Heinlein Readers Discussion Group Thursday 02-24-2005 9:00 P.M. EST Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster

Heinlein Readers Discussion Group
Thursday 02-24-2005 9:00 P.M. EST
Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster

Here Begin The Postings
From ???@0x00001592 Sun Jan 16 04:23:10 2005
“David M. Silver”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 01:23:10 -0800

The next meeting of the Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group will be held on
the following topic, at the following dates, times, and in the following
place.

Topic: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster
Dates and Times: Thursday, February 24, 2005, from 9 PM to
midnight, ET, and
Saturday, February 26, 2005, from 5 to 8 PM, ET
Place: “Heinlein Readers Group chat” on AIM

Reading Recommended: Time Enough for Love (mandatory), and
Stranger in a Strange Land (mandatory)

Chat Room Moderator: “agplusone,” i.e., me.

The two most fascinating and, conversely, the least discussed works in our chat group discussions these past five years are _Stranger in a Strange Land_ (1961, 1991 uncut version) and _Time Enough For Love_ (1973, twelve years after the original version of Stranger saw print).

That’s understandable. They’re both large books, full of characters, themes, ideas, and social criticism of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

They each also fail to fit into the neat category of SF novel; SIASL is a mammoth satire — a point that flew right past the heads of many of the would be flower children of the 1960s who made it a favorite and best seller of the times — and TEFL is a much-misunderstood form of written fiction that defies today’s conventions for fiction. It is known as an “anatomy,” a form disused today because of its complexity, but taking its name from Robert Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (first edition 1621). Readers critical of TEFL in 1973 concluded Robert Heinlein wasn’t dealing from a “full deck” anymore when they read it — they were wrong, he was dealing from a deck having more than the mere 52 cards they were used playing with. In any event, it appears as a pastiche of barely connected stories and fragments; but a not very close or hard reading reveal the stories are interconnected in more than merely being the tales of an “old man,” about his ramblings through the ages.

SIASL and TEFL also have a direct connection with the theme we just ‘finished’ in our discussion of Glory Road and the “Most Mammoth Hoax in History.” Stranger is, among other things, a satire of 20th century western viewpoints of sex and love; and TEFL is an examination of “love” from as many perspectives as there are “barely connected stories and fragments” in the anatomy Robert Heinlein wrote it to be.

We’ve plenty time enough to read, more than a month, nearly forty days in fact, enough to flood the land with rain; and plenty of time to dig your copies “out of storage.”

If, after you look through your boxes, you find you need a new copy of TEFL, you may use this link to order one:

http://tinyurl.com/5va8j

If you need a new copy of the 1991 uncut edition of SIASL, use this link:

http://tinyurl.com/3oc2x

Both those links will give the Heinlein Society a few pennies in referral fees.

But there’s one more thing: TEFL begins with one of the most famous lines in SF history:

“As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the
window looked around, ‘Who the hell are you?'”
— Prelude, chapter I, page 23, Putnam hard cover

“Door … dilated”? We’re not in Kansas, Toto. This must be that new-fangled world of ‘scientifiction’ that we’ve heard about. Expect a little discussion about unusual word usage, perhaps semantics, maybe linguistics, and how Robert Heinlein used all of them, as well as the more common writer’s bag of tricks to accomplish all he did. Be prepared to add your two bits. Nothing is unimportant if it’s said in our reading group posts and chats; and everyone you post will be appreciated.

We’ve been asked to do a couple panels this year, at a con over Easter which is working on the theme of word usage, on his mastery with words in SF written by Robert Heinlein. What we discuss will help make our panels remarkable and entertaining.

We’ve found that the more discussion we generate by posts and replies before the actual chat meeting, the better the chats can be. Please don’t hesitate to comment, reply, and raise other issues on the discussion of the theme of sexuality, and related themes of marriage, divorce, etc., raised by the stories _Stranger in a Strange Land_, _Time Enough for Love_ and other Heinlein writings. If you see something in these stories you think unusual or noteworthy in word usage, comment on that as well. The more comments, the better.

I’m looking forward to seeing you on February 24th, and in these pre-meeting posts.

—
David M. Silver

The Heinlein Society

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td

From ???@0x00000AC5 Sun Jan 16 16:40:06 2005
“Dr. Rufo”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:40:06 GMT

David M. Silver wrote:

< snip >

> But there’s one more thing: TEFL begins with one of the most famous
> lines in SF history:
>
> “As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the
> window looked around, ‘Who the hell are you?'”
> — Prelude, chapter I, page 23, Putnam hard cover
>
> “Door … dilated”? We’re not in Kansas, Toto. This must be that
> new-fangled world of ‘scientifiction’ that we’ve heard about.

For the sake of throwing in the first stone, David:
It should be noted that the line you’ve quoted above is an example of RAH ‘filing the serial numbers’ off his own (earlier) work.

The ‘first appearance’ of the line you cite is at the beginning of ‘Beyond this Horizon’:

He punched the door with a code combination, and awaited
face check. It came promptly; the door dilated, and a voice inside
said, “Come in, Felix.”

Is there, perhaps, another motive (motif) present?

He starts this work with a verbal echo of what you (and others) rightly call ‘one of the most famous lines in SF history.’ Do you think it’s a valid position (after reading and re-reading the book) to suggest that the Old Man is doing this in order to provide a verbal ‘signal’ foreshadowing that there’s ‘something else’ (beyond a story) that he’s planning for us? Perhaps, since it recalls an earlier time in his work, he’s suggesting he’s about to re-visit or re-construe some previous position(s).

Rufe
From ???@0x00000531 Sun Jan 16 21:04:06 2005
(BPRAL22169)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 17 Jan 2005 02:04:06 GMT Dr. Rufo

>Perhaps, since it recalls an
>earlier time in his work, he’s suggesting he’s about to re-visit or
>re-construe some previous position(s).

He may have been positioning himself — that line is so often quoted as the paradigmatic example of sf exposition, and in particular as the kind of thing RAH taught his colleagues about the technique of science fiction. This huge roman a tiroirs had a lot to teach people — though they apparently were no longer interested (or maybe _as_ interested).

At a guess, IWFNE had passed over a lot of peoples’ heads — and I mean a LOT. He may have felt it necessary to use a 2×4. It’s been known to happen.

Bill
From ???@0x00000A60 Mon Jan 17 00:53:24 2005
“David M. Silver”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday,
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:53:24 -0800 In article, (BPRAL22169) wrote:

> Dr. Rufo
>
> >Perhaps, since it recalls an
> >earlier time in his work, he’s suggesting he’s about to re-visit or
> >re-construe some previous position(s).
>
> He may have been positioning himself — that line is so often quoted as the
> paradigmatic example of sf exposition, and in particular as the kind of thing
> RAH taught his colleagues about the technique of science fiction. This huge
> roman a tiroirs had a lot to teach people — though they apparently were no
> longer interested (or maybe _as_ interested).
>

The notion that a change in the Arts had occurred in the 1960s and that narrative need/should not follow the linearity of a “river,” that models of writing can adapt or follow such forms as “l’arbre” (a tree), “l’epi” (a stalk), or “des tiroirs” (drawers in a bureau) is something that was quite avant garde in 1973. Some Frenchman named Georges Perec had only started talking about it six years earlier in his article “Ecriture et mass-media,”[“Writing and the Mass Media”] maintaining that these interruptions within writing were worthwhile, and necessary, “le simultane et le discontinu” (the simultaneous and the discontinuous) as he called them.

> At a guess, IWFNE had passed over a lot of peoples’ heads — and I mean a LOT.
> He may have felt it necessary to use a 2×4. It’s been known to happen.
> Bill

So as we rattle around in the drawers of this bureau that is Time Enough For Love (or the pigeonholes of a writer’s desk, which I think is a more appropro figure), what were the missed points in IWFNE that Heinlein felt he now had to go back and use a 2 x 4 to drive home, Bill?

—
David M. Silver

The Heinlein Society

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td

From ???@0x00000584 Mon Jan 17 15:56:37 2005
(BPRAL22169)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 17 Jan 2005 20:56:37 GMT

David Silver

>what were the missed points in IWFNE that Heinlein
>felt he now had to go back and use a 2 x 4 to drive home, Bill?

While I wouldn’t want to foreclose discussion of the individual points, I would want to start at a much more fundamental level — the context in which the book was written. It appeared at a time when The New Wave was defining the cutting edge of science fiction, and it seems to me that RAH may have done what Frank Lloyd Write did 40 years earlier when his students excitedly pointed out the new International style to him — decide to take on the principles of the new school and show them how it ought to be done, if they were going to do it that way. In FLW’s case, we got Fallingwater; in RAH’s we got IWFNE.

Bill
From ???@0x00000E4D Sun Jan 16 23:43:26 2005
“David M. Silver”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:43:26 -0800 In article, “Dr. Rufo” wrote:

> David M. Silver wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
> > But there’s one more thing: TEFL begins with one of the most famous
> > lines in SF history:
> >
> > “As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the
> > window looked around, ‘Who the hell are you?'”
> > — Prelude, chapter I, page 23, Putnam hard cover
> >
> > “Door … dilated”? We’re not in Kansas, Toto. This must be that
> > new-fangled world of ‘scientifiction’ that we’ve heard about.
>
> For the sake of throwing in the first stone, David:
> It should be noted that the line you’ve quoted above is an example
> of RAH ‘filing the serial numbers’ off his own (earlier) work.
>
> The ‘first appearance’ of the line you cite is at the beginning of
> ‘Beyond this Horizon’:
> He punched the door with a code combination, and awaited
> face check. It came promptly; the door dilated, and a voice inside
> said, “Come in, Felix.”
>

Very nice pickup, Ruff! Why would Heinlein, though, want to remind his audience of out of whose voice these words are coming? He’s really rubbing it in, isn’t he, already having revived “the Senior” from one of his better appreciated pieces of long fiction, “Methuselah’s Children.”

[What’s the word count on the two versions this one, btw, Bill? Aren’t we getting into a retrospective category for Nippon 2007 that wasn’t awarded with the revised 1957 ((C)1958) version as we did with _”If This Goes On …”_? Loncon I in London, UK, seems to have awarded only three, for professional and fan magazines. Neither novel, nor novella, nor novelette, seem to have been awarded. Of course, _The Stars My Destination_ by Alfred Bester, came to press that year.]

> Is there, perhaps, another motive (motif) present?
>

Perhaps. But what?

> He starts this work with a verbal echo of what you (and others)
> rightly call ‘one of the most famous lines in SF history.’ Do you
> think it’s a valid position (after reading and re-reading the book)
> to suggest that the Old Man is doing this in order to provide a
> verbal ‘signal’ foreshadowing that there’s ‘something else’ (beyond
> a story) that he’s planning for us? Perhaps, since it recalls an
> earlier time in his work, he’s suggesting he’s about to re-visit or
> re-construe some previous position(s).
>
> Rufe

What position? Might it be something out of _Beyond this Horizon_ as well as Methuselah’s Children? In the case of BtH, Felix didn’t care to breed, didn’t he? Was something said about “love” or “sex” in that novel?

—
David M. Silver

The Heinlein Society

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td

From ???@0x00000539 Mon Jan 17 16:00:28 2005
(BPRAL22169)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 17 Jan 2005 21:00:28 GMT David Silver

> [What’s the word count on the two versions this one, btw, Bill? Aren’t
>we getting into a retrospective category for Nippon 2007 that wasn’t
>awarded with the revised 1957 ((C)1958) version as we did with _”If This
>Goes On …”_?

Possibly — the book was expanded from about 55,000 words to about 68,000 words in 1947 and 1948 (it was originally purchased by Shasta to be part of the five-volume history of the future series, but Shasta never brought it out. After Shasta crashed and burned, Gnome brought it out in 1958 (without a copyright date). So we’ve actually got 3 dates to play around with — though 1958 seems the most likely for a retrohugo.

Bill
From ???@0x000008C8 Mon Jan 17 01:04:11 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 01:04:11 -0500

Apropos of doors dilating or otherwise opening automatically, there’s a lovely blooper from the original Star Trek series. Apparently, while the “automatic” sliding doors wouldn’t raise an eyebrow today, they were actually manual and operated by a prop man.

Mr. Spock strode off the bridge, logical as ever, and the prop man missed his cue. Nimoy walked straight into the closed door, and the next sight was of a whimpering Vulcan clutching his nose.
From ???@0x00000AFA Mon Jan 17 03:14:46 2005
“David M. Silver”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:14:46 -0800 In article, Howard Berkowitz wrote:

> > David M. Silver wrote:
> >
> > < snip >
> >
> > > But there’s one more thing: TEFL begins with one of the most famous
> > > lines in SF history:
> > >
> > > “As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out
> > > the
> > > window looked around, ‘Who the hell are you?'”
> > > — Prelude, chapter I, page 23, Putnam hard cover
> > >
> > > “Door … dilated”? We’re not in Kansas, Toto. This must be that
> > > new-fangled world of ‘scientifiction’ that we’ve heard about.
> >
> Apropos of doors dilating or otherwise opening automatically, there’s a
> lovely blooper from the original Star Trek series. Apparently, while the
> “automatic” sliding doors wouldn’t raise an eyebrow today, they were
> actually manual and operated by a prop man.
>
> Mr. Spock strode off the bridge, logical as ever, and the prop man
> missed his cue. Nimoy walked straight into the closed door, and the next
> sight was of a whimpering Vulcan clutching his nose.

I actually think about that story, or a variant of it that I heard, every time I read of “door dilated” today. The variant I heard was James T. Kirk walked toward one too fast, causing the prop master to pull down on the lever too hard which broke off the broom handle or whatever it was they were using as a lever to move the door in its track. Well, anyway, Kirk got his first Golden Globe tonight. Good for him. The organizers evidently didn’t think he’d win the vote, so they had him (and Angelica Huston, who won one herself, also) seated so far out away from the stage in the back forty that it took him forever to walk to the stage to accept the presentation.

—
David M. Silver

The Heinlein Society

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td

From ???@0x0000188E Mon Jan 17 09:57:00 2005
“David M. Silver”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 06:57:00 -0800 In article, “David M. Silver” wrote:

> We’ve been asked to do a couple panels this year, at a con over Easter
> which is working on the theme of word usage, on his mastery with words
> in SF written by Robert Heinlein. What we discuss will help make our
> panels remarkable and entertaining.

On that topic, the two panels to be given are divided: one on linguistics and one on usage.

Reading the first few chapters of _Stranger in a Strange Land_ with a view to seeing how the author uses and works with the problems of language can be enlightening.

The story opens in “chapter i” from the speaking voice of the omniscient annalist, the narrator-researcher’s voice, relating the cold, dry history of man’s first expedition to Mars; but with a point of view and tone that sparkles at times: E.g., “The institute stiffly offered to return its one dollar fee. In the meantime, a computer programmer whose name is not recorded had the machines hunt … “; and “Captain Michael Brant … seems to have had an inside track … someone who was willing to look up for him the names of female volunteers who might (with him) complete a crew, and then pair his name with these and run trial problems through the machine to determine whether or not a possible combination would be acceptable. This would account for his … proposing marriage to … a horse-faced spinster semantician nine years his senior.”

It’s almost a BBC or PBS or NPR television or radio special speaking to us, narrated in near perfect grammar by one of those trusted, reassuringly familiar voices they use.

Then, in “chapter iii” we get the “fly-on-the-wall” narrator’s voice watching the secret meeting of government ministers with the ship’s captain who returns Valentine Michael Smith to earth. All the nuanced wrinkles of politicians among themselves show show up to the fly’s multiple eyes, to be recorded and described to us by his voice; and all the smoothing oil of Minister Douglas’ avuncular, politician’s voice is fully projected over the speakers in our mind as he lubricates and finesses a dispute between members of his cabinet over how soon the scientists get turned loose on the Man from Mars. I read it aloud to myself this time: and forgive me, I kept using a certain deep voice for Douglas and wanting to add a point or two: “… it would take a million dollars. I know where we could get a million dollars. But, that would be …. wrong.”

Enough of that fun. The second scene in chapter iii begins the other kind of fun — the problems of linguistics, or semantics as Heinlein probably thought of them. An alien sits in a hospital room, exhausted by high gravity that crushes him and, in successive scenes, tries to cope with sounds uttered by his newly-nested with forms of mankind that have only imprecise referents to his mind.

This is the first major problem of semantics and linguistics that faces this fondling raised by aliens.

“Good morning. How do you feel?”

Michael was raised by Martians. Mowgli by wolves. And another, E.R. Burroughs’ Tarzan by great apes. Compare what is done here by these three writers: Heinlein, Kipling and Burroughs. The problem is understanding an alien language.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read _Tarzan of the Apes_, but iirc the young orphaned Lord Greystoke learns ape-speak quickly enough from Kala, who adopts and nurses him — language at his mother’s breast so to speak, but about age eight or ten or so spends much time in the abandoned cabin of his true parents associating letters that he calls “bugs” and their combinations: words in primers he finds, with pictures in those primers which look like him (“boy”) or things he understands. He slowly learns to read these “bugs” as he calls the letters, and can write by about age twelve. He doesn’t know how to utter the words and concepts he learns to read, however. That’s pretty much it for his language education until John Clayton, Esmeralda and Jane show up.

In _The Jungle Book_, in “Tiger-Tiger!” when Mowgli leaves the pack and joins the village, Kipling doesn’t spend anything close to the time spent on the problem by Burroughs. Mowgli, who speaks the languages of the pack also from the breast of his adopted wolf mother, and is able to communicate with wolf, bear, panther, snake and tiger, as well as other jungle animals, on very little instruction (from Messua, his to-be-human-mother) is soon able to speak sufficiently well to humans he has joined. He observes to himself that “What is the good of a man if he does not understand man’s talk? Now I am silly and dumb as a man would be in the jungle. I must speak their talk.” She simply points at objects, utters their names, and Mowgli learns. In about a paragraph.

Pretty slick for both Burrough’s and Kipling’s orphans. Not so convincing, however, to anyone past the age of eight.

The problem is a bit more difficult than that. Consider the problem with Valentine Michael that begins with this utterance:

“Feel like food?”

What do you think, as you read the first part of SIASL, about Heinlein’s handling of the language problem, as well as his use of language in displaying his writing skills?

—
David M. Silver

The Heinlein Society

“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt.(jg), USN, R’td

From ???@0x00000A4E Mon Jan 17 12:37:19 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 17 Jan 2005 17:37:19 GMT “David M. Silver” wrote in news::

> In article ,
> “David M. Silver” wrote:

(snip)

> The problem is a bit more difficult than that. Consider the problem
> with Valentine Michael that begins with this utterance:
>
> “Feel like food?”
>
> What do you think, as you read the first part of SIASL, about
> Heinlein’s handling of the language problem, as well as his use of
> language in displaying his writing skills?
>

Not exactly in line with the main topic, but, as I started re-reading the uncut version last night, (this is only my second time on that one), I was somewhat surprised to note that the first expedition had included a semantician, which made me think that they were ‘expecting’ to find alien life there, or at least were covering the possibility.

Now to the main point. The underlying key to understanding what language is about is that it is totally driven by ‘culture’, (whatever that means). Thus Michael is trying to grasp, at this point, a new culture totally filtered by his existing culture as expressed by his existing language. Now, a different culture, even one that is related to ones own by derivation from a common source, can be partially absorbed as one learns a new language in an academic sense, but that has its limitations, he will only be able to really absorb the new culture as a combination of learning more or the new language, building the relationships between the new concepts in his new ‘linguistic map’, and experiencing the culture directly.

Of course, this, I think, is probably self evident to most readers, and is a major sub-theme of the entire book. So I guess that I haven’t said anything new.

—
For anyone in the neighborhood, join me at Chattacon,
Jan 21,22,23 in Chattanooga.
I’ll be working the Blood Drive.

