#is it a noun? a verb? who knows!

[littlefireant]

I’m Disneybounding as Peter Griffin tomorrow and no one can tell me otherwise.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

theres a turn of phrase i use that im pretty sure is neither english nor dutch and also warps the function of the word 'right' in both languages at the same time but i keep using it bc it's just quicker than any other way and im a writer of shortcuts

[aeide-thea]

have been reading fic & thinking abt my relationship to fic, which is of course also among other things a mirror of my relationship to my own psyche, and like—i think all the discourse abt its being ~internalized misogyny~ to mostly/entirely read m/m is not ultimately, whatever the truth of it, all that helpful, either to readers or to Women! but of course that doesn't stop me from feeling weird guilt abt the fact that i don't read more f/f than i do, because if there's anything i love to do, it's feel unhelpfully bad abt myself on the slimmest of pretexts…

however! i did end up reading some f/f earlier, specifically transfem f/f, and it got me thinking—basically what i'm usually mostly reading fic for is the romance/sex, right? like, don't get me wrong, i love when a fic gives me a gorgeous double helix of, like, casefic and romance twisted together, that's ideal, but fundamentally most of the time the feeling up is what i sat down at the table to eat. so in a complex aegosexual way it's a fantasy i'm—not projecting onto, exactly, i don't want to be one of the people in it; but, like, lurking in the wings of with eyes big love-crumbs, to steal a phrase from a relevantly-named poet. :) and so it's no wonder that mostly i don't want to read cisfemme4cisfemme stuff, because that's not a dynamic that feels like it has any room for me, or even like i'm particularly welcome in the room. but like. if it's trans women? i'm there, i love that for them and for me. if there's a butch? i might get tripped up by our differing lenses on gender feelings and stub my toe a little but even so i'm probably here for it. (thinking here abt that one butch/femme geraskier ~cisswap which is, like, a gorgeous bruise i keep periodically pressing. <3)

so really it's just like. shocker: i'm not personally moved by fantasies abt romance which feature conventionally feminine cis women whom i don't personally find relatable or sexually desirable! and when i put it like that, it really instantly dissolves the weird useless discourse-induced guiltgunk. like. give me a woman who's, idk, tall and charismatic and strong and clever and talented at something (though honestly it's like that siken revised tweet, a lot of those characteristics are ultimately negotiable!), like women i've historically crushed on irl, and then give me a pairing for her that's like. another woman who's also enough of those things, or a man who's—honestly the kind of m/f i'm open to would be its own whole post bc holy shit am i fussy, it very much does exist but for now let's just stick a pin in that one—or somebody nonbinary, which… idk that i've ever actually seen nb/f in fic? i'm sure it exists! but i'm not sure it exists in any fandoms i've been into. pondering the question did get me really thirsty for a good 'farmgirl (of the luke skywalker variety) is absolutely stunned-and-ringing-like-a-struck-bell captivated by confident flamboyantly genderqueer love interest (example wanted)' dynamic, though…

[coquelicoq]

i have finished the first part (of five) of les misérables! that's the good news. the bad news is that i now have to read the second part, which opens with a 70-page section entitled "waterloo". like babe i do not know what ANY of these nouns are though. i'm getting that there was a battle at which lots of people died horribly (as often happens in battles) and we are now describing the battleground thirty years later. okay so are we gonna do this for the whole 70 pages or...

[a-commas-a-pause]

word:

me:

[deus-ex-mona]

my [redacted] anime parody fic really do be bringing all them bots to the yard

[mistfallengw2]

Small pet peeve of mine that shouldn't bother me as much as it does: charr players with adverbs in their warband name.

[the-story-of-how-we-died]

Un tigre a entré ma chambré et a demandé "Que fais-tu?". Et j'ai du, "Putain quoi?!"

[entropy-sea-system]

sometimes I block people for actual reasons sometimes I block them because the way they talked to me triggered my rsd or splitting even though it probably wasn't meant as an insult

[dedalvs]

When looking at natural languages, have you ever found a feature that really surprised you?

All the time—and in every language! There is no language—even the big ones that are so widely spoken that they're thought of as "normal"—that can be described as basic or boring—no, not even languages like English or Spanish or German. Every language has something exciting—multiple somethings.

