On Fri, 13 Apr 2001 09:53:41 -0700, auliuniv <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Chris Burd" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 5:02 PM
>Subject: An interesting claim
>
>
>> Surprisingly, Bob's postings this week have not been quite content-free.
>> He's made the interesting claim that there are over 1200 names on his
>> mailing list.
>>
>> Now, does that mean 1200 paid subscriptions to Cosmoglotta? Or just 1200
>> people who've received promotional material from Bob?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris
>>

>So, Chris, when are you going to be honest and stand up to answering my
>questions about IALA without denigrating me? OR my word? First, you
mistated
>my claim about the 500. You said I said this about the lists, that they
>would have over 500. I said the newsletter, which is now 2 publications,
>Cosmoglotta and Auli-PRIM, would go over 500. And, they are.

First of all, Bob, before accusing me of lying, why don't you re-read your
own posting? Ahem:

"Soon the RLR
and Occ. lists will together be hitting 500 or more, and I need
to be there putting my energy into what I started."

(8 Jun 1998 15:06) - Some Reflections and a Farewell


> So, everytime
>you get caught in a mistatement you change it. First, he doesn't do tv.
>Next, no one watches it. Next, well, hell, someone does, so if you want to
>give us an anonymous review I'll be glad to post it in my name.

When did I ever say you weren't doing a TV show? Some people here (not me)
complained of not being able to receive your webcasts - but no-one's denied
you make the broadcasts. So you, in fact, are making a number of
misstatements here.

I thought that if someone might feel unable to post a candid review of your
show, thinking that if they criticised you're throw them off the list. I
notice you didn't deny that you would in fact do that. As for whether your
show is any good or not, I've never seen it, so how can I tell? If it
resembles your postings to Auxlang then, in my opinion, it won't be much
good. But after all, if I knew what it was like, I wouldn't be interested
in reading a review.

>What do you call the above distortions and low class method of debate
Chris?
>Truth? Honesty? Etc. Every time you and others like Jay accuse me of not
>dooing what I say, then you don't admit it when you are proved wrong, you
>simply try to find another loose brick. You and Jay appear to not be honest
>here.

Look, I debated you here last summer, and I found it a totally frustrating
experience. You don't seem to engage with the evidence in the same way that
I do, and so I think we just found ourselves talking past each other. I
can't think of any significant contention of yours that I've had to concede
on, though I appreciate some of the documentation you've posted. I think
there are points of controversy in the history of Interlingua, but I don't
think you've come near to proving your specific theses. Nor can you ever,
in opinion, because the facts you are disputing (IALA's research program
during the 1930s and 1940s) are simply too well documented.

I've read the IALA Annual Reports and the General Report. For the most part
they are not very interesting or informative. I think you are vastly
overinterpreting the small amount of evidence they provide. If you want to
know about IALA, you've got to read the two academic-quality histories that
have been published, Julie Falk's and Frank Esterhill's. They draw, not on
a handful of documents (the IALA Reports form a slim volume about 2-3 cm
thick), but on the entire IALA archive at the New York Public Library,
along with other material.

>As far as how many I've given information to, if one counts everything,
it's
>several thousands. And, beginning in September or October  we will begin
>producing 5,000 copies of the WEEKLY Cosmoglotta. And, the Auli-PRIM will
be
>semi-annual, since it will be upwards of 64 pages of material each issue.
>So, get off my back with your statements made without any fact whatsoever,
>only a determined effort to find some way to ignore and deny what we are
now
>accomplishing.

That's fine, but you haven't answered my question, which was how many of
the recipients are actually paid subscribers. That could be a impressive
number if you choose to reveal it. Or not.

>I'd love to see your expression when your mind finally gets hit with the
>fact that Occidental is growing in leaps and bounds because we follow
>marketing methods that work, and we exclude IAL nonsense which hinders
>growth, and also do most of our activity off the internet. To build on the
>internet alone without a real world foundation is disaster.

I'm interested in knowing what your method is. Direct mail?

I'll just make a couple of comments on the rest of your message.

>So, like I said before, keep staying in the stage of "denial" which is
where
>you and some others are right now.
>And, please don't try to remember that I at first invited you folks to join
>and work with me to accomplish what we are doing.
>
>No, everybody said. Good luck Bob. We'll just watch and see IF anything
>happens.
>
>Look at the flack I took from this list when I first announced going on TV.
>Wow, was everybody happy that an IAL was going on TV. Hell no!!
>
>The response:
>No one will watch.
>It's only public access.
>It's only local cable and we can't see it.
>No, you're lying, it isn't on lthe internet.
>You can't get it off your site.
>You have to have real video or whatever the thing is called.
>Bob is faking it.
>Well, give us a review DAMMIT.

I recall some people here were quite positive and encouraging about your TV
show.

[snip]

>Bob, you are paranoid to think ILaistes have things they want to hide.
>Well, ok, publish the letter(s) if you have permission.

Again Bob, you are not going to be credited for facts and interpretations
unless you produce the evidence. None of us are going accept your
interpretations of evidence that we haven't seen.

>Need more?
>As I said, I don't claim to have it 100% accurate. But, no one, not even
>those who are "impartial" on this list give me any credit. ;-)
>And, no one ever mentions even one time where Jay, Chris, Stan, Don has
been
>wrong. It's like a club of "it doesn't matter if Bob gets anything right,
>we'll stick together since we don't like him telling us the truth that we
>are the IAL movement's problem."

Look at it this way. Do I get into polemical and unproductive exchanges
with Don Harlow? Yes, sometimes. But fairly often we get into productive,
perhaps even interesting dialogues. That is virtually never true of my
interactions with you. And I think this is largely due to your style of
debate, which I would call excessively confrontational.

>I even know now who gave, over the years, information to IALA and Gode so
>they could standardize the IALA vocabulary in the IED which was quickly
>changed before final publication.

Well, if you'd share that with us, we could discuss it. As it is, vaguely
alluding to evidence you have somewhere is not going to win you any debates.

BTW, we all know that the sample pages from the IED that Martinet published
during his tenure were very Occidental-like compared to the final
publication. The explanation for this is well documented, and confirmed by
Martinet's 1951 article in Word, which you have read. For each word family
Gode's group -- the famous professional linguists -- compiled all forms
from the source languages to "extract" a purely naturalistic prototype.
(Martinet insisted on approving the prototype, and Gode complained that he
sometimes substituted Occidental forms for the algorithmically derived
ones.) The question facing IALA (and thoroughly discussed in the 1945
General Report) was whether to employ these naturalistic forms or to
schematicise them - make them more regular, along the lines of Occidental
or Ido. In other words, first derive the actual international forms, then
MAYBE impose a regularising schema. The 1945 Report presented one model (P)
using the naturalistic vocabulary and two models (E and K) using schematic
approaches. Under Martinet, they developed two other models, a "modernised"
naturalistic model (M) - perhaps slightly schematic - and another schematic
model (C). Schematic C, Martinet's preference, was very close to
Occidental; in fact it used de Wahl's Rule unchanged.

It is this Schematic C taht appears in the sample pages. You have to
realise that it was derived *from* the naturalistic model by imposing
certain transformations. But all the actual research on the source
languages (in the background, so to speak) used the naturalistic
vocabulary. So, after Martinet quit and Gode took over, it was a very
simple matter to throw out the work that had been done with Schematic C and
return to the naturalistic forms. It should be noted though, that the final
vocabulary was closer to M than the P, and in fact the final Interlingua
had elements of P, M and C.

Now, if you want to deal with the significance of these facts, we can have
a discussion. If not, I haven't time.

Cheers,

Chris