Re: OT: With a quin sluf bolich and a pendic montru

This reminds me of what I went through in reading Neal Stephenson's latest
novel Anathem. He coins lots of words in the novel. At first, it's very
frustrating, but eventually you get used to it and in the last third/quarter
of the book you understand why the neologisms were necessary--they're not
just a bunch of smeerps.

Dirk

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:

> Re: Relexing English to examine how we acquire vocabulary.
>
> It seems to me that a reasonably bright ten-year-old with a good grasp of
> English syntax, could read this story and answer the questions that follow.
>
> Feltak the murj, a fozik by Bingstat Riget
>
> At the drig of the flemistan pelked a murj with a quin sluf bolich and a
> pendic montru. Feltak, the murj, was very droog, and passened his dembo
> senjitly beneath the klum, and from that gavitz was mellied Hachan.
> "I will blirm it for you, Hachan," drined the prullin Feltak, yednik to be
> of jelit.
> The pinj wiznu craxed the rilti montru a granzi fledik. In ralting to berj
> it back Feltak prilled the kovich of the montru into the merklet. He had
> rezled himself a frimp gronstad montru, and Feltak had to saut of a kroden
> in order to flen away.
>
> Who was Feltak?
> What two items was Feltak carrying?
> What happened to the kovich, and whose fault was it?
> Which item won't work properly without the kovich?
> What is the wiznu's name, and where did he come from?
> Is frimp gronstad a good thing or a bad thing?
>
> I have a hunch that an intelligent human could read a novel-length story
> like the above, and by the end of the novel, understand it very clearly,
> without any recourse to a dictionary of nouns and verbs. Somehow, in some
> magical, mystical, mysterious way, the human mind seems able to work it all
> out.
>
> --gary
>


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