For the latest, here's something weird. In Finnish, numbers trigger singular agreement on the verb. Observe:

Hiiri juoksee. "The mouse is running."

Hiiret juoksevat. "The mice are running."

Viisi hiirtä juoksee. "Five mice are running."

Okay, this make sense so far? Hiiri is "mouse", hiiret is "mice", and we have the agreement on the verb as either juoksee for singular ("is running") or juoksevat for plural ("are running"). The number five is viisi and it causes the following noun to be in the partitive singular, which is hiirtä (think of it like "five of mouse"). "Partitive singular?" you say. "Why, that's why the verb is singular!" Okay. Sure. A fine hypothesis.

Now let's look at relative clauses.

How about "The mouse who is running is small"? Sure. Here it is in singular and plural:

Hiiri, joka juoksee, on pieni.

Hiiret, jotka juoksevat, ovat pieniä.

There we are. I am 99% sure that is correct (where I'm unsure is the predicative adjectival agreement and I won't speak to how common this type of relative clause structure is).

Now, knowing what we do about the five mice above, you might expect you'd get singular, but...

Viisi hiirtä, jotka juoksevat, ovat pieniä.

Okay, going out on a limb on this one, but I am fairly certain this is correct. That is you get singular plural agreement with the matrix verb suddenly (?!) but also plural agreement with the relative clause. You have to get a plural verb because it's agreeing with jotka, but why do you get jotka instead of joka?! It's plural enough for a relative pronoun but not for a matrix verb?! How weird is that?!

So yeah. Unbelievable stuff happening in every language every single day. Somewhere right this very moment some language is doing something no language could EVER possibly do—and yet there it is, happening all the same! What a wonderful world we live in. :)

Update: Finnish speaker has offered corrections and it’s just weirder now.

[cherryredstars]

hello can I request a reader being from 1610 Miles universe and she feels left behind by him since all he can do is like Gwen, so somehow she ends up in 42 Miles universe and they hit it off.

Pairings: Miles-42 x gn!reader

Warnings: Fluff, Slight Angst?, Reminder: READER AND MILES ARE MINORS!

A/N: Hello! Of course you can!

Unedited

It's the same just... different.

It seems like home, smells and feels like it. But something in your gut tells you it isn't. Your gut screams that something is wrong, that something is missing. Your mind just can't prove it. Not yet, anyways.

You're not sure how you got here, how you can be asleep in one place and wake up in another without ever moving. Maybe it's some sort of fever dream, one of those insanely vivid ones that leave you yearning when you wake up. You're sure it has to be. How else would you explain this.

Your heart beats widely for the boy in front of you, even though your mind rations that it isn't really him. This isn't your Miles (and some cruel part of your mind sneers that he wasn't yours to begin with). This is someone else, something else. But he looks and feels like Miles. He speaks and acts like him. He has the same lopsided smile, same deep eyes that draw you in, the same carefree yet playful tint to his words. The only thing that differentiates him from the real Miles is his hair.

Two thick braids run down his scalp, containing his usually natural afro. They look good on him, like they're made for him. Now that you've seen them on him, imagining his hair in any other hairstyle feels wrong. There is something so complementary about this simple style on this specific Miles, and your gut tells you it's because this Miles has something that yours lacks.

For example, that look in his eyes. It isn't very unique to this Miles, because your Miles has that same tell-tale shine in his eyes too. But it's not for you, it's for Gwen. The girl who up and left one day but left some remnants behind that Miles clings to like a lifeline. That particular glossy sheen that envelopes his pupils when he talks about her, that rise of color that highlights his cheeks when you find him drawing her silhouette over and over. But this Miles- the one standing in front of you- is looking at you with those eyes and blushed cheeks. He's looking at you the way you wished Miles would.

He's tripping over himself, sputtering on his words as he tries to pull a faux illusion of calm. One so horrible and see through that you can't help but laugh, causing his eyes to widen and his collar to feel tight around his neck. He can feel the heat of his blush forming perspiration on the nape of his neck, the pounding of his heart sounding like it's shaking the whole space. He reminds you of a puppy, instantly fascinated with the new things dangling in his line of sight.

