[MUD-Dev] Languages (slightly offtopic, was Text Parsing)

[Matthew Mihaly]

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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