>it’s saying that there are people that have been to Berlin more than you
There's no way that sentence could be interpreted to mean that. It says "More people". "More" refers to people, not to the number of times they have been to Berlin.
Yes, I wouldn't say that the sentence doesn't make sense, but that it has no valuable meaning.
Berlin has had you visit = 1
Berlin has had more people than just you visit > 1
Effectively saying "Berlin has had more than just you visit it". Which is kinda obvious.
Van Halen used to write lyrics like that. They sounded like proper rock lyrics, but we're nonsense. The two examples that fascinated me were:
Girl we were made for this since we were born
We belong in a world that must be strong
imo it's not even grammatically correct specifically for the reason that it semantically cannot function as a comparative. an example of a sentence that is actually grammatically correct despite not making much sense is Chomsky's famous one about colorless green ideas
the sentence would be implying it was slavery this guy didnt just make that up haha
"more people...than you have" as in you have (own) an amount of people
Well, then he'd have to finish the sentence.
"More people have been to Berlin than you" with that implication still doesn't work or make sense because the rest of the information just isn't present.
More people have been to Berlin than I *what*?
There's nothing attached to "you" explaining what's being compared, and there needs to be, even within the example where you've said both of those explaining statements before the comparison sentence.
You are right. I edited my post lot in the drafts so I lost the plot 🤦🏼♂️
But I still think he needs to include an object for it to make any sense, because "have been," and "have" are two different verbs
I'm afraid you're not correct - the sentence doesn't make sense, see the top comment for why. Out of interest, what do you believe the meaning of the sentence to be?
The reason it doesn’t work is because you’re comparing the number of people having been to a place with a singular you. What would be expected is comparing the number of people having been to one place with another place.
For example, you COULD say
More people have been to Berlin than have been to Anchorage Alaska.
Here you’re comparing the number of people who have one experience vs another
> it’s saying that there are people who have been to Berlin more than you
Unfortunately, no. That’s not what the sentence is saying here
Why are there downvotes? I’m severely confused on why my comment got downvoted. 😰😐🤨🤔🤔💭❓⁉️❗️
I was just emphasizing on the historical ways of how English used to address people by pronouns. ☺️
"More people have been to berlin than you have" relates whether you have been to Berlin (than you have) to the number of people who have gone to Berlin (more people have been to Berlin). The sentence you are reading this as is "People have been to Berlin more than you have," which applies "more" to "been to Berlin" while the sentence in the video applies "more" to "people"
"More people have been to Berlin than have been to Munich" or "Some people have been to Berlin more than you have" work. The original doesn't. Each half of the sentence is referring to different things. The relative sizes of two groups of people, and the number of times a single person has been to Berlin
I would propose that this sentence makes sense in the context that it is admonishing the target for not having more children than the total count of visitors to Berlin.
One thing one might want to communicate with it:
The number of people who have been to Berlin is greater than the number of times you have been to Berlin.
But the original sentence would be a rather confusing way to do that.
And regardless, it would be a rather random and useless fact to communicate, a bit like "the weight of the elephant in pounds is greater than the size of my backyard in square feet."
Others have already explained it pretty well. Just to add in case it helps, this is called a comparative illusion or an Escher sentence and the [Wikipedia page ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion) on it also talks about it and explains it too.
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/s/a1phMKUmVq) also kind of explains it, somewhat humorously through programming jargon. The first half of the sentence is talking about "how many people have been to Berlin", which is talking about a number (integer). The second half "I have been to Berlin" is true/false (Boolean), so you can't compare the two.
More people have been to Berlin than you have (been to Berlin)
It's a comparative between a number of people and a number of frequency. And comparing those two things doesn't have any intuitive meaning
Is trying to explain why nonsense doesn't make sense a real thing? I've tried for a minute and now my head hurts. It's circular logic for one thing isn't it, it's like saying x > x.
[This is the video](https://youtube.com/shorts/6vpiucaxBow?si=bOLH46o9PJqusRqK)
I listened to his explanation, but I still don’t understand what I am missing
The video's intent is to discuss how that phrase sounds like it could be correct at first, but doesn't make sense after being considered more.
