Linguistics and nerd stuff

yea

[tuckedinbugw]

Nothing like holding my love

[brentraptor]

(bake me up) bake me up a pie / (one-third cup) of flour for our pie

[argumate]

I keep thinking this! very frustrating

[sickdogs]

being a kid and hearing adults say stuff like "woah 2011 was 4 years ago haha" didn't really convey the fucking horror of a youtube video crossing my recommended labelled "9 years ago" and it's from 2017. that's not true. 9 years ago is 2010 or something. don't lie.

[empress-kahoot]

What are you even saying 2010 was 5 years ago

[thydungeongal]

I think it's funny that in French the word for "unicorn" is "licorne" because:

The word "unicorne" was first reanalyzed as "une icorne"

The definite article was then added, making it "l'icorne"

The new definite form was reanalyzed once again, resulting in "une licorne"

[thydungeongal]

Before any anglophones get on the French people's case on this, consider for a second what y'all did when you reanalyzed the Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard") as "alligator."

Reanalysis is fun.

[jkcorellia]

Oh yeah, everybody does this*. Another English example is "apron", which was once "napron" until we reanalyzed the initial N as part of the indefinite article (a napron -> an apron).

A fun one in Arabic is the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Quite understandably, Arabic speakers heard the initial "Al" and thought "ah yes, the ubiquitous definite article" and Alexandria became al-’Iskandariyya.

In the opposite direction, Spanish adopted hundreds of Arabic words during the Middle Ages due to Andalusian/Islamic influence, and there are very few Spanish words that start with al- that aren't of Arabic origin (and in fact, many words that start with A without being followed by an L, as in about half of cases in Arabic the L in "al-" is elided).

Reanalysis occurs in many other places besides article-noun combos, of course, but it's an extremely common case.

*citation needed, but reanalysis is extremely common

[thydungeongal]

Oh, this actually explains something I'd just attributed to a quirk of sequence constraints or something; why Alexander is realized as Iskander/Iskandar in Arabic! It makes sense to analyze it as al-Iskander in Arabic!

[grungeygoddess]

Same thing happened with the word alchemy! Started out as the Arab term "al-kimiya", and when it was transported to Europe, it became "alchemy". This is actually really interesting, because as the term evolved more, it became "chemistry", effectively un-reanalyzing the word!

[thydungeongal]

Oh actually there's another layer of fun there: the Arabic "al-kimiya" is actually a loan of the Ancient Greek χῠμείᾱ (khumeíā), which was used to refer to the art of alloying metals. Arabic borrowed a lot of Greek terminology owing to Arabic translations of Greek classics (many of which were actually lost in Europe until they were retranslated from Arabic). So, yeah, the Greek khumeíā made a round trip through Arabic, then into medieval Latin as "alchemia," and from there we eventually do get chemistry!

[valtharr]

Not quite the same thing, but this reminded me of one of the funniest phenomena in the German language.

So, you may or may not know that x-rays were discovered by a guy called Röntgen (or Roentgen, though the ö is the proper spelling). Because of that, they're called "Röntgen rays" in German. Now, the thing is that in the German, the infinitive of a verb is always formed with an -en at the, so, for example, "to run" is "rennen" or "to sleep" is "schlafen." And because of that, it just so happened that the verb for performing x-rays became... "röntgen."

ich röntge, du röntgst, er/sie/es röntgt, wir röntgen, ihr röntgt, sie röntgen

[thydungeongal]

In the X-rayed lab, straight röntgin it

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[discoursedrome]

I really appreciate how the sociolinguistics of compounds mean that we have one suffix -vore, -vory meaning "to eat", and another suffix -phage, -phagy meaning "to eat (fucked up)"

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[kata4a]

she tower on my babel till I ἐπιούσιον

[in-sufficientdata]

#ἐπιούσιον is a word that’s only ever used in the Lord’s prayer#with extreme controversy surrounding its translation#i suspect the joke here is that this post forces the reader to do a bunch of linguistic research#only to not come up with a conclusive answer#mimicking the experiences of those who built the tower of babel#this has been another installment of overexplaining jokes until theyre not funny anymore with autistics via @exbeekeeper​

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

(bonus: some more information on the dis legomenon ἐπιούσιον)

[sandersstudies]

I think a fun way to have he/she pronouns would be by helping other avoid the ambiguous antecedent problem and taking on the pronouns that are less represented in the current group.

[sandersstudies]

Neopronouns? More like Nemopronouns am I right

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[red-the-raspberry]

My knives? Out. My onion? Glass. My dead man? Awake.

[decladams]

lesbian heated rivalry wouldn’t be in hockey because there are already many out queer women in hockey due to the fact that hockey is viewed as a men’s sport. the whole reason hockey is captivating for mlm is because it is a toxically masculine sport and the idea of having out queer men in that sport is surprising (requiring them to stay closeted/have situationships/etc), whereas it is not nearly as surprising for queer women. therefore, lesbian heated rivalry would actually occur in a setting like ballet, gymnastics, or some other stereotypically feminine sport (that has toxic feminine standards) where queer women are not as visible. in this essay i will

[kurgy]

wheres seasons greasons

[kurgy]

[kurgy]

its that time of year again

[theangriestlittleunicorn]

It doesn’t have to be

[kurgy]

its not optional

[sowecoulddance]

its christmas eve and look whos on tumblr

all of us

[sharper-and-bigger]

Jesus also spent Christmas in a barn full of animals

[seppukart]

Hola estoy Carol Sturka

[empress-kahoot]

[lilboreddev-blog]

reblog if your name isn't Amanda.

[thatblackwatchdouche-blog-blog]

2,121,566 people are not Amanda and counting!

We’ll find you Amanda.

[world-heritage-posts]

world heritage post

[wheezecheese]

I HAVE to reblog this eleven million note post. That’s the most notes I’ve ever seen on tumblr. Also my name is Jade, not Amanda.

[myfriendscallmeglados]

Wow. Just wow. I’m like, very impressed by the existence of this post.

[dateamonster]

revealing your scaring the hoes type interests early on in a relationship is a good way to secure only hoes of bravery and fortitude that will craft horrible dreams and beautiful nightmares with you

[mememuseumofhistory]

[delmondo]

to everyone under 25: i know it's scary getting so old. i've been there. but it's true. it really is over for you when you turn 25. like, you specifically. the person reading this.

[empress-kahoot]

I turned 25 exactly a week ago and I can confirm this. They told me it was over for you.