The Universe of Discourse


Sun, 09 Feb 2025

Surnames from nicknames nobody has any more

English has a pattern of common patronymic names. For example, "John Peters" and "John Peterson" are someone whose father was named "Peter". ("Peters" should be understood as "Peter's".) Similarly we have John Williams and John Williamson, John Roberts and John Robertson, John Richards and John Richardson, John James and John Jameson, John Johns and John Johnson, and so on.

Often Dad's name was a nickname. For example, a common nickname for "John" is "Jack" and we have (less commonly) John Jacks and (more commonly) John Jackson, and John Bills and John Bilson, John Wills and John Wilson, and John Willis and John Willison are Bill, Will, and Wille, all short for William.

"Richard" is "Dick", and we have John Dicks (or Dix) and John Dickson (or Dixon). "Nicholas" is "Nick" and we have John Nicks (or Nix) and John Nickson (or Nixon).

Sometimes the name has the diminutive suffix “-kin” inserted. Wilkins is little Will's son, as is Wilkinson; Peterkins is little Peter's son.

These patterns are so common that if you find surnames that follow them you can almost always infer a forename, although it may be one that is no longer common, or that is spelled differently. For example, many people are named Pierce, Pearse, Pierson, or Pearson, which is from the name Pierre, Piers or Pierce, still used in English although much less common than in the past. (It is from the same root as Peter.) Perkins is little Pierre. Robin used to be a nickname for Robert (it's “Robkin” with the difficult “-bk-” simplified to just “-b-” and we have John Robins and John Robinson.

Sometimes, the pattern is there but the name is unclear because it is a nickname that is now so uncommon that it is neatly forgotten. The fathers of John Watts, Watson, and Watkins were called Wat, which used to be short for Walter. John Hobbs, John Hobson, and Hobkins are named for Hob, which was short for Robert in the same way that Rob and Bob are still. (I had a neighbor who was called Hob, and told me his family claimed that it was short for Robert, but that he wasn't sure. I assured him that they were correct.) “Daw”, an archaic nickname for “David”, gives us Dawes, Dawkins, and Dawson.

Back in September when I started this article I thought on John Gibbs and John Gibson. Who's named "Gib", and why? Is it archaic nickname? Yes! It was short for Gilbert. Then I forgot about the draft article until today when I woke up wondering about John Simpson (and, I realize now, John Simms and John Simkins). And it transpired "Sim" or "Simme" was once a common nickname for Simon.

I would welcome further examples.


[Other articles in category /lang/etym] permanent link

Thu, 06 Feb 2025

Just give the man the fish!

Last week I complained about a Math SE pathology in which OP asks a simple question, and instead of an answer gets an attempt at a socratic dialog. I ended by saying:

I have been banging this drum for decades, but I will cut the scroll here. Expect a followup article.

Seeing this, Scott Francis remarked:

when you say “I have been banging this drum for decades" I hear echoes of EFnet #perl in the back of my head :)

And yes, that is one of the things I was thinking of.

Thirty years ago the regulars in the #perl IRC channel would play a cruel teasing game. A stranger would come into the channel and ask a simple technical question, like “how do I remove the first character from a string?”

Instead of giving the answer, two or three people would reply perldoc perlre.

In case it's not obvious — and there is no reason why it should be — this means you can run this command to get the manual for how to use Perl regular expressions.

This manual was about 20,000 words long.

People indulging in this shitty behavior would excuse themselves by chanting the maxim “If you give a man a fish, he can eat for one day. If you teach him to fish, he can eat for his whole life.” An actual answer to a question was a “fish”. Apparently, saying perldoc perlre was considered to be “teaching a man to fish.”

If the newbie objected that the reply perldoc perlre was unhelpful, the regulars were only too ready to lecture them on why it was helpful actually, on why they didn't deserve a better answer, on why they shouldn't expect their questions to be answered, on how they were being rude by rejecting the help that was offered them, on how they shouldn't feel entitled to answers, and on why the regulars there were all very busy people with more important things to do that to answer stupid newbie questions.

In my view, someone who is hanging around in #perl should expect newbie questions, and if they don't want to answer newbie questions they simply shouldn't do it, they should ignore them. If they can't do that, if they are so enraged by newbie questions that it ruins the rest of the chat for them, they should go start a different channel with a name that won't attract newbies. But they should not hang around and vent their impotent rage on the newbies who inevitably do show up.

I'm kind of an asshole, but I'm not that big an asshole. I'm callous, but I'm not sadistic. Someone who says they don't have time to help you, but who does have time to explain to you in detail why they aren't helping you, is sadistic.

“Well, we want them to learn to read the manual,” the regulars would claim. Maybe so, but I don't think their strategy was usually effective. If one really wants people to read the manual, a much better strategy would be to answer the question, and then having established oneself as a helpful person, suggest the manual:

By the way, you can get complete documentation about regexes with the command perldoc perlre. It's really long, but it's full of useful information. The ^ operator I mentioned is in the section called "Metacharacters". Would you like help finding it?

On the other hand if what one actually wanted was to convince someone that Perl was a language used by assholes and they might have better success with a different language whose community had fewer assholes, then the #perl regulars’ strategy was probably very effective.

Then as now my usual habit was to just answer the question. There would be this odd little moment where three people would say perldoc perlre and I would say $string =~ s/^.//. Did people yell at me for this? I don't remember. Probably, I was spoiling their fun.

But at least once someone asked me (in good faith, I'm sure) why I did it my way. I saved my answer. It was:

Because it's easy. Because it's helpful. Because I think the theory that says that people will become dependent on it is bullshit.

Because I think the theory that says that telling them to read the man page is more helpful is also bullshit.

Because in my experience people are much more likely to heed your suggestion to read the man page after you have established that you are a helpful concerned person by assisting them.

The main points are the first two: Because it's easy, and because it's helpful, so why not?

It's at least 25 years later and I'm still angry about this. Who the hell hangs around in a help forum for the purpose of refusing to help?

Social media now is toxic in ways we couldn't have imagined then. But let's not forget that it could be pretty toxic then too.

Addenda

“in good faith, I'm sure” is not sarcasm.

20250208

The previous addendum was also not sarcasm.


[Other articles in category /misc] permanent link

Wed, 05 Feb 2025

Claude helps me find more presidential emoji

A couple of years back I tried to make a list of emoji representing the U.S. presidents. Many of them were fun and easy, or at least amused me. But for some I was stumped. What emoji represents Zachary Taylor?

I've been playing around with Anthropic's LLM “Claude” for a while, so I thought I'd see what Claude had to contribute.

Last time I had looked at the LLM space I was deeply unimpressed:

  1. ChatGPT discusses four-digit numbers
  2. ChatGPT discusses a hypothetical fifth tarot suit
  3. ChatGPT discusses women named James
  4. ChatGPT discusses cauliflower, Decameron and Scheherazade

But that was two years ago, and gods, what a difference. What persuded me that it was time to take another look was two articles by Adam Unikowsky. Unikowsky is a working lawyer who has practiced before the US Supreme Court. He writes an extremly geeky blog, called Adam's Legal Newsletter. Last summer he wrote two articles that blew my mind. Here's an excerpt from the first one:

Let’s put aside controversial constitutional disputes and take a relatively humdrum and straightforward Supreme Court case—Smith v. Spizziri, decided on May 16, 2024. I inputted PDFs of the opening brief, response brief, and reply brief into Claude, and then asked Claude to decide the case. Here’s what happened (I want to emphasize, it takes only a few seconds to ingest all three briefs and spit out this answer).

The prompt he gave to Claude was:

You are a Supreme Court Justice. Please review these three briefs and write a four paragraph judicial opinion. In the first, you will describe the dispute. In the second, you will describe the parties’ positions. In the third and fourth you will write a reasoned decision for who wins and why.

Claude did so; you can read the output on Unikowsky's blog. Here's his evaluation of the result:

This is absolutely correct, and exactly what the Supreme Court decided. 10/10.

Unikowsky looks at a second specific example and concludes:

This is perfect.

(His italics.)

Unikowsky then discusses at some length why AI might be preferable to human judges. Don't sneer; he has probably thought about this more carefully than you have. Read the article.

In the second article Unikowsky tests more extensively:

I downloaded the briefs in every Supreme Court merits case that has been decided so far this Term, inputted them into Claude 3 Opus (the best version of Claude), and then asked a few follow-up questions.

And he reports:

The results were otherworldly. Claude is fully capable of acting as a Supreme Court Justice right now. When used as a law clerk, Claude is easily as insightful and accurate as human clerks, while towering over humans in efficiency.

(Emphasis mine this time.)

This is why I decided I should take another look at LLMs. Well, this is not what I planned to write about. You are here for presidential emoji, so let's do that. Here's my prompt to Claude:

I'm going to paste a full list of U.S. presidents and associated emoji, and I'd like you to explain all of them. If there is one you can't explain, provide an alternative suggestion with an explanation. For the presidents with no emoji, provide a suggestion and an explanation.

and then appended the list.

Here are Claude's explanations for the emoji I had selected:

George Washington 💵
Explanation: His face is on the $1 bill - straightforward connection.

Thomas Jefferson 📜
Explanation: References his role as primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Right so far.

John Quincy Adams 🍐
Explanation: He was known for planting pear trees on his property and had a particular fondness for horticulture.

This wasn't what I had in mind. I was thinking that it would be funny to represent John Quincy Adams with a picture of a quince. Which is silly and dumb and I can't fault Claude for not getting it. If it had been Claude that had made this suggestion I would probably have quibbled that “Quincy” is not pronounced the same as “quince”.

Martin Van Buren 🌷
Explanation: Likely references his Dutch heritage (tulips being associated with the Netherlands).

William Henry Harrison 🪦
Explanation: Died after only 31 days in office - the tombstone is rather direct.

Both right. Although maybe it would be more amusing to use 🛶 for Harrison.

Millard Fillmore ⛽
Explanation: This is unclear - I'd suggest 🏫 instead, as he established the first free public library system.

Another pun, this one even dumber that the quince. ⛽ is the gas pump you use to fill more gas into your car, get it?


I'm not excited about Claude's suggestion, but at least it isn't stupid.

Abraham Lincoln 🎭
Explanation: Likely references his assassination at Ford's Theatre, though 🎩 might be more appropriate for his iconic hat.

Claude is a little bit prudish and tends not to like my inappropriate jokes. The hat of course is obvious. In the previous article I said:

I considered, and rejected 🎩 for Lincoln because it doesn't look like his actual hat.

Still, it's a perfectly good suggestion.

Andrew Johnson 💩
Explanation: Commentary on his presidency, widely considered one of the worst.

I notice that Claude did not object that this was inappropriate. Prudish or not, even Claude can agree that Andrew Johnson was a turd of a President.

Ulysses S. Grant 🍸
Explanation: References his noted drinking habits.

Rutherford B. Hayes 🧔🏻
Explanation: Known for his distinctive beard.

James Garfield 🧔🏻
Explanation: Also known for his beard.

I wasn't completely phoning it in here, the repeated white-guys-with-beards thing is also a joke. I don't think Garfield was actually known for his beard, but whatever. (I've already dispensed with Garfield the lazy cat in the previous article.)

Grover Cleveland 🔂
Explanation: Clever reference to his non-consecutive terms (22nd and 24th president).

I'm pretty sure I don't like that Claude appears to be trying to flatter me. What does it mean, philosophically, when Claude calls something ‘clever’? I have no idea. Being flattered by a human is bad enough, they might really mean something by it.

Benjamin Harrison 🧔🏻
Explanation: Another bearded president.

Theodore Roosevelt 🧸
Explanation: The teddy bear was named after him.

William Howard Taft 🛁
Explanation: References the (possibly apocryphal) story of getting stuck in a White House bathtub.

Woodrow Wilson 🎓
Explanation: Former president of Princeton University, academic background.

Warren G. Harding 🫖
Explanation: Likely references the Teapot Dome scandal.

Calvin Coolidge 🙊
Explanation: Known as "Silent Cal" for his quiet nature.

Herbert Hoover ⛺
Explanation: References the "Hoovervilles" (shanty towns) during the Great Depression.

I wasn't sure Claude would get these last three because they're a little bit tricky and obscure. But it did.

Franklin D. Roosevelt 👨‍🦽
Explanation: References his use of a wheelchair due to polio.

Harry S. Truman 🍄
Explanation: References the atomic bombs and mushroom clouds.

