language

þ!

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

maire-annatari:

eggypeggy:

A feature of English which I think is stupid,

If we’re carrying on with this game,

Is how we abolished the thorn and replaced it,

With two letters that meant the same.

The þ was a letter, amazing, astounding,

Perfect in every respect,

Representing the ‘th’ sound and shortening words,

The one thing it didn’t expect;

One day T and H went and burgled its meaning,

And then, thanks to the printing press,

Its symbol mutated and morphed into Y,

Which is pointless, I must confess.

Þoughtlessly, the þ was forgotten,

Þreatened as the language evolved,

Þankful for þose who knew of old English,

A topic where it was involved.

It only survived in Modern Icelandic,

In English it’s treated with scorn,

And as barely anyone knows it exists,

Please try to remember the thorn.

ð!

Saving the thorn from obscurity
Is surely a laudable aim
But if this letter deserves our praise
The eth should receive the same.

The scribes of the Anglo-Saxons
interchanged the eth and thorn
until the first one fell from use
and the second was left forlorn,

But for the modern Icelander
their roles are more defined
and could improve our English texts
if we were so inclined.

The thorn (Þ, þ) denotes a voiceless dental fricative
as in the English ‘think’ or ‘thresh’ but not the ‘th’ in ‘hither,’
whereas the eth (Ð, ð) is a voiced dental fricative
perfect for ‘this’ and ‘that’ and most especially for ‘thither.’

So I propose ðey boþ be used 
in the Icelandic manner;
ðen students won’t be loaþ to learn
our spelling and our grammar.

To þink we’ve never fixed ðis mess
is really quite astounding.
One letter cluster for two sounds?
Ðat’s damnably confounding!

Tags:

#language #poetry #yes this #I have to refer to the phoneme I can’t perceive as ‘theta’ #because English-speakers are more likely to know that letter than to know our own thorn #(and they don’t even always understand me then) #such a shame #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting

swedish idioms painfully literally translated into english

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

wordsinswedish:

useless-swedenfacts:

– now you’ve shat in the blue cupboard

– the taste is like the butt

– there’s no cow on the ice

– i sense owls in the marsh

– to walk like a cat around hot porridge

– don’t paint the devil on the wall

– to be out biking

– cake on cake

I’ve taken the liberty to give you the original Swedish versions and their meanings:

– Att skita i det blåa skåpet (to finally cross the line, to go too far)

– Smaken är som baken (no accounting for taste, to each his own)

– Ingen ko på isen (there’s no immediate danger)

– Ana ugglor i mossen (to sense something suspicious)

– Att gå som katten kring het gröt (to beat around the bush, to not speak directly on a topic)

– Att måla fan på väggen (to assume the worst)

– Att vara ute och cykla (to be very confused, to misunderstand something)

– Tårta på tårta / kaka på kaka (too much of a good thing; unnecessary repetition)

zephindles, I found a reblog chain with the meanings if you’re curious.

Tags:

#language #the more you know

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

prokopetz:

“Darmok” is basically what happens when the memes win, isn’t it?

 

bouncingbumble:

“Grumpy Cat, his eyes uncovered.”

 

poemsandequations:

“Alpine ibexes, on the mountainside.”

 

tribbletron:

::passes the salt to poemsandequations::

“None pizza with left beef.”

 

animatedamerican:

“Spiders Georg, in his cave!”

 

patrickat:

“Dashcon, when the ball pit fell.”

 

maskedlinguist:

“Fry, his eyes narrowed.”

Tags:

#Star Trek #TNG #yeah pretty much #interesting to note that tribbletron and I interpreted ‘alpine ibexes on the mountainside’ #differently #I figured it was ‘I need and/or strongly desire this thing’ without itself specifying what the thing was

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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justice-turtle:

brin-bellway:

prewars:

bootycap:

ao3 mcu a:aou abo bdsm ot3 hs au pwp

the fact that this is completely understandable and rather descriptive makes me rethink what i’ve done with my life

#i understand it perfectly but you couldn’t fucking pay me to read it

Normally when I encounter these sorts of “look at this impenetrable fandom acronym jargon! look how you understand it perfectly! be amazed and/or ashamed!” I do understand it perfectly, and I am appropriately amazed. (I don’t think it’s something to be ashamed about.)

