Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 103

0 COURIER-POST ASK THE EXPERTS 2 DEAR ABBY 2 IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY 4 SLIM GOURMET 12 TASTE 11 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1987 Where women How does it know how to do that? find themselves ne of the few advantages of being able to write a rdy! in Jeopa column is that you can't be replaced by a computer. Software might be able to analyze data, but not craft prose. I was mentioning this to the newsroom computer specialist. "At least computers MAHir can't write," I threw out. IT; i By EILEEN SMITH HODGES Of the Courier-Post ANSWER: They are one-half the population, score higher on intelligence tests, yet haven't managed to field one undefeated champion on a television game show for more than a year.

QUESTION: Who are women? Yes, women. When it comes to the answer-and-question contest, the gender that gave the world Margaret Thatcher, Marie Curie and Billie Jean King is the weaker sex, indeed. It's one of those universal truths. The earth is round. There are 24 hours in a day.

And, as awful as it seems, statistics indicate women are inferior Jeopardy! players. for those who have spent the last 25 years in the backyard bomb shelter, is a game in which players get the answers. They have to guess the questions, making sure, of course, to phrase their responses in the form of a question. There are categories, ranging from the straightforward, like American History or Opera, to the offbeat, say, Dead Wood or Stupid Answers. Play goes like this.

A contestant chooses a category, in this case Zoology, for $100. Host Alex Trebek reads the answer: "It has four legs, whiskers, and says The first player to buzz then responds with the question: "What is a cat?" It's not the type of competition in which one gender might clobber the other, like kick boxing or a beauty pageant. But these are the cold, cruel facts: A woman has a better chance of getting elected to Congress than winning even one "t-rmmwwim Him uajxl 1 Ooops! Another woman discovers the errors of her ways on television's Jeopardy! the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby who discovers all the other entrants are Shetland ponies. When undefeated champion Dave Traini of Medford Lakes learned one of his first two opponents was a member of the fair (as in good sport) sex, he could barely contain his glee. "I was so happy when I found out I was playing against a woman," he recalls.

Traini, no dumb bunny, is quick to add a magnanimous she was good." But good is only so-so in this exclusive competition for intellectuals. Good players win Lay-Z Boy recliners and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni. Outstanding competitors like Traini can win more than $50,000 in cash. Traini played against women in four of his five games. The players Please see WHEN, Page 4 tofejuitesft, game on Jeopardy! When the Tour- -nament of Champions the playoff of the 13 top money winners, plus the two top senior and teen players convenes in October, it will be a competition for men only.

There isn't one woman qualified. How does this make the guys feel? Confident, says one former contestant. A man who finds himself playing against two women might be compared to a stallion in Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek is accusjomed to seeing men in finals. 1 Who is thisman they call John Paul II? Yes, they can, he said. I asked what he was talking about.

He disappeared into his office, then came back with a software package called Rightwriter, made by a firm called Rightsoft of Sarasota, Fla. I took out the disk and looked it over. "What's it do?" "It'll edit your stories and tell you what's wrong with them," he said with a Cheshire catlike smile. I told him it sounded impossible. He nodded, put the master disk into the A-drive, asked for a recent story I'd written and told the program to look it over.

The disk drive turned, then flashed a phrase. "Rightwriter is now analyzing the sentence structure," it said. HOW DOES it know how to do that? Then the program announced it would be inserting comments into my text to tell me where my writing could be improved. It would also warn me if I was using too many adjectives or too much jargon. "Lord," I said.

"Eventually they're going to be able to get rid of people like me." The computer specialist didn't smile. "Not eventually," he said. "Very soon." Finally, the disk drive stopped. It told me I could call up the story and see what was wrong with it. I did as I was told.

It began by giving the readibility index the grade level an average reader would need to understand my story. The number was 4.04 that meant just over fourth-grade level. The computer specialist shook his head. "You're in worse shape than I thought," he said. I asked what the norm was.

He showed me the Rightwriter manual. "Good business writing," it said, "ranges between 6th- and lOth-grade level." And I was 4.04. -a The next number was writing strength. The optimum was 0.8. Mine came out just over 0.6.

"You ever consider another line of work?" asked the computer specialist NOW CAME the real test I began to look through the body of the story for comments. There were a lot of them. "Passive voice," the computer scolded. "Long sentence," it said at another point. "Repeated word," it told me.

"Complex sentence," it scolded again. "They can't talk to me like that," I said. The computer specialist stared at the screen. He pointed out a few more comments. "Not a complete sentence," said one.

"Unnecessary comma," said another. In every case, it was right. Still, I was a bit insulted. "What gives them the right to judge me like this?" I asked. "Well," the computer specialist said, "there's still time for a career in life insurance." I RAN ANOTHER story of mine through the program.

This one was a bit better, but not much 4.64 grade level. Again, I scrolled through for comments. Again, the computer was right every time. It zeroed in on one phrase where I described a family as being straight out of "Father Knows Best." The computer followed it by asking: "Is this explained?" It was right; I'll bet a lot of young readers would have had no idea what I was talking about. But how did the computer know enough to ask that? Then it singled out the following sentence: "I measured it with only one ruler: What I myself got out of it." The computer told me I'd used the wrong pronoun.

"Replace 'I myself by it said. HOW DID it know that? Then I got to an even more disturbing com-ient. It called one of my sentences "weak." Then it called another one "weak," as well. "What do they mean by weak?" I said. "They mean you don't write like Rambo," the computer specialist said.

Finally, it gave me some general advice: "Consider using more predicate verbs," it said. I wish it would have told me what a predicate verb is. AS A FINAL test, I put the story you are reading through Rightwriter. It told me this was written at a 4.34 grade level. Then it told me to replace the word "optimum," which appears in the middle of the article, with the word "best." It also called me "weak" twice and advised I put a comma after the word "eventually," which appears a third of the way down, in the paragraph beginning with "Lord." I began to think of Hal, the computer in the movie "2001" who got so smart it first began to judge humans, then decided they were unworthy and turned on them completely.

