Author Topic: Funny English and Linguistics stuff... (Read 204034 times)

Porter · « **Reply #675 on:** February 10, 2013, 05:34:19 PM »

Huh. A meme that I was aware of that BB wasn't. Weird.

rivka · « **Reply #676 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:56:05 PM »

That you were aware of and neither BB nor I were.

Porter · « **Reply #677 on:** February 11, 2013, 09:39:49 AM »

That's weird.

rivka · « **Reply #678 on:** February 11, 2013, 09:42:37 AM »

I know!

BlackBlade · « **Reply #679 on:** February 11, 2013, 10:21:38 AM »

We're in strange new waters right now.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #680 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:18:47 PM »

So I learned that the 'bald' in bald eagle has nothing to do with the appearance of having no hair, but that bald is old English for white. And in fact our calling men without hair bald is probably derived from their scalps having a whiter appearance, and not the reverse.

Porter · « **Reply #681 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:52:08 AM »

How does the expression bald-faced lie tie into that?

Jonathon · « **Reply #682 on:** February 13, 2013, 11:10:32 AM »

Quote from: BlackBlade on February 11, 2013, 02:18:47 PM

So I learned that the 'bald' in bald eagle has nothing to do with the appearance of having no hair, but that bald is old English for white. And in fact our calling men without hair bald is probably derived from their scalps having a whiter appearance, and not the reverse.

That doesn't seem to be true from what I can find. The first citation in the OED for "having no hair" is from Chaucer in 1386: "His heed was ballid, and schon as eny glas." The first citation for "white" is from 1568: "A little belled meare and a fole." Interestingly, the word appears to come from the past participle of the verb ball. Being bald originally meant being made like a ball.

Jonathon · « **Reply #683 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:04:49 PM »

Quote from: Porter on February 13, 2013, 10:52:08 AM

How does the expression bald-faced lie tie into that?

Bald-faced is apparently a variant of barefaced, meaning that the lie is open or unconcealed. Bald can mean uncovered too, so it's essentially synonymous.

Jonathon · « **Reply #684 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:08:05 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on February 13, 2013, 11:10:32 AM

That doesn't seem to be true from what I can find. The first citation in the OED for "having no hair" is from Chaucer in 1386: "His heed was ballid, and schon as eny glas." The first citation for "white" is from 1568: "A little belled meare and a fole." Interestingly, the word appears to come from the past participle of the verb ball. Being bald originally meant being made like a ball.

Well, now I'm finding conflicting information. Etymonline.com says that it's from the Celtic bal, meaning "white patch" or "blaze", but it seems odd that the "bald" sense is attested almost 200 years before the "white patch" sense.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #685 on:** February 13, 2013, 04:41:29 PM »

So now bald eagles might be resembling bald men?

I often enjoy Cracked's (that word is hell to pronounce) articles. But I felt like they really dropped the ball on an interesting premise. I kinda wish Jon Boy would make a pass at this topic in his blog.

Jonathon · « **Reply #686 on:** February 14, 2013, 02:08:49 PM »

Quote from: BlackBlade on February 13, 2013, 04:41:29 PM

So now bald eagles might be resembling bald men?

Like I said, it's not clear. I don't think it's as simple as their resembling bald men, since "bald" is used to mean simply having a white patch on the head, like on a horse.

Quote

I often enjoy Cracked's (that word is hell to pronounce) articles. But I felt like they really dropped the ball on an interesting premise. I kinda wish Jon Boy would make a pass at this topic in his blog.

Hmm. I'm not sure what kind of angle you'd expect me to take, since I don't usually go in for making fun of people's language like that.

rivka · « **Reply #687 on:** February 14, 2013, 02:38:30 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on February 14, 2013, 02:08:49 PM

"bald" is used to mean simply having a white patch on the head, like on a horse.

This used to confuse me so much when I was a pre-teen reading lots of horse books.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #688 on:** February 15, 2013, 12:06:37 AM »

Jonathon:

Quote

Hmm. I'm not sure what kind of angle you'd expect me to take, since I don't usually go in for making fun of people's language like that.

There must be words where the current accepted usage is due to common people in the past misusing the words to the extent the original meaning is lost. Like how did 'by and by' come to mean gradually when it originally meant immediately. There also must be words that in of themselves are bastardizations of other true words, they only exist because a common word was mispronounced in the same way repeatedly by many people.

So it stands to reason there may be words in use now, that are in this transitive phase. I certainly wouldn't call it "Words invented by stupid people we should all get used to."

Jonathon · « **Reply #689 on:** February 15, 2013, 11:15:09 AM »

I think maybe three people on the forum will get this, but I have to share it anyway:

Jonathon · « **Reply #690 on:** February 15, 2013, 11:28:03 AM »

Quote from: BlackBlade on February 15, 2013, 12:06:37 AM

Jonathon:
Quote
Hmm. I'm not sure what kind of angle you'd expect me to take, since I don't usually go in for making fun of people's language like that.
There must be words where the current accepted usage is due to common people in the past misusing the words to the extent the original meaning is lost. Like how did 'by and by' come to mean gradually when it originally meant immediately. There also must be words that in of themselves are bastardizations of other true words, they only exist because a common word was mispronounced in the same way repeatedly by many people.

So it stands to reason there may be words in use now, that are in this transitive phase. I certainly wouldn't call it "Words invented by stupid people we should all get used to."

People have written whole books on the subject. It's a continual process that is probably far more pervasive than most people realize, not just a transitive phase that certain words go through. Every single sound change that has ever occurred can be chalked up to mispronunciation, though it often happens so gradually that we wouldn't think of it as such. It's language change all the way down.

rivka · « **Reply #691 on:** February 15, 2013, 04:09:20 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on February 15, 2013, 11:15:09 AM

I think maybe three people on the forum will get this, but I have to share it anyway

I looked up parataxis and I still don't get it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #692 on:** February 15, 2013, 04:20:40 PM »

Are you familiar with the original meme? It's about recursion, and embedding subordinate clauses (syntaxis) is a type of recursion. So this one subverts it by using short, simple sentences without embedding.

rivka · « **Reply #693 on:** February 15, 2013, 04:31:57 PM »

I had previously seen the "yo dawg i herd you like" meme, but the ones I'd seen didn't have repetition, necessarily.

TinEye found me plenty that do.

Thanks.

Jonathon · « **Reply #694 on:** February 15, 2013, 06:22:57 PM »

It probably makes more sense contrasted with this older one:

BlackBlade · « **Reply #695 on:** February 21, 2013, 09:09:47 AM »

New and necessary punctuation marks.

rivka · « **Reply #696 on:** February 21, 2013, 10:26:45 AM »

Amusing.

Jonathon · « **Reply #697 on:** February 21, 2013, 01:08:15 PM »

My favorite is the Morgan Freemark.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #698 on:** February 21, 2013, 06:36:41 PM »

Tristan's television show asked him, "What letter makes the sss sound?" Whereupon he confidently said, "C!" I felt kinda bad when the show did not acknowledge his correct answer.

Jonathon · « **Reply #699 on:** February 21, 2013, 07:51:11 PM »

Stupid tricksy letter C.