Counting only to two

[Joel S. Berson]

And then there is the tale of the two Romanian noblemen (as told by
either Victor Borge or Theodore Bikel) who had a contest -- who could
name the larger number.

The first thought for a moment, and said "two".

The second thought for a while longer, and then said "I give up."

(This probably immediately preceded, or followed, the slur that a
gypsy would sell you his mother, but a Romanian gypsy would deliver.)

Joel

At 4/18/2007 01:05 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Isn't "They can count only to two" an antiquated fallacy, based on a
>misunderstaning of the way that the culture uses number, that was
>first applied to the languages of Australia a century ago? I seem to
>remember a discussion of this claim as a fallacy in Pei's book, The
>Story of Language. Of course, I am more than aware that no "real"
>linguist takes anything that ol' Mario has to say seriously. I first
>heard his ideas shat upon by barracks-mates at the old Army Language
>School back in 1960.
>
>And yes, I have read Colapinto's article.
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 4/18/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>Subject:      Piraha
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>>
>>Cause your linguistics students to read John Colapinto's "The
>>Interpreter" in the current  _New Yorker_ (Apr. 16).
>>
>>   It's about the Amazonian people whose language only counts to
>> two. Many other odd linguistic and sociolinguistic elements are described also.
>>
>>   JL
>>
>>
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>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>                                                      -Sam'l Clemens
>
>"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
>
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