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"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
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<p>[QUOTE="Arnox, post: 14124, member: 1"]</p><p>No, your local administrator has not gone insane. This is a sentence that is syntactically correct but semantically wrong. Or at least supposedly. But are we really sure that this sentence can never be semantically correct? I think it definitely can be but in a slightly roundabout way.</p><p></p><p>Let's take the first two words, 'colorless' and 'green.' How can you have a colorless green color? The combination makes no sense. But let's think about this a little further. What's a synonym for colorless? Invisible. And what could green symbolically represent? Well, green is often portrayed as the color of envy. So we have hidden envy. Alright, now let's clear the second and last mountain. Sleeping furiously? When we're sleeping, we're in a relaxed state. But what would it mean if someone said that an idea sleeps in someone's mind? It means that an idea is in that mind but lurking in the background; not really at the forefront at all, but still present. Okay, but how can an idea sleep furiously in the background? Well, it could mean that even though that idea isn't at the forefront, it's still causing a lot of pain and discomfort inside that person.</p><p></p><p>With all of that done, let's put everything we've surmised into a sentence that means the same thing but makes a lot more sense on the surface as well.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER]Hidden envious ideas lurk uncomfortably in people's minds.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Anyway. I just thought this was a fun logical and linguistic exercise.</p><p>[/QUOTE]</p>
[QUOTE="Arnox, post: 14124, member: 1"] No, your local administrator has not gone insane. This is a sentence that is syntactically correct but semantically wrong. Or at least supposedly. But are we really sure that this sentence can never be semantically correct? I think it definitely can be but in a slightly roundabout way. Let's take the first two words, 'colorless' and 'green.' How can you have a colorless green color? The combination makes no sense. But let's think about this a little further. What's a synonym for colorless? Invisible. And what could green symbolically represent? Well, green is often portrayed as the color of envy. So we have hidden envy. Alright, now let's clear the second and last mountain. Sleeping furiously? When we're sleeping, we're in a relaxed state. But what would it mean if someone said that an idea sleeps in someone's mind? It means that an idea is in that mind but lurking in the background; not really at the forefront at all, but still present. Okay, but how can an idea sleep furiously in the background? Well, it could mean that even though that idea isn't at the forefront, it's still causing a lot of pain and discomfort inside that person. With all of that done, let's put everything we've surmised into a sentence that means the same thing but makes a lot more sense on the surface as well. [SPOILER]Hidden envious ideas lurk uncomfortably in people's minds.[/SPOILER] Anyway. I just thought this was a fun logical and linguistic exercise. [/QUOTE]
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"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
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