Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought...on TED
How's Your Grammer?
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
How's Your Grammer?
If you think you have a good command of the english language or another, then take a peek at this. You may be quite surprised, if you can understand it.
Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought...on TED
Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought...on TED
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rjlittlefield
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I saw this one the other day.
Oddly enough, I thought it made perfect sense.
But then again, from time to time I dabble in trying to make computers do something useful with free text.
Usually the computer is lucky if it correctly picks out just the places, dates, names, subjects, verbs, and objects, and gets some vague indication of which of those things actually do relate to each other instead of just being used closely together in the same sentence. (Try asking your computer to make sense of the preceding sentence, and see what garbage comes out!)
The stuff that Pinker is talking about is much more subtle, yet so pervasive and common that we don't even think about it.
Yeah, it's pretty daunting.
--Rik
Oddly enough, I thought it made perfect sense.
But then again, from time to time I dabble in trying to make computers do something useful with free text.
Usually the computer is lucky if it correctly picks out just the places, dates, names, subjects, verbs, and objects, and gets some vague indication of which of those things actually do relate to each other instead of just being used closely together in the same sentence. (Try asking your computer to make sense of the preceding sentence, and see what garbage comes out!)
The stuff that Pinker is talking about is much more subtle, yet so pervasive and common that we don't even think about it.
Yeah, it's pretty daunting.
--Rik
I understood what he was saying and it is interesting that he mentioned how language changes.
Right now, with text messaging we are in the stages of "dumbing down" America. A school actually had to state in written policy that text messaging lingo is not acceptable sentence structure of classwork, term papers, etc. I have also heard kids talk to each other in this manner when face-to-face.
Of course he (Ted) was not speaking directly about text messaging, but it is what came to mind when he spoke about how language changes over time.
Right now, with text messaging we are in the stages of "dumbing down" America. A school actually had to state in written policy that text messaging lingo is not acceptable sentence structure of classwork, term papers, etc
. I have also heard kids talk to each other in this manner when face-to-face.Of course he (Ted) was not speaking directly about text messaging, but it is what came to mind when he spoke about how language changes over time.
Sue Alden
Of all my high school classes, I hated english second to math. I understood neither. My comprehension of sentence structure and other such things equated to that of algebra or trig...duh? 
None of it made any sense then but now looking back, I wish that it had because now a days, well...it still doesn't. Anyway I thought Mr. Pinkers talk was quite thought provoking and in someways a bit humerous here and there. 
None of it made any sense then but now looking back, I wish that it had because now a days, well...it still doesn't. Anyway I thought Mr. Pinkers talk was quite thought provoking and in someways a bit humerous here and there. 