Re: Another example of Schuh as moron (was Another Synthol moron)

In the Year of the Golden Pig, the Great and Powerful William
December Starr declared:

The class understood the text. Many of them didn't like it. But
they understood it fine. It's flowery language, and it's got a
few unfamiliar words in it (as above, with "quietus" and "fardels"
and such). But flowery phrasing and a scattering of unfamiliar
vocabulary don't make it a different language.

I think it does. It cannot be read, for comprehension, without
significant pre-processing, by a person who is (if I may flatter
myself) quite competent and well-schooled in the English language.


Then your complaint isn't with Shakespeare but poetry. Browning
twisted his sentence structures to fit meter and rhyme just as much
as Shakespeare, but he wrote only ~150 years ago.

I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her.

While Shakespeare's prose is perfectly clear.

Henry: Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in
the king's company, his cause being just and his quarrel
honorable.

Will: That's more than we know.

Bates: Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough
if we know we were the king's subjects. If his cause be wrong,
our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

Will: But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a
heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms and
heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the
latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place;" some
swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives
left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some
upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few
die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably
dispose of any thing when blood is their argument? Now if
these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for
the king that led them to it, whom to disobey were against
all proportion of subjection.

--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
Veronica: It's a Zagat guide for hookers.
--Veronica Mars
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ansichtkaart in vreemde taal
    ... which is not a written language (only ... dat volkomen duidelijk ... Maar als ik het dus goed begrijp is de redelijk zekere eindconclusie dat het gaat om Macedonisch, ... dan moeten we nu dus iemand zien te vinden die dat kan lezen. ...
    (soc.genealogy.benelux)
  • Re: Future of the Highlands?
    ... The secondary school which Child attended had two Welsh First Language ... I work in the south of england for a company that was english. ... das ist hier die Frage: ... Obs edler im Gemüt, die Pfeil und Schleudern ...
    (uk.business.agriculture)
  • Re: Lernmethoden
    ... Less really is more for adults learning a miniature artificial language. ... bei der nicht genau das das von allen ... zum Beispiel die Reihenfolge der Objekte ...
    (de.etc.sprache.misc)
  • Re: A theorem for agnostics
    ... >nicht eine der geringsten Aufgaben des Logikers, auf die Fallstricke ... language is certainly not unreliable and that is so easy ... operative version of the common usage dictionary definition of "rely." ... their theoretical context for popular description, ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Related languages (Re: A China-Sumer connection)
    ... John Atkinson wrote: ... >> The story about the king forbidding Lingua Geral makes me think of the ... >> Folklore about language seems to attribute unrealistic language ...
    (sci.archaeology)