From ???@0x00001834 Wed Jan 19 13:33:37 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 19 Jan 2005 18:33:37 GMT “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone- :

> In article ,
> “David M. Silver” wrote:

(snip)

> What do you think, as you read the first part of SIASL, about Heinlein’s
> handling of the language problem, as well as his use of language in
> displaying his writing skills?
>

Although this thread hasn’t yet generated much in the way of postings, it has strongly resonated in me to the point that I am in the process of making notes towards writing a paper on the subject, tentatively titled “Heinlein’s use of Linguistic Theories”, although that might boil down to a single theory. I’ve got to go back and re-read all of his work looking for references to check that out.

This work complements what I posted previously in that that post dealt with ‘Culture and Language’ whereas this article will probably deal mostly with Thought and Language, two different, but related subjects.

What I have noted so far is outlined in the following:

=========================================================
Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
“Yes?”
“Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true
speech’?”
“Uh, why no, not exactly.”
“Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he can’t
think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all, you can
believe him.

In this exchange, Heinlein appears to be asserting the ‘strong version’ of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis[1], namely, that thought is not possible without symbols. And some passages in SIASL seem to reflect this also[2]. And this is even more emphasized by the whole concept that by learning and using Martian, the humans could learn to do things, telekinesis, etc, that could not be done in English because there were no words for it[3].

{What do you think? Is this true or not true? How could it be proven or disproven?}

Notes:

[1] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis was the name given posthumously to Whorf’s ‘Principle of Linguistic Relativity’. According to at least one linguist, http://www.enformy.com/dma-Chap7.htm who urges his readers to actually read Whorf, considers that Whorf himself, unlike what von Humboldt, von Herder and Sapir may have believed, never held this extreme view, but insisted on the duality of thought and language, that both influenced the other, rather than being as it has been described, “a ‘prisonhouse’ view of language in which one’s thinking and behavior is completely and utterly shaped by one’s language.” Discounting this, however, one must take into account that the 1950s publication of Whorf’s book, _Language, Thought and Action_ was possibly Heinlein’s introduction to the concept and he would seem to have certainly gotten the impression that the ‘strong version’ was what Whorf was advocating.

For me it is interesting to note a parallel between what happened to Whorf’s reputation and that of Heinlein. When the followers of Chomsky began to take over linguistics from the former anthropological/structuralist linquists, they began to downplay Whorf, and even worse. to denigrate him because he didn’t fit their worldview, in many cases, without having read what he had written but depending on the works of other like-minded critics for their inspiration, much like what Heinlein has had to endure with the attacks on ‘Starship Troopers’.

[2] {More quotes to go here}

[3] “Good. Mike, I cannot lift even one ash tray without touching it,”
Smith looked startled. “You cannot?”
“No. Can you teach me??
“Yes, Jubal. You—” Smith stopped speaking, looked embarrassed.
“I again have not words. I am sorry. But I will read and I will read and I
will read, until I find the words. Then I will teach my brother.”
“Don’t set your heart on it.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Mike, don’t be disappointed if you do not ind the right words. You may not
find them in the English language.”
Smith considered this quite a long time. “Then I will teach my brother the
language of my nest.”

=====================================================

{That’s it for the moment. I just started thinking about this after reading 120 or so pages, so I am in process of re-reading them and making appropriate notes as I go. More to come, I hope.}

{I am also tentatively thinking about a companion paper sometime down the road dealing with the other part of this thread, i.e. Heinlein’s use of words etc.}

Ok, people, let be about it. Even if you don’t care for my approach, y’all ought to be able to say something about the ‘usage’ aspect.

As a prime for the pump, I’ll throw out this infamous quote which was made on this newsgroup a few years back.

“Then, he’s not an anarchist at all. He’s not even a revolutionary. He’s a
self-appointed societal superego, a sublime moralist, a judge without a
bench other than the one he erects for himself and looks down his nose at
the rest of the world. He’s old Bob: **lotsa words that look pretty but
don’t always hold water**[Emphasis mine].”
—
David Wright
If you haven’t joined the Society, Why Not?
The Heinlein Estate is again matching new member
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From ???@0x00000850 Wed Jan 19 18:00:58 2005
Chris Zakes
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 23:00:58 GMT

On 19 Jan 2005 18:33:37 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser caused “David Wright Sr.”to write:

(snippage)

>In this exchange, Heinlein appears to be asserting the ‘strong version’ of
>the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis[1], namely, that thought is not possible without
>symbols. And some passages in SIASL seem to reflect this also[2].

FWIW, he says something similar in “Gulf”. In the scene where Joe is studying telepathy with the Homo Novis group, the one time he *does* achieve a reasonalbe telepathic link, his first comment is “It comes out as words!” or something to that effect, and his teacher explains that you have to have concepts before you can have coherent thoughts.

-Chris Zakes Texas

A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close
quarters ever devised… A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded,
it is always ready.

-Oscar Gordon in “Glory Road” by Robert Heinlein

From ???@0x00000C6A Thu Jan 20 11:14:15 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 20 Jan 2005 16:14:15 GMT Chris Zakes wrote in news::

> On 19 Jan 2005 18:33:37 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser caused
> “David Wright Sr.” to write:

(snip)

>
> FWIW, he says something similar in “Gulf”. In the scene where Joe is
> studying telepathy with the Homo Novis group, the one time he *does*
> achieve a reasonalbe telepathic link, his first comment is “It comes
> out as words!” or something to that effect, and his teacher explains
> that you have to have concepts before you can have coherent thoughts.
>

Thanks. That’s another good reference. I’m not quite sure precisely how it relates viv-a-vis the SWH. I’ll have to do some thinking on it. Tom and Pat had similar experiences in _Time For The Stars_, IIRC.

Since Michael *knew*(memorized) the definitions of many words, but understood few, it could be argued that this would seem to go against the *strong version* of SWH. However, we have to take into account that he *already* had a language, Martian, and his ‘grokking’ of English was a process of mapping his thoughts, (in Martian), into English. The fact that Jubal said that there might ‘not be words in English’ would again support the ‘strong version’.

This aspect of the ‘strong version’ basically says that some things said in one language simply cannot be translated into another. I seem to recall that Jubal says something like this again further down the line when talking to Mahmoud about Arabic. Personally, I tend to think that, to an extent, this is true in that there are often no ‘simple’ one-to-one translations, but that one-to-many translations can be made which can them be ‘coded’ into a new symbol or neologism.

This is most conspicuously shown by the word ‘grok’ itself. Nowhere does Heinlein give this an explicit definition except in its most basic origin of ‘to drink’, but every reader comes to ‘grok’ the concept through its use and contexts. True, every reader probably has a slightly different definition/connotation for the term, but every reader could probably apply ‘to understand/to comprehend’ and other related English words to his definition.

—
David Wright
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The Heinlein Estate is again matching new member
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From ???@0x00001518 Wed Jan 19 22:36:55 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:36:55 GMT “David Wright Sr.” wrote in message news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4…

> As a prime for the pump, I’ll throw out this infamous quote which was made
> on this newsgroup a few years back.
>
> “Then, he’s not an anarchist at all. He’s not even a revolutionary. He’s a
> self-appointed societal superego, a sublime moralist, a judge without a
> bench other than the one he erects for himself and looks down his nose at
> the rest of the world. He’s old Bob: **lotsa words that look pretty but
> don’t always hold water**[Emphasis mine].”
> —
> David Wright

Well. Whoever said that misspelled “lots of.” Sorry about deleting the rest of your stuff since it’s not bad stuff but it all sure puts me in mind of the last discussion group topic: some hoax or another, who knows what or whether the hoax was intentional mischaracterization of business as usual as a hoax with an eye to just rocking the boat. The premise that started that discussion, from the book, was that there was no prostitution anywhere but on Earth.

In addition to trying to address the hoax (non)issue, I questioned the premise since it seemed to me to be more than quite a stretch to ask a reader to swallow it. It’s like saying there’s no “employment” or “employers” anywhere but on Earth. It’s unfathomable that in the fictional 20 universes, nobody’d ever considered doing something else with his/her body than toil at an assembly line. Here, the premise, I contend, is similarly flawed because the examples used are such things as the levitation of objects and the notion that it’s possible to have language without lies.

What was it Anne said when Jubal asked about the color of the neighbor’s house? Did she say, “It’s white on this side, boss”(?) Did she say, “It appears to be white on this side, boss”(?) Did she say, “It appears to me to be mostly white on this side, boss”(?) Or, was it, “Its apparent, predominant color, as of this date and time, is what I’ve been made to understand most people of ordinary perception, were they so similarly situated as I, would articulate to be ‘white’; however, there exist not only differences among the perceptions of people but influences on the object scrutinized to the extent that you may receive just as reliable report that such ‘color’ is another, boss”(?) If Jill glanced over to see for herself and her mind registered, “beige,” did Anne lie? Would Jill think Anne had lied? Isn’t one of the possibilities that Anne had made an intentional misrepresentation, for whatever reason?

If dragons speaking in their own language tell it like it is and other dragons have a different recollection of the event, what’s the dragon term that explains and quantifies that difference under all circumstances? No dragon’s ever lied for any reason? If that’s the case, no dragon’s ever told the truth since there can’t be any truth without something with which to compare it.

As for levitation, I would decline to flatter the notion by its discussion. I’m pissed off ever since Uri Geller stayed over that one night. Sure, he got Mickey’s hands moving again but there wasn’t a teaspoon in the house worth a damn.

In short, I don’t think that working from fantastic examples can yield credible analytical outcomes. It’s like the old adage that bad facts make bad law.

None of this is intended to discount that the phenomenologists may be onto something, prematurely and inadvertently, in their rambling examinations of thought and language and I grudgingly admit that playing around with anecdotal phenomena is more fun than the sterile ivory tower of behaviorism where I’d like it to be studied.

It’s old Bob, though. Always looking for credible answers and blowing right by the fact that there are too many steps being skipped, padding that in the styrofoam peanuts of wise-sounding, ad hoc homily and sending it FedEx out to the masses. You gotta admire a guy who can make a living that way.

LNC
From ???@0x00000C44 Thu Jan 27 15:22:01 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 27 Jan 2005 20:22:01 GMT “David Wright Sr.” wrote in news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:

> “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
> :

(snip)

Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
“Yes?”
“Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true speech’?”
“Uh, why no, not exactly.”
“Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
you can believe him.
>
> In this exchange, Heinlein appears to be asserting the ‘strong
> version’ of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis[1], namely, that thought is not
> possible without symbols. And some passages in SIASL seem to reflect
> this also[2]. And this is even more emphasized by the whole concept
> that by learning and using Martian, the humans could learn to do
> things, telekinesis, etc, that could not be done in English because
> there were no words for it[3].
>

Well, after doing a lot of research, I find that Heinlein’s ideas on this subject actually did come from Korzybski, although from what I have recently read about him, I find it difficult to believe that K was as dogmatic about this as Heinlein suggests in the quoted passage. (I admit, I am reading secondary sources. I last read _Science and Sanity_ more than 40 years ago. I plan on re-reading it after I’ve gone through a couple of other books).

It is not yet clear to me whether or not Whorf himself was influenced directly by Korzybski, although I suspect it likely as S&S was very popular at the time Whorf was writing. I have his book on order from inter-library loan so I’ll be able to find out for myself, I hope. Interestingly, Korzybski and Whorf were educated as engineers, as was Heinlein, which, I believe, could account for some of the resonance between the three.

BTW, S.I. Hayakawa, who played a role in “Over The Rainbow”(?) in _Expanded Universe_ was a popularizer of Korzybski, but according to a number of critics distorted his views.

—
David Wright
If you haven’t joined The Heinlein Society, Why Not?
The Heinlein Estate is again matching new member
registrations and fund raising up to $15,000
Make your new membership count twice!

From ???@0x00000B00 Fri Jan 28 08:25:41 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 13:25:41 GMT “David Wright Sr.” wrote in news:Xns95EB9C5236681nokvamli@130.133.1.4:

> “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
>
>> “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
>> :
>
> (snip)
>
> Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
> “Yes?”
> “Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true speech’?”
> “Uh, why no, not exactly.”
> “Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
> semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
> concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
> can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
> you can believe him.
>>
>

I found another reflection of this in _Farnham’s Freehold_. Ponse speaking to Hugh made some comment, (I forget exactly what at the moment), and then he said, “If I were speaking in protocol mode, you wouldn’t have been able to doubt that. I cannot lie”.

With respect to the main topic of this thread. he is able to subtly comment on the degraded state of the slave through his few examples of the speech that he is taught. “This one” is always used in place of “I” and the masters are always referenced in the third person. It is stated that terms exist which are always used “down” from master to slave and “up” from slave to master. Similar in spirit, if not in degree, to the use of ‘thou’ in a number of IE languages as it was once in English, and the different verbal ending in Russian used by females as opposed to males.

Heinlein is great in throwing out the subtle hints that cannabalism is practiced long before he actually brings it out in the open. Look for them yourself the next time you read it.

From ???@0x00001581 Fri Jan 28 10:10:25 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:10:25 -0500 In article, “David Wright Sr.” wrote:

> “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> news:Xns95EB9C5236681nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
>
> > “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> > news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
> >
> >> “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
> >> :
> >
> > (snip)
> >
> > Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
> > “Yes?”
> > “Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true speech’?”
> > “Uh, why no, not exactly.”
> > “Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
> > semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
> > concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
> > can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
> > you can believe him.
> >>
> >
>
> I found another reflection of this in _Farnham’s Freehold_. Ponse
> speaking to Hugh made some comment, (I forget exactly what at the
> moment), and then he said, “If I were speaking in protocol mode, you
> wouldn’t have been able to doubt that. I cannot lie”.

Did Heinlein ever comment on George Orwell? Another excellent example along these lines is with the explicit idea of NewSpeak in _1984_.

>
> With respect to the main topic of this thread. he is able to subtly
> comment on the degraded state of the slave through his few examples of
> the speech that he is taught. “This one” is always used in place of “I”
> and the masters are always referenced in the third person. It is stated
> that terms exist which are always used “down” from master to slave and
> “up” from slave to master. Similar in spirit, if not in degree, to the
> use of ‘thou’ in a number of IE languages as it was once in English, and
> the different verbal ending in Russian used by females as opposed to
> males.

Japanese, of course, goes far further in the use of honorifics, different words for the same concept based on one’s status (or gender, or age…) as well as various nonverbal communications such as the types and order of bowing. I’ve heard Americans in a quickie course on Japanese say they don’t want to bother with the honorifics, and, while my Japanese is very limited, you simply are not speaking intelligible Japanese without them.

he way “status” is used in Japanese, however, is, within the culture, less offensive than something of slave versus master. When one goes to the Confucian influence on State Shinto, one sees that the culture is built of obligations up and down. In commercial and other negotiations, the exchange of personal business cards is essential, because it helps establish the relative ranks of people in the various delegations. Amusingly, the more information on the card, the lower status. A card that reads “Tanaka Hiro, Assistant Design Engineer, 3rd section, 2nd Division, Automotive Department, Toyota Motors” is low status. The Emperor’s card, however, simply reads “Akihito.”

Again, please accept that my Japanese isn’t really conversational, although I understand more than I can speak. Nevertheless, even with that small amount, I find I behave differently in a Japanese context. While I don’t know enough Japanese to think in it, I can very easily accept the comment of native speakers that the status modifiers make social interaction much easier. Aside from the status modifiers, much of Japanese is relatively imprecise literally, requiring very high context for proper interpretation. In daily living, that imprecision allows great avoidance of embarrassment. Nonverbal mechanisms also are very important in the overall communications process — I was surprised when I started sensing the messages in grunts and pauses.

>
> Heinlein is great in throwing out the subtle hints that cannabalism is
> practiced long before he actually brings it out in the open. Look for
> them yourself the next time you read it.

From ???@0x00000E9A Fri Jan 28 12:05:44 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 17:05:44 GMT Howard Berkowitz wrote in news::

> In article , “David Wright Sr.”
> wrote:
>

(snip)

>> I found another reflection of this in _Farnham’s Freehold_. Ponse
>> speaking to Hugh made some comment, (I forget exactly what at the
>> moment), and then he said, “If I were speaking in protocol mode, you
>> wouldn’t have been able to doubt that. I cannot lie”.
>
> Did Heinlein ever comment on George Orwell? Another excellent example
> along these lines is with the explicit idea of NewSpeak in _1984_.

I am fairly certain that he did, but don’t recall where.

>>
>> With respect to the main topic of this thread. he is able to subtly
>> comment on the degraded state of the slave through his few examples
>> of the speech that he is taught. “This one” is always used in place
>> of “I” and the masters are always referenced in the third person. It
>> is stated that terms exist which are always used “down” from master
>> to slave and “up” from slave to master. Similar in spirit, if not in
>> degree, to the use of ‘thou’ in a number of IE languages as it was
>> once in English, and the different verbal ending in Russian used by
>> females as opposed to males.
>
> Japanese, of course, goes far further in the use of honorifics,
> different words for the same concept based on one’s status (or gender,
> or age…) as well as various nonverbal communications such as the
> types and order of bowing. I’ve heard Americans in a quickie course
> on Japanese say they don’t want to bother with the honorifics, and,
> while my Japanese is very limited, you simply are not speaking
> intelligible Japanese without them.
>
> The way “status” is used in Japanese, however, is, within the culture,
> less offensive than something of slave versus master. When one goes to
> the Confucian influence on State Shinto, one sees that the culture is
> built of obligations up and down. In commercial and other
> negotiations, the exchange of personal business cards is essential,
> because it helps establish the relative ranks of people in the various
> delegations. Amusingly, the more information on the card, the lower
> status. A card that reads “Tanaka Hiro, Assistant Design Engineer,
> 3rd section, 2nd Division, Automotive Department, Toyota Motors” is
> low status. The Emperor’s card, however, simply reads “Akihito.”

I am reminded of Thorby, who until he had picked up all of the 2,000 odd terms relating to kinship aboard Sisu, was afraid to say anything for fear of insulting his new kinfolk.

From ???@0x000007DE Fri Jan 28 15:27:30 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:27:30 -0500 In article, “David Wright Sr.” wrote:

> I am reminded of Thorby, who until he had picked up all of the 2,000 odd
> terms relating to kinship aboard Sisu, was afraid to say anything for
> fear of insulting his new kinfolk.

I can believe it. “Insulting” is especially appropriate with respect to Japanese, as some linguists say that most of the forms used as “thank you” have an underlying tone of resentment that “you force me to have an obligation of honor to you.” From ???@0x00000774 Fri Jan 28 17:52:58 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 22:52:58 GMT Howard Berkowitz wrote in news::

> In article , “David Wright Sr.”
> wrote:
>
>> I am reminded of Thorby, who until he had picked up all of the 2,000
>> odd terms relating to kinship aboard Sisu, was afraid to say anything
>> for fear of insulting his new kinfolk.
>
> I can believe it. “Insulting” is especially appropriate with respect
> to Japanese, as some linguists say that most of the forms used as
> “thank you” have an underlying tone of resentment that “you force me
> to have an obligation of honor to you.”
>

I believe that Jubal said that also in _Stranger In A Strange Land_ when speaking with Gillian.

From ???@0x00001092 Fri Jan 28 12:24:05 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 09:24:05 -0800 Howard Berkowitz wrote:

> In article, “David Wright Sr.”

