Important Message - Please Read

[LINGUIST List]

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org):
        Simin Karimi, U. of Arizona
        Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Richard John Harvey <richard at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Sat, 29 Mar 2003 00:54:11 +0200
From:  linguist at linguistlist.org
Subject: Linglite Fund Drive Update - Please take a moment to read...

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Dear Lingliters,

As always on Saturday, we like to update you about our ongoing fund
drive, and show you some of highlights from this week's letters. We
know that you are very busy, but we hope you can take a moment to read
the following messages.

As we write, we have raised $26,399.91, which is over half-way towards
our target of $50,000. This figure represents the generosity of 523
donors - that's only 3% of our 17,000+ subscribers. If the 16,477
subcribers who have not made a donation yet were to give just $1.50,
we would hit our target.

Please consider making a small donation. The money goes to supporting
students and maintaining The LINGUIST List website. To make a donation
via secure credit card form, visit:

http://linguistlist.org/donate.html

For more information on how to make a donation and to find out about
the wonderful gifts we have on offer for our donors, visit:

http://linguistlist.org/donation.html

Thank you very much for reading this email, read on for highlights of
our letters this week.

**********************************************************************

~From Friday (http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-923.html)

Dear Linguists,

                ***************************
                * Happy 75th Birthday OED *
                ***************************

The Oxford English Dictionary is 75 this year, and to mark the
occasion and to show their support to LINGUIST List, those wonderful
people at OUP have generously donated a year's individual subscription
to OED Online as part of The LINGIST List Publisher Prize Draw.

So what better excuse is there to donate to LINGUIST! As a donor you
are automatically entered into the prize draw.

This is a truly magnificent prize, worth GBP 350 plus tax ($550).

http://www.oed.com/

The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the
evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an
unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over
half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of
words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of
international English language sources, from classic literature and
specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED
covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North
America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the
Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis and in
listing of variant spellings, and it shows pronunciation using the
International Phonetic Alphabet.

To find out more about The LINGUIST List Publisher Prize Draw, visit:

http://linguistlist.org/prizedraw.html

To make a donation and stand a chance of winning this or other great
prizes, visit:

http://linguistlist.org/donation.html

Thank you for your support.

********************************************************************

~From FUNd Drive FUN Friday
        (http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-913.html)


Dear Linguists,

As part of our ever expanding website, we are pleased to announce yet
another new service that we know will be of vital importance to the
linguistic community. Please read on...


                ************************************
                * The LINGUIST List Dating Service *
                ************************************

Are you a lonely linguist? Do you crave companionship with other
like-minded intelligent language professionals? Whether you prefer
quiet nights in discussing the finer points of the philosophy of
language, or you're a linguistic party animal who likes to hob-nob
with the rowdy crew you met at the last LSA meeting, The LINGUIST List
can find someone perfectly matched for you.

Quick and Easy
**************

Yes folks, we've made it as easy as possible for you to be talking to
potential partners in no time at all. Just complete the following
questionnaire, being as honest as possible, and send it together with
your donation to LINGUIST List to:

Prof. Amore
The LINGUIST List Dating Service
612 Pray Harrold
Ypsilanti
MI, 48197
USA

Levels of Love
**************

And not only that, you can choose just what level of service you
require. It might be that you just want some contacts that you will
make arrangements with yourself, or your might prefer a fuller service
where we do all the ground work for you - you decide:

~Basic Service - Donations up to $10.00
        With this option, we feed your information into the LINGUIST List
        database and then we will find the top five potential partners that
        match your criteria.

~Premium Service - Donations up to $50.00
        All the above, except we find ten potential partners, send them an
        email and arrange a meeting in a student union of your choice

~Gold Club Service - Donations over $50.00

        With this level you will get unlimited matches for three
        months, we will arrange meetings and give you our legendary script
        cards which contain conversations for you to rehearse before you meet.


The LINGUIST List Dating Service Questionnaire
**********************************************

ABOUT YOU

Alias: _____________________________

Gender:         Masculine____
                Feminine____
                Neuter____

Age Range:      Proto____
                Pidgin____
                Creole____
                Firmly established____
                Archaic____
                Endangered____

Unocode Compatable Star Sign:________

Do You:         Get the full LINGUIST____
                LINGUIST but with restrictions____
                LINGLITE____

Are You:        Mildly geeky____
                Extremely geeky____
                Sorta hip linguist____
                The coolest cat in the department____

Do you have a
tweed jacket:   Yes/No____

Do you drink:   Tea-totaller____
                Moderatly____
                Quite a bit____
                Like a fish____
                Like a linguist____

When was the last time you left your office:__________________


YOUR POTENTIAL PARTNER...

Persuasion:     Uniary features____
                Binary features____
                Constraints____
                A healthy mixture of all three____

'Must Earn'
level:          Student (poverty)____
                PhD (with outstanding loans)___
                Associate____
                Professor____
                One of the lucky ones who has a real job with a real salary____

Level of
neurosis
preferred:      Occasional outbreaks____
                Medium___
                High____
                Worse than high____
                Higher than my dissertion director____

For how long should your potential partner be able to carry on a
conversation that is not about linguistics:_________
(please note, anyone declaring over 1 minute will not be taken seriously)

Which of the following characteristics should apply:

GREED____               ENLIGHTENED SELF INTEREST____
PROCRASTINATION____     ATTRACT F____

Shopping
preference:     Only in linguistic section of bookshop____
                Moves around bookshop but not outside____
                Walks around mall but quickly returns to bookshop____


**********************************************************************

Donate now and take advantage of this amazing offer from LINGUIST
List; just think, love could be a donation away....


