• @[email protected]
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      278 months ago

      It needs a comma.

      All the good faith I had had, had had no effect.

      Essentially “all the food faith I previously had, didn’t have any effect”.

      Good God English is an awful language.

        • @[email protected]
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          48 months ago

          You’re welcome. :) Took me a minute tbh. Not sure if the wine I’ve had helped or hindered. It’s 2:30am here.

      • @[email protected]
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        8 months ago

        I’m pretty sure it is grammatically correct with no comma. The version you provided is a comma splice.

        To slightly change the tense, All the good faith that I had had no effect is grammatically correct with no comma, so the gerund form should also not need a comma.

        • @[email protected]
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          8 months ago

          Perhaps. Regardless it’s outlandish abuse of the tongue IMO and definitely would benefit from the comma because nobody’s going to just bang out 4 had’s in a row in speech without a pause without a justifiable slap across the chops and possibly a challenge to a duel.

          “But your honour, he said ‘had’ four times on the trot without pause”

          “Case dismissed”

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        It doesn’t need a comma, it needs restructuring. When phrasing it like this, it is customary to add a comma between two adjacent verbs. You could even argue that the first part is an introductory phrase, which would explain the comma too.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          True enough but I feel like English has more quirks than other languages though I acknowledge that may be bias.

          I used to have near fluent Irish way back when and I don’t recall any shenanigans like this (again I acknowledge I may not have been presented with them). I feel like most other languages have a more clearly defined set of pronunciation rules too.

          Irish looks horrific (Siobhán is shiv-awn for example) but very very closely follows pronunciation rules so that pronunciation would be no surprise to a native reading it for the first time. English sure as fuck does not follow rules like that.

          Near. Neat. Book. Boot. Etc.

          (Some small subset of Irish folks do say “boo-k” though)

          • @[email protected]
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            8 months ago

            maybe I should have clarified: not every language has quirks in the same ways. German has weird articles that make no sense. French has different pluralization rules for up to four objects. e: this is probably wrong but there are many languages with different pluralizations for two objects (a dual) and for any number more than two. there are remnants of this in English as well, in words like both, either and neither.

            But even of you just want to think about writing: German makes super long words that look monstrous by mushing words together. French doesn’t pronounce half the letters in its spelling. Arabic doesn’t really have vowels but instead uses diacritics that are often omitted so you have to be really familiar with the language to read at all.

              • @[email protected]
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                18 months ago

                well I can’t find a source for it now. maybe I’m misremembering. I read it in the book The Universal History of Numbers by Georges Ifrah. maybe it was referring to some remnant exception, maybe it was about another language. can’t verify it cause the book is not nearby right now. maybe I confused it with four different ways to pluralize in French (s, x, aux, none) idk.

                • @[email protected]
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                  18 months ago

                  Oh, you mean word endings for plurals, well those depend on the gender and the singular word ending. They can be a bit confusing, because they’re not always regular like local -> locaux, but naval -> navals. You have that in other languages too, even in english, like goose -> geese, but moose -> moose, mouse -> mice, house -> houses, and so on.

    • @[email protected]
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      38 months ago

      I still feel like the nouns are in the wrong place when I read this.

      I’m reading it as “New York cows new York cows bully bully New York cows”

      When I want it to read “New York cows bully new York cows” which would be “Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” which isn’t enough buffalo.

      I have to inset my own “that” to be able to get my head around “Buffalo buffalo (that) Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    english is dumb. why do we say “hands,” but we don’t say “foots”? why does “goose” become “geese,” but “moose” doesn’t become “meese”? why is “led” the past tense of “lead,” but “red” is not the past tense of “read”? why don’t “good” and “food” rhyme? LIGHT becomes LIT, fight becomes FOUGHT. peek becomes peeked, seek becomes SOUGHT

    i could do this all day, but i willn’t

    • KSP Atlas
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      18 months ago

      At least with my accent, good and food actually rhyme

      Also the reason behind English being weird is foreign influence, sound shifts and late standardisation

  • bizarroland
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    38 months ago

    Many of the at least 400 words that are technically both nouns and verbs depending on usage can form sentences of just repeating the word.

    Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

    Echoes echoes echoes Echoes’ echoes.

    Mrs Missus misses misses’ Missus.

    Fly flies fly.

    Tests “tests” tests tests Tests’ test.

    Reasons reason reasons.

  • EleventhHour
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    08 months ago

    “I would never! Not unless you were already having been going to do that!”

  • @[email protected]
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    108 months ago

    In German the following is a completely valid sentence:

    Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.

    Which translates to when flies fly behind flies, then flies follow flies. The same works for seals:

    Wenn hinter Robben Robben Robben, robben Robben Robben nach.

    • Karyoplasma
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      8 months ago

      Wenn hinter Robben Robben robben, robben Robben Robben nach.

      FTFY

    • @[email protected]
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      48 months ago

      The same works in Dutch:

      Als vliegen achter vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna.

      Although my favourite form of that tongue twister is:

      Als vliegende vliegen achter vliegende vliegen vliegen, vliegen de vliegende vliegen vliegensvlug.

      When flying flies fly behind flying flies, the flying flies fly rapidly (“flying fast”).

      • Bob
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        18 months ago

        You can say “fleetly” instead of “rapidly”. Actually “rapidly” sounds incorrect when describing flying.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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      98 months ago

      Some Hungarian prefixes can be piled on without limit, while still creating meaning.

      The word “úszni” means “to swim”.

      Úsztatni - to make someone or someone swim
      Úsztattatni - to make someone make someone swim
      Úsztattattattattattattattattattni - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swim

      Can be done with any verb, and maybe some other suffixes as well.

      • @[email protected]
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        8 months ago

        Strangely enough, this works in Finnish too:

        Uida - to swim

        Uittaa - to make someone or something swim

        Uitattaa - to make someone make someone swim

        Uitattattattattattattattattattaa - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swim

        It’s almost as if they are related languages or something.

        • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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          48 months ago

          It’s basically a mishmash of Ancient Ugric, Turkish, German, Slavic and Romani words with grammar that is an eldritch monstrosity, nobody really knows where it came from, and it is seriously weird.

          There are only two real tenses, but nineteen cases and two different ways of doing imperative, which are kind of equivalent but carry cultural and tonal differences in certain contexts.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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      8 months ago

      English has Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo

      I don’t know what it means but I’ve been told it is indeed a full sentence.

  • @[email protected]
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    28 months ago

    What makes this a “flaw”? Also, show me a " flawless" language (a real one, not loglang or whatever)

  • @[email protected]
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    28 months ago

    Have you heard the tragedy of pumping lemma? Have you heard the tragedy of the tragedy of pumping lemma? Have you heard the tragedy of the tragedy of the tragedy of pumping lemma?

    • @[email protected]
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      8 months ago

      Given the fact that that poem is 100 years old, I would have thought that English would have evolved to fix these issues by now. Oh well.

      We need a new language I guess. Maybe it’s time to switch to the most popular language in the world (in terms of number of native speakers): Mandarin Chinese.

      • lad
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        18 months ago

        Maybe better use second most popular: Spanish, it at least uses same letters (differently though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

      • @[email protected]
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        18 months ago

        The use of emojis is.slowly converting written language back to hieroglyphics, so your new language is already happening.

  • Lovable Sidekick
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    8 months ago

    Maybe I’m just grouchy today but how in the world does a word coming up twice in a row translate to a language being flawed? That seems like calling spelling “flawed” because letters come up twice in a row in a word.