Here's another:
adverb/adjective - object - verb
(Mean people suck).
Now I am not a native speaker, but I would bet on "adjective - subject - verb" for this one. English is a SVO-language and pretty strict about its word ordering.
It is a bit more complicated than how you presented it, but yes, the generation of grammatical sentences is pretty well understood for most languages.
There are further constraints beyond syntax that could be applied. Verbs tend to come with certain arguments for example. "to drink" is usually applied to some kind of fluid. Semantic Nets could help to narrow down the search space.
Overall, I would guess that a straightforward collection of popular quotes and utterances would suffice, but I don't know. And yes, I would like to see a serious scientific paper about whether common passwords or common pasphrases have higher complexity.
I think the collapse of Communism was a good deal more complex than the claims that Reagan outspent the Soviets.
Which is proven by the fact everybody and his brother claims the be the one who brought the Soviet empire down.
Right-wing Americans claim that Reagan did it.
Conservative Brits contend that Thatcher did it.
Liberal Americans name Jimmy Carter and his focus on human rights issues as the reason for the fall.
Catholics believe the Pope made it happen.
Islamists attribute the collapse to Osama Bin Laden and militant muslims and call Americans arrogant for not acknowledging this
Most Slashdotters see nobody else but Cowboy Neal behind all of this
But I ask you. Can it be a coincidence that the dissolution of the USSR took place in the very year Linus Torvalds posted version 0.0.1 of the Linux kernel on Usenet? I think not. Isn't it obvious? Soviet communism was supposed to be just an immediate form until a new and truly communist society would start to exist. With true communism in the form of Linux out(*), there was no need for the USSR anymore.
You wonder why Americans are so fat, when most of them think carbs are something are bad for you, when hardly any of them can explain what "callories from fat" means.
Well I think that 'not knowing simple and objective facts' is an entirely different category from 'buying into the craze around the newest diet scheme'. The latter is a more general problem, which is also related to superstition, pseudo-science, and so on
Wow. Show me a psychologist that believes that jails are an acceptable form of behavior modification and I'll show you one that has failed Psyc 101. Psychologists study behavior (or at least the behavior of rats and undergrads).
Jails don't modify the behaviour of inmates. (Actually they probably do modify it, but to the worse) Instead they are supposed to modify the behaviour of the rest of us by detering us from choosing crime to achieve our goals.
At least in Austria "abgefackt" (pronounced "upgefucked") means shabby, run-down, worn out etc.
I'm not sure about the etymology of that word. It probably came from english. On the other had, there is an austrian village called "Fucking" (pronounced Fook-ing) and also "Petting".
"abgeraucht" would be a good word as an equivalent for "slashdotted".
You are guilty of the same thing. Unless you were alive during the 1st century AD. I see no proof of your statements.
Proof of which statements? I made three statements about the first century:
Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down.
There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century.
Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.
early christians didn't care about written tradition
Items number one and three are the views of traditional scholars. Even the most bible thumping southern baptist deacon will agree to these two. Just look at the Wikipedia entry about the New Testament
The burden of proof for item number two is not on my side.
Item 4 can be infered from the fact that even though christian churches existed and that they had written works (like the epistels of paul) only a couple of years after jesus allegedly lived, they didn't bother to write anything about jesus down until at least 69 AD. (69 AD is the optimistic dating usually given by traditional scholars for the gospel of mark)
Here is an interesting writeup about the The Formation of the New Testament Canon (2000) by Richard Carrier, an atheist, which contains further support for item 4, if you are interested.
The claims I made about the existance of alternative gospels and that they were selected by the catholic church is again not controversial at all. Ask any catholic priest or consult the catholic encyclopedia. In fact, you can download some alternative gospels from the web. (The gospel of thomas for example)
But these claims are not about the first century anyway.
Are you kidding me? Paul was a Pharisee named Saul before his conversion on the road to Damascus, and his main priority was stomping out the new cult of Christianity in the name of Judaism. He was about as Jewish as they came during that time period.
His father was a pagan. And how did he convert on the road to damascus? By a vision as he claims. He didn't actually meet Jesus on this road. This was after Jesus was allegedly cruzified. So what exactly do you think I am kidding you about?
The pagan influence is usually acknowledged by modern theologians. In fact I'm debating a theologian on another forum right now, who rejects paul altogether.
Since the Bible later identifies the kingdom as the church, refers to Christians already being a part of the kingdom in the past tense rather than future
Later? The gospels are not the earliest texts in the NT. Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down. There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century. (Paul btw. didn't even write anything about the earthly Jesus as a person. He was much more a pagan than a jew and for him, christ was some kind of cosmic vehicle for god to get in contact with men. But that's my interpretation here)
Since christians of the first century didn't care about written narration and prefered oral tradition and personal spiritual inspiration, pre-gospel christians may really have not believed in an immediate rapture, but not for the reasons you cite. The whole idea of the rapture was probably not really popular back then. Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.
The view that early christians believed in an immediate coming of christ is certainly not based on two quotes, but on various historical writings about christianity. There was no homogenous group of early christians anyway. Some were basically jewish sects, some believed in duality, some even performed self-castration, just as Jesus actually demanded in in the gospels. Some believed in the trinity, others didn't. The list goes on.
The texts that actually reamined in the NT were selected by the catholic church, which succeded the power-struggle among christian churches. Of the couple of dozen gospels that were around the remaining four were not selected based on scientific grounds, but because of ideological reasons. This means that the NT was not the set of texts, let alone oral traditions, that early christians had. It was filtered by those who didn't believe in an immediate second coming by the end of the 4th century.
