The Evolution of Language 528
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.""
Re:As suggested by Mark Twain (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Programming does that to you (Score:3, Insightful)
System.out.println("Hello, world.");
Because in that case it makes perfect sense.
(code begins) (open paren) (String begins) (sentence begins) (sentence ends) (String ends) (close paren) (code ends)
I have no problem with a sentence like:
Bill said, "Go to the store."
Because in that case, it's logical. Well, almost. You could argue that it should read:
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.
Re:Easy- a lot of it will go (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait, no I don't, it's a useless extra comma that isn't necessary.
Re:As suggested by Mark Twain (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Too late for "wed" (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but they're all American dictionaries, so they don't really count, do they?
You'll also find "burglarize" in American dictionaries. There's already a prefectly good verb - burgle - from which comes burglar, but you guys get all confused about shortening a noun to verberize it, so you have to make a new, bigger verb so you can feel safe about conjugaterizationerizing that. Does my head in.
No, American dictionaries don't count, sorry.
Ummm (Score:2, Insightful)
The "we-be's" are right (?) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The "we-be's" are right (?) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Predicting the future using language (Score:2, Insightful)
His Master's Voice is up there with Borges, Hemingway, Camus, Orwell and Greene in the canon of great 20th century literature.
Everyone should read HMV at least once in their life - it's a pity I can't read it in the original, as I'm a poor Anglophone with no Polish at all :-{
Internet might change these results (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As suggested by Mark Twain (Score:3, Insightful)
The same approach exists in other sciences and even mathematics itself. We haven't proved the Riemann hypothesis, we are not sure if it is true, but there is lots of evidence to suggest as much. And there are lots of things that we have shown are equivalent to proving the Riemann hypothesis. The bottom line however, is that until the Riemann hypothesis is shown to be true, everything based on it is also unproven albeit interesting speculation. The same problem exists in physics. The Higgs particle has never been observed directly, but if we speculate that it is there then we can explain a number of experimental results. Until I see a Higgs particle come out of the LHC however I will not consider it's existence to have been demonstrated.
The quest for historical fact should be the same as any other science, simply coupled with the acceptance that unlike the hard sciences it is much easier to produce speculation without proof than it is to produce hard results. This results in a difference in method, not in objective.
The mathematical approach is never inappropriate when your objective is to establish fact.
Re:Of course it's all about the verbs (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm... But take the phrase "to fuck up". It doesn't have anything to do with being displeased, it just means that someone has just failed, and in a particularly spectacular way at that. So, "fuck communism" could also be interpreted "fuck up communism", or "make communism fail in a spectacular manner". So, the original sentence of "describe and fuck communism" could then be interpreted as "describe communism and make it fail in a spectacular way".
Re:Easy- a lot of it will go (Score:1, Insightful)
This has been around since the 1960's.
A note for our American cousins. If a woman is "rooting for her team", she is not waving her hands around but spreading her legs (among other things). Elvis singing "Tuttie Fruitie, I want a rootie" is just plain disgusting.