Zompist Bboard Again

In some accents of Northern England (Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire), TRAP and PALM differ only by length: [ä] for TRAP and [äː] for PALM/START.

It used to be psyche, as in "to psych someone" (to disturb them so that they perform badly in a game). I knew about this use, or similar ones. What surprised me was its use as an exclamation to immediately contradict yourself, kinda like yelling "Not!" as in Wayne's World . I im...

The same story also appears in Isaiah (chapters 36 to 39).

Japanese offers some interesting examples. FR objet "object" → JP オブジェ ( obuje ) "art object, contemporary sculpture" EN gal → JP ギャル ( gyaru ) "girl who follows a specific fashion (typically including dyed hair and a tan)" This one made me chuckle. FR séance "sess...

I once read an article wondering how it came to be, and speculating that it was due to non-native English speakers, but I can't find it at the moment. Found it! It's here: https://github.com/e-n-f/if-then-else/blob/master/if-then-else.md Apparently, the first computer-related use of the word else w...

Probably not a recent development, just one I only noticed recently – and an interesting case of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. Last week, I read some online rant, which said at one point: "And then this thing happened. SIKE! No, actually, the opposite happened." A comment mentionned that ...

I was attending some sort of conference whose speaker was... Vladimir Putin. The attendance was quite young, mostly students apparently. People were asking questions, and Putin answered them - sometimes evasively. Some questions were in English, some in French: Putin seemed to speak French quite flu...

The "Libertarians" also like to complain about how the State is synonymous with bureaucracy and red tape. In my experience, large companies can be just as bureaucratic as any ministry.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that Putin is 69 and there have been persistent rumors of poor health, possibly including cancer. Maybe this isn't an issue for him for a few years; but it can also change the calculus of those in a position to act. I don't believe the rumors about Putin being sick,...

I don't think it's a way of "defending oneself from criticism", but rather to... avoid drawing attention to oneself. Saying I did XYZ would feel too personal, possibly even pretentious. "Look at me, I did all of this by myself!" The word we is more neutral: is it our small group?...

On the other hand, Wenn ja... ... wenn nein... feels like perfectly regular German to me. It's also perfectly normal in French: si oui... si non... . In fact, it's so common that the last two words have fused into sinon , which can be used in other contexts to mean "otherwise, or else". I...

english… has this bizzare undocumented phenomenon where one uses we when one means I but it's not royal we, but rather regular we but one feels need to use group as a means of defending oneself from criticism. Well, I often write we did XYZ in reports, as if I'm speaking for the entire team, even w...

I wanted to try a version of Unix on my laptop. But a pure command-line interface sounds a bit daunting. So, I went with GhostBSD, a variant of FreeBSD that includes the MATE desktop environment. It works nicely. But, since I've been using MATE for years with Linux Mint... it's almost too familiar: ...

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/. Related: as a kid, I thought the labels made in China, made in Japan were some sort of international code. I was disappointed when I realized it ...

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 2:49 pm I kind of want to say /fotoˌbɔ̃mˈbje/ and assume this is what you call a photobomber in French.

Photobombier sounds like someone who photobombs for a living, while photobombeur could be either a professional or an amateur. Though it could be an adjective: l'art photobombier, photobomb art.

There are portable air conditioners that you can install in any apartment. You only need a way to pass a tube outside (to carry hot air). My father did it by making a hole in a window shutter (and closing it with a plastic cover of the same color the rest of the year).

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 1:15 pm To be honest, this is the first time I hear that idiom.

Same.

You can add "despite not even knowing what the passive voice is". French teachers are also extremely hostile to any form of repetition. French journalists similarly avoid using the same word twice, which means they often resort to clichés: if you're writing something about the city of Mars...

FR gauche "clumsy" (also "left" as opposed to "right") → EN gauche "socially clumsy, lacking in etiquette" FR boutique "shop" → EN boutique "upmarket, luxury shop" Two connected ones: FR grappe "bunch, cluster" → EN grape "fr...

Comments on this article about Irish accents point to an interesting phenomenon: some Irish children, who normally speak with an Irish accent, switch to an American accent (or an in-between "mid-Atlantic" accent) when playing a character. I was visiting friends in rural Co. Cork and went w...