Re: CHAT: Re : CHAT: Conlanging and Myers-Briggs tests (was Re: Profile of a .

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> I indeed work better (whether at conlanging or
> anything else) when I do other things at the same time. Generally, when I
> want to work, I first turn my TV on, put a novel I'm reading not far from
> me, add somewhere the text of the short story I'm currently working on, the
> drawings I'm trying to do, my conlanging work and my student work :) . It
> does bother my friend as he can't understand that I'm more efficient when I
> do many things at the same time (maybe I'm multitasking :) ).
The American anthropologist Edward A. Hall classified cultures into
multitasking and unitasking (though he uses different terms).  He
classifies the French as "officially unitasking, in practice
multitasking".  For comparison, Hispanics are extremely multitasking,
Germans extremely unitasking, Americans almost as unitasking as Germans
in his day (1940s), but in our time becoming more multitasking.

The stereotypes are that unitaskers are compulsive and fanatical,
whereas multitaskers are slipshod and have no notion of punctuality.
It was a German preschool teacher who charged me $1/minute for being late in
collecting my child; if a Hispanic housecleaner shows up 20 minutes late,
that's routine.

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)