Author Topic: Interesting language stuff (Read 25333 times)

Jonathon · « **Reply #50 on:** September 30, 2016, 10:42:17 AM »

Bait wass originally a causative form of the verb bite that was borrowed from Old Norse. That is, it meant "to cause to eat". Old English had a similar word, but it apparently died out. This means that bait/bite are a causative/inchoative pair like lay/lie, sit/set, raise/rise, and hang/hang.

rivka · « **Reply #51 on:** September 30, 2016, 02:42:04 PM »

This is indeed the correct thread for that.

Ela · « **Reply #52 on:** November 26, 2016, 11:03:25 PM »

I thought this was pretty interesting:

Which Language Uses the Most Sounds? Click 5 Times for the Answer.

Jonathon · « **Reply #53 on:** November 28, 2016, 08:29:38 AM »

That is pretty interesting, though of course I have some nitpicks with a few things. I don't think clicks per se allow more information to be packed into short words—it's having more contrasting sounds that allows that. If you think of all the possible English words that could be made with the pattern consonant-vowel-consonant and compare it to all the Khoisan words that could be made with that same pattern, the list of Khoisan words will be a lot longer because they have more possible sounds to choose from, allowing for more combinations.

So it's not really that the sounds themselves carry information in a semantic sense (unless you're talking about sound-symbolic words specifically, which they do mention), but that having those additional sounds allows for more possible short words. At least that's my take—I know very little about Khoisan languages, so I could be missing something.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #54 on:** November 28, 2016, 09:07:57 AM »

I clucked my way through that whole article.

Ela · « **Reply #55 on:** November 28, 2016, 01:01:21 PM »

Good thoughts, Jonathon. I wondered about the claim that clicks allow more information to be packed into short words, but I don't have the linguistics background to be able to analyze it the way you do.

Tante: Ha!

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #56 on:** November 29, 2016, 11:31:50 AM »

I was making a series all five of those clicking noises for my baby, and he was all wide-eyed silent for the whole performance, trying to make sense of it, I suppose. When I stopped, he made the grunting sound that, for him, means, "Again! Again!"

Ela · « **Reply #57 on:** November 30, 2016, 09:20:13 AM »

Babies are great.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #58 on:** November 30, 2016, 11:10:00 AM »

I know! It cracks me up when I make a literary reference and he catches the reference to a work of literature he is familiar with and he gives me the biggest grin. Mostly, he is a fan of genre fiction and poetry.

Yesterday, we took turns playing Peek-a-boo for a solid hour. I kept suggesting that he might want to go take a nap (mostly because I really wanted to get some sleep), but he kept begging for more. I'd put the flannel blanket over his head and then pull it off, which is a never-ending source of delightful surprise, and then I'd put the flannel blanket over my head and he'd pull it off me, squealing in delight in the wizardry of making me re-appear like magic.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #59 on:** April 20, 2017, 11:58:52 AM »

The New York Times has a fun little copy editing quiz you can try. For those of us who think copy editing is fun.

Jonathon · « **Reply #60 on:** April 20, 2017, 01:07:25 PM »

It took me three tries to get the one about college graduates, and I felt pretty dumb when I finally figured it out.

rivka · « **Reply #61 on:** April 20, 2017, 07:30:11 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on April 20, 2017, 01:07:25 PM

It took me three tries to get the one about college graduates, and I felt pretty dumb when I finally figured it out.

Ditto.

And I really ought to know better.

Jonathon · « **Reply #62 on:** April 25, 2017, 09:58:33 PM »

The same sentence written in the English of 100, 400, 500, 600, and 1000 years ago.

rivka · « **Reply #63 on:** April 26, 2017, 12:02:15 AM »

Brinestone · « **Reply #64 on:** May 01, 2017, 11:55:12 AM »

Awesome.

Jonathon · « **Reply #65 on:** April 06, 2018, 12:48:23 PM »

Can you correctly identify a lowercase g?

Brinestone · « **Reply #66 on:** April 07, 2018, 07:58:59 AM »

Ela · « **Reply #67 on:** April 22, 2018, 02:31:59 PM »

When readers correct the editing and they're wrong:

Just Deserts, or Just Cruel?

I saw the original headline discussed in the print edition. Read the article, even. Then saw the above-linked article after my spouse mentioned it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #68 on:** April 25, 2018, 10:18:17 AM »

I don't think I learned the correct spelling until I was an adult.

rivka · « **Reply #69 on:** April 25, 2018, 11:17:45 AM »

Ditto.

Ela · « **Reply #70 on:** April 26, 2018, 12:37:02 PM »

I don't remember when I learned it, but the original headline didn't look "wrong" to me ("Just Deserts, or Just Cruel?")

When I saw the headline of the follow-up about the word usage, that's when I second guessed myself...till I read the article.

Kate Boots · « **Reply #71 on:** April 27, 2018, 10:31:31 AM »

Same here.

Jonathon · « **Reply #72 on:** May 03, 2018, 12:29:20 PM »

Apparently a discussion at BuzzFeed prompted a debate over whether "IMHO" means "in my humble opinion" or "in my honest opinion".

I'm kind of flabbergasted, not just that people are wrong about this, but that so many people are wrong about this. They did a poll, and 59 percent of respondents think it's "honest".

Kids these days!

Ela · « **Reply #73 on:** May 03, 2018, 03:10:37 PM »

That's exactly what my daughter said. She also said, "Get off my lawn."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My take is if the "h" stands for "honest, than that means when people write IMNSHO they mean "in my not so honest opinion. Which, I just don't think so.

Jonathon · « **Reply #74 on:** May 03, 2018, 03:14:11 PM »

Yeah, this debate is definitely making me feel old. I wonder if there's an age split—those old enough to have learned it on forums/Usenet/AIM versus those who know it from texting and social media?