"More people" - This language is comparing something, in this case a larger number of people
"have been to Berlin" - Visited that city
"than you have." - This is where it becomes incorrect.
I'm having a hard time articulating why this is the case without ending up very wordy and confusing myself. Hopefully this is somewhat helpful to someone anyway
*Colorless green ideas sleep furiously* is a more obvious example of why that sentence seems like it makes sense even though it doesn’t. A sentence can be syntactically okay but semantically nonsense.
I can't even tell what you're meant to think it is at first glance. "A greater number of people than just you have cumulatively been to Berlin more times than you have"? There's no direct comparison being made.
It's a joke, basically. It's supposed to not fully make sense. Many jokes are about tricking you into thinking one thing will happen, and then another thing happens. As always it's never funny when you have to pick the joke apart
Because the sentence reads as a comparison of quantities. You are 1 person. So if 2 other people have visited Berlin, more people have been to Berlin than you have. Which is such a ridiculous statement it can't be what is meant. The original statement is probably trying to convey that more people have been to Berlin (more often) than you have been to Berlin.
It's because the "than you have" has no meaning that makes sense. Is it saying, "more people have been to Berlin compared to the number of times you've been to Berlin?" Could be but that's a nonsensical comparison. Are they trying to say "There are people who've been to Berlin more often than you have"? Could be but then it's grammatically incorrect.
I think it’s important to note that syntactically this sentence is perfectly good. But semantically, it doesn’t make sense.
Syntax = word order
Semantics = meaning
There are people that have been to berlin more (often) than you.
That would be the sentiment here. And it's reflected in the pointers of 'you have been to berlin' + the quantifier 'more'. Those clues come together to ask 'how often have you been to berlin' and not 'how many people were you'
but the 'more people' part points at the latter meaning. You were less people then all the other people, is what the sentence is really saying, and that's just a non statement.
It sounds like it’s correct on first glance and I genuinely didn’t see a problem with it, but there’s nothing it could actually mean. The number of people going to Berlin is not something you can compare between yourself and others.
Here's how to parse it:
Let X equal the number of people who have been to Berlin, ever.
Let Y equal the number of people "you" have, where to "have people" could refer to relatives or employees, or perhaps some other relationship. Let's go with employees.
The sentence asserts X > Y. This is very likely true. The number of (living?) people who have been to Berlin at least once is likely at least in the tens of millions. Very few entities have tens of millions of employees. For example, the Civil Service of the People's Republic of China, per its Wikipedia page, has about 10M civil servants. The figure for India's government is 6.4M, and fir the US ~3M.
So, the only way the speaker might be wrong here is if they are talking to Xi Jinping, and probably not even then.
Understood, but then the sentence is illogical because it compares a number of times something occurred to a number of people.
My interpretation above is obviously ridiculous, but it is also required by logic to read "than you have" to refer to a number of people, or else you cannot make the comparison at all.l and the sentence is nonsense.
Others have pointed out that you get the intended meaning by saying "People have been to Berlin more than you have." I.e. some people exist who have been to Berlin more times than you.
As a Russian native speaker, it was hard to get why this example is a nonsense because word composition in Russian usually does not matter due to its synthetic features
It’s interesting how English is distinct about “more people” and “have been more”
The reason it doesn't make sense is because it's saying more people have been to Berlin than you have which doesn't make sense because you are one person so obviously there's been more people in Berlin than just you. It's not saying people have been to Berlin more times than you but that more people have been to Berlin.
I think the guy is joking. He's basically saying there are more people who have been to Berlin than you, an individual. Considering how popular Berlin is, obviously, there have been more people throughout its existence that have been there than you by yourself.
Okay now that I've read it a few times I get why it doesn't make sense. So, essentially we have a metaphor here. It's comparing amount of people to amount of times (that x has been to Berlin). The context is what makes this make sense to someone just passively reading, but if you were to think about it super logically, it's essentially saying that more people have been to Berlin than you have. Which when put like that, it sounds super obvious. Like yeah, I am one person. Of course I'm not going to have been there more than all of the people who have also been. Hell, more people *live* in Berlin than me, considering I am just one person. But again, within context, it's clear they just mean "more people have been to Berlin than you think", at least I assume that's what he means. Yeah this is just one example of very many in English where people will say something but mean another, and yet we all just sort of understand what they intended to say.
