The Innovative Usage Thread

[Chargone]

I'd be confused if you said a chair was awkward too... but not if you said it looked awkward, or was awkward to use, or awkwardly placed (though the latter is more likely to be 'unhelpfully' or 'inconveniently' placed). I'd understand what you meant (i think) if you said a Person was awkward, but it would still seem a slightly unusual way of putting it.

[Shrdlu]

Fior Physical objects, I would have used "Strange" instead of Akward.

[Jetboy]

I don't have that; awkward refers to physical position with no problem, though it's rather rarer.

I heard someone use "heron" as the plural or "heron" the other day (that is, like "fish" and "fish", not a typo), in the context of "I saw three heron on the water today". There is a possibility I just misheard, since she only said three or so times at most in the plural (maybe even only once). I would have expected "herons".

[Yng]

I heard someone use "heron" as the plural or "heron" the other day (that is, like "fish" and "fish", not a typo), in the context of "I saw three heron on the water today". There is a possibility I just misheard, since she only said three or so times at most in the plural (maybe even only once). I would have expected "herons".

Not particularly surprising; I've heard lots of people use null-plurals for animals, particularly ones they don't talk about a lot. Also that kind of plural is common in hunting jargon here at least.

[linguoboy]

"I’m not clear on what her immigration status is, but given that her asylum application was from 2004, it sounds like it was granted and she’s here with asyluee status."

Unfortunately, there are not really any other hits, so it's likely that this is just a misspelling of "asylee". But I like the idea of someone making the highly uneuphonic choice of adding -ee to a vowel stem.

[äreo]

The other day I asked if a joke was "any funny" (by analogy with "any good"). It came out before I realised how weird it sounded.

[faiuwle]

Melanie Stark worked for nearly five years as a sales assistant in the HMV music shop of Harrods. The 24-year-old says she was commended for her customer service and was described by one of her managers as among "the best." Why then does she say she was "driven out" of her job last week? Because she wouldn't makeup.

I thought there was a space missing when that teaser was posted on another site with the link, but as you can see from the article, they are actually verbing "makeup" to mean "wear makeup". I don't think I've seen that before, and it's kind of funny since "makeup" is already a nouned phrasal verb.

[Shrdlu]

It would be funny if she then had to make out with the boss who fired her to reach an settlement.

[faiuwle]

Only for you.

[Shrdlu]

Yeah, that's why I wrote it.

[faiuwle]

I don't suppose it's too much to ask that you keep your creepiness to yourself, or at the very least out of completely unrelated non-Ephemeral threads?

[Shrdlu]

Creepy and proud of it. But, dang, didn't realize i was answering to your post in the first place(having same avatars confuses me). It's too early in the morning and I thought you just popped in from out of nowhere to critize me.

[faiuwle]

Maybe if you spent an extra few seconds thinking and observing before you posted, you could manage to come off as less of a creepy moron. It's not a term of endearment, by the way.

[Drydic]

Creepy and proud of it. But, dang, didn't realize i was answering to your post in the first place(having same avatars confuses me). It's too early in the morning and I thought you just popped in from out of nowhere to critize me.

And you wonder why you are alone.

[Chargone]

because this isn't way off topic at All

[Jetboy]

I've noticed that my brother's wife tends to use a velar /l/ when emphasizing a word beginning with /l/, so "I can't belief you bought a [↘łˑɛmn̩]." She says the whole word she's emphasizing kind of, uh, I guess the best way to describe it is "creakily".

[linguoboy]

The other day I asked if a joke was "any funny" (by analogy with "any good"). It came out before I realised how weird it sounded.

I know I've used "any cute" myself, and extended the analogy to at least one other adjective besides.

[Astraios]

Just heard "secondglance at" used as a verb: "I don't think I'd secondglance at that, to be honest."

[linguoboy]

Question: Do you use "facebook" as a transitive verb and, if so, with what meaning?

[Astraios]

Question: Do you use "facebook" as a transitive verb and, if so, with what meaning?

Probably, and meaning "look at someone's page on Facebook (especially not someone who you have as a friend)". That's what it sounds like it means, anyway, like "I googled him".

[----]

I use Google as a verb all the time, but I don't think I've ever 'facebooked' somebody or something. I may have said it once or twice but it's not something that's actually a part of my vocabulary.

[Hakaku]

I'm guilty of using 'facebook' as a verb meaning 'to look someone's profile up on Facebook', but without regard to whether they're already included as a friend or not. By extension, it refers to activities associated with the social network: 'to look someone up on Facebook and friend them', 'to post something up on Facebook', 'to send a message to someone over Facebook', 'to contact someone over Facebook'.

Consider:
- a) We should hang out sometime. b) Yeah, facebook me anytime.
- New car? Just facebook it.
- Should I facebook him?
- You should facebook the event so others know.
- Could you facebook me when you get there?

[Yng]

I'm guilty of using 'facebook' as a verb meaning 'to look someone's profile up on Facebook', but without regard to whether they're already included as a friend or not. By extension, it refers to activities associated with the social network: 'to look someone up on Facebook and friend them', 'to post something up on Facebook', 'to send a message to someone over Facebook', 'to contact someone over Facebook'.

Consider:
- a) We should hang out sometime. b) Yeah, facebook me anytime.
- New car? Just facebook it.
- Should I facebook him?
- You should facebook the event so others know.
- Could you facebook me when you get there?

^^ This.

[Imralu]

I keep seeing "inbox" as a verb meaning "send someone a private message on facebook" - I suppose because it's not really email.

[Chuma]

but most swedes would probably say "singng" as "seengeeng".with a fake American accent, because everything "Amuurican" is cool and gives them status. They ofcource don't know crap about phonology(probably dosen't even know that it is an existing word) and dosen't care because it is cool to not care, and as long as the other one understands, it is okay. Yes it is horrible.

First, what part of Sweden would that be? Because around here, the trend of thinking everything American is cool has been gone for about thirty years.
Second, does pronouncing it with longer vowels really make it sound more American? My view of stereotypical American is rather that it might have the vowels shifted more towards [e] (or schwa, or something). What would be typical for a Swedish accent is not having them shifted towards [e], that is, [siŋiŋ] rather than [sɪŋɪŋ], since Swedish doesn't have (as much) reduction on the short /i/.