Are these sentences grammatical? please

[maserati]

Are these sentences grammatical? And if not, could you rewrite for me or explain what’s wrong inside? Please
Younger infants are prone to bear little malice towards anyone around her, even when she encounters a slain porter.
The attitude of holding coronation to foe is a way of treachery, and it is also a death penalty-prone.
You are such a guy who prone to bear others hate, and prone to pay back subordinate’s treachery.

 

[StillILearn]

Are these sentences grammatical? And if not, could you rewrite for me or explain what’s wrong inside? Please
Younger infants are prone to bear little malice towards anyone around her, even when she encounters a slain porter.
The attitude of holding coronation to foe is a way of treachery, and it is also a death penalty-prone.
You are such a guy who prone to bear others hate, and prone to pay back subordinate’s treachery.

Pun-neen, honey? Is that you?

 

[Sitaram]

Grammatical nightmares

I have volunteered much time over the past 30 years to assist students of English. It is my experience that a non-native speaker may generate a sentence which is perfectly grammatical, but either incomprehensible, or conveying an unintended meaning.

When I was teaching myself to speak Greek, in the 1970s, I met a Greek woman who appeared to be pregnant. I said "Tha exeis moro?" Which was a perfectly grammatical translation of the English, "Will you have a baby?" What I, as an English speaker, failed to realize was that, in modern Greek idiom, one does not say exeis (you have) but kaneis (you make). Literally the proper thing to say in Greek is "Are you making a baby (or perhaps doing)?" This sounds quite odd in English. If you say to a woman, "exeis moro" you are merely saying that she is holding a baby at the moment, i.e. that she has an infant in her possession.

A Russian immigrant was in a school for hair styling. He had just finished washing a woman's hair in the classroom, demonstrating his proficiency to the instructor and fellow students, and he proudly announced, "are you ready for your blow job". The whole class burst out laughing. What he want to say was that he was about to use the blow dryer. The sentence was perfectly grammatical, but did not convey the anticipated meaning.

I shall post now, and add to this post with additional posts, since I am accustomed to post making ample use of the EDIT feature, but that feature has been severely limited in this forum for valid reasons.

 

[Sitaram]

Grammatical Nightmares - 2

It is possible for a non-native speaker, or a poorly educated native speaker, to generate an ungrammatical sentence which is perfectly understandable, and needs only minor correction.

My college professor of ancient Greek once chuckled and said, "The greatest number of negatives in any sentence that I ever encountered was uttered by a middle-aged Black woman in the South who said I ain't never seen no man do no work no how!" As error ridden as this sentence is, grammatically, every English speaker understands easily the thought which the speaker attempts to convey, namely that, from the speaker's perspective as a woman, males are very lazy and do as little work as possible.

I write this long preface to help you to understand that the sentences which you have posted have a much greater problem than grammatical error. In fact, based upon my experience with students of English in mainland China, I would venture to guess that these sentences have been translated out of a Chinese translation, back into English, and then given to some student. I encountered very similar sentences from a graduate student in Beijing who was working with an article on the history Kindergarten in the United States.

 

[StillILearn]

It is possible for a non-native speaker, or a poorly educated native speaker, to generate an ungrammatical sentence which is perfectly understandable, and needs only minor correction.

My college professor of ancient Greek once chuckled and said, "The greatest number of negatives in any sentence that I ever encountered was uttered by a middle-aged Black woman in the South who said I ain't never seen no man do no work no how!" As error ridden as this sentence is, grammatically, every English speaker understands easily the thought which is being conveyed, namely that, from the speakers perspective as a woman, males are very lazy and do as little work as possible.

Laughing! Sitaram, I think you have put your finger on it. maserati's sentences look like something I would get from babelfish.

I myself have (with great friendliness) asked a woman with two perfectly identifyable children (obviously ninos), "What are your boys?" At least (from the expression on her face) I think that's what I said. She was struck speechless, at any rate.

 

[Sitaram]

Grammatical Nightmares - 3

I have some chorse to do right now, so I must return to this thread periodically, today and tomorrow, to finish my thoughts, but I will attempt as an exercise, to comment on the sentences phrase by phrase and share with you my candid reactions.

Younger infants

There is nothing ungrammatical about this, but it is an odd way to speak. An infant designates a baby which ranges in age from newborn, up through perhaps one year (I am no expert in such matters). The root of the word infant in Latin means "not speaking". The word infant connotes a child so young that it is pointless to qualify it with adjetives like younger or older, since when such qualification is necessary, for example, in medical contexts, one speaks of one month, two month, six month, etc. Once the child begins attempts at walking and talking, they are called toddler, rather than infant, or perhaps baby. Again I am not an expert in these matters. But your sentence goes on to speak of this younger infant holding no malice. Malice is something which brews in middle age. Infants are at worst cranky, but never harbor malice. The bearly remember a wrong or slight from one hour to the next.

