I must say, you are one of the most arrogant, ignorant posters on this
group.  Now then, before your Highness gets all riled up at yet another
person so very much more ignorant than he is, I'll list my
qualifications:  I studied physics at Princeton for two years; before
then I was a research assistant (non-linear dynamics) in the physics
department at TCU (yes, during high school); I learned calculus my
freshman year in high school and taught myself ordinary differential
equations the summer of my sophomore year in high school.
Unfortunately, or to my way of thinking, fortunately, I ran out of money
and had to work for five years, during which time I discovered I love
linguistics and history even more than I do physics.  I have a pretty
good grasp of mathematics then, and all I have to say on that score is
that your mathematical model is primitive in the extreme and doesn't fit
the facts that have been presented to you, and all you do is sit there
with the typical snobbery of a second-rate mathematician who at least
can take satisfaction in thinking he knows more math than those dumb-ass
humanities drudges.  People have pointed out to you many times that you
don't know very much at all about linguistics, and certainly not
historical linguistics:  You sneer at the comparative method as mere
heuristics, you attack the idea of regular sound change, you don't know
the first thing about the processes of language change (witness your
question as to why a common word would have five syllables, your
question why words don't all just erode away through sound change, and
so on), etc.; and when you do ask those questions, your obvious desire
to trip other people up with stupid judo arguments peeks through your
equally obvious misunderstandings of the fragments of linguistics books
that you've read.  And then you have the gall to sit there insulting us
because *your* model is irrelevant to the real world!  I refuse to give
obeissance to you, as you so obviously wish, as the Mathematician-Savior
come to redeem the infidel linguists still dwelling in the darkness.  If
the linguists on this newsgroup were as woefully ignorant of mathematics
as you are of linguistics, they'd be broke and on the streets.
   So tell me, when you get in controversies in mathematics, do you
abuse your opponents with streams of feculent discharge like this bundle
of whines below, or do you reserve that for those people that
mathematics types like yourself are acculturated to sneer at--since, by
the very fact of going into the humanities, they are obviously
second-rate (or worse) mediocrities who just couldn't cut it?  Your
previously fastidiously-concealed disdain is blatantly obvious now.

Mikael Thompson