Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think it's a mistake to think in terms of one language being more or less sensible or reasonable than another.

Which is why no-one is trying to describe the entire language in those terms, but specific ways in which they deal with a concept. I think it is perfectly possible to point to a feature of a language and say "this is a better way to describe reality than what language X uses for the same purpose". Will it be subjective to a certain degree? Certainly. But it can still be useful.

The most obvious example of this is, of course, languages that require every person to fit into "male" or "female" categories. Languages that do not have this requirement (e.g. by allowing for a third state) will have an easier time talking about non-binary gender individuals.

Now, this is not an absolute. I can point to a language characteristic that is more sensible than another, while still being awkward. Spanish has three sets of distances ("hands reach" vs "Close" vs "Far"), to English's two (e.g. "here/there" vs "aquí/ahí/allí") which in many cases removes a bit of ambiguity present in the same sentence in English, but it hardly solves the problem of pinpointing object location.

Equally, I always admired French for having a way to answer negative questions: "Is that not your car?" - "oui" ("yes, it is not my car") vs "si" ("yes, it is my car"). So many misunderstandings are killed immediately by that.

Not to mention that it's wildly subjective and what seems sensible will always be largely dependent on one's first language.

I take exception at that. I am quite keenly aware of the limitations of my mother language, I'll have you know.

GW

[Peelee]

I take exception at that. I am quite keenly aware of the limitations of my mother language, I'll have you know.

Meanwhile, I can't even speak my mother's language.

[FlammySenpai]

When people say that they could care less. That means you do care!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

When people say that they could care less. That means you do care!

Obligatory:


GW

[georgie_leech]

Personally, I became a lot more comfortable woth that particular idiom shift after I started mentally inserting "but it would require effort" when I come across it.

[Bohandas]

The most obvious example of this is, of course, languages that require every person to fit into "male" or "female" categories. Languages that do not have this requirement (e.g. by allowing for a third state) will have an easier time talking about non-binary gender individuals.

It would be far better still for the language to be purged of gender entirely and simply use the equivalent of "it" for everyone and everything

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It would be far better still for the language to be purged of gender entirely and simply use the equivalent of "it" for everyone and everything

No, it wouldn't.
Aren't arguments from personal conviction fun?
GW

[Peelee]

It would be far better still for the language to be purged of gender entirely and simply use the equivalent of "it" for everyone and everything

Al and Betty were walking down the street. It fell down a manhole and died, while the other laughed.

Who's dead and who's the ass?

[Aedilred]

No, it wouldn't.
GW

No she wouldn't... ok, that doesn't work.

Though there are some languages with no neuter pronoun. "He is hilly"; "She is raining"; "He is very big"... ok, that last one could still work.

[Knaight]

Al and Betty were walking down the street. It fell down a manhole and died, while the other laughed.

Who's dead and who's the ass?

This is a bit of a niche case - the exact same problem exists with gendered pronouns if the names are instead Allison and Betty or Al and Billy.

[Jormengand]

This is a bit of a niche case - the exact same problem exists with gendered pronouns if the names are instead Allison and Betty or Al and Billy.

Clearly, rather than having gendered pronouns, you could have ordered pronouns, so they refer to the first, second, third thing being described (and so on from third if you want - it might need to go up to six before you decide that your sentence is already unreasonable). So, suppose we make up the pronouns fe, se and te (ignoring that "Se" is already sorta a word and that making up pronouns makes some people irrationally angry), we could have:

"Al and Betty were walking down the road, but there was a hole in the road. Fe fell down te, and se laughed."

Which is unambiguous - Al's fallen down the hole, and Betty's laughing. I don't think there are any actual languages which do that, though.

[Peelee]

Clearly, rather than having gendered pronouns, you could have ordered pronouns, so they refer to the first, second, third thing being described (and so on from third if you want - it might need to go up to six before you decide that your sentence is already unreasonable). So, suppose we make up the pronouns fe, se and te (ignoring that "Se" is already sorta a word and that making up pronouns makes some people irrationally angry), we could have:

"Al and Betty were walking down the road, but there was a hole in the road. Fe fell down te, and se laughed."

