Subj: L&SF Online Bulletin, December 1997

Date:	97-12-01 12:35:41 EST
From:	ocls@ipa.net (George Elgin, Suzette Haden Elgin)
To:	ocls@ipa.net

December 2, 1997

Greetings, and all my best wishes for the coming holiday season and the New
Year! The bulletin will be brief, this time; I think the Operative Cliche
is "blessedly brief." It's a busy month for one and all.

1. My strongest recommendations to the science fiction contingent: Buy the
November 1997 issue of  Locus Magazine. It has long reports on the recent
WorldCon in San Antonio. It has more than one hundred photographs of
sfpersons. It has superb remembrances and memorials for Judith Merril, with
wonderful photos. It's a keeper.

2. I suspect you'll realize this on your own. However, better safe than
sorry. I want to let you know that the January/February issue of L&SF will
probably be a little late.  December is one of the busiest months of the
year for me, and I have a lot of non-cancellable Grandmother Duty between
now and Christmas; George has similar Grandfather Duty.  Ideally we'd get
the first 1998 issue in the mail well *before* Christmas, so that you'd
have it early in January even with the holiday snailmail to fight, but it's
never yet been possible to achieve the ideal. Don't worry, therefore; it
will arrive.

3. The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is trying to assemble a sort of
master list of the questions that the general public is most likely to ask
about language and languages. I'm trying to help, and would appreciate your
input. We're talking about questions like "Why don't teachers insist that
students talk right?" and "Which language is the hardest one to learn?" and
"Why don't we fix the stupid English spelling system?" and "What language
did Jesus speak?" -- that sort of thing. Any suggestions and additions you
could send to me for the list, whether questions of your own or questions
you've heard from others, would be very much appreciated. Next step,
answers. I hope.

4. OCLS summary update:  I've finished and turned in my book for Abbeville
-- "The Portable Grandmother." I made a lot of compromises, but so did my
editors; all is well. It should be out next fall. Thanks to all of you who
sent me suggestions and requests and exhortations. // The Thomas Nelson
book, "How to Turn the Other Cheek and Still Survive in Today's World," is
in the stores at last, and we're still pushing it as hard as we can. It
would be tremendously useful if, when you're in a bookstore anyway, you
would ask the clerks if they have copies (and if they say no, suggest that
they ought to have some. Provided you agree with that sentiment, of
course.) 

I am now working *very* hard on the book for Plenum, tentatively titled 
"The Power of Language," focused on multilingualism. It's an enormous 
project, very much like writing a half dozen dissertations; wish me well, 
please.

(It will most emphatically not be pinkerian.) We have a real problem in
this country in that "language policy," for all the drastic consequences it
can have on people's lives, is established on the basis of folklore and
myth and expediency; the Plenum book is an attempt to set up a foundation
of basic information that would let these decisions be made on the basis of
contemporary science instead. I think it's very badly needed, but it's not
an "easy write."

We have now formally registered the Web name "worldvsdleague.com" 

George will be working on getting that site set up,
over the coming three or four months. I have begun working on the martials
arts materials for verbal self-defense, but I have only scraps of time here
and there; it will take a while. We have plenty of material ready to put on
the Website, of course, once it's up and running. I'll keep you posted.

George is also working on setting up for me the free homepage that comes
with our server contract. It should have been done long ago; I know. This
one has to be entirely personal, can't have any business stuff or even a
hint that there *is* any business stuff, other than what can be deduced or
induced from reading my biography. Suggestions for what ought to appear
there will be welcome. 

Don't ask about science fiction....right now,
it's out of the question. Someday, I hope. If I live to see sanity return
to the sf publishing market.

5. Most of the sf short stories by C.M. Kornbluth have been unavailable for
many years, more's the pity.  They've now come out in a collection called
"His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C.M. Kornbluth,"
edited by Timothy P. Szczesuil and published by NESFA Press; the ISBN is
0-915368-60-9. Science Fiction Book Club has it; I hope it's also in the
bookstores. It's 670 pages of stories, with a much higher percentage of
focus on language and linguistics than you'll find in most sf writers'
work. Not every story here is to my taste, and no reason why it should be,
but the emphasis on language is *very* welcome. Recommended.

6. I've stumbled over a Website that I am truly excited about, and I want
to recommend that you take a look. (It requires a long look; it's huge.)
The address is:  http://www.uia.org; it's the site for the Union of
International Associations. Turns out, the UIA has concluded that
international problems (and their proposed solutions) are now so complex
that only metaphors offer any practical way to communicate about them, and
therefore devotes vast amounts of time and energy and Internet space to
this topic. 

I want to list just a few titles from the list of their papers
and articles; and then I'm going to recommend one I've already read that I
think is a goldmine of useful ideas. Titles... "Poetry-Making and
Policy-Making: arranging a marriage between beauty and the beast"; Metaphor
as an unexplored catalytic language for global governance"; "Metaphor and
the Language of Futures"; "Relevance of Rhythm and Rhyme to Policy,
Management and Social Organization"; "Identity of Europe Articulated by a
Dynamic System of Metaphors" ; "Research Network on
Catalytic Imagery for Governance in Impossible Situations"; "Metaphors as
Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future" ... and many, many more. A
veritable virtual candy store.

   The paper I've printed out and read (and will be commenting on in future
issues of the newsletter) is by Anthony J.N. Judge, is called "Guiding
Metaphors and Configuring Choices," and can be found at  this address:
http://www.uia.org/uiadocs/tab91.htm. It's long and complex, but not
technical, and I'm certain you will enjoy it as much as I did.

7. Finally, while I'm here, there's one more metaphor site I want to
mention, in case you don't know about it. It's a kind of "Metaphor
Central"; the address is:  http://www.metaphor.uoregon.edu/metaphor.htm.

        That's it for now; celebrate vigorously and with your whole heart.

                Suzette





----------------------- Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: 
Received: from  relay12.mail.aol.com (relay12.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.12]) by air12.mail.aol.com (v36.0) with SMTP; Mon, 01 Dec 1997 12:35:41 -0500
Received: from dogbert.ipa.net (dogbert.ipa.net [205.218.170.10])
	  by relay12.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
	  with ESMTP id MAA17787;
	  Mon, 1 Dec 1997 12:35:34 -0500 (EST)
Received: from [206.27.222.214] (pool-214.faye.ipa.net [206.27.222.214]) by dogbert.ipa.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA06176; Mon, 1 Dec 1997 11:28:23 -0600 (CST)
X-Sender: ocls@pop.ipa.net
Message-Id: 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 11:30:58 -0500
To: ocls@ipa.net
From: ocls@ipa.net (George Elgin, Suzette Haden Elgin)
Subject: L&SF Online Bulletin, December 1997