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Comment by lebuffon | Hacker News Reader

My own pet hypothesis is that it is not just language but our entire culture that creates an O/S for our brain in our early years.

"Restraining world view" seems harsh IMHO. Sounds a little elitist to me. But affecting world-view is possibly correct.

I suspect the plasticity of the brain can overcome some of the things that the original O/S load affects but it seems to require either a big emotional event or real effort by people to undo the initial programming, like being dropped into a new country where you don't know the language but must learn it to survive. We figure it out.

It does beg the question however what are we missing, as a result of our initial programming, that we might want to download an update for. :)

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> It does beg the question however what are we missing

Ability to say that certain objects is far from both speaker and listener for example.

Or ability to mention a French coworker in your speech without explicitly mentioning their gender and the whole singular the all together

Look at that tree over there.

I worked with a French person once. They were very good at their job.

> Ability to say that certain objects is far from both speaker and listener for example.

Non-native here. I don't quite follow. How about: "The object is far away from both of us.".

The concept is there, but maybe not as a single word. Sure, it might be convenient to be able to say "The object it broscht!", but it would just be syntactic sugar. Not a new concept.

Same for french coworker. Not a new concept.

"French person", "Frenchie", "Cheese eating surrender monkey"

Latter two might be SLIGHTLY inappropriate in a working environment.

> Same for french coworker. Not a new concept.

In English — yes. In Ukrainian or Russian I just can’t omit this information without descending into soul-crashing legalize of “french person“.

The point being —- yes, its possible to say exactly that, but it would either be in a wrong register or too much of words where you could have just one.

In parts of the USA you can say "yonder object" and be understood that it is far away from both of us. It is archaic to most native speakers now.

“Thither and yon” is probably still widely understood

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