a font that no one knows why it exists

David Bowie db.list at PMPKN.NET
Sun Mar 30 16:15:32 UTC 2014


Well, I'd like to raise a dissenting voice by saying that this is an
entirely normal construction for me, and I'm having a *lot* of trouble
trying to figure out what all y'all's problem with it is. (In fact,
someone said their problem is the 'it', and that *really* flummoxes me—I
mean, I know I speak English, so what language are y'all translating
this into in your heads?)

David Bowie

From:    Randy Alexander<strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> 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:
> Poster: Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM> 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?

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