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[–] 43 points 4 months ago (1 child)

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

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  • [–] 123 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    "A Florida woman has been accused of entering the penguin enclosure to teach them to tap dance, using a live alligator as her partner."

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  • [–] 59 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    I can't fix her. She's already perfect.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Don't let your dreams stay dreams. I'm not saying it will be easy. Get an alligator and a pineapple costume. Sign up for tap lessons and bring them along. Volunteer as a docent at your local zoo. Success isn't guaranteed, but I bet you'll be surprised with how far you get.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    Thank you for your faith,…the alligator is likely to be my biggest challenge. Maybe a baby croc…or a Winnie dog in an alligator outfit…..it’s the same thing really. I don’t suppose I even have to learn tap to teach it. So there’s a few hurdles down.

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  • [–] 42 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    "This too shall pass"

    If something good happens, it's a cautionary warning to stay humble.

    If something bad happens, it's a comforting reminder that things will get better.

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  • [–] 84 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very unhappy and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    I'd agree, but that's 2 sentences.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Dammit

    Okay imagine there's a semicolon there instead

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  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very unhappy and has been widely regarded as a bad move.";

    Still doesn't work.

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  • [–] 28 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    In the end, isn't that the real treasure?

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Half the kingdom and my firstborn for passing tests

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    I guess a string literally followed by a semicolon would be an interesting way to leave a comment. I may use this in the future since comments are against my religion. Figuring out what my code does is future me's problem. And that guy's a dick he never comments his code.

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  • [–] 34 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move".

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  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "I look both ways when I cross a one way street, because that's how much faith I have in humanity."

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  • [–] 27 points 4 months ago

    "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse"

    Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "Do you think... God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he's created, here on Earth? "

    Dr Romero, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, written by Robert Rodriguez.

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  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (3 children)
    Tiān gāo, huángdì yuǎn
    Heaven is high and the emperor is far away
    

    Is one of my favorite.

    Another is the a misattributed quote:

    Les hommes ne seront jamais libres tant que le dernier roi ne sera pas étranglé avec les entrailles du dernier prêtre.
    
    Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
    

    Though the apparent original is good too.

    Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir de lois.
    Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
    Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois.
    
    I seek neither to rule nor to serve.
    And its hands would weave the entrails of the priest,
    For the lack of a cord with which to strangle kings.
    

    The second line from the US declaration of indpenedce is a banger too:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
    

    John Brown's:

    I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day.
    

    Is also really good.

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  • [+] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It's a truncated quote from Diderot. The full verse is:

    J’en atteste les temps ; j’en appelle à tout âge ;
    Jamais au public avantage
    L’homme n’a franchement sacrifié ses droits ;
    S’il osait de son cœur n’écouter que la voix,
    Changeant tout à coup de langage,
    Il nous dirait, comme l’hôte des bois :
    « La nature n’a fait ni serviteur ni maître;
    « Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir de lois. »
    Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
    Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois.
    

    A slightly better translation would be:

    I bear witness to the times; I appeal to all ages;
    Never, for the public good,
    Has man willingly sacrificed his rights;
    If he dared to listen only to the voice of his heart,
    Suddenly changing his tone,
    He would say to us, like the dweller of the woods:
    “Nature has created neither servant nor master;
    “I wish neither to give nor to receive laws.” 
    And his hands would tear out the priest’s entrails,
    For lack of a cord to strangle kings.
    

    It is the voice of the forest, dweller of the woods being a stand in for anarchists. So the hands strangling kings with priest's entrails are those of the man realizing the importance of rights and freedom. Diderot elaborates across the poem about the character of political order. Declaring that no law or political rule is sacred or natural. Mankind makes sociopolitical structures, they are not natural, and thus nature will gladly unmake them, as a king dying, for example. Essentially, he says that no elevated, supernatural, or godly power exists that will stop the hands of a person who has chosen to defy political oppression. It was extremely controversial in the XVIII century, a liberal cry for revolution against political systems that still stood over the pillars of a god given right of monarchs to rule. It's called Les éleuthéromanes, I'm not gonna try to translate that, but the full text can be found freely.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago

    "Black Friday Sale! This Thursday only!".

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  • [–] 38 points 4 months ago (19 children)
  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (18 children)

    Buffalo buffalo WHICH Buffalo buffalo, buffalo buffalo Buffalo

    It annoys me that the quoted sentence misses out essential words.

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  • [+] 6 points 4 months ago (17 children)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (16 children)

    Washington cats [missing] florida rats chase, annoy Vegas whores.

