Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

It's an important distinction because language rules evolve from
speakers, while spelling rules are codified by so-called experts.
Thus, a lot of people say "a whole nother" without thinking about how
it's spelled, and one can debate whether splitting a word like that in
spoken language is not ok, just as it's theoretically not ok to
gratuitously split an infinitive. It's also worth noting that English
is a Germanic language, and in German, words and infinitives are split
and moved around all the time.

John wrote:It's an important distinction because language rules evolve from
speakers, while spelling rules are codified by so-called experts.
Thus, a lot of people say "a whole nother" without thinking about how
it's spelled, and one can debate whether splitting a word like that in
spoken language is not ok, just as it's theoretically not ok to
gratuitously split an infinitive. It's also worth noting that English
is a Germanic language, and in German, words and infinitives are split
and moved around all the time.

I love linguists,.. and those who deal with "code" are, by definition, linguists (Probably the best, and worst, linguists). I fancy myself a LONGtime amateur linguist, and super-amateur coder, so, yeah, (your) insights (are) appreciated.

What're your thoughts on "contextual autocomplete" in IDEs? I love 'em, 'cuz my memory for low frequency vocabulary rather sucks.

Anyway, the organic language of "the locals" is MUCH more interesting to me than it's orthography, except where the spelling rules are geared toward accurately describing the spoken language. That's why "odd" languages like Gaeilge (Irish) and HCL (Hawai'ian Creole Language, or Hawai'ian Pidgin) are my "passion" (however low-grade that passion may be). Conlangs are fun too, of course.

But the "flexibility" of English, it's noun-ifying verbs and verb-ifying nouns for example, make it both a dream and a horror show. I like dreams and horror shows, so that's just fine with me.

And to NOT non-gratuitously split some infinitives (which IS splitting the "to split" infinitive!) is actually painful, so it's not NOT happening! "Illustrative" double negatives are also quite fun!


Aloha a me mahalo! <shaka!>

It's also noting worth that English a language Germanic is, and in
German are words and infinitives all the time split and around moved.

John wrote:It's also noting worth that English a language Germanic is, and in
German are words and infinitives all the time split and around moved.

Love the verb-last thing. Fun it is to like that talk, ja? Languages that "mark" the parts of speech, and thereby let anything go anywhere, which is "kinda" where English is going, are also lots o' fun. The engineer in me likes the "more" unambiguous languages, while the more fuzzy languages appeal to my poetic side. That's why we should ALL be multilingual.

My favorite "to play with" languages are both VSO word-order languages ("Loves she him"). Those would be ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and Gaeilge (Hawai'ian and Irish). Putting the verb first seems to maximally bend my Germanic-ish tending mind, which is probably why I was drawn to them (being something of a linguistic masochist).

(( And I really DID try so hard to grok inheritance in C++!! ))

..that, plus putting the adjective after the noun. Irish and Hawai'ian also seem to be on opposite ends of the "complexity" scale, as there are some CRAZY sound and spelling changes in Irish, while it's hard to find a more "simple" sound and spelling system than the Hawai'ian one.

Anyway,.. the Pakistani's playing both sides is probably a good thing. It shows that they aren't entirely captured within the "China-Shia" sphere as yet, and that "switch" definitely needs to be pulled before our little show can move on to the next phase.


Aloha no! <shaka!>