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What is Python?

Tim Hammerquist tim at degree.ath.cx
Wed Sep 27 16:33:41 EDT 2000 
Grant Edwards <ge at nowhere.none> wrote:
> Ever notice that when "I" is the subject, you use the
> plural verb form rather than the singular?

That's not plurality causing that.  It's just our (excuse for an)
English conjugation system:

to run:
  I run              we run
you run    you (y'all?) run
 he runs           they run

(the same for 'to write')

You can see that with regular verbs, its the 3rd person singular that
stands out and not the 1st-singular.

> There is also a little bit of objective/subjective pronoun
> stuff left over from our Germanic roots. And the lack of a
> sex-neutral third person singular pronoun is annoying. People
> who grew up with formal vs. informal versions of "you" think it
> odd that we only have the one version.

"lack of a sex-neutral third person singular pronoun"?!

I believe Knights from Quest for the Holy Grail can help you out here:
ever heard of "it"?  We do lack a consistent formality system, but we
seem to get along fine.  We, conversely, think it initially strange when
learning formal forms of words when learning Romance languages, for
instance.  It's just convention.

-- 
-Tim Hammerquist <timmy at cpan.org>
The great tragedy of Science -- the slaying
of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
	-- Thomas Henry Huxley
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