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Anyone care to parse the following? Quote:
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is—'Be what you would seem to be'—or, if you'd like it put more simply—'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.' " —Alice in Wonderland (1865)
Is this pure word porridge, or a nearly incomprehensibly hypotactic but nevertheless grammatical sentence?
Last edited by Hydra; 01/07/07 10:39 AM.
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I think it works but I don't have the time right now to sort it out. Might could use the odd comma or two. Don't think any hyphens would help.
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Is this pure word porridge, or a nearly incomprehensibly hypotactic but nevertheless grammatical sentence?
You might want to read Carroll's Symbolic Logic. He enjoyed these sort of nonsensical syllogisms. The quotation from Alice, also seems to be poking fun at the British English penchant for double negatives being a sort of augmented positive, (e.g., "this is something I am not unfamiliar with").
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Quote:
... The quotation from Alice, also seems to be poking fun at the British English penchant for double negatives being a sort of augmented positive, (e.g., "this is something I am not unfamiliar with").
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
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Quote:
Quote:
... The quotation from Alice, also seems to be poking fun at the British English penchant for double negatives being a sort of augmented positive, (e.g., "this is something I am not unfamiliar with").
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
I could. I couldn't fail to disagree with him less but I don't.
I don't think.
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Quote:
I don't think.
As you say.
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do you exist? (re i don't think)
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Yes. I think. I just don't know who the "I" is that is doing the thinking. What is "I-ness"? For that matter, What is "you-ness"?
Descartes presumed the "I". He could have also said, "I think therefore I ain't" and would have been equally wrong.
To make a semantically logical statement you must first define your terms.
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Quote:
Is this pure word porridge, or a nearly incomprehensibly hypotactic but nevertheless grammatical sentence?
You might want to read Carroll's Symbolic Logic. He enjoyed these sort of nonsensical syllogisms. The quotation from Alice, also seems to be poking fun at the British English penchant for double negatives being a sort of augmented positive, (e.g., "this is something I am not unfamiliar with").
One of the fun things about reading Douglas Adams' work is coming across his many homages to Carroll's writing. This passage for example, has an echo in one of my favourite bits of Life, The Universe and Everything
Quote:
That young girl," he added unexpectedly, "is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting."
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>That young girl," he added unexpectedly, "is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting."
The problem with this is that it is almost impossible to tell whether the girl is smart or not without drawing a complicated diagram of some sort; nor is it easy to figure out whether the author wanted to meet her or not. Yes, it's cute, just like "I couldn't fail to disagree with you less" and others of that ilk. But I submit to you that it is not communication, since the purpose of communication is to inform, not to obfuscate.
Cute gets old quickly, while beauty remains for an eternity. I'll take beautiful writing over cute writing every time.
Perhaps it is just I. Then again perhaps not.
WITBOTOTWOTMD? YCSHIBW.
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