Re: OT: Who said it?

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> Since we're on the subject, and I so enjoy stirring up trouble...
> _____________________________________________
>
> Microsoft Applies for Language Technology Patent
I am--but not, alas, for long--speechless. To express
my feelings adequately, I should have to use the kind
of language I don't use.
First of all, who would want grammatical assistance
from a company whose spokesman could say, "For everyone
who struggled through French class in high school, they
know verb conjugation is tough"? It's not just the lack
of agreement between `everyone' and `they'; that's a
common enough colloquialism. But in this case it's
utterly unnecessary: "Everyone who struggled through
French class...knows verb conjugation is tough."
Second, the utterly unwarranted assumption that you can
just substitute a form in one language for a form in
another. For example, Latin doesn't have a simple past
tense. You cannot say "Caesar attacked the camp of the
Helvetii"; you have to say "Caesar was attacking
(oppugnabat)" or "Caesar has attacked (oppugnavit)." So
you need to understand the context to decide which form
to use.
That much for the linguistic issues. One of the linked
articles made the very valid point that most innovation
is actually development--building on what went before.
And abuse of the patent process therefor contradicts
the purpose for which patents were instituted in this
country: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts" (Art. I, sec. 8, Constitution of the United States).
Really scary and sinister: the suspicion that M$, by
trying to patent FAT, is looking to make it impossible
for Linux to continue to access data on FAT-formatted
drives. If you're dual booting, the only way Linux
could read your Windows data files would be if you sent
them to yourself over the Net.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx