I just want to point out two things about those non-English letters, "þ" and "ð". First, they have names: "þ" is called a "thorn", and "ð" is called an "eth". And second, simplifying somewhat for clarity[**], you have their pronunciations switched around. (Trust me: I am an expert on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and he was passing fond of both letters, particularly eth.) It is the thorn, not the eth, that is pronounced like an UNvoiced "th" (e.g., the "th" in "thin"); and you pronounce the eth, not the thorn, like a VOICED "th" (e.g., the "th" in "this").
[** - The UNsimplified situation is of course more complicated. Old English lacked both of these letters until the early 8th century, and at first they were essentially interchangeable for either pronunciation above. The thorn nearly died out by the 780s; but it came roaring during the reign of Alfred the Great, to the point where it pushed out the eth, which faded away around the time of Middle English. But as the evolution of English continued, the thorn also died out by the time of Early Modern English. (In other words, when sourcing how these letters are pronounced, citing only Old English is problematic.) One current (modern) language has retained both letters: Icelandic, of course, in which they are pronounced as I have described above, with the following exceptions: thorns never appear at the end of a word; eths never appear at the beginning of a word; and eths are "devoiced" (pronounced like thorns) in two situations: when they appear at the end of a word, and when they are followed by a voiceless consonant, like "t" or "k".]
Yesterday or this morning, a friend asked me whether those were Icelandic letters, and I told him yes -- and I even told him the names. :) Thanks for the advice on pronunciation. I had always thought it was the other way around. A quick web search suggests that I'm not the only one confused--and perhaps it's because of that 8th century situation. ... ... In case you haven't seen it before, you might enjoy this early piece I wrote: https://graboyes.substack.com/p/1200-years-of-british-royalty-in. (Feel free to offer corrections if I've made any errors.) ... ... And speaking of history, I distinctly remember your interesting surname stretched across my television set every Sunday evening of my childhood.
I am much more convinced by SkyNet's arguments against its use by students. ( I tried to ask its opinion but its been very busy.)
By the time I retired three years ago my senior high school law students were writing all their assignments by hand in class. First, because of rampant 'copy and paste'. Second, to avoid the plagiarism program I had employed, the sale of original essays on line. One way for educators to avoid ChatGPT I guess.
I have read recently that the program had written a medical board exam. First time, not so good. Second time, it passed. And it writes code. And despite the issues it has been having with nonsensical errors, it will be much smarter next year.
You’ll have to teach a whole generation how to do cursive writing. :) I’ve never read “Dune,” so I had to look up the Butlerian Jihad reference. Very good.
I tried in vain to get bibliographic citations on popular academic journal articles. What I got were bogus citations from the same few authors in different journal volumes and issues and with different titles that confirmed sort of with my query. Horrible and entirely worthless. Heck, I even tried for my own journal articles and didn't get a single citation despite there being 40+ in the wild.
Could you share an example? A query you made, what you were looking for, and what it gave you? By “bogus”, do you mean a reference to something nonexistent, or just a reference that was real, but irrelevant?
"The last component of the learning PROBLEM agent is the problem generator. It is responsible
for suggesting actions that will lead to new and informative experiences." pg 56 Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach - Russell & Nervig - 3rd ed
Based on this a student might use ChatGPT as a problem generator - since it is unreliable and produces random errors.
Frankly, if a student can't write better than ChatGPT... Feel free to fill in the blank.
Mr. Graboyes:
I just want to point out two things about those non-English letters, "þ" and "ð". First, they have names: "þ" is called a "thorn", and "ð" is called an "eth". And second, simplifying somewhat for clarity[**], you have their pronunciations switched around. (Trust me: I am an expert on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and he was passing fond of both letters, particularly eth.) It is the thorn, not the eth, that is pronounced like an UNvoiced "th" (e.g., the "th" in "thin"); and you pronounce the eth, not the thorn, like a VOICED "th" (e.g., the "th" in "this").
[** - The UNsimplified situation is of course more complicated. Old English lacked both of these letters until the early 8th century, and at first they were essentially interchangeable for either pronunciation above. The thorn nearly died out by the 780s; but it came roaring during the reign of Alfred the Great, to the point where it pushed out the eth, which faded away around the time of Middle English. But as the evolution of English continued, the thorn also died out by the time of Early Modern English. (In other words, when sourcing how these letters are pronounced, citing only Old English is problematic.) One current (modern) language has retained both letters: Icelandic, of course, in which they are pronounced as I have described above, with the following exceptions: thorns never appear at the end of a word; eths never appear at the beginning of a word; and eths are "devoiced" (pronounced like thorns) in two situations: when they appear at the end of a word, and when they are followed by a voiceless consonant, like "t" or "k".]
Yesterday or this morning, a friend asked me whether those were Icelandic letters, and I told him yes -- and I even told him the names. :) Thanks for the advice on pronunciation. I had always thought it was the other way around. A quick web search suggests that I'm not the only one confused--and perhaps it's because of that 8th century situation. ... ... In case you haven't seen it before, you might enjoy this early piece I wrote: https://graboyes.substack.com/p/1200-years-of-british-royalty-in. (Feel free to offer corrections if I've made any errors.) ... ... And speaking of history, I distinctly remember your interesting surname stretched across my television set every Sunday evening of my childhood.
I am much more convinced by SkyNet's arguments against its use by students. ( I tried to ask its opinion but its been very busy.)
By the time I retired three years ago my senior high school law students were writing all their assignments by hand in class. First, because of rampant 'copy and paste'. Second, to avoid the plagiarism program I had employed, the sale of original essays on line. One way for educators to avoid ChatGPT I guess.
I have read recently that the program had written a medical board exam. First time, not so good. Second time, it passed. And it writes code. And despite the issues it has been having with nonsensical errors, it will be much smarter next year.
Butlerian jihad anyone?
You’ll have to teach a whole generation how to do cursive writing. :) I’ve never read “Dune,” so I had to look up the Butlerian Jihad reference. Very good.
I tried in vain to get bibliographic citations on popular academic journal articles. What I got were bogus citations from the same few authors in different journal volumes and issues and with different titles that confirmed sort of with my query. Horrible and entirely worthless. Heck, I even tried for my own journal articles and didn't get a single citation despite there being 40+ in the wild.
Could you share an example? A query you made, what you were looking for, and what it gave you? By “bogus”, do you mean a reference to something nonexistent, or just a reference that was real, but irrelevant?
"The last component of the learning PROBLEM agent is the problem generator. It is responsible
for suggesting actions that will lead to new and informative experiences." pg 56 Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach - Russell & Nervig - 3rd ed
Based on this a student might use ChatGPT as a problem generator - since it is unreliable and produces random errors.
Frankly, if a student can't write better than ChatGPT... Feel free to fill in the blank.