https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism Can you swear without dysphemisms? Yes: swearing involves using profane vocabulary; dysphemism involves negative, offensive terms for particular things. You can swear without dysphemisms, and indeed without having any negativity at all, through the use of profanities as positive intensifiers: That was a motherfucking magnificent job! Holy fucking shit, that felt good! Jesus, that […]
Imma skip 19th and 20th centuries, which my Greek peers have already amply answered. EDIT: Filled in with the help of Uri Granta, for which my humble thanks. V century: Alexander of Apamea [Uri] VI: Alexander of Tralles, medical author VII: Alexander, bishop of Cotrada, participated in the 6th Ecumenical Council, 680–81 (Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen […]
Yes, it is impossible to tell, for reasons my learnèd colleagues have touched on. Allow me to expand one angle. As I was saying to Martin Silvertant just before (wat de neuk?), I predicted the death of Dutch in 200 years as a postgrad, when I found out that university courses were being lectured in […]
Irony punctuation – Wikipedia There have been various proposals over the years, though none have taken off. In internet discourse, where irony marks are pretty necessary, the smiley has prevailed; it’s more about “I’m only joking! I’m only joking!” than about actual amusement. Some Ethiopian languages use a special temherte slaqî or temherte slaq punctuation […]
It’s kind of a meaningless question, because vocabulary is productive; but to Vasiliki Baskos’ answer I will add these figures from non-Modern lexica: 19699 from the Liddell Scott lexicon, 2045 from the LSJ supplement; but LSJ does not separate out derived words very well 28405 for the DGE Diccionario Griego-Español, which includes proper names 23487 […]
Matthew Sutton no longer posts on Quora, for reasons I entirely empathise with. Matthew has however left a ginormous comment on this question at https://www.quora.com/When-did-t… With his permission, I am citing his comment here. FWIW, I agree entirely with his answer; I’d researched the period as the setting of the Byzantine poem I’ve coauthored a […]
A2A Pegah. I was going to post something smart-alecky about my country, Australia. But I see that it has already been covered: Shayne Bradbury’s answer to What is that one picture that best describes your city / country / state? User-10398731632804616022’s answer to What is that one picture that best describes your city / country […]
I refer you to Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why does Grecani language not exist in Sicily (Magna Grecia)? From what I’ve read, the Greek-speaking population of Southern Italy gradually shrank geographically. It was quite a broad area in the 1600s; it was a much smaller area in the 1800s; and it’s pretty tiny now. In […]
A2A by Z-Kat. Marc Ettlinger’s is the definitive answer: Marc Ettlinger’s answer to Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell? —but I was a research assistant for a guy who worked on labiovelars, and I’ve mentioned it here. (No doubt Z-Kat saw the comment.) So supplemental […]
Here’s one. Chie Hama. She was doing an MA in my linguistics department, under A/Prof Janet Fletcher. I’ve googled Chie; she’s now tutoring down the road at RMIT, but RMIT doesn’t give its casual tutors much of a web presence. Chie Hama came to Australia from Japan. Chie swore to us blind that she did […]