in praise of the music of language

[isiscolo]

I keep thinking of things I want to write about, but it always seems like so much effort to actually compose a post. I'm not sure why. Instead I just endlessly refresh the various websites I read, and I do laundry, and bake goodies, and brush the kitty, and sometimes get a little work done

Comments

[trobadora]

Oh, yes. It's been ages since I reread any Hofstadter other than Gödel, Escher, Bach (which is the only one I own), but I remember loving this to pieces.

[isiscolo]

I loved Gödel, Escher, Bach also (and I used to own it! But I think it got lost in a move) but I like this one even better - it's more accessible, I think, to the non-computer-scientist, and it's more heavily focused on language. (And one of my favorite bits is the discussion of translating GEB into other languages!)

[trobadora]

I probably should get it and read it again. :)

The brilliant thing about GEB - well, the thing that spoke to me most - is the way it translates structures and patterns back and forth between different media - that was something of an epiphany to me back when I first read it. (I was in my teens.) I suppose it's that experience more than necessarily the book itself that makes it my favourite.

[isiscolo]

But Le Ton Beau does it too! Yes, you should read it again. I don't think I had read the whole thing through (as opposed to just poking at little bits of it) for at least 10 years, and it was delightful to revisit.

[mergatrude]

Oh, thank you! This looks fascinating, and reminds me of a unit of Philosophy where we talked a lot about Quine's indeterminace of translation. Possibly less accessible than Hofstadter, but utterly fascinating to me.

[isiscolo]

Interesting! What that makes me think of is the section titled, "How do you say 'Jazzercise' in Aramaic" which talks about concepts that for whatever reason, don't have equivalents in other languages, and the pitfalls for the linguist who just assumes that the words he hears translate to the concepts he is familiar with. And also the problems with machine translation programs, which try to map known words onto known words but can easily be tripped up by words which have different meanings depending on context (you know that if I wrote "He broke the record in the long jump" I don't mean that he smashed a disk). If that kind of thing appeals to you, I am sure you will enjoy this book!

[mergatrude]

Exactly!

I often think about how many misunderstandings there are in fandom, and how many of them probably relate to the mismatching of words and concepts.

[ptyx]

Oh, this is the kind of stuff I've been dealing with in the last 23 years ;-). Fascinating, isn't it? I never tire.

Yet, I had never heard of Hofstadter. The world is too big, and there are too many books to read. I'll see if I can't find it here.

[ptyx]

I've just lied to you: I read a book by Hofstadter, the one about Escher, Bach and Gödel. But I had never heard of "Le Ton Beau de Marot".

[isiscolo]

I like this one better; it's a little more about language and less about computers, and I found it more accessible and easier to read. But I enjoyed both books.

I think translation must be a job simultaneously rewarding and frustrating!

[ptyx]

I think translation must be a job simultaneously rewarding and frustrating!

I know what you mean, but I believe it's just about the same in most professions. There will always be a patient or a disease that a doctor can't cure; any gardener will find a plant that doesn't grow as expected, and so on. Everything in life is imperfect. You may say that in the exact sciences things tend to be more predictable, but the more predictable they are, the more boring I find them!

[delurker]

This book sounds awesome.

[isiscolo]

It really is, and I highly recommend it.