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Author Topic: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...  (Read 215143 times)

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Offline Kate Boots

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1225 on: September 20, 2017, 10:10:40 AM »
Is there a link for that?  I would love to be able to pass that along to The Professor.  :)

Offline Nighthawk

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1226 on: September 20, 2017, 11:25:45 AM »
Is there a link for that?  I would love to be able to pass that along to The Professor.  :)

I'm not entirely sure where it originated from.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1227 on: September 20, 2017, 12:19:47 PM »
Accurate.
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Offline Ela

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1228 on: November 05, 2017, 04:38:14 PM »
By me, "orientate" is the most annoying.

If I understand correctly, "orientate" is the more common usage in the UK.

And I suspect they don't care if you find it annoying. ;)


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Offline Kate Boots

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1229 on: November 06, 2017, 11:05:51 AM »
By me, "orientate" is the most annoying.

If I understand correctly, "orientate" is the more common usage in the UK.

And I suspect they don't care if you find it annoying. ;)

True.  I found "orientate" quite annoying until I started watching a lot of British TV.

Offline rivka

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1230 on: November 06, 2017, 02:00:30 PM »
It indeed the UK (and Oz/Kiwi/etc.) usage. I find it mildly irritating in UK books and media. (And also consider it my problem, not the author's, in such instances.)

I find it incredibly annoying in fanfic for US shows written by non-US writers, which is my primary exposure to "orientate" and "disorientate" (also "orientated" and "disorientated").
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1231 on: November 07, 2017, 02:59:56 PM »
We hire new employees, and before they can work independently, they have to go through a period of orientation.  It kind of grates on my ears when people talk about that as "orientating" the employee, and asking if they've been "orientated" yet.
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Offline Ela

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1232 on: November 08, 2017, 10:11:05 PM »
That's only cause you're not British. ;)


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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1233 on: November 09, 2017, 10:37:37 AM »
I'm more Yiddish than British.
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1234 on: November 09, 2017, 10:46:31 AM »
 :D
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Offline Ela

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1235 on: February 08, 2018, 05:59:22 PM »
So I don't know if this fits in "funny" or elsewhere, but a thing that's been driving me nuts is misspelling of words on the internet. Specifically, people who type a word that sounds like the one they want but the one they really want is spelled differently. (Homophones, right? It's not a word I use much myself, so I had to look it up to remember it.)

For example, a friend of mine wrote "site" when he meant "cite" in a blog post recently. (He corrected it after I told him.)

But the most recent that stopped me short was somebody posting that her baby was born by c-section because of "D-cells". Even though I don't want to laugh at her situation, the spelling she used made me laugh out loud. D-cell sounds like a battery to me. ;) The spelling shortcut she was looking for here was "decels", as in deceleration of the baby's heart rate.

I've seen lots of other examples of this sort of thing, but those are the ones I can remember right now.


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Offline rivka

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1236 on: February 08, 2018, 10:34:30 PM »
Yeah, I saw a couple along the same lines recently that horrified me, as they were in what was meant to be a professional email.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1237 on: February 10, 2018, 05:12:55 PM »
I read a charming book where the narrator called the device that clicks at a set rate a "metro gnome".
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
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Offline Ela

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1238 on: February 10, 2018, 10:15:51 PM »
 :D


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Offline Nighthawk

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1239 on: March 08, 2018, 05:31:29 AM »
"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer..."

Offline rivka

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1240 on: March 08, 2018, 05:38:50 PM »
Most of those make sense, but I'm surprised "self-care" wasn't in long before now.
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Offline Noemon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1241 on: March 20, 2018, 01:37:33 PM »
The admin in our department sent out an email the other day detailing when we would be receiving our new Voight phones.
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Offline Kate Boots

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1242 on: March 20, 2018, 02:09:57 PM »
 ???

Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1243 on: March 20, 2018, 02:18:57 PM »
So he misheard VOIP as Voight?
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Offline Noemon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1244 on: March 22, 2018, 09:03:51 AM »
Yep!
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1245 on: March 26, 2018, 08:41:51 AM »
The Welsh spelling of Uruguay is pretty fantastic:

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Offline rivka

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1246 on: March 26, 2018, 09:11:27 AM »
And you thought Polish and Czech names were short on vowels . . . .
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1247 on: March 26, 2018, 09:31:28 AM »
Welsh actually has BONUS vowels—seven vowel letters instead of the usual five.
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Offline rivka

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1248 on: March 26, 2018, 11:55:47 AM »
Ah, but to Americans W (and??) are still consonants.
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Offline Jonathon

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Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...
« Reply #1249 on: March 26, 2018, 12:08:20 PM »
The letter y also represents a vowel in Welsh.

But I was just trying to distinguish between languages which are actually short on vowel sounds, like Polish and Czech, and those which use some letters that normally represent consonants to represent vowels instead.

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