Achilles: Because it's so pointless. Here's another one for you:
"WILL BE BOYS" WILL BE BOYS.
Now what does that mean? Honestly, what a silly game.
Tortoise: Not to my mind. It's very earnest stuff, in my opinion. In fact this
operation of preceding some phrase by its quotation is so overwhelm-
ingly imp(')rtant that I think I'll give it a name.
Achilles: You will? What name will you dignify that silly operation by?
Tortoise: I believe I'll call it "to quine a phrase", to quine a phrase.
Achilles: "Quine"? What sort of word is that?
Tortoise: A five-letter word, if I'm not in error.
Achilles: What I was driving at is why you picked those exact five letters in
that exact order.
Tortoise: Oh, now I understand what you meant when you asked me
"What sort of word is that?" The answer is that a philosopher by the
name of "Willard Van Orman Quine" invented the operation, so I
name it in his honor. However, I cannot go any further than this in my
explanation. Why these particular five letters make up his name-not
to mention why they occur in this particular order-is a question to
which I have no ready answer. However, I'd be perfectly willing to go
and-
Achilles: Please don't bother! I didn't really want to know everything about
Quine's name. Anyway, now I know how to quine a phrase. It's quite
amusing. Here's a quined phrase:
"IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT" IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT.
It's silly but all the same I enjoy it. You take a sentence fragment, quine
it, and 10 and behold, you've made a sentence! A true sentence, in this
case.
Tortoise: How about quining the phrase "is a king with no subject"?
Achilles: A king without a subject would be-
Tortoise: -an anomaly, of course. Don't wander from the point. Let's
have quines first, and kings afterwards!
Achilles: I'm to quine that phrase, am I? All right-
"IS A KING WITH NO SUBJECT" IS A KING WITH NO SUBJECT.
It seems to me that it might make more sense if it said "sentence"
instead of "king". Oh, well. Give me another!
Tortoise: All'right-just one more. Try this one:
"WHEN QUI NED, YIELDS A TORTOISE'S LOVE SONG"Achilles: That should be easy ... I'd say the quining gives this:
"WHEN QUI NED, YIELDS A TORTOISE'S LOVE SONG"
WHEN QUINED, YIELDS A TORTOISE'S LOVE SONG.
Hmm ... There's something just a little peculiar here. Oh, I see what it
is! The sentence is talking about itself! Do you see that?Air on G's String 435