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CK CK November 5, 2012, edited October 30, 2019 November 5, 2012 at 3:46:59 AM UTC, edited October 30, 2019 at 6:44:56 AM UTC link Permalink

[not needed anymore- removed by CK]

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al_ex_an_der al_ex_an_der November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 7:34:49 AM UTC link Permalink

I think wonderful new opportunities for quarrels will arise. Consider in addition that there often is no "best choice" because the variety is just due to different grammars.

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Demetrius Demetrius November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 8:15:45 AM UTC link Permalink

I think all the users should be able to vote on the best option. Probably the user’s votes should have more weigh, the more sentences user has (e.g., his vote is multiplied by the cubic root of the number of his sentences).

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 9:58:59 AM UTC link Permalink

voting for the correctness of words, grammar and syntax is a ridiculous idea. A sentence is either correct or not, whether a majority of people think otherwise or not.
Actually, in many languages, a majority of people think sentences are correct when they're not. That is precisely why education was invented...

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Demetrius Demetrius November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 10:34:49 AM UTC link Permalink

«The _mathematical_ theory of formal languages defines a language as a set of sentences. That is, every sentence is either grammatical or ungrammatical; there is no need for probability in this framework. But natural languages are not like that. A _scientific_ theory of natural languages must account for the many phrases and sentences which leave a native speaker uncertain about their grammaticality (see Chris Manning's article and its discussion of the phrase "as least as"), and there are phrases which some speakers find perfectly grammatical, others perfectly ungrammatical, and still others will flip-flop from one occasion to the next». (Peter Norvig, http://norvig.com/chomsky.html )

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 1:34:05 PM UTC link Permalink

If we go down the "majority" theory, then education becomes irrelevant, since pupils outnumber teachers. We should all probably stick to babbling the way we do at birth...

CK CK November 5, 2012, edited October 30, 2019 November 5, 2012 at 11:15:04 AM UTC, edited October 30, 2019 at 7:09:40 AM UTC link Permalink

[not needed anymore- removed by CK]

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Shishir Shishir November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 12:19:33 PM UTC link Permalink

I'm afraid that just happens with English native speakers. In Spanish, no matter how many people say something that is ungrammatical as if it was right, unless the official authority (the Real Academia) says that it's right, it remains wrong.

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camilou camilou November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 6:12:41 PM UTC link Permalink

That is not correct, the number of people that follow the recommendations of the "authorities" of the Spanish Language is quite reduced, most of the time people just say things that they hear others say and they hardly ever read what the RAE has to say about grammar and correctness.

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 6:20:50 PM UTC link Permalink

All people don't need to read the RAE. Enough people that have an influence on the way others speak do it on their behalf : authors, lawyers, engineers, civil servants and TEACHERS...who all produce text that others read, have to read, or will read at some point. Regardless of how many laymen decide to spell whatever the way they want, they'll never gather the momentum that the RAE does unless the RAE itself decides to relay them .Sooner or later, the RAE will prevail. In the long run, examples of that are galore.

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camilou camilou November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 6:27:51 PM UTC link Permalink

I think you're giving people too much credit. From what I've seen, the number of people that write properly is very small, compared to the number of them that just write the way they talk and have no idea there is such a thing as the RAE. And for "the RAE will prevail", to be honest I had the impression that it was actually the people that had prevailed over the RAE, and that they basically had to yield and change the rules to adjust to what people were using in everyday speech.

I guess this could give birth to an entire new discussion alright. Coming back to the topic, I think voting on sentences should be allowed but sentences should not display the number of votes, rather they should just be sorted/ranked by that number, but not let people see their ranking, since that could influence other votes (as in, people would vote for the most popular option just because it is the most popular option)

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 6:33:24 PM UTC link Permalink

>I think you're giving people too much credit.

No YOU do. How would laymen influence the community if not through writing ? And what do writers refer to when in doubt ?

>the number of people that write properly is very small

And they have millions of readers, contrary to those who don't...