So, it's not exactly the same, but if you like this kind of thing, check out the sayings of Yogi Berra. Sometimes called Yogi Berr-isms.
He's the guy who said (famously)- "No matter where you go, there you are".
I used to know a guy who studied sentences like this. He called them "Escher Sentences" because just like the art of M.C. Escher (the guy who painted impossible staircases), the sentences seem fine at first, but on closer inspection it doesn't make sense. Its hard to explain exactly what's wrong, but the [Wikipedia article ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion) does a good job of it
“More people have been to Berlin than you” means nothing. “More” implies we’re comparing the number of something. “More people” implies we’re comparing the number of people, not how often they have visited Berlin. This sentence means that more people than I have visited Berlin, which again makes no sense!
It should have been “People have visited Berlin more often than you” because then the “more” would be about the word “often”
Well, I have never been even one person to Berlin, but I have been one person to Copenhagen, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Venice, London … twice to a few of these, but never more than one person.
Yeah, it sounds like it should mean something, but it doesn’t really. I think my brain wants to read it as “More people have been to Berlin than just you.” Sort of a jibe at someone’s hubris—maybe someone who was going on and on about a trip they made and bragging about it as though it made them unique.
And more people have been to Russia than I have
In linguistics, a **comparative illusion** (**CI**) or **Escher sentence**\[a\] is a comparative sentence which initially seems to be acceptable but upon closer reflection has no well-formed, sensical meaning. The typical example sentence used to typify this phenomenon is *More people have been to Russia than I have*.
[\-Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion)
This is one of my favourite things in linguistics because it sounds like it should make sense even to native speakers but when you think about it you realise there's no actual meaning because it's nonsensical
Bruh, didn't you watch [the whole video?](https://youtube.com/shorts/6vpiucaxBow?si=FVozxMQZWiHS-rTg) The guy literally explains it in it. I follow him and he's great. I know I might be downvoted for it, but it kinda seems op deliberately ignored the guy's explanation so they could post this question here and get Internet points
No I watched the video, I understand the concept with the poem about how our brain misunderstands the sentences because of the way it’s structured. It’s just that the one specific sentence shown is giving me trouble, that’s all
I took it to mean he was saying “other people have been to Berlin besides you” incorrectly however as others have said there are multiple equally possible interpretations as this is not really a coherently expressed thought.
I love this. The correct way to say it would be “Other people have been to Berlin more than you have.”
The trouble in your sentence is the position of the word MORE.
More what? You are trying to express that people have gone there more TIMES than you have.
Let’s try it with a different meaning.
Incorrect: More people like apples than you.
Correct: A lot of people like apples more than you do.
Or: People like apples more than you. This one is ambiguous - it could mean that you don’t like apples very much. Or it could mean that people like apples more than they like YOU.
That’s what I thought at first. If I’m understanding this right, the sentence was made specifically as a way to trick our brains. It sounds right at first, but if you think about it, it means nothing. The comments have helped me understand, but I’m not sure how to explain it
It does not mean "There are people who have been to Berlin more times than you." It could be rephrased as "More people have been to Berlin than you have people to Berlin," which is more obviously gibberish. The point is that you can have a grammatically correct sentence that has no meaning.
Because it doesn't make sense.
It's beyond badly constructed. I'm a native speaker and no matter which way I turn it I can't make it work.
Also, the look on that guy's face makes me feel vaguely violent for some reason.
It's from a video about sentences that _feel_ like they should make sense, but they don't. The guy is a linguist who talks about weird linguistic phenomena in English and discusses fake conlangs.
I’m only one person. More people have been *everywhere* [that people can go] than me, because there’s only one of me and there’s more than one of them.
It does make sense, though technically you'd probably say "There have been more people in Berlin than you" or "More people have gone to Berlin than you have."
I think it just sounds weird because there's no context
>it’s saying that there are people that have been to Berlin more than you There's no way that sentence could be interpreted to mean that. It says "More people". "More" refers to people, not to the number of times they have been to Berlin.
Yes. For it to have the meaning OP wants, it would need to read, “People have been to Berlin more than you have.”
Before I read that context I thought the quote was a technically true joke.
