People talk about freedom all the time, but do they ever really think about what it means to be free? Let's take a couple of examples to use as thought experiments. No one should be surprised when my first thought turns to language. Here's too much linguistic freedom in action: Gukb fsilmpmer splifffdd ..;;, !!! @ WASKKQS&&&&^^^^ zzzzmzmzmllllz( If we want to take advantage of language, we have to obey some rules -- a whole lot of them, many layers of rules. In situations where your native language is being spoken, your ear is finely tuned to detect unbelievably minute departures from normal language sounds. You can detect a non-native speaker a mile away from a slightly mispronounced vowel, or even just a missing glottal stop where you would normally expect it. And don't even get me started on grammar. For every way to get something right, there are 100 ways to get it wrong. And yet, once we learn to work within the rules of the language, we experience a mu
The well-phrased, grammatically correct, occasionally thoughtless ravings of a linguaphile.