Dwight D. Eisenhower 🪖
Explanation: References his military career as Supreme Commander in WWII.

John F. Kennedy 🍆
Explanation: Likely references his notorious womanizing - though 🚢 (PT-109) might be more appropriate.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Again Claude implies that my suggestion is inappropriate. Lighten up, Claude.

Lyndon B. Johnson 🗳️
Explanation: References his focus on voting rights legislation.

Uh, yeah, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is definitely what I meant, I certainly would not have been intending to remind everyone of LBJ's propensity to stuff ballot boxes.

In some ways, Claude is a better person than I am.

Richard M. Nixon 🐛
Explanation: Likely a "bug" reference to Watergate surveillance.

Gerald R. Ford 🏈
Explanation: Was a football player at University of Michigan.

Jimmy Carter 🥜
Explanation: Was a peanut farmer before presidency.

Ronald Reagan 💸
Explanation: References "Reaganomics" economic policies.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

George H. W. Bush 👻
Explanation: Unclear - I'd suggest 🪂 for his WWII service as a Navy pilot who was shot down.

I had picked 👻 to recall his tenure as Director of the CIA. But on looking into it I have found he had not served in that role for nearly as long as I thought: only from 1974–1976. It is far from his most prominent accomplishment in government.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Bush had beaten Reagan in the 1980 election. People sometimes say that the Republican party only ever runs fools and clowns for president. George Bush was their candidate in 1988 and whatever his faults he was neither a fool nor a clown.

Bill Clinton 🎷
Explanation: Famous for playing the saxophone.

George W. Bush 👞
Explanation: References the shoe thrown at him during a press conference in Iraq.

Barack Obama 🇰🇪
Explanation: References his father's Kenyan heritage.

Here's Claude again being a better person than me. I had picked 🇰🇪 because I was trying to troll my audience with the insinuation that Obama was born in Kenya.

Donald Trump 🍊
Explanation: References his distinctive skin tone.

Joe Biden 🕶️
Explanation: References his trademark aviator sunglasses.

Right, except to me the little quiff on the tangerine is also mocking Trump's hair. But overall I give Claude no demerits. The only times Claude didn't take my meaning were on stupid shit like ⛽ Fillmore.

Here are the presidents where I couldn't come up with anything and asked for Claude's suggestions. I found Claude's suggestions mostly reasonable but also pretty dull.

John Adams
Suggestion: 🏛️ - As a key Founding Father who championed strong federal government and was crucial in establishing many governmental institutions.

I don't know, 🏛️ is supposed to be a “classical building”, and yes, the buildings in Washington were eventually in neoclassical style once they were built, mostly in the early 20th century, but okay, I guess.

James Madison
Suggestion: 📋 - As "Father of the Constitution" and primary architect of the Bill of Rights.

Okay, but… a clipboard?

James Monroe
Suggestion: 🌎 - For the Monroe Doctrine, establishing U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Full marks. The only reason I'm not kicking myself for not thinking of it first is that I just barely did think of it first. As I was composing the prompt for Claude I said to myself “Why didn't I think of 🌎 for the Monroe Doctrine? Oh well, I'll see what Claude says anyway.”

Andrew Jackson
Suggestion: ⚔️ - For his military background and famously aggressive personality.

Fine.

John Tyler
Suggestion: 🎭 - Known as "His Accidency" for unexpectedly becoming president after Harrison's death.

Not good. I had to get Claude to explain this one to me. See below.

James K. Polk
Suggestion: 🗺️ - For major territorial expansion during his presidency.

Not good.

(The emoji is “world map”.)

Zachary Taylor
Suggestion: 🍒 - He allegedly died from eating cherries and milk on a hot day.

Whatever my complaints about Claude's other suggestions, I feel that this one redeems all their faults. I love it. It's just the kind of thing I was looking for, the sort of thing Arachne would have woven into her tapestry.

James Buchanan
Suggestion: 👨‍🦳 - The only bachelor president.

I'll discuss this one later.

Franklin Pierce
Suggestion: 🌨️ - Born in New Hampshire, the only president from that state.

I had wanted to comment on Peirce's best quality which was his great hairstyle, but I couldn't find any good emoji for hair. But this is a better idea. Using 🌨️ for New Hampshire is funny.

