[woolandflax]

I’m sorry?

[vigilantsycamore]

English spelling isn't that hard to understand as long as you also understand French orthography, Dutch orthography, the Great Vowel Shift, the Latin language, the history of the printing press, and the etymology of every word introduced to English in the last 600 years

[what-even-is-thiss]

So what I’ve learned about French spelling is that if there’s a word that’s in both French and English, the way you spell it is that you imagine you’re writing that word with the mindset that you’re making fun of French spelling because surely no word is spelled this way and then you’ve spelled it correctly.

[prokopetz]

I love self-referential statements where you just say the name of the thing you wish to express and it counts as having expressed the thing so named. Apologies. Greetings. Fair warning. We should be able to do that with more things, I think.

[brainstatic]

I want a Santa movie where he’s actually Saint Nicholaos of Myra. Three kids run away from home and find a portal to the Council Of Nicaea in 325 AD. Then the kids watch him debate the promulgation of canon law. In the end they return home and tell their parents that presents aren’t important so long as Pentecost is counted 50 days after Easter on the Roman solar calendar and not the Jewish lunar calendar.

[brainstatic]

And the kids tell their parents the whole story and the dad is like “those kids and their imaginations.” But then he sees a piece of paper in the dog’s mouth and goes “whatcha got there boy? Is that…orders from the Holy See that the schismatic bishop Meletius is to remain in Lycopolis and keep his episcopal title but the ecclesiastics ordained by him must again receive the laying of hands? But…how?” And then he gazes off to the sky and you hear a light jingling of bells and then a voice over goes “Ho ho ho! The baptisms performed by the Paulian heretics are invalid! Merry Christmas!”

[archer-bro]

#do we also see him get into a heated debate with arius over the divinity and pre-existence of christ?

If we don’t, then what’s the point?!

[tahthetrickster]

im fucking sobbing why did they kill him twice in a row in the community notes

[pyrrhiccomedy]

[amemait]

Actually, @heresylog I’m sure this one gives you a giggle.

[amanonthecorner]

I weep for all the clever wordplay in other languages I will never appreciate because I can't understand it

[latinare]

How do we know/guess how Latin was pronounced?

I can't find the post where I talked about this before, but basically there are two ways.

1) Because Latin transitioned from a living language (in the Roman Empire) to the language of scholars and clerics (in the Middle Ages) without a gap, the pronunciation was passed down from teacher to student. It almost definitely shifted a bit over time though, due to human error and the lack of recording devices. This handed-down version is called Ecclesiastical Pronunciation.

2) In the early 20th century (iirc) scholars attempted to compensate for shifting pronunciation by reconstructing how Latin might have been pronounced in Ancient Rome. The version they came up with is called Classical Pronunciation.

There are valid reasons for choosing either pronunciation, and you'll meet latinists hotly in favour of each. 😜

[d00mbunnie]

people who speak languages with more than one type of 'you': oh english speakers why don't you have more than one you. I feel so rude speaking to people. why do you have no formal you?

me: you just used it.

them: what?

me: you is the formal you. it's thou that was informal. we don't use it anymore. you know it is English, so of course we kept the polite you.

them:...

me: look every so often English has to chuck out some old stuff to make room for all the new stuff. like gendered articles. we used to have 3 like every other Germanic language and also like all indo european languages. also romance languages what happened to your neuter gender?

[fuiru]

One of the best facts ever is that there is a place in Northern England called Pendle Hill, and the etymology of the name is that 'Pen' was a Cumbric word meaning "Hill," and the "-dle" part is derived from the Old English word for "Hill," while the "Hill" part of its name is a modern English word meaning "Hill". The entire name literally means "Hill Hill Hill."

Not only that, but there's another place in the English Midlands called Bredon Hill, which also combines the word "Hill" in three different languages.

I like to think this means that on two separate occasions someone went to a location where they didn't speak the language, and went to the locals "What's the name of that thing over there?" and they went "Hill." And they went "cool, we call it a hill in our language so we'll call it Hill Hill." And then the same thing happened again, centuries later.

[natequarter]

[salvadorbonaparte]

I told my students they're allowed to be creative and don't have to be factual when writing about themselves in German because I keep getting questions like "what if I don't have roommates or what if I don't have hobbies" and I'm like guys just make something up! Have fun! I won't fact check you!

So now I am grading homework where a student is claiming to be from North Korea and his hobby is tax fraud