Whoops, sorry! I just got done writing a long post in response to some guy trying to prescribe English grammar, and jumped at the chance to agree with someone on this thread! I jumped a little too early, I see ^_^
Probably because it worked like that in Latin or Greek and they're 'Proper' languages, so therefore English must be shoehorned into following their rules.
Interesting you should say that -- it's exactly why we have that "thou shalt not split thy infinitive" rule in English -- it comes from Latin. It is an unnecessary rule, I might add, as some English constructs require a split infinitive. For example, "We expect our output to more than double in a year." Try combining the infinitive and keeping the English sounding normal! This quotation, and other information on the origin and analysis of this rule in English, try http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/059.html.
in grammer? Well there are probably several dozen grammer nazis reading this post that can atest that there is nothing easy about the English grammer. In fact several of the grammer nazis will correct what the last grammer nazi did wrong.
Newsflash! People are not as smart as they think they are! English has an interesting position in the language world -- there are those that believe that there is only one way to speak a language correctly, and they know this correct way; yet there is no body governing the English language like there is the French Academy for French.
Furthermore, I teach English, and it is not so hard to learn the grammar. Most complexities come from colloqualisms. Furthermore, the complex grammar (college-level) is as difficult as many other languages' complex grammars (I speak two other languages -- both learned -- so I am aware of the difficulties in learning high-level grammars).
Certainly English is easy to spell so long as you remember that there are no rules except that there are exceptions to every rule.
Most language have these exceptions. In Japanese, for instance, 'hana' can mean 'flower' or 'nose' depending on the pitch of the two syllables 'ha' and 'na' in relation to each other. And, yes, they are written the same. There are hundreds of these in Japanese alone. Korean is the same. In Chinese, you don't even know the pronunciation of a word you have read unless you've been taught it, because there is hardly any pronunciation help encoded into the hanzi writing system! Additionally, some characters that you have been taught change meaning AND pronunciation, despite being written the same! The only example I can think of off the top of my head (I'm not native by any means) is the 'large' character typically pronounced 'da' with a falling (4th) tone. However, in 'doctor' it is pronounced 'dai4'. There are others that I once learned, but have since forgot. Moving away from Asian languages, Spanish has a regular set of pronunciation and accentuation rules, but there are exceptions. For example, I was at a restaurant the other day and ordered the El Guero. Spanish pronunciation rules tell you it contains the pronunciation 'ge' like in 'get'. However, it is sometimes written with a diaraesis above the 'u' to remind you that it is actually 'gwe' as in 'Gwen'. I could go on and on about many different languages and their breakage of spelling rules.
There was an article I read about a linguist who derived pronunciation rules for English that were accurate somewhere around 95% of the time -- that's a highly accurate pronunciation system!
maybe it is intuitive? Certainly, after all you have minimum, maximum, and then... middlemum (my 3 year old came up with that one when trying to explain the average of something to us).
Oh, there's a shock -- your three-year old can't speak perfect English. I spend time with a 3-year old Japanese girl because she is a friend's daughter -- my Japanese grammar is better than hers, and I'm not a native speaker, because she is three years old. Also, there is a word called 'medium'. And these words are not the fault of English -- I suspect you should take your problems outside with Latin on that one.
in speech? Based on the number of lawyers we have around and the lengths of even the smallest legal document needed to clearly expain a common sense topic I see no way of descibing English speech as easy (not to use or understand).
Have you ever glanced at legal documents in other languages? They are just as complex as English documents. The problem with spoken language is that it was not created to be logically perfect -- it developed in order to allow people to express themselves. If a langauge was truly as hard to learn as people make it out to be, there would be no advantage to learning one, as it would take 20 years of non-speech before we could master it!
All that being said, I did enjoy your poem, and do agree that mastering English is diffic
By your definition, any time anyone does something they don't want to do, they are "coerced". So I am being "coerced" by the government not to commit murder because if I did, they would throw me in jail for the rest of my life. Right?
Holy shit! You're admitting that you want to commit murder!
If you think real hard about the GPL, what is its goal but to bring about a world where all code freely flows in an unlimited fashion, because once all code flows freely, the GPL will not be restricting anything. In the meantime, it is a tool to bring about this world.
So, the GPL is, indeed, compatible with the belief in an open, unencumbered world of code. It just uses law to bring about the lack of need for law.
No. You do not have a right to benefit from its creation. You have a right to try to benefit from its creation. That's like saying I have a right to benefit from the dump I took this morning. I have a right to attempt to benefit, but noone is required to purchase my material (fecal at that).
