zompist bboard

Looks great. I'd love to hear it spoken. I have taught quite a few Vietnamese students over the years and I think their language sounds both strange and cute. I'd be interested to hear if yours has a similar feel to it. dak [ɗak] 'black' > dak dai [ɗak ɗəj] 'night' (example of semantic drift) Dark '...

You can basically treat any verb as being transitive; if there is no obvious agent, you can assume that the person causing the event is the agent. And then you can leave out any argument. That is, that's one way of seeing it. You could also say that it's plain old ergative alignment, but the object...

Boşkoventi wrote:"to destroy, eliminate"

Niwari:
nolamam "to annihilate", "reduce to nothing" (nolam "nothing" + -am causative).
param "to take apart, dismantle, take to pieces" (pat "apart", "in pieces" + -am causative)


Next: buckle

And I've always done this, but now I've heard others say it too, but the past tense of "sleepwalk" feels to me better as "slepwalked". Me too. What I love about this, though, is that you didn't put the -t- in. I think maybe my brain has decided the -t is at the end of "walked", so it's just the vow...

roninbodhisattva wrote:Next word: ritual sacrifice

Niwari:

gimiu: a sacrifice, literally a 'gift for Uw', the deity of death and destruction
gimiuwam: to sacrifice something.

Next word: palanquin, litter, sedan

My brother: "My speech was shorter than I expected, so I just wang it." I use that one too. I've wung it quite a bit lately. Fake strong verbs in English is an endless source of amusement to me. I thought of a good one today: imbibe - imbobe - imbibben. I suspect I'm not the only one who occasional...

Next: an intelligent or well-educated but socially awkward person Niwari: wa meskonam miru ma meos INDEF.SG shrew among PLURAL mouse "a shrew amongst the mice." Meos are a small species of rodent that occasionally appears in plague proportions. They are social and famously stupid animals to the Niw...

According to Guy Deutscher, "there is no known language where spatial terms are not also used to describe temporal relations." I briefly discussed this in another threat which has now been pruned but I wanted to have a more thorough discussion of spatial and temporal metaphors now and see how you gu...

MOAR FOTOES!!!

Curse my apathy. I used to exercise when I was unemployed. I got pretty fit. When I started my job, I didn't have time or energy anymore. My mum saw me and said "You've lost weight darling." Then she looked down lower and went "Oh, no you haven't. There it is!"

Not having the merger is restricted to very conservative RP, Scotland, Ireland, and isolated parts of America (and probably other parts of England too but I'm not sure). St Louis, for instance, is noted for not having the merger. It's just, I think Tom isn't really talking about the north-force mer...

Age: 27 Gender: Male Nationality: Australian Occupation: ESL teacher Status: In a relationship Native Language: English Secondary Languages: Varying degrees: German (near-native, with disappearing vocabulary), Auslan, Swedish, Esperanto, French, Turkish, Spanish, Tok Pisin, Finnish (a few misrememb...

I can get them just a little bit past 270° but not much. The shoes aren't masking it, but I need the shoes to grip the carpet properly. And I can walk like this a little bit, although with my feet not so far back. Simmalti, you are cute. Deal with it. :P Nice legs btw. Me as an army ant: http://a4.s...

Guys, stop arguing and post a picture!

Perhaps so many people here are gay because they were tired of being rejected or expected to be reject by those of femine dispositions. There fore Therefore they changed in order to remain happy. WTF? Are you on crack? Why would we worry about being rejected by "those of feminine dispositions"? It'...

I think my boyfriend would leave me for you. Are you reasonably short? 6 foot 1, or 185cm. Or thereabouts. In other words, no, I am not reasonably short. Oh, you're almost as tall as me ... ideally he wants a little guy that he can just fold up and put in his pocket for later. I'm much too tall for...

Here I am in New York, looking as dignified as ever. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2078257/SDC10020.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2078257/SDC10098.JPG I think my boyfriend would leave me for you. Are you reasonably short? Here's me with my old flatmate. She tried to push me out a window one day. http://a2....

"Already" basically means something happened or happens surprisingly early. It is not restricted to the past (I've already eaten) but can be used for the present (You're here already!) or the future (It will already be dark by the time I get home). Think about another use for the indication of surpr...

1 Ol man i save mekim pasin pamuk ("fornicators, sexually immoral people") ... 1) men who make passion with whores (pamuk = whore, make passion is probably a euphemism for sex) No, pasin is from English "fashion" and means "behaviour", "manners", "custom", "way of life". "Pasin pamuk" means prostit...

How about in cases which, in English, are ambiguous? Like the following: John asked Martin to go early. Who's the subject of "to go" there: John or Martin? Can your language disambiguate between the two grammatically? This might be a dialect thing, or just a personal thing, but as far as my usage a...

Prmysl wrote:next word: to fly

Ewed:
Veli ["veli] v to fly; n flying thing/animal; adj flying; adv by air

Next: to crush underfoot

HelixWitch wrote:((fear's been done, but this is probably fine))

Ewed:
zaga [X] ["zaga] adj afraid, frightened, scared [of X]; v fear [X]
whence ziaga [zi"aga] n monster, bugbear

Next: stiff/sore from sitting in the same position for too long

Next: impact, strike, collide, hit ( tk and ʘp both serve all four in my conlang - that's the sound of slapping your fist into your palm) Ewed: bak describes a colision between two bodies of decent size (eg. two heads, fist and wall, stone and ground). Two larger objects colliding and breaking into...

Next up, dresser , or similar clothes-containing furniture. Ewed: nui guiva "wardrobe", "clothes cupboard" etc, from nui meaning "container", "holder" + guiva meaning clothes. Next: be connected, have connections, have friends in high places (ie. be powerful because of who one knows, in the kind of...