Posts by Islander
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David, that was truly an awesome post!
I loved it - because it is yet another window into a world I revere/relish/wish-to-inhabit - and I cant. Put a dive-mask on me and I have instant claustraphobia...but your pics! Tino pai! And the manta rays...long let out of breath-
I cant envy you, just enjoy what you have posted.Side comment: anyone read a somewhat rare book called "The Girl From The Sea Of Cortez"? The only novel I know of that has a manta ray as it hero...by Peter Benchley. Yeah, the 'Jaws' writer...
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I wasnt going to post again in this thread but a couple of gems from BenWilson need laughing at:
"I dont actually think it would require any kind of large project, just a change in attitude towards tolerance in English to newer, simpler, foreign influenced forms. And a willingness to use them."
Do read a couple of histories of the English language, BenWilson, and then contemplate just how likely it is that this will *ever* happen.
"As for how lamentable it is that lanuages die...well yup. It is. But that's not enough reason to not try to communicate with your fellow
man better."Does your fellow man actually want to communicate with you in a creolised bastard form of English though? I rather suspect that 99.9% of humanity want to keep their own linguistic riches, develope them, and continue happily using translators & translation devices if they want access to other languages.
This human is out of this thread permanatly now, but thanks for the LOL moments. Kia ora tatou-
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In *written* English, correct punctuation can be crucial - in writeen Maori, aside from macrons, not so. I have a passing familiarity with French (just about past, actually) and I dont know any other languages.
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O Giovanni! First HelenKellerish spotted in this wild!
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BenWilson- ever since languages occurred (and they happen, and have been developed in other species, not just in hominims/hominoids)they get made more complex. Bee dances. Crow-talk. Amerslan.
The human race has coped perfectly well with tone-languages, visual languages, whistled languages, sign languages. We make 'em and then we- complicate them.
Your dreams are futile, and also, rather ill-thought-out.
They kind of reek of "If We Could Talk To The Animals"-
or The Tower of Babel.
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and e e is one of my linguistic heroes-
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Coming to you as a gift from Maori English - "youse all."
Not just 'you' (koe) or 'youse' (korua +) but koutou katoa! -
O, and I love the shark anecdotes!
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"English becoming progressively simpler would be a good thing for everybody."
O no it bloody well wouldnt!
There already *is* simple English. It gets you around most English-speaking countries.
And then there is dialectual Englishry- it's in-talk, like cant & guild talk, or the very precise and specific terms used by -medical people/lawyers/bureaucrats/philosophers/fishers et al. It is meant to denote a certain group. It is meant to be a bit exclusive. "Shy a goolie at that berloody kuri." "I loathe double-vowel orthography."
"Fuck, you've already got a pint?!"And then there is my heart & mind passion - deep English. Which has the biggest word hoard of any extant language. Which has rules that are breached often (Russell mentioned the "i before e except after c" one: off the top of my head I can think of rein & meitosis and give us some time - there are many more than those.)
Which grows, galumphing along at the rate of about 20 new words a day - and keeps all the currently dis-used ones lying around in a huge number of dictionaries.It needs a lifetime to learn - a bit of it. As both writer & reader, I will keep on learning it until I die.
And that is an important point: readers have many needs (e.g from the politician or bureacrat requiring an accurate succinct briefing, to the charge nurse needing full up-to-date observations and notes, to the fanfic devotee wanting a looong fix.) No one brand suits all.
Complexity rulz 'k?