From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On 10/03/2026 16:51, dart200 wrote:

The following claim from p246 of TuringrCOs seminal paper On Computable Numbers is a fallacy:

/the problem of enumerating computable sequences is equivalent to the
problem of finding out whether a given number is the D.N of a circle-
free machine, and we have no general process for doing this in a finite number of steps/

I am delighted to see that your usage of forward-slashes is valid as an
example of usenet text formatting markup but frustrated that it's so
close to being an example of the linguist's forward-slash markup to
indicate a wrong example.

Alas, the meaning of the sentence is what is wrong, although perhaps the
syntax is technically wrong somehow too, and perhaps some intrinsic
semantic problem is present too so we can say they are the linguists
error markers too after all.

Annoyingly, the linguists markup of a leading asterisk is also taken in
usenet formatting markup for a bullet mark:

* this nonsense sentence is

/too crap this is sentence a/
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> wrote or quoted:

Annoyingly, the linguists markup of a leading asterisk is also taken in >usenet formatting markup for a bullet mark:

I see. But we usually can tell from context.

However, for multi-line quotations, the most educated and
noble-minded Usenet authors prefer a "|" at the start of
/every line/, so that it does not get lost when only some
lines of the quotation are quoted later by someone else.


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From Newsgroup: sci.lang


Ar an deichi|| l|i de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:

On 10/03/2026 16:51, dart200 wrote:

The following claim from p246 of TuringrCOs seminal paper On Computable Numbers is a fallacy:

/the problem of enumerating computable sequences is equivalent to the problem of finding out whether a given number is the D.N of a circle-
free machine, and we have no general process for doing this in a finite number of steps/

I am delighted to see that your usage of forward-slashes is valid as an example of usenet text formatting markup but frustrated that it's so
close to being an example of the linguist's forward-slash markup to
indicate a wrong example.

Hmm? The usual linguistsrCO use of the forward slash is to indicate a phonemic transcription (as opposed to a phonetic transcription). E.g. the mode of transport is /t+|e+-n/ phonemically vs [t-a+|e+-n] phonetically.

Alas, the meaning of the sentence is what is wrong, although perhaps the syntax is technically wrong somehow too, and perhaps some intrinsic
semantic problem is present too so we can say they are the linguists
error markers too after all.

Annoyingly, the linguists markup of a leading asterisk is also taken in usenet formatting markup for a bullet mark:

* this nonsense sentence is

/too crap this is sentence a/

Usenet formatting is plain text, often ASCII. I admit Gnus underlined your second sentence there, I will need to look into turning that off. I agree that a leading asterisk indicates a wrong example.
--
rCyAs I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stoutrCO
(C. Moore)
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On 11/03/2026 14:02, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

Ar an deichi|| l|i de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:

On 10/03/2026 16:51, dart200 wrote:

The following claim from p246 of TuringrCOs seminal paper On Computable Numbers is a fallacy:

/the problem of enumerating computable sequences is equivalent to the problem of finding out whether a given number is the D.N of a circle- free machine, and we have no general process for doing this in a finite number of steps/

I am delighted to see that your usage of forward-slashes is valid as an example of usenet text formatting markup but frustrated that it's so
close to being an example of the linguist's forward-slash markup to indicate a wrong example.

Hmm? The usual linguistsrCO use of the forward slash is to indicate a phonemic
transcription (as opposed to a phonetic transcription). E.g. the mode of transport is /t+|e+-n/ phonemically vs [t-a+|e+-n] phonetically.

Perhaps it has evolved since my Linguistics prof included that tidbit in
his lecture (late 1990s). I remember it vividly because I was
momentarily surprised when I saw it in usenet for italics. Perhaps when
it is not any kind of phone-ish transcription it is free for the other
purpose.

I notice there are often differences in British vs American formalisms,
for example nCr (superscript n, subscript r) vs a 2 element vector to
denote the number of combinations of r items selected from a pool of n
items. The Internet doesn't believe the British notation exists in that
case and maybe the same is true of the forward-slashes delimiting a
wrong example.
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: sci.lang


Ar an t-aon|| l|i d|-ag de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:

On 11/03/2026 14:02, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

Ar an deichi|| l|i de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:

[...] I am delighted to see that your usage of forward-slashes is valid as an example of usenet text formatting markup but frustrated that it's so close to being an example of the linguist's forward-slash markup to indicate a wrong example.