Which is unambiguous - Al's fallen down the hole, and Betty's laughing. I don't think there are any actual languages which do that, though.

That seems pretty straightforward and logical. I like it.

[Vinyadan]

Don't you already have the former, the latter?

[Jormengand]

Don't you already have the former, the latter?

Yes, but:

- There's only two of them. If Billy, Bill, Jane and Janet are walking down the road, then fe/se/te/fo/fi/si/etcetera would allow you to discuss whether fe (Billy), se (Bill), te (Jane) or fo (Janet) fell down fi (the hole).
- They're long. Pronouns tend to be single syllables. Using three syllables where one would do kinda defeats the point.

[DavidSh]

About former/latter:

Yes, but:
- They're long. Pronouns tend to be single syllables. Using three syllables where one would do kinda defeats the point.

Still, Japanese has personal pronouns like Watakushi, Anata, Kanojo. There are also shorter pronouns, but, if I remember correctly, only the Emperor gets to use a one-syllable personal pronoun.

[Vinyadan]

Yes, but:

- There's only two of them. If Billy, Bill, Jane and Janet are walking down the road, then fe/se/te/fo/fi/si/etcetera would allow you to discuss whether fe (Billy), se (Bill), te (Jane) or fo (Janet) fell down fi (the hole).
- They're long. Pronouns tend to be single syllables. Using three syllables where one would do kinda defeats the point.

How do you understand that people fell down the hole and not down the road, though?

[Jormengand]

About former/latter:

Still, Japanese has personal pronouns like Watakushi, Anata, Kanojo. There are also shorter pronouns, but, if I remember correctly, only the Emperor gets to use a one-syllable personal pronoun.

Yes, but "This is a feature of a language that exists" isn't really on speaking terms with "This is a good feature for a language to have".

How do you understand that people fell down the hole and not down the road, though?

Well, if I say, "Jane, Janet, Bill and Billy were walking down the road when they came across a hole, and te fell down si. Se kept walking down fi, while fe tried to help te, and fo laughed", then it's Bill falling down the hole, Janet keeping walking down the road, Jane trying to help Bill, and Billy laughing. Although this does require that you have to remember what's in the sentence, which can get exceptionally obnoxious if there are more people and objects than that.

[Bohandas]

Clearly, rather than having gendered pronouns, you could have ordered pronouns, so they refer to the first, second, third thing being described (and so on from third if you want - it might need to go up to six before you decide that your sentence is already unreasonable). So, suppose we make up the pronouns fe, se and te (ignoring that "Se" is already sorta a word and that making up pronouns makes some people irrationally angry), we could have:

"Al and Betty were walking down the road, but there was a hole in the road. Fe fell down te, and se laughed."

Which is unambiguous - Al's fallen down the hole, and Betty's laughing. I don't think there are any actual languages which do that, though.

This would be a significcantly better and more sensible system then the one we have now.

[Vinyadan]

It sounds difficult in that you have to rebuild the system each time you talk with someone.

For example, A started with

"Jack and Jon and Jill stole a tape from the museum yesterday."

B: "Fi has always been an idiot, but I wasn't expecting Se and Thi to follow".

A: "Yea, Thi is actually a smart girl. Thi's sister too."

Now, which pronoun should be used for Jill's sister, if B wants to inquire about her? Should the pronoun count follow from the first sentence (so the tape is Fo, the museum is Fif, the sister is Si), or should it restart when you add a new pronoun (so the sister is Fo)? And what pronoun would be used for the tape in this second case?

"When do they plan to return it?" is quite clear in this case, from context. With numerals, I don't know how it would work.

[Jormengand]

It sounds difficult in that you have to rebuild the system each time you talk with someone.

For example, A started with

"Jack and Jon and Jill stole a tape from the museum yesterday."

