Time Travelling Grammar

[enigmatime]

So I was reading TVTropes. Obviously a bad choice, seeing as it is the black hole of time. I was drawn specifically to any article related to Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. This led me to the time travelling lingo.

So, I think we should consult all those people that are in charge of grammer, syntax, and etc. and force them to put the time travelling grammer section into their books.

Before we do that, however, we must have all of these things figured out. We will be using whatever sources we can to figure out these topics. (this isn't in media because I use it in my everyday life, or atleast try to)

Any ideas?

[THAC0]

we could have time-traveling grammar sections, too... :smalltongue:

[enigmatime]

I just had a partially accurate conversation with someone pretending to be from tomorrow at 3:47 PM Central time.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Well we could borrow something from Continuum.
Up = Future
Down = Past
Yet = Your (or their) personal Future (when they are older, not when they are Up more)

One I made up:
Gone = your (or their) personal Past (when they were younger, not when they were Down more)

Present, Future and Past tenses could relate to Up-Down or Yet-Gone
To signify Up-Down add a -et and to signify Yet-Gone add an -ik

[enigmatime]

Well, considering the fact that will have already saw myself posting this, I had been quite aggrivated with the fact that neither of us didn't-have or will-haven't of figured it out now because I had't gone far enough to the future of that past.

Erm, I'll get back to this tomorrow after I ask my English teachers...

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I am personally of the school that such mind-games are most useful AFTER having figured out the time travel itself, and the brain-power is probably better put to use theorizing on how that dimension might be unlocked for travel. :smallwink:

[enigmatime]

I am personally of the school that such mind-games are most useful AFTER having figured out the time travel itself, and the brain-power is probably better put to use theorizing on how that dimension might be unlocked for travel. :smallwink:

True, but we should be ready for when that day comes. :thog:

[Geno9999]

Well we could borrow something from Continuum.
Up = Future
Down = Past
Yet = Your (or their) personal Future (when they are older, not when they are Up more)

One I made up:
Gone = your (or their) personal Past (when they were younger, not when they were Down more)

Present, Future and Past tenses could relate to Up-Down or Yet-Gone
To signify Up-Down add a -et and to signify Yet-Gone add an -ik

How do we know whether if we're actually traveling sideways through time?

[rayne_dragon]

Time is a single dimension, sideways only comes into effect when there are multiple dimensions. Of course, that presumes that what we currently know about time is correct.

I also don't see why past and present tenses can't work with time travel given that you give a time of reference. Then again, I also love words with rare vowels, so I would probably be fine with new words if they involve x, z, or v. Like Xen, Zater, and Vuture. :smalltongue:

[Shyftir]

Time does not exist. Think on that one for a bit.

[Roland St. Jude]

Time does not exist. Think on that one for a bit.
"A bit" of what? Ahh, I've got you there... :smallsmile:

[Eldan]

Well we could borrow something from Continuum.
Up = Future
Down = Past
Yet = Your (or their) personal Future (when they are older, not when they are Up more)

One I made up:
Gone = your (or their) personal Past (when they were younger, not when they were Down more)

Present, Future and Past tenses could relate to Up-Down or Yet-Gone
To signify Up-Down add a -et and to signify Yet-Gone add an -ik

As an extension, I also suggest
The Coming = your (or their) personal future.

[Shyftir]

"A bit" of what? Ahh, I've got you there... :smallsmile:

A bit of your existential reference point shifting...

:D

[Eldan]

Will you have been going to be having argued with a mod?

[Mystic Muse]

Guys, if you go back in time you'll be caught in the middle of a bad Stephen King movie where giant meatballs try to eat you. Do you really want that?

@v Yes indeed.

[Eldan]

'nother Nostalgia Critic fan? :smalltongue:

Actually, I'll go back and perform a famous piece of music to it's future author.

Hmm. Maybe the ninth sinfony, if I can get an orchestra to travel with me.

[enigmatime]

Time does not exist. Think on that one for a bit.

