Talking about squid

[ratatosk]

Poll Native English speakers only, please

[backgroundThere are linguists with very complicated theories about English adjective classes. I'm not sure what kind of empirical evidence they have, though, and I consider native speaker intuition to be definitive (where by "definitive" I mean "good enough for the Int0rnet"... I'm also assuming you can elicit what you want properly instead

Comments

[enf]

"One-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater" must set some sort of precedent for this.

[leora]

eating purple people, and it sure is fine

[randysmith]

I have some concern that I imprinted on the first one as I read it. Would have been better to have three separate polls and randomly sort your friends list into three buckets, and present the information in different orders in each (actually, it'd take six buckets, wouldn't it? Hmmm.)

[jadine]

I agree, but I don't think the sample size is large enough. I think I'll post this in a different order and see what we get.

[ratatosk]

I normally max out at around 40 poll respondents, unless somebody links to it from their journal. Even if I had made it friends-only and put them on filters, that would probably just cut that down to 10 responses each -- not really satisfactory. I suppose I could use cut tags and say "click here if [some condition], but you all are absolutely terrible at being random number generators: http://ratatosk.livejournal.com/253169.html :)

[randysmith]

Aha! The nefarious purpose of that poll explained!

[laura47]

i feel like "flying' most directly modifies giant squid so it should be last. or something.

[enf]

Agreed. Flying has to come last, like it's part of the name, like flying squirrel.

[jadine]

I had some thoughts in this direction too, but I think it really sounds better the third way.

[ratatosk]

See? This is the problem!

:)

[beowabbit]

I don’t know which one is more idiomatic, because I am insufficiently familiar with the cladistics and nomenclature of these creatures. Giant and squid clearly have to be together because giant squid is a lexeme and the words are tightly bound. A lovely giant squid is a giant squid (technical term; two words but one lexeme) which happens to be lovely. But you can also talk about a giant, lovely squid, which is a squid (which may not fit the definition of a giant squid) which is lovely and happens to be very large.

So, is a flying giant squid also a lexeme? Is this a known category of animal, with learned treatises on flying giant squid sexing and the place of the flying giant squid in cloud ecosystems? Or is the largest lexeme here giant squid, and this one merely happens to be flying? (Perhaps it is an airline pilot, or it did some particularly strong acid

[ratatosk]

Ah, I knew someone was going to get into that. :P In this case our problem is that we genuinely don't know -- we just have that picture to go by, and no other squid of its kind to compare it to.

[note: Unlike in this post, where I discuss reanalyzing names that were originally intended to have very definite constituent structures: http://ratatosk.livejournal.com/141906.html ]

[ratatosk]

Damn it, that's not clear. Where there are only two branches at each node?

[jadine]

How about a giant squid piloting an airliner while on acid? That would be awesome.

[moominmolly]

Wow. There is zero ambiguity for me; only the first is acceptable. #3, maybe, but only if it's an art project and not a living creature.