To donate now using our secure web form, visit:

http://linguistlist.org/donate.html

For instructions on how to donate, or how to make a pledge now and pay
later, see the last massage in this issue or visit:

http://linguistlist.org/donation.html

Thank you for your support.


***********************************************************************

~Thursday (http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-883.html)

Dear Linguists,

The International Phonetic Alphabet is one of a linguist's most useful
tools.  Imagine for a moment how much more difficult research would be
without it.  If there was no widely accepted system for transcription,
every example would have to be explicitly associated with a
comprehensive key, otherwise a researcher could never confidently
interpret the writer's meaning.  Similarly, interpretation would be
unreliable if multiple sounds could be represented by the same
character, or vice versa.

You probably will not need to tax your imaginations too hard, because
such a scenario applies to using IPA with a computer.  Indeed, it
applies for using most combinations of scripts.  The English-oriented
development of the computer, and what is often a 256 character limit,
has led to the development of many different comprehensive keys (or
'character sets') to enable different scripts to be represented on the
screen.  A character set relates the character you see to a number
that the computer can understand.  However, the problems with having
more than one phonetic alphabet apply to having more than one
character set too.  Most problematically, it is very difficult to put
two different scripts in the same document because the same computer
number might have a different representation depending on which
character set you choose.  This is a real problem for linguists
because we often need to show several scripts together.  What we need
is something that encompasses all scripts and has a unique number for
each unique character.

There is such a thing: Unicode.  Unicode is an all-encompassing
character set that gives a unique number to every unique character.
So far, it covers 95,000 of them and this number is growing.  With a
single character set, you can show Hebrew, Arabic, IPA and possibly
soon Linear B side by side on the same page, something that was
impossible before.  Unicode is a very important and valuable
innovation for linguists, which is why we at LINGUIST List have put so
much effort into making our web site Unicode-compatible.

We would not have been able to do this without your support, and we
greatly appreciate it.  So we have produced a special Unicode thank
you page where we thank you in all the languages we speak - in the
correct script.  It is at:

http://linguistlist.org/donation/unithanks.html

Unlike some sites that might create such a page from images, this page
has genuine text.  You can copy and paste it.  You can even search it.

Unicode is a very new technology and systems are gradually developing
to make full use of it.  So while the correct characters appear for
Kannada on a Windows 98 machine, for example, only Windows XP can
correctly combine them.  You will need intelligent Arabic support that
knows to make the Arabic example read right to left.  To display all
these scripts, you need a comprehensive Unicode font that includes
them all.  Arial Unicode MS is one.  So if you have an older machine
without a large Unicode font, you might not be able to read all our
thank yous.  But you haven't lost anything; you can still read all the
characters you did before.  And as systems develop, making fuller and
fuller use of Unicode, LINGUIST List will be ready, providing truly
cutting-edge technology.

We have produced a small Unicode help guide at

http://linguistlist.org/unicode/

covering the most common questions we have been asked about Unicode.
For example, you can enter Unicode IPA in many of our forms by either
left- or right-clicking the mouse.  There is a much more comprehensive
guide at:

http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/

which provided some of the Unicode facts for this message.

We are truly dependent on support like yours to guarantee our survival
from year to year.  In return, we strive to improve our services and
facilities so that we can be of ever-greater service to the
linguistics community.  Thank you to everyone who has donated already,
who often donate year after year.  If you have not donated yet, please
do so today.  And when you do, don't forget to visit our Unicode
thanks page afterwards.

Michael Appleby
Listserv Manager

***********************************************************************

How to Donate.

This year we hope to raise $50,000 to support the students who work on
LINGUIST List and keep the list running. Thank you from all the crew
for your support.

The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Eastern Michigan University
and as such can receive donations through the EMU Foundation, which is
a registered 501(c) Non Profit organization.  Our Federal Tax number
is 38-6005986.  These donations can be offset against your federal and
sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only).  For more
information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor.

Many companies also offer a gift matching scheme, such that they will
match any gift you make to a non-profit organization.  Normally this
entails your contacting your human resources department and sending us
a form that the EMU Foundation fills in and returns to your employer.
This is generally a simple administrative procedure that doubles the
value of your gift to LINGUIST, without costing you an extra
penny. Please take a moment to check if your company operates such a
scheme.

HOW TO DONATE

You can make a contribution by selecting one of three convenient
payment methods: secure credit card form, check, or wire transfer.
You can also PLEDGE your support to LINGUIST and pay later, i.e.  send
in a check. Also, if you do not want to use a credit card, but wish to
pay in a currency other than US Dollars, you can donate via our
European bank account held in Switzerland.  See below for details:

SECURE CREDIT CARD FORM:
http://linguistlist.org/donate.html

CHECK:
Please make checks payable to 'The LINGUIST List Editorial Support
Fund'.  The address is:

The LINGUIST Editorial Support Fund
Department of English Language and Literature
612 Pray Harrold
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti
MI, 48197
U.S.A.

WIRE TRANSFER:
For details on how to transfer funds by wire, please contact LINGUIST
at the address donate at linguistlist.org. Both an American and a
European bank account are available.

PLEDGE NOW, PAY LATER:
If you would like to make a pledge of support, please go to:

http://linguistlist.org/donate.html


ALREADY PLEDGED:
If you have already pledged to LINGUIST and would now like to pay by
credit card, please go to:

http://linguistlist.org/creditcard-general.html

and select 'PAY PREVIOUS PLEDGE' as the Type of Payment from the
dropdown list provided.