Re: OT: PL/I was Re: Please welcome . . .

Has anyone else read Ian Watson's book "The Embedding"?

In it he has a uniquely Lisp-like use of human language -
"The rat that the cat that the dog worried killed ate the malt"
http://www.chaparraltree.com/sflang/app3.shtml
http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/sf.html
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/6/6-418.html

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:47, you wrote:
> --- Peter Bleackley <Peter.Bleackley@...>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > When I started my current job. I learnt C++ very
> > quickly. Has anyone
> > created an object-oriented conlang, I wonder?
> > (ObConlang)
> >
> > Pete
>
> An interesting idea.  I did try, about 3 or 4 years
> ago, to design an RPN (Reverse Polish Notation)
> conlang inspired by the Forth programming language.
>
> Anyone familiar with the early HP pocket calculators
> will know what I'm talking about.  The arguments are
> placed on a stack and the operators take the arguments
> off the stack, placing the reuslt back onto the stack.
>  For example, to add 3 and 9 one uses something along
> the lines of "3 9 plus".
>
> The idea for an RPN conlang was to stack all the
> arguments and then use the verb to gather them
> together and create some action, the result of which
> is placed back on the stack: "I book red that_is
> have".
>
> The sequence "book red" places those two arguments on
> the stack and then the operator "that_is" gathers them
> toegther and binds "redness" to "book" and puts the
> concept of "red+book" back on the stack to be later
> consumed by the operator "have".
>
> --gary
--
Wesley Parish
* * *
Clinersterton beademung - in all of love.  RIP James Blish
* * *
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

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