Re: Invention of the Alphabet

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Lee Sau Dan wrote:
> >
> > >>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > >> My next question: A chinese sentence is written without
> > >> spacing. So, the whole sentence is one single word?
> >
> > Peter> You're beginning to look like gilgames.
> >
> > Peter> Chinese has no spacing. Therefore spacing has no
> > Peter> significance in Chinese.
> >
> > So, you lack a common yardstick to define the notion of "word" for
> > Chinese in a way consistent with English.
> >
> > And your previous yardstick of "one entry in a *foreigner language*
> > dictionary" also turned out to be useless because that would make the
> > English term "train station" one word as it has its own entry in a
> > French dictionary ("gare") or German dictionary ("Bahnhof").
>
> I can only handle one gilgames at a time.

(Sigh. Why is it so very often, although by no means always, me?)

LSD! Your point is not a point, since it is false.

PTD's yardstick was that one criterion for Chinese wordiness would be
the headwords in the CHINESE TO ENGLISH side of a Chinese-English
dictionary.

For your comparison with English words to make sense, the only honest
thing to do would be to consider the ENGLISH TO SOMETHING side of an
English-Something dictionary.

Of the dictionaries to hand (Collins Gem French-English,
Langenscheidts Universal Wörterbuch Englisch-Deutsch, Berlitz
Dutch-English, Norsted's Engelska Fickordbok), none - not a single
one! - has an entry for "train station" under "train" in the English
to Foreign side.

But presumably this wasn't what you meant anyway, since your Usenet
debating technique hardly gives the impression that you value honesty
highly.

Des
supposes it's good arguing training, at least
.

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