Wordwizard

When introducing a speaker to an audience, which phrasing is considered 'correct'?

1. I'd like to introduce you to Prof. Cavendish.
2. I'd like to introduce Prof. Cavendish to you.

A quick response would be appreciated. The conference is scheduled for Saturday. I'd like to at least convey the impression I am grammatically erudite and capable of speaking perfect English.

Thank you.

2.
or
I would like to introduce to you..Professor Cavendish..who...

(and may we introduce to you...the one and only Billy Shears...and Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band........)

Personally, I'd use # 2, but I'd leave off the "to you" at the end: "I'd like to introduce Professor Cavendish." The "you" is assumed from the situation. I would then give a SHORT list of pertinent facts, such as, "She was the first Native American Woman to hold the post of Exalted Chancellor of the Klingon Empire." (Although you might not want to say EXACTLY that unless you know it to be true!) *G*

I don't disagree with those suggestions. Option #1 is not viable because you cannot personally introduce an entire audience to your speaker. My own preference would be to say, "Please welcome Professor Cavendish, Exalted Chancellor of the Klingon Empire".

The "Please welcome... " intro is an automatic cue to the audience to greet the visitor with a round of applause as soon as you stop speaking, which will help to maintain the momentum of the audience's attention and thus create a smooth transition either into a further preamble from you once the clapping has stopped (should any additional explanation be required), or else into the speaker's own opening remarks.

Good luck with your event.

qatlho'
qatlho'
qatlho'

qatlho'= 'thank you' ( from tlhIngan Hol, the language of Klingon )

I wonder if the good professor has picked up any Tongan in the course of his intergalactic travels? If so, it would be a good opportunity to remark to him, "Akma masik ni ukmo vudu ek kakadesh. Sik kanma ukum kala ta viki sun maki dak sukum. Kakar tur ak deshma kan deka ukomukom ni," and see how angry he gets.

"It is my great pleasure to welcome Professor Cavendish, Exalted Chancellor of the Klingon Empire to our meeting/gathering/social evening. Since he started travelling in space and time he has visited all sorts of places, and written several books on various topics. Professor Cavendish". Shut up. Sit down.

"It is my great pleasure to welcome Professor Cavendish, and Bobinwales tells me the less said about him, the better."

Phil Grats, this is Prof Frank Candevish

What discourse maxim are you flouting that makes it impossible for me to understand the last 5 messages? I am not critizicing, just wondering. Perhaps because I´m not American? Or a 2nd language speaker?

the gaucha,
I'm an American. English is my first language, yet I'm also wondering. My post was the first of the last five you stated as being impossible to understand.

spiritus wrote:
qatlho'= 'thank you' ( from tlhIngan Hol, the language of Klingon )

I was humorously expressing my gratitude, in general, to the three WW members that contributed the first three useful responses to my inquiry.

In particular, it was kagriffy's clever ( intuitive? ) post that I was referencing when I posted, "qatlho', qatlho', qatlho'.

kagriffy Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 03:50:00
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Personally, I'd use # 2, but I'd leave off the "to you" at the end: "I'd like to introduce Professor Cavendish." The "you" is assumed from the situation. I would then give a SHORT list of pertinent facts, such as, "She was the first Native American Woman to hold the post of Exalted Chancellor of the Klingon Empire." (Although you might not want to say EXACTLY that unless you know it to be true!) *G* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Klingon is a fictional planet, integral to the television series, Star Trek, created by the American screen writer and producer, Gene Roddenberry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry

TlhIngan Hol, the language of Klingon is actually a constructed language created by the linguist Marc Okrand, a former teacher of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1975 to 1978.

Okrand previously worked with Native American languages. His 1977 doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Berkeley, was on the grammar of Mutsun, a dialect of Ohlone (a.k.a. Southern Costanoan), which is an extinct Utian language formerly spoken in the north central Californian coastal areas from Northern Costanoan down to 30 miles south of Salinas. The tlh sound that he incorporated into Klingon, unusual to English speakers with the accents of North America and Oceania, is common in North and Central American indigenous languages, in which it is usually transcribed as tl or t³ (a voiceless alveolar affricate with lateral release); this is the sound at the end of Nahuatl as the Aztecs pronounced it themselves.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Okrand"

It was kagriffy's connective:

..."She was the first Native American Woman to hold the post of Exalted Chancellor of the Klingon Empire."

that provided the amused inspiration to write, 'thank you', using the Klingon/Native American, qatlho'.

You can check this difinition in The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand (Published by Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, 1985, second edition with new addendum 1992, ISBN 067174559X.

Gaucha, when I consider the sources of the other four postings you thought might be flouting a private-language-type-discourse-maxim; I suspect, the alien maxim being flouted is more course then discourse. The only fitting response is an English translation of the Kingon's TlhIngan Hol:

"Your mothers have smooth foreheads".

