There's a word for that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".

I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.

And I think it's creeping e-prime.

I can name several things that don't exist.

It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.

I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.

[hooplala]

This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".

I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.

And I think it's creeping e-prime.

I can name several things that don't exist.

It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.

I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.

Like this God person, for instance...  she's got a lot of 'splaining if she do exist.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".

I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.

And I think it's creeping e-prime.

I can name several things that don't exist.

It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.

I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.

Like this God person, for instance...  she's got a lot of 'splaining if she do exist.

I've proven God's existence.

[Triple Zero]

In support of this, I'd like to call upon the knowledge of any German speakers on the board... From what I can tell, a lot of their more complex words are simply amalgamations of smaller words, which is why you get words like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise" which means, apparently, "rolling-stairs-use-tips" or "Tips for using the escalator".  Ok, that was a silly example.

Yeah, at first I thought it meant "escalator manual", but after asking my gf, it's indeed more like usage tips, in the sense that this is a word one could use for the sign next to an escalator with safety rules/tips on it, such as not bringing your child carrier on it.

You can even split the word further, "weisen" means "to point", so "weise" would mean "pointer". The "hin" bit is a sort of preposition thingy, similar to how it's used in the English phrase "to point out". So the "tips" are literally "out pointers", pointing things out for you.

BTW there is a curious thing in the English language where "escalator manual" is also a single word. A compound word made of two (orthographic) words. Confusing two different meaning to "word", one being "sequence of letters delineated by spaces" (or more accurately /\w+/ as we say in regex language), also known as orthographic word, the other being a sort of smallest semantic unit. Note that "English language" is not a single word, cause "English" is an adjective, so that makes it a phrase.

The difference between Dutch or German and English, is that we tend to leave out the spaces (or in Dutch sometimes replace them with dashes, if necessary), while English leaves them in.

There's a fantasy that somewhere, there's a race of people who are closer to some sort of idealized paradise where everyone is nice to each other, in spite of biological and psychological evolutionary evidence to the contrary.

Oh yeah, those people. Always smiling, happy, nice. I'm pretty sure we conquered, pillaged and raped them. The cunts.

[The Johnny]

English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.

Gossiper.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.

Gossiper.

Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it?  You can gossip without malice.

[The Johnny]

English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.

Gossiper.

Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it?  You can gossip without malice.

Interesting, i thought gossiping was mostly, if not always with bad intentions. Its like talking shit or bringing up secrets that dont concern oneself as to judge a person negatively.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.

Gossiper.

Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it?  You can gossip without malice.

Interesting, i thought gossiping was mostly, if not always with bad intentions. Its like talking shit or bringing up secrets that dont concern oneself as to judge a person negatively.

No, gossiping is just making chitchat, idle talk, especially about the actions or personal lives of others. It's not inherently malicious and everyone does it.

[Kai]

[facetious] You know, theres a phrase for the extreme take on the concept we are discussing/disarming.

It's called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

[/facetious]

[Jenne]

Which has truths and more untruths to it. Nigel's speaking on a level of a more or less COMMON shared human experience, whereas Sapir-Whorf sees the opposite. Basically, language can reflect the nature of a shared cultural experience, without benefit of understanding those things not "found" or "expressed" within that language. This has since been debunked to a large degree, because what has been deemed as missing was actually upon further scrutiny FOUND elsewhere or expressed elsewise.

Sapir-Whorf made hypotheses on the auspices of limited data sources and gathering techniques. I think both of their  studies had merit for no other reason than to offer further exploration on the notion of the "confines" of a language or a people's lexicon.

[BabylonHoruv]

piraha provides a really interesting look at the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  A language with no recursion or numbers in it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The language of the Piraha is still fairly controversial, and frankly I won't be convinced that they cannot count until a native-born Piraha writes a book about the experience of being Piraha. For all we know, numbers are implicit in the language or inflection. Keep in mind that similar claims have been made about many, many indigenous people over the centuries, all disproved when the indigenous people were able to communicate fluently in another language. Another factor; indigenous people fuck with anthropologists. Fact. American indians have a longstanding tradition of telling anthropologists things that make them look ridiculous to other indians, but which white people don't have the cultural references to get. A couple of the Piraha spoke fluent Portuguese... and yet, still, Everett's claim that the Piraha are monolingual and have no numbering words?

I don't know all that much about it, but it seems likely that they either integrate counting into the language or that they have nonverbal words for numbers, making Everett perhaps not technically a liar, but certainly misleading, as he was with the statement that the Piraha are monolingual.

[Requia ☣]

As I understand, Everett's claim goes beyond them not simply having words for numbers and into them being unable to learn the words for numbers as an adult.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

As I understand, Everett's claim goes beyond them not simply having words for numbers and into them being unable to learn the words for numbers as an adult.

That is highly unlikely, especially since he seems to have omitted any attempt to reconcile how that works for those Piraha who grew up in Brazilian villages, speaking Portuguese.

Also, his claims that they have to concept of recursion is belied by his own reports. Furthermore, the words that the language contains do not by definition contain their ability to express concepts, and as a non-native, or even fluent, speaker, his ability so speak with confidence about what they are able to convey is incredibly limited.

Personally, I suspect that Everett has an agenda.

[Requia ☣]

Er, the ones that grew up in Brazilian villages wouldn't have that issue.  If Everett's claims are true the problem is one of human ontogeny.  Its well established in case studies of extreme child neglect that if a kid doesn't learn certain things growing up he or she can't ever learn them as an adult.  Any Piraha who grew up outside the tribe should have those concepts down fine.  Actually they all should within a few generations of Everett's time with them, since he would have exposed the kids to the concepts (and they in turn should pass them on to their kids).

Also iirc Everett is using this stuff as an elaborate variation on the argument from evil (God clearly doesn't exist because these people are different from other people, etc) so he *definitely* has an agenda.  I'm more amused by the idea that the entire tribe decided to pull a fast one on him though.