Well, this computer wasn't going to get the best of me. I was smarter than it. Shrewder. That's the magic of the human mind. If we marshal our brain power, we can come up with a complex, creative solution to outwit any machine.

And I did. I turned it off. Mark Patinkin is on the staff of the Providence Journal. Scripm-Howtrd Nn Ssrvlc By BARBARA WOLLER Gannett News Service If you meet Pope John Paul II during his stay in the United States, please remember to address the 67-year-old pontiff as "Your Holiness" or "Holy Father." Then relax and enjoy. "He's disarming," says Monsignor Edwin O'Brien, rector of St.

Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. Monsignor O'Brien coordinated John Paul's visit to New York City during his first papal trip here in 1979. "He puts you at ease. He mixes easily. Formality is cast aside," You even have a choice of languages when you talk to pope.

In addition to fluent Polish and Italian, the pontiff is comfortable with English, French, German and Spanish. And his Latin, of course, is flawless. John Paul is a man for any conversation, says the Rev. Walter Ziemba, who knew His Holiness when. "He relates so easily to people," says Rev.

Ziemba, who first met John Paul in 1968 when he was Archbishop Karol Joseph Wojtyla (Voy-TIH-wah) in Kracow, Poland. Rev. Ziemba is director of the Pope John Paul II Center, a Polish-American boyhood nickname was "Lolek," is the son of Karol Wojtyla, a non-commissioned officer in the Polish army, and Emilia Kaczorowska, a retired schoolteacher. His older brother, Edmund, was a physician. All are deceased.

Personal ties He writes personal notes to friends and receives them personally at the Vatican. He has kept in especially close touch with people he knows from Poland. John Paul often dines with guests, unlike his predecessors who usually dined alone. A day in the life This is the pope's typical day when he's not "on the He rises at 5:30 a.m. and begins meditation in his chapel about an hour later, says Rev.

Ziembe. He celebrates Mass at about 7:30 a.m. sometimes alone, sometimes with other priests. He then has breakfast and reads reports and newspapers. He receives people for several hours starting at about 2 p.m., followed by prayer and dinner at 7:30 p.m.

Evenings, he reads, writes and prays until bedtime. Rev. Ziembe says that the pontiff spends between two and three hours each day in prayer. Food and fasting He usually eats Please see WHO, Page 4 center in Orchard Lake, Mich. "He could be seated at a table with Thomas Aquinas and discuss the 'Summa Theologica' and slip off the chair onto a floor and play with a toddler and be equally comfortable." Rev.

Ziemba says that during a conversation, the pope characteristically will put "his chin into his palm, plunk his elbow on his knee and listen to you. He puts his arm around people very comfortably. He will take your hand and hold it. He looks at you, and you know it's a look of understanding and love." Here is some background information about John Paul II and the papacy that may come in handy as you watch the extensive television coverage of his visit: Who is the pope? "Pope" comes from the Greek word for "father." The pope is Bishop of Rome and spiritual -leader of more than 860 million Roman Catholics, including almost 53 million in the United States. He is elected by the cardinals of the church and remains pope for life.

What's in a name? John Paul II chose his name becadse of his love for his two immediate predecessors: Paul VI and John Paul I. He is the first non-Italian Would you know the protocol to follow when addressing Pope John Paul II? Would you know what language to speak? pope in 455 years and the first Slav to hold the office. Family ties John Paul II, whose Say hello to Meryl and Robert Flynn of Mount Ephraim, Dorothy Fiagg of Berlin, Charles Kline of Stratford and Dee Ratajski of Blackwood. All submitted the names Sadie and Bill. Runners-up receive one-year memberships to the zoo, invitations to the naming ceremony and T-shirts.

Honorable mentions went to Helen Wel-don of Merchantville (Little Quill and Big Bill), Carol Cole of Mount Ephraim (Penny and Phil), D. Bendorf of Audubon (Gretchen and Stretch), Joy Massimilla of Maple Shade (Leggy Lil and Big Bill) and Jay and Carolanne Myles of Pennsauken, who submitted their own names because they say they are lovebirds. Honorable mentions receive four zoo passes, invitations to the naming ceremony and T-shirts. By KEVIN C. JOHNSON Of the Courier-Post Visitors to the Philadelphia Zoo won't have to call the new pair of African saddle-billed storks "Hey You" or "Birdie" any longer.

They now have names. Say hello to Meryl and Robert. The monikers were submitted for entry into the Name the Storks Contest by Edward Campbell of Magnolia, who also has a new name today winner. Campbell's entry was selected from more then 1,400 in the contest co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Zoo, the Courier-Post and the Martin automobile dealerships in Tur-nersville. Eighteen representatives from the three groups helped select the names for the storks.

Campbell, 37, a school teacher, pulled the names from those of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, the stars of the movie "Out of Africa." He says he didn't see the film and isn't a fan of either star. "I figured Meryl and Robert because it fit just right," said Campbell. "When we were sending in the names, I was saying 'This is the one. It has to I had a good feeling about it. It had that sound to it." None of the other names Martina and Martino, Phyllis and Marty, Ebony and Ivory, Adam and Eve, and Itsa Boy and Itsa Girl he and his wife submitted came close to winning.

Campbell receives a free helicopter ride have to think about that one," he said), a behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo, a one-year zoo membership, an invitation to the naming ceremony and a T-shirt. Runners-up are Debbie Bovio of Erial, Rosemary Farlow of Gloucester, Kathi i 4 Robert bobs for food in water at the Philadelphia Zoo..