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> language is terribly ambiguous I never get this argument. Sure, maybe it is from the point of the computer, but we humans use it just fine.

freehunter 10y ago
Much of our comedy stems from how ambiguous our language is. How many petabytes on the Internet are wasted with comments correcting someone's use of language? How many hours are spent as kids in classrooms learning all of the context around our languages, and we still get it wrong often enough to be corrected on the Internet and made fun of in comedy TV shows. We're certainly not using it just fine, we're using it in spite of all its shortcomings. Do you know how often I'm driving while my wife is navigating and I ask "turn left here?" and she says "right"? Now, is she saying "correct, you should turn left" or is she saying "don't turn left, turn right"? Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long. –Mitch Hedberg
- hacker_9 10y ago
  > Much of our comedy stems from how ambiguous our language is. Yes, but we laugh because we understand there is an ambiguity, not because we don't see it. > How many petabytes on the Internet are wasted with comments correcting someone's use of language? People are pedantic on the net, plus on the world wide web not everyone is going to be an English first speaker. Spoken conversations don't have people correcting your grammar every 5 seconds. > wife is navigating and I ask "turn left here?" and she says "right" Well in this case she is being deliberately ambiguous. So you either tell by her tone inflection, or rely on previous memory. And of course you have the ability to ask her. > Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx > I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long. –Mitch Hedberg Again, I see and understand the ambiguity. I'm not sitting here dumbfounded; I 'get' that they turned the words back on themselves to mean something else.

freehunter 10y ago

Much of our comedy stems from how ambiguous our language is. How many petabytes on the Internet are wasted with comments correcting someone's use of language? How many hours are spent as kids in classrooms learning all of the context around our languages, and we still get it wrong often enough to be corrected on the Internet and made fun of in comedy TV shows. We're certainly not using it just fine, we're using it in spite of all its shortcomings. Do you know how often I'm driving while my wife is navigating and I ask "turn left here?" and she says "right"? Now, is she saying "correct, you should turn left" or is she saying "don't turn left, turn right"? Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long. –Mitch Hedberg

hacker_9 10y ago
> Much of our comedy stems from how ambiguous our language is. Yes, but we laugh because we understand there is an ambiguity, not because we don't see it. > How many petabytes on the Internet are wasted with comments correcting someone's use of language? People are pedantic on the net, plus on the world wide web not everyone is going to be an English first speaker. Spoken conversations don't have people correcting your grammar every 5 seconds. > wife is navigating and I ask "turn left here?" and she says "right" Well in this case she is being deliberately ambiguous. So you either tell by her tone inflection, or rely on previous memory. And of course you have the ability to ask her. > Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx > I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long. –Mitch Hedberg Again, I see and understand the ambiguity. I'm not sitting here dumbfounded; I 'get' that they turned the words back on themselves to mean something else.