#Linguistics is descriptive

[crwbannwen]

Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.

There is no ‘correct’ language or dialect. They all developed as part of the history of the people who speak them and should all be celebrated.

And phrases that are grammatically ‘incorrect’ are fine as long as they are able to be understood. And after a while they become part of the language and should be considered grammatical.

But I will still never accept ‘hence why’, it just makes me die inside. It’s just ‘hence’ or ‘that’s why’. You don’t need to ‘suffocation, no breathing’ your connectives.

I say ‘whose mug is that cup’, ‘there’s lovely’, and ‘now in a minute’ unironically. But I have a physically painful reaction to ‘hence why’.

Please tell me other people have common non-grammatical phrases that physically hurt them too.

[qrovidcore]

AND another thing. because it HAS NOT left me alone for the past 3 weeks and if i must scream into the void about it then So Be It absolutely none of you are overlooking this rincewind characterization on my watch.

because the thing is. say, all of thirty pages into the light fantastic, we get some trymon characterization. some early, establishing characterization. setting up this guy. the main antagonist, the other primary viewpoint character of this book (insofar as it can be said to have either of those things, given the style of narration). this guy. who is cold, selfish, ruthless, and obsessed with things like ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ efficiency ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆. and. he’s bad at languages.

“He wasn’t very good at languages, he’d always found them highly inefficient things which by rights ought to be replaced by some sort of easily understood numerical system,”

and then we smashcut immediately to rincewind:

“Rincewind had a very good ear for languages.”

and yes, yes i will stand here and argue that this is in fact an EXTREMELY plot-relevant character detail, beyond the fact that it DOES have utility in the scene at hand. all joking aside about rincewind can scream for help in 47 languages, or however the line goes. i’m just.

points to this frantically.

rincewind, whose one EXTREMELY NOTABLE CANONICAL TALENT, is languages. who is being actively and immediately contrasted with trymon. this HAS been stuck in my head for three weeks but i opened my book to make this post and actually these scenes are LITERALLY back-to-back. these character descriptions are. immediately. directly juxtaposed to one another. and i want to say something about how this description of rincewind comes up because this is a skill he is actively using in the scene in question, that does give him insight into the world and does, perhaps even more importantly, allow him to connect with the gnome in this particular scene in a way that is helpful to him and twoflower, yes, but just. actually the only way i need to explain it is this:

we are told who trymon is, and that he is bad at languages.

we are told that rincewind is good at languages.

and, actually, without further elaboration, that says a whole fucking lot about who rincewind is.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

weird and only stp post but "the blade is your implement" fucks so hard as a sentence, the quasi-alliteration makes it both memorable and very pleasing to the ear and it's really good

[indilaras]

Exam tomorrow so I drew this for myself instead of studying (don't worry i did the bulk of my studying yesterday but also send help i am having trouble concentrating on doing more)

ID: a sketch of Alhaitham from Genshin Impact, genderbent; her hair is done in a bun. She is looking down at the viewer, frowning and saying "Can you stop fucking around." End ID.

[moonsavior]

🪐 Philos Report 💫 Philosophian (Philosophers Language)

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁⋆.˚✮🌟✮˚.⋆. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Philosophers, the humanoid lifeform who lived on the planet Philos, were known to speak Philosophian in many diverse dialects, experience nonverbal communication through their heightened senses and sang during their Bonding Rituals. Here are a few ways they expressed affection:

⭐ My Star (makes Xavier incredibly flustered and dizzy. Use with caution) | Tu’lipit’ossi

⭐ My Moon | Caesa Min

⭐ My Cosmos | Caesa Mile

⭐ I will fight for you | Gladiorte

⭐ I want to hug you | Mintiano

⭐ I want to kiss you | Sorrelissimo

⭐ Betrothed | Myriel

⭐ Will you marry me? | Yarropi’a nis sissimo

⭐ I am Within you | Tenut’o

(Mistaken as a literal translation, it is in fact Nonverbal. This is conveyed through the senses, specifically through hard touch and is meant to convey the endearment, "The person you see me to be is who I want to be most of all.")

⭐ You are my World | Brea Marcato

[max1461]

catch me working smarter not harder, sucker

Jokes on you, I learned 80% of the linguistics I know from reading grammars/random papers for the purpose of conlanging.