He opens his mouth and closes it, the words forming a ball in his throat. His eyes scan you as he tries to gather the words. He feels like he's in kindergarten again, trying to collect the numerous cards of words and trying to piece them together to find something that makes sense. In the end, he fails, the meaning of what they all mean- all these nouns and verbs and adjectives- escaping him until his mind locks onto the only word he really knows.

"Pretty."

Breathless and intrigued. You smile, a warmth flooding your face and your heart singing. This may not be your Miles, but he's the Miles that wants to be. The Miles without a Gwen. The Miles who makes you feel like you're not someone's second choice. This Miles who looks at you like you're the stars in the night sky. This Miles is the one that was made for you.

You only fear that you'll wake up from this dream too soon.

[markrosewater]

Elegance

Here’s my original article for Elegance.

 This is a topic I’ve wanted to write about for a long time.  Ironically, the words needed to explain the concept kept the column from being elegant. So I did what all artists do.  I found a way to say a lot in a little space.

 Enjoy,

 Mark Rosewater

 [NOTE: EACH OF THE ABOVE FIFTY WORDS IS HYPERLINKED.  BELOW IS THE FIFTY HYPER LINKS.  THE HEADERS SHOULDN’T BE ON THE LINKED PAGE.  I’M JUST INCLUDING THEM SO YOU KNOW WHAT EACH LINK IS.]

 ELEGANCE

 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has five definitions for elegance:

 • refined grace or dignified propriety

• tasteful richness of design or ornamentation

• dignified, gracefulness or restrained beauty of style

• scientific precision, neatness and simplicity

• something that is elegant

 The common elements appear to be dignity, simplicity, and taste.

 THIS

 Elegance requires thinking, but it also requires feeling.  Elegant prose is judged by how it makes the reader feel. It needs to generate a sense of calm that puts the reader at ease.  Everything in your writing should feel as if it was carefully positioned to create the proper effect.

 IS

 Pound for pound, the writer’s greatest writing tool is the verb.  Nouns add substance and adjectives add flourish, but it’s the verb that drives the sentence.  Choose a strong, descriptive verb and the sentence has flair and purpose. Choose a weak one and the sentence lacks any sense of drama.

 A

 Here’s a little game to test an elegance relevant skill (based on an old game called Inklings).  Randomly choose a noun.  Try to convey that noun to the other players using the least number of letters possible. You’ll be surprised how much you can communicate in just a few letters.

 TOPIC

 One of the greatest stumbling blocks to elegance is the inability to choose a single focus.  Elegance requires simplicity.  Simplicity requires a single purpose of thought.  This means that elegance starts before you write a single word.  A good sculptor must know his image before he picks up his chisel.

 I’VE

 One of the common misconceptions of elegance is that it requires a writer to be fancy. Elegance though is more about familiarity than formality. You shouldn’t be afraid of friendlier language such as slang or contractions, assuming that such language adds an element of ease rather than one of laziness.

 WANTED

 An important element of elegance is a sense of passion.  Brevity does not mean pulling away emotionally from words, but rather the opposite.  When you find yourself limited to fewer words, you must pack each individual word with extra emotional punch.  You are not reducing your message, simply your messenger.

 TO

 A good tool in understanding elegance is studying poetry.  Poetry is the most concise of all written art forms.  It strives to maximize impact while minimizing expression.  Each word carries the burden of evoking some essence of the poet’s message. If it cannot carry its own weight, it is excised.

WRITE

 To be an elegant writer, you have to become a student of prose.  You have to study the mechanics of language to understand how it can be shaped.  Once you have learned how to transfer the feeling in your head into meaningful words, you are on the path to elegance.

 ABOUT

 Be careful not to fall in love with ambiguity.  While intoxicating in its beauty, it is the enemy of elegance. Remember, the goal is not to make the reader struggle for comprehension.  Rather it is to lead them to the obvious conclusion. Elegance should be used to illuminate, not confuse.

 FOR

 Elegant prose requires connecting with your reader.  To do this, you have to understand who that reader is.  Nothing should come before this task.  It needs to be done before writing can begin. I like to compare this to planning a trip.  Maps are useless until you know your destination.

