| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Friday 22 August 2003: |
A fun bit of grammatical oddness; consider the distinct meanings of the following three sentences:The man with binoculars looked at the girl.Have you considered them? Good. Now look again at the last one, taking it out of the context of the other two. Would you still have attributed the same meaning to it? [14:34] |
| Solistus |
| That's why I hate English. |
| The Dritex |
| Hooray for english and it's crazy sentences. Actually, the first one is also a little different, as it can just be saying that the man has some binoculars, but still isnt using them. |
| Nameless |
| My favourite has always been; Shoot RavenBlack! Shoot, Ravenblack! Wouldn't have these problems if we all spoke Latin. |
| Solistus |
| Latin has its own problems... |
| RavenBlack |
| Mm, the first is more obviously different though, such that it's quite likely to have meant that the man has binoculars and isn't using them, even with the sentence not amongst the others. |
| Tom |
| Hmm. On first reading, I read the last one as something like: The man looked at the girl who was holding binoculars. 'With' just doesn't mean 'using' to me, unless the grammar makes it so. Thus the first one read: The man who was holding binoculars looked at the girl. The second one read: God that's ugly. Hmm. OK. The man looked at the girl, using his binoculars. But why not just say the man used his binoculars to look at the girl? Silly sentence. INTO THE BIN. *crack* |
| SpasmodicMonk |
| Alternatively, we could all just try speaking like a programming language. man.look(binoculars, girl); Where parameter one is the item being used to look at the second parameter with. This would, however, be something of a mouthful to say and make you look like a retard in normal conversation. |
| Gecko |
| The man hit the boy in his eye Now put the word "only" in each of the 8 places it can fit in this sentance (that was an awkward sentance) It's a completly different sentance each time... don't remember where I found that. I agree, latin would be so much easier. |
| RavenBlack |
| It fits in 9 places, doesn't it? I particularly enjoy the last one for being evidently a cut subplot from a James Bond movie. |
| Gecko |
| Oh yeah, 9 places... oops |