Zompist Bboard Again

I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:11 am I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

Interference from ‘centenary’, maybe?

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:11 am I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

The <a> could be from interference from German, since Germans commonly merge English /æ/ and /ɛ/?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:05 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:11 am I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

The <a> could be from interference from German, since Germans commonly merge English /æ/ and /ɛ/?

Yes, most Germans pronounce English /æ/ as [ɛ], as Standard German and most German dialects don't have [æ] (though Swiss German does).

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:05 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:11 am I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

The <a> could be from interference from German, since Germans commonly merge English /æ/ and /ɛ/?

Yes, most Germans pronounce English /æ/ as [ɛ], as Standard German and most German dialects don't have [æ] (though Swiss German does).

Interestingly enough, I instinctively hear a true front [ɛ] as /æ/, as it is the most common allophone of /æ/ in my native English. As I have mentioned on this board before, I have even learned a few words "wrong" in that I learned them as having /æ/, such as Star Tr/æ/k.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:14 pm

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:05 pm
The <a> could be from interference from German, since Germans commonly merge English /æ/ and /ɛ/?

Yes, most Germans pronounce English /æ/ as [ɛ], as Standard German and most German dialects don't have [æ] (though Swiss German does).

Interestingly enough, I instinctively hear a true front [ɛ] as /æ/, as it is the most common allophone of /æ/ in my native English. As I have mentioned on this board before, I have even learned a few words "wrong" in that I learned them as having /æ/, such as Star Tr/æ/k.

Some German varieties have no contrast at all between ä and e, while others do when the vowels are long, with ä being lower. In Swiss German, ä is [æ], both short and long, much more clearly distinct from e.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:11 am I just caught myself almost writing "century" as "canterury". Any idea what may or may not have been going on inside my brain when I did that?

Raphael is time-displaced Chaucer confirmed

Yesterday I wrote the date of opening on a tetra pak as "1/6", but soon read it back to myself as sevenpence ha'penny (with syncopation). What psychiatric diagnoses should I make of myself?

Richard W wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 1:43 pm Yesterday I wrote the date of opening on a tetra pak as "1/6", but soon read it back to myself as sevenpence ha'penny (with syncopation). What psychiatric diagnoses should I make of myself?

Slash Separation Ambiguity Syndrome?

Looks like Travis has become the first person here to reach 10,000 posts. (I believe the 10,000th was viewtopic.php?p=108618#p108618.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 5:07 pmLooks like Travis has become the first person here to reach 10,000 posts. (I believe the 10,000th was viewtopic.php?p=108618#p108618.)

Congratulations to Travis then. Considering that there are roughly a hundred thousand posts on this forum, Travis has technically written 10% of them. Even given that only a dozen odd people post here regularly, that is still quite remarkable.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 6:21 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2026 5:07 pmLooks like Travis has become the first person here to reach 10,000 posts. (I believe the 10,000th was viewtopic.php?p=108618#p108618.)

Congratulations to Travis then. Considering that there are roughly a hundred thousand posts on this forum, Travis has technically written 10% of them.

No ‘technically’ about it — if you click on his profile it says ‘10.07% of all posts’.

Aren't these products usually marketed at a more elderly target group?

(A business sign saying "KIND HÖRGERÄTE", that is, literally translated, "Child Hearing Aids". Yes, I know, "Kind" is presumably the owners' or founders' surname, but I still find it a bit weird.)

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2026 3:16 am Aren't these products usually marketed at a more elderly target group?

wrong-demographic.jpg


(A business sign saying "KIND HÖRGERÄTE", that is, literally translated, "Child Hearing Aids". Yes, I know, "Kind" is presumably the owners' or founders' surname, but I still find it a bit weird.)

And 'hearing aids for children' (which are a real thing because there are children with hearing problems) would be Kinder-Hörgeräte, not Kind-Hörgeräte as on the shop sign. Indeed, this shop name never struck me as odd (Kind Hörgeräte is a large chain that has shops in many German towns).

As someone who loves the first three Buffy seasons, all I can say is, RIP: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ire-slayer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSB6nEV3LY


Graphieros Review

How likely is it that alcohol consumption is positively correlated with HDI because it incapacitates addictive personalities who would otherwise be a serious threat to reckon with? https://youtu.be/07cVD3Em164

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 2:38 am How likely is it that alcohol consumption is positively correlated with HDI because it incapacitates addictive personalities who would otherwise be a serious threat to reckon with? https://youtu.be/07cVD3Em164

If that were true, one would have expected a relative increase in the HDI of the post-Soviet states immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union as alcohol consumption skyrocketed there followed later by a relative fall in HDI as alcohol consumption was brought under control...

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2026 11:20 am As someone who loves the first three Buffy seasons, all I can say is, RIP: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ire-slayer

Seconded. He's not the first actor from Buffy we've lost recently, either. Is this a case of supernatural chickens coming home to roost?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 11:31 am

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 2:38 am How likely is it that alcohol consumption is positively correlated with HDI because it incapacitates addictive personalities who would otherwise be a serious threat to reckon with? https://youtu.be/07cVD3Em164

If that were true, one would have expected a relative increase in the HDI of the post-Soviet states immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union as alcohol consumption skyrocketed there followed later by a relative fall in HDI as alcohol consumption was brought under control...

yup. there are also a lot of simpler explanations for the correlation: mostly that alcohol costs money, but also that high HDI countries keep better statistics on the subject. i'm sure haiti and peru have a lot more unmeasured production and consumption of booze than, say, finland.

alcohol doesn't really incapacitate people who consume a lot of it. i don't know but i'd bet most alcoholics remain functional for a long time, maybe for their entire lives