They all do that, sir...

They fucking do. Paddy, one of the chaps we do our early morning Sunday runs
with had the exact same problem on his VTR less than 24 hours after mine?

I didn't go last week as I was uber tired, but bloody hell, thats a bit odd.

 

Did you remove your head? Any photographs of the carnage within?

 

You couldn't handle it

 

Go on. You know you want to.
It wouldn't be like one of those photos that you really wish you hadn't
looked at.

 

Why the interregative?

 

See? He's a bad influence?

--
TD
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
1993 Eunos Roadster (supercharged)
Could want: something more comfy, sprots or not
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica, Lardy tourer

 

<checks calendar>

When is it bear season?

 

Know speelchuckar?

 

O. Noes.

 

Heh. But you were warned in advance, YTC.

 

Very good point well made & fucking correct, now **** off you smug ****

The thing's gonna get broken to be honest, i can't be arsed doing anything
else now. It's actually in decent nick, so should fetch a reasonable amount.

 

<VBEG>

 

ITYM "interrogative". However, even if it had been spelled correctly it
would have been wrong. Interrogatives are words. A question mark is not an
"interrogative".

 

by definition, an interrogative is something that asks a question. so the
question is whether a question mark asks a question. that is, by its mere
presence, does a question mark cause a question to be formed where none
would be otherwise? let's see:

1. mum's gone to iceland
2. mum's gone to iceland?

i think we can agree that the second phrase is a question whereas the first
is not. but wait, i hear you say: the interrogativity of the second is
something inherent to the phrase, and the question mark merely denotes it,
rather than causing it. in which case, let us reduce to the smallest
particle of meaning. here i have a cartoon speech balloon:

+---+
| ? |
+-v-+

does this grapheme indicate the posing of a question? i argue that it does.
and in the absence of any phrase to pose some inherent question to be
denoted by the question mark, we must therefore conclude that the question
mark is, in fact, an interrogative.

 

Having fun.

 

I disagree. The purpose of writing is to convey speech. Written words have
no meaning of their own, they exist purely as a representation of the spoken
word.
The purpose of the question mark is to indicate that the marked word
should be pronounced in a questioning tone (up at the end).
The question mark is a pronounciation mark in the same way as an accent mark.

Thus the Spanish method of preceeding a questioning phrase with question
start marker (inverted question mark) gives the reader warning of a
pronounciation variation to follow.

 

i see. so a community of congenitally deaf and dumb people who appear to
communicate with one another entirely through hand signals and the written
word, are not actually communicating since those words and signals have no
meaning.

i'm glad you cleared that up for us.

 

You have the cart before the horse. The various sign languages are
themselves representations of speech. Would a totally deaf and dumb
and totally isolated community develop a complex sign language?.
I doubt it, although there would probably be a limited vocabulary such as
putting a hand to mouth to indicate food.
AFAIK no such community exists without contact with speech so your point
is moot.

 

fyi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language

"Sign languages commonly develop in deaf communities, which can include
interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who
are deaf or hard of hearing themselves.

Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop."

speaking people are not required to develop "complex sign languages", it
is the deaf people who develop them.

"Signed codes of oral languages can be useful for learning oral languages
or for expressing and discussing literal quotations from those languages,
but they are generally too awkward and unwieldy for normal discourse."

sign language, like spoken language and written language, is a means of
communicating the underlying concepts and intent. there is nothing special
or primal about spoken language such that other forms are just copies or
representations of it.

if you're still having difficulty with this, consider road signs and markings.
do they communicate something? do they have meaning? of course they do.
do they "represent" the equivalent spoken words (like "do not exceed thirty
miles per hour")? no, they simply communicate the same concept.

 

But it's the contact with speaking people that must trigger a complex
(rather than simple) language development?

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine