zompist bboard

Some of the boys in my high school were very fond of the phrase "rock out with your cock out", and while I'm reminded of that, I'm not particularly certain it has anything linguistically to do with the verb here. The only cocks I know as a verb are what you do to a gun to get it ready to shoot, and ...

Here's what I've come up with so far for my language Situnyan, which is the lingua franca of my world: /m mʲ n nʲ/ m my n ny /p pʲ b bʲ t tʲ d dʲ k kʲ g gʲ/ p py b by t ty d dy k ky g gy /f fʲ v vʲ s sʲ z zʲ/ f fy v vy s sy z zy /l lʲ/ l ly /w j/ w y /i~ɪ u/ i u /e~ɛ o/ e o /ɑ/ a No polyphthongs. Sy...

For our American friends: The term "to table" apparently means exact opposite things in American and British parliamentary procedures. In the US, it seems to mean that something won't be dealt with right now, and probably not ever. In the UK, it seems to mean that something will be dealt with right...

I wouldn't be surprised if it's typical of children, but my (almost-three-year-old) son has interpreted a lot of verbs as ending in /ju:/. For example, he will say things like: "Mommy carry-you!" to mean "Mommy, carry me" "Mommy give-you book!" to mean "Mommy, give me the book" "Mommy, pick-you up!"...

Yes, we know that COBRA are the villains in Action Force (or whatever you call it over there). G.I. Joe, which is a very distinctively American name for what (I thought) was a very distinctively American toy line (and marketing TV series). I never knew it had gone over the pond, much less changed n...

But, more seriously, was this sort of complexity common in premodern states? E.g. was ancien régime France just as much a pile of ancient titles and exceptions, but we don't notice because it got reformed multiple times? Or has Britain always been an eccentric outlier? [/quote] I wouldn't be surpri...

AAVE or Southern English? I think sometimes it might be difficult to disentangle the two, based on what I understand of the history of the two dialects. But if'n I had to guess: "Over there it's a bench for lazy people." I've heard this construction before, and consider it "correct" English (even i...

Except that genders and ages aren't defined by writing style. No one's claiming that? Again, it's saying "can we analyze trait X from samples provided by groups A and B, and use that information on a sample of unknown group to relatively reliably predict which group provided that sample?" So if the...

By that logic, pretty much all of psychology and sociology is right-wing.

My assumption is that this—along with other things along these lines I've seen—is making an implicit boundary of general Anglophone culture. That is, instead of directly guessing the author's sex, it's measuring how much the author's style (etc.) match up with the ascertained trends in style (etc.) ...

Ars Lande wrote:Did the astrological sign thing work out?

I will be thoroughly shocked if it's possible to guess horoscope sign from writing style.

Very helpful, thank you! My apologies if some of these are stupid questions, but I'd rather ask a stupid question than not understand out of fear of embarrassment. It surprises me that with first-past-the-post voting for MPs, third parties are able to gain any traction at all. The game theory way I'...

GamerGeek wrote:proper English

There's no such thing :ssh:

To be fair, I considered them a troll pretty early on; that statement was just further decoration on the icing that was already on the cake.

I consider xxx to be a troll, especially now that they used a well-known snarl word.

I think I might be getting close to actually having a solar system for my conworld.

Linked instead of inline because size

Nooj wrote:What happened and is happening in Australia, the United States and Canada is not dramatic, it's apocalyptic.

From a "what this word used to mean" perspective, it's quite the opposite—the languages are being concealed not revealed.

linguoboy wrote: On the other hand, "for real(s)" is ubiquitous.

As is "for serious". Okay, maybe not ubiquitous, but still pretty common.

But the liquid in stews is thicker and opaque, whether from the addition of flour or cornstarch, the inclusion of starchy ingredients like potatoes, or both. I don't think this at all. Maybe darker, but for me the soup/stew line is based primarily on whether the dish is primarily liquid (then it's ...

If you stick bread in a stew, it soaks up the broth. But I wouldn't think of broth as being the liquid part of a stew. If that makes any sense. Ewwwww. There is nothing I hate more than soggy bread. >_< It doesn't make the bread soggy? Then again, you usually use harder breads to sop up the broth, ...

Most of humanity is united against supernatural forces, such as demons, monsters, and other things that exist outside of reality Do these forces also have access to unlimited energy? Humanity is united under one confederacy. How prevalent is terrorism, especially by those that don't like a single, ...

If you stick bread in a stew, it soaks up the broth. But I wouldn't think of broth as being the liquid part of a stew. If that makes any sense.

Sharad9 wrote:unlimited energy sources

Better hope no one goes to war. Or decides to commit terrorism. There probably will be nothing left.

Isn't one of the vignettes in Neil Gaiman's American Gods basically a modern succubus?

But this is just as common without borrowing. "The city" is whatever big city is near you. If you're in the Bay Area, it's specifically San Francisco proper (and "the bridge" is the Golden Gate Bridge, even though it's only one of many in the area). In my hometown, it's St Louis City as opposed to ...