> wrote:
>
> > “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> > news:Xns95EB9C5236681nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
> >
> > > “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> > > news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
> > >
> > >> “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
> > >> :
> > >
> > > (snip)
> > >
> > > Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
> > > “Yes?”
> > > “Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true
> > > speech’?”
> > > “Uh, why no, not exactly.”
> > > “Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
> > > semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
> > > concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
> > > can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
> > > you can believe him.
> > >>
> > >
> >
> > I found another reflection of this in _Farnham’s Freehold_. Ponse
> > speaking to Hugh made some comment, (I forget exactly what at the
> > moment), and then he said, “If I were speaking in protocol mode, you
> > wouldn’t have been able to doubt that. I cannot lie”.
>
> Did Heinlein ever comment on George Orwell? Another excellent example
> along these lines is with the explicit idea of NewSpeak in _1984_.
> >
> > With respect to the main topic of this thread. he is able to subtly

> > comment on the degraded state of the slave through his few examples of
> > the speech that he is taught. “This one” is always used in place of “I”
> > and the masters are always referenced in the third person. It is stated
> > that terms exist which are always used “down” from master to slave and
> > “up” from slave to master. Similar in spirit, if not in degree, to the
> > use of ‘thou’ in a number of IE languages as it was once in English, and
> > the different verbal ending in Russian used by females as opposed to
> > males.
>
> Japanese, of course, goes far further in the use of honorifics,
> different words for the same concept based on one’s status (or gender,
> or age…) as well as various nonverbal communications such as the types
> and order of bowing. I’ve heard Americans in a quickie course on
> Japanese say they don’t want to bother with the honorifics, and, while
> my Japanese is very limited, you simply are not speaking intelligible

> Japanese without them.
>
> The way “status” is used in Japanese, however, is, within the culture,
> less offensive than something of slave versus master.

Very much a matter of opinion. The treatment of women is especially offensive, imo. Also, one word: Ainu.

Will in New Haven
From ???@0x00000A99 Fri Jan 28 17:06:26 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:06:26 -0500 In article, “” wrote:

> Howard Berkowitz wrote:
> > In article, “David Wright Sr.”

> >
> > The way “status” is used in Japanese, however, is, within the
> culture,
> > less offensive than something of slave versus master.
>
> Very much a matter of opinion. The treatment of women is especially
> offensive, imo. Also, one word: Ainu.
>

I’m talking about language, not behavior. If I, a man, hand you a cup of tea, I am giving you cha. If Pix were to give it to you, it would be o-cha.

Literally, that means “honorable tea”, but, again in my limited listening understanding, the use of female forms of speech seemed not to have a connotation of inferiority, but no more than women having higher-pitched voices. Again, this is in Japan, being aware of body language and postures of respect.

There is no question about the glass ceiling being far lower, the routine acceptance of violent pornography (emphasis on the violent), or truly bizarre things like “sexual harassment hostess bars.”

Add Koreans and burakumin to the list with the Ainu.
From ???@0x00001366 Fri Jan 28 11:27:40 2005
Norman Bullen
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:27:40 GMT David Wright Sr. wrote:

> “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
> news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
>
>
>>”David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
>>:
>
>
> (snip)
>
> Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
> “Yes?”
> “Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true
> speech’?”
> “Uh, why no, not exactly.”
> “Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
> semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
> concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
> can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
> you can believe him.
>
>>In this exchange, Heinlein appears to be asserting the ‘strong
>>version’ of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis[1], namely, that thought is not
>>possible without symbols. And some passages in SIASL seem to reflect
>>this also[2]. And this is even more emphasized by the whole concept
>>that by learning and using Martian, the humans could learn to do
>>things, telekinesis, etc, that could not be done in English because
>>there were no words for it[3].
>>
>
>
> Well, after doing a lot of research, I find that Heinlein’s ideas on
> this subject actually did come from Korzybski, although from what I have
> recently read about him, I find it difficult to believe that K was as
> dogmatic about this as Heinlein suggests in the quoted passage. (I
> admit, I am reading secondary sources. I last read _Science and Sanity_
> more than 40 years ago. I plan on re-reading it after I’ve gone through
> a couple of other books).
>
> It is not yet clear to me whether or not Whorf himself was influenced
> directly by Korzybski, although I suspect it likely as S&S was very popular
> at the time Whorf was writing. I have his book on order from inter-library
> loan so I’ll be able to find out for myself, I hope. Interestingly,
> Korzybski and Whorf were educated as engineers, as was Heinlein, which, I
> believe, could account for some of the resonance between the three.
>
> BTW, S.I. Hayakawa, who played a role in “Over The Rainbow”(?) in _Expanded
> Universe_ was a popularizer of Korzybski, but according to a number of
> critics distorted his views.
>

For what it’s worth, here’s another author on the idea of language controlling thought patterns: this is from _Radiant_ by James Alan Gardner.

“The language was soft and beautiful–purposely designed that way. Three
centuries ago, the Unity’s founders created a private language…partly
to separate themselves from the Technocracy, partly as social
engineering. The structures of language influence the structures of
thought: not simplistically, but subtly. The way you’re trained to speak
predisposes you to patterns in the way you think. It isn’t that you’re
incapable of thinking in other ways; it’s just that you find some
thoughts easier to articulate than others. Also, growing children hear
more talk about easy-to-express topics than topics the language makes
difficult. Inevitably, this affects their social and intellectual
development–some thoughts are “normal” while others aren’t. By
constructing a new language with a certain philosophical slant, the
Unity had tried to make it harder for people to be bad citizens.”

A somewhat less restrictive rule than “Dragon speech” but similar and with some “explanation” of how it “works”.

Norm

—
To reply, change domain to an adult feline.

From ???@0x00000BFB Fri Jan 28 12:18:21 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 17:18:21 GMT Norman Bullen wrote in news:0KtKd.124$:

> David Wright Sr. wrote:
>
>> “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
>> news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
>>

(snip)
>
> For what it’s worth, here’s another author on the idea of language
> controlling thought patterns: this is from _Radiant_ by James Alan
> Gardner.
>
> “The language was soft and beautiful–purposely designed that way.
> Three centuries ago, the Unity’s founders created a private
> language…partly to separate themselves from the Technocracy, partly
> as social engineering. The structures of language influence the
> structures of thought: not simplistically, but subtly. The way you’re
> trained to speak predisposes you to patterns in the way you think. It
> isn’t that you’re incapable of thinking in other ways; it’s just that
> you find some thoughts easier to articulate than others. Also, growing
> children hear more talk about easy-to-express topics than topics the
> language makes difficult. Inevitably, this affects their social and
> intellectual development–some thoughts are “normal” while others
> aren’t. By constructing a new language with a certain philosophical
> slant, the Unity had tried to make it harder for people to be bad
> citizens.”
>
> A somewhat less restrictive rule than “Dragon speech” but similar and
> with some “explanation” of how it “works”.
>
> Norm
>

Thanks Norm. I haven’t read that one. This appears to be a reflection of the ‘weak version’ rather than Heinlein’s use of the ‘strong version’. Today very few linguists give any thought to the concept at all. They prefer to forget Korzybski and Whorf altogether or at most treat them as ‘ignorant engineers’. However, it is interesting to note that the entire concept of ‘political correct’ speech has its origins in the notion of the ‘strong version’. e.g. “women are looked down on” because of the “male dominated language” we have inherited.

From ???@0x000013EF Sat Jan 29 11:37:11 2005
Fred J. McCall
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 16:37:11 GMT Norman Bullen wrote:

:David Wright Sr. wrote:
:
:> “David Wright Sr.” wrote in
:> news:Xns95E389F13AE72nokvamli@130.133.1.4:
:>
:>>”David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone-
:>>:
:>
:> Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey–”
:> “Yes?”
:> “Do you know *why* the speech of the dragon people is called ‘true speech’?”
:> “Uh, why no, not exactly.”
:> “Because it *is* true speech. See here–I’ve studied comparative
:> semantics–the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the
:> concept of falsehood. and *what a person doe not have symbols for he
:> can’t think about*! Ask him *in his own speech*. If he answers at all,
:> you can believe him.
:>
:>>In this exchange, Heinlein appears to be asserting the ‘strong
:>>version’ of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis[1], namely, that thought is not
:>>possible without symbols. And some passages in SIASL seem to reflect
:>>this also[2]. And this is even more emphasized by the whole concept
:>>that by learning and using Martian, the humans could learn to do
:>>things, telekinesis, etc, that could not be done in English because
:>>there were no words for it[3].
:>
:> Well, after doing a lot of research, I find that Heinlein’s ideas on
:> this subject actually did come from Korzybski, although from what I have
:> recently read about him, I find it difficult to believe that K was as
:> dogmatic about this as Heinlein suggests in the quoted passage. (I
:> admit, I am reading secondary sources. I last read _Science and Sanity_
:> more than 40 years ago. I plan on re-reading it after I’ve gone through
:> a couple of other books).
:>
:> It is not yet clear to me whether or not Whorf himself was influenced
:> directly by Korzybski, although I suspect it likely as S&S was very popular
:> at the time Whorf was writing. I have his book on order from inter-library
:> loan so I’ll be able to find out for myself, I hope. Interestingly,
:> Korzybski and Whorf were educated as engineers, as was Heinlein, which, I
:> believe, could account for some of the resonance between the three.
:>
:> BTW, S.I. Hayakawa, who played a role in “Over The Rainbow”(?) in _Expanded
:> Universe_ was a popularizer of Korzybski, but according to a number of
:> critics distorted his views.
:
:For what it’s worth, here’s another author on the idea of language
:controlling thought patterns: this is from _Radiant_ by James Alan Gardner.
:
:”The language was soft and beautiful–purposely designed that way. Three
:centuries ago, the Unity’s founders created a private language…partly
:to separate themselves from the Technocracy, partly as social
:engineering. The structures of language influence the structures of
:thought: not simplistically, but subtly. The way you’re trained to speak
:predisposes you to patterns in the way you think. It isn’t that you’re
:incapable of thinking in other ways; it’s just that you find some
:thoughts easier to articulate than others. Also, growing children hear
:more talk about easy-to-express topics than topics the language makes
:difficult. Inevitably, this affects their social and intellectual
:development–some thoughts are “normal” while others aren’t. By
:constructing a new language with a certain philosophical slant, the
:Unity had tried to make it harder for people to be bad citizens.”
:
:A somewhat less restrictive rule than “Dragon speech” but similar and
:with some “explanation” of how it “works”.

Another example of this sort of thinking is Jack Vance’s “The Languages of Pao”, where social engineering is undertaken by artificially mandating languages for various segments of Paonese society.
From ???@0x00000E23 Mon Jan 24 09:56:25 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 24 Jan 2005 14:56:25 GMT “David M. Silver” wrote in news:ag.plusone- :

(snip)

I attended Chattacon this past weekend as representative for The Heinlein Society. Unfortunately, the blood drive was cancelled at a late hour due to mechanical problems with the bloodmobile, so I primarily focused on trying to get new members for the society and trying to get people to promise to give blood when they returned home.

During all of this, I had a number of very good conversations with some Heinlein fans of both recent and very long-term standing. In the course of one of these conversations, the mention of Heinlein’s use of new words he coined or words which he made prominent came up. The most obvious, of course, was ‘grok'[1].

‘tanstaafl'[2] was also mentioned.

So, I got to thinking. What other words or phrases can you think of that he coined or emphasized.

‘the door dilated’ has already been mentioned. ‘fraki’ popped out at me last evening as I was reading _Citizen_. Also from _Citizen_[3], does anyone know what a ‘griva pusher’ is?

What else can you recall?

One further item. In doing more reading for my hoped-for paper on Heinlein’s linguistics, I re-read the section in “Gulf” dealing with “Speed Talk”. Interestingly, I found there that Heinlein talked about and attributed the notion of ‘no thought without symbols’ not to Sapir-Whorf, but to Korzybski[4].

Notes:

[1]The question of how to pronounce both ‘Heinlein’ and ‘grok’ was part of separate discussions. I said ‘Hine-Len’ with emphasis on the first syllable. The other person said ‘Hen-Line’ with emphasis on the second. As for ‘grok’, I have always pronounced it as rhyming with ‘broke’, but most people, I understand, do pronounce it as rhyming with ‘clock’. This would be the normal pronunciation for an English word, but heck, it was a Martian word, so there!

[2]According to some sources[Google is your friend], the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ was widely used by economist Milton Friedman in the 1930s as well as being quoted in Latin by Fiorello La Guardia.

[3]I just had to do this. Slightly on-topic to this thread. In honor of the ‘Jeopardy’ style questions of a few days(weeks?) ago. I offer this “Answer” from _Citizen_

A: “seven..possibly puzzle out a few more”
Q: ????

[4] A name which I have always pronounced ‘kor- zib -ski’, but which, supposedly, is properly pronounced ‘kah-zhib-ski’

From ???@0x00000C3B Mon Jan 24 17:50:52 2005
“Dr. Rufo”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:50:52 GMT David Wright Sr. wrote:

< snip >

> [2]According to some sources[Google is your friend], the phrase
> ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’ was widely used by
> economist Milton Friedman in the 1930s as well as being quoted in
> Latin by Fiorello La Guardia.

David:
RE: TANSTAAFL
I did a fast Google and at

TANSTAAFL

I found:

1. Although Friedman and Robert Heinlein usually share the credit
for this acronym, Tyler Cowen points out that it should actually go
to Alvin Hansen, Americaâ€™s most prominent early advocate of
Keynesianism, and someone whom the average person with a TANSTAAFL
bumper sticker might be surprised to find they agreed.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 2, 2004 at 08:01 AM in Economics

2. In his mail page of 20 – 26 May, 2002, Jerry Pournelle writes:
“TANSTAAFL was my father’s, transmitted from me to Robert Heinlein
and used by him, as acknowledged in letters both to me and to
reviewers.”

Comment by P.M.Lawrence 23/7/2004 @ 9:22 pm

3. Further links led to “The Origins of TANSTAAFL” at

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/05/the_origins_of_.html
which provides:
“There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.” I used to think that
originated with Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Many
others credit Milton Friedman. But read the real story. A San
Francisco newspaper is the earliest known source. And Professor
Alvin Hansen, preceding Friedman, wrote of TINSTAAFL, which is
simply TANSTAAFL with better grammar.

Sadly, my “break” is over so I pass this on for your (or someone else’s) further delectation and exploration.

Caveat: Internet content is worth what it costs you.

Pax,

Rufe
From ???@0x00000543 Mon Jan 24 19:14:34 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 25 Jan 2005 00:14:34 GMT “Dr. Rufo” wrote in news:gZeJd.4695$r27.3182 @newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net: (snip) Thanks for the response. I was beginning to think that I had killed the whole group. (bored them to death).

> Alvin Hansen, preceding Friedman, wrote of TINSTAAFL, which is
> simply TANSTAAFL with better grammar.
>

Humph? What’s wrong with “ain’t” ;-)> It’s standard English with us southern Rednecks :-)>

From ???@0x0000083C Mon Jan 24 22:17:20 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 03:17:20 GMT “Dr. Rufo” wrote in message news:gZeJd.4695$…

> And Professor
> Alvin Hansen, preceding Friedman, wrote of TINSTAAFL, which is
> simply TANSTAAFL with better grammar.

Not really. The former may have the appeal of better grammar but it’s the opposite of the latter since the colloquial opposite of “is” is “ain’t.” Had Bill Withers known this and corrected “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” to convey the semantically accurate sentiment, he’d have lost a million seller. Similarly, “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got,” is not a compliment, whether or not she has the power to make the sun come up each morning and the birds sing harmony.

LNC
From ???@0x0000097F Tue Jan 25 18:56:55 2005
“Big_Fella”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 09:56:55 +1000 “LNC” wrote in message news:4TiJd.24031$…

> “Dr. Rufo” wrote in message
> news:gZeJd.4695$…
>
>> And Professor
>> Alvin Hansen, preceding Friedman, wrote of TINSTAAFL, which is
>> simply TANSTAAFL with better grammar.
>
> Not really. The former may have the appeal of better grammar but it’s the
> opposite of the latter since the colloquial opposite of “is” is “ain’t.”
> Had
> Bill Withers known this and corrected “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,”
> to convey the semantically accurate sentiment, he’d have lost a million
> seller. Similarly, “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got,” is not a
> compliment,
> whether or not she has the power to make the sun come up each morning and
> the birds sing harmony.
>
> LNC
>
>

So,if what you’re saying is ain’t is a negative (and I’ll agree it can’t be a positive)… then TANSTAAFL states there *is* such a thing as a free lunch. ” Ain’t no sunshine ” means there is lots of sunshine, and “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got,” states that every woman is exactly the same as her. Doesn’t a double negative make a positive? That’s a rule I was taught.

:-[ )
From ???@0x00000B00 Tue Jan 25 19:45:54 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:45:54 GMT “Big_Fella” wrote in message news:Z0BJd.29$…

> So,if what you’re saying is ain’t is a negative (and I’ll agree it can’t be
> a positive)… then TANSTAAFL states there *is* such a thing as a free
> lunch. ” Ain’t no sunshine ” means there is lots of sunshine, and “Ain’t No
> Woman Like the One I Got,” states that every woman is exactly the same as
> her. Doesn’t a double negative make a positive? That’s a rule I was taught.
> :-[ )

I think you just said you’re in agreement with me. If there ain’t no such thing then there is such a thing. (As a side note, I wouldn’t agree that if there ain’t no sunshine it doesn’t mean there’s lots; just that there’s some. Also, just because there ain’t no woman like the one I got it doesn’t make them all like the one I, arguendo, do have.)

Just wait for somebody to claim this is another Heinlein, postmortem giggle from the grave. Interestingly, nobody’s said anything about the “free lunch” part of TANSTAAFL and I know beyond a certainty that the individual memories here do not go back further than about 1925, and that’s plenty before signs in taverns offering “free lunches” that were only free as long as you kept buying the liquor the establishments required be purchased to wash down the “free” fare.

LNC
From ???@0x00000C62 Tue Jan 25 20:42:49 2005
“Big_Fella”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:42:49 +1000 “LNC” wrote in message news:6LBJd.19625$…

> “Big_Fella” wrote in message
> news:Z0BJd.29$…
>
>
>> So,if what you’re saying is ain’t is a negative (and I’ll agree it can’t be
>> a positive)… then TANSTAAFL states there *is* such a thing as a free
>> lunch. ” Ain’t no sunshine ” means there is lots of sunshine, and “Ain’t No
>> Woman Like the One I Got,” states that every woman is exactly the same as
>> her. Doesn’t a double negative make a positive? That’s a rule I was taught.
>> :-[ )
>
> I think you just said you’re in agreement with me. If there ain’t no such
> thing then there is such a thing. (As a side note, I wouldn’t agree that if
> there ain’t no sunshine it doesn’t mean there’s lots; just that there’s
> some. Also, just because there ain’t no woman like the one I got it doesn’t
> make them all like the one I, arguendo, do have.)
>
> Just wait for somebody to claim this is another Heinlein, postmortem giggle
> from the grave. Interestingly, nobody’s said anything about the “free lunch”
> part of TANSTAAFL and I know beyond a certainty that the individual memories
> here do not go back further than about 1925, and that’s plenty before signs
> in taverns offering “free lunches” that were only free as long as you kept
> buying the liquor the establishments required be purchased to wash down the
> “free” fare.
>
> LNC
>
>

Oh yes, I agree, LNC. I was, however a little hasty. In clarification, therefore, “Ain’t no sunshine” = there *is* sunshine ; “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” = There are women like the one I have ; TANSTAAFL = get your free lunch here (or words to that effect).

—

Hope I die before I get old.
(Pete Townshend)
Ta.
:-[ )

From ???@0x00000600 Tue Jan 25 23:01:07 2005
Pete LaGrange Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:01:07 -0500 On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:45:54 +0000, LNC wrote:

> Interestingly, nobody’s said anything about the
> “free lunch” part of TANSTAAFL and I know beyond a certainty that the
> individual memories here do not go back further than about 1925, and
> that’s plenty before signs in taverns offering “free lunches” that were
> only free as long as you kept buying the liquor the establishments
> required be purchased to wash down the “free” fare.

A free lunch is almost always a salty lunch.

