The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0429  Tuesday, 22 July 2008

[1] From:   Bob Grumman <
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     Date:   Monday, 21 Jul 2008 10:03:11 -0500
     Subt:   Re: SHK 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report

[2] From:   Robert Projansky <
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     Date:   Tuesday, 22 Jul 2008 06:03:35 -0700
     Subt:   Re: SHK 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:       Bob Grumman <
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Date:       Monday, 21 Jul 2008 10:03:11 -0500
Subject: 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report
Comment:    Re: SHK 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report

I doubt that many testees cheated. My problem with the test is that it seems to 
me to have been a golden memory test rather than a golden ear test. Specialists 
in Shakespeare's plays will likely have been so submerged in his works as to be 
able to recognize just about any passage from them not because of their 
Shakespearean style but because they remember the specific passage. Such a 
person might come on a passage that sounds like first-rate Shakespeare and know 
it isn't by him because, had it been, they'd have remembered so good a passage. 
A real specialist would recognize who wrote most Shakespearean-sounding passages 
that weren't by Shakespeare, too. Only a fool, I contend, would claim no one 
ever wrote at Shakespeare's level, in Shakespeare's style, but he. So my 
argument is that a genuine golden ear not combined with a golden memory would be 
more apt to mistake non-Shakespearean passages for his than a golden memory 
would. The results of the test, from this point of view, then, are not evidence 
in favor of the validity of stylometrics (though I think that for much longer 
passages, stylometrics will eventually prove valid).

--Bob G.

[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:       Robert Projansky <
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Date:       Tuesday, 22 Jul 2008 06:03:35 -0700
Subject: 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report
Comment:    Re: SHK 19.0422 Golden Ear Final Report

Janet Costa wrote:

 >Can someone give me the phonetic spelling for a "Bronx cheer???"

Yes:

Ham.
Buzze, buzze.

Bob Projansky

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