National Lampoon's Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time

 

Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas (1998)

 

This PBS/WGBH special featured linguist and social commentator Chomsky sitting at a desk, explaining how the development of the commercial Christmas season directly relates to the loss of individual freedoms in the United States and the subjugation of indigenous people in southeast Asia.

 

Despite a rave review by Z magazine, musical guest Zach de la Rocha and the concession of Chomsky to wear a seasonal hat for a younger demographic appeal, this is known to be the least requested Christmas special ever made.

Booooooo, hisssssssssssssssssssss, jeeeeeeeeeeeeeer.

 

I would watch Noam anytime of the year--Especially Christmas....

 

Nothing says Christmas like a nativist.

Lol, best part is Ted Nugent's Christmas, involves "making jerky from, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree".

Without Noam Chomsky, I wouldn't have to take CS 475 and learn a whole lot of useless crap.

Without Noam Chomsky, I wouldn't have to take CS 475 and learn a whole lot of useless crap.

Without Noam Chomsky language acquisition theories would be stuck back in the 1940s with Skinner.

Without Noam Chomsky language acquisition theories would be stuck back in the 1940s with Skinner.

Wasn't Piaget after Skinner and wouldn't his theories be more relevant to language development? I Piaget

Wasn't Piaget after Skinner and wouldn't his theories be more relevant to language development? I  Piaget

Piaget's language development stuff is a lot more of observations of when a child does what...He wasnt' terribly concerned with the why or the how...And oddly, in the seminar I just took on cognitive development Piage was only mentioned in passing and that his greatest achievement was sort of throwing the doors open to developmental research...

 

Skinner and Chomsky for many years had a back and forth fight about how a child actually ACQUIRES language (as opposed to when, and why it's important for that stage)...Skinner argued that language was learned and there was no innate quality to it. For him language acquisition was pretty much a form of conditioning. Chomsky said that we have all we need to learn language when we are born--and consequently, the input simply allows us to develop language. We aren't really learning anything we're just acquiring the language....Currently Chomsky is the big linguist, although Jenny Saffran at UW is making some huge progress against that theory that there's no learning to it...

Edited December 11, 200421 yr by ChiSoxyGirl

My cat smells like cat food.

The grammars must have the "simplification" steps 1), 2) and 3) out

  of the way, that is 1) No useless variables, 2) No nullable variables and

  3) no unit productions.

 

 

Step 4) of "simplification" is the following algorithm:

 

'length' refers to the number of variables plus terminal

symbols on the right side of a production.

 

Loop through the productions

  For each production with length greater than 1 do

    Replace each terminal symbol with a new variable and

    add a production new variable -> terminal symbol.

 

Loop through the productions

  For each production with length grater than 2 do

    Replace two rightmost variables with a new variable and

    add a production    new variable -> two rightmost variables.

    (Repeat - either on a production or loop until no replacements.)

 

Now the grammar, as represented by the productions, is in Chomsky

Normal Form.

 

Doing this is not fun or terribly interesting.

Doing this is not fun or terribly interesting.

To each his/her own....

Put your Noam Chomsky avatar back up. The one that looks like George bush.

Put your Noam Chomsky avatar back up. The one that looks like George bush.

But this one is ANDY WARHOL! 12 electric chairs!!!

 

I had no idea people were so attached to Noam.....I'll see if I can find that picture again....

The best thing Andy Warhol did was to give Lou Reed some fame.

 

That's about it. And to be the subject for a great David Bowie song.

 

At least I'm never really sure if your Noam pic is really him.