Conference thebay::joyoflex

    
    	Techno-	a combining form meaning: a) art, science, skill,
    		as in technocracy; b) technical, technological, 
    		as in technochemistry
    
    	-morph	a combining form meaning one having a (specified)
    		form, as in pseudomorph; used to form nouns 
    		generally ending in morph or morphous.
    
    
    	- Greg

    cybercrud

    'day,
    
    S'easy as 1-2-3, 
    
    People have to be vaxinated as children, nowadays...
    
    They drive compaq cars, grow wyser, Pick their mates, and ask a
    PC when they get lost. They listen to symphonies, eat apples, or
    pears or apricots; have discussions and love to get into tallgrass.
    They sometimes ride tandem, and if that don't suit, then facom.
    They wang away to be beside the C for their hols, and nowadays,
    often network in public.
    
    derek   

    "Technomorphism" (.1) is nicely specific to computers and space
    shuttles, but I think there's a more general term for comparing a
    person to a thing that I can't remember right now.  It's related
    to "objectification" and I learned it in a psychology class when
    we talked about autism.  One manifistation of autism is behavior
    that reduces the people around the sufferer -- and often the
    sufferer him/herself -- to the status of objects.  The case in
    point was the boy who thought he would die if his "cord" got
    unplugged from the wall.  The process has a perfectly good name
    which I can't remember.  Anybody else? 

    Though I tend to think of both anthropomorphism and technomorphism
    as simply metaphors and base my decision on whether to use them on
    how useful the metaphor is in a particular context. 
    
    Or whether I can get a good pun out of it.
    
    --bonnie

    re .4
>        shuttles, but I think there's a more general term for comparing a
>    person to a thing that I can't remember right now.  It's related
>    to "objectification" and I learned it in a psychology class when

    Yes, that's it!  Thanks.
    
    --bonnie

    Re: .5 (reification)

    Isn't that what you call it when someone never commits themselves to
    anything, because they always have one more proviso to add?

Lew Lasher

    Isn't "reverse anthropomorphism" a way of dealing with existential
    anguish ... a technique by which "being-for-itself" satisfies 
    a yearning to become "being-in-itself"? Also called "thingification".

    I kinda like "ananthromorphism."  It's so easy to get confused by
    that one.
    
    :-)
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Reification is not the treatment of a person as a thing.  It is
    treating an abstract concept as though it were a concrete object.
    "Intelligence" is often given as an example of a reified concept.
    
    -dave

     dehumanize (verb) or dehumanification (noun)?
     
     Dan

    Re `dumb terminals' (.0_
    
    This isn't germane to the present discussion, but in my understanding
    a `dumb' terminal isn't stupid, although there's ample scope for
    the technically minded to muddy the waters by arguing that a dumb
    terminal `lacks intelligence' (in which `intelligence' has a
    technomorphous meaning itself).
    
    Some time ago, when canals were more reliable than roads and
    steam-engines weren't around, there were two sorts of barge:
    one type with a sail or sails (its own motive force) and one type
    that had to be pulled (a dumb barge). I believe that whoever
    coined the expression `dumb terminal' had this in mind -
    a dumb terminal didn't have a built-in difference machine.
    
    Of course, people who say `dumb terminal' nowadays probably
    do have some kind of `lack of intelligence' in mind.  But, as
    far as I'm concerned, all machines are necessarily stupid.
    
    b

    Bob -- to suggest that a machine can be 'stupid' does lend the machine
    a degree of intelligence. And to say it's 'necessarily stupid' suggests
    an inflexibility in your own point of view that's --er -- almost
    mechanical!
    
    Richard. 

    Re .12 (Bob):
    
    ... So if you take an intelligent terminal and remove its logic
    elkements that elevate it to its "intelligent" state, could it be
    said that you would indumbnify it?
    
    Curious minds want to know.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

	A terminal with antlers ?

    
  re: <- 1 ,
     Must be "moose" as there are a number of dead VT100's around here
     that seem to be 'shot'.
     jc

    MOOSE:  A pointing device for REAL MEN!

    Re .13
    
    Richard,
    
    `Stupid' was the wrong word to use, but anything that does nothing but
    shuffle ones and zeros about strikes me as pretty dumb - regardless of
    the amount of `intelligence' someone has programmed it with. And
    any digital computer - necessarily - does that (doesn't it?)
    
    Inflexible? Me? Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders.
    
    b 

    But Bob, all many of us round here do is shuffle ones and zeros
    about -- and not always with very great success!
    
    I think the rhetorical device we're after here is prosopopoeia (not
    sure if my spelling's right).
    
    Richard.

    RE: .19
    
    So it's not Prosopopoeia. 
    
    Anybody got a dictionary of tropes?
    
    Richard.

    Solved by back-formation:
    
    anthropomorphism is the opposite of thropomorphism.

re: .prev
>   Solved by back-formation:
>   anthropomorphism is the opposite of thropomorphism.

I thought "anti" changed to "anth" when prefixed to a word beginning with a
"rho" (and maybe others)?  So, maybe it's "ropomorphism" or "hropomorphism".

Further, what's "anthropos" the opposite of?

.22�Further, what's "anthropos" the opposite of?

    err...unclehropos ;-)

    "Civilized."
    
    	Jon