348
I hate that that happens (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 month ago
[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

It's a travesty that the rules of English allow such confusing phrasing, but they do do that.

[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago

Heh, you said do do

[-] gibmiser@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Heheheheheheheheheheheheheh

[-] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Showing these flaws is the grammarians duty. And it's a big duty.

[-] kieron115@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago

Thanks, I hate it.

[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 18 points 1 month ago

There are times in which I must lean heavily upon synonyms and rephrasing in order to avoid such unpleasant grammar.

[-] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 month ago

I swear I'm not just saying this to be a contrarian, but I've always genuinely loved these silly little quirks of the English language.

[-] kaffiene@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago
[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago

Defensible sentence technically, but I think it's actually plausible with three hads and the second past perfect makes the sentence unnatural.

[-] Xanthrax@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

At least we don't have honorifics (too bad) or gender based grammar. TELL ME WHY MY DESK IS MALE IN GERMAN. I also like our prefix, root word, and suffix system. Also, wait until you hear about "ma" in Mandarin. I believe it's "Mom, What", and two other things (it has been a while since college). It's all "ma,"and the definition changes based on tone.

[-] Affidavit@lemm.ee 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah, Chinese is good for these too. The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is my favourite. The full text in pinyin is:

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì. Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì. Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì. Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī. Shì shì shì shì.

Edit: The English for anyone interested: In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict and had resolved to eat ten lions. He often went to the market to look for lions. At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market. At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market. He saw those ten lions and, using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die. He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den. The stone den was damp. So he asked his servants to wipe it. After wiping the stone den, he tried to eat those ten lions. When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were, in fact, ten stone lion corpses. Try to explain this matter.

[-] Hellstormy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

.... what!? Guess that's a language I will definitely never learn.

[-] Xanthrax@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

It's only 4 tones. If you think of it like music, it's not too hard. The hardest part is converting characters into English into pinyin back into the characters.

[-] Affidavit@lemm.ee 1 points 4 weeks ago

Don't feel intimidated if you have any curiosity about learning the language. From an outside perspective, all languages are immensely complicated. In fairness, even native Chinese speakers wouldn't be able to comprehend the poem above when spoken aloud. It's designed specifically to mess with people and make them think about language. I love poems like this but there's an argument that they are disingenuous and exaggerate the difficulty of learning a language.

You clearly know English, so as a counterexample to show what you are capable of, take a minute to check out The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.

[-] Xanthrax@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

"Shi" will always be the word I use to audtitorilly identity Mandarin. Sorry if this is random, but do you know of any areas outside of mainland China that use "Shi?'

I know Japan uses it numerically, and Korea uses it similarly, but I'm genuinely curious.

[-] Affidavit@lemm.ee 1 points 4 weeks ago

There are many homonyms in Chinese languages, though the poem above cheats a little because many aren't genuinely homonyms due to the different tones, also, many of the characters used aren't modern characters that are used in every day speech.

'Shi' isn't in Mandarin only. There is significant overlap with other Chinese languages, so there are going to be many words with the same sounds, some of the words in the poem above will sounds identical in Cantonese for instance.

'Shi' is also used extensively in Japanese (sometimes even overlapping with Chinese). In addition to being used 'numerically', it can be used to emphasize a point, to connect two words, and can be used for several completely different words e.g. death, poem, city.

[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

fuck it maybe I'll decide that all desks are female from now on

German speaking individuals will look at me weird and sometimes not understand or ask for clarification but I just might put my foot down and tell them Komm damit klar.

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

When speaking German, you kinda just hide your mouth and say the gender part quickly so that no one knows what the article was.

When writing German, you use a calculator.

[-] LazyGit@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago

At least we have capital letters at the begin of nouns in German. So it is not too bad to have: Wenn hinter Robben Robben robben, robben Robben Robben nach. Right?

[-] PrimeErective@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago

Der Hund, die Katze, das Pferd

[-] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago

That "that that" that was in the OP is grammatically correct.

[-] XTL@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

Kind of like the existence of crop tools has had no effect on the poster.

[-] lukstru@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

Es ist eine Schande, dass das das das dass nicht ersetzten kann. Translation: It's a shame that the the can't replace the that.

[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Instructions unclear, brain melting out of nose

[-] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 weeks ago

If you use proper punctuation everything can be readable but I'm too lazy and so is all of internet

[-] Zementid@feddit.nl 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

When I learned English "He had had had a hat" was the moment I realized, English is close to German.

[-] uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 2 points 4 weeks ago

"Er hatte einen Hut gehabt"?

[-] Zementid@feddit.nl 1 points 4 weeks ago

Unser unser mein ich ist er... =]

[-] Dippy@beehaw.org 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

James, while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

[-] kaffiene@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I can't see what that's an issue. Seems like a word complaint. Like yeah, of course English has warts but that fact that words can repeat? So what!?

this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
348 points (98.1% liked)

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