From: Mauricio Fernandez <mfp@...>
Date: 2007-11-03T20:45:51+09:00
Subject: [OT] Re: JRuby performance questions answered

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 04:40:41AM +0900, Joel VanderWerf wrote:
> Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> >This doesn't sound too bad to me, but I'm no native speaker:
> >"Neither JRuby nor XRuby, IronRuby or Ruby.NET will ..."
> 
> That could sound like the "Neither ... nor ..." clause modifies 
> IronRuby. As in:
> 
> Neither fish nor fowl, greens or libertarians will be the first choice 
> of voters who are repelled by two-party politics.
> 
> It might not even be grammatical, but it is clear that we are not 
> talking about electing ducks and sturgeons. I'd rewrite it anyway.
 
Yet another effect is achieved by reordering the phrase this way:
 Neither fish nor greens, fowl or libertarians
This being a play on the standard idiom [1], the two parts are connected,
yielding a new meaning.

Is any sufficiently complex figure of speech undistinguishable from nonsense? :-)

> >"Or" must bind more tightly than "nor" there in order for the corresponding
> >logical proposition to be correct:
> 
> I don't think it works that way, at least as I hear it.

I had to repeat it a few times before I convinced myself that this is how
things should work, but the interpretation as a juxtaposition is very
attractive. Maybe I'm drawn to it because my mother tongue is closer to Latin? 

A skilled writer could use the ambiguity for very effective double-entendres.

[1] I had to look it up. In Spanish, French and German the idiom is "neither
meat nor fish" (actually, "neither fish nor meat" in German; I wonder why).

-- 
Mauricio Fernandez  -   http://eigenclass.org