    There needs to be a which, that, who or something in that missing space for a proper sentence structure.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (11 children)

    Here's some discussion of omitting "that" after a noun. I don't agree with Grammar Girl on what sounds awkward but she acknowledges that sentences can sound awkward but not be "wrong".

    The Packers haven’t drafted a quarterback despite rumors they were interested in doing so.

    Again, these sentences aren’t wrong, but they would sound a lot better with “that” inserted after the nouns “allegations” and “rumors.”

    https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/when-to-delete-that/

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    Quaterback Love [that] Greenbay Packers drafted, played Detroit Lions.

    Some sentences can drop the relative pronouns and still make sense. This isn't one of them.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    "The quarterback the packers drafted" sounds fine to me

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (8 children)

    You've had to add "The" to make it make sense.

    "Quaterback Packers drafted" doesn't make sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (7 children)

    That's only because in the original sentence it's talking about things generally (eg "strawberries are red"), so it needs a plural or a mass noun, which is the case in the original sentence. You could say "Quarterbacks Packers draft" instead. Or think of a team name that can't use "the", like "goalies West Ham United signed".

    The point of the buffalo sentence is that it's technically grammatically correct, even if it sounds awkward. It's a really famous sentence among linguists, so do you really think all the language nerds who've seen it have missed that it's actually not grammatical and needs a relative pronoun?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

    Quaterback Twins Greenbay Packers draft, play Detroit Lions.

    Nope. Still missing a word.

    If the sentence was technically grammatically correct then a direct substitution of all 8 words (without adding more) should make sense.

    I've already provided a counter example where it doesn't make sense. I'll drop my argument if you can find one that does.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (5 children)

    Quaterback Twins Greenbay Packers draft, play Detroit Lions.

    This sounds fine to me (although I wouldn't use the comma), I dunno what to tell you. Maybe it's different in your idiolect, but again, do you really think you're picking up on something that countless other linguists missed?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (4 children)

    Without an additional word between words 2 and 3, this is just a list. That's why it makes no sense.

    You only think it makes sense because you are adding in words subconsciously.

    Still waiting for an example that actually works.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    You only think it makes sense because you are adding in words subconsciously.

    do you really think you’re picking up on something that countless other linguists missed?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Well, given that there isn't a similar sentence that makes sense (without inserting words). Yes.

    I mean, I appreciate that it's a bit of linguistic fun dreamt up by Dmitri Borgmann. But it's flawed. It needs an additional (non-buffalo) word to make proper sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Maybe you should make an edit on the wiki page then so all the other people can understand it as well as you.

    Do any other famous sentences also need edits?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher

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  • [+] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I think you proved my point. You needed to add the word "which". A pause makes the first part sound like a list.

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  • [–] 33 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The chinese poem "The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions"

    Shíshì shī shì shǐ shì, shì shǐ, shī shì, shì shí shí shī. Shī sì shì shī. Shǐ shì shè sì, shì shī shì, shǐ shī shì shí shī shī, shì shí shí, shǐ shí shìshì. Shǐ shǐ shì shì shì shì, shì shī shì. Shì shì shì shì.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago

    This isn't the greatest sentence, this is just a tribute.

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...stupid monkey!"

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    We apologize for the inconvenience.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago

    You have nothing to loose but your chains

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."

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  • [–] 37 points 4 months ago

    They don't think it be like it is, but it do.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago

    Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

    Perhaps the best, most succinct explanation of historical materialism.

    Full Quote

    Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Was shocked to discover very recently that it’s meant to be “It’s over 8000!”, and 9000 was a mistranslation

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago

    If you're gonna be stupid, be smart about it.

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  • [+] 11 points 4 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago

    The cost of living is dying, and everyone pays.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    love that with such a broad sample pool, what we get here are some quips, in English, from the last few decades

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Here's some really profound writing you might enjoy, really brings a tear to the eye.

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  • "Money can't buy happiness, but it's better to cry in a taxi than on a bus." - Marcel Reich-Ranicki (German literary critic)

    I changed the last word in the translation to bus for the US readers. It should be tram or streetcar but I assumed bus is more common and widely known.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    Be good...or be good at it.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago

    People don’t think it be like it is, but it do

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Spoken, not written:-

    I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    This is one of the stupidest, most 14-year-old sentences I've ever heard, and still a lot of people love it :)

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose.

    -Joel Phillips

    https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/about

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

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