If you want to argue about that, go to a different thread. This is not an argument thread, it is a thread that is stemmed by boredom and the want to be ready for time travel. :smallannoyed:

Anyhoo, the English teacher I was going to talk to about was not in today. :smallsigh: I'll have to wait until tomorrow. However, I do like the stuff having to do with Continuum. It is easy to understand, easily implemented, and doesn't cause tongue-tied sentances.

[SDF]

http://boozeworthy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/land-before-time.jpg

TIMETRAVELPROTIP: You end up in an alternate 1985 where Marty's mom is married to Biff, and the Doc is institutionalized.

Actual Answer: It's all relative.
Relative Answer: I hate my relatives.

[The Glyphstone]

The 1632/Ring of Fire series (John Ringo) uses 'uptime' and 'downtime' to distinguish between the time-travellers and natives respectively.

[Aptera]

Well we could borrow something from Continuum.
Up = Future
Down = Past
Yet = Your (or their) personal Future (when they are older, not when they are Up more)

One I made up:
Gone = your (or their) personal Past (when they were younger, not when they were Down more)

Present, Future and Past tenses could relate to Up-Down or Yet-Gone
To signify Up-Down add a -et and to signify Yet-Gone add an -ik
Continuing with this we suld have an extra series of pronouns for my/your/his/its/hers past/future self(s), probably by just adding the prefixes:
Iet, Ik, Met, meik
yout, youk and so on.

You know what? Let's just make a conlang for time travelers. And the borrowings will be fascinating!

[Ravens_cry]

If something ever happens, it is. If it doesn't happen, it is not. Time is a result from our travel along a dimension, the present being literally a point of time.
Imagine an infinite flip book, each point of time is one page, time is the whole book. Going back in time doesn't create other universes, you are just now travelling along another path that is.

[_Zoot_]

Sorry to be a pain, and I know it is hypocritical of me to comment on spelling.


But grammar is spelt with an 'A' and that is going to annoy me until it is changed. :smalltongue:

[Ravens_cry]

Sorry to be a pain, and I know it is hypocritical of me to comment on spelling.


But grammar is spelt with an 'A' and that is going to annoy me until it is changed. :smalltongue:
That error is so common that it wouldn't surprise me if in a hundred years it became the commonly accepted spelling and enshrined in respected dictionaries; the closest English comes to correct anyway.
It is especially funny when grammar nazis make that very error.

[The Extinguisher]

That error is so common that it wouldn't surprise me if in a hundred years it became the commonly accepted spelling and enshrined in respected dictionaries; the closest English comes to correct anyway.
It is especially funny when grammar nazis make that very error.

Honestly, I don't expect any of us to be able to understand what people are saying in 100 years.

Time travel grammar is pretty simple though. If something hasn't happened for you, use future tense. If it already happened for you, use past tense.
Using crazy constructs of past and future tense only complicate things. Either something hasn't happened yet, or it already has. Just because your timeframe and someone else's don't happen to match up doesn't mean anything. I mean worse case scenario you just reference dates.

"It happened a couple of minutes ago, one hundred years from now"
"I'm going to the store yesterday"

[valadil]

One of my professors back at college was working on a time based markup language. It's for computers to process events, so it wouldn't make sense in natural language, but it's still somewhat relevant.

http://www.timeml.org/

[Dvandemon]

The way I see it, the main problem with time-travel grammar is that people can't maintain the tense of their subject. They get confused when saying things like when and some such but the real problem is maintaining what they were referring to in which time period. Although there should probably be some field of linguistics (would a language based around 4th dimensional syntax be entirely different?) for this

[enigmatime]

(title is fixed)

Well, if you were to add prefixes to the ends of pronouns, it would probably work. However, it would be smart to use softer consonants. Then again, we could just use already existing prefixes. Pre-I, post-I, preyou, postyou, etcetera.

[Saposhiente]

Here's my take: Because time can be distorted by moving through space, there exists no objective time reference point (by default, it's earth). Several Saposhiente hours ago, I will have eaten in a couple of Earth hours.