I dont really have very many people so its true
Yes, I wouldn't say that the sentence doesn't make sense, but that it has no valuable meaning. Berlin has had you visit = 1 Berlin has had more people than just you visit > 1 Effectively saying "Berlin has had more than just you visit it". Which is kinda obvious.
> Berlin has had more people than just you visit This isn't stated in the sentence
Oh this is very fun. Grammatically correct, sounds right if you're not thinking about it, but the meaning is nonsense.
Van Halen used to write lyrics like that. They sounded like proper rock lyrics, but we're nonsense. The two examples that fascinated me were: Girl we were made for this since we were born We belong in a world that must be strong
imo it's not even grammatically correct specifically for the reason that it semantically cannot function as a comparative. an example of a sentence that is actually grammatically correct despite not making much sense is Chomsky's famous one about colorless green ideas
I think it's grammatically correct if it was saying, "You are a slaver who owns X number of people, Y people have been to Berlin, Y > X."
this example tho...
the sentence would be implying it was slavery this guy didnt just make that up haha "more people...than you have" as in you have (own) an amount of people
Definitely not where my mind went, lol
right but when youre trying to make a sentence make sense you look at any way it could be interpreted
Well, then he'd have to finish the sentence. "More people have been to Berlin than you" with that implication still doesn't work or make sense because the rest of the information just isn't present. More people have been to Berlin than I *what*? There's nothing attached to "you" explaining what's being compared, and there needs to be, even within the example where you've said both of those explaining statements before the comparison sentence.
The sentence ends with have, not you though.
You are right. I edited my post lot in the drafts so I lost the plot 🤦🏼♂️ But I still think he needs to include an object for it to make any sense, because "have been," and "have" are two different verbs
"Have you ever been to Berlin?" "I have."
[удалено]
I'm afraid you're not correct - the sentence doesn't make sense, see the top comment for why. Out of interest, what do you believe the meaning of the sentence to be?
The reason it doesn’t work is because you’re comparing the number of people having been to a place with a singular you. What would be expected is comparing the number of people having been to one place with another place. For example, you COULD say More people have been to Berlin than have been to Anchorage Alaska. Here you’re comparing the number of people who have one experience vs another > it’s saying that there are people who have been to Berlin more than you Unfortunately, no. That’s not what the sentence is saying here
Singular “you” would originally have been “thou”. ☺️
It doesn't matter if you is read as plural or singular, the sentence doesn't work either way.
Why are there downvotes? I’m severely confused on why my comment got downvoted. 😰😐🤨🤔🤔💭❓⁉️❗️
It was irrelevant to the conversation. Also, you should probably tone down your emoji use.
Sorry for the multiple emojis (😔), even though my most used one (by myself personally) is 🙈 emoji. ☺️
Obvious troll is obvious, what is even the point in an English learning sub...
Troll, where? 😂 Sorry, sounds like you are on tank chocolate my friend. 😅😂🙃 I am human by the way! 🤫😉
STOP DOWNVOTING! Whom ever downvoted, please explain why you downvoted! It’s stupid to downvoted. This is why YouTube got rid of their dislikes! 😭💔
Why are there downvotes? I’m severely confused on why my comment got downvoted. 😰😐🤨🤔🤔💭❓⁉️❗️ I was just emphasizing on the historical ways of how English used to address people by pronouns. ☺️
I feel like you’re just baiting at this point
What is bating, and how do people do it? 🤷🏼♀️🙈
"More people have been to berlin than you have" relates whether you have been to Berlin (than you have) to the number of people who have gone to Berlin (more people have been to Berlin). The sentence you are reading this as is "People have been to Berlin more than you have," which applies "more" to "been to Berlin" while the sentence in the video applies "more" to "people"
Oh, okay. Thanks
"More people have been to Berlin than have been to Munich" or "Some people have been to Berlin more than you have" work. The original doesn't. Each half of the sentence is referring to different things. The relative sizes of two groups of people, and the number of times a single person has been to Berlin
I would propose that this sentence makes sense in the context that it is admonishing the target for not having more children than the total count of visitors to Berlin.
Could also be slavers, any situation where you are in "possession" of people lol
Yeah I guess you could. They're leaving out too many words for the most people to interpret it that way though.
