Distinctive Names Research Articles

What's Wrong With J?

ABSTRACT To the Editor.— I made a discovery the other day while browsing through my 1988 edition of the Physicians' Desk Reference. It is a minor revelation, I'll grant you, and I'm sure that others have noticed it before me. But it's such a curious thing, I couldn't resist calling attention to it.Pharmaceutical companies presumably spend a great deal of creative energy giving their products highly memorable and distinctive names. One would suppose that coming up with a truly unique name would be difficult. Why is it, then, that one may find drug names beginning with any letter of the alphabet except one? What's wrong with J?

Further comments on the use of DJN

The use of Distinctive Jewish Names (DJN) in Jewish population surveys is becoming more popular. It is therefore necessary to inquire to what extent the method biases results. Our work on DJN has concentrated on the usefulness of a DJN sample versus an organization-list sample (Himmelfarb, Loar, and Mott 1983). Based on the assumption that area housing or phone exchange samples (e.g. random digit dialing) is beyond the means of most social scientific studies on American Jews, we asked whether the use of DJN would not provide a more representative low-cost sample of Jews than the use of Jewish organization lists (i.e. federation lists). The answer, in short, was yes. Using the National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) data, we found that persons with thirty-five distinctive Jewish names were not very different from the other Jews in the sample with regard to demographic characteristics and Jewish identification. The differences that existed were not consistently in one direction, e.g. greater identification for the DJN. Moreover, regardless of direction, the magnitude of differences was low. On the other hand, a comparison of the NJPS respondents chosen from Jewish federation lists and the NJPS respondents chosen via area housing probability methods showed more substantial and more consistent differences. The list sample was more Jewishly identified and had many of the demographic characteristics typically associated with greater Jewish identification. Thus, with certain caveats regarding the use of DJN to tap intermarried Jewish women and Russian and Israeli immigrants, we conclude that if researchers must rely on nonprobability sampling methods, the use of DJN should produce a reasonably representative sample with considerably less bias than the use of Jewish organization lists. Bernard Lazerwitz's article in this volume complements our previous analysis and findings. He also uses the NJPS data, but we worked with 99

Some comments on the use of distinctive Jewish names in surveys

Some comments on the use of distinctive Jewish names in surveys

The Terminology of Amniote Temporal Vacuities

The Terminology of Amniote Temporal Vacuities

THE EARLY ARAGONESE PARDINA : ITS ETYMOLOGY AND FUNCTION

The majority of the population of Upper Aragon has tra Jelly tended 10 group itself in nucleated communities, but aus isolated habitations dot hte landscape. There are us types of such establishments, serving different funct e and called by distinctive names. Pajares and bordas are Celatively modest dwellings serving the temporary needs of the chepherds of the region, while the casetas act as field quarters during the height of the agricultural season

Stimulus Predifferentiation and Modification of Children's Racial Attitudes

KATZ, PHYLLIS A. Stimulus Predifferentiation and Modification of Children's Racial Attitudes. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 232-237. The prediction that increased perceptual differentiation of other-group faces could reduce prejudicial attitudes was tested. The Ss were 96 black and white secondand sixth-grade children who previously obtained high prejudice scores on 2 racial attitude measures. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 training conditions: (a) learning distinctive names for photographs of other-race faces; (b) making same-different judgments of facial pairs, or (c) observing the faces without labels. Race of E was varied within each group. Attitude tests were subsequently readministered, and findings confirmed the hypothesis. Posttest prejudice scores of the labeling and perceptual training groups were lower than those of the control Ss. Additionally, several interactions revealed that this treatment effect was influenced by both developmental level and race of E.

The Burmese Double-Reed "Nhai"

According to several informants the small nhai has only been used in its present form for about 25 years. Before this, they say, there was one pitched only a fourth above the large nhai, and this is the type described by U Khin Zaw in his article Burmese Music2 written about 1940. Perhaps earlier still there is said to have been one pitched about a third above the large nhai. It is tempting to link these two instruments with those of the four common modes which are based on notes corresponding to the fundamental note of each of these obsolete nhai. Such a correspondence however has its drawbacks, for besides leaving the modern small nhai without a corresponding mode and one of the modes without a nhai, it has also to account for the fact that both the modes in question are by all accounts still in use. Besides these two former nhai, which have no distinctive names, there are reports of an extra large nhai called vams.nu which extended down to a whole octave below the modern small one.

EFFECTS OF NAMING RELEVANT AND IRRELEVANT STIMULI ON THE DISCRIMINATION LEARNING OF CHILDREN

DICKERSON, DONALD J. Effects of Naming Relevant and Irrelevant Stimuli on the Discrimination Learning of Children. CHMLD DEVELOPMENT, 1970, 41, 639-650. This experiment studied the simultaneous discrimination learning of 80 second-grade children under 4 transfer conditions. Prior to discrimination learning, training was given during which different groups of Ss (20 Ss/group) learned distinctive names (a) for the relevant cues of the discrimination problem, (b) for 2 diferent cues along the relevant dimension, (c) for the variable-irrelevant cues of the problem, and (d) for 2 different cues along the variable-irrelevant dimension. In terms of subsequent discrimination performance, the 4 groups were ordered, from best to poorest, a-b-d-c. This ranking is consistent with a chaining theory interpretation of the results. Backward learning curves showed performance differences among the groups to be not in the slopes of the curves but rather in the length of the initial chance portions of the curves. This latter finding suggests that the 4 training conditions had differential effects upon the probability of attending to the relevant dimension at the start of the discrimination problem.

