Search found 194 matches

by Magb
Fri Jun 09, 2017 4:30 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

From a tweet: "I mean, to me it's very obvious that this whole thread was a classic action of a guy who was born epic privileged, but clarity." Is "epic" here also a flat adverb? It struck me as odd. Yes it is. It could also have been a copy editing error where the original phrase was something lik...
by Magb
Wed Jun 07, 2017 5:12 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

I don't know of any native-spoken variety of English where "ly" adverbs seem to be on a clear path to disappearing entirely. I don't think I've ever heard "it's entire different" for "it's entirely different," for example. I can't think of the exact conditions right now, but I think there's somethi...
by Magb
Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:31 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sunburnt penguins (black, white, red...)
Replies: 16
Views: 4413

Re: Sunburnt penguins (black, white, red...)

In Norwegian you can add the inchoative -ne to black ( svartne / sortne ), white ( hvitne / kvitne ), red ( rødne / raudne ), blue ( blåne ), yellow ( gulne ) and brown ( brune ). The most notable gap seems to be green, but the rare -ke suffix can be found on the archaic grønke . I should add that s...
by Magb
Mon May 29, 2017 3:57 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do boards of directors function in multilingual settings
Replies: 26
Views: 7757

Re: How do boards of directors function in multilingual sett

I may often look at things too much from the sociolinguistic position of the French state (see below with the Toubon law), but what surprises me about this embrace of English in major Norwegian (or Danish, or even France with Renault as someone earlier said, etc.) businesses is that people would ev...
by Magb
Sun May 28, 2017 4:27 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do boards of directors function in multilingual settings
Replies: 26
Views: 7757

Re: How do boards of directors function in multilingual sett

In every company I can think of with members who spoke different languages, business was always conducted in English. So even in say, Norway, business was conducted in English? I'm not on any boards of directors, but I'd be extremely surprised to hear of people at Norwegian companies expecting fore...
by Magb
Tue May 09, 2017 10:24 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: English help needed
Replies: 44
Views: 13209

Re: English help needed

Okay, I'm not a native speaker, but I can tell you that "damn gay" definitely doesn't work -- for multiple reasons. For one, "gay" is mostly used as an adjective, and when it's used as a noun it's usually in the plural. (I think this is a somewhat general pattern with adjectives used as nouns in Eng...
by Magb
Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:14 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

(This isn't particularly "innovative", but personally I think of this thread as the general "interesting grammar" thread.) A passage in this Medium article garden pathed me hard (emphasis mine). The whole conversation will be a hot awkward mess and anyone with any body (or general) anxiety will be g...
by Magb
Sun Mar 12, 2017 7:41 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Single-phoneme "and"
Replies: 17
Views: 6526

Re: Single-phoneme "and"

å - Thayetmo I've never heard of this language, and googling it is proving difficult (some quick and dirty research indicates it's possibly a dialect of this language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C3%B6_language, is that right?). Do you happen to know how they came to use <å>, and what vowel it...
by Magb
Tue Feb 14, 2017 6:59 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Has anyone else noticed a trend of people dropping the nasal in the -ent/-ant suffix? I see it a lot online, particularly with the word "dominant", which people frequently spell "dominate" and presumably pronounce /ˈdɑmənət/. I'm guessing the spelling is by analogy with other words where -ate repres...
by Magb
Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:04 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Help your fluency in a nifty way
Replies: 4604
Views: 1116434

Re: Help your fluency in a nifty way

Hvorfor? Det er en lille tysksproget minoritet i Belgien. Jeg blev forvekslet med en tysker , fordi min udtale på fransk lød tysk, ifølge de fransksprogede belgiere . Vi behøver nogen, der kan korrigere dansk. Ups! Du snakker norsk, gør du ikke...? Why? There's a small German-speaking community in ...
by Magb
Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:21 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Another one bites the dust: Mandan
Replies: 30
Views: 7397

Re: Another one bites the dust: Mandan

I remember reading somewhere that estimates indicate that about half the languages that existed in the year 2000 will be gone by 2100. Assuming this isn't some half-remembered half-truth to begin with, do the statistics bear this out so far? How many languages go extinct per year?
by Magb
Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:19 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2
Replies: 812
Views: 203593

Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

Have some fun picking this apart. The Old Norse one at 9:31 is from an Icelandic sketch comedy show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq0aIsiZ44o. The gag is that the bearded guy is speaking Old Norse and the other guy is speaking modern Icelandic, and the second guy doesn't understand the first guy...
by Magb
Wed Jul 06, 2016 4:50 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What should be done about the word "moist"?
Replies: 69
Views: 16953

Re: What should be done about the word "moist"?

