Why the sky is blue

[OldSchool] Yuhri: Here's something I always wonder. Two ESL people with the same language background, who suffer the same grammatical problems. One of them writes something in English. The other person reads it. The second person can't understand what the first person wrote. But shouldn't he be able to, considering?

[OldSchool] Flamingo: I wouldn't think so. The language barrier is between them, in the form of English. Now, if they were discussing the writing in their own language, translating it into the other language for figuring out the ideas behind the English text, that'd be different. But if they're both reading English, they still have that barrier.

[OldSchool] Yuhri: In my mind, though, there's this translation assumption that just seems to make /sense/.

[OldSchool] Flamingo: Well, ask them. :)

[OldSchool] Yuhri: Kind of like, well, of /course/ the sky is blue because God in His wrath squashed smurfs all over the heavens.

[OldSchool] Flamingo: Ha. And I'm looking at it from a cognitive psychology/psycholinguistics point of view. ;)

[OldSchool] Yuhri is suddenly enchanted with this notion of an angry God chasing shrieking smurfs across the sky.
[OldSchool] Yuhri: With a /hammer/.
[OldSchool] Yuhri: I'm going to tell my children this story and they will be haunted by it forever.

[OldSchool] Flamingo: See, this is why there are no Japanese in heaven.

[OldSchool] Yuhri: I am going to record this entire conversation for /posterity/. And you will be sorry.

And this, folks, is why I never did well in school.