If Noam Chomsky fell in the forest, would anybody care? Dag On Jun 13, 2012, at 9:00 AM, members-request@sigcis.org wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. Noam Chomsky on the "Inventor of Email" (Thomas Haigh)

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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:33:34 -0500 From: "Thomas Haigh" <thaigh@computer.org> To: <members@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