 A

 Another major key to elegance is the understanding of the importance of the tiniest detail.  Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a piece of prose is only as tight as its messiest detail. A good writer doesn’t stop at the nouns, verbs and adjectives.

 LONG

 Don’t confuse elegance with brevity.  Elegant things are short not because they have to be but because the difficulty to craft an elegant piece of prose combined with the limitations of time forces writers to be brief.  Elegant novels, for example, do exist, but they are few and far between.

 TIME

 To quote Roman orator (and letter writer) Marcus T. Cicero, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”  

 Simplicity takes more time not less.  Anyone can get a point across with ten thousand words.  But a true artist can do it in ten (or possibly fifty).  

 IRONICALLY

 Irony is a potent tool for commentary.  Its genius lies in the fact that it comments not on what is, but rather on what isn’t.  Like all good humor, irony makes you laugh.  But like the best type of humor, it also makes you think.  It’s both funny and funny.

 THE

 Elegance in writing is about more than words. Equally important is how the words are woven together. Tempo, pacing, rhythm – these are the tools that set the mood for the piece.  Try reading aloud your text.  The natural beat of language is more suited for the ear than the eye.

 WORDS

 To realize the power of words, you must first understand how they work. Art is expressive; words are connotative.  That is, words draw their power from their ability to extract different ideas from different people.  A circle is a circle, but the concept of “scary” varies from person to person.

 NEEDED

 Elegance is not the result of any one attribute.  It is the combination of numerous factors coming together in harmony. This is why it’s such a hard skill to master.  Most people can pat their head or rub their tummy.  But put them together and it’s not quite so easy.

 TO

 An elegant piece of prose needs to hit the reader at a gut level.  Often they won’t know exactly why they like it, but they will recognize that something about the piece moves them.  There are many types of writing where subtlety is lost.  Elegant writing isn’t one of them.

 EXPLAIN

 There are many ways for you to explain an idea.  The most elegant one though is not through definition but by example. By connecting your idea to one already known by the reader, you’re leaving the work of teaching to someone in the past.  Education is hard.  Comparison is easy.

 THE

 If writing is like building a house, the structure is like the foundation. Its design will dictate how the house is built.  If it’s faulty, no amount of fancy brickwork will undo the damage.  So take the time to ensure your structure is building the kind of prose you want.

 CONCEPT

 Never underestimate the power of a concept.  An important part of elegance is condensing big ideas into little words. This is far from an easy task.  It often takes a genius an entire lifetime to create a truly innovative concept.  So take advantage of all their hard work and inspiration.  

 KEPT

 A common barrier to elegance is the belief that only one way will work. Often a writer is unable to abandon a beloved piece of prose even when evidence demonstrates otherwise.  If something doesn’t add to the larger sense of the piece, you have to learn to let it go.

 THE

 Readers notice things at a minute level far beyond their mind’s ability to interpret. This means that although they may not consciously notice many of your tiny details, they will do so unconsciously. Aesthetics teach us that it’s this unconscious structure that will determine whether or not it feels “right”.

 COLUMN

 All communicators, whether through speaking or print, need to find a voice. A voice provides familiarity and it teaches the listener or reader how to more quickly absorb the information. Elegance is all about the conservation of ideas.  Having a pre-learned voice to guide you is a very valuable tool.

 FROM

 I’ve spent some time talking about understanding your reader.  But there is one more person who is even more important to understand – yourself. Writing is about sharing your ideas with others.  If you haven’t spent the time to figure out what you think, how can you possibly communicate it?

 BEING

 “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

 Or so the saying goes.  What the cliché forgets to mention is how many words a single word is worth.  For example, take the word “being”. To capture the essence of what “being” represents is tens of thousands of words if not more.

 ELEGANT

 What is the value of being elegant? Why should you care? Elegance adds aesthetics. It evokes poetry.  It grants beauty.  Elegant prose draws the reader closer because it gives them something to not just learn but to admire.  Good prose stimulates the head, but elegant prose resonates in the heart.

