[General] Apparently Graves sees scientists...

[Silverobama]

Hi.

Is the following sentence natural? Would native speakers use it? It's from my old notebook and now the source and author is not known.

Apparently Graves sees scientists as a sober, plodding phalanx of soulless thinking machines, never making a step that hasn't been carefully thought out in advance.

I think it's not natural at all.

 

[emsr2d2]

Why do you think it's not natural? It's grammatically correct and, in the right context, would be perfectly acceptable.

 

[Silverobama]

Why do you think it's not natural? It's grammatically correct and, in the right context, would be perfectly acceptable.

The first reason was I can't find the context. The second reason is I think my English is not good enough to say if it's natural or not. Thanks a lot, emsr2d2. I'll keep it for future reference. I can improve my writing skills by reading paragraphs like this one.

 

[tedmc]

It is a sarcastic remark of scientists being unimaginative, uninteresting, robotic, careful and cautious.

 

[emsr2d2]

I think it's not natural at all.

The second reason is I think my English is not good enough to say if it's natural or not.

Then why did you say you didn't think it was natural in post #1?

I'll keep it for future reference. I can improve my writing skills by reading paragraphs like this one.

You can, but only if you need to write such convoluted, relatively formal language.

 

[Silverobama]

Then why did you say you didn't think it was natural in post #1?

I think many sentences in my old notebooks are not natural. You know, when I think my English is not good enough to tell if it's natural or not, I tend to say the sentence is not correct because I need to give my thoughts about the sentence. Perhaps next time I don't need to express my opinion if the sentence is natural or not?

 

[emsr2d2]

If your English isn't of a standard to have an opinion on whether it's natural or not, it's better to just ask us. Bear in mind, though, that you might get a lot of questions about what exactly you mean by "natural".

 

[Silverobama]

If your English isn't of a standard to have an opinion on whether it's natural or not, it's better to just ask us. Bear in mind, though, that you might get a lot of questions about what exactly you mean by "natural".

I am just curious about this. I think native speakers know what "natural" means, right? I don't know why you always ask me this while other many members can use the word "natural" without being ask. I just want to make sure that the sentence is natural and native speaker would use it. Idiomatic, not Chinglish.

 

[emsr2d2]

There is no absolute definition of "natural" when talking about language. You probably get asked what you mean more often than other people because all your posts ask about the naturalness of your posts. For me, a "natural" sentence is one you might hear from a native speaker in normal, everyday conversation. For example:

I have a pet cat. (Grammatically correct and natural)
I am the proud possessor of a domesticated feline. (Grammatically correct and not natural)

 

[Tdol]

It's a creative sentence. Few would say it, but that doesn't mean it's unnatural.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hi.

Is the following sentence natural? Would native speakers use it? It's from my old notebook and now the source and author is not known.

Apparently Graves sees scientists as a sober, plodding phalanx of soulless thinking machines, never making a step that hasn't been carefully thought out in advance.

I think it's not natural at all.

It's perfectly natural written English. It's not conversational, but it's not supposed to be. Writing usually isn't, except for quotations.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It is a sarcastic remark of scientists being unimaginative, uninteresting, robotic, careful and cautious.

I don't see any sarcasm at all there at. The writer is expressing an opinion absolutely directly.

 

[jutfrank]

I think native speakers know what "natural" means, right?

The members here have quite different ideas of what natural means when it comes to language use, which can cause confusion.

For example, look what emsr2d2 says here:

For me, a "natural" sentence is one you might hear from a native speaker in normal, everyday conversation. For example:

I have a pet cat. (Grammatically correct and natural)
I am the proud possessor of a domesticated feline. (Grammatically correct and not natural)

For me, the second of those sentences is natural. It's just that it's not a normal everyday form of expression.

I think of naturalness as what a native speaker could say rather than what a native speaker is statistically likely to say. Those are very different things. One question that I ask myself when I'm determining whether a piece of language is natural is this: Do I suspect from what I hear that the speaker is a non-native speaker?

This is a very complicated question. I really think the forum would benefit if we had a discussion about it.