Author Topic: Funny English and Linguistics stuff... (Read 217266 times)

rivka · « **Reply #775 on:** August 25, 2013, 12:29:42 PM »

Quote from: BlackBlade on August 25, 2013, 11:35:26 AM

Where should I be looking?!

The cornflakes, according to Annie.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #776 on:** August 25, 2013, 04:50:38 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on August 25, 2013, 10:58:50 AM

We had a lot of roaches in Arizona.

Added to the list of reasons to never live in Arizona.

Although, to be fair, I've lived in places (Japan, Taiwan, China) that have plenty of roaches and was just fortunate enough to live in buildings that didn't have problems.

Jonathon · « **Reply #777 on:** August 25, 2013, 06:21:11 PM »

Quote from: BlackBlade on August 25, 2013, 11:35:26 AM

O.o

Now I am worried that I haven't seen one. Where should I be looking?!

My understanding is that they're not necessarily everywhere but infest certain areas. Maybe you're lucky enough to be living in a place without them.

Jonathon · « **Reply #778 on:** August 26, 2013, 10:58:23 AM »

rivka · « **Reply #779 on:** August 27, 2013, 08:56:06 AM »

Typos can be expensive. Some more than others.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #780 on:** August 27, 2013, 09:10:50 AM »

Quote from: rivka on August 27, 2013, 08:56:06 AM

Typos can be expensive. Some more than others.

Oh that I could have traded on that information.

Porter · « **Reply #781 on:** August 28, 2013, 09:19:48 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on August 26, 2013, 10:58:23 AM

This is the coolest thing I've seen all day.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #782 on:** August 30, 2013, 08:23:23 AM »

Have there been any studies on the relationship between linguistics and marketing? I saw this today and cringed at the apostrophe, but at the same time Purina is using a made-up word. It feels like in that case the apostrophe lets us know that to some extent.

Jonathon · « **Reply #783 on:** August 30, 2013, 08:35:53 AM »

It's not made-up, and I think you could actually argue that the apostrophe is essential to indicate g-dropping (which is not really /g/ dropping but merely /ŋ/ fronting). Thus licking is spelled lickin' to show the pronunciation, and then lickin' is made plural by simply adding an s.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #784 on:** August 30, 2013, 12:25:01 PM »

Interesting. I don't think "lickings" in that context is a word is it?

Jonathon · « **Reply #785 on:** August 30, 2013, 12:33:35 PM »

How is it not a word?

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #786 on:** August 30, 2013, 02:55:04 PM »

It's a word in the same weird way they keep making nouns out of verbs for food words. I don't know why it bugs me so much, but I hate when products are named things like "bakes" or "dunks." Double rage points if they're pluralized with a Z.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #787 on:** August 30, 2013, 03:49:05 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on August 30, 2013, 12:33:35 PM

How is it not a word?

So it's a word in that in the US we might say, "He did wrong, but he took his lickings and paid his debt."

But this product isn't using it that way, and unless the word exists because they just made it up and copyrighted it, I don't see it anywhere else.

Jonathon · « **Reply #788 on:** August 30, 2013, 04:30:18 PM »

It's a word in the sense that it has a conventional form and a meaning that both the writer and reader understand. It's even grammatically well-formed. You can take a verb, add -ing to make it a gerund (which is a type of verbal noun), and then pluralize it by adding -s. Presto! It's a word, even if it's not in a dictionary.

Jonathon · « **Reply #789 on:** August 30, 2013, 04:36:30 PM »

By the way, the OED has this as its first definition of licking:

Quote

The action of lick v.; the action of passing the tongue over something, of fashioning into shape, etc.

The idea of beating someone is apparently a figurative extension of this.

BlackBlade · « **Reply #790 on:** August 30, 2013, 05:04:28 PM »

Thanks for the explanation.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #791 on:** August 30, 2013, 09:38:32 PM »

It's still a stupid name for a cat treat, I'm with you there.

Jonathon · « **Reply #792 on:** September 03, 2013, 04:15:13 PM »

This is more fun than funny: http://greatlanguagegame.com/

You listen to a sound clip and have to guess which language it is. My highest score so far is 500. Just to warn you, though, it's really slow. Just click the buttons once and wait for it to go.

dkw · « **Reply #793 on:** September 03, 2013, 05:08:22 PM »

That is fun. I was on a roll, and then I got a series of languages I'd never even heard of. Final score 150.

Edit: 200

Brinestone · « **Reply #794 on:** September 03, 2013, 08:52:56 PM »

First try: 400, and I feel stupid that I missed Dutch because my parents speak it with bad accents. I guess I just assumed I'd understand more if it were Dutch, so I guessed the other option.

Second try: 350. I swear I didn't see Spanish as an option on the last one. I thought it sounded like a Romance language, but it was too quiet to pick out individual words.

rivka · « **Reply #795 on:** September 03, 2013, 09:34:42 PM »

First try: 350. Second: 450. If I had gotten Yiddish wrong, I would have had to slink away in shame. But I had trouble with all the Asian ones but Mandarin and Japanese. Those I recognize. And I could tell Russian (and similar) languages, except when it was telling Russian from Croatian or other close languages. (Wikipedia seems to imply those two are not actually especially close. Whatever, they sounded too much alike for my ear.)

BlackBlade · « **Reply #796 on:** September 03, 2013, 09:40:38 PM »

Porter · « **Reply #797 on:** September 11, 2013, 07:25:11 AM »

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #798 on:** September 11, 2013, 07:38:54 AM »

I keep maxing out at 400. It's super unfair when they put several Slavic languages as the only choices.

Jonathon · « **Reply #799 on:** September 11, 2013, 08:18:42 AM »

Seriously. If Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible, how's anyone supposed to tell them apart?