So you see, it is more complicated than picking a couple of quotes to rationalize a position.
This also shows how your approach is futile. You hold a complex, apolegetic interpretation and you furthermore assume that this was the way early christians interpreted it. But you don't know that and you can't show that based just a couple of biblical quotes.
You furthermore assume that biblical texts must present a consistent whole. This assumption is unfounded and therefore not allowed within a historic assessment about the beliefs of early christians.
Whoever wrote Mark 9:1 and Matthew 24:34 believed exactly what these quotes say, namely that Jesus will come back really really soon. Earlier texts saying something else doesn't usually bother religionists at all. Christians don't care about what the OT really says either. The Jesus of the gospels doesn't resemble a jewish messiah for example.
Slashdot Mirror
Right-wing Americans claim that Reagan did it.
Conservative Brits contend that Thatcher did it.
Liberal Americans name Jimmy Carter and his focus on human rights issues as the reason for the fall.
Catholics believe the Pope made it happen.
Islamists attribute the collapse to Osama Bin Laden and militant muslims and call Americans arrogant for not acknowledging this
Most Slashdotters see nobody else but Cowboy Neal behind all of this
But I ask you. Can it be a coincidence that the dissolution of the USSR took place in the very year Linus Torvalds posted version 0.0.1 of the Linux kernel on Usenet? I think not. Isn't it obvious? Soviet communism was supposed to be just an immediate form until a new and truly communist society would start to exist. With true communism in the form of Linux out(*), there was no need for the USSR anymore.
(*) MS' Ballmer: Linux is communism
Yup! That's right. dict.leo.org actually gives "to fume off" as translation for "abrauchen", which is the infinitive of "abgeraucht".
At least in Austria "abgefackt" (pronounced "upgefucked") means shabby, run-down, worn out etc.
I'm not sure about the etymology of that word. It probably came from english. On the other had, there is an austrian village called "Fucking" (pronounced Fook-ing) and also "Petting".
"abgeraucht" would be a good word as an equivalent for "slashdotted".
Proof of which statements? I made three statements about the first century:
Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down.
There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century.
Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.
early christians didn't care about written tradition Items number one and three are the views of traditional scholars. Even the most bible thumping southern baptist deacon will agree to these two. Just look at the Wikipedia entry about the New Testament
The burden of proof for item number two is not on my side.
Item 4 can be infered from the fact that even though christian churches existed and that they had written works (like the epistels of paul) only a couple of years after jesus allegedly lived, they didn't bother to write anything about jesus down until at least 69 AD. (69 AD is the optimistic dating usually given by traditional scholars for the gospel of mark) Here is an interesting writeup about the The Formation of the New Testament Canon (2000) by Richard Carrier, an atheist, which contains further support for item 4, if you are interested.
The claims I made about the existance of alternative gospels and that they were selected by the catholic church is again not controversial at all. Ask any catholic priest or consult the catholic encyclopedia. In fact, you can download some alternative gospels from the web. (The gospel of thomas for example) But these claims are not about the first century anyway.
His father was a pagan. And how did he convert on the road to damascus? By a vision as he claims. He didn't actually meet Jesus on this road. This was after Jesus was allegedly cruzified. So what exactly do you think I am kidding you about?
The pagan influence is usually acknowledged by modern theologians. In fact I'm debating a theologian on another forum right now, who rejects paul altogether.
The claims by Paul that he was a learned pharisee is challenged by some scholars.
The Problem of Paul
Paul's Bungling Attempt At Sounding Pharisaic
Later? The gospels are not the earliest texts in the NT. Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down. There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century. (Paul btw. didn't even write anything about the earthly Jesus as a person. He was much more a pagan than a jew and for him, christ was some kind of cosmic vehicle for god to get in contact with men. But that's my interpretation here) Since christians of the first century didn't care about written narration and prefered oral tradition and personal spiritual inspiration, pre-gospel christians may really have not believed in an immediate rapture, but not for the reasons you cite. The whole idea of the rapture was probably not really popular back then. Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.
The view that early christians believed in an immediate coming of christ is certainly not based on two quotes, but on various historical writings about christianity. There was no homogenous group of early christians anyway. Some were basically jewish sects, some believed in duality, some even performed self-castration, just as Jesus actually demanded in in the gospels. Some believed in the trinity, others didn't. The list goes on.
The texts that actually reamined in the NT were selected by the catholic church, which succeded the power-struggle among christian churches. Of the couple of dozen gospels that were around the remaining four were not selected based on scientific grounds, but because of ideological reasons. This means that the NT was not the set of texts, let alone oral traditions, that early christians had. It was filtered by those who didn't believe in an immediate second coming by the end of the 4th century.
So you see, it is more complicated than picking a couple of quotes to rationalize a position. This also shows how your approach is futile. You hold a complex, apolegetic interpretation and you furthermore assume that this was the way early christians interpreted it. But you don't know that and you can't show that based just a couple of biblical quotes.
You furthermore assume that biblical texts must present a consistent whole. This assumption is unfounded and therefore not allowed within a historic assessment about the beliefs of early christians.
Whoever wrote Mark 9:1 and Matthew 24:34 believed exactly what these quotes say, namely that Jesus will come back really really soon. Earlier texts saying something else doesn't usually bother religionists at all. Christians don't care about what the OT really says either. The Jesus of the gospels doesn't resemble a jewish messiah for example.