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What's your first answer to this problem?

Started by Martinus, April 27, 2016, 12:49:59 PM

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What's your first answer to this problem?

[spoiler]Answer A[/spoiler]
17 (44.7%)
[spoiler]Answer B[/spoiler]
15 (39.5%)
Other?
6 (15.8%)

Total Members Voted: 38

Martinus

Quote from: Valmy on April 29, 2016, 11:53:15 AM
Quote from: derspiess on April 29, 2016, 11:29:07 AM
Languish has not yet perished.

So long as we still live.

What the alien force has taken from us,

We shall retrieve with a sabre.

:lol:

grumbler

Quote from: Martinus on May 01, 2016, 10:01:53 AM
In hindsight, this being Languish, I guess I should have included another poll option "Depends on what the meaning of 'is' is".  :lol:

That's  precisely what I thought of when confronted with the idea that different grammars use different word meanings - if that were true, then a different grammar would allow any definition of "grammar" that is allowed by that grammar.  :lol:
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

CountDeMoney

Quote from: Valmy on April 29, 2016, 11:53:15 AM
We shall retrieve with a sabre.

...which should be no problem, with such a luxurious passenger cabin and spacious trunk.


Maximus

Quote from: grumbler on May 01, 2016, 09:52:22 AM
Grammar has a specific meaning in linguistics; it isn't a catch-all word that means whatever you want it to mean.

As a linguist, I can excuse your non-linguist misunderstanding of the term "grammar" (after all, you have probably seen a poster on the internet correct another poster's punctuation and seen them called "grammar police").  As an academic, I have to reject your misappropriation of the term "grammar" to describe a change in word meaning.  Grammar involves syntax and morphology, not definitions.  As a mathematician, I must reject your contention that there is a "grammar" that allows 2+5 to equal 12 in a base ten numbering system.  As a Languish poster, I am not surprised that you want to double down on your mistake.
:console: I'm sorry your Linguistics for Dummies book took so long to arrive from Amazon. Too bad they don't have a kindle version.

DGuller

As a mathematician, I think it was fairly obvious that a plus sign was a redefined operator.  As a person with common sense, I just assumed that it was easier to overload the plus operator than to invent a new operator and then figure out how to type it.  As a human being, I can understand why normally polite posters snap at grumbler:  he is Languish's Ted Cruz, applying his intellect only to make himself a constant nuisance to others.

CountDeMoney


grumbler

Quote from: Maximus on May 01, 2016, 12:31:35 PM
Quote from: grumbler on May 01, 2016, 09:52:22 AM
Grammar has a specific meaning in linguistics; it isn't a catch-all word that means whatever you want it to mean.

As a linguist, I can excuse your non-linguist misunderstanding of the term "grammar" (after all, you have probably seen a poster on the internet correct another poster's punctuation and seen them called "grammar police").  As an academic, I have to reject your misappropriation of the term "grammar" to describe a change in word meaning.  Grammar involves syntax and morphology, not definitions.  As a mathematician, I must reject your contention that there is a "grammar" that allows 2+5 to equal 12 in a base ten numbering system.  As a Languish poster, I am not surprised that you want to double down on your mistake.
:console: I'm sorry your Linguistics for Dummies book took so long to arrive from Amazon. Too bad they don't have a kindle version.

Obviously, yours did arrive.  Too bad it didn't explain to you what grammar was.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

grumbler

Quote from: DGuller on May 01, 2016, 02:28:50 PM
As a mathematician, I think it was fairly obvious that a plus sign was a redefined operator.  As a person with common sense, I just assumed that it was easier to overload the plus operator than to invent a new operator and then figure out how to type it.

I think that it was fairly obvious that the plus sign was a ruse, designed to make people think that the formulas were mathematical, as Yi pointed out.  For the test to be honest, it would have needed to avoid using known language incorrectly.  The +  in this case isn't really an operator, it is a stand in for an operator and a variable.

QuoteAs a human being, I can understand why normally polite posters snap at grumbler:  he is Languish's Ted Cruz, applying his intellect only to make himself a constant nuisance to others.

As a human being, I understand why you feel the need, since you have no intellectual argument to make, to resort to petty insults even when they make no sense whatever.  If "insulting" me makes you feel better, knock yourself out.  What you babble about me is of no consequence to me, any more than CC's moaning is.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

grumbler

Quote from: CountDeMoney on May 01, 2016, 02:34:46 PM
The answer is still 19, muttskis.

I thought we knew that the answer was 42, and we just didn't know what the question was.  That's what I read in a book, anyway.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

11B4V

"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

DGuller

Quote from: grumbler on May 01, 2016, 02:55:10 PM
As a human being, I understand why you feel the need, since you have no intellectual argument to make, to resort to petty insults even when they make no sense whatever.  If "insulting" me makes you feel better, knock yourself out.  What you babble about me is of no consequence to me, any more than CC's moaning is.
It didn't make me feel better or worse, but it had to be done.  "Human beings" like you need to be denounced regularly.

grumbler

Quote from: DGuller on May 01, 2016, 05:05:06 PM
Quote from: grumbler on May 01, 2016, 02:55:10 PM
As a human being, I understand why you feel the need, since you have no intellectual argument to make, to resort to petty insults even when they make no sense whatever.  If "insulting" me makes you feel better, knock yourself out.  What you babble about me is of no consequence to me, any more than CC's moaning is.
It didn't make me feel better or worse, but it had to be done.  "Human beings" like you need to be denounced regularly.

Okay, champ.  You just do your duty and "denounce" away.  :lmfao:
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Savonarola

Quote from: DGuller on May 01, 2016, 02:28:50 PM
As a mathematician, I think it was fairly obvious that a plus sign was a redefined operator.

Heh, when I first saw people having difficulty with the "+" sign meaning something than simple addition, I found myself thinking Of course the plus can mean different thing in different systems.  Most of those are pretty advanced, but it's XOR in digital logic; they should have encountered that in their sophomore intro computer engineering class... :unsure: oh, right :Embarrass:

Seriously though, everyone should know that "+" can mean something other than simple addition.  For instance 3 + 4i isn't a summation; looking at magnitude in that case 3 + 4 = 5.  You should have encountered that in your intro calculus... :unsure:  oh, right.   :Embarrass:

;)
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

crazy canuck

#73
Quote from: Savonarola on May 02, 2016, 09:55:42 AM
Quote from: DGuller on May 01, 2016, 02:28:50 PM
As a mathematician, I think it was fairly obvious that a plus sign was a redefined operator.

Heh, when I first saw people having difficulty with the "+" sign meaning something than simple addition, I found myself thinking Of course the plus can mean different thing in different systems.  Most of those are pretty advanced, but it's XOR in digital logic; they should have encountered that in their sophomore intro computer engineering class... :unsure: oh, right :Embarrass:

Seriously though, everyone should know that "+" can mean something other than simple addition.  For instance 3 + 4i isn't a summation; looking at magnitude in that case 3 + 4 = 5.  You should have encountered that in your intro calculus... :unsure:  oh, right.   :Embarrass:

;)

But according to Grumbler the + symbol always indicates a summation - or we are all hopelessly lost  :(

It saddens me that a person who claims to teach didn't understand the point Max was making.  But I guess Grumbler never claimed to know anything about math.

derspiess

"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall