The Evolution of Language

TaeKwonDood writes "We all know language has evolved but mathematicians are trying to take how it has changed in the past to predict what it will be like in the future." From the article: "Mathematical analysis of this linguistic evolution reveals that irregular verb conjugations behave in an extremely regular way -- one that can yield predictions and insights into the future stages of a verb's evolutionary trajectory," says Lieberman, a graduate student in applied mathematics in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and an affiliate of Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. "We measured something no one really thought could be measured, and got a striking and beautiful result.""

Of course it's all about the verbs

[SpaceLifeForm]

It's fuck that, suck this, screw that.

Verbs, verbs, verbs, that's all anyone thinks about.

I, for one...

[exploder]

am glad I getted the chance to welcome our new, regularly-conjugated overlords.

Easy- a lot of it will go

[dbIII]

I predict we will "loose" a lot of words and have them replaced by ones with similar spelling.

Re:Of course it's all about the verbs

[JoshJ]

Fuck is actually much more than a verb, you dumb fuck. Now fucking give me the money or I'll blow your fucking brains out.

As suggested by Mark Twain

[Wizarth]

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Generally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeiniing voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivili.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev alojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Werd Up

[da3dAlus]

I for one welcome our cromulent new verbs!

Re:Easy- a lot of it will go

[JoshJ]

As much as that annoys me, I must say that they taught that as a valid way of doing things in my elementary school English classes. Then again, I'm one of those Americans that prefers the British style of punctuating quotes. In other words, I write something like:
Johnny said, "Bill went to the store".
whereas the American style is:
Johnny said, "Bill went to the store."
Obviously the former makes more sense because it nests properly: (sentence begins) (quote begins) (quote ends) (sentence ends).
That said, I refuse to put unnecessary u's in words like armor. ;)

Re:Of course it's all about the verbs

[Nimey]

The fucking fucker's fucking fucked. Fuck!

Programming does that to you

[Anonymous Coward]

You learn to use the ." format if you program.

Re:Predicting the future using language

[Crypto Gnome]

So you're saying that Stanislaw Lem "invented" internet domain squatting?

Re:Easy- a lot of it will go

[Anonymous Coward]

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"Well, I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Death of COBOL

[Tablizer]

The only way that COBOL may ever end is when English changes so much that COBOL no longer reads as English.

Re: Love!

[Black Parrot]

I'm going on another date with the most wonderful girl I could possibly imagine

Is that an indication of the fine qualities of the girl, or the poor quality of your imagination?

Re:Bawstan Habah?

[sheriff_cahill]

Wanna see morphing? Come to Australia. Even we have trouble keeping track of the changes.

Re:Programming does that to you

[TeknoHog]

Bill said, "Go to the store.".

Because there's really two sentences there (the narrator's sentence as well as Bill's) but actually putting two periods is redundant and I have no problem with the internal period in that case.

I wouldn't say it's redundant, since as you said, there are two sentences. However, language often sacrifices logical consistency for fluency and clarity. Having lots of punctuation marks is typographically ugly, and distracts from fluent reading. Frankly, .". looks like an anime character.

Re:Of course it's all about the verbs

[Hal_Porter]

In the UK the Daily Telegraph, a right wing newspaper quoted someone as calling someone else a "F*cking Nigger". The Guardian, a left wing paper, said that they should have written it as as "Fucking N**ger" which I thought was funny.

Evolution of language for /.ers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, is it anything like this [userfriendly.org]?

Re:Of course it's all about the verbs

[dintech]

You're forgetting this is the evolution of language. Don't you mean "The fracking fracker's fracking fracked. Frack!"?

Re:Those who do, keep silent.

[somersault]

What's sudoku got to do with all of this?

To google

[Ed Avis]

What do they mean, 'new verbs entering English, such as "google," are universally regular.'? Everyone knows that it's

I google
I gaigle
I have googlen

The Future of Linguistics...

[Sierpinski]

Barbara: "Excuse me Stewardess, but I speak Jive."

Stewardess: "Oh, good. Please tell him that I'll be right back with some medicine."

Barbara: (to man) "Jus hang loose blood, she gonna catch you on the rebound with some medicide..."

Man: "Whatchu talkin' bout momma, my momma didn't raise no dummies, I dug her rap!"

Barbara: "Cut me some slack jack! (arguing in Jive) Jive-ass fool ain't got no brains... anyhow."

(Forgive me if I missed a part, trying to do it from memory here....)

The Best One Recently

[chasisaac]

I work at a detention facility school.

We get cussed out on a regular basis.

Sometimes the kids get restrained by trained staff and they will say something like, "I can't fucking breathe." This they know is a magic phrase. We had a teacher recently go in and tell a student:

You cannot use a gerund with an intransitive verb. You should say I can't fucking. Or I can't breathe. You cannot use I can't fucking breathe. Make up your mind you are either not fucking or not breathing!

Well this is what happens when english teachers have way to much caffeine.

Re:Of course it's all about the verbs

[MostAwesomeDude]

Both of 'em have it wrong; "nigger" shouldn't be capitalized.