 SO

 Who, what, where, when, how - all important questions.  But for a writer they pale next to why.  If you don’t understand the reasoning beneath the surface, the other details are irrelevant.  The act of elegance is cementing the why.  It’s taking the purpose and engraining it into the piece.

 I

 Elegance is a very personal thing.  If something doesn’t resonate with you, there’s no way for it to resonate with your reader.  Writing is an art, not a science.  There is no rulebook for how things must be done.  If your instincts are telling you that something isn’t working, listen.

 DID

 An important tool in your toolbox is time. Elegance cannot be rushed.  Mental ruts only get deeper the harder you focus on them.  Make sure to work time into your schedule so you are able to walk away from your writing. An hour next week is worth a day today.  

 WHAT

 Don’t let attention to detail pull you away from having a larger sense of what you’re writing.  Take this column as an example.  While I spent a lot of time fine tuning each entry I never lost sight of the effect they created when all the entries were put together.

 ALL

 Elegance requires taking a holistic view of writing.  Every word, every sentence, every paragraph is a piece in a larger puzzle. It’s not enough to understand the impact of a single element. You must understand how any two elements interact if you want to understand the potency of your text.

 ARTISTS

 Elegance and art are very intertwined.  Both seek to achieve a similar goal: to illuminate and inspire with a conservation of expression.  If you’re trying to be elegant, I think it helps to think of yourself as an artist. The instinct for the latter mirrors the needs of the former.

 DO

 An important part of any writing is understanding the feeling you’re trying to evoke.  And then realizing what mechanic tools you have available to evoke that feeling. Diction, verb tense, sentence length, alliteration, word flow, phonetic juxtaposition – each of these will control the mood and tone of your piece.

 I

 A writer’s life is the ultimate fodder.  Don’t be ashamed to plumb your own experiences.  You understand them deeper and more personally than anyone else.  No painter would refuse to use his finest paints. And, as a bonus, by using your own experiences, you will become better educated about yourself.

 FOUND

 Don’t forget that the act of revealing is also an act of exploration.  Don’t be afraid if you learn more than the reader you’re trying to educate.  Writing is not an exact science.  (Or even an exact art.)  Often you will find that the road to salvation has a fork.

 A

 Your future is paved with your past.  If you want to learn how to grow as a writer, you need to look back at what you’ve written. With time and a detached eye, your will find your mistakes become clearer.  Remember that it’s failure, not success, that bests drives education.

 WAY

 The problem with looking for a single solution is that you’ll never find more than one.  And the first one isn’t always the best.  But if you’re open to the possibility that every problem has an infinite number of answers, you’ll have the freedom of choosing the solution you want.  

 TO

 Sentences are filled with freeloaders.  Because writers seem to love overwriting. (I include myself in this camp.)  Make sure to create time for the editor side of you to prune unnecessary words.  If a word can be excised without any harm to the sentence, it has no right being there.

 SAY

 I’m spending my time today talking about elegance in prose, but most of what I’m saying is applicable in speech.  The key difference is that prose has less defining attributes like appearance or tone.  The key to elegant speech is making people focus on the words rather than everything else.

 A

 It’s ironic that something designed to be so simple can be so complex.  But that, my faithful readers, is the joy (and mystery) of elegance. Like an onion, elegance has numerous layers that reveal themselves as you slowly peel them away.  Oh yeah, and it can sometimes make you cry.

 LOT

 An interesting exercise is to look at each word you’re using and think about how much content is loaded in that word.  Then explore what other words exist that fulfill the same role but with added content.  Once you’ve found the word you can’t best, move onto the next word.

 IN

 A good way to get better at understanding elegance is to look for it in every day life. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised where and how often you find it.  Study each example carefully and try to see if you can put your finger on what makes it work.  

 A

 Writing is a shared endeavor.  No one owns the words.  If someone uses a technique that works, there’s no shame in borrowing it.  Like science, writing creates technology that’s brought back to the group to spur further advancements.  Elegance is hard enough to accomplish without refusing to use the toolbox.

 LITTLE

 How big should a piece of text be if you want it to be elegant?  The answer is as big as it needs to be – and not a word more. Just think of it as playing the game Jenga. Keep pulling words out of your prose until it collapses.  

