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Toawa
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Post by Toawa »

Honor wrote:Communication is always better when it contains as few words as possible. Most of language is just redundant synonyms anyway, right...? Completely unneeded. Wasteful. Stupid. By 2050 we should have all the superfluous langauge removed from the dictionary all together.
To any interested, look up the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis...

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Post by CottonStar »

Honor wrote:
cuteswan wrote:
CottonStar wrote:So, you could say that they decimated it?
You're evil! (and I like that)
*snerk* That was evil... I really like that in a person.
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Post by Honor »

SpasticSage wrote:Please don't make me an unperson for it.
Unperson...? Whoa. That's pretty strong ju-ju... You'd have to be like.. A televangelist axe-murderer republican or something. ;-)

I just... I get started.... and I just. can't. stop. *sobs*

It's not that I don't mind interrupting the flow of a story to hit the books... It's just that I don't fully agree that you're reading the story if you don't. When you decide to skip one word because it's one you don't know, you technically jump the line between actually reading the story and reading the longest possible cliff notes version, you know? That is, of course, a million miles away from the end of the world... It's just one of my wierd little obsessive things.

I have rather a lot of wierd little obsessive things.

Like, if someone has a honest-to-god different opinion from mine (ex: apples taste better than oranges), I can let it go eventually... But if they're demonstrably wrong and they think they only have a different opinion (ex: the first amendment gives me a right to post whatever I want on a forum) I am almost incapable of letting it go until I'm convinced they're just too stupid, ignorant, obtuse, or combative to ever 'get it'. (not that I'm saying this situation is either of those... This conversation is still evolving.)

It's particularly fun when one of my wierd little obsessive things locks horns with what even I accept as inevitable reality.

For instance, I know language is mutable, living, and prone to inevitable change... And that while some of that change will be enhancement, most will be degredation. Yet I can't help feeling that the continuing degradation of language is costing us humanity, and will continue to do so.

If that's true, then what amount is ok? If littering sucks, is it ok if I only throw one paper cup out the window a year...? Or a week?

And what about the Bashir-Whorf hypothesis... Which puts forth that on any given sci-fi television show, you'll have at least one alien who speaks better english than the average american college graduate?
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Post by Prettydragoon »

Honor wrote:And what about the Bashir-Whorf hypothesis... Which puts forth that on any given sci-fi television show, you'll have at least one alien who speaks better english than the average american college graduate?
:) I'll buy that. An excellent command of English will add to the alienness of a character. Unfortunately many people tend to deprecate their native language. Not only Americans. I've read on an otaku board comments that suggest manga in English translation is by default preferable to manga translated into the posters' native language. Of course that may only speak to the quality (or lack thereof) of the otaku, but there it is.

I will stop now while I am still more or less coherent. Trying to think Indo-European makes my brain hurt. :)
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Post by Cuteswan »

Honor wrote:I just... I get started.... and I just. can't. stop. *sobs*
Does the same apply to being in the public library, standing in front of the big-assed dictionary for hours while looking for new words to learn? :) Personally, I've gotten lost in flipping through dictionaries more than once.

My name is Rich and I'm a wordaholic.
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Post by Starwind »

Honor wrote:
And what about the Bashir-Whorf hypothesis... Which puts forth that on any given sci-fi television show, you'll have at least one alien who speaks better english than the average american college graduate?
I think that this is because people who speak english as a second (or third) language often try so hard to get it right that they have a WAY better grasp of the language than native speakers. I have witnessed this myself with exchange students.
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Post by Lowky »

Starwind wrote:
Honor wrote:
And what about the Bashir-Whorf hypothesis... Which puts forth that on any given sci-fi television show, you'll have at least one alien who speaks better english than the average american college graduate?
I think that this is because people who speak english as a second (or third) language often try so hard to get it right that they have a WAY better grasp of the language than native speakers. I have witnessed this myself with exchange students.
Actually as an american I found I got the best grasp of the english language during my 4 years of german in HIgh School. I think in part because examples of thinks like past present tense etc are given, so you can relate it to what you are experincing in the foreign language you are learning. I think anyone who learns another language will benefit from a firmer grasp of their own native language.

