Language fleeting thoughts

[gd1]

The holy roman emperor charles V thought that nobody liked him and everybody hated him so he had a diet of worms.

[gmalivuk]

There didn't seem to be any need for a discussion of the above post, so this is now a general fleeting thoughts thread for language-related thoughts.

[GodShapedBullet]

Does it count as discussion if I want to comment on how much I liked this joke?

A lot.

[Felstaff]

Sometimes, I find writing
Really can boustrophedonically
Alter the meaning of
Gibberish writing up end you so things

[eSOANEM]

Sometimes I find writing
Yllaer nac yllacinodehportsuob
Alter the meaning of
Hsirebbig gnitirw pu dne uoy os sgniht

Ftfy

[Angua]

It's embarrassing that for a second I was trying to figure out why you'd rewritten it in Welsh. Even though I got what Felstaff was doing the first time

[Soupspoon]

Llatitashgual. Gniyasylno, dda'ttwontub.

[gd1]

Necromancy = Magic dealing with undead
Mechronancy = Something dealing with mechs?

The opera about the Marriage of Figaro resulted in a well known Figaro of speech.

EDIT: Tact is verbal minesweeper.

[Derek]

It's embarrassing that for a second I was trying to figure out why you'd rewritten it in Welsh. Even though I got what Felstaff was doing the first time

Google Translate even detects it as Welsh.

[gd1]

I just realized when someone says "Target neutralized", the original idea may have effectively come from the process of neutralizing an acid. Cool.

[Soupspoon]

Or, in a war(like) situation, you have friendly forces, hostile forces and those that are neither may be¹ neutral forces. You shouldn't need to concern yourself with neutral forces (neither to seek them out nor care that they will attack you), and any forces neutralised certainly resemble that status.


To stretch speculation probably beyond the inelastic limit, of course.

¹ There's a chance that there are further forces involved, like ones that are disruptive (omnihostile), rogue (asocial) or peacekeeping (omnifriendly, at least to a certain point). Neutralising these may be similarly practical, other rewards and repercussions aside.

[gd1]

You know what Germany said to France in WW2 when they conquered it? Allemagne.

[Derek]

You know what Germany said to France in WW2 when they conquered it? Allemagne.

I don't get it.

[Sizik]

You know what Germany said to France in WW2 when they conquered it? Allemagne.

I don't get it.

"All mine"

[gd1]

If the people of Earth in the Stargate universe destroyed their own planet while the Goa'uld were still around the reason they'd say it was destroyed would be: "Self-Ex-Planet-Tau'ri"

[Felstaff]

↶
You know what Germany said to France in WW2 when they conquered it? Allemagne.

The locals were Avignon of it.

[Carlington]

Of course, that's what made the Resistance so dangerous - they were cornered, and didn't have anything Toulouse.

[Grop]

You know what Germany said to France in WW2 when they conquered it? Allemagne.

"All mine"

Incidently, Alle in the ethymology of Allemagne seems to mean "all" as well.

[Felstaff]

I've mentioned elephant gun three times on this forum, but I've never--in text form--considered the many possibilities to what the noun 'elephant gun' could be.

Elephant gun (n.)

1. A gun used specifically to fire ammunition at elephants
2. A gun that is in the shape of an elephant
3. A gun that is the size of an elephant
4. A gun that sounds like an elephant
5. A gun that is designed to be used by elephants
6. A gun that uses elephants as ammunition
7. A gun made out of elephant
8. A gun made by an elephant
9. A gun made by a person called Elephant
10. A gun named after a person called Elephant
11. A gun named after, or inspired by, elephants

I think six would look like a giant cannon. (is that a cannon used to shoot giants? Or a cannon that shoots giants as ammunition? Or a cannon that...)

[Felstaff]

↶

Sometimes I find writing
Yllaer nac yllacinodehportsuob
Alter the meaning of
Hsirebbig gnitirw pu dne uoy os sgniht

Ftfy

You read words one letter at a time? B-e-a-yootiful.

I generally take the end two and make up the middle part.

[Soupspoon]

I(is that a cannon used to shoot giants? Or a cannon that shoots giants as ammunition? Or a cannon that...)

...in your pocket, or are you just very pleased to see me?

[pogrmman]

I just had a bit of a brainfuck moment.

I got out of my Spanish conversation class (which is obviously entirely in Spanish), and the first thing I heard was a Russian professor telling me, "Здравствуйте, как дела?" It took me by surprise and I needed to process it for an awkwardly long time before I replied. I almost made a fool of myself by replying in Spanish. Fortunately, I fought off the urge to do that.

On another note, "здравствуйте" is stupidly hard to spell. It was one of the very first Russian words I learned, and yet I still spell it wrong basically every time. I can spell pretty much any other word, but "здравствуйте" gets me every time.

That is all.

[Angua]

I used to do that all the time when I was learning Russian (I started age 16, have learnt Spanish as a second language at school since I was 5).

I think at first your brain just goes 'foreign language, must respond'. My grandmother said when she moved to Bolivia and learnt Spanish, at first she would always start to answer in French.

[Soupspoon]

I've reflexively gone to (or started to internally compose in) French as a response to German and vice-versa. Probably being sub-fluent in both, momentarily I could only remember how to say something like what I wanted to say in the other sub-fluent language. (Better than Franglais or Deutschlish, perhaps.)

[Zohar]

It's an extra challenge for me to learn Japanese in English (native Hebrew speaker). Sometimes it's very confusing. Even at work, where I've been for about two years and have been pretty much exclusively speaking English, I sometimes get the urge to speak in Hebrew.