 SPACE

 One of the most important lessons in art is learning the value of negative space, the idea that the eyes are equally drawn to what isn’t there.  Prose has a very similar quality.  When writing pay careful attention to what you aren’t saying. Often it will speak the loudest volume.

 ENJOY

 For some reason people tend to equate dignity with seriousness.  And as such they come to the false conclusion that elegance has no room for humor.  Ironic as humor is one of the most elegant of styles.  A good joke is no longer than is necessary to do its job.

 MARK

 As is always true when I head off the beaten path, I am curious to hear your feedback.  What did you think of this article?  Was it entertaining?  Was it educational? Did you actually read all fifty links?  And if not, why not?

 Tell me.  Inquiring mind wants to know.

 ROSEWATER

 I couldn’t end this week’s column without my trademark closing.  I mean, how inelegant would that be?

 Join me next week when  I go from being a letter man to a Letterman.

 Until then, may you learn to appreciate now just the “what” but the “how” and “why”.

 Mark Rosewater

[aww-canon-no]

Projects self all over Deaf Steve: 

He wants to be a writer, but after getting made fun of by his English teacher, he never tells anyone about this.

He was born Hard of Hearing with progressives loss.  By kindergarten he’s profoundly deaf, but crappy parents just stick him in mainstream school and hope for the best.  They live in a small town so resources are terrible and Steve scrapes by with his horrible bulky hearing aids until he just abandons them because being cool is better than sound anyway.

He learns ASL because he’s got one speech therapist who actually learned about the Deaf community, and it sits in his brain so much better, but it makes switching from ASL to English hard and everyone thinks he’s dumb.

His teachers have written him off.

He starts writing out of spite- learning to turn sentences into lyrical, poetic prose that feel like water rushing over smooth stones whenever he reads them.  But he doesn’t show anyone because when he goes over his work he still finds spots where he gets nouns and verbs swapped, and he drops articles and plurals are hard to remember, okay?  They just don’t make any SENSE in English sometimes.

And yeah his teachers were probably right, even if he never lets go of his petty dreams.

He gets a job working for his dad.  It’s all hearing people and it’s hard and the end of the day he’s exhausted in spite of the fact that it’s not hard labor.  He naps a lot.

He’s still close with the kids he used to babysit so on some days he goes to visit Mike’s house and annoy Nancy who pretends like she’s not happy to see him now that they’re just friends.  The kids have been MIA for a while and Steve finds out why.

He goes down to the basement and one of the prettiest men he’s ever laid eyes on is sitting on a makeshift throne with a book propped up in front of him.  Steve can’t see his lips so he can’t make out what he’s saying but whatever it is, he can tell the guy’s really into it by how the boys are really into it.

His name is Eddie and he talks with his whole body.

When he notices Steve, he also starts throwing in some signs which...

Steve will unpack that later.

Later, Dustin explains DnD to him.  It’s story telling, and it makes Steve feel things.  He’ll never admit to being interested.  Ever.

But he shows up more and Eddie invites him to sit and peek at his notes, and Steve starts making quiet suggestions behind the partition on his fingers once he realizes Eddie’s not fluent but at least conversational.  Eddie looks at Steve with big doe-eyes and an expression of wonder.

He personally invites Steve back.

Together they start planning a campaign and when it’s over--it lasts twenty-eight hours played over two weeks--Eddie cups his face and tells him that it was beautiful thanks to Steve.

At some point, they kiss, because they’re both so obviously in love there’s no point in hiding it anymore.

Eddie shows Steve his music, and Steve buys Eddie some really powerful ear plugs so Eddie can experience how Steve listens to it.

One day Steve suddenly feels like he can’t hide anymore so he shows up at Eddie’s house and dumps a thumb drive in his palm and tells him it’s stupid but he just wanted to share something.

Eddie disappears for two days, and Steve thinks yeah.  It was that bad.

Then Eddie appears with spicy chicken sandwiches in a greasy bag and throws Steve onto his bed and kisses the breath out of him before signing to him that his stories were the best things he’s ever read, and the world should probably know.

Steve doesn’t think he’ll ever actually pursue writing.  But he might write more for Eddie.