Gaucha, like you, Prof. Cavendish, and the French philosopher, Sartre, I use a pseudonym. Mine is wisely supported by online "evidence". I think you may understand, more so then most, why that is necessary.(;-D

In America, despite any arguments to the contrary, all of our perceived reality is media generated. That is how we think we know. The primary sources for our knowings may range from any present moment, qualitatively dominant aspect of popular culture, to the OED or ABC. Regardless of our preferred knowledge base, every American born person having English as a first language shares a certain unconscious philosophical ontology. This is effectively expressed in the sacred axiom:

"I am an American and English is my first language, therefore I hope I think."

P.S. Erik, providing an English translation of your wit might minimize the anger of any Tongan exposed to it.

Very courteous, well-thought-out response, Spiritus.
I was with you until

In America, despite any arguments to the contrary, all of our perceived reality is media generated.

because, while perhaps too much thought is bought and paid-for by advertisers,
far from all perceived "reality" is media-generated! Let us go raspberry-picking
through the clear-cut. You can go first in case there are any media-generated
copperheads on the path!

Thank you James,

Courtesy, a well-thought-out response, and our personal opinions are not without merit. Through none may be relevant to the subject at hand. Regarding the sacred axiom I mentioned, according to your perception of reality, at least I have realized some of my hope.

James wrote:

I was with you until

quote:
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In America, despite any arguments to the contrary, all of our perceived reality is media generated. ---Che Baraka
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That also applies to any arguments to the contrary.

James, those two comments are intended to be facetious. Ironic utterances aside, it’s the reality generated by this digital medium that may prohibit the perception of the smile, smirk, or scowl intended in an online text.

James wrote:

because, while perhaps too much thought is bought and paid-for by advertisers, far from all perceived "reality" is media-generated! Let us go raspberry-picking through the clear-cut. You can go first in case there are any media-generated copperheads on the path!

To my mind, you make a reasoned assertion, which speaks to the media generated perception of reality provided by our language. I think I understand the specific definitions you give each of the words comprising, “all perceived "reality" is media-generated”. (I understand advertising to be a medium, not ‘the media’.)

I used those words to construct a personal axiom that employs each word’s largest meaning:

I think Media is the plural of Latin medium. (Vehicle for ideas: a means of conveying ideas or information, knowledge). An epistemic vehicle may be a medium of language, writing, or art. Media may use a medium that is conceptual or an abstract methodology: philosophy, logic, mathematics, semiotics, psychology, or science. Other medium of media are socio cultural: religious values, group identity, academic or political authority.

Taken collectively, media are the various means of mass communication considered as a whole, including the internet, books, television, newspapers, and radio, good films and bad movies together with the people, medium, and means of mass communication involved in their production.

To perceive is to interpret. We don't make the meaning of reality, we perceive the something that gives meaning to our interpretations of reality.

All, that is, defines reality, which by its definition would include everything (including the media generating the perceived reality of this sentence; a meaning of reality generating this medium of language made possible primarily by the placement of three commas) and nothing. (Reality generating the perceived meaning of media.) Our perception is the generator of all that.

At this point, note that as a native English speaking American I have organized my assertions and assumptions so that by increasing degrees my language dissolves the perceived reality of the media and the medium of language to generate all meanings of reality. Were I to continue to lead you along the path, we might finally come to understand that neither you nor I, the path we tread, or copperheads and raspberries are reality, but rather; you, me, path, snake, fruit, media, and language are medium dependant perceptions of all that is.

Be informed my comments are simply a less coherent, but no less cohesive, media generated perception of reality.

A Short, Short Story of a Media Generated Perception of Reality

We arrived at a fork in the trail. I bent and picked a raspberry, while motioning James to avoid the Copperhead coiled at the side of the path. In that instance, reality divided it is one in two. I was a thought being, created by this thought:

“Knowing I am self, all that is, reality generating perception”.

I ‘new’ the raspberry and Copperhead were the media that generated my perceived reality as that thought. Then James threw a rock at the snake and gobbled the raspberry and I forgot the meaning of the media generated reality I had perceived.

An End.

(For those on the verge of hissing out an accusation of plagiarism, I would have them know that the Book of Genesis is in the public domain. That includes the stuff about Eden, Tree of Knowledge, snakes, fruit, and being lead down the path.)

This author will now assume the ironic voice, which is that polysemous (for Erik) language of metaphor. (Just kidding):

I encourage anyone questioning the wisdom in following me and picking raspberries, to pause here. Within the perceived time, it takes to inhale and exhale three breaths, contemplate a reality generated by a talking snake that splits media into medium and makes a tree of knowledge.

still......
It's Edenic, rather than American, then? (or Argentinian?)
and
Where there is medium involved, though the perceived reality is that someone out there cares that I learn, or that I am entertained, the truth is that most of it is mere packaging attracting me to buy a product, or an idea, and that a reverse commerce is actually taking place : an advertiser has just bought some of my thought-time.

I ‘new’ the raspberry and Copperhead were the media that generated my perceived reality as that thought. Then James threw a rock at the snake and gobbled the raspberry and I forgot the meaning of the media generated reality I had perceived, until I awoke in the hospital, every cubic centimetre of my body incredibly itchy, hoping I would die, being assured I would not (darn life insurance!)..........