Re: Clarke Award Finalists 1993

On 4/15/25 3:22 PM, William Hyde wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

In article <87v7r5yk1l.fsf@moroka.fritz.box>,
Stephen Harker  <sjharker@aussiebroadband.com.au> wrote:

Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>

On 2025-04-14, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>

Which 1993 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

>

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

>
... where I learned that English geologic vocabulary is full of German.

>
I understand that is because when in the Medieval period they wanted to
exploit mineral resources they did the usual invite specialists who were
from Germany.  Probably with incentives.

 >
 > My engineer grandfather once mentioned MIT encouraged him to learn
 > German. That would have been the late 1920s, early 1930s.
 >
 Foreign language requirements used to be in place for Doctorates at the University of Toronto.
 

They were in place in for my department (math) until last Tuesday. One could choose either Russian, French, or German. Much longer ago, one could petition to fulfill the requirement via Greek or Latin.
One could satisfy the requirement either by getting a good-enough grade in a pre-approved course (in another department, of course), or one could schedule a test consisting of translating 3-4 pages of a text or research paper in your field, evaluated by someone (from another department, of course).
All my peers took a course over the summer, so of course, my advisor (at the time) decided I could learn French as I learned Multilinear Algebra out of Bourbaki from him, and then take the translation test.
Because I am stupid, I agreed.
Ah well - at least the translation test went well.
Tony