (NELS, NWAV,
and WECOL), and in light of that, the colloquium is also cancelled.
Next week (Oct. 23) Janet Fodor will speak on problems of parameter
setting. Watch this space for an abstract of this talk.
-/-/-/ WORD OF THE WEEK /-/-/-
This week, the official department buzzword is 'ulotrichous.' Please
use it every chance you get this week. If you can't think of anything
you can describe with this word, you might try looking in the
department refrigerator at some of those leftover lunches that have
long since gone to their reward... (although, in all honesty, your
editor could also be described as ulotrichous.)
-/-/-/ GRANTS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /-/-/-
LUCE FELLOWSHIPS IN ASIA: The Luce Scholars Program sends a select
number of interested college graduates annually to East or Southeast
Asia for an 11-month internship. The Luce program is unique in that
it is not aimed at Asian specialists. The Foundation's aim is to
broaden the insights of a small number of America's future
professional leaders-- doctors, lawyers, educators, artists, writers,
legislators, journalists, etc.-- in ways that will have a significant
impact on American understanding of and relations with Asia.
Applicants must be American citizens with at least a bachelor's degree
by September 1, 1993 and under 30 years of age. Applicants should
have a record of outstanding achievement, particularly in their chosen
field, and evidence of superior leadership capabilities. Applicants
are ineligible if they have an academic concentration or a professed
career interest in Asian affers, or if they have already had
significant exposure to East or Southeast Asia. Stanford Deadline:
Monday, November 2, 1992. For further information and application
forms, contact
Kim Hoskins, Institute for International Studies
200 Encina Hall, Stanford 6055. (725-2564)
(see the Fellowships Binder for more information)
-/-/-/ TRUE LINGUISTS /-/-/-
Overheard in actual linguistics classes:
(Anonymity kept for security reasons)
'Hayes now attempts to cling to Ito.'
'This is going to be one of those rare moments when I tell you
something.'
>From the annual report of the Linguistic Society of America, in the
LSA Bulletin: 'As of December 1991, the Linguistic Society had 6,678
active members with good addresses.' (For you others, you might take a
look at the following job announcements...)
-/-/-/ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /-/-/-
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-- Ohio State University. Tenure-track position at the assistant
professor level in the Department of English, to begin in September
1993. Specialization in phonology, sociolinguistics, and American
English dialects. Experience in ESL/EFL or textual studies also
desireable. Interviews will be held at the annual meeting of the
Modern Language Association in New York, December27-30, 1992. Send
letter and CV to
Professor James Phelan
New Personell Committee, Department of English
Ohio State University
412 Denney Hall
164 W. 17th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1370.
(EEO/AA)
-- Carleton College invites applications for a visiting leave
replacement position in the Linguistics Program. Candidates should
have expertise in at least one of the following areas: theoretical
syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology. The appointee will be
invited to contribute to the Linguistics Program's participation in
one or more academic departments such as Philosophy, Psychology,
English and Sociology. Very strong preference to be given to
candidates who have demonstrated excellence in teaching talented
undergraduates. The appointment will be for Winter and Spring
academic terms beginning January 1, 1994 and extending through June
11, 1994. Normal teaching load is two courses during each ten-week
term. Rank and salary will be commensurate with the appointee's
qualifications. Application deadline is December 1, 1992. Please
send letter of application, describing teaching program and research
interests, and CV to
Michael Flynn
Linguistics Program, Carleton College
Northfield, MN 55057
Candidates will be notified shortly thereafter if further application
materials are requested. Interviews may be conducted at the LSA
meeting in January 1993. EEO/AA
-- The Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages seeks applicants
for a new tenure-track assistant professorship in Turkish language and
literature. Applicants may be specialized in any area or period of
literature, although preference will be given to specialists in
medieval or modern periods. Duties will include teaching modern
language plus a combination of literature and/or culture courses at
the undergraduate and graduate levels. Candidates must have native or
near-native proficiency in Turkish and English, teaching experience,
and completed a Ph.D. in Turkish, Near Eastern Studies, Islamics, or
Comparative Literature. The application deadline is January 1, 1993.
Preliminary interviews will be held at the Middle East Studies
Association conference in Portland, Oregon in October. Candidates
must submit a letter of application and vita and have three letters of
recommendation sent to
Robert E. Hegel, Chair
Asian & Near Eastern Languages & Literatures
Campus Box 1111
Washington University
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
(EEO/AA)
(A NOTE ON REDUNDANCY: Don't forget to check the jobs-binder in the
Greenberg Room (linguistics office) for fuller descriptions of these
and other jobs.)
-/-/-/ INSTA-PRIZE /-/-/-
To claim this week's insta-prize, simply be the first person to tell
me via e-mail what the next word in this series is, and why:
blood, sight, world, estate, collumn, sense...
-/-/-/ FINAL SCORE /-/-/-
The Sharks dropped out of the ranks of the undefeated on Saturday
night in a 6-3 loss to the Detroit Redwings at the Cow Palace. The
Redwings' superior size and greater experience prevailed over the
smaller, scrappier Sharks (2-1/1-1/3-1 by period), though the game was
at least partially decided by the amazingly bad calls of ref Don
Koharski. As one official was quoted as saying, '[Koharski] was in
deep yogurt up north for threatening two players... so the NHL sent
him south to mess up this game.'
(Late-Breaking score: The Sharks lost to the LA Kings on Tuesday
night, 2-1.)
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-/-/-/ CONSERVE DISK SPACE /-/-/-
So you may delete your copy after you've read it (or, if you prefer,
before you've read it), the Sesquipedalian Weekly Herald is stored
online both at Stanford (in directory /user/linguistics/Sesquip), and
at Berkeley (in the directory /usr/pub.) The most current issue of
the Herald can be found by typing 'help quip'.
'The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history.
I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this
century. I didn't live in this century.'
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
(The New Yorker, October 10, 1988, p.102)
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