[poxic]

After operating in German for a couple of months, reverting to English was a nice relief except when I tried to say something that was a common phrase in German. I could not come up with "train station" without a good 30 seconds of thinking, but bahnhof was right there and kept insisting on itself.

Also, a week in Mexico left me scrambling to find my rusty Spanish, well buried under the French, German, and even scraps of Italian I'd learned a decade earlier.

[pogrmman]

I used to do that all the time when I was learning Russian (I started age 16, have learnt Spanish as a second language at school since I was 5).

I think at first your brain just goes 'foreign language, must respond'. My grandmother said when she moved to Bolivia and learnt Spanish, at first she would always start to answer in French.

I think a big part of it is I'm WAY more fluent in Spanish than Russian -- so I go with "forgiven language", and go right to Spanish.

[gd1]

A research company in Canada had an employee with a new, yet untested, idea. When asked about the employee by the local newspaper their comment was: We have a Thierry.

When you go to the local cinema in France to see poorly rated films you are in fact going to the... Mauvais.

Part of recognizing the product of leading a good life in the afterlife is known as the Cost of Good Souls.
California manages to keep it's budget at least somewhat reasonable thanks to Contra Costa County.

Quartz is pretty gneiss.

[Felstaff]

You may be seeking this thread.

[eSOANEM]

↶
I used to do that all the time when I was learning Russian (I started age 16, have learnt Spanish as a second language at school since I was 5).

I think at first your brain just goes 'foreign language, must respond'. My grandmother said when she moved to Bolivia and learnt Spanish, at first she would always start to answer in French.

First time I went to Germany (which was on a school history trip) I didn't speak German at all and, well, when I went into a cafe to get a sandwich for lunch the person behind the counter asked what I want in German (entirely understandable, this being Berlin) and, well, I panicked and cycled through all the languages I knew at the time: French, Spanish, English, then back to Spanish again before I finally managed to get round to just pointing and saying "bitte".

[jobriath]

Related to panicking in sub-fluent language: While in Prague once, I said "Apfel Strudel" so convincingly that the woman serving me switched to German. ,,Toll!" I thought, and managed to keep up for a couple of exchanges. Then, the guy next to her asked me a question in German. Simultaneously, she surprised me with a discount (for not just speaking English). Then, I had to alter the quantity of unfamiliar money I had already got to hand. I just locked up and held out the money in my hand, let her take what was required, picked up my trdelníks, and had a sit down outside to compose myself.

[gd1]

You may be seeking this thread.

Where has that thread been all my life.

Tastiness..............2
>>>Cherry Turnover....1
>>>Water................1

Cherry Turnover......1
Water..................1
>>>Restroom............2

[Carlington]

The "hue" in the phrase "hue and cry" is totally just French "huer" which stuck around since English was like "those French are just the best, aren't they?", isn't it?

[Lazar]

That reminds me of a lot of the traditional English legal doublets, like "breaking and entering", "assault and battery", "cease and desist". (The last one is all Latin, but hey, there are no brakes on the doublet train.)

Unrelated LFT: I'm kinda down with the wacky/unbalanced phonology idea in Klingon, but the one thing that I can't believe is the [qʰ] vs. [qχ] opposition. Those are just too close – either the [qʰ] should be something like [ɢ], or they would merge.

[ThirdParty]

Showerthought: I have trouble hearing allophones clearly, but I think the word "radar" may be pronounced roughly as [ˈɹeˌɾaɹ] in English and [ˌɾaˈɹaɾ] in Spanish (you can listen to them here). If so, there's a funny symmetry there.

[eSOANEM]

↶
Showerthought: I have trouble hearing allophones clearly, but I think the word "radar" may be pronounced roughly as [ˈɹejˌɾaɹ] in English and [ˌɾaˈɹaɾ] in Spanish (you can listen to them here). If so, there's a funny symmetry there.

English doesn't really have /e/, it has /ej/ instead though (which is definitely what I hear in the recording).

I'm also confused by the Spanish pronunciation. I'm 90% sure the stress should be on the initial syllable (otherwise it'd need an acute accent on the second a).

[chridd]

↶
Showerthought: I have trouble hearing allophones clearly, but I think the word "radar" may be pronounced roughly as [ˈɹejˌɾaɹ] in English and [ˌɾaˈɹaɾ] in Spanish (you can listen to them here). If so, there's a funny symmetry there.

English doesn't really have /e/, it has /ej/ instead though (which is definitely what I hear in the recording).

I'm also confused by the Spanish pronunciation. I'm 90% sure the stress should be on the initial syllable (otherwise it'd need an acute accent on the second a).

If there's no accent, words ending in s, n, or a vowel are stressed on the penultimate syllable, and everything else (including words ending in r) is stressed on the last syllable.

[heuristically_alone]

Radar sounds like a spanish verb.
Rado el radar

[Eebster the Great]

The word "general" (and especially the derived forms "generally" and "generality") is used in vernacular and in mathematics in practically opposite ways. For instance, I would only add the phrase "in general" to some predicate in vernacular to explicitly state that it is not true in all cases but only in most cases or typical cases. But in mathematics, it is exclusively used to mean it is true in all cases.

"I generally go right home after work, but today I stopped by the bar" makes no sense at all in the mathematical sense.

[flicky1991]

I guess the way in which they are equivalent is that both mean "I'm not talking about specific cases", but in a different way in each case.

Of course, that's not the only term where the mathematical use is different from the everyday use - "or", for instance ("or" in general English would be like mathematical "xor").