On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Hans Dockter <[email protected]> wrote:
> > In this case German could offer something even more interesting. One of its > nice parentheses: > > clude taskName ex > > For more inspiration how German could inspire the Groovy DSL, see: > http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html (by Mark Twain) ;) > > That's hilarious (to me -- my wife and daughter were not so amused!). At first, I thought you had made a typo and meant to type "include taskName ex" which seemed a really odd way to say "exclude taskName". However, then I got to the part about separable verbs, and understood your joke! I have always thought English horrible for it's copious and superfluous exceptions, but I did not know that German was so bad. But now I do, for I read it and that makes it true (not to mention this was written by Mark Twain, one who never exaggerates to make a point). However, I believe his complaints regarding parenthesis (which seem useful for interjecting thoughts (supporting or otherwise) into the sentence) are a bit too extreme (although some others (but by no means myself) do abuse them to the point of absurdity). -- John Murph Automated Logic Research Team
