you're making your point, but then, it's weaker than it could be

[silent thunder]

You're: contraction of you are: You're an ignorant fuck.

Your: possessive, something belongs to you: Your brain is that of an ignorant fuck.

There: location: Look at those ignorant fucks over there.

Their: possessive: Their opinion is irrelevant as they are ignorant fucks

They're: contraction of they are: They're a bunch of ignorant fucks.

We're: contraction of we are: We're a bunch of ignorant fucks.

Were: past tense of are: We were a bunch of ignorant fucks back then.

Where: a place: Where can I find those ignorant fucks? (oh everywhere)

Then: a point in time: First we had breakfast and then we talked to those ignorant fucks.

Than: comparative: There seem to be more ignorant fucks than there were before.

Two: a fucking number: Look at those two ignorant fucks.

To: motion indicator: I am going over to those ignorant fucks.

Too: also or excessive: Those fucks are too ignorant for words to accurately express.

 

phew... glad to get that off my chest... at least I'm not bitter or angry about it...

Edited August 3, 2014 by silent thunder

[silent thunder]

I wrote this in college, my professor loved it so much she laminated it.

[soaring crane]

conjunction: a part of speech that connects words, sentences, phrases or clauses

 

contraction: a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters (actually, sounds).

 

What college was that again?

[silent thunder]

god that's funny... how much we forget...

thanks for the reminder mate!

[Taomeow]

"Inflammable means flammable?.. What a language!" -- Dr. Nick

[GrandmasterP]

conjunction: a part of speech that connects words, sentences, phrases or clauses

 

contraction: a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters (actually, sounds).

 

What college was that again?

 

Many.

Sadly.

 

[Taomeow]

You're: contraction of you are: You're an ignorant fuck.

 

Your: possessive, something belongs to you: Your brain is that of an ignorant fuck.

 

There: location: Look at those ignorant fucks over there.

 

Their: possessive: Their opinion is irrelevant as they are ignorant fucks

 

They're: contraction of they are: They're a bunch of ignorant fucks.

 

We're: contraction of we are: We're a bunch of ignorant fucks.

 

Were: past tense of are: We were a bunch of ignorant fucks back then.

 

Where: a place: Where can I find those ignorant fucks? (oh everywhere)

 

Then: a point in time: First we had breakfast and then we talked to those ignorant fucks.

 

Than: comparative: There seem to be more ignorant fucks than there were before.

 

Two: a fucking number: Look at those two ignorant fucks.

 

To: motion indicator: I am going over to those ignorant fucks.

 

Too: also or excessive: Those fucks are too ignorant for words to accurately express.

 

phew... glad to get that off my chest... at least I'm not bitter or angry about it...

 

 

Ha, I remember driving my teachers nuts whenever the task was to use a bunch of confusing words in an essay to demonstrate you've learned them correctly, and I'd stick them all in one sentence to save time... like this:

 

You're invited, and take your cats there, their presence is encouraged as long as they're being nice, we're thrilled to meet them -- they were missed where they didn't go the last time, then as now we would welcome more than one of them, and bringing two to our party wouldn't really be too many.

[silent thunder]

I've been teaching my son to read, so this is all coming back out lately.

Context is everything.

 

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm is a place to produce produce.
The dump was full so it has to refuse any more refuse.
You can only present a present in the present.
Would you please polish the Polish furniture?
The soldier had to desert his dessert in the desert.
She painted a bass on her bass drum.
The dove, dove into a bush.
The invalid made a claim that was invalid.
The fans had a row about which row had their seats.
I object to that object.
The wind will not allow us to wind the sail.
He shed a tear over the tear in the sail.
How shall I intimate this to my intimate friend?

[dogson]

Can we get the Lay / Lie edition? =) Good work sir. Make this into an ebook and you could make

ONE MILLION DOLLARS

 

*strokes cat*

[Nungali]

I've been teaching my son to read, so this is all coming back out lately.

Context is everything.

 

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm is a place to produce produce.

The dump was full so it has to refuse any more refuse.

You can only present a present in the present.

Would you please polish the Polish furniture?

The soldier had to desert his dessert in the desert.

She painted a bass on her bass drum.

The dove, dove into a bush.

The invalid made a claim that was invalid.

The fans had a row about which row had their seats.

I object to that object.

The wind will not allow us to wind th

He shed a tear over the tear in the sail.

How shall I intimate this to my intimate friend?

 

 

Im gonna send thise to me Iranian friend .. he thinks English is nutz!.

[Nungali]

Let alone all the other weird language dynamics;

 

 

Teacher: "Jacky-jacky , how do you spell elephant?"

 

JJ; " Ummm ... e ... l ..e ... f.. a.. n ..t."

 

T: "No, thats wrong."

 

JJ; "No, it's right."

 

T; "No! It is wrong! Whay do you keep telling me it is right?