B: "Fi has always been an idiot, but I wasn't expecting Se and Thi to follow".

A: "Yea, Thi is actually a smart girl. Thi's sister too."

Now, which pronoun should be used for Jill's sister, if B wants to inquire about her? Should the pronoun count follow from the first sentence (so the tape is Fo, the museum is Fif, the sister is Si), or should it restart when you add a new pronoun (so the sister is Fo)? And what pronoun would be used for the tape in this second case?

"When do they plan to return it?" is quite clear in this case, from context. With numerals, I don't know how it would work.

Oh, it's absolutely not a perfect system and I realised already that the time scope would have to be better defined, or obvious from context (I suppose I would probably use Si in this case, so that it would be unambiguous). You could have it that the pronoun never changes for the whole conversation, too.

(Also, you could have separate lists for people and objects, because I keep on forgetting that the road, hole, tape and museum need to be counted alongside the people and also to make it slightly easier to differentiate what or whom is being talked about anyway).

[Lissou]

This remind me of ASL pronouns (possibly the same in other sign languages). Basically you assign a location to a person when you first mention them, and then you just point to that location to mean he/she/it/they. Maybe there could be a written system where when you first mention something, you assign its referent in parentheses or something, and then use that as its pronoun.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't think there are any actual languages which do that, though.

I understand that the constructed languages Lojban and Ithkuil have eliminated ambiguity. Unfortunately, that is all I know about them, so I cannot say how they solve the prepositional pronoun ambiguity - for all I know, they simply do not have prepositions pronouns at all and simply rely on repeating unambiguous names every time they come up.

Grey Wolf

[Vinyadan]

For clarity: do you mean pronouns?

This remind me of ASL pronouns (possibly the same in other sign languages). Basically you assign a location to a person when you first mention them, and then you just point to that location to mean he/she/it/they. Maybe there could be a written system where when you first mention something, you assign its referent in parentheses or something, and then use that as its pronoun.

That's interesting about sign languages.
About parentheses, the Egyptians put personal names inside a special contour line. I guess that, in theory, you could use them as makeshift written abbreviation, like e.g.

[[Claudius]] was made Roman Emperor after the death of ((Caligula)). [ was an unusual choice in many ways, because of [s relatively old age, [s mild temperament, and the fact that [ was actually hiding when [ was chosen by the ==senate==, since [ feared to be killed like his relative (. It probably is no coincidence that the only preserved official document in which = attributed and determined the power of the emperor was stipulated between [ and =.

[Bohandas]

sounds good to me

[Grey_Wolf_c]

For clarity: do you mean pronouns?

I do. I have corrected it above.

GW

[Jay R]

The ambiguity is neither caused by, nor fixed by, gender pronouns.

"Chris and Pat were walking down the street. He fell down a manhole, while she laughed."

Gender pronouns will exist as long as people want to identify the gender of the people they are talking about.

[factotum]

I understand that the constructed languages Lojban and Ithkuil have eliminated ambiguity.

I was curious, so I did some digging. Apparently, Lojban has a very similar system to the one Jormengand mentioned--there are five "place words" which tell you in which place the following word goes. (I may be misunderstanding how that works, though, since I don't speak Lojban!).

Ithkuil handles it differently--instead of using position in a sentence to show which word is the subject, as in English, it has "cases" which show that information instead. Apparently there are 72 main cases and 24 comparison cases (!), so you use a different case to show someone is experiencing an event passively as opposed to acting out the event, for example.

[Jormengand]

I was curious, so I did some digging. Apparently, Lojban has a very similar system to the one Jormengand mentioned

I was joking when I made that up!

[Bohandas]

This is a bit of a niche case - the exact same problem exists with gendered pronouns if the names are instead Allison and Betty or Al and Billy.

Or Jamie and Terry

"Jamie and Terry were walking down the street. He fell down a manhole and died, while she laughed"

[OracleofWuffing]

Honestly? I'm bugged by hearing about all these people falling down manholes.