Now, I suspect that you really meant that you have a right to attempt to benefit, but I felt like correcting you because I think people in this world now feel they are entitled to happiness instead of the pursuit of it.
But what Vonage has is not a real dialtone. A real dialtone is something that uses the phone system. Vonage is an internet system (granted, some internet goes over phone lines). What if I make a box that plays a wav of a dialtone? Should that be illegal because it doesn't actually dial 911?
How about Vonage shouldn't be required to provide 911 service. If you don't like it, don't sign up. It's that simple.
Now, if Vonage says "hey we have 911 service" but they really don't, then it's a problem.
The real number isn't a state secret. I had my hometown numbers written down. Additionally, when a friend I was chatting with online threatened to commit suicide, my local 911 freely gave me the phone number to 911 service in another town. My friend is alive and well today.
I don't want to get into an argument over evolution, but you have had your say, and I didn't bother to read anything past "evolution is a 'fact'". How do you know? You say that species didn't just spring up. Agreed. But couldn't they have existed without us knowing about them?
There is always that possibility, however remote it may be.
I don't know who would be the final authority, but I'm pretty sure that it's called the "theory of evolution". In fact, googling for "evolution" brings up the "theory of evolution" first, and on PBS, mind you. Not a religious station.
Until you can demonstrate evolution, it is a theory. Need I mention gravity is also a theory. Just because it's 99.9% probable doesn't mean it's a fact. It's still a theory.
The problem with your response to Pascal's dilemma is that if #1 is true, then you have spent your entire existence believing in some fucking fairy tale rather than something like the truth. Meaning you've turned off a part of your brain, of your own free will, for the duration of your time here on earth. Pardon me if I think self-imposed stupidity is not the most noble of aims.
I would rather risk believing in something that was not true, which brought me no harm, than risk burning for eternity. Think about it. That is a pretty long time. That being said, feel free to discount what I'm saying as mad ravings. I'm not trying to convert anyone here. I'm merely responding to your rhetoric with mine.
I'll reword what you said but change a few words, OK?
The problem with your response to Pascal's dilemma is that if #2 is true, then you have spent your entire existence believing in some fucking fairytale rather than something like the truth. Meaning you've turned off a part of your brain, of your own free will, for the duration of your time here on earth. Pardon me if I think self-imposed immorality is not the most noble of aims.
That being said, I don't necessarily think that non-Christians are immoral. But to write off an entire belief system as a "fucking fairytale" because you didn't experience it is idiotic.
All that being said, I am glad that I know who to "foe" now. Thank you for that.
That is, you might just be willing to accept words written down by some anonymous person a few thousand years ago with who knows what kind of agenda (and edited and approved by various self-appointed authorities in the meantime) over the use of your own critical faculties and scientific knowledge in your understanding of the world.
I think this is funny, coming from someone who posted AC. Furthermore, I suppose you have performed every science experiment to verify that what you were taught in school is true. I especially hope that you have yourself verified the theory of evolution -- oh wait, that's right...it's a theory. Don't get me wrong, I believe evolution is an adequate theory to describe many phenomena, but to assume it's true because it makes the most sense is not logical at all.
I therefore postulate that you have checked your intelligence at the door. Some people believe in the Bible for reasons other than what they were taught.
If you want something that makes sense -- When I die that is either 1) the end of me. Period. 2) a stopping point before another realm/life/whatever you want to call it.
If 2 is true, but the punishment for not believing in it is eternal damnation, I sure as hell am going to try to believe in #2!
That makes a lot of sense, even logical sense. This isn't why I believe the Bible, but saying the Bible isn't true because it wasn't personally experienced by the reader is pure horseshit. It's posts like yours, Mr. AC, which normally cause me to "foe" someone, but seeing as how you posted AC, I can't do anything about it but change my settings so I only see highly modded posts.
The only way anyone has been foed by me so far is by posting anti-Bible bullshit. If you want to try to disprove the Bible, use logic, not rhetoric./breathes
Slashdot Mirror
Your graphic description of octopi pulling
I think you missed the whole point of his post (octopi are not squids)
...move to an apartment next year.
Fun fact 3: no one thinks the Swedish Chef speaks Swedish.
Whoops, sorry! I just got done writing a long post in response to some guy trying to prescribe English grammar, and jumped at the chance to agree with someone on this thread! I jumped a little too early, I see ^_^
Probably because it worked like that in Latin or Greek and they're 'Proper' languages, so therefore English must be shoehorned into following their rules.
