this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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top 33 comments
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[–] deaf_fish@lemm.ee 6 points 8 hours ago

And I love them for it. Seriously comfortable society is built on and by nerds.

[–] superkret@feddit.org 53 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If you want a clear definition, ask a mathematician:

A word is any written product of group elements and their inverses.

Or a computer scientist:

A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor.

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 3 points 7 hours ago

Or, in either field (formal language theory bridges both) it can mean any string of symbols, letters, or tokens.

[–] affiliate@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

i wonder what the inverse of the letters in the english alphabet are. since it has a non-prime number of letters (26 to be exact), we know that some letters won’t have inverses. i wonder which letters don’t have inverses. i guess it would be pretty easy to find out if you use the standard alphabet ordering and then port the alphabet over to ℤ/26ℤ, but that’s not a particularly satisfying answer.

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 22 hours ago

Maybe ironically, neither one would be appropriate as a linguistic definition.

[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago
[–] Hupf@feddit.org 1 points 13 hours ago

What is Truth and what is God?

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 day ago
[–] archonet@lemy.lol 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] slice@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

From which Tom Scott video is this ?

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 13 hours ago

"what" is a word, correct.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 16 hours ago

vsauce music starts playing

[–] wandermind@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As a linguist, I'd just shrug.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

"everyone knows what a word is, that is the definion"

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago

the cries of alien archaeologists from the far future echo in the distance

[–] four@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 day ago (5 children)

"word" is a four letter word

[–] dessimbelackis@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

I think you’ll find that in actual fact “bird” is the word

[–] prex@aussie.zone 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] spicytuna62@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Don't you know? About the bird?

[–] Entropywins@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

And it begins...probably be 2 days until I get the song out of my head

[–] orb360@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago

My body is ready!

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Birds are not real, though, are they?

[–] railwhale@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 day ago

Recursive ~~acronyms~~ definitions

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

that's a bit wordy

[–] lugal@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Please, it's w*rd, we want to keep this f*mily friendly

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] lugal@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 hours ago

Watch your l*nguage, my dear

[–] lugal@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago

Still even people new to writing have a good intuition about that but formalizing this intuition is a different story

Saussure feelings