Nekrophidius wrote:RyanKelly wrote:...a language never spoken by a single sole...
Shoes talked back then? Damn, I missed out on all the fun...
That's not exactly how I intended the pun, but at least you noticed something was out of place.
Z!re wrote:Go talk to any native english kid in the age 8-20, how do they speak?
They speak the way most of us do most of the time, which is not strictly the use of a language. The substance of most conversations is more akin to the cries or giggles of an infant that have been culturally informed by language. It can't be said to be incorrect, because there is no standard with which to classify it. It may be comprehensible or not, but that is besides the point. The use of a language can only deviate from the rules of that language when the
intention to adhere to the structure of the language is present, and in such a case all errors are merely in execution. You can only use a language to the extent that you know it. Most of us have mastered only a subset of our native language, and when faced with an idea which this subset is inadequate to express, we abandon language and resort to an idiomatic repertoire of phrases and tropes. Even in this case however, the intention is to stimulate a linguistic concept in the mind of another analogous to the concept in our mind which inspired the communication in the first place. Beyond this is the nature of the mind and the desire of an individual to elicit a tangible behavior in another for the purpose of gratifying some urge, and I don't claim to understand anything concerning this region of nature.
Z!re wrote:
Gay means happy.
So, saying: You're so gay!
To someone wouldnt be insulting? Check the dictionaries.
That would depend upon whether or not I am addressing a homophobe.
The definition of the word "gay" is less significant than its function.
In the sentence "You're so gay!", which is a typographical transformation of "You are so gay!", the word "gay" functions as a predicate adjective regardless of whether it could be replaced by the word "happy", the word "_MOUSEX", or the word "pathetic". It stands in a certain set of relationships with the other ideas evoked by the sentence and thereby evokes a set of mental associations not intrinsic to any of the words in themselves.
Should you come across the sentence, "You are so bear bottle!", then unless you've been culturally informed by such an idiom, you would most likely recognize either a mistake in the transmission of the sentence or your own ignorance of the specific meaning of the expression. If indeed this was the expression intended, then all the extrinsic relationships between the parts of the sentence are the same as before. "bear bottle" is still a predicate adjective in this construct, regardless of how meaningless it may be to us when used this way. Furthermore, you don't need to refer to some social authority concerning the grammar of the sentence to notice that something is odd. Present both to an eight year old, and he'll tell you immediately which one seems weird, even if he can't classify the reason. It is the extrinsic relationships between parts of speech together with the grammatical standards of altering and joining words that define a language. This is why mechanical translation is so difficult. The word "que" as used in Spanish can stand in relation to other words in such ways that no single English word can, and it is these in-equivalent sets of relationships in which the distinction between the two languages consists. So, the Swedish may add as many new words to their lexicon as they wish, but they will use them in a manner consistent with the Swedish language, or else employ a new dialect.
So what does constitute a change in language? Consider the word "another". I don't know how it happened, but at some point it became evident to some one that at a cultural level all noun phrases of the type "an other [x]" had a certain cognitive function in common which had become so well spread that these relationships could be abstracted from any particular x and stand alone as a notion in itself which could be employed in different modes. From then on, "an other" could be used as either a noun or an adjective. It was literally a new complex of ideas, and the English language became a superset of what it once was. The language developed as a unit, allowing the lexicon to evolve, winnowing out "an other" in favor or "another". The point is that the idea had to inspire an alteration in the language to set into motion the evolutionary proccess wherein the urge to assimulate the new usage of the initial phrase favored a particular typographical variant. However, we don't see "theother" or "mostother", because the ideas expressed by "the other" and "most other" are specific in nature and lack, at this time, the sort of general abstract significance that "another" possesses.
As a final point, because I think inflation is rendering my two cents worthless to everyone, the following nonsense is certainly more English than Latin or Chinese : He mirks as if a randal had byrwasled his taorn.
And Nek, don't tell me you've never heard of a bear bottle.
