Re: SURVEY: Scariest Short Sentences in Your ConLangs

Quoting Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>:

> On Thu, 01 Sep 2005 05:39, tomhchappell wrote:
> > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Ph.D." <phil@P...> wrote:
> > > Tom Chappell wrote:
> > > > Reputedly the scariest five-word sentence in North
> > > > American English is
> > > >
> > > > "Daddy, I want a pony."
> > >
> > > That doesn't seem very scary. The response is "No."
> > >
> > > Much scarier is "The IRS is auditing you."
> > >
> > > --Ph. D.
> >
> > Thanks, Remi and Phil.D.
> > I agree that your sample sentences are pretty scary!
> > Remi's is a lot like "being sent to Coventry".
> > (BTW the Xerox Language Guesser said Remi's sentence was Albanian.)
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > I suppose the words "Daddy, I want a pony" are only scary to persons
> > who actually might be on-the-fence about whether or not to accede to
> > this request.  If you maybe-can-afford it and maybe-can't; if your
> > child might-be-safe and might-not-be; if she (let's face it, this is
> > the kind of request that comes from daughters, not sons, and to
> > fathers, not mothers) might-be-responsible, and might-not-be; and if
> > she has not over-used "the magic words", and uses them with sincerity
> > this time -- I imagine it could be scary.  (Not to me --- it would be
> > as scary as "Daddy, I want to fly to Mars.")
>
> Consider it from the perspective of a Centaur parent overhearing an Orc child
> asking his father ...
>
> I suppose the answer would be, "You can et me but brother let me tell you
> that
> you're going to have to get me first!"

Actually, the truly scary phrase is, "honey, I just promised Sarah a pony".

                                                         Andreas