Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> writes: > --- Greg Morrow <dr.elmo at whiterose.org> wrote: >> Philip Hart wondered aloud to the group: >> >So why >> > the army's strength was sufficient >> >but not >> > the strength of the army's was sufficient >> > >> >Presumably because nouns became less inflected through laziness? > > Hm. Are speakers of English lazier than speakers of Russian or, > for that matter, Hungarian? (I think Hungarian has lots of noun > inflections--but I've been wrong before.) > > Also, since we mostly don't have cases in English, we have to be > careful about things like word order. Is that less lazy? English is the newest language in wide use in the world. The general trend of languages has been to simplify since the invention of printing. *Remembering* long stories is less important, so all the features of the language that provide error checking are less important. So, in exchange, we pick up more expressive power. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Photos: <dd-b.lighthunters.net> Snapshots: <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>