User talk:Torgo

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[edit] Welcome to the Wikipedia

Welcome, Torgo!

Here are some useful tips to ease you into the Wikipedia experience:

Also, here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

You can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes, likes this: ~~~~.

Best of luck, and have fun! – ClockworkSoul 04:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] arrests of protesters - Danish Embassy

Matey, please don't let the dispute between Tom & I stop you from correcting errors or contributing in any way. Please! That's been going on forever & it's fairly mindless anyway. This is an ongoing story that I don't get too much time to contribute to. The changes made so far have been intelligent & progressive. I really welcome them. Go for it! Veej 02:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prescriptive / descriptive

Hi! Why do you on your talk page say that the prescriptive / descriptive distinction wouldn't apply to writing systems? To me the distinction would seem to apply to all topics of linguistics and language usage. Perhaps in practice it applies less to spelling than to the grammar of speech, but in both cases it's possible to either describe language usage or try to prescribe it. --TuukkaH 11:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Technically, a writing system is not part of the language. It is separate. Many languages do not have a writing system, and many native speakers of languages that have one don't know how to use it. In fact, writing has only been invented a very few number of times (if not just once) in the history of humanity. All others are derivatives. But the main difference here is that writing has to be invented. It is an add-on to language, and separate from the language itself. For example, a native speaker of English would never mispronounce the word "their", but might frequently misspell it. In a generative view of language, this is because the language is acquired naturally, whereas writing has to be taught. --Torgo 17:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Right, so when you want to you can concentrate on spoken language. We don't have to agree on whether written language is a language. However, I have to ask whether your view is that when something is artificial there can't be a distinction of description vs. prescription of it? Further, is this the only notable view? --TuukkaH 22:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I think this is the point of confusion: The terms prescription and description in linguistics are used to refer to prescriptive and descriptive grammar. Of course, the words prescriptive and descriptive can be used more broadly, as the introductory paragraph of the article mentions, but in linguistics, they are more restricted. I dug out my old introductory textbook to linguistics to support what I'm claiming here. All of my quotes below are from this book: Language Files 8th edition, (Dept. of Linguistics at Ohio State University, 2001).
  • Descriptive grammar is defined informally as "the linguist's description of the rules of a language" (p. 8)
  • and prescriptive grammar as "the socially embedded notion of the "correct" or "proper" ways to use a language" (p. 8)
Descriptive grammar is devised and formalized by linguists to describe a native speaker's mental grammar, which includes, according to Language Files, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics (but not pragmatics, for example). Mental grammar has nothing to do with writing systems, which are always considered secondary to spoken language in linugistics:
  • "One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics, however, is that speech is primary and writing is secondary. The most immediate manifestation of language is speech and not writing... Spoken language encodes thought (i.e. mental grammar) into a physically transmittable form, while writing, in turn, encodes spoken language into a physically preservable form." (p. 6) (non-italicized text inserted by me)
So, in other words, while writing can in general be either "prescribed" or "described" the same as, say, someone's diet can be either prescribed or described, those terms in linguistics are restricted to a more precise definition, applying only to spoken language, and not to writing. --Torgo 22:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the quotes! I suppose that the view then is that the linguistic prescription vs. description distinction doesn't apply to the artifical. This might be something to clarify in the article in future. --TuukkaH 00:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh yes, I definitely think this needs to be clarified in the article more explicitly. I'll try and do that in the future, when I get the time. Feel free to do this yourself, of course. Thanks for your concerns! --Torgo 00:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Just noticed your comment on prescriptive. Yes please. I am in the unfortunate schizoid position of being a linguist and teaching writing at the same time, and find the descriptive/prescriptive argument insulting. It lumps anyone who is not purely 'descriptive' into the 'prescriptive' pigeonhole, which doesn't even exist, and in some cases implies a status of 'grammar-nazi' on those who would disagree. Reality is most modern style guides are reasonably flexible, and recommend usage - along with decent explanations of why one form is preferable to another. Very few actually lay down laws & prohibitions. Just made a few small changes on Disputed_English_grammar (generic you). Does that reflect what you are trying to achieve?Bridesmill 22:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


Yeah. NPOV-ifying the prescriptive/descriptive related articles needs some doing. Part of the problem is the ambiguity in the word "grammar"... I think a lot of the problems in language and linguistics articles on Wikipedia lie in ambiguous words (not least of which is the word "linguistics"). Incidentally, I agree that style is important, and style guides are very useful. However, I do have a problem with grammarians and style guides who complain about native speakers making "mistakes" and being "ignorant" of their own language, and saying "incorrect" things. Well, I don't need to tell you that for the most part that's a misconception of the nature of language. My point is, I think there are a few Wikipedia editors who might make claims like that, and ultimately we need to find a way to work that out. Torgo 08:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Torgo? Hands of awesome!

Just wanted to say hats off to thee for choosing that username in addition to the possibly intended coincidence of the movie's ties to MN-originated MST3k. It's a wonderful, intricate tapestry, really... --Bobak 19:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Haha. Yes, in fact Torgo is a nickname given to me by friends, derived from my own name. But being a big MST3k fan, I have of course seen Manos, Hands of Fate, and was quite amused to see that Torgo has his own article. - Torgo 18:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


I concur- your name is awesome, nay, jawesome. And, you accomplished with sensible discourse what I could not accomplish with satire. Congratulations. Just watch out for snakes.

[edit] Synaesthesia wiktionary entry

Hi Torgo, Thanks for your note, and the Ancient Greek additions to the main synesthesia entry. I've taken a quick look at the wiktionary entry, and I have a couple of quick thoughts. First in regards the neurological part: "For example, Tasting sweetness may trigger the visual sensation of redness." Although this is an attested form of synesthesia, it is relatively uncommon, and to date much less studied. Perhaps including both a common form (music or words eliciting color sensations) and a rarer form would give people a better sense of what synesthesia is. I don't have a wiktionary account, so I thought that I would just mention it here and let you run with it.

The other thing you might want to know is that the first certain, attested use of the word "synaesthesia" in the English literature seems to be Mary Whitton Calkins in 1893: Calkins, Mary Whiton. 1893. A Statistical Study of Pseudo-chromesthesia and of Mental-forms. American Journal of Psychology 5: 439-464. Calkins, Mary Whiton. 1894. Synaesthesis, (minor studies from Wellesley College). American Journal of Psychology 7: 90-107.

This Enlish language usage seems to be based on the Swiss Psychologist, Theodore Flournoy,who in 1893 published a book in which he discusses the relative merits of the terms "synopsie" and "synesthesie". In the end, he decides on synopsie (synopsia; joined vision) but Calkins introduces the term synaesthesia into the Enlgish language based, in part, on Flournoy's usage.

I don't know, if wiktionary, like the OED and some other dictionaries, attempts to identify earliest attested examples, but this is something that is recent enough that the history has been relatively precisely reconstructed, based on historical sources.

Flournoy, T. (1893), Des Phénomènes de Synopsie, Geneva and Paris: Alcan

Note that these are not the first historical studies of the phenomenon of synesthesia (which date to at least 1880 with Francis Galton, and perhaps to earlier mentions by Georg Sachs in 1812), but rather the first uses of the term synaesthesia. Best wishes, Edhubbard 08:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

ps: I am in the midst of translating Flournoy from French into English with a colleague, Julia Simner, and I can send you the translation of his introduction where he discusses terminology, off-wiki, if you would like. Edhubbard 08:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Is the copy of Calkins you found in pdf? I've been looking for a pdf version. Edhubbard 10:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Just got it. Edhubbard 22:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)