[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <SNIP>
> one can not even think it. There was an interesting article in the > Independent a few Saturdays ago about a tribe in South America which had > an incredible simple 'language'. Someone lived with them for a long > while and learnt the language. It had nothing other than the present > tense, and the tribe simply could not understand the concept of past or > future. They also had no numbers, and were unable to grasp the concept > of counting. Even 1+1 was beyond them. > I hope that they gave full credit to New Scientist for the original article then. It was published there some weeks ago. Very interesting indeed. The person living with the tribe was asked to teach them about counting and numbers, but when they got into it, they lost interest after 1 - because they had no cultural use for it. They also, as a tribe, have very few (or should that be less :o) ) posessions and no need to 'collect' any more. A very interesting article indeed. Cheers, Norman. PS. As to who decides of what is correct in English these days, it is obviously the Americans. We now have 'leverage' instead of 'use', and 'we shall architect a new system' (build) etc. Aaaargh ! PPS. Oh, I forgot, bl00dy texting. That has been responsible for more crap English than anything else. Some kids even did their entire O &* A grades in txt-speak. C U L8R. :o( _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