 

JJ; "Because you asked me how I spell it. "

Edited August 4, 2014 by Nungali

[silent thunder]

so much of communication is dependent upon what definition we hold for words and that is flavored by our upbringing and our filters... it's almost as if each word has a unique definition for each person...

 

tone of voice, body language are such a massive influence on communication.

 

words have and embody weak points that tone of voice and body language do not

[Nungali]

Are you having a go at me !

 

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

Not in the slightest my friend I assure you...

I'm usually so lost in my own mind that my wife asks if bibliographies come with some of our conversations...

 

I'm in a wonderful and very whimsical exploration of the nature of the definitions of words, double meanings and how individuals relate to them on a personal and cultural level, if possible.

 

Whether any of that comes across I have no idea, but I assure you, my intentions here are to play, never harm.

 

*bow*

[Taomeow]

 

I'm in a wonderful and very whimsical exploration of the nature of the definitions of words, double meanings and how individuals relate to them on a personal and cultural level, if possible.

 

Whether any of that comes across I have no idea, but I assure you, my intentions here are to play, never harm.

 

*bow*

 

That's a cool pursuit.

 

Check out my last post in the Sobering Facts thread if you have a moment. I originally meant to post it here.

[soaring crane]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

 

Buffalo

 

welcome to English 401 :-)

[GrandmasterP]

Bison

[Brian]

Der ain't no Bison, New Yawk.

 

But there is a Bison Taxi company in Buffalo.

 

Whether they use actual bison as livery vehicles is unclear from their advertisements.

 

EDIT: To make this post quasi-on-topic, I'll add that "ghoti" might spell "fish"

Edited August 4, 2014 by Brian

[GrandmasterP]

There's a Beaver bus company in Leicester.

Motto , signwritten on every bus....

" Ride the Beaver."

[GrandmasterP]

What can't speak, can't lie....

[Taomeow]

With word order being a meaning-conferring feature of grammar, English is straightforward like an army drill. Every word knows its place, its function, and its limitations in a sentence as soon as the drill sergeant barks, "Everybody get in line!" Whether the wether will weather the weather or whether the wether the weather will kill.

 

A language where the word order is optional -- you can stand in line or in line you can refuse to stand (English does take some small liberties, the words can stand at attention or at ease -- but not run around as they please) -- as I was saying, with the word order being optional, instead of an army you get a mob, and organizing a mob is what, e.g., Russian grammar is like. It just doesn't self-organize by rank, and you have to rule a sentence not only by following the rules but often by creating them on the go, in the moment.

 

The bun the waitress brought was stale, and the angry sergeant threw it out the window. In English we have no gender to ascribe to the bun, so it's pretty clear what the angry sergeant did. But in Russian, a waitress is a she but so is the bun, and the sentence goes, The bun the waitress brought was stale, and the angry sergeant threw her out the window. In English it would immediately indicate he threw the waitress out the window. In Russian, it opens both possibilities -- he threw out the bun, or he threw out the waitress, it's up to the listener to decide which. So one has to think harder to avoid ambiguity in Russian, or else hope the listener is smart enough to infer the intended meaning from an inherently ambiguous statement, or else be unclear on purpose if to confuse is the goal.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Taomeow

[soaring crane]

^^ German, same thing. With three genders. Fun stuff!

[Taomeow]

^^ German, same thing. With three genders. Fun stuff!

 

Yeah, German is challenging in its own right (I was supposed to learn it in college, but all I retain is a decent pronunciation that can fool people into believing I also know WHAT to pronounce, LOL). But with genders, you have it easy, all you need is an article in front of the noun to give it a gender, give or take a grammatical suffix here and there, and those are few and follow the rules. In Russian, you change the suffix on the noun six different ways, times three genders, to a total of eighteen options plus you change the suffix on the adjective defining this noun six different ways times three genders, so a foreigner faced with a vocabulary meaning of a "stale bun" is looking at 1/72 of grammatical possibilities of handling it in a sentence, of which only one is correct. And with endless prefixes and morphological suffixes thrown in (the ones that change or augment the meaning of the word rather than its function, which can be stringed together the way in German you string together whole words -- and those strings of prefixes and suffixes around a root also require the grammatical ones for functioning, so you attach those too)... a nightmare.

 

That's a synthetic (as opposed to analytic) language for you. German is a bit of a mix, more synthetic forms than in English, but still not too many, right? Russian is almost purely synthetic (not to confuse with polyester... a linguistic term). Those are to avoid at all costs when choosing a foreign language to learn. Chinese is a breeze by comparison. Purely analytic.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Taomeow

[GrandmasterP]

Some claim that German lends itself to writing academic philosophy better than English does.

More and subtler nuances.

Edited August 4, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Nungali]

^^ German, same thing. With three genders. Fun stuff!

 

 

... what does a 3 gender German bun taste like ?