Anaphoric Puns

I used to write CL daily but sadly haven't touched it in quite some time. I also don't believe I ever used macros so extensively (beyond with-x style macros). I also recall that extensive abuse of anaphoric macros is a bad idea.

However, I'm trying to inject some more CL into my daily routine, and had a particular case where I want to make use of anaphora. I have a CL instance running that I use to notify me of some things, run some jobs manually and/or automatically. I'd like to write these monitoring pieces using something more human than what I have now.

I have a function that, given some config values, outputs a list of assoc lists of current state variables:

(defun get-state (conn line)
  (declare (ignore conn line)) ; removed to simplify
  '((("Count" . 7) ("Stage" . 6) ("LastUser" . "Mary"))
    (("Count" . 3) ("Stage" . 4) ("LastUser" . "Ted"))))

And I write something like the function below where I basically write something like below (I could use remove-if-not below, but this is a simplified form):

(defun monitor-when-ted-modified (conn line)
  (let ((states (get-state conn line)))
    (loop for state in states
          when (equalp (assoc-value state "LastUser" :test #'equalp) "Ted")
          collect state)))

I have a few scenarios such as "send all filtered results", "send if single result > N" (which can be stated as a sort of the previous scenario), "send if results change."

Before I get too far down the rabbit hole, taking the ted-modified example, what I'd like next is something more like:

(defmonitor ("ted-conn" "ted-line")
    (equalp lastuser "Ted"))

I've implemented this, which assumes a single assoc list, for the time being.

(defun alist-to-let-clause (alist)
  (loop for (key . value) in alist
        collect (list (intern (string-upcase key)) value)))

(defmacro amonitor (alist &body body)
  (with-gensyms (let-clause)
    `(let ((,let-clause ,@(alist-to-let-clause ,alist)))
       (let ((it "ok!") ;; testing ability to use "it"
              ,@let-clause)
         ,@body))))

> (amonitor (first (get-state 1 2)) 1)

(FIRST (GET-STATE 1 2)) 
Error: Cannot take CAR of FIRST.

Now, it appears as though the expansion isn't occurring as I expect for the assoc list.

I started playing around with the above but have clearly (imo) forgotten how macros work. In the interest of both educating myself and in getting off the ground, I'd

The other one.

The other one.

Can bindings involve more than one sentences? From every examples I found in my book, the bindings only happen in one sentence. However, in my native language (Malay) it seems possible to see bindings although the antecedent and anaphors are separated between a few sentences.

I heard about this recently and wanted to see what others think about it and what it could entail.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Most, if not all, English quantifiers can be used anaphorically as exemplified in the somewhat forced but grammatical discourse in (1) where every quantifier refers to the 'dogs' of the first clause.

(1) I love dogs. Most are furry but some are bald. I have three, but I would like to get more.

Now I'm not a semanticist, maybe this pronounhood easily derives from the way quantifiers are defined as quantifiers binding a variable, but I don't recall ever seeing the analysis anywhere and it doesn't look obvious to me. Or maybe it requires positing a silent pro, but I feel like that would have been made a bigger deal out of in discussions of silent arguments if English needed pro to handle something this ubiquitous.

Never mind the analysis, I don't recall seeing even a description of the basic facts, or a mention of quantifiers in surveys of anaphoras, or a discussion of the cross-linguistics of it. In fact I cannot even find the basic statement/observation that quantifiers in general can be used anaphorically stated anywhere, but that might just be me not knowing what to search for.

Interestingly, 'one-replacement', aka 'anaphoric-one' is a specific instance of this quantifier anaphora and it has an important place in the history of formal syntax and in the study of anaphora, but the analyses I can find do not even treat one as a quantifier, e.g. Payne, Pullum, Scholz, & Berlage (2013) give one the type <e,t> of a count noun, so I don't think you can extend their analysis to other quantifiers.

Other observations:

• They can do all the interesting things pronouns can do like donkey anaphora, paycheck sentences,

(2) Every person who owns multiple dogs feeds some more than others.

(3) The man who gives dogs to his children is wiser than the man gives a few to his parents

• universal quantifiers, both positive and negative, seem to be pragmatically more restricted as anaphora than existentials, numerals, and non-first-order quantifiers. Compare (1) above to (4a). They do better with an overt pronoun like all of them or none of them like in (4b).

(4) I love dogs.

a. #?All are furry and none are bald.

b. All of them are furry and none of them are bald.

They're better when the antecendant is itself quantified with all or an otherwise 'big' quantifier. This seems to have to do with emphasis or contrast.

(5) Of all my dogs, none have health issues.

(6) I've met thousands of dogs and none was ever a

Do your worst!

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Buenosdillas

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

I won't be doing that today!

[Removed]

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.