the child has some problems with the language that result in her not yet having college level language skills.
Well, sure. She’s nine years old. Her vocabulary isn’t college-level yet. Her writing style is pretty boring (by adult standards; for a nine-year-old she’s doing just fine) and the best ways she currently has of mitigating that are mechanical and artificial (start sentences with one of this arbitrary list of More Interesting Ways To Start A Sentence, etc.). Her sense of the sound and rhythm of language isn’t well developed (again, by adult standards). She makes spelling mistakes sometimes.
In short, she’s a pretty typical bright nine-year-old. I have no way of telling whether she’d be further ahead in all those things if only she hadn’t secretly spent weeks puzzling over the different meanings of “post”; all I can say is that I don’t see any sign that that sort of thing is holding her up. But that’s extremely weak evidence because, of course, I’ve no good reason to think there would be obvious signs if it were.
the mathematical or
I can very easily believe that speakers of German and English commonly have trouble with the mathematical use of “or” on account of the tendency for or/oder to be “exclusive”. But, once again, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing overall that it’s that way. Perhaps an exclusive “or” is actually more useful most of the time. After all, most of us most of the time are doing things other than mathematics. If I tell my daughter “You may have a slice of cake or a biscuit” I will likely be annoyed if she takes both[1]. I can get to work by driving or by cycling, but the results will not be good if I try to do both at once.
[1] But once I was with a friend who’s a computer science researcher, and when I offered him some chocolate and he said “I’ll have one or two pieces” I gave him three.
I don’t think that vagueness is the point of poetry.
I said ambiguity, not vagueness; the two are not the same. And I didn’t say the point, which would certainly be far too strong.
After all, most of us most of the time are doing things other than mathematics. If I tell my daughter “You may have a slice of cake or a biscuit” I will likely be annoyed if she takes both[1].
The fact that you would get annoyed if she takes both suggests that it would be very useful to have a word that actually means that she can’t have both. I don’t think that the notion of there being an inclusive or and an exclusive or is inherently hard. If there would be one word for the exclusive or and one word for the inclusive or a child would learn naturally that both notions exist. With polysemy that’s not something that a child learns automatically.
Finnish even seems to have three or’s. The third one is equivalence.
While we are at it iff/if and only if probably should also be expressible in a single word.
I said ambiguity, not vagueness; the two are not the same.
If you increase the amount of prepositions than it’s likely that some of them will sound ambiguous when used in nonstandard usage. Preventing people from making ambigious statements isn’t my goal. I think language should allow people to be specific, not that it should force people to be specific.
I don’t think poets will lose the ability to be ambigious through the proposals that I’m making.
We can express this in two words (either/or) already. How do you avoid the trap of trying to optimize easy to measure things (like number of words) at the cost of harder to measure things?
We can express this in two words (either/or) already.
The problem is that while there a way to specify the exclusive or, there not a way to specify the inclusive or.
How do you avoid the trap of trying to optimize easy to measure things (like number of words) at the cost of harder to measure things?
I’m not optimizing for number of words. The problem of English isn’t that there aren’t enough words. It’s believed good style to know your thesaurus in English and not say four times beautiful in a row in a single paragraph, even if you mean the same thing. That produces a proliferation of words but not the kind of words I want.
When I talk about polysemy I care about the ability to make finer distinctions for commonly used words, where the listener can actually know which distinction the speaker wants to communicate
Is there really any practical purpose of this discussion? How are you proposing to impose changes on an actually existing language, other than by making laws about language use and penalizing people with heavy fines if they make mistakes?
Is there really any practical purpose of this discussion?
Given that we have discussion on LW about very theoretical issues, it’s interesting that you choose to ask this question in this context.
There likely some triggered ugg-field. Tribal political instincts that don’t belong.
There are multiple practical aspects. It’s very useful to understand that language is not perfect for rationality in general.
Secondly KevinGrant opened this discussion because he designs a Conlang. In the context of Conlang design it’s important to openly speak about the flaws of the existing languages.
How are you proposing to impose changes on an actually existing language, other than by making laws about language use and penalizing people with heavy fines if they make mistakes?
Given that both the German government and the French government actually do form their respective languages through government programs, the idea that you need to fine people is without basis.
Just because the US still works with inches and feets doesn’t mean that change is impossible if the will exists.
But if I wanted to lead the road to reformed English, I wouldn’t do it via the government. I would change the language in a way where it’s possible to automatically translate the new reformed English into contemporary English.
I would provide wordpress plugins that allow a person to write his post in reformed English and at the same time show a normal English version on his website.
If done with charismatic leadership, using reformed English becomes the thing that cool people do.
On of the aspects of reformed English would be that it has less polysemy. That means it’s possible to do better translations of reformed English into other languages. The UN switches from contemporary English to reformed English. India justifies making reformed English it’s primary language because it’s easier possible to translate it into it’s 22 other official languages. Computer translation will be better at that point, but computer translation profits a lot if there’s less polysemy.
The EU also would profit from making reformed English it’s main language of business. Politically it might be easier to declare reformed English to be the main EU language than to declare contempory English the main EU language.
If the US wants to declare reformed English to be the main language it can simply choose to conduct it’s government business in it and make standardized tests in reformed English.
