LINGUIST List 3.665

Fri 04 Sep 1992

Misc: not, numerals, drift

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Katherine Elizabeth Krohn , ". . .Not!"
2. "Ellen F. Prince", arabic numerals
3. Will Fitzgerald, 3.648 Drift

THis juicy tidbit had been forwarded from MEDTEXT-L. The names have
been omitted to protect the guilty:

Hmm, I have kids older than my younger sibling. You might be amused
by a Macintosh init I saw recently that replaces all 'negatively'
phrased dialog boxes with positively phrased ones and replaces the
"OK" button with "NOT"

"Your file was saved successfully" [NOT]

(Pretty awful, what? --Katie Krohn)

>I'm doing research on writing systems, and have gotten particularly interested
>in the mixing of Arabic numerals with other systems. Does anyone know of any
>writing system with a wide range of functions (i.e. not limited to liturgical
>or other specialized functions) that NEVER usues Arabic numerals? Is there an
y
>place in the world that has mathematics textbooks containing no Arabic
>numerals? Please send your observations and/or references directly to me at
>this e-mail address, I'll post a summary if there's widespread interest.

1. i know this is going to sound facetious, but ARABIC doesn't use arabic
numerals, at least not what we call arabic numerals. my first hotel room
in egypt had the following on the door: _O._, which = _51_. i later realized
that the numerals we're familiar with aren't used at all in egypt or,
apparently, in other arabic-speaking countries. i don't know about math
textbooks but i'd bet that elementary school arithmetic books use the
'non-arabic' numerals.

2. in japan, fancy restaurants use kanji numerals. (i'm sure many other
establishments do too but the restaurants were the only ones i came in contact
with.)

3. jews often use hebrew numerals for noting the jewish year, eg on
cornerstones, tombstones, marriage contracts, etc. an interesting play
involving, tho not generally using, hebrew numerals is the habit of giving
$18 as a gift or donation. the hebrew word for 18 is khay, the letters of
which, khet yod, equal 18 (since hebrew numerals are letters of the alphabet).
18 is in fact yod khet, not khet yod, but the sum is the same.

hope this helps.

I enjoyed John Cowan's report on the "Menken model" for predicting
coordinate pronoun forms, and believed it covered the data. However,
over the weekend, I heard the following two phrases:

"... getting to know he and Charlotte." [in a non-prepared funeral eulogy]
"I've had one evening with he and his wife." [informal, multiperson
conversation]