bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan) (01/12/85)
> I actually use "Aren't I?". I only use "Am I not?" when I want to > sound pompous. > -- > Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam When do you want to sound pompous? :-) Maybe if enough people used "Am I not?" instead of "Aren't I?" it wouldn't sound so pompous after a while." I avoid both phrases. (I don't like to sound pompous and I don't like to sound stupid.) They're just rhetorical tags anyway. From the following three sentences, I'd probably pick the last one: I'm only human, aren't I? I'm only human, am I not? I'm only human, right? -- Bob Kaplan {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!bob "Some things never change, no matter how much they stay the same."
barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) (01/15/85)
Newsgroups net.nlang
Subject: Re: Invented languages
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I've been using some words of my own language for years. It started out
as a method for swearing (without shocking the older generation), featuring
such expressions as fyertaa nuutavau (meaning someone as slimy and brainless
as a three day rotten blind cavefish).
It's grown since then (especially after I got interested in linguistics).
Among the features are:
use of the trilled r as a morpheme to indicate specificity of reference of
a phrase (the longer the trilling lasts, the more concrete and specific
the example you have in mind; a general noun without a trill indicates you're
not only speaking abstractly but without any primary data to back up the
generalization).
substantive adjectives (e.g. in English, "The sky is blue") introduced by
the verb for "to perceive" rather than by the copulative "to be" (e.g. "I
perceive the sky as blue").
two different words for "is not": one indicates the category is possible
but unfilled; the other t hat you consider the category impossible. (The
difference between "There are no apple trees there" and "There are no icicles
on the surface of the Sun.")
There are also a number of vocabulary features expressing shades of meaning
I haven't found in English, French, Latin, Japanese -- and wanted. (Anyone
out there read Elgin's linguistic novel _Common-Tongue_? It's not bad once
you get past the rabid Sexism.
--Lee Gold