[ihasafandom]

Problem as a Venom writer that might be applicable to other people and other types of fic and ofic:

too few words for a symbiote's biomass and other structures.

I've got:

flesh/tissue/matter = biomass, biomatter (the one I have the most trouble with in writing)

blood & internal fluids = xenoplasm, protoplasm, plasmatic matrix, biofluid

body = soma, being

skin = membrane, dermis, dermal tissue

head = pseudohead, pseudocranial protrustion

limbs = pseudopods, tendrils, tentacles, extrusions

sensory systems = chemo/photo/thermo/mechano/electro/nocic/etc receptors/sensors

teeth = dentition (fangs and teeth seem fine to me still too)

and ones that are specific to my HCs:

bit that connects to host's brain = holdfast

bit that connects out of material world = threshhold

bit that connects threshhold to pocket dimension = gullet maybe?

Anyone else have any others?

[soneaselene]

My gf and I were talking about escalators and started wondering about the word "escalator" - why is it called that and why is there no opposite? Like, "to escalate" means to go up. So just going by the word, and "escalator" should not go down. Is there a matching word or has the English language just stuck with this one form?

[snissel613]

Big news, I'm reading parts of A Short Introduction to the Tiberian Masoretic Bible and its Reading Tradition (Geoffrey Khan), and there's a some huge stuff. dagesh-yud pronounced as /ɟ/, emphatic allophones of zayin and dhaled, voiced allophone of tzadi, vav pronounced usually as /v/, both uvular and alveolar realizations of resh, it's insane.

[mishkakagehishka]

I'm still pissed off at the fact that so many responses to that post were "um ackshually the dictionary definition☝️🤓" and now that i'm actually a linguistics student i have the vocabulary necessary to explain why it pissed me off so i want a round two.

[mariocki]

"We should stop thinking in terms of 'compensatory education' but consider, instead, most seriously and systematically the conditions and contexts of the educational environment.

The very form our research takes tends to confirm the beliefs underlying the organization, transmission and evaluation of knowledge by the school. Research proceeds by assessing the criteria of attainment that schools hold, and then measures the competence of different social groups in reaching these criteria. We take one group of children, whom we know beforehand possess attributes favourable to school achievement; and a second group of children, whom we know beforehand lack these attributes. Then we evaluate one group in terms of what it lacks when compared with another. In this way research unwittingly underscores the notion of deficit and confirms the status quo of a given organization, transmission and, in particular, evaluation of knowledge. Research very rarely challenges or exposes the social assumptions underlying what counts as valid knowledge, or what counts as a valid realization of that knowledge."

- Basil Bernstein, Education Cannot Compensate for Society, in Education for Democracy (2nd ed., 1972)

[alto-tenure]

a fun fact about me is that I know a lot of the US/UK variants, so I've developed some very specific opinions. especially on this one subject where I tend to be more specific than either variety.

this is a truck:

this is also a truck, but usually I call it a tractor-trailer:

...and this is a lorry:

it's because the squished-face ones are more commonly used in Singapore, where they speak UK English.

[kinnbig]

I just started learning Thai so I’m interested. What is the difference between jing and jingjing? On your tags about favorite Thai words

oh! so in Thai, repeating an adjective turns it into an adverb.

in this case, jing is an adjective that means true or real or honest, and jingjing is an adverb that means really, trully, honestly. they're just my favourite Thai words because I like the way they sound lol.

my other favourite is ning, which doesn't have a perfect English translation but that you might recognise from My Engineer. it means cool as in (a person who is) cold, distant, or aloof, or alternatively calm and self-controlled. it's often used sarcastically when describing other people. ningning is an adverb that means something like carefully or calmly - you hear people saying "ningning!" to tell someone to calm down or take more care. kind of like "chill out!" in English lol. I like these because their English translations are so interesting! and because of RamKing and ai'Ning, obviously.

[waitineedaname]

genuine language question: I know because of syllable rules, single character/syllable names aren't used by themselves (Wei Ying, Lan Zhan), but two character/syllable names (Wangji, Huaisang, Yanli, etc) can be used on their own. Why then is it that Wei Wuxian is never called just Wuxian? It's two characters and two syllables, but people always either call him his full name or a nickname (a-Xian, Xian-gege, etc), never just Wuxian

[helianskies]

since i cant seem to speak spanish these days without the odd italian word slipping in ive taken to saying i speak espagbol