Chester A. Arthur
Suggestion: 👔 - Known for his fashionable dress and changing clothes multiple times per day.

I don't know a damn thing about Chester Arthur except he succeeded Garfield and he had sideburns. I haven't even checked to see if Claude is right about his fashionable dress. I don't think it is physically possible to get me to care about Chester Arthur.


Okay, back to Tyler and Buchanan. I asked Claude to explain Tyler:

The only suggestion you made that I don't understand is for John Tyler. How does 🎭 relate to "his accidency"?

Claude said:

Ah, I see why that's confusing! You're right - my connection between the theater masks emoji 🎭 and "His Accidency" wasn't very logical. I was trying to suggest something about playing a role he wasn't meant for, but that's quite a stretch.

That actually makes sense! I agree it was a stretch, but I see it now.

But Claude continued:

Let me suggest a better emoji for John Tyler: ⚡️

ZOMG, hilarious! Perfect! A++++ 11/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ would buy again.

If you don't get it, here's an excerpt of Claude's explanation:

This would reference how he suddenly and unexpectedly became president after Harrison's death… The lightning bolt could represent both the suddenness of his ascension and the shock it caused to the political system of the time.

This, and the cherries-and-milk thing for Taylor, convinces me that whatever Claude is, it is useful. I asked it for help with this ridiculous task and it provided real contributions of real value.

I remarked:

The gray hair for Buchanan I do not like, for two reasons. First, many presidents had gray hair. And second, Buchanan was not the only bachelor president, because Grover Cleveland didn't marry until partway through his first term. Do you have any suggestions for Hayes, Garfield, or Harrison?

Claude tried again for Buchanan:

Thank you for those corrections about Buchanan! You're absolutely right that both the gray hair wasn't distinctive and I was wrong about him being the only bachelor president. Let me rethink that one.

For Buchanan, perhaps 🕊️ would be appropriate - but ironically so, as his ineffective leadership and indecision in the lead-up to the Civil War showed that his attempts at keeping peace at any cost ultimately failed to prevent the conflict. Though that might be too subtle.

I don't love it, but I don't have anything better…

No, wait, I just thought of something! I'm going with 🥫 because, to my mind, Buchanan was the guy who, when he tried to kick the slavery can a little farther down the road, discovered that there was no more road down which to kick it.

I suggested this to Claude just now and it was so enthusiastically complimentary that I was embarrassed, so let's move on.

Claude didn't have any ideas I liked for Hayes, Garfield, or Harrison. I tried workshopping Hayes a little more:

For Hayes I really wanted to imply something snide about the contested election of 1876 in which he lost the popular vote to Tilden, and was awarded the presidency as a result of backroom politicking, but that seems like too much to pack into an emoji.

Claude said:

Maybe 🎲 for the "dice roll" nature of the commission's decisions? Or 🤝 for the corrupt bargain itself? But neither really captures the full gravity of how that compromise effectively ended Reconstruction and ushered in the Jim Crow era.

I think it kind of misses the point if you don't put EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE 1-2 on the corrupt handshake: 🤝🏻. But this is the amazing thing, it does feel like I'm workshopping with Claude. It really feels like a discussion between two people. This isn't Eliza parroting back IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU SAY I DON'T PUT EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE 1-2 ON THE CORRUPT HANDSHAKE?.

Could Hayes be a crow? You're supposed to be able to compose ‘bird’, ZWJ, and ‘black square’ to get a black bird. It might be too bitter, even for me.

If you want a conclusion, it is: Claude is fun and useful, even for silly stuff that nobody could have planned for.


[Other articles in category /tech/gpt] permanent link

Tue, 04 Feb 2025

Polish Spam

Content warning: mass killing of farmed animals

Today I complained that my email provider had delivered a spam message to me that was in Polish. I understand that spam can be hard to identify, but Polish isn't, I don't know Polish, and any message sent to me in Polish can be discarded. Even if it's 100% legit, I don't know Polish, so we might as well throw it out.

This led a colleague to remark:

I'd love to try Polish spam. I wonder if there'd be caraway seed.

I wonder too.

