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A linguistic change is happening in the English language. We're adding a new class of word, the "referent case", which is signified by a # before the word. The
by rmc 13y ago
A linguistic change is happening in the English language. We're adding a new class of word, the "referent case", which is signified by a # before the word. The referent case shows the topic of a sentence, just like how the nominative case shows the actor of a verb, etc. We've already added the vocative case to English with the @ grammatical marking.
- russellsprouts 13y agoThat's pretty interesting. I wonder how smileys fit into our grammar. I often wonder what our typical grammar will look like in 50-100 years or more. I'm sure something will survive.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rmc 13y agoOh I forgot about smilies/emoticons, they are a new non-word symbol that we're adding to indicate the tone/mood of the 'speaker' of the sentence.
- ypcx 13y agoand it will take another 20 years before we realize that in most cases we don't really need upper case letters. now burn me for heresy.
- Zikes 13y agoForgive the crudeness of the example, but there's a huge difference between the following two sentences: I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse. i had to help my uncle jack off a horse.
- Yhippa 13y ago"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo...
- loceng 13y agoi had to help my uncle, jack, off a horse.
- mpyne 13y agoAnd that doesn't "read" well.
- loceng 13y agoI agree. It's how I type when I don't care or not putting in as much effort - like feeling lazy or perhaps unmotivated or depressed.
- TheShadowFog 13y agoare you kidding me?
- lcasela 13y agoIt reads well to me.
- hayksaakian 13y agoI suspect a reduction in the number of people with names like that, much like Dick, Gaylord, etc.
- rmc 13y agoAll languages change and have ambiguities. Modern English (with Capital Letters) has lots of ambiguities that cannot be disambiguated with capitals (e.g. "a small girls school")
- quarterto 13y agoSo? Capital letters obviate one class of ambiguities. That there are classes of ambiguity they do not is not a reason to not use them.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoConversely, on its own, the fact that they remove some ambiguities is not a sufficient reason to use them. Since the downvoters disagree, I'll provide a proof. 1. Suppose resolution of ambiguities is a sufficient reason for a separate case in written language. 2. Ambiguities exist that are not resolved. 3. New cases are not created to resolve these. 4. By contradiction, 1 is false. QED There may be other reasons which in addition to the resolution of ambiguity are sufficient to justify case, but you can't simply cite the resolution of ambiguity and say conclude that case is justified.
- Zikes 13y agoNo language is perfectly unambiguous, but language evolution should trend toward clarity, not away from it.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoOr, a language should tend toward simplicity, without unnecessary frills. Which you'd prefer is probably just taste.
- ypcx 13y agoI don't think you would choose to use this particular sentence in a serious communication with anyone. The letter case would just not be enough of a distinguishing factor for you to risk the wrong meaning being conveyed. The letter case only has a very small meaning once you get used to using small caps.
- ypcx 13y agoto add - the main meaning of upper case is to help separate sentences, because the dot alone is not enough, unless the reader is specifically used for the dot to be the only separator. this is an example.
- lcasela 13y agoi agree! i mean, what's really wrong with typing in all lowercase?
- weinzierl 13y agoI agree, except that hashtages are used in other languages as well. I think they even work in every language.
- rmc 13y agoSure, it works for every language. Just like how lots of languages use ! to show an exclaimation on a sentance, or ? to indicate a question.
- weinzierl 13y agoAfter thinking about it: For languages with no spaces or other word separators hashtags probably don't work that well. They might work for human readers but I think they are mostly useful because they can be automatically extracted or converted to links. I wonder if hashtags are used in Chinese or Japanese? The fascinating thing about languages is that there is no rule without exception. When it comes to ! and ? even a familiar language like Spanish is suddenly strange.
- kmfrk 13y agoJust be careful, if you're ever in France: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/feb/06/twitter-hashtag-france http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/feb/06/.... :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- zemo 13y agoit's not English language that's changing, it's human language. Hashtags represent the implicit knowledge within human communication that there is a machine observer present. Hashtags are how humans help to guide machines to behave in the way that they expect.
- ryanklee 13y agoExcept people are now using them in both written and verbal communication when they know for a fact that there's no machine observer. In other words, hashtags are now a functional part of grammar. Sometimes it's for machine consumption. Sometimes it's for human consumption. Sometime's both. As everywhere in language, context determines usage. Edit: Here's an obligatory languagelog post on hashtags... http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3671 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3671
- zemo 13y ago"Know for a fact that there's no machine observer" Using a hashtag, for a lot of people, isn't a deliberate indicator to effect a specific machine state at present time; it's an indicator that machine action may take place, not that it necessarily will. So, for example, people have been using non-functional hashtags on Facebook for a long time. Why would they do such a thing? They do so because the utility of the hashtag is dependent on the hashtag already being in widespread use. If you use it now, it may become useful later. So it's not about saying "this text is definitely observed" or "this text is definitely not observed", it's about enabling the possibility under observation, either present observation or future observation. Anyway, I think one of the articles linked to in your article (thanks for the link, btw), kinda misses the point: “Sarah Palin for President??!? #Iwouldratherhaveamoose” This usage totally subverts the original purpose of the hashtag, since the likelihood of anyone searching the term “Iwouldratherhaveamoose” is next to zero. I would say the likelihood of anyone searching the term #Iwouldratherhaveamoose is not next to zero; it's probably closer to one. Firstly, the speaker. The speaker may have no prior knowledge of the hashtag, but having thought of it, knows that someone else had thought of it. After sending that tweet, what are the odds that the speaker's very next action will be to search #Iwouldratherhaveamoose, to see who else had thought of that tag and what they were doing. Secondly, the (human) audience. Part of this is to encourage someone else to make a new statement ending in #Iwouldratherhaveamoose; so the original speaker is incentivized to search this term sometime again in the future to see if their action has spawned a reaction.
- sneak 13y agoNo.
- rmc 13y agoLatin had a vocative case which was formed by changing the ending. "Et tu, Brute?" could be translated into "And you, @Brutus?", not the usage of "?", "," and "@" as grammatical markers.