Twenty-fourth list of new mineral names

HE present list, for two years only, includes 373 names : of these, 31 are errors; 114 are other spelling variants, including French and German transliterations of Russian names; 12 are names for mixtures, pseudomorphs, or mineral groups; 2 are for hypothetical compounds, not known either naturally or artificially; and 50 are synonyms, new names for minerals already named, and not preferable to the old names. Further, 15 are for inadequately characterized minerals, and 30 are unnecessary varietal names. Of the remaining 119 acceptable names, 15 are for artificial compounds not known in nature, 6 are for endmembers of isomorphous series, not actually observed in nature, and 5 are desirable new names to replace names whose connotation was misleading; finally, there are 93 new named species or varieties worthy of distinctive names. A large number of minor spelling variants (e.g. hyphens, capitals to the second member of German compound names) have been omitted, since they cannot lead to confusion, and so have a nmnber of hyphened names such as Talc-saponite and Montmorillonite-chlorite, used by clay mineralogists for minerals with regularly alternating layers of the structures denoted in the name (and sometimes for minerals with irregular interstratification). No attempt has been made to seek out the first use of the spelling variants listed, and they are, therefore, not attributed to any specific author and date.

The effects of sequence and similarity of labeling responses on concept development

Development of concepts through training in labeling nonsense figures was examined. The general hypothesis was that concept functioning depends on distinctive mediating responses, the development of which depends in turn on the requisites of the training sequence. Seventy-two children were trained to use either rhyming or distinctive names for nonsense forms. One group learned discriminations between examples of three classes of forms and generalizations within each of three classes simultaneously. Another group learned discrimination of each form one at a time but acquired generalizations within each of three classes simultaneously. A third group learned discriminations one at a time and also learned generalizations one class at a time. All Ss were trained to the same criteria and then sorted a new group of related forms. Marked differences in speed of discrimination and generalization were related to both names and sequences. The group that learned generalizations one at a time could not sort new forms. The group that learned discriminations simultaneously sorted accurately only if they used the distinctive names. These results confirmed the hypotheses.

Names of Electrical Units

WHILE the use of the metre–kilogram–second–coulomb system of units is rapidly becoming more widespread, that of the E.M.U. system is almost nonexistent, except in elementary courses and old–fashioned text–books. In purely electrostatic problems, on the other hand, the general use of the E.S.U. system is likely to continue. The lack of distinctive names for the units in this system is a drawback hi several respects, of which I will only mention the difficulty of checking dimensions. To remedy this defect a practice has arisen of using names such as ‘statcoulombs’, ‘statvolts’ and other equally cacophonous terms. This nomenclature has already been criticized in a recent review of a text–book (Proc. Phys. Soc., 53, 624; 1941), but no alternative has been proposed. I therefore wish to propose a terminology which should be acceptable to all English–speaking people.

II.—On Herpetopora, a New Genus Containing Three New Species of Cretaceous Cheilostome Polyzoa

In a report on a visit of the Geologists' Association to the exhibits of Polyzoa and Corals in the Geological Department of the British Museum in February, 1913, the author had occasion to mention two related and unnamed species of uniserial Chalk Polyzoa that hitherto had appeared in records as Hippothoa dispersa (von Hagenow). neither of which was this species, nor did either belong to the genus Hippothoa, Lamouroux. Since one of these two forms is very common in the English Chalk and the other not rare, it is time for a description of them to be published, that collectors may have distinctive names for them. In addition, a third form that has occurred in England is described, and the rest of the species included in the genus are mentioned, so that an idea of the genus as a whole may be formed.

VII.—The Classification of the Phacopidæ

In North and South America and in South Africa there is a considerable variety of types of the Dalmaniles-branch in the Devonian period which have in many cases received distinctive subgeneric names; but species retaining the typical characters of the Silurian forms persist at any rate in North America. Many of these Devonian forms show incomplete second lateral furrows on the glabella, these furrows not reaching the axial furrows and causing a partial coalescence of the two middle lateral lobes. This tendency towards the fusion of the first and second lateral lobes of the glabella is a departure from the perfect segmentation found in typical Silurian members of Dalmanites, and has caused Clarke to group all such forms together into the subgenus or section Synphoria. This type of structure, as Van Ingen has recently shown, is not unknown amongst the Silurian species of Dalmanites in America, but it finds its most pronounced development in Devonian time and occurs in the groups Coronura, Corycephalus, Odontocephalus, and Probolium, all of which are put by Clarke in the section Synphoria. The marginal ornamentation and different processes on the pygidium and head-shield on which these four groups have been founded are scarcely of the same structural importance as the modifications of the glabellar segmentation. As in other families, the spinosity of these forms is the symbol of a last expiring effort before extinction.