> >
> >
> >China has a similar history of failed totalitarian
> >structure, that has not much in common with the
> >democratic socialist alternative.
> >China copied the soviet system earlier this century,
> >you wouldn't claim it to be therefore a successful
> >system?
>
>         Eva, This is not your day! Let's start with the ambiguous words
> "earlier this century." That sounds like the 1920s. But the revolution in
> China took place in 1949. Yes, they slavishly imitated the soviet economic
> system which failed. This is not what I'm talking about. I am talking about
> the introduction of market economy and the incredible economic success which
> it brought about. The living standards simply soared.
>
>
>         Eva Balogh


Eva, you are not good at drawing conclusions.
I showed an example of China following the Soviet system
before - that did not prove that system successful - even -
though the impression was such for a long time.
Now they are following an other example, and there
are some figures such as "economic growth" that you
like to take as the proof of "soaring living standards",
however, that link is tenuous.
Look at Hungary,
the "figures" are imroving, and there is a well-to-
do yuppie class developing, but the average is worse off
(why do you think they were successfully conned by the
socialists to be re-elected) and the poor is much poorer.
Following the classical characteristics of your beloved system,
the rich is getting richer, and the poor poorer.
In China: ditto. I t took 40+ years to see the
failure of totalitarian socialism, for totalitarian
capitalism, it will take less, but even libertarian
capitalism is in deep crisis everywhere, if you just
care to cast a critical eye, whatever Fukuyama is
saying (though he is already changing his mind, I
belive he has an end- of- the- world book).

Eva D

> Felado :  [United States]
>
> 1. What's the difference in meaning, if any, between "nemzeti" and
> "orszagos"? My Hungarian-English dictionaries list both as meaning
> "national" and I haven't been able to construe a difference in meaning by
> observing how the two words are used in actual practice.
Literally, _orsza1gos_ is 'country-wide' and _nemzeti_ is 'national'. As the
literal translations show the two things mean practically the same, so we have
_Orsza1gos Tu2zolto1fo3parancsnoksa1g_ 'Country-wide Firefighters'
Headquarters' but _Nemzeti Gale1ria_ 'National Gallery'. However, the opposite
of _orsza1gos_ is 'municipal' or 'local' while the opposite of _nemzeti_ is
'cosmopolitan, unpatriotic', which are key terms used on the right (in
particular Torgya1n's Smallholders Party) to condemn their opponents. It is my
understanding that _nemzeti_ became something of a right-wing codeword in the
past few years, this is why e.g. Fidesz adopted it when they repositioned
themselves to the right of their previous position.

> 2. Was there really such a person as Laszlo Orszagh and is it true that he
> compiled the most widely-used English dictionary in Hungary in the
> post-war period despite having a minimal command of the language himself?
There was indeed such a person, and indeed he compiled the most widely-used
English dictionary in Hungary ever. The rest borders on the ridiculous, so a
certain amount of correction is in order. The Orsza1gh dictionaries are among
the greatest bilingual dictionaries ever compiled, and by greatest I don't
mean only size. Actually, the size is quite impressive, on the order of two
hundred thousand words and phrases, considerably larger than the largest
monolingual dictionary of Hungarian, the seven-volume "Magyar Nyelv
E1rtelmezo3 Szo1ta1ra", which is a rather problematic work. Keep in mind that
the monolingual dictionary was compiled by a large group and it took them over
a decade to finish it, and you will better appreciate the accomplishment of
Orsza1gh, who compiled a pair of bilingual dictionaries singlehandedly.

As you probably know, English and Hungarian are about as far from one another
as it gets, both etymologically and structurally. Orsza1gh attempted to bridge
the gap between two widely disparate languages, and did an excellent job: the
only thing that comes to mind as being similar both in scope and quality is
the Saskrit-English dictionary by Monier-Williams, a work usually described by
even the most reserved lexicographers as "monumental". Orsza1gh's dictionary
is far superior not only to the best English dictionary available in prewar
Hungary (by Arthur Yolland) but also to anything that came since, which are
for the most part cheap mechanistic knock-offs of lesser monolingual or
bilingual dictionaries. The magnitude of the achievement was widely recognized
at the time, and Orsza1gh received the title "Commander of the British
Empire", not too bad for some obscure Hungarian professor with a minimal
command of the English language.

