a font that no one knows why it exists

[Randy Alexander]

I don't think there are any people that this is a normal construction for.
 I've heard it (and produced it) often enough though through strolling down
the garden path. I remember in college when I first became aware of it -- I
was excited to have found an example where English just broke down.


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: a font that no one knows why it exists
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mar 29, 2014, at 5:29 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >> But it's not exactly English.
> >
> >
> > a font for whose existence there is no known reason.
>
> I was playing around with devising something like that, but I don't really
> find this to be English, either, in the sense that it doesn't seem parsable
> without tearing it apart bit by bit. Is this a normal construction for some
> people?
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos
>
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--
Randy Alexander
Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog
Music: http://www.metafilter.com/activity/56219/posts/music/

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