Author Topic: Funny English and Linguistics stuff... (Read 204000 times)

Ela · « **Reply #1025 on:** June 09, 2015, 09:50:47 PM »

I'd go with "face palm."

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1026 on:** June 09, 2015, 09:56:23 PM »

I think it's awesome. If your brain can make "frenemy" out of your Scrabble tiles, you deserve it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1027 on:** June 10, 2015, 08:06:00 AM »

I don't have a problem with the new words, but it's worth pointing out that this is the British Scrabble dictionary, not the American one. That point seems to have been overlooked by pretty much everyone covering this story.

rivka · « **Reply #1028 on:** June 10, 2015, 08:53:30 AM »

I didn't know they were different. Interesting.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1029 on:** June 10, 2015, 11:51:11 AM »

Yup. I think it's because the rights to Scrabble are owned by different companies in the US/Canada and worldwide. They each have their own official dictionaries. The North American one is published by Merriam-Webster, while the international one is published by Collins.

rivka · « **Reply #1030 on:** June 10, 2015, 12:16:01 PM »

That makes sense.

Ela · « **Reply #1031 on:** June 10, 2015, 12:38:39 PM »

So if you play Scrabble in the US and care about the competitive Scrabble rules, you still can't use those words.

Honestly, I've only known one person in my entire life who cared. He played some competitive Scrabble, not a lot, as far as I know.

Keith · « **Reply #1032 on:** June 10, 2015, 12:52:16 PM »

My wife Andrea doesn't participate in tournaments or anything, but she does study the Scrabble dictionary and has been trying to memorize all the 2 and 3 letter words.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1033 on:** June 10, 2015, 12:59:47 PM »

Quote from: Ela on June 10, 2015, 12:38:39 PM

So if you play Scrabble in the US and care about the competitive Scrabble rules, you still can't use those words.

Right, unless they also happen to have been added to the American Scrabble dictionary.

Quote

Honestly, I've only known one person in my entire life who cared. He played some competitive Scrabble, not a lot, as far as I know.

Even if you just play casually on Facebook, you're using one of the official dictionaries. It actually gives you the option to choose which one you want when you start a game. But if you're playing on an actual board, obviously you can use whatever dictionary you want (or forgo the dictionary and use your own judgment).

Ela · « **Reply #1034 on:** June 10, 2015, 01:08:02 PM »

Yeah, I don't play on Facebook. Only on an actual board.

dkw · « **Reply #1035 on:** July 12, 2015, 12:09:06 PM »

In church today the pastor perpetuated the "____ is a verb" nonsense. She was quoting a book titled God Is a Verb and said something like "God is not static, but always in motion, and grammatically motion is a verb." I was internally rolling my eyes, when Charles looked over at me and whispered, "Mom, that book is wrong."

I guess the book author missed first grade grammar.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1036 on:** July 12, 2015, 05:02:52 PM »

Nighthawk · « **Reply #1037 on:** July 13, 2015, 04:38:28 PM »

*headdesk!*

rivka · « **Reply #1038 on:** July 13, 2015, 05:34:47 PM »

At least the company responded with a promise to fix it.

Farmgirl · « **Reply #1039 on:** July 29, 2015, 03:16:11 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on June 10, 2015, 08:06:00 AM

I don't have a problem with the new words, but it's worth pointing out that this is the British Scrabble dictionary, not the American one. That point seems to have been overlooked by pretty much everyone covering this story.

semi-related: I daily play a mobile game called 7 Little Words. And apparently, I have learned, they often use British words that I do not recognize, or British spellings. Which makes it a bit more difficult..

Nighthawk · « **Reply #1040 on:** August 03, 2015, 03:21:38 PM »

For you Spanish speakers out there...

Jonathon · « **Reply #1041 on:** August 03, 2015, 03:57:57 PM »

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1042 on:** August 03, 2015, 09:19:11 PM »

If that tag is from a pillow, the stuffing may be a tasty bread-based filling.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1043 on:** August 05, 2015, 11:55:07 AM »

Quote from: Tante Shvester on August 03, 2015, 09:19:11 PM

If that tag is from a pillow, the stuffing may be a tasty bread-based filling.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1044 on:** August 06, 2015, 10:14:22 AM »

On second thought, maybe they aren't.

link

Jonathon · « **Reply #1045 on:** August 06, 2015, 10:16:24 AM »

Also, how can you say that the babel fish is a common sci-fi trope, give examples, and fail to mention Douglas Adams's babel fish in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? You know, the one that actually gave the trope its name?

rivka · « **Reply #1046 on:** August 06, 2015, 11:03:10 AM »

HGTTG should definitely have been mentioned. So should Star Trek's universal translator.

And any article that cites Chomsky as an expert is probably

-worthy.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1047 on:** August 06, 2015, 11:32:39 AM »

I don't think it's possible to talk about universal grammar without talking about Chomsky. As the article says, nobody's kicked around the idea with as much gusto as he has.

I see this as more of an issue of the fundamental processing constraints of the brain than of universal grammar, though.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1048 on:** August 06, 2015, 12:44:17 PM »

Chomsky is an expert, in quite a lot of ways. He is THE universal grammar guy. There's just a lot of recent scholarship that likes to dispute him. But that's how science works. It's important to keep citing people who came up with influential ideas, even if research later goes in other directions. In my field, for example, everyone will probably always keep citing B.F. Skinner, even though it's pretty universally agreed that a lot of his conclusions were super off-base. Doesn't mean he didn't do a lot to move the field forward. Chomsky is still far more relevant than Skinner.

Now, I don't extend the same sentiments to people like Freud. Did he write a lot? Yeah. Was he super influential in his field? And how. But none of Freud's work was empirical - it was all just him making stuff up that sounded good, and research in years since has pretty much debunked it all. I probably wouldn't put much stock in anyone who appealed to Freud as an expert. But I don't feel that Chomsky is in the same category at all.

rivka · « **Reply #1049 on:** August 06, 2015, 12:46:58 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on August 06, 2015, 11:32:39 AM

I don't think it's possible to talk about universal grammar without talking about Chomsky.

Sure.

But there's talking about him, and there's citing him as an expert whose views should be given weighty consideration.