> The account I read blamed Orszagh's, uh, colorful opinions on English
> vocabulary and usage for imbuing an entire generation or two of Hungarians
> with a unique brand of English intelligible, in many cases, only to
> themselves.

Like most other comprehensive dictionaries, the "nagy Orsza1gh" is not
intended for the beginner. As an example, consider the Hungarian adjective
_huncut_. There are many English adjectives that come close, like 'naughty' or
'mischievous', but none of these is really good when it comes to describing
certain behavioral characteristics of preschoolers (as opposed to teenagers).
In additions to these adjectives, Orsza1gh also offers 'little slyboots' which
is just about perfect, except for its distinct 18th century ring. 'Little
slyboots' might still work for Dickens, but it has no meaning for the average
20th century speaker of British or American English. I suspect this was just
as true in the forties or fifties when Orsza1gh worked on the letter H as it
is today, although he assumed a highly literate audience and perhaps such an
assumption was more warranted for Hungarian students of English fifty years
ago than it would be today, when most language learners study English with
business, science, or technology in mind, literature be damned.

In sum, Orsza1gh had a very comprehensive knowledge of English (in particular,
British) vocabulary, but for him English was more of a literary than an
everyday language. He cast his lexicographer's net wide and deep, but did not
really label the words he found for contemporary stylistic value. Usage is, as
people familiar with the debate that sorrounded Webster's Third will know, a
rather controversial issue, and for the most part he steered clear of it.  As
a result, people who are themselves unfamiliar with usage and look things up
in the nagy Orsza1gh mechanically can easily get into the most spectacular
messes of the "please take advantage of the chambermaid" type. A peculiar
variety of English has indeed flourished at the place that was supposed to
officially certify one's proficiency in English. But to blame this on
Orsza1gh, rather than on the fact that Hungary was almost totally isolated
from the British and American capitalist imperialist pigs for over a decade,
is grossly unfair. A whole generation of language teachers grew up with
practically no contact with native speakers of English (or with contemporary
literature, for that matter), and how were they to know that 'little slyboots'
just doesn't cut it anymore? It was good enough for Fielding, it should be
good enough for Joe Sixpack.

Andra1s Kornai

Can anyone tell, how can the Hungarian Vista
travel agency charge 25 000 Ft (106stg as per
latest HVG exchange) for the London-Budapest
service, while the cheapest MALEV ticket
I can get here costs 169stg?
These prices are really frustrating, you can get
to the USA for under 200stg, for Pete's sake!
And the train - that we would enjoy most -
cost most!
Explain it to me with those mysterious market forces...

24 hrs on the coach again... they've got loos in them
and serve hot drinks and the films were not so bad
last year, but still one arrives with no feeling other
than pain in most limbs and the posterior...

At 09:04 PM 7/4/96 -0300, Johanne L. Tournier wrote:

>Joe's comment makes me wonder which list he's been reading. It also makes me
>think you (Eva Balogh) must be doing something right, if the extreme left
>and the extreme right both think you are out to lunch!

Surely you're not suggesting that I'm on the extreme left.  If you are, then
perhaps political theory isn't your forte.  Maybe in Canada's hinterland
people still think in terms of "left" or "right" politics.  However, those
terms are rather confusing these days.  The "left" is struggling to preserve
the good social programmes that have been developed over the decades.  They
are acting like conservatives.  On the other hand, the "right" wants rapid
change.  They want to eliminate many social programmes and gut those that
are left.  In Ontario, for example, the Progressive Conservatives' (only in
Canada can political parties have such silly, misleading names) major
document for governing is called "the Common Sense Revolution" (written by
the vice president of an insurance company, no less).  And something just
tells me that when the "right" starts using words like 'revolution', we're
in trouble.

But all is not lost.  Some people are starting to bring clarity to the
confusion of political terms.  People are now using phrases like "the
politics of simplicity" or "the politics of complexity".  To generalize, the
politics of simplicity refers to the "right-wing" and the politics of
complexity refers to the "left-wing".  Just look at recent political
developments and you might agree that the new concepts are more accurate
than the old "left/right" terms.

