Date:    Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:28:07 -0500
<br>From:    Mark Mandel  Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM 
<br>Subject: "A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich"
<br>
<br>Larry Horn  laurence.horn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU  writes:
<br>    
<br>
<br>Must be something about ham sandwiches.  The locus classicus of "deferred
<br>reference",from Nunberg's 1978 dissertation, is "The ham sandwich (at table
<br>5) wants an order of fries."  So ham sandwiches can be indicted by grand
<br>juries, sanctioned to box, and served at diners; possibly all three
<br>simultaneously.
<br>
<br>    
<br>
<br>And that ain't all! There's a theorem in geometry that has something to do
<br>with (in plane geometry) a line passing through three areas, or (in solid
<br>geometry) a plane cutting through three volumes, and so on in higher
<br>dimensionalities. IIRC, it has a formal name, but is commonly referred to
<br>as the Generalized Ham-Sandwich Theorem. (Ref., from memory: one of Martin
<br>Gardner's "Mathematical Games" columns for _Scientific American_, in one of
<br>the volumes of collections of same; dust jacket is black&white + blue.) Is
<br>the ham sandwich THE archetypal sandwich in American speech?
<br>
<br>       Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com
<br>    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
<br> 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
<br>           Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/
<br>