Happy Things Thread

[hwhatting]

I've just accepted a job offer as an English teacher in Nishinomiya, Japan!

Congratulations! When do you start?

[Risla]

Whenever I can get my working visa sorted out, which could take a while!

[Viktor77]

I'm happy because my genealogy research has been successful lately. Ancestors of mine, usually great or great great grandparents who came to this country from Germany have in the past led to dead ends, but using ship manifests I've been able to track down where they lived. So far I have great great grandparents from Eschweiler, Germany and great great grandparents from Czerniejewo back when it was Schwarzenau in Prussia. They left during Bismarck's germanification of Posen voivodeship, I don't know why. They were farmers, of course. I've traced back my grandmother's family quite a bit which is rather unfortunate as she passed this June. Given her grandparents were Prussian I would've liked to know if she heard any German growing up. I also am still trying to figure out the linguistic situation. Would my Prussian ancestors in rural Posen speak Polish, too, be of Polish blood as well? They had Prussian-German names but the territory seems to never have been historically very German unlike East Pomerania, Lower Silesia, East Prussia.

I hope to visit these places and see where my ancestors once spent their lives. I'm also toying with the idea of giving myself the gift of the European archives on ancestry.com to keep tracing more ancestors. It takes hours and hours of investigation and you have to be extremely careful not to accidentally trace back the wrong ancestor who just happens to have the same name and same wife's name.

[jal]

I don't envy you. Tracing ancestors is so much easier when you are pretty sure they're from around the same country and often region, which is the case here. Although it can still be a pain; the man to create the genaeology of my paternal lineage has gone through obscure 17th century church records and the like.


JAL

[Rui]

I've tried to do genealogy online before, but it usually leads to dead ends around the turn of 1900, considering none of my direct family members were in the US at that time and I don't want to pay to use the international search features on ancestry.com (not that I expect much from the Philippines, tbh, I might get somewhere with the European side of my family). I've gotten as far back as my great-grandparents on all sides but my mom's dad's side (which is weird, because I know quite a few family members from my grandpa's family who still live in Germany).

My dad's dad's family is a particular mystery because my dad's grandfather according to legends fucked off from his wife and traveled around the Philippines fathering kids with random women, and didn't keep many records.

[Bristel]

I've tried to do genealogy online before, but it usually leads to dead ends around the turn of 1900, considering none of my direct family members were in the US at that time and I don't want to pay to use the international search features on ancestry.com (not that I expect much from the Philippines, tbh, I might get somewhere with the European side of my family). I've gotten as far back as my great-grandparents on all sides but my mom's dad's side (which is weird, because I know quite a few family members from my grandpa's family who still live in Germany).

My dad's dad's family is a particular mystery because my dad's grandfather according to legends fucked off from his wife and traveled around the Philippines fathering kids with random women, and didn't keep many records.

I heard there's a great international genealogy center in Salt Lake City that has a lot of Asia resources.

[sirdanilot]

I don't envy you. Tracing ancestors is so much easier when you are pretty sure they're from around the same country and often region, which is the case here. Although it can still be a pain; the man to create the genaeology of my paternal lineage has gone through obscure 17th century church records and the like.


JAL

Yup the Dutch side of my family can be traced back until the 18th or 17th century easily, having been farmers in Zeeland since time immemorial, my father being the first non-farmer in the family probably.

[Viktor77]

I don't envy you. Tracing ancestors is so much easier when you are pretty sure they're from around the same country and often region, which is the case here. Although it can still be a pain; the man to create the genaeology of my paternal lineage has gone through obscure 17th century church records and the like.


JAL

My cousin did that as well to trace my grandmother's paternal heritage in England. I would like to do that in Germany if I can. One of my big problems I'm running into is when someone with a common name like Karl Becker comes to America as a single man. How will I ever know which Karl Becker on these ship manifests is my Karl Becker....

[vampireshark]

Grant application submitted. Waiting game 2.0 begins. Hopefully, the outcome this time will be positive and I will get to run far, far away in about half a year.

[jal]

How will I ever know which Karl Becker on these ship manifests is my Karl Becker....

Indeed. It may help to know the exact location he came from, and if it's a small village it might be easier to trace. But otherwise you're probably out of luck.


JAL

[linguoboy]

Got my ID renewed in time to hit the bars this weekend. Mothers, lock up your sons!

