T-Rex: Does "Betty put butter on the bread" mean the same thing as "Betty buttered the bread"?
T-Rex: I would argue: no!
T-Rex: In the second example, there is an implication that the bread is wholly buttered, while in the first, this is not necessarily the case! And this applies not just to butter: there are many other examples. For instance, “Gary wrote for many TV shows” leaves open the possibility of a co-author on the scripts, a possibility that “Gary wrote many TV shows” does not!
Utahraptor: Wow! These small changes in semantics (the meaning of a word or phrase) are quite interesting! T-Rex: Yes!
Utahraptor: But hard, too. T-Rex: Agreed.
Narrator: Thanks to chapter three of Steven Pinker’s 1989 book "Learnability and Cognition", upon which most of this comic was based.
What are the haps my friends
what could possibly go wrong
This comic is from November 12th, 2004! I didn't write things down here back then. Or maybe I did, and they are now LOST FOREVER. But here is a random merchandise image; perhaps you are... tantalized?
