On 2023-05-15, Hen Hanna <
henh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, May 15, 2023 at 3:09:11 PM UTC-7, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
>> On 2023-05-15, Hen Hanna <
henh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>>> Some Lisp haiku ( written by Oliver Scholz ) posted in honour of John McCarthy
>> >
>> > ---
>> >
>> > On a cloudy day
>> > you hear the cons cells whisper:
>> > "We are lost and gone."
>> >
>> >
>> > The file was open.
>> > flying in a sparrow stole
>> > a parenthesis
>> > --- (posted) By israelrt at Tue, 2011-10-25
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -------------- i'm not sure if i'm getting the 2nd one.
>> A file was left open. A sparrow flew in, and flew off with a parenthesis
>> plucked from the file, thus causing a mysterious appearance of a problem
>> that didn't exist before.
>>
>> This conflates the concept of a file being open (associated with an
>> in-memory file descriptor by the operating system, so that operations
>> are possible) and something like a room's window being left open.
>>
>
>
> thanks... 2 thoughts i had were:
>
> 1. the line [flying in a sparrow stole] sounds a bit awkward
>
> isn't the meaning more clear like this?
"flying in" is a phrase describing a secondary, parallel action to the
sparrow's activity of stealing. Or possibly, a kind of adjective phrase
identifying the sparrow.
Usually, in writing it is set off from the sentence by commas,
especially if extraposed out to the left. It can be appear to multiple
possible locations in the sentence:
Flying in, a sparrow stole a parenthesis.
A sparrow, flying in, stole a parenthesis.
(Nuance: secondary action.)
A sparrow flying in stole a parenthesis.
(Nuance: that sparrow which was flying in.)
? A sparrow stole, flying in, a parenthesis.
? A sparrow stole a parenthesis, flying in.