16.1771, Media: New York Times: The Word Crunchers

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1771. Mon Jun 06 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1771, Media: New York Times: The Word Crunchers

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1)
Date: 06-Jun-2005
From: Karen Chung < karchung at ntu.edu.tw >
Subject: New York Times: The Word Crunchers

	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:07:55
From: Karen Chung < karchung at ntu.edu.tw >
Subject: New York Times: The Word Crunchers



Essay: The Word Crunchers
       By DEBORAH FRIEDELL
       Published: June 5, 2005

In David Lodge's 1984 novel, 'Small World,' a literature professor fond
of computer programming presents a novelist with a fantastic discovery: by
entering all the novelist's books into a computer, the professor can
determine the novelist's favorite word. The computer knows to ignore the
mortar of sentences -- articles, prepositions, pronouns -- to get to 'the
real nitty-gritty,' Lodge writes, 'words like love or dark or heart or
God.' But the computer's conclusion causes the novelist to shrink from ever
writing again. His favorite word, it finds, is 'greasy.'...
        http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05FRIE01.html?8bu&emc=bu

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Karen Chung
http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/
http://lists.topica.com/lists/phonetics/


Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics




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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1771