Re: CHAT: I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!

Bryan Maloney wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> > Of course, given the stunning intellectual(?) powers supposed of
> > the Jedi Masters, "When 900 years old you reach, at least one
> > second language will you truly have mastered, hmm?"  ;-)
>
> When 900 years old you reach, speak as you damn well please you shall.
Very true.  And "intellectual" the word for Jedi powers hardly is;
"Feel, don't think" to Anakin Qui-Gon says.

In Chip Delaney's _Nova_, it is asserted that people from the
Pleiades Cluster (one of three areas of human settlement) speak
in SOV fashion.  Well and good, until the narrator throws away
the information that this is true in *all* languages!  What
about the ones that are already SOV?

"[It is like] the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock [...]
not only received with utter incredulity as regard[s] itself,
but thr[ows] a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it."
        -- Thomas Hardy, _Far from the Madding Crowd_

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)