Interesting you should say that -- it's exactly why we have that "thou shalt not split thy infinitive" rule in English -- it comes from Latin. It is an unnecessary rule, I might add, as some English constructs require a split infinitive. For example, "We expect our output to more than double in a year." Try combining the infinitive and keeping the English sounding normal! This quotation, and other information on the origin and analysis of this rule in English, try http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/059.html.
in grammer? Well there are probably several dozen grammer nazis reading this post that can atest that there is nothing easy about the English grammer. In fact several of the grammer nazis will correct what the last grammer nazi did wrong.
Newsflash! People are not as smart as they think they are! English has an interesting position in the language world -- there are those that believe that there is only one way to speak a language correctly, and they know this correct way; yet there is no body governing the English language like there is the French Academy for French.
Furthermore, I teach English, and it is not so hard to learn the grammar. Most complexities come from colloqualisms. Furthermore, the complex grammar (college-level) is as difficult as many other languages' complex grammars (I speak two other languages -- both learned -- so I am aware of the difficulties in learning high-level grammars).
Certainly English is easy to spell so long as you remember that there are no rules except that there are exceptions to every rule.
Most language have these exceptions. In Japanese, for instance, 'hana' can mean 'flower' or 'nose' depending on the pitch of the two syllables 'ha' and 'na' in relation to each other. And, yes, they are written the same. There are hundreds of these in Japanese alone. Korean is the same. In Chinese, you don't even know the pronunciation of a word you have read unless you've been taught it, because there is hardly any pronunciation help encoded into the hanzi writing system! Additionally, some characters that you have been taught change meaning AND pronunciation, despite being written the same! The only example I can think of off the top of my head (I'm not native by any means) is the 'large' character typically pronounced 'da' with a falling (4th) tone. However, in 'doctor' it is pronounced 'dai4'. There are others that I once learned, but have since forgot. Moving away from Asian languages, Spanish has a regular set of pronunciation and accentuation rules, but there are exceptions. For example, I was at a restaurant the other day and ordered the El Guero. Spanish pronunciation rules tell you it contains the pronunciation 'ge' like in 'get'. However, it is sometimes written with a diaraesis above the 'u' to remind you that it is actually 'gwe' as in 'Gwen'. I could go on and on about many different languages and their breakage of spelling rules.
There was an article I read about a linguist who derived pronunciation rules for English that were accurate somewhere around 95% of the time -- that's a highly accurate pronunciation system!
maybe it is intuitive? Certainly, after all you have minimum, maximum, and then... middlemum (my 3 year old came up with that one when trying to explain the average of something to us).
Oh, there's a shock -- your three-year old can't speak perfect English. I spend time with a 3-year old Japanese girl because she is a friend's daughter -- my Japanese grammar is better than hers, and I'm not a native speaker, because she is three years old. Also, there is a word called 'medium'. And these words are not the fault of English -- I suspect you should take your problems outside with Latin on that one.
in speech? Based on the number of lawyers we have around and the lengths of even the smallest legal document needed to clearly expain a common sense topic I see no way of descibing English speech as easy (not to use or understand).
Have you ever glanced at legal documents in other languages? They are just as complex as English documents. The problem with spoken language is that it was not created to be logically perfect -- it developed in order to allow people to express themselves. If a langauge was truly as hard to learn as people make it out to be, there would be no advantage to learning one, as it would take 20 years of non-speech before we could master it!
All that being said, I did enjoy your poem, and do agree that mastering English is diffic
I also forgot to tell you that it is former/latter, not former/later.
Let this be a lesson to you:
The former conveys far more elequance of speech than the later, thus setting the stage for productive communication.
If you're going to prescribe language like you seem to do, never, ever make a misspelling.
omgwtfbbq!!
You get +200 mod points for that.
interest in the occult - some of his classmates have begun playing Dungeons and Dragons and listening to KISS.
Can you people who are responding not tell it's a joke? Unless this was written 30 years ago or so!
Oh yeah, but in Soviet Australia, the T-Rex clones you!
By your definition, any time anyone does something they don't want to do, they are "coerced". So I am being "coerced" by the government not to commit murder because if I did, they would throw me in jail for the rest of my life. Right?
Holy shit! You're admitting that you want to commit murder!
If you think real hard about the GPL, what is its goal but to bring about a world where all code freely flows in an unlimited fashion, because once all code flows freely, the GPL will not be restricting anything. In the meantime, it is a tool to bring about this world.
So, the GPL is, indeed, compatible with the belief in an open, unencumbered world of code. It just uses law to bring about the lack of need for law.
No. You do not have a right to benefit from its creation. You have a right to try to benefit from its creation. That's like saying I have a right to benefit from the dump I took this morning. I have a right to attempt to benefit, but noone is required to purchase my material (fecal at that).
