The Official ZBB Quote Thread

[Click]

Canada's banknotes (particularly the face side): WHAT? You have the queen's head superimposed over the crotch of a pair of transparant trousers squeezing a phallic building between their legs?

EDIT: First post on the 100ᵗʰ page!

[Hallow XIII]

* dewrad (dewrad@14055b2e.40.186.123.threembb.14056081.uk.hmsk) has joined #isharia
* ChanServ sets mode: +o dewrad
<Cev> hi dewrad!
<Cev> how are things in the Islamic Republic of Dewrad?

[WeepingElf]

These critters strongly remind me of Modrons.

I was about to suggest that a modron had had sex with a d20.

[Nesescosac]

I was gonna dis-cover Fire today, but then I got high
We were gonna roast sloth meat all night long, but then I got high
Now we're eatin' palm leaves, and I know why (yeah-heahhhh)
Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high-ighhhhhh

[Nesescosac]

Sorry for the double-post but:

I don't know what we'd do if it were not for Hiw.

Were't not for Hiw, what would we do?
We'd bash the phonemes with a shoe
So we could make our phonemes do
The sound changes we'd want them to
Through sequences impossibru;
We'd end up with phonetic stew
And tear all of our hair out too
But now we have an out, for—phew!—
Nortaneous has heard of Hiw.

this is the best thing.

[Jipí]

<pharazon> omg there's a tiny spider on my arm it's so cute
<pthagnar> kill it
<pthagnar> (your arm)
<pharazon> no!!
<pharazon> no
<pthagnar> so the spider can eat it
<pharazon> it's too small and my arm is too big
<pharazon> gluttony is a sin

A certain penchant for absurdity is probably the best part of #isharia.

[Bristel]

After watching all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1, this made me gigglesnort more than necessary.:

Indeed.

[Click]

Gregory Anderson is the Janko of auxiliary verbs.

oh god I can just imagine it

• Topic: AUXILIARY VERBS IN YOUR LANGUAGE
  
  Hi,
  
  My name is Gregory Anderson. I'm collecting auxiliary verbs in different languages.
  Please you tell me if you'll have auxiliary verbs from Pirahã.
  Could you please send me examples of auxiliary verbs (as in English: can, should, would,... )?
  
  Thank you for to send auxiliary verb examples from your language.
  I still collect auxiliary verbs. Today I have auxiliary verbs in 7,682 ways.
  If you have the auxiliary verbs of your languages. Please if you send it to this email in future.
  
  Thank you for your help!
  
  I wish you a lot of success at your work!
  
  GREGORY ANDERSON

[Izambri]

I bet there's also a "I'm collecting collateral adjectives in different languages" guy somewhere...


...and so on.

[Jipí]

I'd expect a "Gregory Anderson" to at least write in idiomatic English, though.

[Kereb]

not necessarily


From: GREGORY ANDERSON [mailto:drgander8347387@zdnetmail.com]
Subject: PROPOSAL PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Hello and God bless you sir,
I am GREGORY ANDERSON, an accountant with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, and I am HUMBLY REQUESTING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE in the matter of moving Twenty-Six Million American Dollars ($26,000,000) out of Lagos ...

[hwhatting]

What's un-idiomatic in that Nigerian hoax letter? Stilted, yes, but un-idiomatic?

[Ser]

(N.B.: H13 = Inversion)

<Slereah_> Well maybe [Rick Perry, governor of Texas,] will just shoot [his wife for supporting abortion]
<Slereah_> With his colt
<H13 > have you ever shot somebody with a small horse, slereah?
<H13> it is more difficult than one might expect
<Slereah_> I only wish that a small horse would shoot in me!
<H13 > why do I even bother

[Shm Jay]

@hwhatting

Subject: PROPOSAL PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

<< Adjectives seldom, if ever, go after the noun in English.

and I am HUMBLY REQUESTING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE .

[hwhatting]

@hwhatting

Subject: PROPOSAL PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

<< Adjectives seldom, if ever, go after the noun in English.

I'd file this under "forgotten hyphen", but of course there's also stuff like "murder most foul" etc., that's why my assessment was "stilted, but not unidiomatc".

and I am HUMBLY REQUESTING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE .

Hmmm... I'd like to hear other native speaker judgements on this. I've seen "am / is humbly requesting" so often that it didn't strike me as odd, but maybe it's only a feature in "International" English?

EDIT: Googled a bit - a lot of "am humbly requesting" from what seem to be Indian and Caribbean speakers of English, but also by some lily-white (to judge by the photos) Americans and Canadians. So, the question seems to be, (un)idiomatic in which dialects?

