Incidentally, I think Chomsky accomplished a lot more with that example
than he (at least initially) intended. It was sopposed to be an example
of a syntactically well-formed sentence that is otherwise nonsensical.
But is there more to it than that? While we do not often speak of
sleeping "furiously", wse do speak of sleeping "quietly". But
"furiously" and "quietly" can hardly be said to be semantically
unrelated. Do ideas sleep? Well, this is certainly not idiomatic in
English, but it is not too much of a stretch to imagine what a dormant
(or sleeping) idea might be. Indeed, the whole point of this message is
that there seems to be a dormant idea somehow implicit in that choice
of examples!

--- Greg Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> No, that would be
> 
> "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
> -- N Chomsky
> 
> I can't take credit for the example.
> 
> The quote I had in mind was something else (hint: the person quoted
> was
> Albert Einstein.)
> 
> 
> 
> --- John Leo Zimmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
> >  -- G Woodhouse
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
> 
> 
> ===
> Gregory Woodhouse  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> 
> 
> "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more
> to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
> -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO
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===
Gregory Woodhouse  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more
to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery











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