Further evidence of the decline of English

[Wilson Gray]

La tesis ... se leyó en inglés ... bajo el título, "Speech and text
translation involving the Basque language: an application of
stochastic, finite-state transduction."

He knows English better than I do! "Stochastic, finite-state
transduction"?! WTF is that?! I recall a serial in F&SF called "The
Stochastic Man" and I recall "finite state" from Robert Eugene Wall's
magnificent work, Introduction to Mathematical Linguistics (now,
sadly, out of print, but available used for $198.14), and I've come
across "transduction" here and there, in a variety of contexts. But,
as used, these strings mean nothing to me.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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