I remember reading somewhere, probably on Language Log, about a guy working as a teacher who used the m-word and was informed by his students that that word was considered derogatory and offensive to women. People really, really don't like that word. Edit: found it: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/la...
by Magb
Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:51 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Hapax Phonoumena
Replies: 36
Views: 10522

Re: Hapax Phonoumena

Norwegian /ʉi/ only appears in the word hui , which only appears in the expression i hui og hast . I was about to point out this same word, although I would add that there's also the derived verb huie . Huie can also be pronounced [hʊɪə] (in that case typically spelled hoie , but I think it's reall...
by Magb
Fri May 20, 2016 3:55 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: noun adjective order cross-linguistically
Replies: 18
Views: 5167

Re: noun adjective order cross-linguistically

On the other hand, I don't think Japanese allows an inverted noun-adjective order at all, something like *hana akai would be illegitimate even poetically as far as I am aware. Japanese doesn't allow adjectives , as far as I'm aware. ( Akai is a descriptive verb; English doesn't allow inversion of r...
by Magb
Thu May 12, 2016 1:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Verbal nouns
Replies: 12
Views: 3751

Re: Verbal nouns

The distinction you're describing might be a Norwegian innovation, actually. Interesting stuff, thanks. I'd noticed that Swedish would sometimes have -ning where -ing would be required (semantically speaking) for the Norwegian counterpart word, but I did think Swedish had the same formal distinctio...
by Magb
Thu May 12, 2016 1:59 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Verbal nouns
Replies: 12
Views: 3751

Re: Verbal nouns

In North Germanic some verbal nouns are formed with the suffix -ning(ur) instead of the normal -ing(ur) to indicate the outcome instead of the process. I believe this is a North Germanic innovation that originated with verbs whose stems already end in -n. Examples in Norwegian: bygging - the act of ...
by Magb
Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:47 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Another term I've only seen Indians use is "updation" instead of the noun "update." Apparently, some Indians think "update" can only be a verb, so they've back-formed "updation" from that. I had an Indian coworker who used that. In addition to being a backformation I assumed it was formed by analog...
by Magb
Thu Mar 24, 2016 3:54 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

The first one is weird as far as I can tell (perhaps if I head it on a TV in the given context I wouldn't bat an eye). The second one sounds fine. The "just" can go either place. You don't feel that the second one could be read as "It's impossible to wait around for the ball"? I agree the first one...
by Magb
Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:25 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 2452
Views: 413577

Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Another adverb ordering thing: I watch the NBA a lot, and I've noticed commentators and other people in the NBA world use the word just in a way that was previously unfamiliar to me. In a game that was on yesterday I heard color commentator Doug Collins say "He's just not a shooter" in the sense of ...
by Magb
Sat Mar 19, 2016 2:12 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Origin of retroflex consonants
Replies: 22
Views: 6850

Re: Origin of retroflex consonants

If we're counting the Scandinavian retroflexes, Elfdalian apparently has initial /ɽ/. I don't know how it developed or how it's distributed though. From Yair Sapir: Elfdalian, the Vernacular of Övdaln - an article with an outline of Elfdalian (history, background, linguistic features, present : Old ...
by Magb
Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:32 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Origin of retroflex consonants
Replies: 22
Views: 6850

Re: Origin of retroflex consonants

Interesting. I hadn't heard of speakers realizing them as apical anterior coronals. Do they still contrast with the primary (laminal?) coronal series in that case? Yeah, they still contrast with the laminal alveolars. The difference is fairly subtle, but one helpful cue is that the preceding vowel ...
by Magb
Wed Feb 17, 2016 1:56 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Help your fluency in a nifty way
Replies: 4604
Views: 1116434

Re: Help your fluency in a nifty way

Ég er þér sammála, en held að hellenophone sér einnig skaplegt vegna þess að það er æðilegt orð.
I agree, but I think hellenophone is also acceptable because it's a cool word.

Edit: And it obviously makes sense to allow it on etymological grounds.
by Magb
Wed Feb 17, 2016 1:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Origin of retroflex consonants
Replies: 22
Views: 6850

Re: Origin of retroflex consonants

Qualifications: I'm restricting this to phonemically retroflex consonants, not to consonants with retroflex allophones, e.g. most coronals in Norwegian. (Although the environment that conditions these does fall into the "interactions with rhotics" pattern.) For the record, it's problematic to label...
by Magb
Mon Feb 08, 2016 5:26 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Use space swell
Replies: 17
Views: 4476

Re: Use space swell

There's always the classic Experts Exchange -> Expert Sex Change.