• Track_Shovel
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    875 months ago

    Live footage of me reviewing a report that has a repeated word series like this:

  • AirBreather
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    5 months ago

    James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had;” “had had” had had a greater effect on the teacher.

  • @Purox@feddit.org
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    305 months ago

    In German the following is a completely valid sentence:

    Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.

    Which translates to when flies fly behind flies, then flies follow flies. The same works for seals:

    Wenn hinter Robben Robben Robben, robben Robben Robben nach.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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      245 months ago

      Some Hungarian prefixes can be piled on without limit, while still creating meaning.

      The word “úszni” means “to swim”.

      Úsztatni - to make someone or someone swim
      Úsztattatni - to make someone make someone swim
      Úsztattattattattattattattattattni - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swim

      Can be done with any verb, and maybe some other suffixes as well.

        • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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          65 months ago

          It’s basically a mishmash of Ancient Ugric, Turkish, German, Slavic and Romani words with grammar that is an eldritch monstrosity, nobody really knows where it came from, and it is seriously weird.

          There are only two real tenses, but nineteen cases and two different ways of doing imperative, which are kind of equivalent but carry cultural and tonal differences in certain contexts.

      • @jorm1s@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        Strangely enough, this works in Finnish too:

        Uida - to swim

        Uittaa - to make someone or something swim

        Uitattaa - to make someone make someone swim

        Uitattattattattattattattattattaa - to make someone make someone make someone … make someone swim

        It’s almost as if they are related languages or something.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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      5 months ago

      English has Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo

      I don’t know what it means but I’ve been told it is indeed a full sentence.

    • @mutter9355@discuss.tchncs.de
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      55 months ago

      The same works in Dutch:

      Als vliegen achter vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna.

      Although my favourite form of that tongue twister is:

      Als vliegende vliegen achter vliegende vliegen vliegen, vliegen de vliegende vliegen vliegensvlug.

      When flying flies fly behind flying flies, the flying flies fly rapidly (“flying fast”).

      • Bob
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        15 months ago

        You can say “fleetly” instead of “rapidly”. Actually “rapidly” sounds incorrect when describing flying.

    • Karyoplasma
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      5 months ago

      Wenn hinter Robben Robben robben, robben Robben Robben nach.

      FTFY

  • @BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org
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    5 months ago

    “That that” can and probably should be replaced with “that which” in almost every instance it is used.

    Edit: or “when that”

    • @credo@lemmy.world
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      145 months ago

      Many times you don’t need the first “that” at all.

      Did you know that I play soccer?

      Vs

      Did you know I play soccer?

    • dream_weasel
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      65 months ago

      I’m surprised that that is your opinion.

      Put that in your thatwhich and eat it ;).

  • Flying SquidM
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    265 months ago

    It annoys me so much when I feel I need to write a sentence like that that I go to great lengths to restructure sentences to avoid it.

    …fuck

    • Prethoryn Overmind
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      55 months ago

      Your grammar and sanity are better for it. Actually, most cases I’m which a double that is used you can probably get away with a single that.

        • @Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          45 months ago

          “It is true that that’s almost never necessary.”

          I can’t wrap my head around this, logically it’s still a ‘double that’ but the short form makes it palatable to read/say.

  • Rhaedas
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    245 months ago

    “That that” spoken are two different sounding words so it makes sense. When it goes from verbal to written and I see it, I will almost always try to rephrase things to avoid that combo. It just jumps out as totally wrong.

      • Dhs92
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        155 months ago

        The A is slightly more emphasized in the second that. It’s subtle

          • Rhaedas
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            45 months ago

            Could be. So you say them exactly the same and not an inflection shift?

