
There’s a rule in Russian grammar that every first-grader knows by heart - luu
https://alexyar.tumblr.com/post/174622302172/theres-a-rule-in-russian-grammar-that-every
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AndrewOMartin
There's a rule in English grammar that every English speaker knows, but likely
doesn't know they know.

The rule was popularised by a Tweet [1], but I learned about it here on HN.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/77200275722200268...](https://twitter.com/MattAndersonNYT/status/772002757222002688)

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_nalply
German has a very similar rule but as a native German speaker I can't talk
about this rule. I just know that I know something but don't know what exactly
I know.

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082349872349872
There's a difference between social rules, whose exceptions do not need to be
interesting: шы might be an acceptable bigram in hip hop liner notes, while
you don't have to feed your cat if you have household help who'll do it for
you, etc, and formal system rules, whose exceptions should be interesting,
which occurs _iff_ the broken rule also results in a consistent formal system:
hyperbolic geometry, non-euclidean spaces, etc.

    
    
        Все в зале, посчитай с нами
        Чтоб сотрясались сами мы
        стены и пол!

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pandaman
Actually, this particular rule is almost as same as math rules: и/ы after a
consonant indicates "soft"/"hard" pronunciation of the consonant. Some
consonants do not have this choice and are always "soft" so they are never
followed by ы as it would make no sense. Of course, there are exceptions: a
"soft" ц allows ы in a few special cases. Can't have a proper language where
any rule would always make sense :)

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netsuileo
Your direction of thoughts is right. But this particular rule is completely
opposite to your conclusions. Ж and Ш are "hard" consonants so by ear И after
them always sounds like Ы. But the rule tells us to write И instead of Ы. This
rule of Russian spelling does not make any sense that's why every first-grader
knows it.

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pandaman
What do you know, I looked up and you are right - they are really considered
"hard". Though, as a native speaker I thought them to be "soft" all my life! I
figure the rule making them "hard" is arbitrary, not the и/ы.

