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        riddles >> medium >> MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
        
(Message started by: DocBot on Jul 26th, 2002, 7:40am)
Title: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by DocBot on Jul 26th, 2002, 7:40am
So, imagine me ("i") and "tom" as classmates, who just handed in our english homework.

I had had "had". Tom had had "had had". "Had had" had had the praise of the teacher.

This is a little fuzzy to me, but I think it makes sense. Correct me If I'm wrong.
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Chris on Jul 31st, 2002, 1:14am
When I submitted this riddle, my understanding of the correct answer was the same as yours.

Just think about a couple of kids doing some writing in the classroom or something.

Chris
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on May 3rd, 2003, 8:50pm
An improved version is:[hide]

i where tom had had had had had had had had had had had the better effect on the teacher
I, where Tom had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had the better effect on the teacher.

And if we change Tom's name to Had (short for Hadley), we can have:

i where had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had would have been better
I, where Had had had "had", had had "had had". Had Had had "had had", "had had" would have been better.[/hide]
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Kevin Dunnicliffe on Nov 1st, 2003, 3:57am
I just joined up, and this thread reminded me ...
It is possible to construct a valid English sentence that has an infinite number of consecutive 'had's.
Just make a logical extension to Thud & Blunder's improved version.
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Icarus on Nov 1st, 2003, 7:11am
It is not possible to construct anything of infinite length.

What you should say is "It is possible to construct a valid English sentence with any number of consecutive 'hads'."
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by towr on Nov 1st, 2003, 10:28am

on 11/01/03 at 07:11:30, Icarus wrote:
It is not possible to construct anything of infinite length.
[sum]i=0[supinfty]i seems like the construction of an infinite sum to me.. even though it's finitely represented..
Perhaps a matter of interpretation..
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Icarus on Nov 1st, 2003, 6:53pm
Reference this 0.999... post (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_medium;action=display;num=1027804564;start=225#249), misconception (4), wherein I explain the difference between the mathematical concept of infinite processes, and the actuality of finite mathematics! ::)

Seriously, while it is possible to conceive and define matters of the infinite, it is impossible to actually make infinite constructions as anything other than concepts.

By the way, this difference is key to Godel's incompleteness theorem. If I understand the link the TimMann has recently posted in another thread (thanks for that, by the way!), then it is also key to the work of Turing.

Language rules are not like mathematics. They do not permit the infinite.
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 1st, 2003, 7:14pm
I haven't worked out the precise counstruction involved (having spent all of about 2 minutes reading the thread) but surely the true assertion closest to "It is possible to construct a valid English sentence that has an infinite number of consecutive 'had's." is "It is possible to construct a valid English paragraph that has at least any finite number of consecutive 'had's."

The punctuation involved in the explicit solutions always includes a period separating the string into at least two sentences. Also, it is unclear that a paragraph can be constructed with precisely any arbitrary number of 'had's even if you restrict "number" to [bbn].
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by TimMann on Nov 1st, 2003, 11:25pm
Had I been convinced of the existence of a valid English sentence containing the substring "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 had had had had had had had had ... had," would I have been had?

Here the ... represents a finite number of hads.  Or more if you like.  :o
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by kevind on Nov 2nd, 2003, 3:26am
OK, I'll retract the word "infinite" and substitute "any number".

First one needs to understand the "improved solution" in Thud's earlier response. Let us call the punctuated, consecutive string of n hads therein H1.
It is also possible to construct an alternative solution H2, in which the positions of the quoted "had" and "had had" substrings are reversed (ie Tom and I swapped sentences). Let us call that alternative H2, which also has n hads.
Now imagine two observers P1 and P2 commenting on those alternatives as follows:
P1, where P2 had H1, had H2.

In the above sentence we have 2n+2 consecutive hads.

By recursion, any number of observers can imagine alternatives and comment on them using this sentence-schema.

I agree that language is not like maths: In language, I think we lack the necessary formalities to properly represent nested quotations like H1 and H2.  But it's fun to see just how far you can stretch it.
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by towr on Nov 2nd, 2003, 7:19am

on 11/01/03 at 18:53:44, Icarus wrote:
Language rules are not like mathematics. They do not permit the infinite.
They are very, very much like mathematics. Moreso, many grammars _are_ purely mathematical in nature. Of course those are the rules linguists invent, not the actual 'rules' (and I use the term very lightly) people use.
Real people make all kinds of mistakes, and are quite limited in what kind of sentences they can interpret, and it pretty much differs for every individual. So no amount of research will ever find a definite 'correct' grammar for all people that speak a certain language..
So linguist stick to more general grammars that pretty much accurately discribe what most people do. And one of the characteristics of most of these sorts of grammars is that they can generate arbitrarily long sentences, and you can even define 'infinite' sentences using simple recursion..
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by TimMann on Nov 2nd, 2003, 1:13pm
Let me add that there was actually serious point behind my earlier joke post. Even the initial solutions to this puzzle include mentions of "had", not just uses of it. That is, they have sequences of one or more occurrences of "had" in quotes -- they are quoting someone else saying "had", not using the word "had" functionally in the sentence. In fact, there's an implication that at least one of the mentions is quoting a use that was grammatically incorrect (it did not find favor with the teacher).

So I'd say that you can trivially get an arbitrarily long string of "hads" with this trick. It seems pretty slimy, but it's really no worse than in the original puzzle. (Well, maybe a little worse, since the quoted strings in the puzzle are at most 2 words long, so they are reasonably plausible as something that might have occurred on a student's paper.)
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Nov 4th, 2003, 2:12am
How about this one with no quotation marks?

The child the parents had had had had had no breakfast.
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by TimMann on Nov 4th, 2003, 11:00pm
Hee hee.  Surrogate parents, I take it?
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by fatball on Oct 20th, 2004, 8:20pm
I must be too lazy to think, but can someone tell me why the initial and improved had had had had.... solution is a solution? how to interpret them?
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Oct 21st, 2004, 6:11am

on 10/20/04 at 20:20:43, fatball wrote:
I must be too lazy to think, but can someone tell me why the initial and improved had had had had.... solution is a solution? how to interpret them?

Imagine that two boys have written exam essays. And that in them, one boy wrote 'had' and the other boy wrote 'had had'. Does the discussion make more sense now?
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Grimbal on Oct 22nd, 2004, 9:32am

on 11/01/03 at 07:11:30, Icarus wrote:
It is not possible to construct anything of infinite length.

What you should say is "It is possible to construct a valid English sentence with any number of consecutive 'hads'."


Suppose a teacher asks the students to write down their stupidest activity today.  He sees a student busy writing, so he looks at his paper and reads:  
I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "I am writing: "....
Title: Re: MEDIUM: punctuation II : answer (i think)
Post by Icarus on Oct 22nd, 2004, 6:36pm
Yes, and should the student continue writing this sentence as fast as he can, alas, he will still die with only a finite number of repetitions.


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