[aropride]

ur clothes size doesnt say anything. like it doesnt say anything abt u as a person but it also especially doesnt say anything about what size your clothes are

[grootficguy]

it must feel good as hell when you’re a horse and you take a big bite out of an apple like ttshoke

[rubensmuse]

your command over onomatopoeia is unmatched bestie

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

Absolutely bonkers that I'm now one of those weirdos you hear about on Twitter

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

I committed to the bit so hard that I also committed misdemeanor impersonation of a government official

[sinni-ok-sessi]

I do think the ability to emoji-react is a net win for human communication. not only does it give you an outlet for 'I see and acknowledge this but don't have a verbal response' but it also adds a pleasing alethiometer element to things

my coworker announces that he's off to the dentist. someone reacts with a tooth emoji. is this a statement of dentist solidarity? a wish for my coworker to return with more (or fewer?) teeth than he set out with? simple word association? who can say

[salvadorbonaparte]

"on god's green earth" is way too fun to say even when you don't believe in god and know most of it is blue, actually

[ashlgcostumes]

Tag via @bluehairedspidey and vocabulary updated

[penny-anna]

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

[penny-anna]

~*~earlier~*~

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Frodo: Merry. You’re absolutely right. I’ll wait.

[penny-anna]

#legolas’ hick accent vs #frodo’s ‘i learned it out of a book’ accent #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Frodo: :)

[storywonker]

Frodo: Hello. My name is Frodo. I am a Hobbit. How are you?

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo, crying: please I can’t understand what you’r saying

[ramshacklefey]

Ok, but Frodo didn’t just learn out of a book. He learned like… Chaucerian Elvish. So actually:

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

Aragorn: *laughing too hard to walk*

[reformedkingsmanagent]

@ghostriderofthearagon

[cryptidscrypticcrosswordclub]

dYinGggGggg…

[whetstonefires]

i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.

[whetstonefires]

to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!

[bowditch]

Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.

Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*

[linguisticparadox]

Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y'all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.

[sainamoonshine]

Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man

Boromir, from beyond the grave: j e s u s

[esser-z]

Tolkien would be SO PROUD of this post

[runiaimperii]

It got better

[peaceheather]

there may come a day when i do not reblog this post, but it is NOT THIS DAY

[primarybufferpanel]

I love a highly specific pet advert

[ninjabunny]

ISO: A Pasture Potato / Xanax with a Tail | Facebook

ISO: A Pasture Potato / Xanax with a Tail Attention Sellers: Our pasture is currently a 24/7 reality show of "Mare Drama" and hormonal side-

Here’s the Facebook post if anyone wants to read a lot of comments about very dumb horses! It’s public so no log in is needed

[cumaeansibyl]

GREAT NEWS check out the post! they found their potato!!!

[freckledmer]

Screenshoted the update for anyone who doesn't want to deal with Facebook:

[ferrific]

And a picture of the ham sandwich:

[apatheticfluorescence]

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

[headspace-hotel]

Shakespeare is like this

[insufferablepirate]

Every time I see a Van Gogh that’s not one of his better known pieces it absolutely blows me away

Have you seen this shit my liege? smh unreal

[togglesbloggle]

So it's my first summer living and not just vacationing in Europe, and this simply must be said.

If you bring up the concept of air conditioners with anybody on the continent, they will explain to you that they don't need them. They will do this consistently, with several reasons given; they may argue that the climate doesn't get hot in summer (it does), that units are expensive (less than heating), that it causes environmental damage (less than heating, per temperature degree). This is because they have been brainwashed by an evil wizard.

It is ninety degrees right now in Freedom units, the buildings are all designed to trap heat, and all the Europeans are sitting around me miserable and sad and irritable, clearly in need of an air conditioner, but too much in the thrall of the evil wizard. Work and travel have ground to a halt, everybody is trying to go out shopping because shops are the one place not cursed by the evil wizard. But still! Still! They refuse to consider that there is a straightforward technological solution to this widespread misery.

I was patient, I was willing to work hard to understand cultures somewhat foreign to my own, to learn what motivates practices I do not share in environments I have not fully explored. I do not want to destroy what I do not understand. But no, there is no reason. They just do it. They are wrong and I am going to etch their wrongness on to the surface of the moon so the whole world knows how wrong they are.

[togglesbloggle]

2023!Toggle remains correct.

