#i take standard english

[crazybiaatch]

wdym I'm too young to know if I'm gay but I'm old enough to pick the classes that will define at least the next two years of my life and most likely what I go to uni for?

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to study English literature A-level in an all girls sixth form with a young teacher then just know that once (and this is a few years ago now) my teacher played the “If the men find out we can shapeshift they’re going to tell the Church!!” video and then asked us what about the video we could apply to studying The Handmaid’s Tale

[wafflesrisa]

As an actually autistic person who learned English as a second language can I just say this about Yuki:

If your reaction to Yuki’s sincere apology, written in his own cadence and “imperfect” English, is to disbelieve his statement that he genuinely did not know what the R-slur meant and then call for cancelling him on all platforms -

I want you to take a long look at yourself and think hard about where your expectation that he is lying about his knowledge of the term actually comes from. Think about it for a second.

You are not actually helping autistic people. You’re just racist.

[wonder-worker]

"As for the government of the kingdom, [Edward V] had complete confidence in the peers of realm and the queen."

"According to the Crowland continuator, [Elizabeth Woodville] seems to have taken the king's place in listening to his council immediately after Edward IV's death. It does appear that she expected to have some role in her son's kingship, and the Crowland continuator’s report of the letters sent to her by [Richard of Gloucester] indicates that she had good reason to expect to be able to work with him and the other councillors: 'the duke of Gloucester wrote the most pleasant letters to console the queen; he promised to come and offer submission, fealty and all that was due from him to his lord and king, Edward V, the first-born son of his brother the dead king and the queen'."

"[However], in what was Gloucester's first coup, Edward V was separated from his household and Woodville advisors. When the young king questioned the move, Buckingham was reported to have told the boy 'It is not in the business of women but men to govern kingdoms'. The blunt remark referred to the authority of Elizabeth Woodville as queen and the power she must have anticipated within the new political climate left by Edward IV's sudden death [...] While the veracity of this scene is questionable*, the words attributed to the duke no doubt seemed plausible to Dominic Mancini who believed they exemplified the popular sentiment held by men [...]."

-Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard the Third / J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Alexander R. Brondarbit, Power Brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485

*One of Mancini's key sources seems to have been Edward V's own doctor, John Argentine, who attended to him in the Tower. It's very likely that he was the one who recounted this scene to Mancini, which suggests that it should probably be considered more credible than not.

[awkward-teabag]

I have to wonder how many people celebrating AI translation also complain about "broken English" and how obvious it is something was Google translated from another language without a fluent English speaker involved to properly clean up the translation/grammar.

Because I bet it's a lot.

I know why execs are all for it—AI is the new buzzword and it lets them cut jobs thus "save" money and not have to worry about pesky labour laws when one employs humans—but everyone else?

There was some outcry when Crunchyroll fired many of their translators in favour of AI translation (with some people to "clean up the AI's work") but I can't help but think that was in part because it was Japanese-to-English and personally affected them. Same when Duolingo fired many of their translators in favour of LLM translation. Meanwhile companies are firing staff when it's English to another language and there's this idea that that's fine or not as big a deal because English is "easy" to translate and/or because people don't think of how it will impact people in non-English countries.

Also it doesn't affect native English speakers so it doesn't get much headway in the news cycle or online anyway because so much of the dominant media is from English-speaking countries and English-speakers dominate social media.

But different languages have different grammar structures that LLMs don't do, and I grew up on "jokes" about people speaking in "broken English" and mocking people who use the wrong word when it was clearly a literal translation but the meaning was obvious long before LLMs were a thing, too. In fact, the specific way a character spoke broken English has been a way to denote their native tongue for decades, usually in a racist way.

Then Google translate came out and "Google-translated English" became an insult for people and criticism of companies because it was clearly wonky to native speakers. Even now, LLMs—which are heavily trained on English compared to other languages—don't have a natural output so native English speakers can clock LLM-generated text if it's longer than a sentence or two.

But, for whatever reason, it's not seen as a problem when it goes the other way because fuck non-English readers or people who want to read in their native tongue I guess.

[atthebell]

i'm like begging ordem fans to understand that the show and the system are not the same thing and also ordem is not the only ttrpg system that exists

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Embarrassed myself due to a hot man today so I needed directions to a cash machine and I went into a soap/natural skin care shop to ask for directions and the guy at the counter was about my age, fairly attractive, but when I started asking him about the ATM turned out he had the deepest voice I've ever heard and an extremely strong Yorkshire actually post cancelled everyone I've bullied @thebirdandhersong too much to admit this one publicly now.

[badolmen]

I’m trying to find a way to parse this but like:

Make up culture is bad because of how capitalism has twisted appearance to be a basis of worth and social value. However, humans have been putting stuff on their skin since our ancestors started losing hair (maybe even before?) and ornamentation does have significant historic cultural value outside of modern late-capitalism induced self loathing.

Like. Make-up is not a thing in my immediate family. My mother and older sister? Nothing. My little sister is going to be so lucky to grow up in a space where she won’t have any expectation or support for make-up culture. I know make-up culture a shitty phenomenon; I know it steals time and money and self-worth from people at its worst and at its best feeds back into an appearance based cultural hierarchy.

But. But. There is such a rich and vibrant history to cosmetics outside of what is sold to reinforce that inevitably toxic culture. So many forms of art in face paint and more permanent and interesting body modification! There’s history and traceable evolving styles and intentions! And it fucking sucks that it’s been so corrupted to the point of no longer reflecting it’s original intent of being creative and unique and interesting!

Sometimes it just sounds like ‘don’t have tattoos don’t you know those annoying punks and degenerates have those?’ has just been repackaged as ‘don’t wear make-up don’t you know those annoying preps and conformists do that?’ Like I get what you’re trying to say but there is nuance to these conversations and willfully ignoring that nuance makes you sound ridiculous at best and outright hostile to any deviation from your standards at worst.

[nosygay]

was anybody going to tell me the bald kid is called caillou because it means a pebble smooth like his head or was I supposed to google that because of that vocabulary size quiz. like you know when you've heard a word a million times over the years and suddenly you find out it's a common noun and you need to rethink everything ever or are you chill

[rubberbandballqueen]

it's unlikely to happen due to globalization, but i think it would be really funny if countries that use the latin alphabet in their writing systems started developing their own slightly different standards of writing each glyph and got obsessively picky about it.

like yeah i know there's like british vs. american standard spelling nitpicks, and that's something, but i'm thinking something more along the lines of "you put a slash through your 7's? that's the british standard but all right i guess" kind of subtle. we need to replicate what taiwan/hong kong/japan (and to an extent mainland china) have going on.

[sundancefemme]

jesus CHRIST why is it EXPENSIVE

[brb-on-a-quest]

Growing up hearing parts of stories like The Iliad as a child, I idolized the Achaean Greeks because they were so cool and like the horse thing was *an absolutely brilliant battle tactic.* Actually reading The Iliad is like "Oh gods, why are the Achaean Greeks committing so many war crimes?????? Why are the Trojans the only people who actually have honor and decency??" and immediately siding with Troy because the majority of them Do Not Deserve This and have been majorly unfortunate.

[epicdogymoment]

-> engage the i dont care method

[karizipan]

THE MOST YURIFUL NOVEL (OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT) GETTING PHYSICAL RELEASES YIPEE!!!!!

[kirbyddd]

barkbarkbark Riichi Book I's writing is like screeching chalkboard to my game designer's, translator's, and writer's ears all at once

it's got great concepts buried in there but it's in like the most anti-comprehension packaging conceivable

[kulemii]

and so anyway, we're in love now. anyone interested in a wedding invite?