Scientists in the humanities might change their journals in a way where new articles have to be submitted in reformed English and there’s a translation in normal English available. Less polysemy might make some debates clearer.
Besides reducing polysemy one of the main tasks of reforming English would be to make it more phonetic.
Well, sure. She’s nine years old. Her vocabulary isn’t college-level yet. Her writing style is pretty boring (by adult standards; for a nine-year-old she’s doing just fine) and the best ways she currently has of mitigating that are mechanical and artificial (start sentences with one of this arbitrary list of More Interesting Ways To Start A Sentence, etc.). Her sense of the sound and rhythm of language isn’t well developed (again, by adult standards). She makes spelling mistakes sometimes.
In short, she’s a pretty typical bright nine-year-old. I have no way of telling whether she’d be further ahead in all those things if only she hadn’t secretly spent weeks puzzling over the different meanings of “post”; all I can say is that I don’t see any sign that that sort of thing is holding her up. But that’s extremely weak evidence because, of course, I’ve no good reason to think there would be obvious signs if it were.
I can very easily believe that speakers of German and English commonly have trouble with the mathematical use of “or” on account of the tendency for or/oder to be “exclusive”. But, once again, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing overall that it’s that way. Perhaps an exclusive “or” is actually more useful most of the time. After all, most of us most of the time are doing things other than mathematics. If I tell my daughter “You may have a slice of cake or a biscuit” I will likely be annoyed if she takes both[1]. I can get to work by driving or by cycling, but the results will not be good if I try to do both at once.
[1] But once I was with a friend who’s a computer science researcher, and when I offered him some chocolate and he said “I’ll have one or two pieces” I gave him three.
I said ambiguity, not vagueness; the two are not the same. And I didn’t say the point, which would certainly be far too strong.
The idea that ambiguity is important in poetry is not an idiosyncrasy of mine, by the way.
I agree that a language with very different structure might open up very different opportunities for poets.
The fact that you would get annoyed if she takes both suggests that it would be very useful to have a word that actually means that she can’t have both. I don’t think that the notion of there being an inclusive
orand an exclusiveoris inherently hard. If there would be one word for the exclusiveorand one word for the inclusiveora child would learn naturally that both notions exist. With polysemy that’s not something that a child learns automatically.Finnish even seems to have three
or’s. The third one is equivalence.While we are at it
iff/if and only ifprobably should also be expressible in a single word.If you increase the amount of prepositions than it’s likely that some of them will sound ambiguous when used in nonstandard usage. Preventing people from making ambigious statements isn’t my goal. I think language should allow people to be specific, not that it should force people to be specific.
I don’t think poets will lose the ability to be ambigious through the proposals that I’m making.
We can express this in two words (either/or) already. How do you avoid the trap of trying to optimize easy to measure things (like number of words) at the cost of harder to measure things?
The problem is that while there a way to specify the exclusive
or, there not a way to specify the inclusiveor.I’m not optimizing for number of words. The problem of English isn’t that there aren’t enough words. It’s believed good style to know your thesaurus in English and not say four times beautiful in a row in a single paragraph, even if you mean the same thing. That produces a proliferation of words but not the kind of words I want. When I talk about polysemy I care about the ability to make finer distinctions for commonly used words, where the listener can actually know which distinction the speaker wants to communicate
“X or Y or both”
Also “and/or”, although that works better in writing.
“any of” or “at least one of”, You can say it, it’s just not one word.
Is there really any practical purpose of this discussion? How are you proposing to impose changes on an actually existing language, other than by making laws about language use and penalizing people with heavy fines if they make mistakes?
Given that we have discussion on LW about very theoretical issues, it’s interesting that you choose to ask this question in this context. There likely some triggered ugg-field. Tribal political instincts that don’t belong.
There are multiple practical aspects. It’s very useful to understand that language is not perfect for rationality in general. Secondly KevinGrant opened this discussion because he designs a Conlang. In the context of Conlang design it’s important to openly speak about the flaws of the existing languages.
Given that both the German government and the French government actually do form their respective languages through government programs, the idea that you need to fine people is without basis.
Just because the US still works with inches and feets doesn’t mean that change is impossible if the will exists.
But if I wanted to lead the road to reformed English, I wouldn’t do it via the government. I would change the language in a way where it’s possible to automatically translate the new reformed English into contemporary English. I would provide wordpress plugins that allow a person to write his post in reformed English and at the same time show a normal English version on his website. If done with charismatic leadership, using reformed English becomes the thing that cool people do.
On of the aspects of reformed English would be that it has less polysemy. That means it’s possible to do better translations of reformed English into other languages. The UN switches from contemporary English to reformed English. India justifies making reformed English it’s primary language because it’s easier possible to translate it into it’s 22 other official languages. Computer translation will be better at that point, but computer translation profits a lot if there’s less polysemy.
The EU also would profit from making reformed English it’s main language of business. Politically it might be easier to declare reformed English to be the main EU language than to declare contempory English the main EU language.
If the US wants to declare reformed English to be the main language it can simply choose to conduct it’s government business in it and make standardized tests in reformed English.
Scientists in the humanities might change their journals in a way where new articles have to be submitted in reformed English and there’s a translation in normal English available. Less polysemy might make some debates clearer.
Besides reducing polysemy one of the main tasks of reforming English would be to make it more phonetic.