#//confused; confusing language

[ikuzeminna]

I need your help with a hypothesis!

For context: My linguistics professor and I got into a discussion after a test she did with us, and I was of the opinion that the reason for the results was different from the one she offered, so she encouraged me to test my theory.

What I need

All you need to do is draw a coffee cup (with a handle, not the disposable stuff) and then answer three questions.

I don't need to see the coffee cup. You can draw it wherever you like; on a piece of paper, digitally, in the sand, on a foggy window. Anything works. It does not have to be good. A doodle is fine.

You have to draw the coffee cup before you see the questions. This is very important. If you decide to help me with this, please doodle the coffee cup before you keep reading.

Assuming you have drawn the coffee cup, I now need you to answer these three questions:

On which side did you draw the handle?

Are you right-handed or left-handed?

Do you primarily write using the Latin alphabet or a different one? (please specify which)

More context

Most people will draw the handle on the right side. My professor says it's because most people are right-handed, so they draw the handle in the direction that would be comfortable for them to pick up.

I said drawing it on the right side just felt more comfortable to my hand and argued it's probably because we write a bunch of letters like that. B, b, D, P, p, R all look like a tiny "handle on the right side" and are all a straight line followed by a round one (so "cup first, handle second," like most people draw cups). The Latin alphabet doesn't have letters like that that face the other way, except maybe d, depending on how you write it, so it makes sense to me that people writing mostly Latin letters would go with the handle on the right side.

Which means that I need to know what Asians, Arabs and Greeks do and if the distribution of left and right sides of handles differs from the Latin alphabet group. Cyrillic seems to favor right, too, though it'd be interesting to see if there are differences.

If there are, my theory is right. Doubly so if there is a sizeable increase in a group whose alphabet has letters that benefit the left side choice.

So feel free to spread this to as many people as you like and put the answers in the comments or the tags of a reblog. The more answers I get, the better I can assess whose theory is better.

Thank you for your help!

[tis-i-german-potato]

What is a bonbon?

I was listening to an american podcast and they were talking about bonbons being chocolates which - as a german - confused me, so I decided to look it up.

Apparently the word bonbon in english means what we call Praline??? Huh????

So now I am asking once more: Tumblr what is a bonbon to you?

A: a type of hard candy

B: a type of chocolate

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[satsuha]

11/23 is いい兄さんの日 (good older brother day) in japan 💐

[astracora]

someone's probably pointed this out cause i'm not browsing tags but

Caleb's flower is hydrangea.

Not only a flower that changes colour in differing soil (Caleb is a chameleon or changes who is is depending on the person he's talking to or where he is?)

But the meanings are;

One sided/obsessive love, heartlessness, frigidity/coldness, apology, family and gratitude.

[r-aindr0p]

Pomefiore vocabulary lesson All of these words are pronounced "coo" !

Bonus 2nd and 3rd French option because of course there's an option with a silent 'p' and one with a silent 't', of course !

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[m4g0hun]

lost child

[rochenn]

That pseudo-French language turning all the subtitled Ghor dialogues into audiovisual torture for French speakers is the funniest thing Star Wars has ever done

[ali3nsupastar]

"You said something about love language on set-" "I'm not gonna share... cause that's something private..." Inquiring minds would LOVE to know..

[corviiids]

as part of my pitch re: this post please see below my original concept donut steal for an "if phoenix wright had to catch kira death note" au. best regards

more about this, probably:

this is probably the last case of the game where it transpires that all the other apparent murders in the game have been somehow set up as part of kira's master plan (kira has found creative ways to get around the fact that you can't use the death note to force one person to kill another person and also around rule 10 of the death note that a written death cannot cause other deaths. if you have further queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact me via email best regards)

framing L involves setting up an elaborate murder scene with preset evidence where L is in precisely the wrong spot at the wrong time. L of course anticipated this

the detective character is soichiro, but the real detective character for most of the game is his son light who is a very helpful young man and in fact is the one making most of the contributions

L is ostensibly a detective character too but he mostly just shows up, licks some evidence, blinks at you, and fades out. until he gets arrested

the prosecutor is still miles edgeworth. consider the following:

edgeworth: we have security footage of the defendant holding the murder weapon, at the time of the murder, standing directly in front of the victim, using the weapon on the victim, and then the victim dies

phoenix: okay... but... what if there was a magic notebook

[bookwyrminspiration]

constantly torn between "i wish I could magically learn this language immediately and speak it perfectly" and "part of language acquisition is the process, and learning it immediately wouldn't have as much meaning or significance to me"

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

[neostellarjpg]

they trade shitty comics

[sightseertrespasser]

Reading all of the new Drift stuff for @keferon’s apocalyptic Ponyo made me think of an evil idea.

Ratchet is just taking care of Drift until he can reunite him with other humans right?

And that’s kinda the gist of the situation for all the mers with their humans. Return them to a larger group of humans.

What if the biggest group of human survivors are Drifts former poacher buddies?

Just making a pack of poachers an active threat in the ruins adds such a level of intrigue.

They'll absolutely hurt the mers and will either bully the humans into doing what they want or maybe outright kill them if they resist.

Just, Drift seeing them all again, frantically trying to explain that the mers ARE sentient and they have to stop now more than ever and the slow dawning dread that the poachers do not care.

The mers, everyone of them from Shockwave to Blurr, all go through the same bittersweet moment of thinking "Oh there's a large group of surviving humans. I guess this is where we say goodbye."

Except their humans are lingering.

Hesitant.

“Aww. They don’t want to leave. It’s okay, go be with your own kind now.” Tears and encouragement like it’s the ending of Free Willy in reverse.

Except, the mers’ humans start FREAKING out. At the mers.

Screaming and waving their arms, physically pushing them away, and these new humans. These poachers, are gunning for them all, weapons drawn.

[aurantiumred]

leo bringing up random trios and piper instantly responding "US!" with no hesitation (jason is so confused he's never interacted with the internet)

"We bare bears!"

"Us!"

"... pardon?"