—
Pete LaGrange

From ???@0x00000F11 Wed Jan 26 02:02:10 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 25 Jan 2005 23:02:10 -0800 Big_Fella wrote:

> “LNC” wrote in message
> news:4TiJd.24031$…
> > “Dr. Rufo” wrote in message
> > news:gZeJd.4695$…
> >
> >> And Professor
> >> Alvin Hansen, preceding Friedman, wrote of TINSTAAFL, which is
> >> simply TANSTAAFL with better grammar.
> >
> > Not really. The former may have the appeal of better grammar but it’s the
> > opposite of the latter since the colloquial opposite of “is” is “ain’t.”
> > Had
> > Bill Withers known this and corrected “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,”
> > to convey the semantically accurate sentiment, he’d have lost a million
> > seller. Similarly, “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got,” is not a compliment,
> > whether or not she has the power to make the sun come up each morning and
> > the birds sing harmony.
> >
> > LNC
> >
> >
> So,if what you’re saying is ain’t is a negative (and I’ll agree it can’t be
> a positive)… then TANSTAAFL states there *is* such a thing as a free
> lunch. ” Ain’t no sunshine ” means there is lots of sunshine, and “Ain’t No
> Woman Like the One I Got,” states that every woman is exactly the same as
> her. Doesn’t a double negative make a positive? That’s a rule I was taught.
> :-[ )

Whoever taught you that rule was being a hopeless pedant. People who heard “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” or “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” UNDERSTOOD what the speaker or singer was saying. Shared context and cultural rules allow this seemingly illogical structure to operate. TANSTAAFL means that there is no free lunch. While this may not be true (I happen to be partial to Bob Cottrel’s riposte: “but there IS the lunch someone else has paid for”) that is what it means. Sure, this is illogical and might cause a problem when dealing with a naive listener but that is not to say the double negative causes any real problem in everyday communication among people with some understanding of the mileu in which the speaker is operating. You and LNC can have all the snide fun with it you want, the double negative is part of the language and is impervious to academic displeasure. It ain’t going nowhere.

Will in New Haven

—

“Broken windows and empty hallways
A pale dead moon in the sky streaked with gray
Human kindness is overflowing
And i think it’s going to rain today.”
Randy Newman – “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today”

From ???@0x000008EB Wed Jan 26 02:02:12 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 25 Jan 2005 23:02:12 -0800

That “rule” is an artificial product of people applying logical analysis to living language. “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” was understood by every listener with a cultural affinity with the speaker as a supreme compliment. TANSTAAFL means that there isn’t any free lunch. It may be wrong but that is what it means. (Bob Cottrel’s corrallary “but there IS the lunch that someone else has paid for” has a great deal going for it) While the double negative is certainly incorrect as a logical expression and could cause some confusion in a naive listener, it is part of the language as spoken by actual people. It is slippery, imperfect and impervious to the dictates of academia. And it ain’t going nowhere.

Will in New Haven

—

“I think I’ll find a pair of eyes tonight, to fall into
and maybe strike a deal
Your body for my soul, fair swap
`cause cheap is how I feel ”
Cowboy Junkies – “Cheap is How I Feel”

From ???@0x000010BB Wed Jan 26 10:56:55 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:56:55 GMT wrote in message news:…

> That “rule” is an artificial product of people applying logical
> analysis to living language.

What rule? That (-1) + (-1) = -2? Not plus not equals is? It’s not unwarranted, hardly inconsistent, here, where the overarching theme is the elevation of a body of fiction to the status of moral code through pedantic interpretation to exact mathematical precision and require it, no?

> “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” was
> understood by every listener with a cultural affinity with the speaker
> as a supreme compliment.

Granted. Pop culture overlooks both the double negative at the beginning of the “sentence” and the use of the apparent past tense at its end to hear, “There is no woman such as she who is mine,” instead of concluding that such women are a dime a dozen but “mine’s” no longer “mine.” Whether the assertion is intended to be complimentary and, in fact, transcends any other praise are matters of opinion. In the case of the “no woman” like the one you’ve “got,” for example, she might merely roll her eyes and wonder, if you believe that to be the case, why your actions consist of awkward attempts to communicate the sentiment confusingly.

> TANSTAAFL means that there isn’t any free
> lunch. It may be wrong but that is what it means.

Ain’t no doubt about it, the construct having appeared in TMIAHM, where the catapult used to batter Earth made use of the free launch of the gravity well, notwithstanding. Where the unabashed position of the revolution’s organizers focused on the gullibility of the masses’ willingness to believe the contrary of “ain’t no,” notwithstanding. It doesn’t not mean whatever it’s not misused to accomplish, yes?

> (Bob Cottrel’s
> corrallary “but there IS the lunch that someone else has paid for” has
> a great deal going for it) While the double negative is certainly
> incorrect as a logical expression and could cause some confusion in a
> naive listener, it is part of the language as spoken by actual people.

When actual people sit down to order the affairs of all of them and reduce their agreement to agreed language, don’t look for the product to read, “thou shalt not never steal noway, notime, nohow.” Look for the seeker of a free lunch to argue common, unspoken agreement that “ain’t no” means “ain’t” when he’s caught with somebody else’s sandwich between his teeth and that that’s not theft.

> It is slippery, imperfect and impervious to the dictates of academia.
> And it ain’t going nowhere.

Yeah, it’s, like, stayin’ alive. Whether you’re a lover or whether you’re a mother, you are, you know, dontcha?

LNC
From ???@0x000014AA Wed Jan 26 14:33:26 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 26 Jan 2005 11:33:26 -0800 LNC wrote:

> wrote in message
> news:…
> > That “rule” is an artificial product of people applying logical
> > analysis to living language.
>
> What rule? That (-1) + (-1) = -2? Not plus not equals is? It’s not
> unwarranted, hardly inconsistent, here, where the overarching theme is the
> elevation of a body of fiction to the status of moral code through pedantic
> interpretation to exact mathematical precision and require it, no?

I don’t do much of that and I see the flaws but I haven’t made an online career of critiquing it, so I will let you continue in your crusade.

>
> > “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” was
> > understood by every listener with a cultural affinity with the speaker
> > as a supreme compliment.
>
> Granted. Pop culture overlooks both the double negative at the beginning of
> the “sentence” and the use of the apparent past tense at its end to hear,
> “There is no woman such as she who is mine,” instead of concluding that such
> women are a dime a dozen but “mine’s” no longer “mine.” Whether the
> assertion is intended to be complimentary and, in fact, transcends any other
> praise are matters of opinion. In the case of the “no woman” like the one
> you’ve “got,” for example, she might merely roll her eyes and wonder, if you
> believe that to be the case, why your actions consist of awkward attempts to
> communicate the sentiment confusingly.

But she wouldn’t be confused at all and would not credit the idea that the naive listener’s possible confusion might cast doubt on the meaning of the phrase. She might find mere verbal tribute inadequate but that is why there are other women.

>
> > TANSTAAFL means that there isn’t any free
> > lunch. It may be wrong but that is what it means.
>
> Ain’t no doubt about it, the construct having appeared in TMIAHM, where the
> catapult used to batter Earth made use of the free launch of the gravity
> well, notwithstanding. Where the unabashed position of the revolution’s
> organizers focused on the gullibility of the masses’ willingness to believe
> the contrary of “ain’t no,” notwithstanding. It doesn’t not mean whatever
> it’s not misused to accomplish, yes?
>
> > (Bob Cottrel’s
> > corrallary “but there IS the lunch that someone else has paid for” has
> > a great deal going for it) While the double negative is certainly
> > incorrect as a logical expression and could cause some confusion in a
> > naive listener, it is part of the language as spoken by actual people.
>
> When actual people sit down to order the affairs of all of them and reduce
> their agreement to agreed language, don’t look for the product to read,
> “thou shalt not never steal noway, notime, nohow.” Look for the seeker of a
> free lunch to argue common, unspoken agreement that “ain’t no” means “ain’t”
> when he’s caught with somebody else’s sandwich between his teeth and that
> that’s not theft.

The double negative would be a very poor choice of wording in a contract or a constitution or any formal agreement. It don’t belong on no curriculum vitae or resume or even on a job application. It is a form of expression that works in the limited are where it is intended.

> > It is slippery, imperfect and impervious to the dictates of academia.
> > And it ain’t going nowhere.
>
> Yeah, it’s, like, stayin’ alive. Whether you’re a lover or whether you’re a
> mother, you are, you know, dontcha?

You could probably do better than that, Lester, in your day.

Will in New Haven

—

“I didn’t know that other guy was a cop
I guess I didn’t care,
Sometimes you gotta act like you got a pair.”
Slaid Cleaves – “Drinkin’ Days” off Wishbones

From ???@0x00000AA0 Wed Jan 26 11:18:16 2005
“Big_Fella”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:18:16 +1000

wrote in message
news:…
> That “rule” is an artificial product of people applying logical
> analysis to living language. “Ain’t no woman like the one I got” was
> understood by every listener with a cultural affinity with the speaker
> as a supreme compliment. TANSTAAFL means that there isn’t any free
> lunch. It may be wrong but that is what it means. (Bob Cottrel’s
> corrallary “but there IS the lunch that someone else has paid for” has
> a great deal going for it) While the double negative is certainly
> incorrect as a logical expression and could cause some confusion in a
> naive listener, it is part of the language as spoken by actual people.
> It is slippery, imperfect and impervious to the dictates of academia.
> And it ain’t going nowhere.
>
> Will in New Haven
>
> —
>
> “I think I’ll find a pair of eyes tonight, to fall into
> and maybe strike a deal
> Your body for my soul, fair swap
> `cause cheap is how I feel ”
> Cowboy Junkies – “Cheap is How I Feel”
>

Snide? Really? Did that come across as snide? Gee, ahh, I certainly wasn’t trying to be snide, I’ll stipulate pedantic, but I’m really on the side of colloquial language, honest. I’m Australian, it’s in our blood. No bugger understands us. And that’s just the way we like it. How about we share a couple of shots of Turkey and giggle as we jiggle. :-[ ) From ???@0x00000A23 Mon Jan 24 21:39:45 2005
Norman Bullen
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:39:45 GMT David Wright Sr. wrote:

< snipped >
>
> So, I got to thinking. What other words or phrases can you think of that he
> coined or emphasized.
>
> ‘the door dilated’ has already been mentioned. ‘fraki’ popped out at me
> last evening as I was reading _Citizen_. Also from _Citizen_[3], does
> anyone know what a ‘griva pusher’ is?
>
> What else can you recall?

While not exactly a term “coined” by Heinlein, Waldo (meaning a remote control manipulator) certainly derives from his work.

< snipped >
>
> Notes:
>
> [1]The question of how to pronounce both ‘Heinlein’ and ‘grok’ was part of
> separate discussions. I said ‘Hine-Len’ with emphasis on the first
> syllable. The other person said ‘Hen-Line’ with emphasis on the second. As
> for ‘grok’, I have always pronounced it as rhyming with ‘broke’, but most
> people, I understand, do pronounce it as rhyming with ‘clock’. This would
> be the normal pronunciation for an English word, but heck, it was a Martian
> word, so there!
>
Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the name
should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with “mine”.
Does the name come from German?
>
< snipped >

Norm

—
To reply, change domain to an adult feline.

From ???@0x0000086D Mon Jan 24 22:06:13 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 25 Jan 2005 03:06:13 GMT Norman Bullen wrote in news:RjiJd.4982$:

(snip)

>> What else can you recall?
>
> While not exactly a term “coined” by Heinlein, Waldo (meaning a remote
> control manipulator) certainly derives from his work.
>

I was expecting that someone would come up with that.

I’ll see you and raise you a ‘refresher’.

> < snipped >
>>
>> Notes:
>>
>> [1]The question of how to pronounce both ‘Heinlein’ and ‘grok’ was
>> part of separate discussions. I said ‘Hine-Len’ with emphasis on the
>> first syllable. The other person said ‘Hen-Line’ with emphasis on the
>> second. As for ‘grok’, I have always pronounced it as rhyming with
>> ‘broke’, but most people, I understand, do pronounce it as rhyming
>> with ‘clock’. This would be the normal pronunciation for an English
>> word, but heck, it was a Martian word, so there!
>>
> Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the
> name should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with
> “mine”. Does the name come from German?
>>

Yes, it’s a German name, and to tell the truth, I sometimes pronounce it that way in spite of what I said earlier.

From ???@0x000007C3 Mon Jan 24 22:17:06 2005
“Dr. Rufo”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 03:17:06 GMT David Wright Sr. wrote: < snip >

>>Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the
>>name should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with
>>”mine”. Does the name come from German?
>>
>
> Yes, it’s a German name, and to tell the truth, I sometimes pronounce it
> that way in spite of what I said earlier.

FWIW, the librarian who handed me HSS-WT pronounced it “Hine-len” and I’ve typically done so. In the face of superior information, (Dave Silver, Bill Patterson, Dr. Jerry Pournelle) I have attempted to alter that. Any alteration is neither apparent nor consistent.

Rufe
From ???@0x000008BB Thu Jan 27 15:57:30 2005
“Christopher X. Candreva”
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:57:30 GMT Dr. Rufo wrote:

: FWIW, the librarian who handed me HSS-WT pronounced it “Hine-len”
: and I’ve typically done so. In the face of superior information,
: (Dave Silver, Bill Patterson, Dr. Jerry Pournelle) I have attempted
: to alter that. Any alteration is neither apparent nor consistent.

Years and years ago, somewhere on Usenet, possibly this group when I was reading it on a ‘286 machine off the school Vax cluster – – a poem was offered as a way to remember the correct way to pronounce his name. Here is the version I just found on the net now:

For those who are wondering why,
What we call SF ain’t sci fi,
There’s a very fine line
Between Robert Heinlein,
And ‘Son of the Two Headed Fly’.

Other incomplete versions attribute this as first appearing in Asimov’s (What would have been IASFM then.)

-Chris

—
==========================================================
Chris Candreva — — (914) 967-7816
WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
http://www.westnet.com/

From ???@0x00000836 Tue Jan 25 19:02:02 2005
“Big_Fella”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:02:02 +1000 “David Wright Sr.” wrote in message news:Xns95E8E0D9CB877nokvamli@130.133.1.4…

> Norman Bullen wrote in
> news:RjiJd.4982$:

>> Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the
>> name should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with
>> “mine”. Does the name come from German?
>>>
>
> Yes, it’s a German name, and to tell the truth, I sometimes pronounce it
> that in spite of what I said earlier.

I was introduced to RAH through a Dutch speaking person, So that’s how I have always pronounced it.

> —
> David Wright
> If you haven’t joined The Heinlein Society, Why Not?
> The Heinlein Estate is again matching new member
> registrations and fund raising up to $15,000
> Make your new membership count twice!

—

Hope I die before I get old.
(Pete Townshend)
Ta.
:-[ )

From ???@0x00000586 Wed Jan 26 09:38:29 2005
“Nuclear Waste”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:38:29 GMT “Norman Bullen”

Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the name
> should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with “mine”.
> Does the name come from German?

I have a copy of an AIM conversation with Ginny in which she states that your pronunciation is the correct one.

NW
From ???@0x00000755 Wed Jan 26 10:10:45 2005
Fred J. McCall
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:10:45 GMT “Nuclear Waste” wrote:

:”Norman Bullen”
:> Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the name
:> should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with “mine”.
:> Does the name come from German?
:
:I have a copy of an AIM conversation with Ginny in which she states that
:your pronunciation is the correct one.

Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that, since that’s how I’ve always said it. It never even occurred to me that there was any question about this. German ‘ei’ sounds as ‘eye’. From ???@0x000009AA Wed Jan 26 10:34:38 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 26 Jan 2005 15:34:38 GMT Fred J. McCall wrote in news::

> “Nuclear Waste” wrote:
>
>:”Norman Bullen”
>:> Since I have some German in my background, I’ve always thought the
>:> name should be pronounced Hine-line with both halves rhyming with
>:> “mine”. Does the name come from German?
>:
>:I have a copy of an AIM conversation with Ginny in which she states
>:that your pronunciation is the correct one.
>
> Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that, since that’s how I’ve always
> said it. It never even occurred to me that there was any question
> about this. German ‘ei’ sounds as ‘eye’.
>

I can’t argue with any of this. As my German professor, “Herr Fritz” always said, “Never say die”, (meaning German ‘ie’ is never pronounced as English ‘ie’, but like ‘ei’), and, in words, like ‘fraulein’, ‘dorflein’ and ‘Heinlein’, emphasis is maintained on both syllables unlike English which drops the emphasis on some, turning vowels into the unaccented ‘schwa’ sound, as in ‘Hine-len’, (emphasis on Hine).

However, despite what I do when I speak German, I usually use English pronunciation when using foreign derived words in English. Actually, that’s not quite true. I do it with German, but not with Russian and Martian. That’s probably because my learning Russian concentrated more on speaking than did the German. Now as to why I do that with Martian, I haven’t the foggiest. ;-)>

From ???@0x00000A58 Mon Jan 24 21:06:59 2005
“Geo Rule”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:06:59 -0800

On any given day, TEFL is liable to be my favorite (at least on a day when CotG is not) RAH. I shall endeavor to be there.

I was thinking of SIASL recently and realized that if one wanted (or was incapable of better) to be superficial, that SIASL can look like a very hoary cliche.

A young man, raised in, errr, “an all boys boarding school”, discovers girls. He’s young, he’s intelligent, he’s good-looking, he’s famous, he’s rich; he’s eager to please and has an air of “needing mothering” –something many women find attractive, particularly in young men who are rich, famous, etc. Discovering “vive le difference!” rocks his world. He begins to shtup everyone in sight, aided materially by the factors above. Being intelligent, and a rationalizing human, he comes up with an elaborate code of morals that not only makes it okay for him to shtup everything in site, but indeed makes it a moral imperative that he do so. His meglomania grows, his “real” moral sense (whatever the hell that means –Yahweh probably to blame tho in this analysis) is still hiding down deep and in conflict with his actual behavior eventually drives him to martyrdom to resolve his conflicts.

I wonder how many readers never got past that kind of analysis?
From ???@0x00000973 Mon Jan 24 21:37:49 2005
Don Aitken
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:37:49 +0000 On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:06:59 -0800, “Geo Rule” wrote:

>On any given day, TEFL is liable to be my favorite (at least on a day when
>CotG is not) RAH. I shall endeavor to be there.
>
>I was thinking of SIASL recently and realized that if one wanted (or was
>incapable of better) to be superficial, that SIASL can look like a very
>hoary cliche.
>
>A young man, raised in, errr, “an all boys boarding school”, discovers
>girls. He’s young, he’s intelligent, he’s good-looking, he’s famous, he’s
>rich; he’s eager to please and has an air of “needing mothering” –something
>many women find attractive, particularly in young men who are rich, famous,
>etc. Discovering “vive le difference!” rocks his world. He begins to shtup
>everyone in sight, aided materially by the factors above. Being intelligent,
>and a rationalizing human, he comes up with an elaborate code of morals that
>not only makes it okay for him to shtup everything in site, but indeed makes
>it a moral imperative that he do so. His meglomania grows, his “real” moral
>sense (whatever the hell that means –Yahweh probably to blame tho in this
>analysis) is still hiding down deep and in conflict with his actual behavior
>eventually drives him to martyrdom to resolve his conflicts.
>
>I wonder how many readers never got past that kind of analysis?
>

Lots, I suspect – particularly women. “Wish-fulfilment fantasy” is the description I’ve heard used.

—
Don Aitken

Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being
read. To mail me, substitute “clara.co.uk” for “freeuk.com”.

From ???@0x00000C08 Mon Jan 24 21:58:48 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:58:48 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote in message news:…

> On any given day, TEFL is liable to be my favorite (at least on a day when
> CotG is not) RAH. I shall endeavor to be there.
>
> I was thinking of SIASL recently and realized that if one wanted (or was
> incapable of better) to be superficial, that SIASL can look like a very
> hoary cliche.
>
> A young man, raised in, errr, “an all boys boarding school”, discovers
> girls. He’s young, he’s intelligent, he’s good-looking, he’s famous, he’s
> rich; he’s eager to please and has an air of “needing mothering” –something
> many women find attractive, particularly in young men who are rich, famous,
> etc. Discovering “vive le difference!” rocks his world. He begins to shtup
> everyone in sight, aided materially by the factors above. Being intelligent,
> and a rationalizing human, he comes up with an elaborate code of morals that
> not only makes it okay for him to shtup everything in site, but indeed makes
> it a moral imperative that he do so. His meglomania grows, his “real” moral
> sense (whatever the hell that means –Yahweh probably to blame tho in this
> analysis) is still hiding down deep and in conflict with his actual behavior
> eventually drives him to martyrdom to resolve his conflicts.
>
> I wonder how many readers never got past that kind of analysis?