[max1461]

I've said this before, but unfortunately a not-too-rare thing in philosophy, that really bugs me as a linguist, is people saying "the fact that language works like X tells us Y about the nature of [concept]", and not even bothering to check whether languages other than English and maybe French actually work that way.

Maybe I'm just not understanding the subtleties of these arguments, but I'm thinking of things like the linguistic objection to emotivism about ethics: "if ethical statements express emotional attitudes and not propositions, why can we make seemingly well-formed arguments out of them like we can with propositions?"

This is maybe an unusually strong argument of this general type, because you can claim quite reasonably that what makes a well-formed argument is independent of language. But what makes a seemingly well-formed argument is probably not independent of language, and one possible emotivist response to the objection could be "arguments employing ethical 'propositions' look well-formed but actually aren't".

In the Iroquoian languages kinship terms are verbs. Rather than a noun for "father" there is a verb "to be someone's father". In fact, most things are verbs in Iroquoian languages, really. And you can make all sorts of well-formed verbal expressions using them, although I'm not an Iroquoian speaker so I don't know precisely what they all look like. There's all kinds of nonsense things you could claim if you were an analytic philosopher who had only ever encountered other speakers of Iroquoian (it is fun to imagine alt-histories where such people are common, if you like that kind of thing): maybe "all relationships between things are ontologically a type of action; just look at how we can make all these well-formed action expressions out of them!".

In Japanese, many adjectives are verbs. 青い means "to be blue"; you can put it in the past tense, 青かった "was blue". I'm sure this is very important, and tells us a lot about the metaphysical structure of the world.

[tennessoui]

also i passed literally all my midterms with flying colors (basically A+'s if grad school did A+'s) (or gold star stickers if grad school did gold star stickers)

(they should)

and all my midterms were just essays and all my professors who graded my essays said my essays were very well-written and well-structured and had high readability

and im like thank you thank you i've written like a million words of porn for the internet. i know my adjective noun verb placement very well

[winstonsns]

could you do a gang(separate) with reader who’s like a transfer student or smth and dosent speak English fluently? They could like help her or smth idkkkkk but yeah🎀💕

the gang with transfer student!reader (request)

authors note: my throat fucking hurts. sorry this is short, i hope you enjoy 💗

includes ponyboy, johnny, soda, darry, dally, two-bit and steve

word count: 1.4k

warnings: cussing, dally’s a bit of a dick

PONYBOY CURTIS

ponyboy’s top of his classes so he knows a lot, especially in english

because the two of you go to the same school, you guys have a lot more time together

he’ll always help you feel ready for a presentation and makes sure all your words are spelled correctly and you pronounce them right

same with when you’re called on to read, if you can’t pronounce a word then he’ll whisper in your ear and tell you, the both of you normally sit together

sometimes you’ll go over to his house or he’ll go over to yours, he assists you by studying with you

once he went over to your house, you had a vanity in your room but didn’t know what it was called, he asked you, “well what’s something that reminds you of it? of the vanity?”

you replied, “um… sticky notes because i have them on my mirror?” so he told you to connect the words ‘sticky notes’ so you could remember the word ‘vanity’

he’ll also read to you so you can learn more words and pronunciations, you also become entertained while you’re learning so it’s nice for the both of you

JOHNNY CADE

sometimes johnny goes to school with you so the both of you can learn together

he has a lot of patience so learning with him is easy, he’d make up around five words for you to pronounce and know the definition of every day

the two of you would review those words too, and because you were learning a whole new language, he decided to learn a new language too, yours

he knew what it was like to get frustrated over not being able to understand something, so the both of you taught one another your languages

you or johnny would point at a random object and the other would say it in both languages, it was a fun way to learn since it wasn’t one sided

when the two of you could have full on conversations in one another’s languages, the both of you were ecstatic

johnny even taught pony and the gang some words from your native language because he thought it was cool

