The Prime Number Few
Posted by David Aldridge on 2006-05-22
I was chasing links through Wikipedia the other day, which always leads somewhere interesting.
In this case I fell into the deep waters of linguistics and learned about garden path sentences. They caught my eye in particular because the article includes one of my favourite jokes, albeit with a slightly different construction to my usual one.
"If time flies like an arrow, do fruit flies like a banana?"
Now that I've read a deconstruction of the joke, it seems a little less funny though.
2006-05-26 at 11:47 am
Great link, I’ve been looking for things to convince my father-in-law (a former professor of romance languages) to come online. He also likes that particular joke, being in an organization called “the order of the ripe banana.”
2006-06-05 at 11:04 am
I suppose it’s obvious that “Time flies like an arrow.” is triply ambiguous? (Any of the first three words can be the verb).
2006-06-13 at 5:56 am
Joel,
I would think the internet has a lot to offer for former professors of romance languages — in fact there’s a home there for anyone with any opinion about anything.
DaPi,
Hmmm — I hadn’t thought of that. Three possible verbs indeed.