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I think I might have made sense of this sentence. Tell me what you think: The sentence in its original form: Quote:
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.
Step 1. Make it a little less incomprehensible by adding some hyphens:
Quote:
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.
Step 2. Turn double negatives into positives.
Quote:
Always imagine yourself to be what it might appear to others that what-you-were-or-might-have-been was not what-you-had-been.
Now the sentence can be rephrased into a rather dubious piece of advice, but one which follows logically from the moral the Duchess has reworded "more simply": "Be what you would seem to be" :
Quote:
Try to be the sum of others' impressions of you.
Does that make any sense?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
Anyone care to parse the following?
Quote:
—or, if you'd like it put more simply—'
It's a typical Lewis Carrol trick to let 'put it more simply ' be followed by something totally absurd.
You puzzle it out put first? 
Ah ,I see you just tried. Ouf! Could you not get it as simple as the Dutchess makes it seem to be? ( asked the totally undemanding person)
Last edited by BranShea; 01/11/07 10:27 AM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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After looking up the text I think L.C. departed from a total logical sentence like "Never imagine yourself to be different from what others
think you were or might have been would it not have been otherwise....
And then added and shifted words to make it impossible.
A shifting and adding and leaving out game.
Something like that. (Maybe)
Last edited by BranShea; 01/11/07 11:28 AM.
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Maybe you're right, but there is a reason I'm disinclined to pass over it as word porridge: It is easy for ordinary mortals to write a sentence that is both grammatical and nearly incomprehensible. You just take an ordinary but longish sentence, then ratchet up the parataxis and double-negatives to a sub-incomprehensible level. The difficulty is in the reading.
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Even of that I'm not so sure. I guess it is just as hard to make such a sentence as it is to read it. I only guessed it was done this way. Maybe the mathematics' and knitting department ( specialists , of course: mathematical and knitting specialists) would know the better of this. Of Troy and ParkinT? A sentence with a purl and a slipped knit and another purl and I don't know. I think guessing how it was done is easier than really doing it. Lewis Carrol was a great and playful mathematician. For him it must have been an easy game.
Last edited by BranShea; 01/15/07 08:09 AM.
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old hand
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Methinks the key is in the first directive. 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise' then stop there. The rest of the blurb takes you back to the beginning.
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Always be that X which does not appear to be a Y to others (where X is "what you were or might have been", and Y is "what you had been").
How's that?
Last edited by Hydra; 01/16/07 02:54 AM.
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old hand
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I substituted the x and y's for Cats and Dogs.
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>I substituted the x and y's for Cats and Dogs.
Huh?
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Maybe it's raining cats and dogs in New Zealand. I liked this thread Hydra, even if the phrase seems to stay L.C.'s forever.
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