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10295: Re: [MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)
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From: Matthew Mihaly <diablo@best.com>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 11:53:12 -0700 (PDT)
References: [1]
Organization: Kanga.Nu
On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Travis S. Casey wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> >
> > Mark, I hate to tell you this, but the population at large knows dick about
> > the conventions of natural language. They can't spell, their grammar is
> > atrocious, and their vocabulary is extremely limited. While NLP may be a
> > really nifty project to work on, it just plain isn't something users are
> > going to be able to work well with.
>
> These are very common misconceptions -- read any good introductory book on
> linguistics, or, for a more popular treatment, try Pinker's _The Language
> Instinct_. (Spelling has nothing to do with natural language -- only
> speech is natural. Over 90% of sentences spoken in casual conversation
> are perfectly grammatical (provided you're using the *actual* grammar of
> the language, and not the idealized "grammar" taught in schools). The
> average person knows more than four times as many words than Shakespeare
> used in all his writings.)
Saying that 90% of sentences spoken in casual conversation are
grammatically correct reveals either a lack of contact with the wider
world (no offence) or a willingness to define grammar as essentially
whatever is spoken. I can go to my local dive bar, pick a person at
random, and unless your definitions of correct grammar are extremely
loose, 90% of sentences spoken will not constructed using proper grammar.
--matt
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