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Talk:2421: Tower of Babel
So is Gretchen McCulloch xkcd's resident linguist now? Is there going to be character page for her like Cory Doctorow? 172.68.129.136 23:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'm hoping so! We could call it "Gretchen McComics." 172.69.34.74 23:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
- That's probably not in compliance with whatever stylebook we have here but I love it. Captain Video (talk) 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Wait, how could a linguist exist before there were languages to study and compare? Is this the omphalos hypothesis popping up again? GreatWyrmGold (talk) 02:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
- They have one language. Presumably, she attempts to thoroughly study that one. This would technically make her a grammarian, but since they don't have contact with any other language, this proto-language wouldn't need make any distinction between grammarians and linguists, so "linguist" would be an appropriate translation. --162.158.79.49 05:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Defining "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" {
"colorless green ideas" existing is 0 . List of all existing "colorless green ideas" that don't "dream furiously" contains 0 elements. True.
} 141.101.77.60 06:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Defining "more people have been to Russia than I have" {
if(Have "I" ever been to Russia?){ "More than 1 people have been to Russia.". } else { "More than 0 people have been to Russia.". }
}, so something like {
"At least 1 person that is not me has been to Russia.".
}. 141.101.77.60 06:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
- "I possess a number of people as chattel", i.e. servants and/or slaves. (That number could be zero?) "The number of people who have gone to Russia exceeds this value." 141.101.77.168 10:29, 6 February 2021 (UTC)