4 ms·

There’s a rule in Russian grammar that every first-grader knows by heart

29 points by luu 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago
There's a difference between social rules, whose exceptions do not need to be interesting: шы might be an acceptable bigram in hip hop liner notes, while you don't have to feed your cat if you have household help who'll do it for you, etc, and formal system rules, whose exceptions should be interesting, which occurs iff the broken rule also results in a consistent formal system: hyperbolic geometry, non-euclidean spaces, etc. Все в зале, посчитай с нами Чтоб сотрясались сами мы стены и пол!
pandaman 6y ago
Actually, this particular rule is almost as same as math rules: и/ы after a consonant indicates "soft"/"hard" pronunciation of the consonant. Some consonants do not have this choice and are always "soft" so they are never followed by ы as it would make no sense. Of course, there are exceptions: a "soft" ц allows ы in a few special cases. Can't have a proper language where any rule would always make sense :)
- netsuileo 6y ago
  Your direction of thoughts is right. But this particular rule is completely opposite to your conclusions. Ж and Ш are "hard" consonants so by ear И after them always sounds like Ы. But the rule tells us to write И instead of Ы. This rule of Russian spelling does not make any sense that's why every first-grader knows it.
  - pandaman 6y ago
    What do you know, I looked up and you are right - they are really considered "hard". Though, as a native speaker I thought them to be "soft" all my life! I figure the rule making them "hard" is arbitrary, not the и/ы.
AndrewOMartin 6y ago
There's a rule in English grammar that every English speaker knows, but likely doesn't know they know. The rule was popularised by a Tweet [1], but I learned about it here on HN. [1] https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/772002757222002688 https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/77200275722200268...
- BerislavLopac 6y ago
  English also has one weird exception to the rule "I before E except after C"... ;)
- _nalply 6y ago
  German has a very similar rule but as a native German speaker I can't talk about this rule. I just know that I know something but don't know what exactly I know.

29 points by luu 6y ago

There's a difference between social rules, whose exceptions do not need to be interesting: шы might be an acceptable bigram in hip hop liner notes, while you don't have to feed your cat if you have household help who'll do it for you, etc, and formal system rules, whose exceptions should be interesting, which occurs iff the broken rule also results in a consistent formal system: hyperbolic geometry, non-euclidean spaces, etc. Все в зале, посчитай с нами Чтоб сотрясались сами мы стены и пол!

pandaman 6y ago

Actually, this particular rule is almost as same as math rules: и/ы after a consonant indicates "soft"/"hard" pronunciation of the consonant. Some consonants do not have this choice and are always "soft" so they are never followed by ы as it would make no sense. Of course, there are exceptions: a "soft" ц allows ы in a few special cases. Can't have a proper language where any rule would always make sense :)

netsuileo 6y ago
Your direction of thoughts is right. But this particular rule is completely opposite to your conclusions. Ж and Ш are "hard" consonants so by ear И after them always sounds like Ы. But the rule tells us to write И instead of Ы. This rule of Russian spelling does not make any sense that's why every first-grader knows it.
- pandaman 6y ago
  What do you know, I looked up and you are right - they are really considered "hard". Though, as a native speaker I thought them to be "soft" all my life! I figure the rule making them "hard" is arbitrary, not the и/ы.

AndrewOMartin 6y ago

There's a rule in English grammar that every English speaker knows, but likely doesn't know they know. The rule was popularised by a Tweet [1], but I learned about it here on HN. [1] https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/772002757222002688 https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/77200275722200268...

BerislavLopac 6y ago
English also has one weird exception to the rule "I before E except after C"... ;)
_nalply 6y ago
German has a very similar rule but as a native German speaker I can't talk about this rule. I just know that I know something but don't know what exactly I know.