Have fun. Or an aneurysm, whichever:
Given the fact that that poem is 100 years old, I would have thought that English would have evolved to fix these issues by now. Oh well.
We need a new language I guess. Maybe it’s time to switch to the most popular language in the works (in terms of number of native speakers): Mandarin Chinese.
As someone who has studied it, have fun with that. While that poem is an outlier, there’s still a ton of things that not even inflection or context can solve.
Maybe better use second most popular: Spanish, it at least uses same letters (differently though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
english is dumb. why do we say “hands,” but we don’t say “foots”? why does “goose” become “geese,” but “moose” doesn’t become “meese”? why is “led” the past tense of “lead,” but “red” is not the past tense of “read”? why don’t “good” and “food” rhyme? LIGHT becomes LIT, fight becomes FOUGHT. peek becomes peeked, seek becomes SOUGHT
i could do this all day, but i willn’t
English is three other languages in a trench coat
A comma should be after had had and before had had imo.
The horse’s name was “had”.
I remember one time at r/peloton one of those tribalistic mildly-xenophobic nutcases told me, after sharing an article in spanish which had some ambiguous word, something to the effect that “spanish is the most confusing language in the world”.
Yes, that genius told that. In english.
It annoys me so much when I feel I need to write a sentence like that that I go to great lengths to restructure sentences to avoid it.
…fuck
Your grammar and sanity are better for it. Actually, most cases I’m which a double that is used you can probably get away with a single that.
It is true that that is almost never necessary.
“It is true that that’s almost never necessary.”
I can’t wrap my head around this, logically it’s still a ‘double that’ but the short form makes it palatable to read/say.
Maybe I’m just grouchy today but how in the world does a word coming up twice in a row translate to a language being flawed? That seems like calling spelling “flawed” because letters come up twice in a row in a word.
Nah, that’s just you channeling your inner Psy: https://youtu.be/8dJyRm2jJ-U?si=a0JeSjBCsz1wRrkx
In German the following is a completely valid sentence:
Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.
Which translates to when flies fly behind flies, then flies follow flies. The same works for seals:
Wenn hinter Robben Robben Robben, robben Robben Robben nach.
Wenn hinter Robben Robben robben, robben Robben Robben nach.
FTFY
English has Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo
I don’t know what it means but I’ve been told it is indeed a full sentence.
Bison from Buffalo, New York bully bison from Buffalo, New York who bully other bisons.
The same works in Dutch:
Als vliegen achter vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna.
Although my favourite form of that tongue twister is:
Als vliegende vliegen achter vliegende vliegen vliegen, vliegen de vliegende vliegen vliegensvlug.
When flying flies fly behind flying flies, the flying flies fly rapidly (“flying fast”).
Some Hungarian prefixes can be piled on without limit, while still creating meaning.
The word “úszni” means “to swim”.
Úsztatni - to make someone or someone swim
Úsztattatni - to make someone make someone swim
Úsztattattattattattattattattattni - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swimCan be done with any verb, and maybe some other suffixes as well.
Wow, that’s wild. Amazing language
It’s basically a mishmash of Ancient Ugric, Turkish, German, Slavic and Romani words with grammar that is an eldritch monstrosity, nobody really knows where it came from, and it is seriously weird.
There are only two real tenses, but nineteen cases and two different ways of doing imperative, which are kind of equivalent but carry cultural and tonal differences in certain contexts.
Strangely enough, this works in Finnish too:
Uida - to swim
Uittaa - to make someone or something swim
Uitattaa - to make someone make someone swim
Uitattattattattattattattattattaa - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swim
It’s almost as if they are related languages or something.
Meanwhile me getting yelled at for using ð and þ
Shavian, right?
Edit: while some might think it nuts (it’s not like GBS was universally received, he was deliberately inconsistent), the idea of rebaselining phonetics from scratch was impressive.
I borrowed some ideas from it in how I use ðem, but ð letters are old english alphabet originals, same for ƿ but ðat would incur ð wraþ of even more annoying prescriptivists
Well, I celebrate your lunacy and perseverance. Maybe go all out in a few comments. It’s like a puzzle.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
I still feel like the nouns are in the wrong place when I read this.
I’m reading it as “New York cows new York cows bully bully New York cows”
When I want it to read “New York cows bully new York cows” which would be “Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” which isn’t enough buffalo.
I have to inset my own “that” to be able to get my head around “Buffalo buffalo (that) Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”
Sometimes we have a do do problem, too. I do do that, anyway.
Yes its called diarrhoea
I present the present as a present to all those present in the present tense.
Incoming James While John
Live footage of me reviewing a report that has a repeated word series like this:
I showed my teacher a flork and now she loves them
Hahaha holy shit, some of them are way the fuck out there
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
