[SIGCIS-Members] Members Digest, Vol 24, Issue 4

[Dag Spicer]

If Noam Chomsky fell in the forest, would anybody care?

Dag


On Jun 13, 2012, at 9:00 AM, members-request at sigcis.org wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. Noam Chomsky on the "Inventor of Email" (Thomas Haigh)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:33:34 -0500
> From: "Thomas Haigh" <thaigh at computer.org>
> To: <members at sigcis.org>
> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Noam Chomsky on the "Inventor of Email"
> Message-ID: <02eb01cd48d2$42702430$c7506c90$@org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> 
> 
> I'm resisting the urge to keep spamming the group with updates on the
> increasingly bizarre public career of email history.
> 
> 
> 
> However, as Slashdot has recently noted
> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/12/167227/inventor-of-email-gets-suppor
> t-of-noam-chomsky, a second statement attributed to Noam Chomsky recently
> appeared on one of V A Shiva Ayyadurai's websites at
> http://www.inventorofemail.com/noam-chomsky-on-invention-of-email-va-shiva-a
> yyadurai.asp. Also as a press release from Reuters, via Ayyadurai's
> International Center for Integrative Systems.
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/idUS149910+12-Jun-2012+PRN20120612
> 
> 
> I do recall Chomsky's usual prose style being a little more elegant, his
> grammar and punctuation a little more standard, and his exposition a little
> more cogent. It's odd that a great linguist would write sentences such as
> "Note Shiva, received his formal Copyright registration in 1982." Or "What
> continue to be deplorable are the childish tantrums of industry insiders who
> now believe that by creating confusion on the case of "email", they can
> distract attention from the facts."
> 
> SIGCIS members may also be interested in Ayyadurai's attempt to dispel
> "False Claims About Email" at
> http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp. Ayyadurai's current
> argument appears to be that "email" has a completely different meaning from
> "electronic mail" and that the world has been misusing "email" all these
> years. He claims to have given "email" its canonical meaning in 1978,
> although I still can't find any original 1978 or 1979 documents on his site
> including the word or a definition.  Ayyadurai currently favors a definition
> of "email" (published, apparently for the first time, this month) with
> around 80 characteristics including "searching address book by zipnode" and
> "relational database engine".  Few current email systems would precisely
> meet all of them.
> 
> 
> 
> Finally, Ayyadurai has persuaded a second WGBH radio host, Emily Rooney,
> that he invented email (around 23:00-24:40).
> http://www.wgbh.org/programs/The-Emily-Rooney-Show-854/episodes/Thurs-51712C
> onquering-Digital-Clutter-38713
> 
> 
> 
> One day an excellent STS or media studies dissertation will probably be
> written on this topic.
> 
> 
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> End of Members Digest, Vol 24, Issue 4
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--
Dag Spicer |  Senior Curator |  Computer History Museum
Editorial Board  |  Annals of the History of Computing
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. |  Mountain View CA  94043
Tel: +1 650 810 1035    |  Fax: +1 650 810 1055

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