> Wirt's comment reminds me of a story I heard a few years ago about
> computers and their ability to understand natural languages.
   [...snip...]
> The phrase chosen was taken from the New American Standard Bible, Mark
> 14:38b, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  I don't know
> what the Russian translation was, but when it was translated back to
> English, it came out as, "the vodka is good, but the meat has gone
> bad."

One more practical example from the early AI days was:

   "Time flies like an arrow."

Analyzed syntactically, this can result on a few meanings, for example:
                    noun   verb    prep.     obj.p.
(a) The passage of <time> <flies> <like> an <arrow>.
                 adj.    noun                       verb
(b) The insects "<time> <flies>" have an affinity (<like>) for arrows.
                                verb   obj
(c) When determining airspeed, <time> <flies> in a similar manner
(<like>) you would measure <an arrow>.

I've always thought this one of the better examples of the difficulty
imposed on any natural language recognition by the ambiguous nature of
the syntax and semantics of language.

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>