 

[Sitaram]

Linguists such as Chomsky and Otto Jesperson speak of the deep meaning underlying any sentence in any language. There are certain thoughts common to all peoples of all places and all ages, such as, "I am thirsty" or "I am hungry" or "I am no longer hungry but satisfied, or full". In modern Greek, after a meal, I once said "Eimai yematos" which means "I am full", but to the Greek ear, that can only mean something comical like "I am full of baloney or manure". I was instructed that the proper idiom is "Eimai hortatos" meaning "I am satisfied or satiated". But as for the poignancy of Christ's final words on the cross, "I thirst", which Mother Theresa posted on her wall, as being something well beyond the linguists "deep meaning", or the comical Greek idiom for being satisfied after a meal, "Efaye sto katapetasma", (meaning, I ate to the horizon), is a different matter for conjecture. Can we reduce language to elemental deep meanings? As an exercise, we might take Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and reduce each sentence to its deep meaning. Yet, we all have faith that each speaker has some one underlying meaning to convey which might be equally well expressed in any language.

Jabberwoky, the poem, is perfectly grammatical, and not without meaning, but it is a "fill-in-the-blank" poem, quite subjective in nature, which lends itself to projections of our fancy, much like a verbal Rorschach ink blot exam.

 

[Sitaram]

Gramatical Nightmare - 4

The attitude of holding coronation to foe is a way of treachery

I have no idea in the world what this could possibly mean!

Coronation is a ceremony held to crown a king or queen, or perhaps a pope.

An attitude may be a mental disposition or it may be a posture or position, physical or mental. A foe is an enemy, but it is a more archaic word.

I really don't know what to say about this sentence, except perhaps Shakespeare's line regarding the words of a madman, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

 

[StillILearn]

The attitude of holding coronation to foe is a way of treachery


treachery = trickery

attitude = position

coronation = crowning

foe = enemy

Could all these be references to chess problems? Are you a chess player, Sitaram?

 

[Sitaram]

The attitude of holding coronation to foe is a way of treachery


treachery = trickery

attitude = position

coronation = crowning

foe = enemy

Could all these be references to chess problems? Are you a chess player, Sitaram?

I made a considerable effort to master chess some years ago, but failed miserably. I learned to play a game, and even succeeded in beating a few levels of a simple electronic chess program. But I could not absorb and retain the books I had purchased on various openings, middle games, end games and strategies. I passed by a chess club several times, where a dozen devoted people were playing speed chess. I knew I could never rise to their level.

I suppose the task of learning chess is analogous to the challenge of learning a foreign language. The rules of the game are analogous to the grammar and vocabulary of the language. But simply learning all the pieces and rules does not enable one to play a respectable game.

Your conjecture regarding chess is clever and plausible. I had not thought of chess. Would a slain porter then be a captured pawn?

These sentences are bizarre indeed. They seem like something translated out of some language into Chinese, and then translated back in to English from the Chinese.

I must look up the sentences from that graduate student in Beijing. It was about the history of kindergarten in the USA. It spoke of infants, and what sounded like a scheme or plot on the part of society to indoctrinate these infants with various political and social values, and then use them as an instrument to infiltrate their homes and in turn indoctrinate their parents, who were somehow socially unacceptable. The spirit of the translation, with its conspiracy theory, certainly seemed suited to a totalitarian mentality.

One night I had been chatting with this student in Yahoo for several hours, and for him it was now 3 a.m. He mentioned that his wife was calling from the bedroom for him to turn off the computer and come to bed. I teased him and said, “Oh you should call back to her and say, ‘Yes darling, you must want to make passionate love. I shall be right there.’ “ He was totally scandalized by my suggestion of humor, and said that he never had such thoughts enter his mind, but rather only thought about how he might be a good citizen and improve society and help his fellow man. I felt that he was so indoctrinated by his society that he was somehow in denial of basic human traits of humor and sex drive, which I am convinced are shared by all peoples, of all places, throughout all historical eras. I remember a controversial translation of Aristophanes The Birds which circulated among gleeful students, who recited to one another such gems as “When you are at the theatre, and feel the urge to poop, don’t you wish you were a bird, so you might fly away, and fart and shit to your heart’s content.” (I am paraphrasing from memory what I heard 35 years ago.)


Another student of English, in mainland China, sought help for his English poem in a class contest. It was all about meeting the challenges of life in a courageous fashion, including phrases like "with the gutsiest determination". The poem would strike any English speaker as bizarre. It reminded me of all the revolutionary artwork, with men and women wearing upturned welders’ helmets, holding sledgehammers, with mouths down turned in grim resolve, staring confrontationally at the horizon.

One guru from India once observed: “It is not sufficient to acquire knowledge of the truth. One must also know how to live.”

It is not sufficient to learn the grammar of a language. We must also learn to sing in it, argue in it, flatter with it, dream in it, and swindle with it. Only then have we lived the language, and that language lives in us.

 

[StillILearn]

Well, I only hope our English language student from Asia is in a position to appreciate the marvelously thoughtful responses he has had from you here, Sitaram. I also sincerely hope he doesn't cut and paste them whole into Babel Fish.

But wait. I need to think about that. It could be fun. Let me go make a pot of coffee and reconsider.