--- title: Calling someone stupid is rude, so English has dozens of jokey ways… — Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes… · tree and pragmatics description: Calling someone stupid is rude, so English has dozens of jokey ways to say it, many of them pictures of something missing: "a few sandwiches short of a picnic" means the person's head is missing a few "pieces". Who acts: Calling, English, many, head. A sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard thi --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / [Soft words for hard things: failure an…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/) / 2 # Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes and stupidity and madness, sentence 2 Calling someone stupid is rude, so English has dozens of jokey ways to say it, many of them pictures of something missing: "a few sandwiches short of a picnic" means the person's head is missing a few "pieces". **Who acts:** Calling, English, many, head · **What happens:** call, be, have, say, picture, mean · **To what, where:** someone, dozens, error, few pieces · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes and stupidity and madness» of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Calling, English, many, head), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:euphemisms:035-mistakes-and-stupidity.lesson:2 # text = Calling someone stupid is rude, so English has dozens of jokey ways to say it, many of them pictures of something missing: "a few sandwiches short of a picnic" means the person's head is missing a few "pieces". # source = school lesson (ours) # course = euphemisms # lesson = 035-mistakes-and-stupidity.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 Calling call VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 5 csubj _ _ 2 someone someone PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 1 obj _ _ 3 stupid stupid ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 1 xcomp _ _ 4 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 cop _ _ 5 rude rude ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 0 root _ _ 6 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 7 so so ADV RB _ 9 advmod _ _ 8 English English PROPN NNP Number=Sing 9 nsubj _ _ 9 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 parataxis _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:conj 10 dozens dozen NOUN NNS Number=Plur 9 obj _ _ 11 of of ADP IN _ 13 case _ _ 12 jokey jokey ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 13 amod _ _ 13 ways way NOUN NNS Number=Plur 10 nmod _ _ 14 to to PART TO _ 15 mark _ _ 15 say say VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 13 acl _ _ 16 it it PRON PRP Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 15 obj _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 21 punct _ _ 18 many many ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 nsubj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=21:amod 19 of of ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 20 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 18 nmod _ _ 21 pictures picture NOUN NNS Number=Plur 13 conj _ _ 22 of of ADP IN _ 23 case _ _ 23 something something PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 21 nmod _ _ 24 missing missing ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 amod _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=21:acl|HaikuPos=VERB:VBG:VerbForm=Ger 25 : : PUNCT : _ 30 punct _ _ 26 " " PUNCT `` _ 30 punct _ _ 27 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 29 det _ _ 28 few few ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 amod _ _ 29 sandwiches sandwich NOUN NNS Number=Plur 30 nsubj _ _ 30 short short ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 35 parataxis _ _ 31 of of ADP IN _ 33 case _ _ 32 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 picnic picnic NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 obl _ _ 34 " " PUNCT '' _ 30 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=33:punct 35 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 9 parataxis _ _ 36 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 37 det _ _ 37 person person NOUN NN Number=Sing 39 nmod:poss _ _ 38 's 's PART POS _ 37 case _ _ 39 head head NOUN NN Number=Sing 41 nsubj _ _ 40 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 41 aux _ _ 41 missing miss VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 35 ccomp _ _ 42 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 45 det _ _ 43 few few ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 45 amod _ _ 44 " " PUNCT `` _ 45 punct _ _ 45 pieces piece NOUN NNS Number=Plur 41 obj _ _ 46 " " PUNCT '' _ 45 punct _ _ 47 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **call** | gerund | | | someone | | | stupid *property* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent someone=Recipient | | 2 | **is** | present | Calling | | | | | rude *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **have** | present | English | dozens of jokey ways and pictures | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dozen=Patient | | 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | English *not said here* | error | | | | | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent it=Topic | | 5 | **picture** | | many of ways | | | | | of something | tree rules | | 6 | **mean** | present | | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 7 | **miss** | present · progressive | the person's head | a few pieces | | | | | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer piece=Stimulus | One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:euphemisms:035-mistakes-and-stupidity.lesson:2`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: failure an…, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/1/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: failure an…, 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/3/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/)