[Drydic]

and I am HUMBLY REQUESTING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE .

Hmmm... I'd like to hear other native speaker judgements on this. I've seen "am / is humbly requesting" so often that it didn't strike me as odd, but maybe it's only a feature in "International" English?

EDIT: Googled a bit - a lot of "am humbly requesting" from what seem to be Indian and Caribbean speakers of English, but also by some lily-white (to judge by the photos) Americans and Canadians. So, the question seems to be, (un)idiomatic in which dialects?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with varying those in Standard English. That falls under personal variation, not regional usage, imo.

[Shm Jay]

I'd file this under "forgotten hyphen", but of course there's also stuff like "murder most foul" etc., that's why my assessment was "stilted, but not unidiomatc".

But "murder most foul" is a fixed phrase. You can take the "most foul" part and say "cooking most foul", "conlanging most foul", but in that case you are understood to making a joke, or at least an allusion, based on "murder most foul". You definitely cannot generalize from the phrase and say "cooking most delicious", "conlanging most grammatical".

[Drydic]

I'd file this under "forgotten hyphen", but of course there's also stuff like "murder most foul" etc., that's why my assessment was "stilted, but not unidiomatc".

But "murder most foul" is a fixed phrase. You can take the "most foul" part and say "cooking most foul", "conlanging most foul", but in that case you are understood to making a joke, or at least an allusion, based on "murder most foul". You definitely cannot generalize from the phrase and say "cooking most delicious", "conlanging most grammatical".

Yes you can...

[Radius Solis]

Yes you can...

Your post unfortunate seems to suggest that we can postpose adjectives just any old anywhere as though it were speech normal. Hopefully I have shown this to be a misconception serious.

[Salmoneus]

For me, "post unfortunate" and "speech normal" could be legalised by adding a modifiery ("post most unfortunate", "speech entirely normal"), and "misconception serious" is perfectly fine there. Not the most common option, sure, but not abnormal at all.

[Torco]

T'is a syntax most grand and apic-sounding, as many brit-specfic features of english, lost to the yanks, tend to sound. A common poetic form, too... I wonder if it has anything to do with english, feeling like a barbarian quite inadequate, decided to ape the syntax purer and more latinate of the proper roman(ce) languages.

[Drydic]

Yes you can...

Your post unfortunate seems to suggest that we can postpose adjectives just any old anywhere as though it were speech normal. Hopefully I have shown this to be a misconception serious.

True, true. Fortunately Salmoneus has ridden to my rescue.

[hwhatting]

I'd file this under "forgotten hyphen", but of course there's also stuff like "murder most foul" etc., that's why my assessment was "stilted, but not unidiomatc".

But "murder most foul" is a fixed phrase. You can take the "most foul" part and say "cooking most foul", "conlanging most foul", but in that case you are understood to making a joke, or at least an allusion, based on "murder most foul". You definitely cannot generalize from the phrase and say "cooking most delicious", "conlanging most grammatical".

Notwithstanding the subsequent discussion, I agree with you that "private and confidential" is different from the "most XY" phrase. Therefore, the more likely explanation is a hyphen dropped by accident, aka "typo" - or would you say the "Proposal - private and confidential" is also unidiomatic?

[Salmoneus]

Incidentally, I felt the need to do a little googling. I picked the noun 'life', and found:
- "A Life Less Ordinary" (a major film of the 1990s)
- "A Life More Complete" (a contemporary novel"
- "Life More Interesting" (an urban development project in Australia)
- "A Life More Exciting" (the personal blog of an American woman in her 20s)
- "A Life Entirely Lolita" (a livejournal post - I'm not going to enquire further)
- "It's a moral for one - a life entirely selfish ending up with only an unwilling family to care" (remark in a letter by Benjamin Britten, 1944)
- "The real issue here is not where I get my power, but that a life entirely disburdened is a life entirely disengaged, and a life entirely disengaged is a life out of balance" - a line in the introduction of a 2009 book about the relationship between mankind and technology
- "A life unexamined" (some sort of australian feminist collective, taking its name presumably from "a life unexamined is a life not worth living", a common variant of the usual "an unexamined life is not worth living" socrates quote)

etc.

Of course, it's a bit difficult to find them, because they get mixed up in the endless "a life more X than", "a life free from Y", and so forth, since putting the adjective after the noun is the norm whenever you introduce another noun phrase into it.

[Torco]

This thread is uncanny.

Those poor people down in the valley, how do they preserve their food.

They preserve it only well enough so that when it goes off, you can't quite describe what's wrong with it.