For example, when dealing with the deficit, those who support the politics
of simplicity say that the deficit must be paid off.  They start cutting
money for health care, education, and anything else they can get their hands
on in their single-minded devotion to cut the deficit.  They don't seem to
care how the cuts will affect people today or the next generation.  But
their answer is simple and it has a lot of political support.  Now, those
who opt for the politics of complexity also realize that the deficit has to
be paid off.  However, they are much more likely to look at many ways of
doing it.  Yes, cuts to social programmes may be a part of the answer.
Increasing taxes for the well-to-do may also be part of the solution.
Unfortunately, the politics of complexity are not very popular since most
people want simple, easy to understand, solutions to difficult and complex
social issues.

Joe Szalai

At 12:57 PM 7/5/96 +1000, George Antony wrote:

>If you are macho enough to let the world know in Hungarian, be macho enough
>to provide an English translation too.  Otherwise you are consciously
>denying the English-only speakers the pearls of you wisdom.  Someone
>may even mention cowardice in this context.
>
>> Intellectual standards are just not as high as they
>> were 25 years ago.
>
>Despite your best efforts.

George Antony is the most humourless person on this newsgroup.  Sorry, but
there are no awards for such a disposition; not even an honourary one.

Joe Szalai

Eva Durant wrote:

(While I have to admit that I normally hit "delete" for the postings of
Szalai. Benke and Durant, for reasons [or lack of them] obvious, this
seemed first like a non-political issue, so I have read it)
> Can anyone tell, how can the Hungarian Vista
> travel agency charge 25 000 Ft (106stg as per
> latest HVG exchange) for the London-Budapest
> service, while the cheapest MALEV ticket
> I can get here costs 169stg?
Some travel agencies book a set number of seats regardless of having prior
orders or not, the airlines also like this arrangement, because the
percentage of seats sold establishes the profitability of the flight, i.e.
it is better to have seats sold at a low price than to have them empty. It
is a gamble but risk taking is part of capitalism. There is no god (or
party) assigned assurance of profit. The airlines also discount based on
number of tickets sold, thus probably Vista pays much less than the 169 stg
for the seat, it is most likely that they also pay less than 106 stg
(unless the owners of Vista have learned Marxism only!).

> These prices are really frustrating, you can get
> to the USA for under 200stg, for Pete's sake!
Ah, but the US/UK market is one of the most competitive, the price is set
on what the market bears and not set solely by interline arrangements (or
government burocrats) as practiced for most intra-Europe flights.


> And the train - that we would enjoy most -
> cost most!
Well, if I correctly recall those conveyances are owned by the governments
in most European countries, no wonder they are more expensive, they are not
run for profit.

> Explain it to me with those mysterious market forces...

I have tried, but I doubt that it was worth it.

> 24 hrs on the coach again... they've got loos in them
> and serve hot drinks and the films were not so bad
> last year, but still one arrives with no feeling other
> than pain in most limbs and the posterior...
You have obviously made a capitalist decision, bought the comfort you found
acceptable at the commensurate price.

Jeliko.

[Sam,

I have already sent you a response to this by regular e-mail, so
this time I am just trying to see if the "cannot resolve hostname"
error has been corrected . . . So this will simply repeat what
I have said before, this time in public, as it were . . . ]

"Nemzet" means "nation," "orszag" means "country" or "land"
in the sense of Magyarorszag, for example, literally
Hungarian/land, that is "the country of the Hungarians,"
as it were. Magyarorszag is analogous to Deutschland,
literally German/land . . . or "the country of the Germans."
(But "country," as in "I am going to the country," would
be "videk" in Hungarian, "Videkre megyek . . . )

"Orszagos," therefore, means something more like "nation-wide,"
whereas "nemzeti" is "national" in the strict sense of the
word. Also, the latter carries a connotation of "patriotic,"
whereas the former doesn't . . .

Laszlo Orszagh's dictitionaties contain many inaccuracies.
There are also many archaic usages there. Occasionally I don't
know where on earth he came up with some equivalences . . .
It's time for new English/Hungarian and Hungarian/English
dictionaries to come on the market . . .

