On Friday, September 5, 2014 2:13:42 PM UTC-4, clifford wrote:
the way grouping goes in math and especially the standard logic textbooks (of say 1950) plus the easier eye parsing,
That's what I surmised the reason might be, and part of why I was curious. In Loglan1 JCB mentions putting the modifying words before the word being modified because that is how it is done in the majority of languages. I imagine if it were the other way around, the order of application would still have been left-grouping --and thus effectively the opposite of what it is today.
It was all decided even before my time (back in 1955-6 in fact). While I am down there, I'll look for PLGS, which, as I recall (not a very promising basis), was worked over several times up through something like "pretty little girls school teachers union official". There is certainly also a general paper on enumerating (and displaying) possibilities of whatever length.
Wow. That must feel incredible to have access to all that original material.