Zompist Bboard Again

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 2:34 pm

linguistcat wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 11:22 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 9:26 am The recent discussion in the "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread makes me curious: how often do Anglophones have a need to pronounce the word "currywurst", anyway?

I guess it depends on how often they eat it. For me, not often, but not never.

Oh, Utah has currywurst these days? Interesting to know.

I've never seen currywurst here in Wisconsin myself.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 2:34 pm

linguistcat wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 11:22 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 9:26 am The recent discussion in the "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread makes me curious: how often do Anglophones have a need to pronounce the word "currywurst", anyway?

I guess it depends on how often they eat it. For me, not often, but not never.

Oh, Utah has currywurst these days? Interesting to know.

There's a German restaurant in Ogden that my husband is fond of and delivers things to for work. So we go occasionally. The child enjoys their mustard and sausage selection.

linguistcat wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 9:39 pm
There's a German restaurant in Ogden that my husband is fond of and delivers things to for work. So we go occasionally. The child enjoys their mustard and sausage selection.

Thank you!

Trigger warning: Suicide

Many years ago when my father died, my mother suggested that we commit mass suicide. I was silent, but my brother said he wanted to live. I'm thinking back to whether my mother was right back then. Of course, if either one of us died, my brother's life would also be ruined. That's pretty much the only reason why I don't wish either of us had actually gone through with it.

Damn. Don't know what to say. But don't kill yourself.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:02 am Trigger warning: Suicide

Many years ago when my father died, my mother suggested that we commit mass suicide. I was silent, but my brother said he wanted to live. I'm thinking back to whether my mother was right back then. Of course, if either one of us died, my brother's life would also be ruined. That's pretty much the only reason why I don't wish either of us had actually gone through with it.

What!? Of course your mother, who was obviously not well, was wrong. Whatever help you may need, I hope you get it soon.

Thanks. It's nothing; just an average existential crisis. Everything I have ever known is gone. I know for a fact that many others are worse off than me.

I think it's brought on by fatigue caused by undiagnosed autism.

If you liked this real life fact, you might enjoy a fictional portrayal like the anime Welcome to the NHK.

What annoys me the most about speaking Hindi is that I don't know how to moderate my statements. Everything I say sounds pointlessly dramatic.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 6:48 am What annoys me the most about speaking Hindi is that I don't know how to moderate my statements. Everything I say sounds pointlessly dramatic.

I can't relate to not being truly fluent in the plurality language in the country I live and was born in. While I can speak in a funny accent when I choose to do so (and speak with a clear accent relative to the standard variety even when I speak in the acrolect), there are no real intelligibility barriers with regard to other varieties of the majority language here even when I crank the dialect up to eleven.

(Note that this is with other native English-speakers -- I can confuse non-native speakers without too much difficulty at times.)

Psychology question: I recently had a friendly little disagreement with my therapist. She thinks that shame and embarrassment are very similar, or perhaps even almost the same, while I think that they are two fairly distinct emotions.

Now, of course she's a qualified medical professional with a specialization in psychological matters, and I am not. But I think my position can still be defended, based on my personal experiences. I was raised in a family and environment that was not at all religious conservative, and I'm not the type of left or center-leftist who feels ashamed about things done by groups they belong to, either. As a result, there have only been very few occasions in my life when I have really felt ashamed of something, and I'm not even sure that I could list any of these occasions without thinking about it for a while. But there were definitely a lot of occasions in my life when I felt embarrassed about all kinds of things.

Somewhat related, I was raised with basically no shame about anything related to sex (see the part above about not having a religious conservative background). And I've got the impression that, as a result, embarrassment about sexual matters plays roughly the role in my brain that shame about sexual matters plays in the brains of many other people.

I've just rewatched the by-election scene in the third season of Blackadder and noticed that the seat is called Dunny-on-the-Wold. Presumably somebody familiar with Australian culture suggested the name, notwithstanding what the article says?

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 10:33 am Psychology question: I recently had a friendly little disagreement with my therapist. She thinks that shame and embarrassment are very similar, or perhaps even almost the same, while I think that they are two fairly distinct emotions.

Now, of course she's a qualified medical professional with a specialization in psychological matters, and I am not. But I think my position can still be defended, based on my personal experiences. I was raised in a family and environment that was not at all religious conservative, and I'm not the type of left or center-leftist who feels ashamed about things done by groups they belong to, either. As a result, there have only been very few occasions in my life when I have really felt ashamed of something, and I'm not even sure that I could list any of these occasions without thinking about it for a while. But there were definitely a lot of occasions in my life when I felt embarrassed about all kinds of things.