Sincerely,
Steven C. Scheer

At 12:50 PM 7/5/96 PDT, JELIKO > wrote:

>(While I have to admit that I normally hit "delete" for the postings of
>Szalai. Benke and Durant, for reasons [or lack of them] obvious, this
>seemed first like a non-political issue, so I have read it)

Look, I'm sorry, Jeliko.  There's nothing I can do for you.  I'm a social
critic, not a proctologist!!

Joe Szalai

According to Adevarul (the Truth), a daily published in Bucharest, starting
next  Monday the sale of newspapers in Kolozsvar (Cluj) will be suspended by
the Association of Press and Book Distributors. The reason is that the local
administration (Funar) systematically refuses to take into consideration the
desires of this association.

Gabor D. Farkas

In article >,
 says...

Dear Eva,

>24 hrs on the coach again...

Only 24 hours? What kind of coach was it...jet propelled? Surely it
would take the best part of that just to get to the continent...more
like 2 days, at least, no?

>they've got loos in them and serve hot drinks and the films were not
>so bad last year, but still one arrives with no feeling other than pain
>in most limbs and the posterior...

Yeah, I know only too well, having done the Athens to Koeln coach ride
(without films, loos, etc!) ;-)

George

--
 George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
 Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy **** NW London Computer Club **** ICPUG

Look, I'm sorry, Jeliko.  There's nothing I can do for you.  I'm a social
critic, not a proctologist!!

Lucky you.  If you were a proctologist even your dearests couldn't
distinguish you from the sorrounding tissue.

George Anthony accuses me;

GA>Tibor Benke wrote:

TB>> Eva Balogh wrote, quoting me:

EB>> TB>>Communism was a consequence of Capitalism, have we learned anything?
>
EB>> >        I'm afraid this statement is not accurate. "Communism"--if under
EB>> >that term you mean the regime which was introduced in the Soviet Union in
EB>> >1917--was not the consequence of capitalism.
>>
TB>> Yes, that is what I meant by "Communism".  The sentence would have lost
TB>> some of its impact had I used Rudolf Bahro's somewhat more accurate
TB>> "actually existing socialism".
>
TB>> Eva continues:
>
EB>> > Russia was not a capitalist
EB>> >country; i.e., it had a very small working class and was basically an
EB>> >agricultural country. The idea of "Communism" was kindled by a small grou
p
EB>> >of intellectuals who took advantage of the general misery in Russia durin
g
EB>> >the First World war and managed to introduce, with the help of disaffecte
d
EB>> >soldiers, a dictatorship.
>
TB>> Some while back, Eva admitted, that though she is a historian with a Ph.D.
TB>> from an Ivy League American university, (I think it was Yale, but maybe
TB>> Harward, at any rate, not the University of Pennsylvania)  she was never
TB>> much interested in the philosophy of history.  I meant to write at the tim
e
TB>> that to me this is analogous to a physicist who doesn't care for
TB>> mathematics, but I didn't get to it.  That's the way my life goes.....
>>
TB>> In short, Eva is the sort of historian, of whom there are still,
TB>> unfortunately, too many, who believes that the most important part of
TB>> hitory is to recunstruct the 'facts'.
>
GA>You just HAD to get this little piece of ad hominem off your chest, did you?


Had I intended an 'ad hominem' argument, I would have used words like,
"narrow minded", "arrogant", , "pedantic", etc.

Rather, I pointed to the different assumptions or premises Eva and I use
when thinking about history and society.  Though, I admit, there may have
been a trace of resentment in the way I frazed my point.   For this I
apologize, it is just that, most likely, she and I have spent roughly the
same time in academic endevours, yet, in contrast to her credentials, I
have only my B.A. from Simon Fraser University to show for my efforts. (Not
a bad school, not bad for a stupid person like me, but not in the same
league as Yale).


Nevertheless, I was attempting to raise the debate from the general tone
usually prevailing on this list of negated _Animal Farm_ chanting: "Free
enterprise good! Socialism bad!"  As usual, I failed.

I could dismiss the failure two ways.  First, I could just admit that I am
stupid and insane, wake up, smell the coffee and join the rest of you and
help destroy the planet by the end of the next century.  Or I could decide
that you are all too dense and beyond salvation and curse you to your fate.
 I admit, I lean toward the second alternative, except...


