My high school's president is quoted in this article.

[url]http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-report-card-changes-1030-20121030,0,2144161,full.story[/url]

[URL="http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-verb-object-order.aspx"]Yoda Grammar[/URL]

[QUOTE=firejuggler;316496][URL="http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-verb-object-order.aspx"]Yoda Grammar[/URL][/QUOTE]

This is reminiscent of the Mayan languages. An example, which I believe I may remember correctly, goes something like this:[INDENT]English typically uses the Subject-Verb-Object order-
"The priest knows the scribe."

In Mayan this is likely to be Verb-Subject-Object-
"Knows the priest the scribe." (I think! This is an example given in Michael D. Coe's book on the language and the decipherment of Classic Period inscriptions. Coe, Michael D. (1992) Breaking the Maya Code.)
[/INDENT]This in turn brings to mind the "tale" of the German author whose magnum opus was to be in five volumes. Unfortunately, he died after completing the fourth volume. This rendered the entire work incomprehensible because all the verbs were to be in the fifth volume.

[QUOTE=kladner;316528]This in turn brings to mind the "tale" of the German author whose magnum opus was to be in five volumes. Unfortunately, he died after completing the fourth volume. This rendered the entire work incomprehensible because all the verbs were to be in the fifth volume.[/QUOTE]
That's awesome, lol.

Anybody know any jokes about Americans that could be understood by Americans, even if not agreed with? ;)

[QUOTE=kladner;316528]This in turn brings to mind the "tale" of the German author whose magnum opus was to be in five volumes. Unfortunately, he died after completing the fourth volume. This rendered the entire work incomprehensible because all the verbs were to be in the fifth volume.[/QUOTE]
:smile::smile::smile: Brilliant! didn't know that joke, I am dying to tell it to my german colleagues tomorrow! (working in a German-own company).

Relating to yoda-mayan, in fact yoda would say ""The scribe, the priest knows." which is a different story. Some languages in the world (i mean active languages, not extinct) are still like that. Some have other particularities. We romanians always put the attribute after the object, like in "an apple red", and not "a red apple", and that would be the same in Thai. The author of the article is extrapolating a bit too much when he says Yoda talk "normal" for really important things. I am sure the directors (Lucas? or Lehmer? :razz:) did not think to that at all, the phrase that it is mentioned in the article would be too ambiguous in "Yodish", that is why is said in plain English. But people can say whatever. We have a saying, "The thief has only a sin, but the loser (victim) has a thousand". This article remember me the people trying to solve Nik Kershaw 's "Riddle" (man! how I love that song! Gigi D'Agostino version), and Kershaw said he got thousands of mails, few solution actually made a lot of sense! But he also said he did not think to any of that sh!t when he composed the song. He just make the rhymes. Or the vatican priests who "deciphered" the "ketchup song", saying it is devilish (message from the devil, that is why so many people liked it), in fact their solution make a lot of sense, if you know the bible and a bit of symbolism, but I am sure the girls did not think a bit to that, they just wrote the music and lyrics to rhyme and be cute, and they switched to english and back, exactly for this reason. They in fact said they wanted to write it all in English, but they were not able to, and swithced to what they knew better.

[QUOTE=LaurV;316540]Relating to yoda-mayan, in fact yoda would say ""The scribe, the priest knows." [/QUOTE]

It should be "Know the scribe, the priest does"

[QUOTE=chappy;316450]IF you had couched your non-sense in terms of "if they are spending this much money on civilian projects, just think how much they are spending on top secret black-ops, blah blah blah. " then at least you would have followed the normal path of "can't be proven false because there is no evidence either way" conspiracy theory. But, instead you attacked an awesome and fairly open, as things go, research arm, and your only "evidence" for anything bad is based on a silly notion that since the government is doing it, it must be bad.[/QUOTE]

Oh come on chappy. Give me a break. This kind of money isn't spent by the DOE [U]only[/U] for civilian purposes.

And the fundamental point I was [I]trying[/I] to make is anyone can now buy retail a gaming card which has more computing power than what used to be restricted from export.

Please see [url]http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL31175.pdf[/url] for background.

[QUOTE]Some languages in the world (i mean active languages, not extinct)[/QUOTE]

In fact, Mayan is very much alive on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, in Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras.

[QUOTE]The [B]Mayan languages[/B] (alternatively: [B]the languages of the Mayas[/B])[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#cite_note-0"][1][/URL] form a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family"]language family[/URL] spoken in [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerica"]Mesoamerica[/URL] and northern [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_America"]Central America[/URL]. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_peoples"]indigenous Maya[/URL], primarily in [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala"]Guatemala[/URL], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico"]Mexico[/URL], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belize"]Belize[/URL] and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honduras"]Honduras[/URL]. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name,[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#cite_note-1"][2][/URL] and Mexico [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mexico"]recognizes[/URL] eight more.[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#cite_note-2"][3][/URL][/QUOTE]

Note that "Mayan" refers to the languages of the "Maya" people.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages[/url]

One of the big breakthroughs in deciphering the Classic Period inscriptions was proving the connection between them and the languages still spoken, especially Yucatec Mayan. It has been shown (see Coe and others) that the written language of the ancients is in fact syllabic and phonetic in large part, rather than pictographic or hieroglyphic as was long supposed.

Intel's 48-core chip targeting smartphones and tablets
 

[url]http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/30/intel-48-core-chip-smartphones-tablets/[/url]

[QUOTE=jasong;316538]That's awesome, lol.

Anybody know any jokes about Americans that could be understood by Americans, even if not agreed with? ;)[/QUOTE]There are many such. You probably wouldn't like most of them.

A fun after-dinner game in an international gathering, such as generally occurs at conferences, is for each of the diners to tell a joke or ask a riddle in which his or her own nationality is the butt of the joke. I generally start with the riddle: "How do you tell if a plane is full of English tourists? The whining continues after the engines are switched off".

Through this game I've learned, in translation in some cases, anti-French jokes, anti-Dutch jokes, anti-Australian jokes and anti-American jokes. Those are just the ones I can remember right now but I've undoubtedly heard many others.


Added in edit: just remembered an anti-Jewish joke and an anti-Russian joke learned in the same circumstances.

I have been wondering about this.....
 

[url]http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/14275-focus-hurricane-sandy-problems-at-five-nuke-plants[/url]

[QUOTE]The nation's oldest nuclear plant declared an alert and a second plant just 40 miles from New York City was forced to shut down power as five different nuke plants in Hurricane Sandy's path experienced problems during the storm.[/QUOTE]