              • Dhs92
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                75 months ago

                Because you generally put more emphasis on the subject in English

                • @variants@possumpat.io
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                  25 months ago

                  I’ll try and pay attention next time I have to say that that or if someone else says it. I think reading it and over thinking it makes it sound weird

                • lad
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                  15 months ago

                  I think it depends on if you want to emphasize something specifically or not. Second ‘that’ is the default it seems, but I first expected ‘was’ to be emphasized in this sentence

      • @ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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        35 months ago

        In fluent speech, the conjunction (the first “that”) is unstressed, and as a result some speakers reduce the vowel a bit toward schwa. However, if you told those speakers to carefully pronounce each word, I bet they would pronounce the conjunction and the pronoun the exact same same. A more common example of this kind of reduction is the word “to”, which is almost always reduced to /tə/ ([tə] ~ [tʊ] ~ [ɾə] depending on dialect and surrounding words) in everyday speech when unstressed.

        Fun fact, you can reduce just about every unstressed vowel in English to schwa (if it’s not already a schwa) and still be largely understood.

  • FreshLight
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    225 months ago

    I always read “read” as “read” but now everything’s different.

      • "no" banana
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        85 months ago

        That one’s a readily available lead on how to pronounce both those words.

    • snooggums
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      5 months ago

      It is read like lead, not read like lead.

      Edit: dammit, someone beat me to it.

    • @dan@upvote.au
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      5 months ago

      Given the fact that that poem is 100 years old, I would have thought that English would have evolved to fix these issues by now. Oh well.

      We need a new language I guess. Maybe it’s time to switch to the most popular language in the world (in terms of number of native speakers): Mandarin Chinese.

      • lad
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        35 months ago

        Maybe better use second most popular: Spanish, it at least uses same letters (differently though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

      • @ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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        15 months ago

        The use of emojis is.slowly converting written language back to hieroglyphics, so your new language is already happening.

    • @DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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      35 months ago

      I still feel like the nouns are in the wrong place when I read this.

      I’m reading it as “New York cows new York cows bully bully New York cows”

      When I want it to read “New York cows bully new York cows” which would be “Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” which isn’t enough buffalo.

      I have to inset my own “that” to be able to get my head around “Buffalo buffalo (that) Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”

  • @solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    english is dumb. why do we say “hands,” but we don’t say “foots”? why does “goose” become “geese,” but “moose” doesn’t become “meese”? why is “led” the past tense of “lead,” but “red” is not the past tense of “read”? why don’t “good” and “food” rhyme? LIGHT becomes LIT, fight becomes FOUGHT. peek becomes peeked, seek becomes SOUGHT

    i could do this all day, but i willn’t

    • KSP Atlas
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      15 months ago

      At least with my accent, good and food actually rhyme

      Also the reason behind English being weird is foreign influence, sound shifts and late standardisation

    • @khannie@lemmy.world
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      285 months ago

      It needs a comma.

      All the good faith I had had, had had no effect.

      Essentially “all the food faith I previously had, didn’t have any effect”.

      Good God English is an awful language.

      • @Classy@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I’m pretty sure it is grammatically correct with no comma. The version you provided is a comma splice.

        To slightly change the tense, All the good faith that I had had no effect is grammatically correct with no comma, so the gerund form should also not need a comma.

        • @khannie@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Perhaps. Regardless it’s outlandish abuse of the tongue IMO and definitely would benefit from the comma because nobody’s going to just bang out 4 had’s in a row in speech without a pause without a justifiable slap across the chops and possibly a challenge to a duel.

          “But your honour, he said ‘had’ four times on the trot without pause”

          “Case dismissed”

        • @khannie@lemmy.world
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          45 months ago

          You’re welcome. :) Took me a minute tbh. Not sure if the wine I’ve had helped or hindered. It’s 2:30am here.

      • @abbadon420@lemm.ee
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        35 months ago

        It doesn’t need a comma, it needs restructuring. When phrasing it like this, it is customary to add a comma between two adjacent verbs. You could even argue that the first part is an introductory phrase, which would explain the comma too.

  • @ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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    115 months ago

    dass das das das dass da ersetzen kann ist falsch

    translation: that “das” can replace “dass” there is wrong.

    same shit different barbarians