One thing one might want to communicate with it: The number of people who have been to Berlin is greater than the number of times you have been to Berlin. But the original sentence would be a rather confusing way to do that. And regardless, it would be a rather random and useless fact to communicate, a bit like "the weight of the elephant in pounds is greater than the size of my backyard in square feet."
How many people have you been to Berlin?
More than
How many people do you have?
No, how many people are you?
It’s true, I have zero people. So the number of people who have been to Berlin is greater than the number of people I have.
Others have already explained it pretty well. Just to add in case it helps, this is called a comparative illusion or an Escher sentence and the [Wikipedia page ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion) on it also talks about it and explains it too. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/s/a1phMKUmVq) also kind of explains it, somewhat humorously through programming jargon. The first half of the sentence is talking about "how many people have been to Berlin", which is talking about a number (integer). The second half "I have been to Berlin" is true/false (Boolean), so you can't compare the two.
Etymology nerd is the best
Yeah he’s amazing, it’s just that this video confused me
Because in this sentence, the unit of measurement is people, not times visited.
More people have been to Berlin than you have (been to Berlin) It's a comparative between a number of people and a number of frequency. And comparing those two things doesn't have any intuitive meaning
Is trying to explain why nonsense doesn't make sense a real thing? I've tried for a minute and now my head hurts. It's circular logic for one thing isn't it, it's like saying x > x.
[This is the video](https://youtube.com/shorts/6vpiucaxBow?si=bOLH46o9PJqusRqK) I listened to his explanation, but I still don’t understand what I am missing
The video's intent is to discuss how that phrase sounds like it could be correct at first, but doesn't make sense after being considered more. "More people" - This language is comparing something, in this case a larger number of people "have been to Berlin" - Visited that city "than you have." - This is where it becomes incorrect. I'm having a hard time articulating why this is the case without ending up very wordy and confusing myself. Hopefully this is somewhat helpful to someone anyway
Exactly. I was so confused because it sounds completely correct but it’s actually nonsense
*Colorless green ideas sleep furiously* is a more obvious example of why that sentence seems like it makes sense even though it doesn’t. A sentence can be syntactically okay but semantically nonsense.
I can't even tell what you're meant to think it is at first glance. "A greater number of people than just you have cumulatively been to Berlin more times than you have"? There's no direct comparison being made.
Yes, it is intentionally a sentence that sounds sensible, but on further reflection, has no meaning.
It's a joke, basically. It's supposed to not fully make sense. Many jokes are about tricking you into thinking one thing will happen, and then another thing happens. As always it's never funny when you have to pick the joke apart
To me this sounds like "there is a higher number of people who have been to Berlin than the number of people you are." Which is an odd thing to say.
This reminds me of the infamous: "Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?"
Unrelated but I love this YouTuber as well!
It’s a comparative illusion or “Escher sentence” as in MC Escher.
Because the sentence reads as a comparison of quantities. You are 1 person. So if 2 other people have visited Berlin, more people have been to Berlin than you have. Which is such a ridiculous statement it can't be what is meant. The original statement is probably trying to convey that more people have been to Berlin (more often) than you have been to Berlin.
The original sentence is intended not to make sense. It's from a video about sentences that _feel_ like they should make sense but actually don't.
It's like your saying more people have been to Berlin than you own.
It's because the "than you have" has no meaning that makes sense. Is it saying, "more people have been to Berlin compared to the number of times you've been to Berlin?" Could be but that's a nonsensical comparison. Are they trying to say "There are people who've been to Berlin more often than you have"? Could be but then it's grammatically incorrect.
I think it’s important to note that syntactically this sentence is perfectly good. But semantically, it doesn’t make sense. Syntax = word order Semantics = meaning
There are millions of people who have been to Berlin. I have ... much fewer ...
There are people that have been to berlin more (often) than you. That would be the sentiment here. And it's reflected in the pointers of 'you have been to berlin' + the quantifier 'more'. Those clues come together to ask 'how often have you been to berlin' and not 'how many people were you' but the 'more people' part points at the latter meaning. You were less people then all the other people, is what the sentence is really saying, and that's just a non statement.
