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Re: Requesting some challenging sentences

From:tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>
Date:Tuesday, October 25, 2005, 19:33
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@Y...> wrote:
> > I recently picked up an odd grammar that I first > started working on a while back, and made some updates > and modifications to it. > > What I'd like to do is test the notion that this > grammar is adequate to express just about any complex > (but reasonable) utterence that can be devised.
Interesting question; I don't know the answer yet.
> So I'd > like to ask if anyone has some challenging or > difficult sentences that they have collected for the > purpose of "stress-testing" a grammar to see if it > breaks.
1) There's an East European cumulative story that, IIRC, is about a loaf of bread that I bought for two kopecks but left under the seat on the train to Grozny. Either I've misremembered something, or it's just plain hard to find on-line. 2) Translate "The House That Jack Built" into SOALOA. 3) "There's a hole in the bottom of the creek" (Entire song translated -- this is just the first line.) (I think if you can do 1 and 2, and just a couple of verses of 3, you can probably do all of 3) 4) Translate Lincon's Gettysburg Address into SOALOA. 5) Do you know the one about the guy who unfortunately fell out of an airplane but fortunately had a parachute which unfortunately didn't work but fortunately there was a haystack under him which unfortunately had a pitchfork in it which he fortunately missed but unfortunately also missed the haystack? Begin as he tries to wake up on time to leave the house to get to the airport to catch the plane. 6) The prophetic answers given by the Pythia (the Oracle at Delphi) to her querents. 7A) "All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chases the weasel; and, every time he pulls its tail, 'POP!' goes the weasel." 7b) "Jenny's got the whooping-cough, and Johnny's got the measles; that's where all the money goes." 8) The Declaration of Independence; "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to sever the political bands which have connected them with another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind ... " 9) The Preamble to the Constitution. 10) Euclid's Elements 11) The Ten Commandments 12) What the three witches say in MacBeth. 13) "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all Our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." (Or whatever the correct quotation is.) 14) "To be, or not to be? That is the question -- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind To endure the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune; or, to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them." (Or whatever the correct quotation is.) 15) "But hark! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!" 16) Portia's judgment (between Antonio and Shylock) from "the Merchant of Venice". (I really think "Oh, hell, what have we here?" is probably not complex, but you should also be able to state it in SOALOA.) 17) (from Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's "Mirror-Mask", a Jim Henson film:) Q: What's green, hangs on the wall, and whistles? A: I give up. What? Q: A herring. A: Herrings aren't green! Q: They are if you paint them green. A: Herrings don't hang on the wall! Q: They do if you nail them there. A: Herrings don't whistle! Q: Yeah, I know, but I had to throw something in to keep it from being too obvious.
> My goofy grammar can be found at > http://fiziwig.com/soaloa.html
Interesting grammar.
> > --gary >
I hope some of the above help. I don't expect you'll want to translate all of all of my suggestions; but the quality of the suggestions should give you an idea of where to find sources for challenging sentences. (E.g. legal judgements, technical/scientific works, and folk-rhymes deliberately constructed for complexity.) Of course, famous quotations are also part. And don't forget those which were famously ambiguous. I could have suggested Newton's Principia, or Russell and Whiteheads Principia Mathematica, or some modern quantum chromodynamics text; but I figured you'd get the idea from Euclid's Elements, or Appolonius of Perga's Conic Sections, or Archimedes's "The Sand Reckoner". Tom H.C. in MI

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Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>