There’s more?

Oh, that onlybegottensonthatwhosoverbelievethinhimshallnotperishbutshallhaveeverlasti nglife cutesiness. Quelle conceit sommes nous. Isn’t it time for a new story? Sure, this one can be done over and over and over again and still sell but where’s “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” Heinlein style? That is, Walden III?

LNC
From ???@0x00000819 Tue Jan 25 23:14:00 2005
“Geo Rule”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 20:14:00 -0800

Given the publication date of TEFL (1973), the part near the end where he decides to join up for WWI is very fascinating to me. He knows it is futile as a war, in fact counterproductive, and that the only thing he can accomplish is get his ass shot off for no reason at all (it is, after all, in the “past” and he isn’t going to change anything). Yet he goes anyway –not for duty (he had none), not for conviction, not to make a difference. Just to preserve the respect of people dear to him. I have to think RAH was making a commentary on both the Vietnam war (comparing it to WWI from a ‘tell me again what we’re going to accomplish here?’ pov) and why men fight.
From ???@0x00000C23 Wed Jan 26 00:38:36 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:38:36 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote in message news:…

>
> Given the publication date of TEFL (1973), the part near the end where he
> decides to join up for WWI is very fascinating to me. He knows it is futile
> as a war, in fact counterproductive, and that the only thing he can
> accomplish is get his ass shot off for no reason at all (it is, after all,
> in the “past” and he isn’t going to change anything). Yet he goes
> anyway –not for duty (he had none), not for conviction, not to make a
> difference. Just to preserve the respect of people dear to him.

This disregards the getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation. Yes, it sounds nobler but that’s its only virtue. After all, it’s not possible to contend that LL didn’t know that was going to happen since LL has never existed but RAH wrote him right where he wanted him to go.

> I have to think RAH was making a commentary on both the Vietnam war (comparing it to
> WWI from a ‘tell me again what we’re going to accomplish here?’ pov) and why
> men fight.

While I have no active recollection of the Lusitania, I remember what it was and who sunk it. While I’ve never been to Mexico City, I remember the Zimmerman note, who wrote it and what it intended. Vietnam, I remember well but I believe that while a thing as ethereal as a “Domino Theory” will evoke confusion in the mind of the foot soldier concerning what’s intended to be accomplished, I don’t think Heinlein felt the doughboy’s appreciation of the cause of the conflict was so cloudy.

Why do men fight? You mean soldiers in wars? Isn’t it because they’re told to do so? Why are wars started? I think that transcends the capacity of a work of fiction to glibly explain it all.

LNC
From ???@0x00000A9B Wed Jan 26 21:28:15 2005
Chris Zakes
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:28:15 GMT On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:38:36 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser caused “LNC” to write:

>”Geo Rule” wrote in message
>news:…
>>
>> Given the publication date of TEFL (1973), the part near the end where he
>> decides to join up for WWI is very fascinating to me. He knows it is
>futile
>> as a war, in fact counterproductive, and that the only thing he can
>> accomplish is get his ass shot off for no reason at all (it is, after all,
>> in the “past” and he isn’t going to change anything). Yet he goes
>> anyway –not for duty (he had none), not for conviction, not to make a
>> difference. Just to preserve the respect of people dear to him.
>
>This disregards the getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation. Yes, it sounds nobler
>but that’s its only virtue. After all, it’s not possible to contend that LL
>didn’t know that was going to happen since LL has never existed but RAH
>wrote him right where he wanted him to go.

Okay, *where* is it stated that Lazarus Long’s motivation for travelling back to the Kansas City of his boyhood was to “get in mom’s pants”? Chapter and verse, please.

While you’re at it, I suggest you re-read the last few pages in chapter III of “Da Capo” as well, and explain how LL’s reaction there matches with your claim of “getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation.”

-Chris Zakes
Texas

Life isn’t fair. Anyone who tells you different is either
selling something or trying to get your vote.

From ???@0x00001554 Fri Jan 28 00:34:47 2005
“Geo Rule”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:34:47 -0800 —– Original Message —–
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).

> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> news:…
>>
>> Given the publication date of TEFL (1973), the part near the end where he
>> decides to join up for WWI is very fascinating to me. He knows it is futile
>> as a war, in fact counterproductive, and that the only thing he can
>> accomplish is get his ass shot off for no reason at all (it is, after
>> all,
>> in the “past” and he isn’t going to change anything). Yet he goes
>> anyway –not for duty (he had none), not for conviction, not to make a
>> difference. Just to preserve the respect of people dear to him.
>
> This disregards the getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation. Yes, it sounds nobler
> but that’s its only virtue. After all, it’s not possible to contend that LL
> didn’t know that was going to happen since LL has never existed but RAH
> wrote him right where he wanted him to go.
>

Not so much. *Telling* her that he’s going to go off and fight would accomplish that. LL didn’t need to actually go do it, and certainly RAH could have written it that way. LL was good enuf to ‘take a powder’ believably after accomplishing that goal, if that’s all that the author was interested in.

>> I have to think RAH was making a commentary on both the Vietnam war (comparing it to
>> WWI from a ‘tell me again what we’re going to accomplish here?’ pov) and why
>> men fight.
>
> While I have no active recollection of the Lusitania, I remember what it was
> and who sunk it. While I’ve never been to Mexico City, I remember the
> Zimmerman note, who wrote it and what it intended. Vietnam, I remember well
> but I believe that while a thing as ethereal as a “Domino Theory” will evoke
> confusion in the mind of the foot soldier concerning what’s intended to be
> accomplished, I don’t think Heinlein felt the doughboy’s appreciation of the
> cause of the conflict was so cloudy.

None of those reasons explain LL’s ‘reason to fight’, nor does boinking mom, in my mind (see above). Heinlein artificially, and thus quite possibly a-purpose, created a situation where LL could have the same type of personal doubts about WWI that many anti-Vietnam types had about the Vietnam war at the time the book was published. Therefore I think it likely that the one was intended to be a commentary on the other –and ‘his’ guy went to war anyway, even in the presence of *more* (author-created, of course) surety that what he was doing was futile than a contemporaneous young man could have about serving in Vietnam. I find significance there.

Further, this isn’t a short story, it is a novel. Even if the delectable time-traveler paradoxes (that he’d enjoyed mining in previous works) were the framework and keep-the-story-interesting-for-the-reader hook at that point in the book, when writing a novel there is almost unavoidably a lot of space for the author to ruminate tellingly (if often maddeningly uncertain as to just which times are which!) in the margins. Personally, I enjoy that –it is one of the reasons that as much as I admire “All You Zombies–“, I perceive it as a virtuoso performance of technique and story construction rather than a tale displaying much if any of the author’s heart.

>
> Why do men fight? You mean soldiers in wars? Isn’t it because they’re told
> to do so? Why are wars started? I think that transcends the capacity of a
> work of fiction to glibly explain it all.
>
> LNC

Hundreds of authors over hundreds of years just began crying in frustration. Which isn’t necessarily a comment on the accuracy of your statement –but they keep a’trying. From ???@0x00001670 Fri Jan 28 01:21:36 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 06:21:36 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote in message news:… Gonna have to (have already) snip(ped) a lot and rely on anybody interested to go back and follow it here…

> Not so much. *Telling* her that he’s going to go off and fight would
> accomplish that. LL didn’t need to actually go do it, and certainly RAH
> could have written it that way. LL was good enuf to ‘take a powder’
> believably after accomplishing that goal, if that’s all that the author
was
> interested in.

Gee, Geo, but I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re saying RAH would write a cad, certainly not his main man, LL. Further, what kind of lower-than-cad would lie to his mom about her dad’s and her’s most cherished belief (patriotism) just to fuck her and slink off to Mexico and wait out the rendezvous? In the same way he couldn’t have written it any other way and still write it to where he intended it to go, in bed with mommy, you know who couldn’t resist the temptation to put his pet boy in No Man’s Land, without a rose, and shot his ass off. Personally, I think the ass shooting was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.

[More snipping done.]

> None of those reasons explain LL’s ‘reason to fight’, nor does boinking mom,
> in my mind (see above). Heinlein artificially, and thus quite possibly
> a-purpose, created a situation where LL could have the same type of personal
> doubts about WWI that many anti-Vietnam types had about the Vietnam war at
> the time the book was published. Therefore I think it likely that the one
> was intended to be a commentary on the other –and ‘his’ guy went to war
> anyway, even in the presence of *more* (author-created, of course) surety
> that what he was doing was futile than a contemporaneous young man could
> have about serving in Vietnam. I find significance there.

I’m sorry, I don’t. “Time Enough for Love” is no “Red Badge of Courage.” It’s no, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” If it’s confirmation of the futility of war you’re looking for Heinlein to be using as a theme, what you’re actually getting is endorsement instead of confirmation. Moreover, as wars go, that one was so comparatively moral (gag) compared to Vietnam, and the outcome so clear-cut, it was the worst one to pick.

Now, you know none of what I’m saying is that I think you’re wrong. You’re got as much or more right as I have to read anything you want into anything you read. I just see it differently. Specifically, I see it as a pretty good science fiction book and one of my favorite Heinleins.

>
> Further, this isn’t a short story, it is a novel. Even if the delectable
> time-traveler paradoxes (that he’d enjoyed mining in previous works) were
> the framework and keep-the-story-interesting-for-the-reader hook at that
> point in the book, when writing a novel there is almost unavoidably a lot of
> space for the author to ruminate tellingly (if often maddeningly uncertain
> as to just which times are which!) in the margins. Personally, I enjoy
> that –it is one of the reasons that as much as I admire “All You
> Zombies–“, I perceive it as a virtuoso performance of technique and story
> construction rather than a tale displaying much if any of the author’s
> heart.

Again, we differ and here’s it’s over craft. I see it as a cobbled-together group of stories instead of a novel. I see it as, “Whatever Happened to Lazarus Long,” fleshed out with long anecdotes. I see it as the dawn of self-indulgence that’s only saved by the style that once meant much to me. I don’t see it assigned as high school reading. I don’t see it assigned as college reading. I don’t see it taught as an example of story construction (beyond the workshop class in how to throw just about anything together and make it work if you’re on deadline). By the same token, I wouldn’t change a thing about it if I had the power.

It is what it is and it exists how it is and that’s the most I can say about anything already in fixed form. What it means, what was on that 8.5 minutes of erased tape now that Rosemary Woods fell in the forest and made no sound, those are ripe for the opining away.

LNC
From ???@0x0000133C Fri Jan 28 01:50:53 2005
“Geo Rule”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:50:53 -0800 “LNC” wrote in message news:QRkKd.25055$…

> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> news:…
>
>
> I’m sorry, I don’t. “Time Enough for Love” is no “Red Badge of Courage.”
> It’s no, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” If it’s confirmation of the
> futility of war you’re looking for Heinlein to be using as a theme, what
> you’re actually getting is endorsement instead of confirmation. Moreover, as
> wars go, that one was so comparatively moral (gag) compared to Vietnam, and
> the outcome so clear-cut, it was the worst one to pick.

Howza? No, no. Not “on the futility of war” –on why some men *choose*, even when they don’t “have to”, to fight *even when in a particular case they know it is futile and pointless*. And not psychopaths and/or dummies and/or gloryhounds and/or “mislead by their leaders” either. And told at a time when many men were making the other choice.

>
> Now, you know none of what I’m saying is that I think you’re wrong. You’re
> got as much or more right as I have to read anything you want into anything
> you read. I just see it differently. Specifically, I see it as a pretty good
> science fiction book and one of my favorite Heinleins.
>

Well, I said way-back-somewhere that it is often my very favorite, on days when Citizen is not. And I’ll flat out, no quibbles, stand by Tale of the Adopted Daughter as my absolute favorite RAH, even tho he rubbed our noses in how this relationship between father and daughter-he-adopted-as-a-child would be considered massively inappropriate by the majority of citizens in the world in which we live in. It makes me sniffle every time, and sing along with the bawdies across the plains.

>
> Again, we differ and here’s it’s over craft. I see it as a cobbled-together
> group of stories instead of a novel. I see it as, “Whatever Happened to
> Lazarus Long,” fleshed out with long anecdotes. I see it as the dawn of
> self-indulgence that’s only saved by the style that once meant much to me. I
> don’t see it assigned as high school reading. I don’t see it assigned as
> college reading. I don’t see it taught as an example of story construction
> (beyond the workshop class in how to throw just about anything together and
> make it work if you’re on deadline). By the same token, I wouldn’t change a
> thing about it if I had the power.
>

I see it as exactly, for a change, what the title tells you it is –disquistions on how the rules change when there is “Time enough for love”. Heinlein once again poking hoi polloi in the nose to tell them that many of the rules they consider unbreakable and always immutable in all times and places. . .just aren’t. He spent the whole length of his career doing it, creating situations where some portion of his readers might say, “well, maybe in this situation it would be okay”. I always knew that (you can read that “Geo’s own self-reinforcing pet theory” if you like) about him. . .and then I heard (much more so than reading it) his ’41 Denvention speech and it really reinforced it. . .and then FUTL came out and reinforced it even more.

No offense taken, and hopefully none given. Broke clean, no thumbs in the eye, etc.
From ???@0x00000E43 Fri Jan 28 08:47:15 2005
William Hughes
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 07:47:15 -0600 On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:50:53 -0800, in alt.fan.heinlein “Geo Rule” wrote:

> “LNC” wrote in message
> news:QRkKd.25055$…
> > “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> > news:…
> >
> > I’m sorry, I don’t. “Time Enough for Love” is no “Red Badge of Courage.”
> > It’s no, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” If it’s confirmation of the
> > futility of war you’re looking for Heinlein to be using as a theme, what
> > you’re actually getting is endorsement instead of confirmation. Moreover, as
> > wars go, that one was so comparatively moral (gag) compared to Vietnam, and
> > the outcome so clear-cut, it was the worst one to pick.
>
> Howza? No, no. Not “on the futility of war” –on why some men *choose*, even
> when they don’t “have to”, to fight *even when in a particular case they
> know it is futile and pointless*. And not psychopaths and/or dummies and/or
> gloryhounds and/or “mislead by their leaders” either. And told at a time
> when many men were making the other choice.

A concept which is still used in (science) fiction, as recently as “Babylon 5” and “Stargate SG-1”.

In B5, when the Earthforce troops go “on the line” in a last-ditch stand against the Minbari, even when they _know_ they are going to get their asses kicked all the way to Narn. If you have a copy of “Babylon 5: In the Beginning”, listen to Lando Mollari’s voiceover as he describes the Earth-Minbari war – “When my time comes, I only hope I can face it with half the nobility that they showed at the end. ”

“Stargate SG-1” also expressd it, in one line, when the Jaffa Master Brae’tak is talking to Ray’ak, son of Teal’c, one of the main characters, about the Jaffa rebellion against the Gao’uld (Part 2 of the sixth season opener, “Redemption”): “Just because the battle is unwinnable does not make the cause any less noble.”

RB
From ???@0x0000120E Fri Jan 28 10:15:44 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:15:44 -0500 In article, wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:50:53 -0800, in alt.fan.heinlein “Geo Rule”
> wrote:
> > “LNC” wrote in message
> > news:QRkKd.25055$…
> > > “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> > > news:…
> > >
> > > I’m sorry, I don’t. “Time Enough for Love” is no “Red Badge of Courage.”
> > > It’s no, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” If it’s confirmation of the
> > > futility of war you’re looking for Heinlein to be using as a theme,what
> > > you’re actually getting is endorsement instead of confirmation. Moreover, as
> > > wars go, that one was so comparatively moral (gag) compared to Vietnam, and
> > > the outcome so clear-cut, it was the worst one to pick.
> >
> > Howza? No, no. Not “on the futility of war” –on why some men *choose*, even
> > when they don’t “have to”, to fight *even when in a particular case they
> > know it is futile and pointless*. And not psychopaths and/or dummies and/or
> > gloryhounds and/or “mislead by their leaders” either. And told at a time
> > when many men were making the other choice.
>
> A concept which is still used in (science) fiction, as recently as “Babylon 5”
> and “Stargate SG-1”.
>
> In B5, when the Earthforce troops go “on the line” in a last-ditch stand against
> the Minbari, even when they _know_ they are going to get their asses kicked all
> the way to Narn. If you have a copy of “Babylon 5: In the Beginning”, listen to
> Lando Mollari’s voiceover as he describes the Earth-Minbari war – “When my time
> comes, I only hope I can face it with half the nobility that they showed at the
> end. ”
>
> “Stargate SG-1” also expressd it, in one line, when the Jaffa Master Brae’tak is
> talking to Ray’ak, son of Teal’c, one of the main characters, about the Jaffa
> rebellion against the Gao’uld (Part 2 of the sixth season opener, “Redemption”):
> “Just because the battle is unwinnable does not make the cause any less noble.”
>

A concept that runs through Japanese history and literature, certainly back to the eighth century or so, is the “Nobility of failure.” Many of the greatest heroes in Japanese culture actually failed in what they did (with a broad definition of “failure”), but are admired for the “sincerity” of their actions. “Sincerity” is the usual translation of “makoto”, a very high-context word. From my limited experience, I would say “commitment” is a better translation of makoto. The 47 ronin are an excellent example, although you can argue either way if they were a success (killing the man against whom they had sworn vengeance) or failure (that their lord got into the impossible position, and that seppuku was culturally required after the vengeance). Saigo the Great, the leader of the final rebellion against the Meiji suppresion of the samurai, is still revered. From ???@0x000008EA Fri Jan 28 02:13:37 2005
“Geo Rule”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 23:13:37 -0800 “LNC” wrote in message news:QRkKd.25055$…

> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> news:…
>
>
> Personally, I think the ass shooting
> was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with
> mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.
>

Oh, I should have added here that there is a theory with some merit (in my view) that TEFL was his first “last” book. Taking the first part of your comment from that pov, WWI was not an excuse for LL boffing his mom, as you postulated earlier, but rather boffing his mom would be LL’s excuse for WWI. From ???@0x00000BE1 Fri Jan 28 05:34:47 2005
“Bookman” Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:34:47 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote in message news:78adnQS-Q–…

>
> “LNC” wrote in message
> news:QRkKd.25055$…
>> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
>> news:…
>>
>>
>> Personally, I think the ass shooting
>> was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with
>> mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.
>>
>
> Oh, I should have added here that there is a theory with some merit (in my
> view) that TEFL was his first “last” book. Taking the first part of your
> comment from that pov, WWI was not an excuse for LL boffing his mom, as
> you postulated earlier, but rather boffing his mom would be LL’s excuse
> for WWI.

Besides, wasn’t there an element of “hey, I’m getting to know my mother as a real, live person rather than the family icon I grew up under”?

Even more so than re-reading a book that you haven’t read in a while changes your perception of it, wouldn’t meeting your mother/father as younger adults when you are severely older make for a _serious_ re-adjustment of childhood preconceptions? I mean hey, just look at all the younger adults who are disturbed by the notion that their parents actually had/have _sex_! (Let alone their _grandparents_!)

But then RAH suggested in “Grumbles” that kicking over sacred cows and re-examining preconceived notions were a fair chunk of his stock-in-trade, not so?

Regards,

—
Rusty the bookman
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you when you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, and they’re starvation cheap
– Kipling

From ???@0x00000901 Fri Jan 28 09:57:34 2005
Howard Berkowitz
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:57:34 -0500 In article, “Bookman”

wrote:

> But then RAH suggested in “Grumbles” that kicking over
> sacred cows…

How similar is this rite to cow tipping? Now, the thing I’ve always found to be a challenge about cow tipping is it’s very hard to decide how good the cow’s service has been, so as to compute the correct percentage of tip based on the bill.

