You may know me from all the cat pictures I post.

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@Sagesse wonderful! I'm going to have to learn German just to be able to say this

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@cachondo I've often used the sentence in the video as a punctuation exercise as well. It's almost always too difficult for them!

[cachondo@defcon.social]

@rufustheduck looks weird in Braille, too - contracted Braille for had is "⠸⠓". Seeing them consecutively⠀ feels odd under the old fingertips.

[drjlecter@beige.party]

@rufustheduck omg I needed you as my teacher in 5th and 6th grade. Our English teacher back then made us watch Mr. Bean videos

Also, are you related to Pedro Pascal. You totally remind me of him and I swear you look a bit like him (love your voice and your enthusiasm)

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@DrJLecter well, I never met my dad, so maybe....

[rhw@mastodon.au]

@rufustheduck Thank you, love this, makes this hard point of grammar fun. Although English is my native language I am always sorry for those who have to learn it.

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@RHW thank you! That's always been my objective when teaching it - because you're right, it can be mystifying for learners

[kgertz@digitalcourage.social]

@rufustheduck that is great… I love these specific characteristics of different languages:)

[drjlecter@beige.party]

@rufustheduck

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@kgertz me too!

[fentiger@mastodon.social]

@rufustheduck @rufustheduck James, while John had had "had had", had had "had had had had had had had had had had had". "Had had had had had had had had had had had" had had even more of an effect on the teacher.

[diekenbrock@digitalcourage.social]

@rufustheduck @Sagesse one can even say "wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach"

[rufustheduck@mastodon.social]

@FenTiger Extraordinary sentence!

[kennethbousquet@mastodon.social]

@rufustheduck Perfect! Well done!
:-))

[sindarina@ngmx.com]

@rufustheduck Haha, I love this

[oneiros@ruhr.social]

@rufustheduck
Now do Buffalo

#english #grammar #language #CatsOfMastodon

[dpnash@c.im]

@rufustheduck

One time, when one of my kids was early grade school age, we figured out a way to create sentences consisting solely of an arbitrarily large number of squash.

Squash! — “Squeeze!” Or “Look. A vegetable!”
Squash squash! — Squeeze vegetables!
Squash squash squash — Vegetables squeeze vegetables.
Squash squash squash squash! — Squeeze vegetables that other vegetables squeeze!
Squash squash squash squash squash —Vegetables squeeze vegetables that squeeze vegetables.

It’s pretty easy to see how this generalizes to truly ridiculous amounts of squash.

[brouhaha@mastodon.social]

@rufustheduck It's not correct as shown, because it is missing essential punctuation.

[deirdrebeth@mas.to]

@brouhaha @rufustheduck

"if you say" - verbal punctuation is literally the point of this video, but we don't say "quote" or "comma" we just indicate it - so that sentence is correct in that it is every word that will come out of your mouth.

[brouhaha@mastodon.social]

@deirdrebeth @rufustheduck
But without the written punctuation, one wouldn't know how to say it, such that it would make sense to a listener. I still maintain that the written form, without punctuation, is not a valid sentence.