diving semantics

[Quero]

I'm confused.

I get how buffalo from Buffalo can buffalo Buffalo buffalo (5) but how do you add more buffalo forms?

I also really want to edit KWS's entire post regarding prpoper english but am resisting...

The buffalo from 4 and 5 then buffalo other Buffalo buffalo.

Chomsky rules

His sentence,"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously," is listed in Bartlett's, so I guess he does rule.

 

[agilis]

It's fairly obvious that bisons from the city of Buffalo intimidate other bison though they themselves are intimidated by bison from Buffalo, but what is less clear is their attitude toward teaching yearling calves how to buddy breath.

My ex-wife is now president of one of the largest public employee unions in the United states, and is consequently often seen in the media. I've noticed that she has become a massive hairy bison, able to buffalo state officials and instill mortal terror with just a glance from her thick lidded reddish eyes. I'm fairly sure that she has never been to Buffalo, NY. I have, because there is a superb Tinnitus research group at the university there. They tell me that if I engage in a 2 or 3 year battle with the VA I might get $124.00 every month.

I thought that linguistics had been pushed aside and relegated to a rather unimportant academic status by semiotics, which has developed a constellation of new ideas and fundamental concepts. Noam Chomsky is better known for his politics these days. Anyone needing tuition in the sciences comprising communication theory seem to prefer semiotics.

At various university functions I must admit that that I had no idea what these semioticians were babbling about. It all seemed arcane or blindingly obvious, or both. Then there was the issue of semioticians intruding upon Psych. Dept. turf.

No one gave a tinker's damn about Wilfred Owen and the War Poets, or the manner in which primitive scientific understanding shaped the poems of John Donne... "Observe this flea that first bit me and now bites thee and in this flea our two bloods commingled be"

 

[dbulmer]

I thought that linguistics had been pushed aside and relegated to a rather unimportant academic status by semiotics, which has developed a constellation of new ideas and fundamental concepts. Noam Chomsky is better known for his politics these days. Anyone needing tuition in the sciences comprising communication theory seem to prefer semiotics.

To the wider public Chomsky ramblings on politics may be well known but his work in Lingustics will last a long time. As someone with a background in computational lingustics Chomsky is the daddy Those with a mathematical and/or computer science background will also be aware of his work. Linguistics in general is a fairly wide discipline and somewhat ironically can be difficult to define

 

[Quero]

I thought that linguistics had been pushed aside and relegated to a rather unimportant academic status by semiotics, which has developed a constellation of new ideas and fundamental concepts. Noam Chomsky is better known for his politics these days. Anyone needing tuition in the sciences comprising communication theory seem to prefer semiotics.

Theoretical linguistics tends, as theoretical fields of study do, to shift emphasis as scholars seek ways to make a contribution to the field. You can't make a name for yourself just by ploughing the same furrow. As for semiotics, I had the wonderful opportunity to study as a Fellow under Thomas Sebeok for a LSA (Linguistic Society of America) summer session when I was in grad school. My interests focused on applied linguistics (second language acquisition), so I didn't continue working with him, though he offered (I was honored).

 

[Colliam7]

For each of these, ask your self was the second dive deeper or shallower?

1. My dive this morning was to 80', my second dive was less than that.

2. My dive this morning was to 80', my second dive was higher than that.

My first reaction was that the second dive in both cases was shallower. My second reaction was that I also encounter statements like this more frequently than I would prefer. The second sentence is potentially the more confusing one.


I would ask that you answer before reading other responses. Also, feel free to add other sentences related to diving that are a little ambiguous.[/QUOTE]

 

[FinnMom]

One thing I find hard to explain fast enough to stay w/in general interest is why the question "how long a dive can you make using that one tank" really should include the answer "it depends on how deep the dive is".

_______________________

For the grammar police
Somewhere there is a news article about Alexander Haig's use of English. I can still remember something about how “verbs were nouned, nouns verbed, adjectives adverbised” and the secretary-designate (using Haigspeak) “techniqued a new way to vocabulary his thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he had actually implicationed.” Haig was truely a creative speaker.

 

[dfx]

It's fairly obvious that bisons from the city of Buffalo intimidate other bison though they themselves are intimidated by bison from Buffalo, but what is less clear is their attitude toward teaching yearling calves how to buddy breath.

It is, however, very clear that you must have missed post #9

/me ducks, runs and hides

 

[agilis]

It is, however, very clear that you must have missed post #9

/me ducks, runs and hides

You are, of course, absolutely correct. I meant the verb but spelled it as a noun. Fortunately, I didn't have to go back and count posts. The vivid purple rendering of what I had written at the top of your post caused my error to become instantly apparent. I don't proof read or 'spell check' much these days. In fact, I don't even know how to use spell check on this computer, and in any case this kind of error would probably not have been picked up through that process. More serious is my failure to proof read. Looking back at old posts I often find missing words, missing letters, and the remnants of sentences that I had meant to remove entirely but which, like malevolent ghosts, continue to exist in the form of a word or two, a fragment that should have been deleted with the rest, making some sentences virtually meaningless.

It's interesting how the brain repairs what we have written. It knows what we meant to write and makes some errors invisible.

 

[Quero]

You are, of course, absolutely correct. I meant the verb but spelled it as a noun. Fortunately, I didn't have to go back and count posts. The vivid purple rendering of what I had written at the top of your post caused my error to become instantly apparent. I don't proof read or 'spell check' much these days. In fact, I don't even know how to use spell check on this computer, and in any case this kind of error would probably not have been picked up through that process. More serious is my failure to proof read. Looking back at old posts I often find missing words, missing letters, and the remnants of sentences that I had meant to remove entirely but which, like malevolent ghosts, continue to exist in the form of a word or two, a fragment that should have been deleted with the rest, making some sentences virtually meaningless.

It's interesting how the brain repairs what we have written. It knows what we meant to write and makes some errors invisible.

I'm not convinced that these ghost sentences are malevolent.... they sometimes become poetic!
I recall attending a conference presentation that I found simply brilliant in which the speaker explained how he took his language learners' errors and helped them organize them as verse. The result was far from meaningless, I can assure you! If we see language from a semiotics perspective, we can interpret the "signs" in whatever way they strike us, after all! There is no inherent meaning in any word or sentence fragment/ghost sentence--there is only the meaning that we assign to it.

Language learners and poetry makers face a common obstacle in language: the automatic, the buried assumption, the logic which has been lost to use. But whereas the poet works to uncover these things, to show those threads which cannot be seen (even if vigilantly concealing the threads which go into the demonstration); the language learner (to the extent that s/he learns) cannot help but uncover connections. For the language learner, child or adult, of first or second language, is only partly into the systems of the target language, and thus is naturally equipped with a naievety the poet generally congratulates herself/himself if s/he can emulate.

 

[billt4sf]

This is inspiring me to take up linguistics after I retire!

As to the OP's original question: I do think it would be better for all concerned if I responded with "How deep was the second dive -- BTW, you look great today!" but my poor brain is more likely to get me to say "I think you mean 'shallower', not 'higher' ", thus losing an opportunity to make a friend. My bad, as they say.