Language and thinking

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sat Jul 31 03:14:45 UTC 2010


The structure of English kept me from seeing the truth!  *We* live in that
hypothetical society!

My new theory, and an eminently testable one it is too, is that the
transition from old to new justice was co-eval with the devlopment of Middle
English, the loss of the Old English declensions, dual pronoun, and certain
subtleties of the verb combining to cloud the minds of speakers and
compelling them to overlook flagrant wrongdoing.

I envy your ability to break the mind-forged manacles and think the thought
unthought.
But fess up: you only did it by thinking in AAVE syntax and morphology!

JL

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Language and thinking
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > transgressors running wild because no one wants to find them and society
> > will make restitution
>
> Uh, I missed your transition from language and syntax to Wall Street,
> Jon.;-)
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> 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.
> –Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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