zompist bboard

ps. I think linguistics is an excellent pursuit, and never intended to discourage anyone from engaging in it - only to reassure those who are crap at it that they can still achieve plenty of stuff with modest knowledge. Not new, but still true. I have a (mild) west country accent, and I'm really not...

Well, I haven't had this much fun trading bullshit since that incident with the capitalists, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have some terribly high brow linguistics to do tomorrow. I'm sorry if I've given a bad impression of myself and wasted your time with my nonsense. I have genuinely taken notes...

I didn't. Minus the misogynist bullshit, it's right there on p. 65 - it's even neatly summed up in the box-out with the Jimmy Carr quote: "If you haven't got anything nice to say, fuck off." Listen up, cunts.

[gingerly steps into potential minefield] It's none of your business, really - but I'll elaborate on the 3 magic phrases: 1 - "I'm sorry" 2 - "You're right" 3 - "I love you" When confronted with a completely irrational girlfriend/wife who's pissed off (an occurrence which is, of course, very rare an...

Well, it depends what you mean by 'meaningful'.

Yng wrote:He apparently thinks it's hilarious but then what can you expect from the kind of guy who conducts a meaningful relationship using only platitudes and apologies

Who said anything about meaningful?

In a nutshell, it's this: "With a vocabulary so small that a child could learn it in a week using a flashcard program, and a morsel of grammar learned the same way, you can learn enough of a language (including one that you've made up yourself) to start speaking it with a freedom that will propel y...

Don't be racist! 'Cunt' is only considered obscene because of the bastard Normans and their poncey French words for everything.

Nortaneous wrote:philosophy is terrible

In general, or are you just being a cunt?

Hey, I earn my travel cash, and partly from manual labour - not a penny of mummy and daddy's gap year fund involved, ever.

Bourgeois? Well, I never let my irrational class hatreds get in the way of reason. Some say philosophy is inherently bourgeois.

oh yeah, the French thing. No, I do know where the circumflex etc go, but I'm just lazy - AltGr is easier, and better than nothing. Or maybe not.

No, it's 'shit!'

Why 'huzzah'? The part about economics should make it clear that I have an irrational hatred of posh people.

Kereb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... MiN1c&NR=1
Am I getting the hang of this yet?

Although I arrived with the assumption that a conlang forum would be filled with conlangers, I realised early on that this place is more about linguistics (recreational linguistics, even?) than conlangs. This was evident from the fact that I posted my conlang, and it was ignored (although the pdf w...

Torco speaks words of wisdom. Ash, you're kind of starting off on the wrong foot, I advise you to listen to the man. I'm listening, both appreciatively (thank you, Torca) and critically (why list 'off topic' as grounds for reporting if it's a passtime? ...and so on) I think there's a bit of a disco...

Torco, I appreciate your effort there, and I'm glad of your insight into 'Zeeb' norms. As has been discussed, knowledge of register is very important. If I may put another case, from the POV of a 'noob', here's a sample of quotes taken from throughout this thread: Pthug: “a tiny soul” Pthug: “is you...

I'm not here for off-topic and/or patronising comments (such as 'leaving you in ignorance to commit your folly'). I hope you don't talk like that to people's faces, Sheldon. ;) I'm here to engage in constructive discussion. I congratulate whoever added the 'foe' function. It's a shame that it can't ...

Yes. That is all you did. It is not a big deal. This is a trend. You will have noticed guide books? That they have in the back a wordlist? Of potentially useful words? The word lists in guide books are different. They follow a formula that is designed to help package tourists get through hotels and...

Well, politics involves lots of words like gobierno and presidente that are pretty easy for an English speaker Indeed. I wonder what percentage of adults on the planet would not understand 'presidente'. discussing politics in Arabic might be considerably more difficult. ...and probably best avoided...

soo.. you should go to learn the lang, and not to do anything else which might put pressure on you to understand anything? Do you really think that's what I think? Am I really likely to think that this is what you think? Are either of us the kind of people likely to think that understanding what ot...

How did you deal with the frustration of understanding like one in every ten words people said to you, and, I imagine, like one in every 20 words people said to each other in normal speech? were you filling in the blanks, using other channels? Interesting point. I found that most people would speak...

I don't like it when someone who challenges the notions of a discipline, however wrong he may be, is asked "how much training do you have in the discipline you're challenging". It reeks of elitism. I'm glad you said it. I'm trying not to start any new fights. :) I could have a relationship with som...

Japanese is on my list, but near the bottom. I'm sure the role of dignity in Japan will make that exercise extra challenging, and also offer some unique opportunities for fun. Probably more fun than in Arabic - my Jordanian friend advises me that making a mistake of register when asking for a 'ride'...

Maybe you should look into second language acquisition more formally. You might find it interesting. As Pthug says, nothing you've done is earth-shattering; but I bet you had a lot of fun doing it. In terms of the best way to acquire a second language, nothing really beats being in a country where ...

To what extent did you learn any linguistics that wasn't applied, but rather general - that is, linguistics as it can be applied to any language rather than linguistics as it applies to the specific languages you were taught about? It's impossible to discuss what the inflection may have been on the...