Now, I suspect that you really meant that you have a right to attempt to benefit, but I felt like correcting you because I think people in this world now feel they are entitled to happiness instead of the pursuit of it.
But what Vonage has is not a real dialtone. A real dialtone is something that uses the phone system. Vonage is an internet system (granted, some internet goes over phone lines). What if I make a box that plays a wav of a dialtone? Should that be illegal because it doesn't actually dial 911?
How about Vonage shouldn't be required to provide 911 service. If you don't like it, don't sign up. It's that simple.
Now, if Vonage says "hey we have 911 service" but they really don't, then it's a problem.
The real number isn't a state secret. I had my hometown numbers written down. Additionally, when a friend I was chatting with online threatened to commit suicide, my local 911 freely gave me the phone number to 911 service in another town. My friend is alive and well today.
my first slashdot post a flame was said by Cruithne (658153).
/. for over three years without ever making a post?!?
Jesus Christ, what have you been doing being signed up to
Finlandish computer guy
It's actually "Finnish" not "Finlandish".
I feel the need to point out you didn't get foed because you are not Christian. You got foed because of your obvious contempt for it.
I don't want to get into an argument over evolution, but you have had your say, and I didn't bother to read anything past "evolution is a 'fact'". How do you know? You say that species didn't just spring up. Agreed. But couldn't they have existed without us knowing about them?
There is always that possibility, however remote it may be.
I don't know who would be the final authority, but I'm pretty sure that it's called the "theory of evolution". In fact, googling for "evolution" brings up the "theory of evolution" first, and on PBS, mind you. Not a religious station.
Until you can demonstrate evolution, it is a theory. Need I mention gravity is also a theory. Just because it's 99.9% probable doesn't mean it's a fact. It's still a theory.
The problem with your response to Pascal's dilemma is that if #1 is true, then you have spent your entire existence believing in some fucking fairy tale rather than something like the truth. Meaning you've turned off a part of your brain, of your own free will, for the duration of your time here on earth. Pardon me if I think self-imposed stupidity is not the most noble of aims.
I would rather risk believing in something that was not true, which brought me no harm, than risk burning for eternity. Think about it. That is a pretty long time. That being said, feel free to discount what I'm saying as mad ravings. I'm not trying to convert anyone here. I'm merely responding to your rhetoric with mine.
I'll reword what you said but change a few words, OK?
The problem with your response to Pascal's dilemma is that if #2 is true, then you have spent your entire existence believing in some fucking fairytale rather than something like the truth. Meaning you've turned off a part of your brain, of your own free will, for the duration of your time here on earth. Pardon me if I think self-imposed immorality is not the most noble of aims.
That being said, I don't necessarily think that non-Christians are immoral. But to write off an entire belief system as a "fucking fairytale" because you didn't experience it is idiotic.
All that being said, I am glad that I know who to "foe" now. Thank you for that.
That is, you might just be willing to accept words written down by some anonymous person a few thousand years ago with who knows what kind of agenda (and edited and approved by various self-appointed authorities in the meantime) over the use of your own critical faculties and scientific knowledge in your understanding of the world.
/breathes
I think this is funny, coming from someone who posted AC. Furthermore, I suppose you have performed every science experiment to verify that what you were taught in school is true. I especially hope that you have yourself verified the theory of evolution -- oh wait, that's right...it's a theory. Don't get me wrong, I believe evolution is an adequate theory to describe many phenomena, but to assume it's true because it makes the most sense is not logical at all.
I therefore postulate that you have checked your intelligence at the door. Some people believe in the Bible for reasons other than what they were taught.
If you want something that makes sense --
When I die that is either
1) the end of me. Period.
2) a stopping point before another realm/life/whatever you want to call it.
If 2 is true, but the punishment for not believing in it is eternal damnation, I sure as hell am going to try to believe in #2!
That makes a lot of sense, even logical sense. This isn't why I believe the Bible, but saying the Bible isn't true because it wasn't personally experienced by the reader is pure horseshit. It's posts like yours, Mr. AC, which normally cause me to "foe" someone, but seeing as how you posted AC, I can't do anything about it but change my settings so I only see highly modded posts.
The only way anyone has been foed by me so far is by posting anti-Bible bullshit. If you want to try to disprove the Bible, use logic, not rhetoric.
Where? I want to read that!
It's eyes glow with the fire of a thousand burning human fetuses and umbilical cords in little jars full of ungodly preservatives!
fvukk youu ivommmited on myckeyboard!!1!
Jiminy Shnikies, why don't these guys just use a freakin' robots.txt in the root of their website?!?
evenly matched (like KDE and GNOME)
/me ducks
"Evenly matched"? Come on, we all know Gnome is better!