I don't think hammering on this works at all, though. It's like that thing where people are more likely to entrench their anti-vax opinions when you try to argue with them about child mortality figures: the more costly it is, and the more people die, the more it gets entangled with identity and stuck fast as a cultural practice. My guess is that the more effective way would be to establish a beachhead, and subsidize a/c units for the people most open to the idea. Let the rest follow suit as it becomes the 'done thing.'

Still, questions of strategy are a little gauche, in that they treat people as puzzles to be solved and not fellow-travelers. When you say "hey, summer is going to be killing thousands of people every year from now on, but we have a solution and here's how to fix it," and people respond "no, we'll just take the excess mortality," then... that's that, to some degree. This isn't like vaccination, where a lack of a/c is somehow dangerous to others or antisocial. There's no law or anything. They just do it.

The problem is that nobody ever actually says "we'll just take the excess mortality." That kind of thing feels like a horrible thing to say directly, and it's a weak rhetorical position, so people just talk in circles and evade the crux over and over. It's never clear how much of this is actually informed consent, versus some sort of self-deception or sincere confusion. But it's not a particularly complicated situation; I've got to figure that a large majority is embracing this outcome in full knowledge.

[madphantom]

You know, there's this cliché that teenage boys always eat massive amounts, but teenage girls really aren't that different if they're not suppressed by diet culture and body shaming. Like, I was a teenage girl who frankly just stopped bothering to fit into mainstream beauty ideals at some point, and I would regularly make myself just one big massive pot of pasta and devour it completely. This wasn't even stress eating or anything, I just genuinely needed the energy because you know, I was a teenager and my body was developing. I feel like so many teenage girls think they need to eat as little as possible to be petite and pretty, but the truth is that your body is developing just as intensely as teenage boys' bodies. Eat more, please, your body needs it.

[elisecairo]

[katherynefromphilly]

As someone who was alive when Bob Ross (and William Alexander before him — that’s where the approach is from) was on PBS, I can 100% testify that you can paint along with him.

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

Give it a try.

[gayhoediaz]

“it sounds like you’re justifying their actions-“ i am. they’re a fictional character. i’m okay with anything they do all the time. hope this helps.

[some-stars]

this shit from the comments is unironically so fucking sad to me. this is where we’re at now? “aren’t books supposed to have morals?” genuinely let’s all just pack it in and go home, we tried the whole “experiencing life and art at a greater complexity level than an eight year old can handle” thing and it didn’t work out, somebody break the news to oscar wilde, we’re done here. “books are meant to teach you something.” christ.

[napalm-waistcoat]

[bioloyg]

@astromachinations I actually need this on the post

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Being an adult will have you unironically craving a vegetable

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[sparklylovegiver]

Some good news for everyone today.

[saathiray]

I went to a conference showing off this tech back in 2013 and I am so glad to see a TikTok because it means that the technology is getting more popular and ubiquitous

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Came across this depiction of a living garden gnome from the 1700s. This one is in Germany.

Ornamental "garden hermits" were men hired to live on the estates of the wealthy. Dressed as druids and living in small structures, hermits would sometimes answer guests' questions or give advice. Alternatively, they would remain silent, serving as a perpetual play or live diorama.

Meet the Real-Life ‘Gnomes’ Paid to Sit in a Garden, Dispensing Wisdom

18th-century garden hermits

[fee-hee-hee-hee-ny]

Rich people these days have no imagination

[imjunebitch]

yk guys I think a lot of ppl when arguing against the death penalty go for a like "people don't deserve death, etc" view and I get why ppl argue for that I rly do! but it doesn't matter. I don't trust the government to do it, I don't trust them to decide who should die, I don't trust them to determine who is mentally competent, I don't trust them to not be bigoted and discriminatory in their practices, I don't trust them to have the right people, I don't trust them to execute it in a humanitarian way. and I've had discussions with ppl who otherwise have similar viewpoints to me in many ways but can think of people they think deserve to die, and I think if abolishing the death penalty is like, a super important cause to u the same way it is to me, the argument u use shouldn't be "well these people deserve to live" (although in some cases I think yeah the death penalty is done to people who totally don't "deserve it") because that's so subjective, it should be "do you trust the government to do it?" like, do you trust the people who cant even fill potholes on your road to determine who should and should not live