Fellow language nerds, take notice

[willowfinn]

With thanks to my best beloved fellow language nerd, operaben, for sending this my way.

You think English is easy?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce .

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out

Comments

[goldmineguttd]

You think English is easy?

Well, most of the issues listed above are spelling-related- mostly allographs which are purely a written phenomena. I don't think the spoken language is especially difficult. English just has a really loose orthography. A spelling reform would fix everything in a jiffy, but nobody would go for it.

[mechanyx]

A spelling reform would fix heteronym problem but that's it. No regular grammar exists for English because it is not a regular language. Nondeterministic parse trees will continually be problematic for computers "reading" via deterministic algorithms.

[goldmineguttd]

okay your big words trump my big words. That is: huh?

[mechanyx]

Sorry, I've studied a lot of computational theory and discreet mathematics and it fundamentally changed the way I evaluate everything in life. Furthermore, I had some of these classes with Evan Martin who was one of the original LiveJournal engineers and worked (works?) on Google Translate as he was working on a double degree in CS and Linguistics at the time

[mechanyx]

Buick does rhyme with quick.

[willowfinn]

Only in your world, Ricardo.

Hey, wanna maybe come to this with me and Funky tomorrow night?

[mechanyx]

You say that as if some other world matters.

What are gender performers? lol

Uhh, I might have to go to Boston. Also, I'm not really keen on events with tickets (aside from like, ya know, die oper). Why should I pay for something when I can read a book for free?

Yeah, I'm old and lame now.

[willowfinn]

True, books are free, but they seldom have festooned, glittering tits. At least, not the three-dimensional kind. At least, not any books I've been reading lately.

Anyway, you're not old and lame, you're just lame. ;)

[metaplasmus]

It's funny--over the past few years my default reaction to seeing things of this sort (or at least non-orthographic items) has shifted from furious annoyance at the inconsistencies/exceptions of English and ineffectual stomping-around to a vague sense of exuberance that languages in general are diverse and idioms and awkward phrases are awesome because they leave lots of room for nuance and shades of grey and interesting and wonderful expressions and YAY!!!

Also, having looked it up, I now know that "quick" is distantly related to Latin vivus, which also makes me happy.

(Did the soldier in #6 receive his just desert(s)?)

[willowfinn]

You win for most intelligent/least angstily intellectual response to this entry (see above conversation between goldmineguttd and mechanyx). :)

[goldmineguttd]

ah, that totally explains the antiquated meaning of quick- alive (eg "the quick and the dead", biting nails down to the quick, quicksilver)

[magicgoof]

I have absolutely nothing intelligent to say about this post.

[willowfinn]

Haha, quite so! ;)