I assume the consersation was in German, so the connotations could be different.

I'd say "shame" relates to our own feeling that we did something wrong; "embarrassment" to the feeling that other people are thinking we did something foolish. Shame doesn't have to be sexual; there are other kinds of morality, or just social expectations.

There's an interior difference, in that we usually don't care that much about what other people think. (If we do, we've internalized their disapproval, so shame is involved.). Embarrassment is usually more minor and easier to get over once the situation is ended.

Shame is probably something of a keyword for a therapist, since their clients may need a lot of work to get over shame. No one really goes to a therapist to work on embarrassment.

After much fiddling, I have found a way to get around the registration wall on reddit although it's quite a hassle. Imagine if every time you picked up a newspaper, it jumped out of your hands and you had to chase it down before you could read it.

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 3:57 pm

I assume the consersation was in German, so the connotations could be different.

I'd say "shame" relates to our own feeling that we did something wrong; "embarrassment" to the feeling that other people are thinking we did something foolish. Shame doesn't have to be sexual; there are other kinds of morality, or just social expectations.

There's an interior difference, in that we usually don't care that much about what other people think. (If we do, we've internalized their disapproval, so shame is involved.). Embarrassment is usually more minor and easier to get over once the situation is ended.

Shame is probably something of a keyword for a therapist, since their clients may need a lot of work to get over shame. No one really goes to a therapist to work on embarrassment.

Thank you, interesting!

I just noticed a dinosaur cartoon on my bottle of mineral water. Apparently it's intended to convince kids that mineral water is really cool and fun and they should drink more of it.

What I find a bit weird about this, and the reason why I post about it here, is that, as far as I can remember, marketing people were already using dinosaur cartoons to try to sell their stuff to children back when I was a pre-adolescent child. And I'm in my mid-forties now.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:06 pm I just noticed a dinosaur cartoon on my bottle of mineral water. Apparently it's intended to convince kids that mineral water is really cool and fun and they should drink more of it.

What I find a bit weird about this, and the reason why I post about it here, is that, as far as I can remember, marketing people were already using dinosaur cartoons to try to sell their stuff to children back when I was a pre-adolescent child. And I'm in my mid-forties now.

Indeed. The early 90s had something of a dinosaur craze from what I recall, with movies like Jurassic Park and The Land Before Time and an entire sitcom about anthropomorphic dinosaurs to name some examples.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 9:10 pm Imagine if every time you picked up a newspaper, it jumped out of your hands and you had to chase it down before you could read it.

Careful, malloc, you don't want to give the tech bros ideas.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:26 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 9:10 pm Imagine if every time you picked up a newspaper, it jumped out of your hands and you had to chase it down before you could read it.

Careful, malloc, you don't want to give the tech bros ideas.

Yeah. That said, perhaps the time has come for me to take up physical newspapers instead of relying on reddit and such. I have been wanting to rely less on computers for everything and that is certainly one way.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:13 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:06 pm I just noticed a dinosaur cartoon on my bottle of mineral water. Apparently it's intended to convince kids that mineral water is really cool and fun and they should drink more of it.

What I find a bit weird about this, and the reason why I post about it here, is that, as far as I can remember, marketing people were already using dinosaur cartoons to try to sell their stuff to children back when I was a pre-adolescent child. And I'm in my mid-forties now.

Indeed. The early 90s had something of a dinosaur craze from what I recall, with movies like Jurassic Park and The Land Before Time and an entire sitcom about anthropomorphic dinosaurs to name some examples.

Referring to another thread, the "multimedia PC" I saw in the early 1990s had a screensaver which printed random dinosaurs on the screen. And I can remember the adjective "Jurassic" being used in a number of advertising campaigns, where it was supposed to mean "awesome" rather than "pertaining to the Jura region of France".

malloc wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2026 2:36 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2026 3:26 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2026 9:10 pm Imagine if every time you picked up a newspaper, it jumped out of your hands and you had to chase it down before you could read it.

Careful, malloc, you don't want to give the tech bros ideas.

Yeah. That said, perhaps the time has come for me to take up physical newspapers instead of relying on reddit and such. I have been wanting to rely less on computers for everything and that is certainly one way.

It’s not a bad idea. I buy the local paper and magzines occasionally; I get most of my news through the radio, or a paid subscription to a good newspaper (online, though I could get the paper edition.)
Getting the news from social media isn’t always bad, depending on your sources, but there sure is a lot of raw undigested anxiety.