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Speaking the Machine Language n engineer or scientist constructing a paper for publication uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative languages that are more or less adaptable to manipulation by computer. Hardly ever is the author conscious of this and we are not suggesting that he further burden himself by adding semantic constraints to his efforts. However, the fact remains that one of the subtle effects of the computerization of information is the gradual inroad being made on the artistic license brandished by technical authors. Except for the matters of phrasing and standardized expressions, the qualitative language used by authors is inherited from the classical literature. Computerizing such a language is dependent either on devising a machine that can literally store a given bit of text via permuting an alphabet, or on translating the text to some standard computer language that is easily manipulable. Either alternative is horribly complex. A quantitative language is easier to adapt to computerization because there are fewer units involved and the units are usually arranged in a natural order or rank. Most of the quantitative languages are mathematical in character and, within limits, are easy to learn. The difficulty, however, is that the use of strictly quantitative language requires a firm grasp of fact and the ability quickly to distinguish between fact and supposition. Our desires and hopes to the contrary, most of our concepts aren’t nearly so quantitative as we would like to believe; generality is a limit. The point is simply that the practical requirements of computerizing information, technical or otherwise, are gradually and subtly forcing authors and publishers to be more analytical in their deliberations over specific articles. Unless guarded against, this can tend to guide material into cliches which are sufficiently inflexible to convey new meaning. At present it is necessary to learn the minimum machine speech and to write with it in mind. I t is not yet, and hopefully will never be, necessary to construct articles in conformity with a fixed language. After all, language is a tool for expression and, whether qualitative or quantitative, is inferior to the thought it conveys, The computerization of language is a matter of form. Eventually it will permit sufficient flexibility to meet technical needs. Until it does we must adapt to the circumstances and become at least bilingual.
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VOL. 5 9
NO. 8
AUGUST 1967
5