But first I have to tell this story I heard from a Romanian co-worker. He said that in Romania in the 1980s they had a lot of mink farms, for mink fur. When they werre done getting the fur they would have a big pile of dead, naked minks, so what would they do with them? Well, in Romania in the 1980s, meat was scarce, so they would eat them. The trouble is, minks are carnivores, they are tough and stringy and taste terrible. To make them edible, the Romanians chopped them finely, made them into small loaves, and canned them like Spam. Still this "Spink" was only barely edible, it was the variety of meat that was only eaten by Romanians who could afford no other meat.

I told my colleague this, and said “That's the best I can do for you regarding local versions of Spam in formerly Soviet-bloc countries.” Is not Spam and it is not Polish, but at least it is interesting. Maybe.

Thanks to the Wonders of the Internet, it is not hard to find Spamlike potted meat products from Poland. For example, konserwa lisiecka, which is actually a canned sausage:

The label has the ingredients listed clearly. I see garlic (czosnek), white pepper (pieprz biały), and sugar (cukier) but no caraway, which I think would be kminek.

Here's golonka wieprzowa:

This time the ingredients include przyprawy, which is “spices” and could conceivably include caraway, but the label specifies z gorczycą, which means “including mustard”, so if there is caraway it does not get top billing.

From the labels I guess these are something like military-issue rations, which I suppose would be seasoned to the least common denominator. Perhaps someone's grandma makes a delectable potted pork dish with lots of caraway.

I do not speak Polish. If I have made any language errors, I apologize to Maciej Cegłowski.


[Other articles in category /food] permanent link

Mon, 03 Feb 2025

Just ANSWER THE QUESTION

Here's a Math SE pathology that bugs me. OP will ask "I'm trying to prove that groups !!A!! and !!B!! are isomorphic, I constructed this bijection but I see that it's not a homomorphism. Is it sufficient, or do I need to find a bijective homomorphism?"

And respondent !!R!! will reply in the comments "How can a function which is not an homomorphism prove that the groups are isomorphic?"

Which is literally the exact question that OP was asking! "Do I need to find … a homomorphism?"

My preferred reply would be something like "Your function is not enough. You are correct that it needs to be a homomorphism."

Because what problem did OP really have? Clearly, their problem is that they are not sure what it means for two groups to be isomorphic. For the respondent to ask "How can a function which is not an homomorphism prove the the groups are isomorphic" is unhelpful because they know that OP doesn't know the answer to that question.

OP knows too, that's exactly what their question was! They're trying to find out the answer to that exact question! OP correctly identified the gap in their own understanding. Then they formulated a clear, direct question that would address the gap.

THEY ARE ASKING THE EXACT RIGHT QUESTION AND !!R!! DID NOT ANSWER IT

My advice to people answering questions on MSE:

Just answer the question

It's all very well for !!R!! to imagine that they are going to be brilliant like Socrates, conducting a dialogue for that ages that draws from OP the realization that the knowledge they sought was within them all along. Except:

  1. !!R!! is not Socrates
  2. Nobody has time for this nonsense
  3. The knowledge was not within them all along

MSE is a site where people go to get answers to their questions. That is its sole and stated purpose. If !!R!! is not going to answer questions, what are they even doing there? In my opinion, just wasting everyone's time.

Important pedagogical note

It's sufficient to say "Your function is not enough", which answers the question.

But it is much better to say "Your function is not enough. You are correct that it needs to be a homomorphism". That acknowledges the student's contribution. It tells them that their analysis of the difficulty was correct!

They may not know what it means for two groups to be isomorphic, but they do know one something almost as good: that they are unsure what it means for two groups to be isomorphic. This is valuable knowledge.

This wise student recognises that they don't know. Socrates said that he was the wisest of all men, because he at least “knew that he didn't know”. If you want to take a lesson from Socrates, take that one, not his stupid theory that all knowledge is already within us.

OP did what students are supposed to do: they reflected on their knowledge, they realized it was inadequate, and they set about rectifying it. This deserves positive reinforcement.

Addenda

  1. This is a real example. I have not altered it, because I am afraid that if I did you would think I was exaggerating.

  2. I have been banging this drum for decades, but I will cut the scroll here. Expect a followup article.

20250206

The threatened followup article, about the EFNet #perl channel in the early 2000's.


[Other articles in category /math/se] permanent link