Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 2

= January 2 =

Is the grammar understandable?
I am going to use it as an abstract for my short essay. It is just short and I just want opinions on its readability.

"Psychology for Philosophers"
 * I would like to test the relation of the term "love of knowledge" to Psychology. According to the concept of "love of knowledge or wisdom" a philosopher should be a master of learning by approaching all possible sources of which, including technology and engineering. But in psychology it is argued that there are two distinct hemispheres in our brain, the left and the right. Those who are dominant to one of the hemispheres may be good at verbal reasoning, while those of the other may be good at mathematical reasoning. The problem is, not all people are dominant in both sides, and in effect some may be weak in symbolic reasoning. Because of this it is also plausible to accept that not all philosophers are experts in all fields.


 * It's understandable, but I recommend several changes:


 * 1) "Psychology" shouldn't be capitalized in the 1st sentence.


 * 2) Change '"love of knowledge or wisdom"' to '"love of knowledge", or "wisdom",'.


 * 3) Change "sources of which, including" to "sources, which include".


 * 4) Change "to one" to "in one".


 * 5) Change "those of the other" to "those dominant in the other".


 * 6) Change "dominant in both sides" to "equally dominant in both sides".


 * 7) Change "and in effect some" to ". For example, some".


 * 8) Change "accept" to "argue".


 * Note that I have not evaluated the logic of your essay, only the wording. Here it is with my recommended changes:


 * I would like to test the relation of the term "love of knowledge" to psychology. According to the concept of "love of knowledge", or "wisdom", a philosopher should be a master of learning by approaching all possible sources, which includes technology and engineering. But in psychology it is argued that there are two distinct hemispheres in our brain, the left and the right. Those who are dominant in one of the hemispheres may be good at verbal reasoning, while those dominant in the other may be good at mathematical reasoning. The problem is, not all people are equally dominant in both sides. For example, some may be weak in symbolic reasoning. Because of this it is also plausible to argue that not all philosophers are experts in all fields.


 * StuRat (talk) 05:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Isn't "equally dominant" an oxymoron? --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  06:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Only if you take "dominant" to be an absolute. If you take dominance to be on a scale of 0 (not dominant at all) to 10 (completely dominant), then two things with a dominance level of 5 are "equally dominant". For example, think of the chicken pecking order. StuRat (talk) 06:29, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with Jack: the dominant hemisphere (or hand or eye) is the one that's stronger or more influential than its mate. Your sides can't both dominate each other.  If the OP wants a word meaning "strong relative to that of the median human", dominant is misleading at best. —Tamfang (talk) 21:38, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Stu's punctuation makes wisdom a synonym for love of knowledge. Is that intended? —Tamfang (talk) 21:38, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * To an extent, if we are going to help you, we need to focus on the logic as well. Your first sentence is not sufficiently connected to your last - you start by talking about how "love of knowledge" relates to psychology, from which I was anticipating something about either the field of psychology, or the nature of its practitioners. I would try something like: 'I will analyse how the discipline of psychology relates to philosophy, using as a reference point the definition of philosophy as "love of wisdom". Using this definition, it [follows/ can be argued] that a philosopher should be a master of all sources of learning [perhaps try: proficient in all areas of enquiry] ... ' etc etc.IBE (talk) 17:11, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, I agree with Jack - perhaps he is being a little pedantic/humorous calling it an oxymoron, but it doesn't read well. Stu may be on solid ground as a technical defence, but the phrase should be avoided. Try "equally proficient/capable/gifted" etc. IBE (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * That is better, but I was trying to change the original text as little as absolutely necessary. StuRat (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow
Is "wow" a type of spectral glide? Or "ow"? Or the changing sounds in "you" or in "no"? Or "Noah"? Or "wha?" I was trying to think what word or phrase would represent the sound produced when changing the shape of our mouth, but keep the tone (?) the same. I hear this in music also, which Spectral Glide seems to represent, but I'm searching for the mouth-made sound. – Kerαu noςco pia ◁ gala xies 22:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If "spectral glide" is the "modification of the vowel quality of a tone" then pretty much all speech is spectral glide. Angr (talk) 23:16, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Though the article does not actually say so, it appears that spectral glide is a term of musicology, not linguistics. The linguistic term for what you're describing is a diphthong. --ColinFine (talk) 23:21, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Or did you mean wow rather than the word "wow"? --ColinFine (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess that in the field of speech synthesis a diphthong could be considered a "spectral glide". The effect obtained by modulating the cutoff frequency of a filter with an LFO is referred to as "wah-wah" in guitarist circles, which is what I thought of when I read this question. In reality (i.e. in real human speech), I would say calling a diphthong a "spectral glide" probably inaccurate, as the tone of someone's voice usually does change a lot during speech. - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   23:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * So you are telling me spectral glide isn't ghastly sex wax? μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what that means but I'll be adding "ghastly sex wax" to my list of future song titles. - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   09:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Ghastly sex wax=K-Y jelly for ghosts. μηδείς (talk) 04:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)