So Bonobos have more capacity to judge the topical authority of people than most people do. Very interesting.
Bonobo: This motherfucker doesn’t know algebra, I can tell.
Oh, shit. Good thing my boss is a chimpanzee.
I mean… a lot of Bonobo behavior would be inappropriate in the workplace.
Probably less racist than my Gen X conservative boss though. Probably smarter and more efficient too.
I dunno, I think an increase in mutual oral activity would help most jobs
He’ll never know!
Chimpanzees and bonobos are separate species. Your boss cannot help you. You’re on your own.
I know. That’s what makes my joke good.
Thank you for recognizing I couldn’t tell something and pointing me in the right direction. You would make a good bonobo.
That may be the case, regardless of species.
“They can tell” implies "they can speak“. No they can’t. #Clickbait
“They can tell” implies "they can speak“
That… isn’t what that phrase means in English. I assume you’re new to the language?
I’m not, and I’m perfectly aware of the ambiguity of “tell” meaning both “understand” and “communicate”. But so is the person who wrote that clickbait title.
If I’m choking, I can sure tell people about it despite being unable to speak.
Colloquially, in English, “I can tell that…” directly translates to “I can discern/detect that…”. An example would be in a game of poker, “I can tell that you’re bluffing”.
The ability or desire to communicate what you have become aware of is irrelevant.
Let me guess humans are the only intelligence on the planet too huh
Not the ones who use sign language, apparently.
Or at least they can’t tell you anything.
This isn’t intended as a correction, more of a relevant FYI:
Primate’s ability to sign has been wildly overstated. Koko the Gorilla was a lot closer to a chicken playing tick-tack-toe than Cesar from Planet of the Apes.
Like the chicken, Koko’s ability seemed dependent on the presence of her trainer. For example, her trainer would often explain that a nonsense word or sentence that the animal signed “rhymed” with what that she intended. Of course “rhyming” in sign language is a thing, but it works completely different than it does in speech.
Chomsky was right, language is human firmware and cannot be taught to our cousins. The history of our effort to do are mostly stories of animal abuse peppered with some human tragedy.
I wasn’t talking about non-human primates in the first place, but I do not disagree with you.
