Posts by linger
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It would be even better if the ball were to explode at *timed* intervals.
"There's just 20 seconds remaining on the timer now as the bowler starts his run-up, so I'd be predicting a real pace ball...
The batsman will of course be looking to hit this as far away from him as he can...
He's sent it straight back to the bowler, we could see a caught and bowled here...
Oh, dearie me, that could only be called unfortunate" -
Islander wrote:
We make [languages] and then we- complicate them. Your dreams are futile
--not least because any living language, used in a social setting, has to be able to encode social signals as well as referential meaning. Hence, for example, Ben's range of drink offers: there are always different ways to say nominally the "same" thing in a fully developed language, though they may differ slightly in social message, emphasis, or presupposition.
@Steve: In most languages, gender distinctions between noun classes are to some extent arbitrary, and not based solely on meaning distinctions -- though there is usually still some correlation between, e.g. "masculine gender" and masculine referent, or "feminine gender" and feminine referent. Remembering which noun belongs to which class is notoriously difficult for second language learners, but is no big deal for first language acquisition because that arbitrary classification can be picked up simultaneously with the words and the concepts they express. The classification itself may not be very helpful for meaning in most instances (which is why English was able to lose it). But if you have a way of marking agreement between nouns and adjectives, then that allows considerably more freedom in how you can position those in a sentence without creating ambiguity (as there may still be only one noun that that particular form of the adjective could go with).
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Grace before meat
The cover shows a woman, presumably Grace, with some guy standing immediately behind her, who is then, presumably, the other referent.
Otherwise: wot Sacha said. -
Gio, macrons are part of the officially supported orthographic system for Ma:ori, but other systems are also possible. (The one I've just used is completely non-standard for that particular language, but is used by linguists to signify vowel length.) Not marking the length distinction at least in some way is certainly a spelling error, akin to leaving off "silent e" from the ends of English words, and with similar effects on meaning. That'd be a linguistic issue, not a cultural issue. But not marking the length distinction specifically by using a macron isn't in itself a "cultural awareness" issue, so much as merely a deliberate choice (perhaps forced by technological limits) to follow another convention.
You are right that ignoring the length distinction can't be called a "mistake" if the omission is done deliberately. And if it is deliberate, then that may be down to lack of cultural awareness. But you can't always tell that just by looking at the finished product on the page or screen.
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Is that a bungy or a wedgie?
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why not invest in a brightly coloured plastic crate and keep SFW Asterix & Tintin at ground level and well away from the *ahem* grown-up picture books?
That would be the brightly coloured plastic crate that the littlie can climb up on and use to reach the higher shelves?
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OMGWTFBBQ indeed.
Though for pronunciation purposes, may I suggest: fubarbeque. -
I had in mind more the pocket protectors of the automotive world, for this special purpose. Those qualifiers were important -- I wasn't saying all electric vehicles are intrinsically short-range or limited in speed. But it's gonna be a real pain being an early adopter ofelectric cars in the NZ market until a critical market share is reached, and this might be a way forward :-) But still, you're right, there could be perverse consequences.
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Bugger the monetary cost: crushing functional cars is environmentally wasteful. I'd be more in favour of forced sale, and replacement (and possibly, payment of price differential if applicable) by a short-range, speed-limited electric vehicle. Though of course that would go against so many consumer freedoms...
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"an era of relative stability"
You know, you could have saved us both a lot of work if you'd said that to begin with :-)