Subscribe to Blog via Email
Archive:
Day: April 4, 2017
puerile
Not that recondite a word, but any soupçon from the Magister is welcome here: https://necrologue.quora.com/201… I just want to say, publicly, and despite the possibility of offending some friends, that I thought the fake death gag puerile and unhelpful. puerile 1. Immature, especially in being silly or trivial; childish. 2. Archaic Belonging to childhood; juvenile. […]
Why do some Greek surnames end with “oğlu” which means “son of” in Turkish?
The proper answer is Kutluk Ozguven’s: Kutluk Ozguven’s answer to Why do some Greek surnames end with “oğlu” which means “son of” in Turkish? Turkish Republic did not enforce surnames to its population before 1934. Turks had patronymous names like in Arabic countries or Iceland. However Greeks and Armenians used family surnames of their choice. […]
What does Genie’s case illustrate about first language acquisition?
The linguistics textbooks will tell you that the unfortunate case of Genie (feral child) demonstrates that puberty delimits a window of opportunity for language acquisition, past which full language acquisition is not possible. Genie learnt enough English for the first time at 13 to communicate, but her English was never grammatical. There are plenty of […]
Is there such a thing as “taking things too literally”?
Yes, and there’s a linguistic pragmatics set of principles at work there, over and above the inherent limitations of language pointed out by Daniel Bamberger : see Daniel Bamberger’s answer to Is there such a thing as “taking things too literally”? The Cooperative principles defined by Grice are a way of making sense of how […]
Is Khalisi a weird name for a baby?
For starters, the proper Dothraki pronunciation is [ˈxaleːsi], not [kʰaˈliːsiː]. That’s not canon from GRRR Martin, because GRRR Martin is a language dolt, but Peterson’s Dothraki is not mere funny-looking English. Of course, it only matters what you heard the actors say on the TV anyway. I agree with what Lara l Lord said: Lara […]
Can the U0001f4a6 emoji be used to represent semen?
Yes; see Why is the splashing sweat emoji associated with semen? For evidence that this is happening: Definitions offered by the public under: U0001f4a6 Sweat Droplets Emoji Urban Dictionary: U0001f4a6 A boy sends this emoji when he is horny. ” Hey send nudes?? [math]unicode{x1F4A6}unicode{x1F4A6}[/math]” A girl would send this to her man, basically telling him […]
As a non-Latin script writer, how often do you use Latin script?
It was only when I read Dimitris Almyrantis’ response, that I realised the question refers to the ad hoc use of ASCII romanisations online—such as Greeklish for Greek, Finglish for Persian, Arabic chat alphabet, Informal romanizations of Cyrillic, and so on. So my answer will be along the same lines as his and Alice Tsymbarevich’s: […]