Topic: The word "We" is very ambiguous

Posted under Off Topic

Alice and Carol are in the group A .
Bob and Dan are in the group B .

Alice talks to Bob and the word "We" could mean:

  • Alice and carol.
  • Alice, Bob and Carol.
  • Alice, Bob, Carol and Dan.
  • Alice, Bob and Dan.
  • Alice and Bob. (Though you could just say "You and me".)

There is need for words to express all those meanings of the word "We".

Normally the meaning of the word would be made clear through context.

also why are you talking about english grammar here

strikerman said:
Normally the meaning of the word would be made clear through context.

also why are you talking about english grammar here

Might have to do with tags used for things like implied sexual acts.

waskom_frost said:

Might have to do with tags used for things like implied sexual acts.

There are 11 tags which include the word "we", and it's not exactly necessary to clarify who the "we" includes in any of them. This is just OP being weird about grammar again (forum #283326).

Different languages have different ideas for what needs to be stated and what can be implied:

  • Some languages make a distinction between singular (1), duo (2), and plural (more). On the other hand, some languages (like Japanese) don't even distinguish between singular and plural.
  • Some languages have a distinction for clusivity: we ("you and I") vs. we ("(s)he and I")
  • Some language, like English, require you to distinguish between "he" and "she" (though sometimes just use "singular they")
  • Some languages split up all nouns in noun classes, also known as grammatical gender, such as Spanish labeling everything as "masculine" and "feminine", so you can't say "the red one" without specifying whether the red thing is masculine or feminine. (Some languages might have different noun classes, like "animate" vs. "inanimate")
  • Some languages, like English, make you distinguish between definite ("the") and indefinite ("a")
  • Some languages, like Japanese, make a distinction between completed (past) and incomplete (present or future), instead of past-present-future. Mandarin Chinese doesn't have any grammatical tense.
  • Some languages force you to state evidentiality (did you "hear" someone say this? "See" this? "Infer" this? etc.)
  • Some languages make a split ergativity distinction ("he vanished" vs. "him vanished"), though the difference in meaning will vary by language
  • you know how some nouns are uncountable, like how we say "3 pairs of pants" instead of "3 pants"? In Japanese literally everything is like that. You can't have "3 dog"; you have to specify "3 non-zoo-animal of dog".

I think Japanese is known for being the "king" at ambiguity. Not only is there no grammatical present-future or singular-plural distinctions, BUT THERE'S ALSO HEAVY PRONOUN DROPPING IN A LANGUAGE THAT DOESN'T HAVE SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT (or any agreement)! In Japanese, "ringo o taberu" translates to "[I/you/he/she/they/we] [eat/will eat] [a/the/∅] apple(s)". If Japanese can get away with that level of ambiguity, I think English can get away with no clusivity distinction.

/autistic rambling

strikerman said:
sir, this is a denny's

Too loud? Sorry, I'll keep my voice down *continues rambling more quietly*

(I'm not trying to roleplay; please don't ban me Mods)

Ratte

Former Staff

crocogator said:
Too loud? Sorry, I'll keep my voice down *continues rambling more quietly*

(I'm not trying to roleplay; please don't ban me Mods)

*writes up ban for rp*

And next we'll be having people pointing out that 'you' means everyone present, not just the individual definition? Hmm, actually, it is actually funny how people use redundancies like "you all" or "you folks/people" or best: "all of you"

lafcadio said:
There are 11 tags which include the word "we", and it's not exactly necessary to clarify who the "we" includes in any of them. This is just OP being weird about grammar again (forum #283326).

Oh man was that thread a headache. Just why~

And so much shit is just a no-brainer...

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