Except, there is a deeper problem that should be addressed.  It is best
illustrated by Jeliko's little unfunny joke:

J>The principal is leading the student body through the practice graduation
J>ceremony in the auditorium. "Walk along the side in alphabetical order,
J>shake hands with right hand.....". At some point a small group of students
J>start chanting: "Let Bubba graduate, let Bubba graduate!..". The principal
J>first ignores the chant but as highschool students often do the chant is
J>picked up by the rest of the student body, with appropriate noise making.
J>The principal afraid that he'll have a full blown riot on his hand, calms
J>down the student body and offers the following: "OK, we will give a one
J>question exam to Bubba, and if he passes, he can graduate with you." The
J>students push Bubba to the front and he walks up to the podium. The
J>principal asks him what is 9 x 9 ? Bubba crunches up his forehead, turns
J>his ballcap around and just about when the principal starts congratulating
J>himself, he blurts out "81". The principal is wondering how he will justify
J>his summary action when the rest of the student body starts a new chant:
J>"Give him another chance!"
>
J>Case rested.

The case being that teachers in working class and poor neighborhoods
('specially if they mess with YUUNIOONS) are incompetent and their students
are too stupid to learn anyway.  If the joke were about blacks, it would be
racist, if it were about blind or deaf people, it would be ableist,  but
being 'cognitively challenged' is still a euphemism for being stupid, and
being stupid is still an excuse for oppressing people.

(The ability to memorize the multiplication table is not universal and
people thought it a great accomplishment as late as the seventeenth century
- see Samuel Pepes' _Diary_.  I had truble with it myself, and never really
learned my times tables dispite years of effort.  Somewhere in the fourth
grade, however, I discovered that I could learn to count by twos, threes,
etc. and if I just remembered certain landmarks, five threes are fifteen,
then I could go "fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one", while counting on my
fingers, and come up with the answer to seven times three.  Of course, this
was considered cheating in the wonderful hungarian education system.  It
was not until I took a workshop  in mathematical pedagogy in my failed
attempt to become an elementary school teacher myself - in 1977, that I
found out that this is now the usual accepted remedy for this problem.)

Once, I was on the BOD of a housing co-operative.  At the end of our term
(a year) we all went for beers in a neighborhood pub.  Somehow, the topic
of land claims came up - it comes up often in British Columbia which has a
substantial native population who had a relatively "high" cultural level
(if you believe in cultural evolution - I am a hardcore relativist myself -
they were just on the threshold of state formation at the time of European
Conquest).  Anyway, unlike the peoples of the plains, they were clever
enough to not sign 'treaties' and maintained their claim to their land,
which archeological evidence indicates they have inhabited for a minimum of
four millennia.  As we were discussing the claim, one of the fellow
retiring Board members brought up the old legend about the beads and
trinkets, and how, 'if they were stupid enough to sell their land for
nothing...'  So I asked, 'Is outright fraud permissible in aquiering
property?'  'Well, no' he said.  'Then where do you draw the line?' I
asked.  And he basically answered something like, 'well, if the terms of
the exchange are such that any normal person would see how bad it was and
the victims accept it, then they deserve to be cheated, if they are that
stupid'.  (Note, the beads and trinkets story is what you would consider
"myth" that is not true at all, but since I think some myths are more true
then history, I used the word "legend".  What actually happenned was a
cultural misunderstanding.  The Europeans were buying land, but the Indians
were selling passage rights, not even conceiving of the possibility that
someone would actually claim to own land.  As uncle Karl pointed out,
property systems vary with modes of production.)

My point is, that it seems, that in our culture it is still o.k. to exploit
people if they are less intelligent, just as in the late neolithic and
until the rise of Christianity and beyond, it was o.k. to exploit people
who were weaker.

Well, inumeracy and illiteracy are darned inconvenient, but not a moral
shortcoming.  The cause of these conditions, however, is greatly magnified
by our classism.

Or to put it another way, education  (and I am talking about the whole
system of education of a given social formation, including informal things
such as sports, media, and parenting, as well as pre-school through
universities and research institutes) has two social functions.  Its overt
function is to produce and reproduce the totality of social knowledge.  The
other, underlieing function, is to produce and reproduce the division of
labour and wealth and knowledge.   In a class society, this division is
unequal and the inequality is maintained by features of ideology and
culture as well as force.