OTOH, if the cow’s service was to provide itself as dinner, that’s real commitment, and deserves a really good tip — except at that point, there’s no longer a cow to tip.

Now, when it comes to sacred cows, it’s much more difficult to judge their contribution than a restaurant cow, even if the latter made only the minimum contribution of a pat of butter (as opposed to other cow pats).
From ???@0x00000A38 Fri Jan 28 13:11:10 2005
“J. F. Cornwall”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:11:10 -0600 Howard Berkowitz wrote:

> In article , “Bookman”
> wrote:
>
>
>>But then RAH suggested in “Grumbles” that kicking over
>>sacred cows…
>
>
> How similar is this rite to cow tipping? Now, the thing I’ve always
> found to be a challenge about cow tipping is it’s very hard to decide
> how good the cow’s service has been, so as to compute the correct
> percentage of tip based on the bill.
>
> OTOH, if the cow’s service was to provide itself as dinner, that’s real
> commitment, and deserves a really good tip — except at that point,
> there’s no longer a cow to tip.

(ObSF: _Restaurant at the End of The Universe_, where the cow comes out and asks Zaphod, Ford, Arthur, and Trillian what sort of steak they’d like, then ends up with “Right now, I’ll just nip off to the kitchen and shoot myself, then”…). Be it noted that the cow does *not* get a tip for this service…

Jim!

> Now, when it comes to sacred cows, it’s much more difficult to judge
> their contribution than a restaurant cow, even if the latter made only
> the minimum contribution of a pat of butter (as opposed to other cow
> pats).

From ???@0x00000ADE Sat Jan 29 00:31:48 2005
“Big_Fella”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 15:31:48 +1000 “Howard Berkowitz” wrote in message news:…

> In article , “Bookman”
> wrote:
>
>> But then RAH suggested in “Grumbles” that kicking over
>> sacred cows…
>
> How similar is this rite to cow tipping? Now, the thing I’ve always
> found to be a challenge about cow tipping is it’s very hard to decide
> how good the cow’s service has been, so as to compute the correct
> percentage of tip based on the bill.
>
> OTOH, if the cow’s service was to provide itself as dinner, that’s real
> commitment, and deserves a really good tip — except at that point,
> there’s no longer a cow to tip.

But,as in Greece, the plate must be destroyed so as never to be scullied for a lesser purpose. Unless, of course, as Mr Cornwall said

>>(ObSF: _Restaurant at the End of The Universe_, where the cow comes out
and asks Zaphod, Ford, Arthur, and Trillian what sort of steak they’d
like, then ends up with “Right now, I’ll just nip off to the kitchen and
shoot myself, then”…). *<< they didn’t tip the cow, but his service was yet to be completed. :-[ ) >
> Now, when it comes to sacred cows, it’s much more difficult to judge
> their contribution than a restaurant cow, even if the latter made only
> the minimum contribution of a pat of butter (as opposed to other cow
> pats).

From ???@0x00000EF7 Fri Jan 28 15:43:59 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 20:43:59 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote in message news:78adnQS-Q–…

>
> “LNC” wrote in message
> news:QRkKd.25055$…
> > “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> > news:…
> >
> >
> > Personally, I think the ass shooting
> > was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with
> > mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.
> >
>
> Oh, I should have added here that there is a theory with some merit (in my
> view) that TEFL was his first “last” book. Taking the first part of your
> comment from that pov, WWI was not an excuse for LL boffing his mom, as you
> postulated earlier, but rather boffing his mom would be LL’s excuse for WWI.

I didn’t say WWI was an excuse for getting it on with the motherthing; I said laying mommy was the point. The way the writer gets his boy in mom’s knickers is by enlisting and showing up in leggings. Now, I think you’re coming around to my way of thinking.

That still leaves us, though, with “why do it with mom?” Sure, incest is at least a sacred cow in a lot of cultures and is in the U.S. without a doubt. Picking this one to upset, tip or otherwise milk, though, was a huge mistake in a lot of ways.

It undermines the credibility of the non-incestual body of work. It leaves readers with the impression somebody was just a dirty old man with a silver tongue. Literarily, it violates one of the classic canons of tragedy: spectacle. It makes no intellectual, philosophical point since “I did it because I could” isn’t any point about which to brag. (Note, that the only reason he “could,” he being LL, is because he had a time machine; another classical gimmick violation: deus ex machina.)

So, why pick incest? Because he could. He could because he had the clout. Because he had the clout and could, he became self-indulgent. Does that mean I stand for the perpetuation of incest taboos? Yes. Until we all have time machines and the benefit of somebody else to write our dialogue for us in such a way as to smoothly explain away all the possible feelings engendered by all the possible consequences, it stays.

Ah has spoken.

LNC
From ???@0x00001174 Fri Jan 28 19:57:40 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 28 Jan 2005 16:57:40 -0800 LNC wrote:

> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> news:78adnQS-Q–…
> >
> > “LNC” wrote in message
> > news:QRkKd.25055$…
> > > “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> > > news:…
> > >
> > >
> > > Personally, I think the ass shooting
> > > was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with
> > > mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.
> > >
> >
> > Oh, I should have added here that there is a theory with some merit (in my
> > view) that TEFL was his first “last” book. Taking the first part of your
> > comment from that pov, WWI was not an excuse for LL boffing his mom, as you
> > postulated earlier, but rather boffing his mom would be LL’s excuse for WWI.
>
> I didn’t say WWI was an excuse for getting it on with the motherthing; I
> said laying mommy was the point. The way the writer gets his boy in mom’s
> knickers is by enlisting and showing up in leggings. Now, I think you’re
> coming around to my way of thinking.
>
> That still leaves us, though, with “why do it with mom?” Sure, incest is at
> least a sacred cow in a lot of cultures and is in the U.S. without a doubt.
> Picking this one to upset, tip or otherwise milk, though, was a huge mistake
> in a lot of ways.
>
> It undermines the credibility of the non-incestual body of work. It leaves
> readers with the impression somebody was just a dirty old man with a silver
> tongue. Literarily, it violates one of the classic canons of tragedy:
> spectacle. It makes no intellectual, philosophical point since “I did it
> because I could” isn’t any point about which to brag. (Note, that the only
> reason he “could,” he being LL, is because he had a time machine; another
> classical gimmick violation: deus ex machina.)
>
> So, why pick incest? Because he could. He could because he had the clout.
> Because he had the clout and could, he became self-indulgent. Does that mean
> I stand for the perpetuation of incest taboos? Yes. Until we all have time
> machines and the benefit of somebody else to write our dialogue for us in
> such a way as to smoothly explain away all the possible feelings engendered
> by all the possible consequences, it stays.
>
> Ah has spoken.
>
> LNC

Let us know when you descend from the mountain with the REST of the commandments for us to ignore. And RAH didn’t tip this cow as much as kick the corpse. Thompson’s _Garden of Sand_ had knocked it over and killed it dead. Like most taboos, it might take multiple killings but Heinlein didn’t do anything in comparison. I guess it’s a heartland thing.

Will in New Haven

—

“Did an angel whisper in your ear
And hold you close and take away your fear
In those long last moments.”
Lucinda Williams – “Lake Charles” off CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD

From ???@0x00001315 Fri Jan 28 10:07:43 2005
Fred J. McCall
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:07:43 GMT “Geo Rule” wrote:

:—– Original Message —–
:From: “LNC”
:Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
:Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:38 PM
:Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster
:(Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
:
:
:> “Geo Rule” wrote in message
:> news:…
:>>
:>> Given the publication date of TEFL (1973), the part near the end where he
:>> decides to join up for WWI is very fascinating to me. He knows it is futile
:>> as a war, in fact counterproductive, and that the only thing he can
:>> accomplish is get his ass shot off for no reason at all (it is, after all,
:>> in the “past” and he isn’t going to change anything). Yet he goes
:>> anyway –not for duty (he had none), not for conviction, not to make a
:>> difference. Just to preserve the respect of people dear to him.
:>
:> This disregards the getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation. Yes, it sounds nobler
:> but that’s its only virtue. After all, it’s not possible to contend that LL
:> didn’t know that was going to happen since LL has never existed but RAH
:> wrote him right where he wanted him to go.
:
:Not so much. *Telling* her that he’s going to go off and fight would
:accomplish that. LL didn’t need to actually go do it, and certainly RAH
:could have written it that way. LL was good enuf to ‘take a powder’
:believably after accomplishing that goal, if that’s all that the author was
:interested in.

But this does sort of cover it. Men fight either to maintain their belief in their own self-image or to maintain an image that others hold of them. Otherwise it makes damned little sense to put your personal corpus in the way of bullet when you can avoid it.

I thought it was obvious. LL wanted to be that person that Mom thought he was, because to not be that person meant a lowering of her opinion of him. So he went and fought even though he not only knew better based on a lot of years of experience, but knew that the particular fight he was in was going to be pretty futile.

:>> I have to think RAH was making a commentary on both the Vietnam war (comparing it to
:>> WWI from a ‘tell me again what we’re going to accomplish here?’ pov) and why men fight.

I’d buy the latter. I never considered it as connected to Vietnam at all.

:> Why do men fight? You mean soldiers in wars? Isn’t it because they’re told
:> to do so? Why are wars started? I think that transcends the capacity of a
:> work of fiction to glibly explain it all.
:
:Hundreds of authors over hundreds of years just began crying in frustration.
:Which isn’t necessarily a comment on the accuracy of your statement –but
:they keep a’trying.

The real explanation on an individual basis really does tend to be pretty easy to understand. Nobody fights “because they’re told to”. That’s not much of a motivation. They fight because everyone has a need to maintain their own or others’ illusions about who they are and sometimes voluntarily putting yourself at risk of taking a bullet is what it takes to do that.

Or you could just believe what one Civil War general (Sherman?) said about it. “Half the men don’t know why we’re fighting and the other half don’t care. They just like to fight.”

—
You have never lived until you have almost died.
Life has a special meaning that the protected
will never know.

From ???@0x00000D39 Thu Feb 10 10:51:01 2005
“David Wright Sr.”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 10 Feb 2005 15:51:01 GMT “David M. Silver” wrote in news::

(snip)

> The next meeting of the Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group will be held
> on the following topic, at the following dates, times, and in the
> following place.
>
> Topic: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster
> Dates and Times: Thursday, February 24, 2005, from 9 PM to
> midnight, ET, and
> Saturday, February 26, 2005, from 5 to 8 PM,
> ET
> Place: “Heinlein Readers Group chat” on AIM
>
> Reading Recommended: Time Enough for Love (mandatory), and
> Stranger in a Strange Land (mandatory)
>
> Chat Room Moderator: “agplusone,” i.e., me.
>

I have been on a reading kick since the above first appeared. As I mentioned, I am researching for an article on Linguistics in Heinlein. In reading S.I. Hayakawa’s book, _Language In Thought And Action_, I came across the following:

In brief, he said, “In the magazines of mass appeal, the writers rarely rely on the reader’s ability to arrive at his own conclusions. In order to save any possible strain on the reader’s intelligence, the writers *make the judgements for us*. The ‘slicks’ do this less than the ‘pulps,’ while in the ‘quality’ group, the tendency is to rely on the reader a great deal”

If this was true to any significant extent in the pulp sf magazines pre-WWII, then it might explain how and why RAH became so popular so quickly. After all, the readers of sf, I imagine, to a large extent were and are generally more eager to have their horizons broadened. I don’t believe that RAH ever ‘talked down’ to his audience as is the implication of Hayakawa’s observations on ‘pulps’ in general and furthermore, RAH’s technique of letting the reader ‘fill-in-the-blanks’, so to speak, forces conclusions, even if unconsciously done, on the reader.

In essence, did RAH raise the level of the ‘pulps’ and find a readership that welcomed it?

I haven’t access to any of the early pulps and can’t therefore speak about whether or not Hayakawa was correct in his observation. One fact stands out, however, is that RAH *did* sell to the ‘slicks’ after WWII, and I, personally, can’t see any significant difference in writing between those stories and many of his earlier ones.

—
David Wright
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From ???@0x00000CDE Fri Jan 28 12:15:42 2005
Chris Zakes
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:15:42 GMT On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 03:02:37 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser caused “LNC” to write:

>
>”Chris Zakes” wrote in message
>news:…
>> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:38:36 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser
>> caused “LNC” to write:
>
>> >This disregards the getting-in-mom’s-pants motivation. Yes, it sounds nobler
>> >but that’s its only virtue. After all, it’s not possible to contend that LL
>> >didn’t know that was going to happen since LL has never existed but RAH
>> >wrote him right where he wanted him to go.
>
>> Okay, *where* is it stated that Lazarus Long’s motivation for
>> travelling back to the Kansas City of his boyhood was to “get in mom’s
>> pants”? Chapter and verse, please.
>
>The explanation I already gave, Chris. I’ll restate it: there is no such
>person as Lazarus Long. There was such a person as Robert Heinlein. Robert
>Heinlein wrote “Time Enough for Love,” (hereinafter, “TEFL). In TEFL, a
>fictional character named Lazarus Long is written in an extended segment of
>the book as a traveler in time. As a traveler in time, he “goes back” and
>encounters his mother, Maureen. During this encounter, he boinks her and she
>boinks him back. Since there is no such real person as Lazarus Long, the
>purpose for having written the character to travel in time (to boink mom)
>needs to be discerned from the writer’s (a living person at the time)
>writing. That is to say, what the writer writes the character doing is the
>purpose, notwithstanding what the (fictional) character “says” he’s doing,
>and it’s the writer’s purpose and not what the words the writer puts in the
>character’s “mouth” that have any weight.

Okay, thay makes sense.

-Chris Zakes
Texas

Life isn’t fair. Anyone who tells you different is either
selling something or trying to get your vote.

From ???@0x000009C3 Fri Jan 28 15:24:35 2005
“LNC”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 20:24:35 GMT “Chris Zakes” wrote in message news:…

> Okay, thay makes sense.

Sorry, Chris, wrong, again. Dishonest narrators are an old and grand tradition in literature. Additionally, Heinlein was a writer with more skill than to come out and say, plainly, all the time, what he was trying to communicate. The fact may be that what Heinlein was trying to do is prove the truth of his ad hoc saw about naked force settling more conflicts in history that talk and doing so by talking about naked force, thereby attempting to proleptically settle future conflicts without the use of force. There’s probably not a more clever way of doing that than by sending a guy back in time and making him fight a war he knows is futile and in which he might die. Not just a guy, either; his only begotten son that whosoever believeth…well, you know the line.

Now, never again tell me that I makes sense. Thanks.

L.N.
From ???@0x00001471 Mon Jan 31 22:21:11 2005
“”
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Subject: Re: RAHRGC: Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster (Thursday, February 24, and Saturday, February 26, 2005).
Date: 31 Jan 2005 19:21:11 -0800 Chris Zakes wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 20:43:59 GMT, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused “LNC” to write:
>
> >”Geo Rule” wrote in message
> >news:78adnQS-Q–…
> >>
> >> “LNC” wrote in message
> >> news:QRkKd.25055$…
> >> > “Geo Rule” wrote in message
> >> > news:…
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Personally, I think the ass shooting
> >> > was originally intended to be the classical punishment for what he done with
> >> > mom and the later works dared after the incest firestorm didn’t happen.
> >> >
> >>
> >> Oh, I should have added here that there is a theory with some merit (in my
> >> view) that TEFL was his first “last” book. Taking the first part of your
> >> comment from that pov, WWI was not an excuse for LL boffing his mom, as you
> >> postulated earlier, but rather boffing his mom would be LL’s excuse for WWI.
> >
> >I didn’t say WWI was an excuse for getting it on with the motherthing; I
> >said laying mommy was the point. The way the writer gets his boy in mom’s
> >knickers is by enlisting and showing up in leggings. Now, I think you’re
> >coming around to my way of thinking.
>
> You’ve stopped making sense. *If* LL was doing the soldier-thing
> solely to get in bed with his mom, then why is it that *she* is
> depicted as the agressor, not him?

I think you misunderstand here. LNC is saying that HEINLEIN’S motivation to have LL fighting in the last great feudal land grab was in order to have him wind up shtupping his mom. Heinlein is evidently intent on doing this for the shock value.

LL, he would explain to you, does not have any motivation because he is merely a fictional character. As a way of analyzing works of fiction, this makes a certain amount of sense but it is also circular and shallow.

LL, while hardly a character I admire a great deal, has enough reality for the discerning reader after his appearance in so much previous fiction that his motivations cannot be ignored. When I think of hours people spend analyzing the motivations of fictional characters, I think of LNC and his wisdom and I realize that they are right and he is wrong. Wudda soup-prize.

>
> From the middle of Da Capo IV, LL is thinking “Private enough for a
> good-bye kiss–fine! Then let’s deliver you home safe and sound.”
>
> A couple of lines farther on, Maureen says “‘Then *do* drive with one
> hand. Is that plain enough, or must I be still more bold?’ Cautiously
> he put his arm across her shoulders. She promptly reached up, took his
> hand, pulled it down, and pressed it to her breast, saying quietly,
> ‘we haven’t time to be shy, dear Theodore.'”
>
> Next you’ll be telling us that Richard Campbell is a pedophile because
> Gretchen tried to seduce him.
>
> I think you need to re-read the book.
>
> -Chris Zakes
> Texas
>
> Life isn’t fair. Anyone who tells you different is either
> selling something or trying to get your vote.

No matter how many times he reads the book, LL will still simply be a fictional character manipulated by the talented charlaton RAH, a stick figure if you will. That is what he sees. Since there is certainly some truth to it and that is ALL there is to it if a reader wills there to be, the discussion becomes almost as pointless as my intervention.

Will in New Haven

—

“I think I’ll find a pair of eyes tonight, to fall into
and maybe strike a deal
Your body for my soul, fair swap
`cause cheap is how I feel ”
Cowboy Junkies – “Cheap is How I Feel”

End of Postings
Go Beginning of Posts
Here Begins the Discussion

You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”

DavidWrightSr: I’m back

AGplusone: and wb you are. And I found Hayakawa so instead of uttering a primal scream, I’m smiling

Reilloc has entered the room.

aggirlj: Smile ‘smore, I sent you those addresses.

BPRAL22169: Wasn’t Primal Scream from Reich?

aggirlj: Hi LN

Reilloc: Hi, Jane.

Reilloc: I got in, somebody primally screamed and me so I shut up.

BPRAL22169: You’re much, much too easy, LNC.

aggirlj: Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Reilloc: Like, you know, Sunday morning?

AGplusone: Guess it’s time to start. David: in the beginning we have Michael in SiaSL sitting in the bed in the hospital. What’s the problem, linguistically?

RichardFctn has entered the room.

AGplusone: Hello, Richard. Robert Heinlein Reading Group chat tonight on linguistics and language usage in Heinlein?

AGplusone: We’re just beginning …

DavidWrightSr: The basic problem is that he really has no grasp on the language and it will be some time before he does.

AGplusone: But how is that described by linguistics scholars? And why?

LV Poker Player has entered the room.

AGplusone: Why is it important?

DavidWrightSr: I’m not sure what you are trying to get at?

AGplusone: Hayakawa somewhere has a chart, saying, The Word is not the message. The Map is not the continent, etc.

BPRAL22169: Soemthing to do with Mike’s reality?

AGplusone: What’s he getting at?

AGplusone: {yes, and Bill, how does Heinlein make use of this?}

BPRAL22169: Well, he’s as estranged from his environment as his language is.

DavidWrightSr: Basically, Mike doesn’t have a map at this point in English. His map is totally in Martian and Martians discern the universe differently from earthmen

AGplusone: LIke, 50 years ago, in English 1, someone tossed me a bunch of books, including among them Language in Thought and Action, said “read these” and let’s start with writing essays. What was I supposed to have gleaned from the tiny,

AGplusone: little intro I supposedly got from reading the guy with the Tam O’Shanter’s book.

AGplusone: 40 years

BPRAL22169: Come to think of it, that was about the time they tried to start a speech class in high school with “the map is not the territory.”