[vampireshark]

Played in an MTG tournament yesterday. Ended up in second with a 3-1 record. Have no idea how that happened, but I happy.

[Risla]

I'm finally getting the hang of using my drop spindle! I am making passable yarn!

[jal]

I'm finally getting the hang of using my drop spindle! I am making passable yarn!

That made me Google, twice :). Which shows that my grasp of the English languages lacks many domain-specific terms.


JAL

[Rui]

"yarn" is one of those technical terms that every native speakers knows. "drop spindle" is not. I have no idea what it is without googling, for example.

[sirdanilot]

I'm finally getting the hang of using my drop spindle! I am making passable yarn!

i read yam rather than yarn at first haha,so I thought a drop spindle n must be some obscure cooking utensil. But a quick Google of what a spindle is helped. I did know the word 'yand' but I misread it so

[sirdanilot]

yand should be yarn by the way

[jal]

yand should be yarn by the way

Yes it should. You know there's an edit-previous-post feature, right?


JAL

[sirdanilot]

which is annoying to use on my phone yes
also switching from Dutch to English and back its very annoying. why didn't they make these phones to accommodate code switching ?

[alynnidalar]

"yarn" is one of those technical terms that every native speakers knows. "drop spindle" is not. I have no idea what it is without googling, for example.

I understood it, but I think we can attribute that to bazillions of tours of historical sites as a kid.

[linguoboy]

"yarn" is one of those technical terms that every native speakers knows. "drop spindle" is not. I have no idea what it is without googling, for example.

I understood it, but I think we can attribute that to bazillions of tours of historical sites as a kid.

I just know a lot of batshit knitters.

It's funny to see "yarn" referred to as "a technical term". I guess technically it is, but I grew up with pictures of kitten playing with balls of yarn in my storybooks so it feels about as "technical" as "hammer" or "washcloth".

[Risla]

I would expect every competent English speaker to know what 'yarn' means. I would also think that people generally would be vaguely familiar with the word 'spindle' (eg knowing that it's a thing used to make yarn), but not really know precisely what it is, but certainly not be familiar with drop spindles.

I'm not a batshit knitter (I actually don't really know how to knit). I am, however, a batshit crocheter; a rather rarer breed of lunatic.

[linguoboy]

I would expect every competent English speaker to know what 'yarn' means. I would also think that people generally would be vaguely familiar with the word 'spindle'

Apart from the batshit knitters, I think most people I know would know it as "the thing that put Sleeping Beauty to sleep".

[sirdanilot]

I would expect every competent English speaker to know what 'yarn' means.

Let me guess, are you one of those semi-monolingual Americans or British who only know a bit of French and Spanish in passing and who cannot imagine that not everyone in the world speaks perfect English? Because you sure do sound like one.
'Yarn' is in modern days not an important term to know at all, like many utensils and materials that were so important in the past. Only a specialized subset of the population (either by profession or by hobby) will regularly use terms such as 'yarn'. To say that the knowledge of this word is fundamental to being a proficient English speaker is simply absurd. I have no idea what 'yarn' is in many languages that I do speak, and I am not even sure without googling to what Dutch words (my native language) it maps exactly. garen? draad? wol? touw? I could only guess 'garen' because it's etymologically related, but this is completely opaque to a non-linguist. And I don't need to know because nobody f*in cares about yarn.

I would also think that people generally would be vaguely familiar with the word 'spindle' (eg knowing that it's a thing used to make yarn), but not really know precisely what it is, but certainly not be familiar with drop spindles.

I had heard of 'spindle' as in that it was not a word that I had never ever seen before, but I had hardly an inkling of what it would mean. And I think most Dutch people who consider themselves proficient in English will have absolutely no idea what spindle means, as well as any L2 speaker, and there might even be a substantial amount of L1 speakers who have no idea what spindle is (if you are from the ghetto and have never interacted with 'spindles', for example).

You see either you are what I described above, or you are one of those ivory-tower overly-educated people who think everyone is extremely educated. You probably belong to a very small subset of the population and the vast majority of the population does not have the same frame of reference that you do, and this also include a very different range of words in their vocabulary. And when words in your native language will probably float around somewhere (yeah yarn has to do with clothes 'n shit) they will quickly be forgotten in non-native languages you have acquired or you might simply not acquire them in the first place.

[Hallow XIII]

well, you sound like a presumptuous asshole

also hey have you considered that non-natives considering themselves competent are largely not competent