[mrganondorf]

A thread for all the kinds of cool stuff u can do with language?  Apart from simply awesome words?

What about a lipogram?  A writing that lacks a certain letter or group of letters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipogram

Also, "garden path" sentences.  Sentences that make you think you should parse them one way, but by the end you realize that you've been tricked, led down the garden path.  Like this "The old man the boat."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence

Watchagot?


almost everything i write is a lipogram for z, but sadly, this bit no longer is

[Wilshire]

Also, "garden path" sentences.  Sentences that make you think you should parse them one way, but by the end you realize that you've been tricked, led down the garden path.  Like this "The old man the boat."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence

That is awesome and makes my brain hurt.

[locke]

Spell bolour with a k?  Kolour?

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

[Francis Buck]

Nabokov did a lot of fun little things with his writing (particularly in Lolita). Anagrams, stuff with multiple languages, double entendres, puns, garden path sentences, so on and so forth.

[Meyna]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autological_word

Complete with paradox!

[mrganondorf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autological_word

Complete with paradox!

Wonderful!  Reminds me of that joke "shouldn't monosyllabic be a smaller word?"

Polysyndeton!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysyndeton

[mrganondorf]

Also, fucking up grammar for rhetorical effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage

[Wilshire]

That seems like a device used as an excuse for making a mistake

[mrganondorf]

This proves you wrong, Wilshire!

[mrganondorf]

Also, just heard this on NPR, a delicious letter about words:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-like-words.html

[Meyna]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autological_word

Complete with paradox!

Wonderful!  Reminds me of that joke "shouldn't monosyllabic be a smaller word?"

Here's an effect that describes the change in connotation of words that happens over time as language evolves; a principle that is very important to would-be movers of the thousandfold thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_prosody

[mrganondorf]

i'm not sure if i get it!  do you have an example?

speech disfluency!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disfluency

[Meyna]

i'm not sure if i get it!  do you have an example?

The examples used in the article are "set in" and "cause" which, by themselves, are neutral words and can be used to present anything positive or negative that is set in or caused. However, they generally are associated with negative things for some reason, e.g., rot setting in or an accident being caused.

[Wilshire]

Imagine a whole story written with garden path sentence.

[Wilshire]

Single word grammatically correct sentences:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

(to help you parse: The buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo (verb) other buffalo from Buffalo.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

Some good links at the bottom of that wiki page.