GRGR3 - Zipf reference plus

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

C. Gardner corrects me:

>According to Steven Weisenburger's _A Gravity's Rainbow Companion_ for 
>GR32.5:
>
>The reference is not to George Kingsley Zipf's 1949 book, _Human Behavior 
>and the Principle of Least Effort_.  Instead, the text for this complex, 
>arresting reference is his 1935 study, _The Psycho-Biology of Language_.
>... Much of his work relies on various statistical and probabilistic tests 
>applied to recorded samples of ordinary discourse...
>

But that's just the point.  I think Weisenburger's got it wrong.  I have to check this 
later, but to my memory the phrase "Principle of Least Effort" does occur in GR.  
Now, this phrase does NOT occur in Zipf's 1935 book, but forms part of the title of 
the 1949 book.  Here's another place where the critics like to say "even Pynchon 
nods" but I just think that's too facile.  I think he's playing a very cool chronology 
game all the way through GR and things like this Zipf conundrum are the little 
hints at some bigger thing.  

john m