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Post by Swordsman3003 »

I would agree, I am much better at analyzing English since I've started to learn Spanish.

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Post by Moo Cow »

Ditto.


*hugs Honor* There there, darling...

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Post by Honor »

actually, yeah... I hadn't thought of it that way, but I'm sure foreign language study has made me even more of a wordoholic.

And, CuteSwan... Yes. Especially really old dictionaries and translating dictionaries. They fascinate me.
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Post by SpasticSage »

Hey, don't worry about it.

(You didn't chase me off - I just went to bed Thursday night, and went to a party yesterday)

You're right - we weren't getting the entire story (or content for nonfiction, or whatever) if we're glossing over the words, and this would be fairly easy to remedy with a dictonary (unless one's reading between classes, or on the bus or subway, etc.). Arguably, the same can be said if one doesn't catch all the imagery or symbolism.

And, yes, that we weren't entirely getting it (w.r.t. the more obscure vocab) came out in class. (Which is why I know my teacher was also horrified)

If this were Heinlein, I might have cared more. As it was, it was senior year in HS literature. Most of the stuff we read, we weren't interested in, but had to read anyway. And a very high concentration of the books we read were from a genre that got old fairly quickly.

But yes, I do see your points about language degradation. The problem is at what cost of practicality should this be a priority? Yes, looking in a dictionary isn't going to kill anyone - point conceeded. But does this also mean that we should subsidize authors who use more obscure vocabulary? (I'm just playing devil's advocate here, and taking a point to a semi-logical extreme - don't take this bit too seriously)

To be fair, I might have overreacted as well. Being really tired Thursday night, I might have "heard" the tone to be a lot louder and angrier than it was actually meant to be.

Also, "unperson" wasn't supposed to be too harsh. It was meant to be in line with the 1984 reference that was in your post (What was that simplified language called again?).

Hugs for all!

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Post by Squidflakes »

Nuspeak citizen.

Double plus ungood thoughcrime on you for unmemory.
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Post by SpasticSage »

squidflakes wrote:Nuspeak citizen.

Double plus ungood thoughcrime on you for unmemory.
Wait, I thought memory was thoughtcrime, and unmemory was double plus good. What about journals?

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Post by Error of Logic »

... You've both lost me. What secret code is this?
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Post by Tellner »

It's from 1984
"It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy - it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."

-- Roger Zelazny Lord of Light

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Post by Honor »

Oct29, GGF/Buck-Cake - Squidflakes refs unword, plusungood, revise fulwise.

Same, Same - SpasticSage, thoughtcrime, "I thought", contact MiniLove

Same, Same - ErrorofLogic, doubleplusungood, refs thoughtcrime "sectret code", poss make refs unperson. Ref to MiniLove.

click here, citizen
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Post by Toawa »

Honor wrote:Oct29, GGF/Buck-Cake - Squidflakes refs unword, plusungood, revise fulwise.

Same, Same - SpasticSage, thoughtcrime, "I thought", contact MiniLove

Same, Same - ErrorofLogic, doubleplusungood, refs thoughtcrime "sectret code", poss make refs unperson. Ref to MiniLove.
::chuckle::

You mortals... You make it so complicated.

Just move this timeline here, tweak a few photons over there, do some dimensional convergence like so... And finally, fill out the (approximately) 27.377288394783948574837729x10^30 reality modification forms.
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Post by Schol-R-LEA;2 »

Starwind wrote:I think that this is because people who speak english as a second (or third) language often try so hard to get it right that they have a WAY better grasp of the language than native speakers. I have witnessed this myself with exchange students.
This relates to an old joke about US education, and the requirements for naturalization:

Q: What do you call an American citizen with a solid grasp of the country's geography, history, and system of government?

A: An immigrant.
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Post by Cuteswan »

I'd always heard:

Q. What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
A. Trilingual.

Q. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A. Bilingual.

Q. What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
A. American.

And, believe me, I feel ripped off that I didn't get to start another language while I was young enough to really pick it up.
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Post by Moo Cow »

Those are soooo true... *weeps for her country*

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