If you put less popular sentences at the bottom, then they will remain there forever. People not only lack rigour, curiosity and imagination, they also are lazy...

sacredceltic sacredceltic November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 10:06:00 PM UTC link Permalink

the idea that, in languages, the so-called "wisdom of the crowds" prevail, is not only wrong but completely unproductive.
If you take English, which is probably the only main language where this happens, the problem is that the wisdom of the crowds in US English doesn't match that of England, Australia, Canada, India, Sri Lanka, etc...and in the end you get the worst of them all and nobody understands each other, or even worse...they believe they do, and they don't because they use the same words with different meanings.
Languages are primarily tools of communication (and this purpose is sometimes lost as it is in English). They need to be precise, unequivocal and useful to all. But people tend to be equivocal, local and vague...The wisdom of the crowds actually comes down to ambiguity and [fra]incommunicabilité.
Laymen hopefully don't rule the world. They're just made to believe they do by demagogues...

Shishir Shishir November 6, 2012 November 6, 2012 at 8:20:37 PM UTC link Permalink

I think you misunderstood me at some point, I didn't say everybody wrote perfectly well, in fact, I agree with you that many people make mistakes, but the one that indicates that it's a mistake is the RAE, no matter whether a person knows or doesn't know that it exists. The ones involved with writing (translators, teachers, journalists, writers, proofreaders, researchers, ...) do know the RAE exists, though, and are the ones that, as sacredceltic says, take care of spreading the language.

In English, if a mistake is made enough times by enough people, no matter their education, it becomes a right word; in Spanish, it doesn't unless this mistake appears also in the works of writers, journalists, ... that have a reliable writing quality.

sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 12:22:22 PM UTC link Permalink

>I think many people would say that if a majority of native speakers think something is correct, it is.

That's just how English works. For most other languages, learned people teach illiterate people how to properly speak and write in schools...

>Living languages change.

But mistakes and illiteracy remain...
Actually, the most illiterate people are, the more children they have. Illiteracy is thus there to stay... Shall we all speak like the worst speakers ?

sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 9:43:06 AM UTC link Permalink

This variety is just grammatical. A "best of choice" in your example just doesn't make sense...

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 9:49:23 AM UTC link Permalink

In English, "you" is very vague and can mean, in French, either one male, one female, several males, several females, a mix of males and females, and one can be either intimate or not with a person, addressing them either with "tu" or "vous"

"to go" is also vague and can mean in French: partir, y aller, s'en aller...

If you don't like to have several translations of your sentences, just make them more precise...

sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 9:52:40 AM UTC link Permalink

I had forgotten one variant. So I added 6 more translations...

CK CK November 5, 2012, edited October 30, 2019 November 5, 2012 at 10:45:22 AM UTC, edited October 30, 2019 at 7:09:31 AM UTC link Permalink

[not needed anymore- removed by CK]

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 12:29:11 PM UTC link Permalink

I like archaic sentences. I would "like" them then. What would that prove ? Tags are there to indicate archaisms. We don't need a voting system for that.

>As sacredceltic points out, maybe this feature might not be useful for English-speaking people studying French, or French-speaking people studying English.

French has ONLY 6 cases for YOU (tu/vous-singular/plural-female/male). Other languages have many more : 1-2-3-more persons, married / not married, caste/tribe... A/B/C/D...)

"liking" a version because it's female and not male, or singular and not plural is just plain silly...

Languages have nothing to do with preferences. They have to do with communication.

Shishir Shishir November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 12:32:06 PM UTC link Permalink

Hmm in Spanish it would be quite useful if this best option thing changed depending on the variety, because here we have very few old-fashioned sentences, most of the times it's just a matter of where the speaker is from and the variety the learner wants to learn. Some expressions are used in Spain that are not used in Argentina or Chile, and some expressions are not used in Spain (and sometimes not even understood), but in Argentina they are very common.

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 1:45:28 PM UTC link Permalink

So, because Uruguay has a limited population, an Uruguayan sentence would get a very low scoring. What would that say ? Isn't it more informational to simply tag it "Uruguayan" ?