AGplusone: Are we supposed to be as estranged as Mike, reading SiaSL?

DavidWrightSr: I am not familiar with O’Shanter. I just finished Hayakawa a few days ago. You must remember that he was trying to draw his ‘map’ for Korzybski.

DavidWrightSr: I haven’t read K in over 40 years myself. I am holding off until I have done some more research.

AGplusone: I pointed out that Burroughs, when he wrote Tarzan, and Kipling, when he wrote Mowgli, spent much less time on how they each acquired human language than Mike, and with far less difficulty … what’

moultonfcx: According to Wikipedia the phrase “the map is not the territory”was coined by Eric Bell and popularized by Korzybiski

AGplusone: is Heinlein’s point in doing much more with his orphan Martian named Smith.

BPRAL22169: And of course, Mike is a direct descendant of Mowgli.

AGplusone: ?

AGplusone: And Tarzan … with his little “bugs” …

BPRAL22169: And Eric Temple Bell is sf writer John Taine.

AGplusone: Ah, soooo

AGplusone: All this prattle in the late ’60s I heard about water ceremonies, and drinking deeply, and “grok” … what tie in does it have, linguistically, with whatever it is that SiaSL got after?

LV Poker Player: Someone who is multilingual is in a much better position to judge just how important a different language is. Does anyone here qualify?

BPRAL22169: Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsche, et un petit peu de la langue francaise

BPRAL22169: (though my grounding in Latin is strongest)

LV Poker Player: About the only thing I can get out of that is “No parlez-vous Francais” and likewise for Deutsche.

AGplusone: to judge, or as multilingual? Multilinqualism is a way to qualify, but many linguistic experts hardly really qualify as multilingual …

BPRAL22169: I’m sorry, David, I’ve lost the thread — in your last, what “it” did you mean?

DavidWrightSr: Heinlein’s use of grok is very interesting. Remembering what Longstreet Phyllis did in BTH, when she was trying to explain ‘old goat’ to the son. “Never define a term in other words when you can point to it. …. more

AGplusone: the “prattle” I heard on every side as the flower generation discovered Heinlein

DavidWrightSr: Heinlein uses grok over and over again with ‘defining’ it, but simply using it in context until you ‘know’ pretty much what it means.

AGplusone: But isn’t a full understanding of linguistics grokking?

DavidWrightSr: He only gives ‘a’ definition very much later. The point being is that it means ‘all’ of the things that it was used for.

BPRAL22169: I don’t think understanding (i.e., an intellectual process) is what groking is supposed to be about.

AGplusone: that’s what he said …

DavidWrightSr: It’s part of it, but much more.

AGplusone: neither did the flower kiddies … it was all intuitive for them at the start … made it easy!

AGplusone: Not all the flower kiddies of course, but some of them, liked it easy.

BPRAL22169: It’s more like absorption of the self in the experience.

Reilloc: Point of personal privilege.

AGplusone: Go, LN

AGplusone: what point?

Reilloc: Where do you get off dissing us flower children, you old fart?

Reilloc: Sorry.

Reilloc: That may have been too strong.

Reilloc: Easy?

AGplusone: privilege of being an old fart

Reilloc: We didn’t want it strong; we wanted it straight.

BPRAL22169: I’m not so sure that’s so much a privilege as a necessity.

Reilloc: We were just too stoned to take it other than osmotically.

AGplusone: yeah, man, tune in, turn on, and let’s go to your apartment …

DavidWrightSr: Speak for yourself, fellow

Reilloc: I remember those days well.

Reilloc: When I flash back.

BPRAL22169: If you remember those days, you weren’t doing it right.

Reilloc: We were looking for the truth and the establishment was withholding it.

Reilloc: See, above, Bill.

AGplusone: But the point is, the old fart wearing the Tam O’Shanter at Berkeley was standing there saying I won’t let you shut the school down so you can “grok” some more.

BPRAL22169: Wasn’t that after 1974?

AGplusone: Let’s make it a rigorous science …

Reilloc: Grok always put me in mind of the Latin verb, “agere.”

DavidWrightSr: You can see how far out I am. I had forgotten that Hayakawa was famous for the Tam O’….

Reilloc: Go, do, live, drive and lots of others in context.

AGplusone: Might have been … all the tuning out had a disquieting effect on temporality in those years.

Reilloc: I wasn’t surprised when he revealed grok meant drink.

moultonfcx: As for water ceremonies, I think some people want ceremonies and practice ceremonies in order to associate themselves with certain ideas. And there was a lot of seaching going on at that time.

aggirlj: Seen on a license, ‘If not for flashbacks I’d have no memory at all.’

DavidWrightSr: Grok, IMHO, is Heinlein’s highest manifestation of his technique of letting the reader ‘fill-in-the-blanks’, IOW, everyone had to figure it out for themselves.

AGplusone: But back to Heinlein’s usage of the concept of linguistics … what’s his point as an artist in coining a work, “grok” …. and a religion, CAW, and what is his object of satire? David’s answer above, only?

Reilloc: A little learning is a dangerous thing. Grok deeply or taste not the (whatever the hell the name of it was) spring.

BPRAL22169: Pieran, I think.

BPRAL22169: Piernan?

Reilloc: Thought it was Pyrian.

Reilloc: Couldn’t remember.

AGplusone: Or is Jubal, the Evangelist, going to write in the dogmas when he finishes The Martian Named Smith?

AGplusone: Explain Pyrian, please.

BPRAL22169: I think Jubal was fully occupied writing the non-dogmas in the World as Myth books.

Reilloc: The name of the spring as an approximation.

jilyd has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: I think the springs at Piernus was where Jupiter drank to get his godly wisdom.

jilyd: Good evening. I see new “faces.”

Reilloc: Hi, Kate

Reilloc: I mean Dee.

moultonfcx: This raises the question is did Heinlein use Grok to make a pointor as a literary device or both?

jilyd: Good to see you Fred.

jilyd: Um, LN.

moultonfcx: Hi

AGplusone: Hi, Dee … we’re on to discussion of what Heinlein’s technique in using linguistics as a foil to understanding was all about … if I ever understand what Pyrian means. {Exactly, Fred!}

Reilloc: Pierian

jilyd: I feel far more wualified to listen than contribute.

BPRAL22169: He certainly did use the thing for literary purposes as well as other purposes — it’s one of the ways the inside-outside dichotomy is reified in the book.

moultonfcx: Yes

LV Poker Player: I have always questioned just how important the “road map” (language) is when understanding something. Would a different language really cause someone to see things all

AGplusone: Do we have to “learn Martian” (the language Hayakawa, Whorf-Sapir, et al. speak) or will “plain” English do to understand?

aggirlj: Websters refers to muses.

LV Poker Player: THAT differently?

RichardFctn: Quick definitions (Pierian)(a.) Of or pertaining to Pierides or Muses.

AGplusone: okay …

BPRAL22169: Jubal groked without learning Martian.

BPRAL22169: Though he did at least read Arabic.

AGplusone: But as LV pointed out it helps to be multilingual

jilyd: Don, Joe assures me, and he seems to be right, that I will never learn some aspects of physics without the math :language.”

LV Poker Player: HOW MUCH does it help?

BPRAL22169: It does help to be multilingual — but English is naturally multilingual.

moultonfcx: There can be different paths to the top of most mountains

moultonfcx: But not necessarily all

LV Poker Player: I am totally unqualified when it comes to multilingual. The only time I tried to learn a foreign language was 9th grade French, and it was an unqualified disaster.

AGplusone: Jill, Dawn, Ben and the rest had to all learn Martian to get to the Ninth Circle.

jilyd: If your language does not even have a certain concept, it will be a lot toughter to think that concept through.

AGplusone: Jubal, or John the Baptist, didn’t need to, but he was an exception, to get to Heaven, as the old nuns taught me.

LV Poker Player: Hmm…your understanding may not be complete, but is it DIFFERENT?

BPRAL22169: One of the insights the Deconstructionist brought was that there are “thing shaped holes” the language defines.

aggirlj: I have got to go have dinner now, have fun ya’ll.

AGplusone: ‘splain that a little more, please, Bill. “Along came these guys named Deconstructionists, and …

LV Poker Player: English, at least, is pretty good at coming up with new terms, borrowing from other languages, or using old terms in new ways to deal with new concepts.

aggirlj has left the room.

BPRAL22169: Oh, you ask the hard ones, don’t you. Rhetorical criticism became a big deal in the 1970’s, around the Deconstruction theory of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man and others. They were concerned with the things we do to language, not

DavidWrightSr: Languages outside of the group that most people are familiar with, do indeed, describe the world differently. One linguist I’ve read said that one indian language was able to grasp the ‘wave-particle’ concept much easier than we can

BPRAL22169: just to express, but also to deny parts of our reality, hold them away from having to confront them.

AGplusone: okay, and …

BPRAL22169: Every formulation gives a clue to what is NOT said, as well as what is said — that’s the “thing-shaped hole” I was talking about.

BPRAL22169: If you listen carefully to what is not said, you’ve essentially got a parallax view what is said.

DavidWrightSr: It is very obvious, though, that we can learn new concepts, even if we don’t have the language to describe it appropriately at first. Don said something to that effect about Sir Isaac

AGplusone: It’s like the novel of drawers, and if you don’t open up the drawer, you don’t have to talk about it; but you know Heinlein’s in there? All you have to do is pull the drawer out, and he springs out at you with his foil, en garde?

DavidWrightSr: He asked himself, “Could Sir Isaac lie because he had no word for it or was he so humanized that he had learned.

Reilloc: I still don’t buy that not being able to lie business.

jilyd: I don’t buy never learned to culturally, nor can’t lie because no concept in panguage.

moultonfcx: Given the work done recently in evolutionary psychology the thing about not be alble to lie is harder to take

Reilloc: It makes no intellectual or semantic sense.

jilyd: But is it conceivable that a brain might just be not wired for fiction?

BPRAL22169 has left the room.

BPRAL22169 has entered the room.

AGplusone: But you could invent a multiverse in which “not being able to lie” is one of the drawers we occasionally choose to pull out?

BPRAL22169: Accidentally got rid of the Chatroom.

jilyd: No, we are harder to get rid of than that, Bill. 🙂

moultonfcx: Is a brain not wired for fiction able to consider various options.

BPRAL22169: Ha! Think of this as a drawer!

AGplusone: Probably be a handicap, Fred

AGplusone: to astrophysics among other things

Reilloc: You could invent a universe where there were organized groups of entities and the chance one’s perception of an event would be identical to all the others’ is 100%?

jilyd: Interesting question. Is a possibility an untruth?

moultonfcx: That is why I find the can not lie as hard to take

BPRAL22169: I’m not sure that there can be such a thing as a brain not wired for fiction — I have a hard time imagining anything like an intelligence that was physiologically unable to model actions.

AGplusone: me too

moultonfcx: Yes

Reilloc: I know people with negligible imaginations.

LV Poker Player: It is hard for me to imagine any intelligent, organic entity in this universe as unable to lie.

LV Poker Player: A computer hardwired to not lie, and that sort of thing, maybe.

AGplusone: it’s a religious question at that stage … I won’t lie, I’ll just postulate or create hypothses

jilyd: I have a hard time imagining it as a species characteristic, but not so hard to imagine as a neuropathology.

BPRAL22169: I’m sure you do, LNC — but I think that’s a faculty that has wasted away through disuse rather than an inherent inabilty.

AGplusone: Or by religion …

DavidWrightSr: There was no talk of ‘wiring’, simply that without the concept as articulated through language, there would be a hard hurdle to overcome, but it could be done. IMO

BPRAL22169: David, at this point you’re posing a social constraint on the definition.

Reilloc: Dee, as a neuropathology, the afflicted don’t/can’t lie or can’t be convinced they have?

AGplusone: But in Sir Isaac’s case, it’s what then?

LV Poker Player: Is there any human language, living or dead, that lacks terms for lying and fiction?

Reilloc: fiction

DavidWrightSr: Not that I am aware of.

jilyd: Ther are documented cases of such weird stuff teh brain cna do, that there is very little thatis unimaginable as a pathological situation.

BPRAL22169: Maybe David’s point is the best interpretation for this: Martians don’t have the concept — not of speaking an untruth — but of gaining a social advantage (or escaping a disadvantage) by way of stating an untruth. It’s the

BPRAL22169: “advantageous untruth” they don’t have.

AGplusone: The Martians, all the Martians, from the one in Jerry Was a Man, can’t lie, can they?

Reilloc: Won’t work, Bill

LV Poker Player: It seems to me that if a concept exists, then language will come up with a term for it.

Reilloc: Then you have to go back and define “advantageous” and redefine “untruth.”

DavidWrightSr: Yes, BUT, you have to come up with the concept first.

AGplusone: They just don’t tell infants all the truth. They wind them up, send them out, cherish them when it’s time, and then go on about big folks’ business, grokking.

BPRAL22169: Just a sec –LVPP, not necessarily. Lots of primitive languages have no words for colors for example, people see they just aren’t important enough in their world to need to be named.

DavidWrightSr: The point is that languages do have a great influence on what concepts you can easily recognize.

LV Poker Player: So if a language lacks a term for a specific concept, it might mean that people speaking the language have not come with that particular concept YET.

AGplusone: [ … the necessity of doing what they did to the Fifth Planet … ]

BPRAL22169: We don’t need a single word for “the kind of snow that is wet when it falls.”

jilyd: OK, then what about, “Don’t lie because cannot lie successfully in Martian” ? Is it conceivable that speaking in Martian betrays to much to lie successfully?

DavidWrightSr: Correct. As Michael had problems that such things as fiction existed, but he learned.

LV Poker Player: Did not know that about the colors.

AGplusone: But “Sleet” works, doesn’t it?

LV Poker Player: Ok, a concept has to both exist and be considered significant to be named in the language.

BPRAL22169: That’s an old linguistics thing. If a language has only one color word, it will be red (“sleet is icy rain”); if it has two it will be red and black, and so on, up to about six, and after that things get fuzzy.

Reilloc: Now, we’re moving on to the other major discussion topic about this book, Don.

BPRAL22169: The point is, of course, that what’s considered significant to be named is what defines that shape of the language.

Reilloc: Humor.

BPRAL22169: Bite the parrot.

jilyd: ???

DavidWrightSr: Well, it is the culture that really defines it, but language influence culture. They go back and forth.

BPRAL22169: Bingo

Reilloc: Bill’s reading his new keyboard’s Chinese translated instruction book.

DavidWrightSr: And kids learn an existing language, so they inherit the culture

BPRAL22169: In modern linguist theory, some things get to be lexemes and others don’t.

jilyd:

Reilloc: I liked what you said, though, Dee.

Reilloc: It’s not that you can’t lie, it’s that you can’t do it convincingly/intentionally/with malice/whatever.

moultonfcx: Practice, practice, practice

AGplusone: As Mike did. “Feel like some breakfast” “Not that he had any warning he might be selected for such an honor.”

DavidWrightSr: I should have said, inherit that part of the culture that is presented by language from language

Reilloc: I forget, was there music on Mars?

DavidWrightSr: There was ‘art’, but not music, IIRC

Reilloc: How can you have art without lying?

AGplusone: Not, I think, except in the CDs brought by the lonely crew left behind.

DavidWrightSr: Art is abstracting, not lying. You abstract those parts you wish to highlight.

AGplusone: prolly one group listened to C&W, another to rap … and fought over it

Reilloc: Poker playing dog picture sells for half a million last week.

BPRAL22169: Anybody else intrigued by the fact that the description of the Martians’ most important art form is identical to the telepathic are practiced by the Shasta-ites in “Lost Legacy.”

DavidWrightSr: Actually, I guess you could ‘lie’ by inverting what you abstract in some manner. Is that satire?

jilyd: Is art lying? Doesn’t art aim to be Truth, not merely truth?

moultonfcx: depends

AGplusone: maybe at least irony

Reilloc: Truth is beauty and beauty truth but if one Martian says to another, “that’s ugly,” is it art?

DavidWrightSr: ‘arranging emotions’ or something like that?

BPRAL22169: I dunno — if you invert an abstraction all you get is another abstraction.

AGplusone: Holding a mirror up to reality gives you an inverted image

DavidWrightSr: Yeah, but one which is ‘not’ an accurate representation, I would think.

AGplusone: or Dorian Grey

AGplusone: but which one?

Reilloc: The one the artist sees

jilyd: But is accurate the same as true?

BPRAL22169: Representations don’t have to be accurate to be meaningful — or good art, for that matter.

moultonfcx: Google on “the betrayal of images”

Reilloc: The one the artist sees but lacks the skill to depict.

AGplusone: We could paint over all the images. Beware the Bird!

Reilloc: The one the artist depicted but didn’t see more than he idealized.

BPRAL22169: I can’t type — I’m covering my face with my hands…

Reilloc: And you say there’s no prevarication on Mars?

BPRAL22169: There are a lot of parallels with “Lost Legacy” in Stranger — the escape from the jail cell, for example, so I have to wonder what it is he’s bringing forward.

AGplusone: So, Heinlein is creating a mirror, isn’t he? Mike looks through it from one side, and Jill and everyone else is looking through from the other sides?

DavidWrightSr: And ‘speedtalk’?

LV Poker Player: Remember what was said about asking a human two year old to define calculus.

AGplusone: Where, which side, does Heinlein want us to stand?

moultonfcx: Why not both?

AGplusone: indeed

moultonfcx: Or above it all?

Reilloc: He wants us on the non-cashier side of the book store counter.

AGplusone: that too

Reilloc: He said it in this book.

Reilloc: We’re marks.

AGplusone: Maybe what he really wants us to do is enter a house of mirrors.

Reilloc: We need a big blow off even if it’s smoke and mirrors.

Reilloc: It’s all the better if we get the blowoff and think it was smoke and mirrors but it was actually real.

BPRAL22169: We’re already in the Monkey House.

AGplusone: Yes!

Reilloc: Fair witnesses.

Reilloc: Is such a notion even worth considering?

AGplusone: five minute break? LN, set sail for the Caribbean and you’ll walk the plank … and then onto fair witnesses …. yes, in five minutes from 07 past the hour

BPRAL22169: LNC, I think that dynamic is explicitly in the book — there are a couple of points at which is doing stage magic that is real.

Reilloc: I know, Bill, and you’re paying my way to the Bahamas, Dave.

DavidWrightSr: That was his purpose, I believe, to have us consider the idea, and think about the consequences, even if it is not actually possible. Are there things IRL which could be said to be related?

AGplusone: [is the fair witness a fool, a one-eyed man in the country of the multiple eyed flies?]

Reilloc: The fair witness is a sham.

Reilloc: No witness can be any more fair than the quality of her/his faculties.

Reilloc: afk

LV Poker Player: I thought the fair witness concept was week. Given that they had superior memory from training, they would have their uses, but some things seemed implausible.

LV Poker Player: Maybe it was even weak.

LV Poker Player: For example, Mike stored his will in a fair witness. In the unabridged version we find out it is more than one (6, I think) which makes more sense. Even so, is there anything wrong with a safety deposit box?

BPRAL22169: I think it was a device to put some aspects of human society in a living context rather than “dead words.”

AGplusone: Maybe the fair witness was just another form of shaman, not merely a sham?

DavidWrightSr: Well, there are a lot of things in Heinlein as well as most sf authors that don’t exist or may be impossible, but they shouldn’t stop us from enjoying them or thinking about them.

AGplusone: He only sees one side of things.

AGplusone: But real humans invent “lies” about what’s on the other side.

AGplusone: They assume, they imagine, they hypothesize.

AGplusone: And they can conceive things that are ninety degrees away from everything. Skipping the fourth dimension and on to the fifth?

IrishBet has entered the room.

LV Poker Player: This is a discussion of language usage in the canon, not just Stranger, right?