One of the tools of maintaining domination, is to set up rules which
function to differentiate people and make those who have a harder time
following them, feel inferior.  Orthography and prescriptive grammar
operate at a convenient level to accomplish this.

Thus George, who criticises me for descending to _ad hominem_ arguments,
pulls a number like this:

GA>And, for the sake of introducing some Hungarian contents, may I just point
GA>out that regardless of your perspective of the lowly matter of accuracy,
GA>Kossuth is spelt just like that, and not 'Koshuth'.
>
>George Antony


C'mon George, this is the Internet.  Typos are a dime a dozen, just 'cause
I do the same one twice, doesn't mean I'm stupid and even if I am, being
stupid does not logically entail being wrong.

And just for the sake of maintaining Hungarian content, do you think it is
genetics or culture that makes most Hungarians regardless of background, or
political orientation pedantic and intolerant?  I suffer from it myself,
(though I make an effort to suppress it)  so I was just wondering.

Tibor Benke

Sam Stowe > puts the following linguistic questions in
HUNGARY #718:

>1. What's the difference in meaning, if any, between "nemzeti" and
>"orszagos"? My Hungarian-English dictionaries list both as meaning
>"national" and I haven't been able to construe a difference in meaning by
>observing how the two words are used in actual practice.

To understand the meaning of these adjectives one should consider the nouns
from which there are created. "Nemzet" means nation (in my interpretation
this term covers the area, inhabitants, history, culture, etc.), whereas
"orszag" means country (covering primarily, although not exclusively the
geographic area).

Consequently, adjective "nemzeti" is associated with terms referring to the
nation as a whole, e.g. we have Nemzeti Muzeum, Nemzeti Szinhaz (theatre),
Nemzeti Bank, nemzeti himnusz (national anthem), nemzeti unnep (national
holiday), etc.

In contrast, adjective "orszagos" means something extending to the whole
country (as opposed to local). Thus, we have Orszagos Bajnoksag
(Championship) in some sports, Orszagos Takarekpenztar (Savings Bank),
orszagos eso (rain extending to the whole country).

Of course, these categories overlap, being sometimes interchangable,
sometimes not. Just as a matter of curiosity, national championship is
called in some sports Nemzeti Bajnoksag, in others Orszagos Bajnoksag.
>
>2. Was there really such a person as Laszlo Orszagh and is it true that he
>compiled the most widely-used English dictionary in Hungary in the
>post-war period despite having a minimal command of the language himself?

I have never met Mr. Orszagh, and thus I am not in a position to prove his
existence. However, just in front of me, there is a torn-worn copy of the
dictionary in question (L. Orszagh, Hungarian-English Dictionary, Second
Edition, Completely Revised and Enlarged. Akade1miai Kiado1, Budapest,
1963). The Foreword of the 2336-page book is concluded on page viii as follows:

"The volume is dedicated to the blessed memory of D. Ny.
Budapest, 1963. julius 13.
Orsza1gh La1szlo1
a debreceni Kossuth Lajos Tudoma1nyegyetemen
az angol nyelv e1s irodalom tana1ra"

(i.e. "teacher of English language and literature on the K.L. University of
Debrecen"). In 1963, as long as I remember (I was then undergraduate on a
Budapest university), political reliability alone was already insufficient
for university teachership, consequently your statement concerning his
command of English appears to be false.

>The account I read blamed Orszagh's, uh, colorful opinions on English
>vocabulary and usage for imbuing an entire generation or two of Hungarians
>with a unique brand of English intelligible, in many cases, only to
>themselves.

I am also one of this generation (or two). Of course, intelligibility among
Hungarians in English is much better than between Hungarians and the rest of
the world, but it would be unfair to put the blame on Mr. Orszagh alone,
other Hungarian-born English teachers and Rigo utca (a place in Budapest
where official English exams had to be taken) have their due share as well.

>This sounds, at first blush, like a delightful fiction. But
>who knows? Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
>
Agreed.

Yours sincerely,
George Jalsovszky