Hub of Reason

"[Popper] also noted that theism presented as explaining adaptation 'was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression that an ultimate explanation had been reached.'"

Vitaly

you reminded me that I connected the poop-throwing in chimps and the popularity of poop-related jokes with human children

and never bothered to think it through

do you think it's plausible?

and on an unrelated note, how genuine is my English?

oh, and how many protons are in the average human body?

Borror0

1. Yes, but I wouldn't make a bet on it.
2. Define genuine.
3. Don't be such a lazy ass and do it yourself.

Vitaly

:D

“Foreigners' English often presents the curious spectacle of a language constructed on strict grammatical principles, but with hardly a single genuinely English sentence in it.” —Henry Sweet

can you say that my sentences could have been written by a native English speaker?

Borror0

In other words, our English is better than theirs

Vitaly

6:18 AM

Perhaps an exaggeration would help: “Greetings, most esteemed dude, would you love to bawl what time it is?”

It's a grammatical sentence in English

Borror0

Nothing you say strike me as odd

Vitaly

but one a native speaker would hardly say

Ok, thanks

Borror0

Well, not to the extent that I'd question your fluency

mfg says weirder sentences than you

Vitaly

lol

Borror0

I often have to use context to understand what he means

Vitaly

6:20 AM

the word is “unidiomatic”

I think

the opposite of genuine

Borror0

He has very... esoteric definitions and word constructions

Vitaly

idiom·at·ic BrE [ˌɪdiəˈmætɪk] NAmE [ˌɪdiəˈmætɪk] adjective
1. containing expressions that are natural to a ↑native speaker of a language

Borror0

"intellectual landgrab" is perhaps my favorite

Thanks heavens for context

Vitaly

@Borror0 that's part of the creativity of a native speaker

you need to be one (or speak a language like one) in order to do some Joycean lexicoining

Borror0

Maybe I needs to be clearer: he makes bad constructions that are unintuitive

Vitaly

6:24 AM

they're juicy

:)

Borror0

Panache is less important than intuitiveness

Vitaly

*cachinnates

Borror0

Dammit, you fixed it before I could correct you

Vitaly

ya typo

Borror0

Nice way to make a point though

Vitaly

6:28 AM

though I am not certain that I wouldn't have to spend time in the jim-jam clinic if I listened to mfg's speech regularly

Borror0

lol

How so?

Vitaly

he makes me feel like a nincompoop

with his wordage

Borror0

Nincompoop? Oh, you mean a nimrod?

Vitaly

I will just own you with an entry from Rodale's:

nincompoop
n
fool, ninny, ninnyhammer, silly, goose, silly billy, Sl. yo-yo, tomfool; simpleton, Simple Simon, saphead, noodle, cuckoo, Inf. jay, idiot, imbecile, mooncalf, Inf. moron, Sl. zombie; dimwit, nitwit, half-wit, scatterbrain, Sl. birdbrain, Sl. flake; rattlehead, rattlebrain, rattlepate, harebrain, Sl. dingbat, Sl. ding-a-ling, featherbrain, addle-brain, addle-head, addle-pate, pinhead; dolt, clod, oaf, dunce, Inf. chump, Sl. jerk, Inf. coot, dullard, Inf. numskull; dope, booby, Inf. dummy, Sl. dumbbell, Sl. meatball, Sl. meathead; blockhead, beetlehead, bonehead, dunderhead, dun…

Borror0

Okay. You missed the joke. :)

Vitaly

6:32 AM

Your message can be interepreted as an attempt to challenge me to a game of who-knows-more-words :P

Borror0

Nimrod is a term used for "hunter" but bugs bunny used it so much to mock Elmer Fudd that young folks started to use it as an insult of stupidity. In other words, it's the reverse foreign word: it's using an uncommonly used term in a way that is improper and confusing to everyone but native English speakers.

Vitaly

not that I know of any biblical words in the Rodale's entry

Borror0

aka booya

Vitaly

Ah.

Borror0

What part of his wordage do you find difficult?

Vitaly

6:34 AM

I find it difficult to verbalise

Borror0

There's just something off in his syntax, right?

Vitaly

it's just… I have to re-read some of his sentences twice

Borror0

You can't tell exactly what it is but his sentences just don't feel right or are easy to get

Vitaly

by the time I finish reading it, I forget what was in the beginning of the sentence

Borror0

heh

Vitaly

6:36 AM

there was a study that compared native English speakers to proficient English speakers

Borror0

There's a reason I ask him for clarification so often

Vitaly

the main finding was that native English speakers had to backtrack a lot less often than the proficient non-native ones

Borror0

backtrack? As in, re-explain?

Vitaly

no, in reading, to backtrack to a previous part of the sentence

Borror0

ah

Vitaly

6:37 AM

and they were equally good at speaking

Borror0

Makes sense

Vitaly

measured by tracking their eye movements, if it matters

Borror0

guessed it

"(Obligatory disclaimers: I’ve been quoted being annoyed and confused at David Reid before and currently work where he used to cancel my projects.)"

lol

Vitaly

we can make mfg backtrack too by using crash blossoms

as a revenge ;)

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1762

6:50 AM

A garden path sentence is a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that the readers' most likely interpretation will be incorrect; they are lured into an improper parse that turns out to be a dead end. Garden path sentences are used in psycholinguistics to illustrate the fact that when they read, human beings process language one word at a time. "Garden path" refers to the saying "to be led down the garden path", meaning "to be misled". According to current psycholinguistic theory, as a person reads a garden path sentence, the reader builds up a structure of meaning one ...

(in case it's too late for you to follow the languagelog link)

Borror0

Honestly, those sound like mfg

I get the same kind of feeling reading them than reading his

anyway, bed time

good night

Vitaly

Good night

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