IrishBet: Evening, all

AGplusone: Hi, Pam. Yes, LV

AGplusone: I read an introduction to Franklin’s RAH: America as SF, last night. Point by the editor: while we have rewarded realism in literature this century, there has existed side-by-side with it, SF that has nothing to do with “realism”

AGplusone: so, yes, all the canon

LV Poker Player: I came across something recently that I had not noticed before, browsing through Farnham’s Freehold. When Ponse assigns Kitten as Hugh’s bedwarmer, Ponse mentions that Kitten is a natural “freemartin”. I had to look this one up.

AGplusone: means what?

DavidWrightSr: Naturally sterile, I believe.

LV Poker Player: A freemartin is a term for a female calf that is born sterile due to being fraternal twins with a male calf, and the male hormones overwhelm its reproductive system. I thought it interesting that this was a way to reinforce (more)

LV Poker Player: the idea that servants were just farm animals as far as the Chosen were concerned.

AGplusone: would you say that a fair witness, who only sees one side, is an unnatural, contrived freemartin? A farm animal tamed?

AGplusone: or trained distinct from the rest of us?

DavidWrightSr: Does that ever happen with humans? My wife is the female side of fraternal twins, and she definitely wasn’t sterile.

LV Poker Player: I’m not sure what you are asking, but I think you may be stretching a point a little too far.

AGplusone: Is Mary Lou Martin, frex, a trained freemartin overwhelmed by male hormones all around her in science?

LV Poker Player: My dictionary said nothing about people, only cattle.

AGplusone: aka the Harvard president’s comments recently, or the import some take from them?

DavidWrightSr: Then how did Kitten become a ‘natural’ one, I wonder.

LV Poker Player: The definition I looked up, and the usage in FF, was only about biological reproduction.

AGplusone: Slave breeding program

LV Poker Player: Perhaps any naturally sterile female is a freemartin, in the language of the Chosen.

AGplusone: The chosen breed for economy of production, for twins, and a by-product is …

DavidWrightSr: Could be he just used the term as ‘descriptive’ without it actually being the process. Metaphor.

AGplusone: “natural freemartins” Wow!

AGplusone: Could be, but I’m playing with it in context.

LV Poker Player: I think it was just a cattle related term that the Chosen had adapted to use with servants, similar to “vet” or “vetrinarian.”

AGplusone: If you’re going to have bedwarmers, why lose them for the months at the end of the periodic gestations that naturally result.

DavidWrightSr: I have a hard time imagining how you would breed for ‘sterility’. 😎

AGplusone: That would be a “lie,” right, David?

Reilloc: To accomodate intercourse with the Chosen without jeopardizing the gene pool, Dave.

BPRAL22169: Horse breeders do it all the time.

AGplusone: That too. Half-breed cause problems. Get uppity.

DavidWrightSr: But you can’t breed a ‘sterile’ person. Once you’re sterile, that’s the end of the line.

BPRAL22169: I think he was simply implying natural sterility, which can easily be bred for if it’s a recessive gene: breed two carrying the recessive, and the resultant is sterile.

DavidWrightSr: Ok, I’ll concede that.

DavidWrightSr: ;-(

AGplusone: No, you save young Mentok for a while, then a few of his sons, for a while, then you break off their thumbs.

BPRAL22169: And sterility is not a single thing — it can be acidic environment in the uterus, or lack of sperm motility. Lots of different things.

LV Poker Player: Nothing is said about whether or not they actively breed for sterility. They probably don’t. They just spay and temper the ones they don’t want to breed.

IrishBet: That would be simpler than breeding

LV Poker Player: Kitten could have been one of these, but this way he was able to get in the “freemartin” reference.

AGplusone: And every once in a while when the stock gets too inbred, you go catch a wild one …

BPRAL22169: Yeah. Animal husbandry terms.

moultonfcx: And make people go to the dictionary

AGplusone: Always that Fred

DavidWrightSr: I imagine that with the damage caused by the radiation during the war years, that there might be ample opportunity to select such.

moultonfcx: Going to the dictionary is a good habit. might as well reinforce

AGplusone: It’s like the term Risling I keep talking about. Hard to find, but there’s some agreement it’s one of the terms for gelding after sexual maturity in horses.

AGplusone: Another term used is “rig” and another is “stag”

DavidWrightSr: Always keep in mind that dictionaries are historical documents, not prescriptive authorities.

DavidWrightSr: And there is always some delay before dictionaries capture new usages.

moultonfcx: True, that is one of their charms.

Reilloc: Back to fair witnesses, eh, Dave?

AGplusone: And Mary Risling, aka Sperling, gelds herself after maturity by joining the Little People.

AGplusone: Okay, back to fair witnesses …

Reilloc: No, the other Dave.

Reilloc: He said “not prescriptive authorities.”

AGplusone: uh-hum, right

DavidWrightSr: It was Sperling when I read it. Wasn’t it Rhysling or something different in an earlier version or am I getting too tired.

IrishBet: Rhysling was the blind space singer

AGplusone: Risling. Joe Major thinks the change was to keep there from being confusion with the Blind Singer, written between the two, but I disagree.

AGplusone: A “sperling” btw, is a little silver sided fish that swims in schools, aka smelt.

AGplusone: Also appropro to someone who joins the Little People.

Reilloc: Strained.

AGplusone: All allusion is strained

Reilloc: Some allusion is illusion.

DavidWrightSr: LN: did you have a question about “not prescriptive authorities.”

AGplusone: illusions created by smoke and mirrors

Reilloc: Not a question, Dave, as much as remarking that what you said about dictionaries applies to fair witnesses.

DavidWrightSr: OK

AGplusone: sure, if you don’t asl them to show Jimmie the calluses he cannot report on them

AGplusone: aks

AGplusone: ask!

AGplusone: Even Webster had to cut it off somewhere.

AGplusone: Noticed I can subscribe to the OED for about $300 annually now.

AGplusone: internet usage

Reilloc: I divorced the edition in two volumes that took an electron microscope to read it.

LV Poker Player: Collier, I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate!

AGplusone: I always wanted to buy one of those when I was in college. Never did. It came with that little loop.

AGplusone: $100 was a lot of money then.

Reilloc: Sorry, Don, but she’s available and probably still has the books if you want her.

AGplusone: Richard: I don’t recognize the name. I’m David Silver.

AGplusone: btw, the Oxford editor of Franklin’s book, says SF also “privileges the type over the individual, the idea over the word, and the unexpected over the plausible”

AGplusone: contrasting 20th century literarily appreciated fiction. Any agreements, disagreements, comments?

Reilloc: Sounds like a definition of winning fiction to me.

moultonfcx: The comment about types over individuals may go to far

Reilloc: Makes for readers who want answers and start looking around to find others to validate their conclusions.

AGplusone: I’d agree with that for some.

AGplusone: Lancelot Biggs, frex, iirc, was quite an individual … 🙂

Reilloc: Now, who the heck was that?

AGplusone: Would you say, Laz Long is?

DavidWrightSr: Boy, that brings back a memory. Haven’t read that one in many years

AGplusone: someone who just popped out of my head … a comic story

AGplusone: Was that Harry Harrison, Bill?

LV Poker Player: All right LNC, I give up. Am I the “Don” you keep referring to, or is there another one around here?

Reilloc: Is your name Don?

LV Poker Player: Yes, but if you have to ask that you must be referring to someone else?

Reilloc: Jesus.

Reilloc: He’s not here, either.

LV Poker Player: Was just curious.

BPRAL22169: I don’t think Harry Harrison — sorting through the pile of junk in my head.

AGplusone: um … do it sidebar, please.

BPRAL22169: Malcolm Jameson?

AGplusone: Yeah, it was a pile of junk that I read maybe fifty years ago.

AGplusone: but fun

DavidWrightSr: Nelson Bond

AGplusone: Ah, yes, David.

BPRAL22169: Nelson S. Bond.

BPRAL22169: One of the transitional writers who survived into the Campbell era and then faded away.

AGplusone: But Heinlein wrote a criticism of the “emphasis on indiviudal psychology in characterization” early on, that the Oxford editor says was favored in 20th century criticism.

DavidWrightSr: Jameson Bullard of the Space Patrol.

AGplusone: Heinlein’s point: he didn’t want much to do with them — after he read much about them.

AGplusone: Molly Bloom wearies on one.

RichardFctn: AGplusone Yes, I will send an e-mail after this is over.

AGplusone: Thanks, Richard.

AGplusone:

AGplusone: will not get overlooked

AGplusone: amid the spam

AGplusone: But, are Heinlein’s or SF’s characters in general too “type” ridden?

BPRAL22169: I was talking with someone today who made the point that Heinlein was a “modern” in the send in which the term was used at the turn of the century, but not “modernist” as the term was used after about 1925.

AGplusone: sense, of course

BPRAL22169: Yes, you’re right: “sense in which the term was used…”

DavidWrightSr: How do they differ Bill?

AGplusone: Heinlein played with that criticism, in L’Envoi, when he made Zebbie look like Oscar, Winnie and Minny and Poddy, etc., and the twins after twins.

BPRAL22169: He does seem to have missed that entire post-WWI thing that was so important to people like Virginia Woolf and Huxley and Sassoon.

AGplusone: Poking fun at the critics as he gave them more tongue in cheek ammo.

DavidWrightSr: And Elizabeth and Deety too.

AGplusone: “All they had to complain about was the wood alcohol …” in their bootlegged hotch.

AGplusone: hooch, (booze)

AGplusone: Mirror images of each other, see above.

AGplusone: for our house of mirrors and smoke

DavidWrightSr: I’ll be AFK for a bit. Got to let my wife read her e-mail.

BPRAL22169: He seems to have missed out on that sense of betrayal the Modernists built their methods around.

BPRAL22169: Whenhe starts talking aesthetic theory in Stranger, he picks up from Rodin’s views circa 1918, and develops them as if the Modernist movement had never happened.

AGplusone: But he could write the deep psychological first person narrative

BPRAL22169: Yes, and he also used Brecht’s V-effekt very often.

AGplusone: “Gulf” from Joe’s mind is an example. Joe knows he’s being manipulated ever step of the way to martyrdom.

AGplusone: And so does Valentine Michael from about the time of the “monkey house”

AGplusone: Friday’s another example … she finally sees the trick, or hook, because after HB’s death and the disappointment of her patrimony, she starts to look for it.

LV Poker Player: I don’t see that, David. He understands humans from that point. He understands he is being manipulated somewhat later, when the Martian old ones “download” his mind.

BPRAL22169: I think Friday, where the reader sees for so much of the book what she will nto allow herself to see, is one of his finest “psychological” moments.

AGplusone: Is Friday, Marjorie Baldwin, sufficiently differentiated, do you think, for 20th century critical “taste” in individual psychology?

AGplusone: You may be right, LV, certainly by that point, The Garden shows that.

DavidWrightSr: LV. Yes, the manipulation he learned of later, but it was at that point when he realized the path that he was going to follow. I don’t know if he saw martydom then, but I can imagine that he did.

AGplusone: But why “out” himself by creating a CAW before that?

AGplusone: With his money he could have continued to “play” with his pals. Lord knows, he had enough wimmen.

RichardFctn: Does anyone find a lot of mispellings in Time Enough For Love (SBN=0-425-02493-8?

AGplusone: Tend his own garden, in the Candide sense, like Marjorie.

LV Poker Player: Let’s not forget that he was also Archangal Michael. Maybe establishing the church was the mission he assigned to himself before taking human form.

AGplusone: Which one is that, Richard.

RichardFctn: I found over 20 words mispelled.

AGplusone: Or, maybe Michael is Christ, and knew it. Gods have many guises. Thou art God. All that groks is god.

LV Poker Player: I have not really looked at TEFL in that way, but it would not surprise me. When Ginny was alive, she discussed this on afh. They were unable to influence reprints after the first editions.

AGplusone: which edition, Richard?

AGplusone: … usually not able to …

BPRAL22169: The important thing to remember if Mike is an angel — a point left unresolved in the book — is taht an angel is literally a “message” (the word means message in Greek)

BPRAL22169: Or a thought in the midn of God — in this case Thou art God.

BPRAL22169: I think Ginny mentioned it was rare for them to get proof galleys of paperbacks in any case.

RichardFctn: G.P. Putnam/ Berkley Medallion Edition January, 1974.

AGplusone: And of course, the second coming leads to the battle of the apocolypse, led by the Archangel Michael, so he leaves them to fight it with Jubal his evangelist of the second coming.

RichardFctn: I noticed that the printing is faded out in many words, like one letter not visible.

AGplusone: That’s the PB. I usually read my HB, but I’ll look … at my copy.

BPRAL22169: They are probably using old plates by that time — the book was in its — what? 24th impression by that time?

AGplusone: … and compare the two, if you can send me the notes …

AGplusone: apocalypse

BPRAL22169: After a couple million copies, printing plates wear out.

AGplusone: My PBs of TEFL won out years ago, so I found a good used HB copy.

AGplusone: wore out

RichardFctn: page 313 “dear” should be “rear”?

AGplusone: kay, email them to me

RichardFctn: page 509 “hahdly” SB “hardly” ?

AGplusone: 8 o’clock out here. LN: you want to discuss topics for next meeting.

AGplusone: or do it with Iorio and Dave Wright off-screen?

RichardFctn: page 504 “idee” SB “idea”

Reilloc: Well, next meeting one of the things we won’t be discussing is misspellings in books.

IrishBet:

Reilloc: Other than that, there have been a couple of ideas suggested and Alec and I are going to come up…

RichardFctn: Enough for now, I’ll send more offline!!

AGplusone: pagination isn’;t the same btwn the two, Richard, I’ll need a charpter number, and somewhere near to reference in the HB.

Reilloc: …with a specific idea and I’ll post it.

Reilloc: One with which I’m toying has to do with….

Reilloc: …robots.

AGplusone: okay, then, anyone have comments, questions on usage and linguistic

AGplusone: stuff in Heinlein’s works?

DavidWrightSr: I’m back

AGplusone: There were an awful lot of preposts. David Wright, any chance you could send me a copy attachment of them for me to print out and review for that Norwescon panel or panels we have upcoming?

DavidWrightSr: I’ll give it a try. how long do I have?

AGplusone: Easter weekend is when they have it. Be nice to read them while I read the copies of Hayakawa and Whorf and Sapir I’ve ordered.

AGplusone: I’ll have them by the 1st of March.

BPRAL22169: I hate to say this, but you really need to read Science and Sanity instead of Whorf and Sapir.

AGplusone: I have. I hate it. I may read it again.

BPRAL22169: Whorf’s original papers were published about 10 years after RAH started using the concepts.

AGplusone: understand

DavidWrightSr: No sweat. I should get them out this weekend or next week by the latest. I haven’t read Sapir, but I can get a list of the articles in Whorf that are the most useful.

AGplusone: that would help

AGplusone: I ordered the standard collected essays of his

BPRAL22169: Sapir was Whorf’s faculty advisor and mentor– it was really Whorf’s work.

DavidWrightSr: Right. Bill. Heinlein took his cues from Korzybski, even though he was apparently introduced through Chase’s book.

AGplusone: Yeah, but I thought I’d read him too

BPRAL22169: Yes, he read Tyranny of Words first — a quick read, then Ogden and Richards, then Korzybski.

AGplusone: “he” = Heinlein?

BPRAL22169: Yes, sorry. That’s who I meant.

DavidWrightSr: The interesting thing that I found is that Chase wrote the foreword to Whorf’s book, but never once mentioned any connection to the work that Korzybski, although it is apparently very close in many aspects.

AGplusone: Fun stuff when a con goes theme is this: __________!

BPRAL22169: I think Korzybski had just passed away, and General Semantics was already starting to fade out by that time. G.S. hit a glass ceiling before Korzybski died.

DavidWrightSr: As I recall, Korzybski is hard going. I did it once in 1963-4 and it was rough. I will be re-reading it soon.

AGplusone: So adapt. Thanks everyone for the help on this thing I touched once, briefly, forty years or so ago with Hayakawa and my nut friend who took unto Korzybski like a cult.

BPRAL22169: I think Etc. is still being published.

AGplusone: My reaction exactly and about the same time (1966 for me), David.

DavidWrightSr: The Institute is still going, but I haven’t looked into them.

AGplusone: I occasionally go read their website. Used to be some essays.

BPRAL22169: I’ve had a brief correspondence with a couple of people from it. Ping Kate Gladstone and she’ll put you in touch with them.

BPRAL22169: There are two Institutes, by the way, IGS, and GSI.

AGplusone: That is true.

AGplusone: Schism, and “The Heretic” which was another draft name for Stranger.

DavidWrightSr: Bill, has their been any articles on K’s influences in Heinlein that you know of?

AGplusone: Kate’s notes in the Journal touch on some of it, don’t they?

BPRAL22169: Not that I know — it’s a highly specialized subject, and nobody wants to undertake the monstrous effort of reading Science and Sanity.

DavidWrightSr: That’s what I plan on doing. That’s why I was asking.

DavidWrightSr: Both reading and writing the article, I mean.

BPRAL22169: Yes, Kate did touch on the subject. There’s also another good field open, though: Korzybski’s first book Manhood of Humanity is a much easier read, and there is a lot of Heinleinian stuff in it.

DavidWrightSr: Of course, I might be dead before I get it all read 🙂

AGplusone: I like what you’ve planned, Dave. I’d note K has been shoved to the side by the general field of Linguistics, and focus also on their icons.

BPRAL22169: It’s an article well worth doing.

DavidWrightSr: Yeah, I was struck by the similarities between K, H and Whorf. All engineers who thought about things that the professionals overlooked and all three put down by the professionals.

BPRAL22169: AK was on a tradition that died out about 1945; the other tradition that’s still around today was started by a French linguist, Ferdinand Saussure in about 1915, and it turned into Linguistics and into Semiotics as well.

BPRAL22169: I thought Whorf was a fireman?

DavidWrightSr: Chemical Engineer who worked on fire related stuff for an insurance company

BPRAL22169: Ah, that’s right — I kept putting down the insurance reference that kept popping into my head, because of Charles Ives.

DavidWrightSr: I read somewhere that he was the one who pointed out the problems with labeling things ‘inflammable’ which was thought to mean ‘not flammable’, but really meant to “make Flame”

BPRAL22169: That sounds about right — right time, anyway.

AGplusone: Well, anyhow, I’ve got a wife home talking about “come and git it or I throw it to the pigs … ”

DavidWrightSr: Caused a lot of the claims that he investigated.

BPRAL22169: Have fun, all.

AGplusone: got log, Dave?

IrishBet: It does defy logic that ‘flammable’ and inflammable’ mean the same thing

DavidWrightSr: Yeah.

AGplusone: G’nite from New York …

BPRAL22169: I won’t be at the Saturday meeting — I’ll be in transit from SF to here during the time frame.

AGplusone: looking forward to the email, Richard. Thanks everyone for coming.

BPRAL22169: I dunno, Pam — “inflame” does not mean fire retardant.

Reilloc: ‘night, all.

Reilloc has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: Different roots for the ‘in’. Usually means ‘not’, but also used to mean ‘to make or do’. The ‘im’ in ‘impregnate’ is the same prefix.

BPRAL22169: Yup

BPRAL22169: See what I meant earlier about English being multiligual!

AGplusone has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: To quote one of my professors, “that ain’t English, that’s Latin’.

BPRAL22169: The neat thing is, you can get all those other languages out of a good English dictionary.

BPRAL22169: Well, good nigth all.

DavidWrightSr: Scandinavian, low German, French, Latin, Greek and a few other odds and ends.

BPRAL22169: extremely odd and no end in sight.

BPRAL22169 has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: Log officially closed at 11:23 P.M. EST

IrishBet: Nite all . . . I was a bit distracted. Sorry

IrishBet has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: Good night.

RichardFctn: BYE!

DavidWrightSr: Richard. How did you like it?

RichardFctn has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: Too late.

DavidWrightSr: I’ve got to go too. Night All.
End of Discussion

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by The Heinlein Society
on February 16, 2013

Heinlein Readers Discussion Group Thursday 02-24-2005 9:00 P.M. EST Word Mastery (and More on Love) by the Grandmaster