Subject: Re: PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp: Re: Norvig's latest paper on Lis From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:31:43 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3233662302866126@naggum.net> * Thomas Bushnell, BSG | To sum up: go ahead and use singular "they" any time it feels | reasonable to do so. Even push the edge if you like. Don't be scared | by ignorant Norwegians who are merely parotting what they were taught | in some language class. *SIGH* More psychotic ranting about a reality that has to conform to their emotional state. God, what a bunch of retarded children you guys are. Here's a clue for you psychos: Some cultures think of an aggregate as a grammatic singular, some as a plural. Some would say "IBM has a lot of patents" while others would say "IBM have a lot of patents". Native speakers of English generally do not even realize this point. Move around the world and talk to lots of English-speakers, and you find that it is regional whether people retain a grammatical plural when the object is naturally/ physically plural, while others switch to a grammatic singular when the object has gramamatically singular words. Generally speaking, I find the correspondence of numbers to be much more natural when it is cleanly grammatical, while others have argued strongly that it is _wrong_ to refer to a school of fish or a den of thieves or a pack of lions with a singular. Thus, the American people _has_ disappointed with _their_ high approval rating of George W. Bush. Microsoft _has_ once again wielded _their_ monopoly power unlawfully and unfairly. To you fucking emotional native ears without an education to back up your "feel" and your hunches, how does that sound? -- Guide to non-spammers: If you want to send me a business proposal, please be specific and do not put "business proposal" in the Subject header. If it is urgent, do not use the word "urgent". If you need an immediate answer, give me a reason, do not shout "for your immediate attention". Thank you.