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That is an incredibly difficult title to parse if you are from a certain background. I spent about a minute trying to imagine how someone might have made a huma
by OtterCoder 9y ago
That is an incredibly difficult title to parse if you are from a certain background. I spent about a minute trying to imagine how someone might have made a human/cow chimera, and what that might have to do with harmonics.
In my defense, I had read the following article about rat/human chimeras earlier today:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4867891/scientists-give-rats-consciousness-by-implanting-them-with-tiny-human-brains/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4867891/scientists-give-rats-c...
- King-Aaron 9y agoBecause articles from The Sun generally make me grind my teeth, I quickly hunted down the study they reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23995685 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23995685
- minikomi 9y agoHuman sperm use second harmonics of the flagellar beat to steer
- evanb 9y agoA sentence where you begin parsing one way, find it it impossible to complete, and have to backtrack substantially (so that the intended meaning changes drastically) is called a garden path sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence My favorite is "The old man the boat" :)
- propman 9y agoGreat read! The see also links have a lot of other peculiar sentences that I've come across frequently but never considered they were constructed deliberately nor that there were actual terms describing the oddities.
- beaconstudios 9y agoHa, it's like a branch misprediction but for language, very cool
- somberi 9y ago"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow;_fruit_flies_like_a_banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow;_frui...
- mirimir 9y agoTrying to imagine time flies, here. Generally, I hate flies. I imagine that time flies bite something. But what?
- adamkruszewski 9y agobanana? ;)
- mirimir 9y agoSomething out of Lovecraft, I think.
- ronjouch 9y agoTIL, thanks. The wiki page was posted on HN earlier this year, here's the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10613213
- ajuc 9y agoWhat's the alternative parsing? I'm not a native speaker, so I'm probably missing something, but it seemed pretty natural to read to me.
- jcims 9y ago‘steer’ being a term used for castrated cattle
- amelius 9y agoWhat makes it more awkward is that the article "the" is used in one place, but is omitted in another.
- code_duck 9y agoI read it as 'human sperm beer' at first glance, and was getting to how it had harmonics from the wiggly tails or something when i realized that mercifully, that is not what it says.