Horses all the way down (Silly linguistic theories)

[Iulus Cofield]

Inspired by these Dinosaur Comics:

Spoiler:

For the spoilerphobic, T-Rex is convinced that it's "horses all the way down" for English words and idioms. Lots are, but the joke is the implied overgeneralization. This thread is basically "troll physics" and related humor for linguistics .

I was recently in a class discussion about ergative/absolutive languages. I asserted English is clearly ergative. My proof?
"Who thinks English is ergative? Me." The professor laughed and gave me an Altoid for my courage.

[Derek]

I...I don't know what to say. I can't deny it. English is horses all the way down.

[Aiwendil42]

I was recently in a class discussion about ergative/absolutive languages. I asserted English is clearly ergative. My proof?
"Who thinks English is ergative? Me." The professor laughed and gave me an Altoid for my courage.

Now that is highly amusing. For some reason it reminds me of that story about J.L. Austin giving a lecture in which he noted that while in many languages a double negative is an affirmative, there are no languages in which a double affirmative is a negative. To which Sidney Morgenbesser's immediate response from the audience was a dismissive "yeah, yeah."

[MotorToad]

Ah, my favorite language: sarcasm.

[cjdrum]

Well, even Fahrenheit is based off of horse's blood...