Re: A Challenge to sci.lang members...

On 3 Feb, 01:23, "Alex&Ilene Gross" <alexi...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Since some of you here have chosen to cast aspersions on my abilities as a
researcher, concern for my factual accuracy, or my reliability as a scholar,
I challenge any and all of you to find a single questionable statement or
demonstrable factual error, beyond mere differences of opinion, in my
numerous published and/or publicly presented papers. I
<snip>
alex


http://language.home.sprynet.com/lingdex/chinmed.htm

<blockquote>
Q. And yet one frequently hear people describing Chinese as a totally
chaotic language, that its characters are unwieldy and impossible to
learn, that its word order and syntax are so loose and illogical that
a single Chinese sentence can be translated in several different ways.

A. That's exactly how many people experience Chinese, especially if
they don't get beyond a certain learning stage. But this business of
chaotic, illogical sentences, isn't this all a bit familiar? Haven't
we heard this all before in another context, isn't it just what the
French say about English? Let's take the classic example of "a French
teacher," which the French quite correctly point out could mean either
un maître français or un maître de français. Or the example that Vinay
and Darbelnet use, un moteur de propulsion à jet, which we in English
hopelessly distort by calling it a "jet propulsion motor," let alone a
"jet motor."

According to the French, we are suffering from cumulative linguistic
breakdown by omitting these vital charnières or hinge-words such as de
and à. But what the Chinese would do is take the whole example one
step further and express "jet propulsion motor" in terms of their own
language of course, as something like jepromo. They're even more
speeded up than we are. And their language allows them to get away
with it. One could in fact formulate the general equation that

Chinese : English = English : French.
</blockquote>

Hilarious!

##minty.

.

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