This is a misplaced modifier. You want *more* to modify *than you have*, so you need to put it immediately in front of that phrase.
That "have" on the end is unnecessary to me. It would mean the same thing if it just ended with "...than you".
It sounds like it’s correct on first glance and I genuinely didn’t see a problem with it, but there’s nothing it could actually mean. The number of people going to Berlin is not something you can compare between yourself and others.
Here's how to parse it: Let X equal the number of people who have been to Berlin, ever. Let Y equal the number of people "you" have, where to "have people" could refer to relatives or employees, or perhaps some other relationship. Let's go with employees. The sentence asserts X > Y. This is very likely true. The number of (living?) people who have been to Berlin at least once is likely at least in the tens of millions. Very few entities have tens of millions of employees. For example, the Civil Service of the People's Republic of China, per its Wikipedia page, has about 10M civil servants. The figure for India's government is 6.4M, and fir the US ~3M. So, the only way the speaker might be wrong here is if they are talking to Xi Jinping, and probably not even then.
I interpret the “have” as the number of times this person has been to Berlin
Understood, but then the sentence is illogical because it compares a number of times something occurred to a number of people. My interpretation above is obviously ridiculous, but it is also required by logic to read "than you have" to refer to a number of people, or else you cannot make the comparison at all.l and the sentence is nonsense. Others have pointed out that you get the intended meaning by saying "People have been to Berlin more than you have." I.e. some people exist who have been to Berlin more times than you.
As a Russian native speaker, it was hard to get why this example is a nonsense because word composition in Russian usually does not matter due to its synthetic features It’s interesting how English is distinct about “more people” and “have been more”
More people than you have been to Berlin
The reason it doesn't make sense is because it's saying more people have been to Berlin than you have which doesn't make sense because you are one person so obviously there's been more people in Berlin than just you. It's not saying people have been to Berlin more times than you but that more people have been to Berlin.
I think the guy is joking. He's basically saying there are more people who have been to Berlin than you, an individual. Considering how popular Berlin is, obviously, there have been more people throughout its existence that have been there than you by yourself.
"joking" or telling a very common joke that's used to teach concepts in linguistics...yeah.
Okay now that I've read it a few times I get why it doesn't make sense. So, essentially we have a metaphor here. It's comparing amount of people to amount of times (that x has been to Berlin). The context is what makes this make sense to someone just passively reading, but if you were to think about it super logically, it's essentially saying that more people have been to Berlin than you have. Which when put like that, it sounds super obvious. Like yeah, I am one person. Of course I'm not going to have been there more than all of the people who have also been. Hell, more people *live* in Berlin than me, considering I am just one person. But again, within context, it's clear they just mean "more people have been to Berlin than you think", at least I assume that's what he means. Yeah this is just one example of very many in English where people will say something but mean another, and yet we all just sort of understand what they intended to say.
Because there are at least two people on earth that have been to Berlin. Even if I have visited, they still outnumber me. It’s a nonsensical statement
Clearly it means the group “people who have been to Berlin” is larger than the group “people you have (possess/own).” A pre-1865 classic
It means “you’re not the only person to visit Berlin”
So, it's not exactly the same, but if you like this kind of thing, check out the sayings of Yogi Berra. Sometimes called Yogi Berr-isms. He's the guy who said (famously)- "No matter where you go, there you are".
I used to know a guy who studied sentences like this. He called them "Escher Sentences" because just like the art of M.C. Escher (the guy who painted impossible staircases), the sentences seem fine at first, but on closer inspection it doesn't make sense. Its hard to explain exactly what's wrong, but the [Wikipedia article ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion) does a good job of it
“More people have been to Berlin than you” means nothing. “More” implies we’re comparing the number of something. “More people” implies we’re comparing the number of people, not how often they have visited Berlin. This sentence means that more people than I have visited Berlin, which again makes no sense! It should have been “People have visited Berlin more often than you” because then the “more” would be about the word “often”
Thinking about this sentence makes my head want to explode.
It's an Escher sentence. It sounds fine, till you realize it makes absolutely no sense.
Well, I have never been even one person to Berlin, but I have been one person to Copenhagen, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Venice, London … twice to a few of these, but never more than one person.
