Re: Color Terms

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:
<snip>

> > Hmm. I find that I'm simultaneously "rational" and "intuitive". Or perhaps
> > you might say I'm intuitively rational, since the way I learn is to
> > internalize the subject (eg. math or logic or what-have-you), and then
> > follow my "gut feeling" about the subject when solving problems. The
> > actual working-out of the details (eg. in a math/logic proof, or in the
> > following of a "rational" procedure) is just a mechanical task that's
> > wrapped around this "gut feeling" to "make it presentable".
>
> "Gut feeling" has rarely worked for me in math.  :-/  I "internalize"
> things when I'm learning language with relative ease.  My German class is
> a joke, and I'm doing pretty decently with teaching myself Latin out of
> Wheelock.  For some reason my mind assimilates language-forms far more
> easily than math-forms.  (I don't claim to be a language genius; I'm
> better than average, but "genius" would go to people like my friend Abby,
> who's fluent in Arabic, Spanish, English, French and Korean and last I
> heard was working on Chinese due to a certain boyfriend.)  I'm loath to
> classify this as either "rational" or "intuitive."
I'm pretty much the exact same - I can internalize languages, but not
much math - beyond a certain point I just can't handle any more math,
and I think I've reached that point. I could still learn languages all
day, though.

<snip>

> I've run across something similar to this this in tutoring writing, because
> while U.S. universities
> favor "deductively" structured essays, we run into international students
> who write essays inductively (among other things, you find their theses
> at the end, not the beginning, of the paper) and have to explain to them
> that the discourse-mode is different at Cornell U. (specific case,
> anyway).  Personally, I find well-written inductive-mode essays just as
> fun to read, and sometimes more fun because of the suspense, as
> deductive-mode essays.
I find inductively structured essays more interesting - it always struck
me as awkward and artificial to make a claim before I've backed it up. I
mean, when I'm talking, I'll reach my point inductively - I give a bunch
of facts, defending each one as I go along, and reach a conclusion that
explains me thesis.

--
Robert