🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <330235...@pass.wayne.edu>,
Michael Edelman  <m...@pass.wayne.edu> wrote:

>>         One example is natural languages, which reveal an abundance of
>> evidence of path dependency. Consider English's awkward spelling. Even
>> aside from there, check out:
>[long list of spelling deleted]

>Irregular spelling in English has nothing to do with path dependancy and
>everything to do with shifts in pronounciation that spelling does not
>track. Every english spelling was once regular, either in English or in
>the root borrowed from another language. Pronounciations drift over
>time, various dialects diverge, and yet the common spelling allows
>speakers of these dialects to communicate via the written word with no
>difficulty. 

	Path dependency, by any other name, is still path dependency.

	And lots of other languages have had those sorts of shifts, and 
their spelling is usually *much* better.

>'Path dependancy' just doesn't exist. Period.

	So this is the best of all possible worlds, right?

	The crucial question is why is something one thing and not 
another? Have we reached an absolute global optimum or not?
-- 
Loren Petrich				Happiness is a fast Macintosh
pet...@netcom.com			And a fast train
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