SODAPOP CURTIS

man, you guys are learning english together because soda doesn’t really have a super wide vocabulary, he wasn’t that good in school

but he’ll teach you the basic words and their meanings, clothings, paintings, items, etc

he thinks it’s so attractive when you speak your native language or talk to him that way, he’ll get all blushy and smiley

his patience is actually pretty high and he’ll make you feel better if you feel bad about not knowing english that well

it doesn’t cause much of a problem in your guys relationship, it probably brings you two closer if anything

he loves it when you come to him to ask about words or what something’s called if it has certain characteristics

since you’re in school and he’s not, if you have to write an essay or presentation, he’ll give you synonyms so you won’t repeat the same words over and over

lord knows he got shitty grades because he used the same two words throughout his essay when describing something

DARRY CURTIS

he stays really patient with you because you can always learn more english, it’s not a one time thing when if you mess a word up then its messed up forever

so he helps you, since he was really smart and was good in school, he knew a very large range of vocabulary

you could ask him about a word and he’d immediately know the definition, sometimes asking you “verb or noun?” because he just knew so much

since he’s an old ass man he’ll show you magazines and newspapers, sometimes pointing to a random word, in which you tell him what it means, basically like a memory game

he teaches you a lot about grammar since most people don’t know how to use it correctly, he also teaches you how to use the correct ‘write, right’ ‘knight, night,’ ‘where, wear’ ‘here, hear’ ‘there, their, they’re’ basically homophones

darry really just wants you to have the best in life so he’ll teach you the most

DALLAS WINSTON

if we’re being realistic here, dally would bully the shit out of you

he is honest as hell and will not feel shameful or bad that he’s being rude to you for not understanding english as well as him

but he helps you learn new words and phrases, sometimes teasing you about it and giving you the wrong answers

he later tells you the truth though if you embarrass yourself by using it wrong

“dal… um, i heard some people talking about ‘left handed?’ what does that mean?” you would ask, him replying with, “means you only use your left hand, like your other is paralyzed or broken.”

sometimes he’ll randomly ask you, “what’s that?” and point at something, basically quizzing you so you can remember what is what

dally also helps you pronounce words, when you came home from school one day, you asked him how to say “pacific ocean” because all the c’s were pronounced differently, you were rightfully confused

however, if anyone else makes fun of you, he’ll get all pissed off at them and beat the shit out of them

if you start feeling guilty for not knowing words after he makes fun of you a bit, he’ll try not to as much and will focus more on teaching you words

he won’t love you any less if you struggle with english, he loves hearing you talk in your native language

you even teach him some words and phrases in your language, he complains, “that’s too hard to learn, doll, how many languages do you know?”

little do you know he’s actually impressed and would speak your language every day if he understood as well as you did

TWO-BIT MATTHEWS

two-bit is actually very sweet about you not knowing english as well as him

sometimes, he’ll help you by watching television with you, whether it’s a movie or a series

he’s occasionally a little mean about it, laughing when you say something wrong, he corrects you after though

he’s lazy as hell though so you don’t learn much from him, but if you teach him about your language then he’ll pay attention

if you’re doing a presentation of some sort soon for school, he’ll make flash cards before and help you remember how to pronounce words and what they mean

also when in public, if both of you are in a restaurant or getting fast food, he’ll help you order what you want while you know of what the ingredients are

because he is helping you learn english, it doesn’t cause much of a problem in your relationship

also, you know that trend where it’s like ‘telling the transfer student that scooby doo is a bad word and to yell it’ that’s you guys

STEVE RANDLE

steve’s actually pretty smart so he gave you detailed descriptions of what some words meant

so when you asked what a dresser was when you were just learning, instead of pointing at it and leaving it be, he told you, “basically furniture with a lot of drawers that holds mostly clothes, it can hold other things too though.”

he also tells you more than you need to know, he talks to you about cars and all its parts even though you don’t know what they are

so he explains to you what they are and how they work, what they do and where they are in the car

steve really enjoys learning about how things work, so he’ll tell you about that too when you ask about a word or its pronunciation

also teaches you about metaphors and all that stuff, if you’re not good with sarcasm then he’ll help you know when someone is or is not being sarcastic

he also tells you that there’s a ‘shit ton of stupid rules in the english language’ and things are ‘weirdly fucking hard to pronounce’ so it’s fine to not get words right the first time

authors note: happy father’s day 🎀