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Shishir Shishir November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 2:37:16 PM UTC link Permalink

Actually that's the point I was trying to make: depending on the variety, the things that sound more natural or less natural vary too... I chose Spain and Argentina as I could have chosen Equator and Uruguay, it's all the same thing, the Spanish from a country and the way of speaking there may differ from the way of speaking in another one, with different vocabulary, different tenses, and so on.

Yeah, probably tags could solve it, the problem is that, at least in my case, I don't know which expressions belong just to Spain and which ones are used in all the Spanish speaking countries, or in two or three of them, so I don't know which ones I should tag... However, I do know which are the ones that are used in Spain, and the ones that are not used, so all I could do is tag them with a "not used in Spain" or "used in Spain" tag.

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sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 3:00:10 PM UTC link Permalink

I've got the same problem with "Belgian" French or Dutch. They don't mean much anyway, because languages don't stop on borders. "Belgian" is an oversimplification. If you take Dutch, for instance, it has a "Flemish" dialect, that Dutch people simply qualify as "Belgian" although this Flemish dialect doesn't apply to all of Belgium (where there are other non-Flemish dialects of Dutch, such as those in Antwerpen, Brussels or Limburg) but also spans over Northern France and a bit of Southern Netherlands (that most Dutch people just pretend to ignore...).

Similarly, I'm convinced many "Argentinian" expressions don't apply to all of Argentina, but probably apply to parts of Uruguay as well, if not Chile or even southern Brazil (where they also speak Spanish in some cases)...

So my view is that it is better to flag a sentence with a dialect name, when you know it, rather than with a country name, which is rarely relevant, even if most Dutch speakers think otherwise...

sacredceltic sacredceltic November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 3:06:03 PM UTC link Permalink

In a few instances, native french contributors were convinced that a few of my sentences that I collected in different areas of Belgium were incorrect French, just because they never heard or read it before.
In a few cases, I cannot even easily prove that they exist in a written form because it is nowhere to be read on Internet so far, and I was the first one to write them down there, although many people use it.
In a scoring system, these sentences would end up with a zero score, although they are perfectly correct sentences actually used by speakers of certain areas.

Dejo Dejo November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 5:06:23 PM UTC link Permalink

The Spanish-German dictionary by Pons uses the tags: Americanismo -which means presumably all of South America, and Cono Sur- which would be Argentina and Uruguay.

sysko sysko November 5, 2012 November 5, 2012 at 1:07:13 PM UTC link Permalink

I think rather than voting we should have a way qualify the link to know why there's two , three or more translation

as said "voting" is not for me a good idea

let's consider

J'aime cette couleur
I like this colour
I like this color

You're going to vote on what? Here there's no "best" or more likely translation, it's all depend if you want UK or USA spelling

second

我一个人
Je suis célibataire I'm single (no boyfriend/girlfriend) (can be both said by a guy or a girl)
Je suis seul I'm alone (in this room/ to do this) (guy)
Je suis seule I'm alone (in this room/ to do this) (girl)

which is more likely? with 50% of girl and 50% of guy in the world that can be both single
The "likeliness to be the good translation" make sense when you take 1 and only 1 referential, the one of the user trying to find a translation for his situation, and you can't vote that for him

Instead as said at the beginning if you put

我一个人
---[with 一个人 taken as "having no boyfriend/no girlfriend"] --->I'm single
---[with 一个人 taken as "having nobody else around you"] --> I'm alone

other example (for which I don't have time to find couple of sentences)

sentence A ---[given "verb" is understood with it's colloquial meaning]-->sentence B
sentence C ---[when saying it with a sarcastic voice]----> sentence D
sentence E ---[when being in a classroom] ---> sentence E
Then providing this the user is able to "compute" himself the "likeliness", this "likeliness" is too volatile and subjectif and contextual to be hardcoded as 1 value for everyone


Note that the new version permit already to do this i.e adding "annotation" on links

I think that's best we can do for people dealing with "among multiple translations in the same language, which one to choose"


I like this color