zenicurean ([info]zenicurean) wrote,
@ 2009-06-05 06:47:00
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Current music:The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

He will then proceed to settle the generic "they" thing.
Like most languages enamored with prepositions, English is entirely dedicated to the art of concealing where things actually are. A casual tourist will discover that doing things around the house does not involve rakes, restaurant cars supposedly situated on trains don't require grappling hooks to access, fighting over something doesn't mean you have to be able to fly, and so on. Often it takes ages for a reasonable person to figure out that the words "to" and "from" only have the most tenuous and metaphorical relationship with the physical world.

But the real affront is what's called preposition stranding, which, much like all known Polish, is to language roughly what Cthulhu is to geometry. What you do is that you take these tiny little words you can never get straight, sever them from their beloved nouns with a hacksaw, and then sort of casually throw them around the sentence in order to cleverly mislead your enemies.

Using the dread Necronomicon, I intend to raise the hungry spirit of Japanese Horror Movie Bishop Robert Lowth. He will then proceed to haunt the English-speaking world, wailing and moaning most piteously in Latin, until such time as everyone agrees to fix this. This is the sort of chicanery up with which we shall not put.



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[info]eastertheatre
2009-06-05 07:50 am UTC (link)
I think prepositions are the most random and hard to learn part of many languages, at least the ones I've studied!

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[info]Daniel [oeconomist.com]
2009-06-05 08:30 am UTC (link)
In Greek, the translation of a preposition couldn't be separated from the case-form of the substantive. For example, μετα followed by a genitive would typically mean with, but followed by an accusative would typically mean after.

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 05:49 pm UTC (link)
They are the Devil's own little wordlings, I say.

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[info]Daniel [oeconomist.com]
2009-06-05 08:23 am UTC (link)
Many prepositions began life as adverbs, and some still display adverbial behavior.

My writing style is such that it is fairly rare for me to place a preposition anywhere other than immediately in front of the substantive with which it is primarily associated (or of the articles and adjectives thereöf). And, when I do use a preposition adverbially, I am mostly likely to attached it to its verb with a hyphen (eg going-on).

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 05:48 pm UTC (link)
That's quite classical of you, I feel. And speaking of conservative writing, I've also noted your penchant for the diaeresis, which I thought was more or less extinct these days.

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[info]Daniel [oeconomist.com]
2009-06-06 02:35 am UTC (link)
The relatively distinctive features of my orthography are mostly just a matter of having fun, though the grave accents sometimes make more immediately clear what I'm saying. But the relatively distinctive features of my use of grammar are mostly serious choices.

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[info]charlycrash
2009-06-05 08:45 am UTC (link)
My favourite example of the silliness of English is the following puzzle.

Make a sentence that makes perfect sense out of the following, by just adding punctuation:

"Smith where Jones had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner's approval"

(or variations).

I pity anyone who has to learn our deeply silly language.

Edited at 2009-06-05 08:45 am UTC

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[info]charlycrash
2009-06-05 08:57 am UTC (link)
Oh, and Japanese has a similar sort of thing, although mercifully in not nearly as profligate a manner as English does.

For example, when speaking in Japanese one speaks de Japanese, and travels de buses. But one also can do something de alone, or de one's hands. I suppose the best translation is "using" (in the case of being alone, one is waling around using aloneness, if you will), but considering it's a particle rather than a verb, it can be a bit confusing.

I've been learning Japanese for over a decade and I still don't understand the difference between (w)o and ni. One eats wo food and lives ni Japan, but ni doesn't mean "in" - "in" is naka no [container] ni. Usually I just go with one or the other and hope for the best.

Oh, and Japanese has at least six different ways of saying "you", and counts every kind of object in a different way. English nouns become verbs in Japanese and vice-versa. Pronouns become place names, verbs become tentacled wolves, the Sun turns to a seething inky vortex in the sky and Rlyeh rises along with our eternal dark lord.

There's a story that St. Francis Xavier, one of the earliest Christian missionaries to Japan, wrote back to Rome that Japanese had been specifically created by Satan to hinder the spreading of the word of God to the heathen Japanese. I think everyone who's tried tackling the language has felt the same at at least one point.

And you know, it's still not as irrational and horrible a language as English is.


(sorry about endless edits)

Edited at 2009-06-05 09:01 am UTC

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[info]hellmutt
2009-06-05 01:20 pm UTC (link)
I want a tentacled wolf. I'd tentacled wolf it.

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[info]hellmutt
2009-06-05 11:28 am UTC (link)
I frickin' fear prepositions in Finnish.

English ones lack rhyme or reason too, of course.

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 05:32 pm UTC (link)
The few Finnish prepositions are only noteworthy because half the time the noun then gets fielded in the famous "goddammit why does this have to be so goddamned vague" case. Most of the time it's just postpositions galore. Which is surely much more sensible. Ahem.

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Eh?
[info]js_africanus
2009-06-05 01:47 pm UTC (link)
Is that the sort of nonsense up with which you cannot put?

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Re: Eh?
[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 05:15 pm UTC (link)
Quite so. Far be it from me, of course, to try and impose the Latin on the Germanic willy-nilly. (That's what the late Bishop Lowth is there for.)

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[info]ragnarok20
2009-06-05 04:15 pm UTC (link)
From what I remember of our run-ins throughout various philosophy communities on lj, I am surprised you would want to be friends with me. Though I admit that I could be misremembering...

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 05:13 pm UTC (link)
I always like to think actual agreement with my bizarre prejudices is entirely non-mandatory.

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[info]ragnarok20
2009-06-05 05:44 pm UTC (link)
That aside, I thought they'd been more hostile, though I could be confusing you with [info]i_am_lane or one of the others prominent in those communities.

So, what prompted you to add me?

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-05 06:15 pm UTC (link)
I wander around adding people who I feel can write, and if that involves making one's arguments dispassionately, that's always a plus. A lot of the people on my friends list I often vehemently disagree with, but will always read out of interest. I also seem to recall you got on well with [info]autobeast, before he disappeared into the dark reaches of the Intarwebs, and that's a good sign too.

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[info]ragnarok20
2009-06-05 06:55 pm UTC (link)
Well, I'll warn you that my journal is not often about arguments or real issues. It's more me venting about work or my life in journal...I like to think that, at the very least, I can argue for all sides and understand the point of view while still thinking it's wrong.

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[info]matrexius
2009-06-05 10:12 pm UTC (link)
A casual tourist will discover that doing things around the house does not involve rakes, restaurant cars supposedly situated on trains don't require grappling hooks to access, fighting over something doesn't mean you have to be able to fly, and so on.

This sentence is a work of art.

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[info]zenicurean
2009-06-06 07:46 pm UTC (link)
What more, it's all true!

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