#Language

[dedalvs]

In one of your Google talks you said that "crafts" was one of the worst English words, due to the awkwardness of having to articulate "fts" at the end.

This morning I saw the word "twelfths" written out and thought "Well hey, that's gotta worse than 'crafts' right?" Any thoughts on "twelfths?" Lol

"Sixths" and "strengths" are probably worse in that regard, but I simply disdain "crafts" for no other reason than that it conjures up silly associations. There's nothing scientific about it.

Really, though, we should all take a moment to reflect on how odd English is. We can just throw consonants on the ends of stuff and pass it off as inflection. It becomes more obvious if you respell the language in a more regular fashion:

stilt => stilts

bask => basks

keiv => keivz

bild => bildz

limp => limpt

wurk => wurkt

bask => baskt

rig => rigd

rib => ribd

We look at languages like German and Russian and say those have too many consonants in a row? "Bask", "basks", "basked", "basket", and "baskets" are all different words, like, what?!?! We pack so much information into a space that is incredibly non-prominent acoustically. Consider that "shirt", "shirk", and "shirked" are all different words. You have to reliably be able to tell those apart in English! Thank goodness "shirp" isn't a verb!

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[victusinveritas]

[becauseallhellseeisme]

Dude needs a vacation in French-speaking Switzerland...

CRYING THIS IS LITERALLY SCOUT

[neosatsuma]

jury-rigged. even keel. by the board. three sheets to the wind. loose cannon. son of a gun. pipe down. taken aback.

[vinceaddams]

People who try to copy historical writing styles don't say enough weird stuff in them. I'm listening to a 1909 story about a ghost car right now, and the narrator just said he honked the car horn a bunch of times, but the way he phrased it was "I wrought a wild concerto on the hooter".

[tayalla]

there's this word in Serbian 'vukojebina' which literally means 'the place where wolves go to fuck' but they use it to mean 'in the middle of nowhere'. it sure does the job well, but the visual stayed with me longer than I would have liked it to.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Why did you learn Finnish?

To communicate with my parents and extended family. At age 1 I started to feel a bit hungry and decided I should start speaking so that my parents would feed me.

Hope this helps!

[gongyussy]

i'll let phie-san say it:

[rancchiuso]

I really like this expression in Portuguese: no pelo (something like "on the fur"). It's easy to imagine its origin, even though I haven't found any research proposing an explanation for its history*. I could easily say that everything started with horse riding.

There's a difference in riding without a saddle: less protection for both the animal and the rider, it's harder due to the need for balance and strength, and in the past, insects and skin diseases were a problem. So, cavalgar no pelo ("riding without a saddle," literally "riding on the fur") would have initially been used to describe a scene of someone doing it. Then, probably, the context in which people did it would have favored the meaning that riding without a saddle was an impulsive, very naturalistic, and negative action or decision.

From here, it's easier to understand the rest of its lifetime. People would start using no pelo (without the verb cavalgar, i.e, horseriding) to make an analogy to any situation where someone was being recklessly impulsive and thinking primitively (rough and ready). Then, sex without protection can be easily understood as horse riding without a saddle: the movements (see position names, for example), the absence of a barrier, and the skin contact (mainly if hairy).

For a long time, no pelo was mainly used to refer to unprotected sex, but some years ago, it started to take on a broader meaning. It can now refer to doing something without preparation or social protection (e.g., "I did the seminar no pelo and I hope Mr. Stewart didn't notice"), or doing something for the first time without any previous knowledge or experience (e.g., "I buy books by the cover, so every reading is no pelo").

*If someone knows any paper/chapter/etc, please let me know

To celebrate rawdog winning word of the year per the American Dialect Society, I'd like to tell the story of how I learned that the meaning of rawdog changed in the past couple years.

If anyone doesn't know, the original and long-held meaning of rawdogging was fucking without a condom. The new meaning has extended to doing any kind of action unshielded, plain, or without preparation.

So, about a year ago, I'm eating lunch with coworkers. It's an office job and we're generally pretty professional. People swear a lot, but there's never any innuendos or sex talk.

A coworker is describing a recent trip she took to a vendor to get a demo of equipment we were considering purchasing. Someone else asks "Did you meet Bob LastName while you were there? He's kind of an interesting guy."

"Yeah I did, and he is a little strange. I walked into the breakroom one morning and he was rawdogging two blueberry bagels"

Cue my high-pitched shriek of "He was DOING WHAT."

Followed by my coworkers explaining the meaning and my faint, flustered reply of "ah...well... I'm used to that meaning.... something else." Some people knew what I was talking about, but unfortunately others did not, and I had to face the ordeal of explaining as delicately as possible to a group of coworkers aged 22 to 60

[sukinapan]

[incognitopolls]

Hypothetical scenario: someone is on Ao3, looking for fanfiction to read. This person only speaks/reads English, and they set the language filter to only show fics written in English.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[umbrellace]

Please reblog, I'm curious

[theghostscarft]

I turn it into a comic, hope you like it!

Stanford “It’s Okay To Give Children Weapons Right?” Pines is totally the type of guy who forgets not to swear in front of kids tbh

I wonder how many days it took him to slip up and say Fuck in front of the twins. Also how many seconds he had to live afterwards, before Grunkle Stan swooped in with an unholy vengeance to ream him out.

Ford: *cuts his finger on an invention* OW! Fuck–

Dipper, Mabel: *gasps*

Stan: *materializing into the room* I WAS SUMMONED BY THE SOUND OF PROFANITY. WHERE IS HE. SHOW ME MY SOON TO BE DEAD BROTHER WHO THINKS HE’S EXEMPT FROM SELF CENSORING!

*The room is suddenly empty, backdoor left ajar*

Soos: He’s making a break for it, Mr Pines!