[ruby-talk:5602] Re: Regexp#matches

Conrad Schneiker/Austin/Contr/IBM wrote:

> ..
> Although English is the most widely spoken language in the world, (1) it
> is not the most widely spoken first language, (2) nor is it gramatically
> all that well understood by a great many of those who do speak it. (In
> effect, there are many quasi-dialects of English.) (3) Until someone knows

Actually, I don't think that there are any good models of English grammar.
Most of what I learned in school was based around Latin grammar, and the
programmed sentence generators that I've seen don't inspire me with any faith
in the more modern theories of how the grammar is supposed to work.  My real
guess is that like most works of evolution, it is a layered collection of
patches, and was not created to mesh with any simplified description.  If we
can find one that almost works, then we are probably doing as well as is
possible.

Someone once described the English language as (paraphrase)"The English
language was the result of Norman-French men-at-arms attempting to make dates
with Saxon bar-maids, and is no more legitimate than any of the other
results".  This is probably an understatement of the true case.  Think of
layers of binary patches, with no intermediate recompiles.

> ...
>
> Conrad Schneiker
> (This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)
>
> Conrad Schneiker
> (This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)

He who writes the language, makes the rules.

-- (c) Charles Hixson
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