Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA16333 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 13 Feb 2002 00:02:50 GMT Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 10:57:40 +1100 Subject: Re: Why memeoids? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <200202120732.g1C7WLXV022399@mail25.bigmailbox.com> Message-Id: <4C052773-2014-11D6-8846-003065B4D1F0@wehi.edu.au> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 06:32 PM, Joe Dees wrote:
>
>
>> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:22:03 +1100
>> Re: Why memeoids? John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au>
>> memetics@mmu.ac.ukReply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 03:51 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
>>
>>> At 10:01 PM 11/02/02 -0500, you wrote:
>>>> Hi Keith Henson -
>>>>
>>>>> Infective speech fillers people pick up of the "you know" and "fact
>>>> of the
>>>>> matter" are these kind of minimal memes. I am not aware of a term
>>>> for for
>>>>> such minimal memes. Suggest one if you wish.
>>>>
>>>> Mememurs.
>>>
>>> Why? (what derivation does -murs have?)
>>>
>>>
>> I think he means -mers, as in polymers and monomers. But then it should
>> be polymemes and monomemes, and this requires some notion of a "simple"
>> meme just as monomer requires some notion of a simple molecule (which
>> is
>> not, so far as I can tell, forthcoming :-)
>>
> The smallest meaningful unit of language is the morpheme; how could one
> combine/contract these two (morpheme and meme) into a single
> distinctive word? Morph-memes?
Bill Croft of Manchester uni has already coined a perfectly good
linguistic unit for an evolutionary account of language - the lingueme,
and I strongly suggest we adopt it - he defines it in a forthcoming
paper in Selection as "a token of linguistic structure". Morphemes only
apply to words and word parts, while phonemes refer to sound parts. Both
are linguemes if they are passed on entire.
-- John S Wilkins Head, Communication Services The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Parkville, Victoria, Australia=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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