Method for symbol manipulation in an electronic data...

Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Linguistics

Reexamination Certificate

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Reexamination Certificate

active

06507811

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to symbol manipulation in electronic data processing systems, and more particularly to methods for altering the representation of ages, names, and proverbs in electronic data processing systems.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELEVANT ART
People have an intense interest in their personal characteristics. Since Gilgamesh of the Sumerian-Babylonian epic traveled to King Utnapishtim to learn the secret of eternal life, and especially in modern youth-oriented culture, concern about aging has inspired solutions both fictional (the “fountain of youth”) and non-fictional (cosmetic surgery). Personal names are similarly important. As Dale Carnegie observed, a person's name is his or her favorite word. With perhaps somewhat less intensity, people are also interested in brief and witty commentary, often in the form of proverbs, on the future, their relationships with other people, and other familiar items.
Although people generally express their age and other numbers in base
10
notation, i.e., each digit has 10 potential values (0 through 9), it is common in certain fields for alternate base notations to be used. For example, computer hardware generally uses two different states to represent single units of information, and it is therefore generally convenient for computer scientists to represent numbers using base
2
notation (this binary system conventionally uses the symbols “0” and “1” to represent the two available states). Similarly, computer scientists sometimes represent numbers using base
8
(octal) and base
16
(hexadecimal) notations since these representations are more compact than base
2
notation and can be converted to base
2
notation without extensive calculations.
Although any symbol set with a sufficient number of distinct symbols can be used to express numbers using a specified base, it has been traditional to use all or portions of the normal base
10
symbol set, consisting of the numerals “0”, “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, “5”, “6”, “7”, “8”, and “9”, in combination with letters of the alphabet to represent numbers in any base. For example, 10 (in base
10
notation) is expressed as the letter “A” in base
12
notation. A number expressed in a notation other than base
10
may, for example, consist only of symbols taken from the normal base
10
symbol set and thus can be mistakenly interpreted as a number expressed in base
10
notation. If, however, a number is expressed in a notation other than base
10
and contains letters of the alphabet, then it will be clear that the number, if it is recognized as a number at all, is not expressed in base
10
notation. Any number can, however, be converted from base
10
notation to some other base notation in which the number is still expressed only in symbols taken from the normal base
10
symbol set.
While an unlimited number of bases for numerical representation are available, most bases are not commonly used. Methods for converting between any two specified bases are, however, known to mathematicians.
Ages, of course, are conventionally expressed mathematically in base
10
. Strangely, people are frequently dissatisfied with their age. Relatively small age numbers are often taken to represent a lack of experience and maturity. On the other hand, relatively large age numbers are often taken to represent feebleness, mental inflexibility, and other undesirable characteristics. Thus, the young wish to acquire larger age numbers while the old wish to acquire smaller age numbers.
Just as numbers may be represented by a variety of notations, personal names can also be expressed by multiple notations. This commonly occurs in translating names into foreign languages. Other possible notations for names are also available. The most commonly used names are not new creations. They typically have rich histories of use, often dating back to the Hebrew Bible or Ancient Greece. As a result, there exist various cognates for current names drawn from around the world through recorded history. Further, a common naming practice in many cultures (referred to here as “descriptive naming”) has been to append to the given name an adjective, such as “the Great,” “the Red,” or “the Berserk,” that describes the person.
People in many modern cultures generally have given names that are selected from a relatively small pool of choices. Some of these people wish to experience unfamiliar and perhaps more descriptive names.
Many people also enjoy the succinct wit and wisdom of proverbs. The proverbs created and published by historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin are well known, as are numerous anonymous proverbs and related fortune cookie sayings. Unfortunately, proverbs are generally related to matters of general interest rather than tailored to the particular interests of individuals. It would be amusing to some people if proverbs could comment on matters of individualized interest.
Numerical and textual information can be represented in many ways. Computers, by way of example, use voltage levels, changes in magnetic flux, and other means to represent information. Many methods are known for converting between forms of representation while retaining the meaning of the underlying numerical or textual information. By way of example, the base
10
number “2” may be represented as the physical digit “2”, the physical digits “10” in base
2
notations, or as a sequence of voltage levels which represent the digits “10” in base
2
notations. Regardless of the form of representation, however, the base
10
number “2” is generally thought to be meaningless outside of some known context. For example, “2” may refer to the number of floors in a building, the number of people in a room, the number of pencils in a desk drawer, and so forth.
Some forms of representation hold special significance for people and may become psychologically detached from the underlying object of the representation. In other words, the context in which the representation exists is ignored. A common example of this phenomenon is age. To illustrate, the nominal lifespan for dogs is sometimes taken to be approximately 11 years, while the nominal lifespan for humans is sometimes taken to be approximately 77 years. This leads to the relation that seven “dog years” pass in the span of one human or calendar year. Thus, it is sometimes said that a five year old dog is actually 35 years old. That the “35 years” refers to artificial “dog years” is ignored and the dog is regarded as if it should behave, in some sense, as if it were a 35 (calendar) year old human. A clock for keeping time at an animal's rate was taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,023,850, entitled “Clock for Keeping Time at a Rate Other Than Human Time” and issued Jun. 11, 1991 to Metts et al.
In some areas, for example with regard to age, personal names, and common proverbs, it has not generally been recognized that the human ability to focus on representation while ignoring context can be manipulated in an electronic data processing system to produce constructs that some people find highly amusing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention is to provide a method of symbol manipulation in an electronic data processing system that alters the representation of age by converting an expression of age in base
10
notation to an expression of age in an alternate base notation.
An object of the invention is to provide a method of symbol manipulation in an electronic data processing system that alters the representation of a name by converting a name and an adjective associated with the name to a cognate form of the name and a synonym of the adjective.
An object of the invention is to provide a method of symbol manipulation in an electronic data processing system that alters the representation of proverbs by producing a proverb from a phrase and an adjective.
A preferred embodiment of a method of the present invention, as broadly described herein, comprises the steps of inputting an expression of age in base
10
notation into an electronic data processing system, using the electro

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