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Showing my age that I clicked hoping it would be a software tool for managing an allotment.
I hoped it will be: "grow a (garden (calculator))", not "(grow a garden) calculator". This is why I prefer Slavic languages.
Slavic languages are LISP? (like, please do elaborate, I don't have the faintest clue about grammar there)
[this comment was written manually by me in Polish, and then translated into English by chat GPT]
The problem with the sentence "grow a garden calculator" is that it’s unclear which word is modifying which, or which group of words. Is there something called a "garden calculator" that we are supposed to grow? Or is there something called "grow a garden", and there exists a calculator for that? This kind of ambiguity is a common issue with short English expressions — a well-known example is "police helps dogs bite victim".
There are several ways to resolve such problems. In English, the solution is basically that the reader has to guess. In Lisp, the solution in similar cases is to use parentheses — which means the line of code is an unambiguous tree, and in a tree we always know what is attached to what. In Slavic languages, inflection is much more developed than in English — not only verbs, but also nouns, adjectives, etc. take different forms, often require prepositions, and from this it becomes clear who modifies whom.
In Polish, a sentence meaning "I want you to grow a garden calculator" would be: "wyhoduj ogrodowy kalkulator". And an expression meaning "a calculator that refers to growing a garden" would be: "kalkulator hodowania ogrodu".
Look again at this difference: wyhoduj ogrodowy kalkulator – kalkulator hodowania ogrodu
Btw: if there are any native Polish speakers here — please, don’t start a discussion about the difference between "hodować" and "uprawiać", this isn’t the place for such nuances.
The problem with the sentence "grow a garden calculator" is that it’s unclear which word is modifying which, or which group of words. Is there something called a "garden calculator" that we are supposed to grow? Or is there something called "grow a garden", and there exists a calculator for that? This kind of ambiguity is a common issue with short English expressions — a well-known example is "police helps dogs bite victim".
There are several ways to resolve such problems. In English, the solution is basically that the reader has to guess. In Lisp, the solution in similar cases is to use parentheses — which means the line of code is an unambiguous tree, and in a tree we always know what is attached to what. In Slavic languages, inflection is much more developed than in English — not only verbs, but also nouns, adjectives, etc. take different forms, often require prepositions, and from this it becomes clear who modifies whom.
In Polish, a sentence meaning "I want you to grow a garden calculator" would be: "wyhoduj ogrodowy kalkulator". And an expression meaning "a calculator that refers to growing a garden" would be: "kalkulator hodowania ogrodu".
Look again at this difference: wyhoduj ogrodowy kalkulator – kalkulator hodowania ogrodu
Btw: if there are any native Polish speakers here — please, don’t start a discussion about the difference between "hodować" and "uprawiać", this isn’t the place for such nuances.
Hm, one more thought. Notice that in English the important part of the problem with "grow a garden calculator" is that you are not sure if "garden" is an adjective or a noun. In Polish there isn't such ambiguity: "garden" as a noun is "ogród", "garden" as an adjective is "ogrodowy".
For people who learn Slavic languages it is a big disadvantage: where in English you have a single word, "garden", in Polish you have to learn (at least) two words: "ogród" and "ogrodowy" (and then tens of variants, for different genders, grammatical cases etc). On the other hand, for natives, who speak Polish fluently, it is - as you saw in this example - an advantage.
I thought it was the ancient wisdom—-plants to grow to calculate something about the seasons… sa’right
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