Unfortunately, I don’t recognise “a:aou”. I understand everything else just fine, but not that one. Can anyone tell me what it’s short for?

Avengers: Age of Ultron, aka Avengers 2.

Thanks.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #language #fandom #fun with acronyms

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

prewars:

bootycap:

ao3 mcu a:aou abo bdsm ot3 hs au pwp

the fact that this is completely understandable and rather descriptive makes me rethink what i’ve done with my life

#i understand it perfectly but you couldn’t fucking pay me to read it

Normally when I encounter these sorts of “look at this impenetrable fandom acronym jargon! look how you understand it perfectly! be amazed and/or ashamed!” I do understand it perfectly, and I am appropriately amazed. (I don’t think it’s something to be ashamed about.)

Unfortunately, I don’t recognise “a:aou”. I understand everything else just fine, but not that one. Can anyone tell me what it’s short for?

Tags:

#language #fandom #fun with acronyms

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

justice-turtle:

Quick reminder that Flight Rising’s one-day registration window opens in about fifteen minutes! (Half past 1pm GMT.)

I’d write a longer post about why it’s a really cool site and you should join ^_^ but I’m currently super focused on pokemon-battling a group of my dragons up to max level so that I can help out my not!Hogwarts House in a friendly-but-intense competition tussle thing we’ve got going on with another House this week. (They’re called Flights. Because dragons.)

So I’ll just drop this fact here: when my Flight did an informal Gdocs survey of people’s demographics after the November reg window when I joined, like 18% of us were nonbinary. Also there was an option for nonbinary gender. :D *shrugs* I can’t speak for other Flights, but Lightning is some damn cool people if you’re into spreadsheets. :D

Ooh. *wanders over to website*

…wow. I have not seen that much impenetrable game-jargon in one place in quite some time. Not that I’m saying Flight Rising is unusually bad, mind you. I’m sure the Runescape home page I looked at this morning would seem just as impenetrable to the untrained eye, but I have eleven years’ experience speaking Gielinorian and it comes as naturally to me now as standard English. It’s been a while since the last time I had to learn a new game language.

Well, you’ve only been playing for what, a month? And you seem to be reasonably fluent already. I’m sure I can cope.

I’m confident that potential near-future me who already has a decent grasp on Flight Rising would like to hear your explanation of why it’s awesome almost as much as I do. Maybe when you’re less busy.

I was about to say I’m not into spreadsheets, but then I remembered the time I charted my menstrual cycles for six months out of sheer curiosity. And the time, eleven years ago, that I read the entire guide section of the Runescape website before even making an account. (The guide section is much, much bigger now. A modern-day newbie could never hope to do the same.) And how, though I enjoyed playing Nethack, I enjoyed reading about it even more. (The so-called “bachelor’s degree” aspect of Nethack, in which you must study all the obscure intricacies of the game in order to do well, puts a lot of people off. I really liked it, that there were entire long guides devoted just to, say, Altars and You.) I suspect I probably am what you’re calling “into spreadsheets”, and just don’t think of it in the same terms. Feel free to correct me if I’ve misinterpreted you.

Tags:

#Flight Rising #reply via reblog

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ctgraphy:

trustsammy:

twirlyeleven:

tomorrowsofyesterday:

Don’t expect much chitchat from him. The Capitol cut out his tongue years ago.

WHY DID IT NEVER OCCUR TO ME THAT AVOXES MIGHT USE ASL TO COMMUNICATE?

when i saw this in the movies i very nearly cried, no lie. it is so important to see these things in media. too often they are left out

I caught Castor’s ‘Yes’ and meant to look up what Pollux was saying. Well done, movie, AWESOME idea!

Tags:

#Hunger Games #(I did wonder)