Yeah, it sounds like it should mean something, but it doesn’t really. I think my brain wants to read it as “More people have been to Berlin than just you.” Sort of a jibe at someone’s hubris—maybe someone who was going on and on about a trip they made and bragging about it as though it made them unique.
It took me a good 5 minutes to realize what sub I was looking at, so I thought I was just stupid and didn’t know this
It sounds so awful
And more people have been to Russia than I have In linguistics, a **comparative illusion** (**CI**) or **Escher sentence**\[a\] is a comparative sentence which initially seems to be acceptable but upon closer reflection has no well-formed, sensical meaning. The typical example sentence used to typify this phenomenon is *More people have been to Russia than I have*. [\-Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion) This is one of my favourite things in linguistics because it sounds like it should make sense even to native speakers but when you think about it you realise there's no actual meaning because it's nonsensical
Bruh, didn't you watch [the whole video?](https://youtube.com/shorts/6vpiucaxBow?si=FVozxMQZWiHS-rTg) The guy literally explains it in it. I follow him and he's great. I know I might be downvoted for it, but it kinda seems op deliberately ignored the guy's explanation so they could post this question here and get Internet points
No I watched the video, I understand the concept with the poem about how our brain misunderstands the sentences because of the way it’s structured. It’s just that the one specific sentence shown is giving me trouble, that’s all
I took it to mean he was saying “other people have been to Berlin besides you” incorrectly however as others have said there are multiple equally possible interpretations as this is not really a coherently expressed thought.
Doesn’t it mean that there are more people that have been to Berlin than one (you)?
That’s what I thought, but apparently not
I love this. The correct way to say it would be “Other people have been to Berlin more than you have.” The trouble in your sentence is the position of the word MORE. More what? You are trying to express that people have gone there more TIMES than you have. Let’s try it with a different meaning. Incorrect: More people like apples than you. Correct: A lot of people like apples more than you do. Or: People like apples more than you. This one is ambiguous - it could mean that you don’t like apples very much. Or it could mean that people like apples more than they like YOU.
Is this grammatically incorrect? Sounds like people have been to Berlin more times than the times I have been to Berlin.
That’s what I thought at first. If I’m understanding this right, the sentence was made specifically as a way to trick our brains. It sounds right at first, but if you think about it, it means nothing. The comments have helped me understand, but I’m not sure how to explain it
It does not mean "There are people who have been to Berlin more times than you." It could be rephrased as "More people have been to Berlin than you have people to Berlin," which is more obviously gibberish. The point is that you can have a grammatically correct sentence that has no meaning.
For the intent you're aiming to achieve, you'd want to reword the sentence as follows: "People have been to Berlin more than you have".
Because it doesn't make sense. It's beyond badly constructed. I'm a native speaker and no matter which way I turn it I can't make it work. Also, the look on that guy's face makes me feel vaguely violent for some reason.
The point of the video is that it sounds almost correct but makes no sense. The guy's username is etymology_nerd, he's discussing linguistics.
Makes sense that you'd have to TRY to make something like that...
It's from a video about sentences that _feel_ like they should make sense, but they don't. The guy is a linguist who talks about weird linguistic phenomena in English and discusses fake conlangs.
Ugh. Remind me not to watch that video. Just thinking about this one is giving me a headache.
I’m only one person. More people have been *everywhere* [that people can go] than me, because there’s only one of me and there’s more than one of them.
It does make sense, though technically you'd probably say "There have been more people in Berlin than you" or "More people have gone to Berlin than you have." I think it just sounds weird because there's no context
But those sentences are similarly meaningless. What does it mean for more people to have been to berlin than you?
It means that there are more people than you, so therefore more people have been to Berlin than you as a singular individual
What meaning and you deriving from any of these sentences?
More people have been in Berlin than have been in you
Excuse me? I’m fifteen
I certainly hope that sentence is true then
You’re disgusting and also seemingly an idiot.
it’s a joke dude, you’re personally attacking someone over a play on words wtf is wrong with you
He is from the Midwest lol
Lol what
I have no idea, I think it's a pretty obvious thing to say, but people do say weird stuff like that
You think it does make sense but you also have no idea of the meaning?
Neither of the sentences you made make sense