Hmm? The usual linguistsrCO use of the forward slash is to indicate a phonemic transcription (as opposed to a phonetic transcription). E.g. the mode of transport is /t+|e+-n/ phonemically vs [t-a+|e+-n] phonetically.

Perhaps it has evolved since my Linguistics prof included that tidbit in his lecture (late 1990s). I remember it vividly because I was momentarily surprised when I saw it in usenet for italics. Perhaps when it is not any kind of phone-ish transcription it is free for the other purpose.

Possibly. I hadnrCOt encountered it (first degree Computer Science, Linguistics and French 1998-2002, strong interest in linguistics since).

I notice there are often differences in British vs American formalisms, for example nCr (superscript n, subscript r) vs a 2 element vector to denote the number of combinations of r items selected from a pool of n items. The Internet doesn't believe the British notation exists in that case and maybe the same is true of the forward-slashes delimiting a wrong example.

I was in Trinity College Dublin so we would normally have been well aware of British practice. Certain lecturers were educated in the US so I would expect to have encountered US practice too.
--
rCyAs I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stoutrCO
(C. Moore)
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On 12/03/2026 7:34 p.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:

Ar an t-aon|| l|i d|-ag de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:

> On 11/03/2026 14:02, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> >
> > Ar an deichi|| l|i de m|! M|irta, scr|!obh Tristan Wibberley:
> >
> > > [...] I am delighted to see that your usage of forward-slashes is valid
> > > as an example of usenet text formatting markup but frustrated that it's
> > > so close to being an example of the linguist's forward-slash markup to
> > > indicate a wrong example.
> >
> > Hmm? The usual linguistsrCO use of the forward slash is to indicate a
> > phonemic transcription (as opposed to a phonetic transcription). E.g. the
> > mode of transport is /t+|e+-n/ phonemically vs [t-a+|e+-n] phonetically.
>
> Perhaps it has evolved since my Linguistics prof included that tidbit in his
> lecture (late 1990s). I remember it vividly because I was momentarily
> surprised when I saw it in usenet for italics. Perhaps when it is not any
> kind of phone-ish transcription it is free for the other purpose.

Possibly. I hadnrCOt encountered it (first degree Computer Science, Linguistics
and French 1998-2002, strong interest in linguistics since).

> I notice there are often differences in British vs American formalisms, for
> example nCr (superscript n, subscript r) vs a 2 element vector to denote the
> number of combinations of r items selected from a pool of n items. The
> Internet doesn't believe the British notation exists in that case and maybe
> the same is true of the forward-slashes delimiting a wrong example.

I was in Trinity College Dublin so we would normally have been well aware of British practice. Certain lecturers were educated in the US so I would expect to have encountered US practice too.

Having messed about in linguistics for 60 or so years, in Canada, USA
and New Zealand, I too have never encountered this use of /. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (P.H.Mathews, 1997) mentions the phonemic/phonetic use, as above; also separation of alternatives (as "phonemic/phonetic"); and delimiting the statement of a change from its environment (X > Y / ___Z "X becomes Y before Z"). That's it.

But it's hard to prove a negative. Perhaps in some sub-field unfamiliar
to both Aidan and me, at some period, it has been so used. If so, I'd
like to hear about it.
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On 13/03/2026 09:13, Ross Clark wrote:

On 12/03/2026 7:34 p.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:

But it's hard to prove a negative. Perhaps in some sub-field unfamiliar
to both Aidan and me, at some period, it has been so used. If so, I'd
like to hear about it.

It's also possible that my memory not only misrecalls the lecture fact
but also misrecalls the jarring experience that made the fact stick.
There are numerous combinations of memory farts that would explain it.

I'm quite willing to suppose it was was not used for a wrong example on
the basis of current expert knowledge.
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2