Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: S-99 on March 10, 2010, 07:37:49 pm
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This is one of the things i hate about the new millenium. Why is "everyday" one word when it should be two? Why is "cannot" one word when it should be two. Why is "into" one word when it should be two? If "into" is a word, then why not have the opposite being "outof" (combination of "out" and "of")?
This can only lead up to the fact that eventually that the combination of "some" and "day" will become "someday", and so on with other words.
It's a no **** reasoning behind why the english language is difficult to learn for those who don't speak it natively with words like froggy, iffy, and ****y. Too many words for describing someones current feeling and or situation. In other languages, do people need a word for ****y? I'd say no, and with that, instead of saying ****y, that person would just give a more brief detailing of how they are or a situation went (or they'd just say badly).
There's a lot of illiterates with bad spelling and bad speaking abilities helping to perpetuate this. Thank you american public schooling. It gets worse of course with my feelings about the english dictionary adopting abbreviations such as "lol" and "brb". THEY AREN'T WORDS! SAYING THEM ALOUD NOT AS ABBREVIATIONS MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A RETARD!
It does get worse. Snickerdoodle is in my mom's 1960's webster's dictionary. IT'S NOT A WORD! IT'S A ****ING RECIPE! LOOK IT UP IN A RECIPE BOOK! That's ok, it gets even worse for non words ending up in the dictionary. NAACP, GOP, etc. Now you have organizations popping up in the dictionary too. Yet again, the name of an organization is not a word, it's made up of many words. So don't use a dictionary, try an encyclopedia for snickerdoodle and organizations and other crap.
The day when "fo'shizzle my nizzle" enters the dictionary will be a landmark dumbification.
I am in no way perfect my self (note on how i didn't type "myself"), but this is **** i've noticed for a while, and the breaking point is coming for me. And of course, not all of this is stuff that has resulted in last century and the current century, some of it's been around for a long time.
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OH REALMENTE?
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QUE?
I abstained from voting since there are no funny options.
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Um..."cannot" and "into" are waaaaaay older than the year 2000(/1). "Someday" already exists. And there's no good reason why "everyday" shouldn't be one word.
Seriously, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about here.
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cannot is a word.
foreign languages are cheating in scrabble.
and internet shorthand should not be said aloud.
neutral opinion on 'lulz'
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English, like all languages, evolves. It doesn't stay the same. There is a natural push towards simplification right now... as English has absorbed a whole bunch of other languages over the centuries and evolved into it's modern form. Because it is spoken in so many locations across the world... it is going to have some natural changes. Not all of them make sense and not all of those changes will survive the test of time. Some will. Some crazy English rules are as a result of absorbing bits of other languages... some of that has to be worked out. Slowly or in fits.
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I use cannot more often than can't, in conversation. I also use lots and lots of little tiny blurbs from random languages I picked up, even though I don't use those in scrabble. Depending on the company, I might actually say lol.
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Well i know some of this stuff has beenaround for centuries. My understanding of cannot is that it's two words, not one. What'sthe logic behind cannot when you have the same thing by placing a space between can and not.
What'sup with combining two words as one? In the end you end up with some words that you aren't sure is even normally a two word combination. Theway i see it, is combination words like into is actually in and to.
I picked up the scrabble cheating thing the other day. My mom plays a lot of multiplayer scrabble over the internet daily. One dude from some part of the world beat her by using a yiddish word. It made methink of how ridiculous scrabble is with the scrabble dictionary. Scrabble has elevated beyond the status of requiring a dictionary for allowed words since basically now all words are from i guessyou could say all languages sincethe scrabble dictionary keeps expanding at a retarded rate. Whyuse it any more?
It's just time to deal withthis. NAACP is a word, and cannot is just one word and not actually two in usage and understanding. :doubt:
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I've had it drilled into me that double prepositions are bad. So if "into" were really "in to," then there would be no correct way to say it. :(
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Every day and everyday are two different things used in two different situations.
You go into work every day but you are an everyday worker.
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English, like all languages, evolves. It doesn't stay the same. There is a natural push towards simplification right now... as English has absorbed a whole bunch of other languages over the centuries and evolved into it's modern form. Because it is spoken in so many locations across the world... it is going to have some natural changes. Not all of them make sense and not all of those changes will survive the test of time. Some will. Some crazy English rules are as a result of absorbing bits of other languages... some of that has to be worked out. Slowly or in fits.
What I'm actually a bit surprised about is that, after all of the foreign words absorbed from other languages, that modern English school programs still leave out the various diacritics in common words as well as appropriate gender adaptions. For example, noël, déjà vu, fiancé(e) [I can't tell you how many times I've heard a woman say "This is my fiancée"], et cetera. Not every diacritic needs to be looked over, but common diacritics seen in Romance and High Germanic languages SHOULD be covered; the majority of loan-words are from these languages.
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Compound words. Learn them.
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Wait until texting becomes standard. There are already classes in schools where students are allowed to write using it.
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Wait until texting becomes standard. There are already classes in schools where students are allowed to write using it.
A deep sense of insecurity and unrest just came over me here... By texting --- do u mean ppl who write lyk dis? Or do you mean the stupid self-correcting dictionaries where you type the letters that a word contains, and it'll pick it up from there? That makes me angry.
Anyway, the one thing that can irk me is people writing words like they sound when spoken. What = wot. You = u, stuff like that. I don't particularly mind ebonics and stuff, as long as it's slang. But when you knows that yous be crossing da line into unneccessary pluralization and knowingly bad grammars 'n ****, I's be real mad at yo nigga ass.
The only people I've seen do this are rednecks and blacks, an odd couple for sure. I should read up on this issue, because I don't know which one of them came up with this stupid, stupid way of talking first.
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ppl who write lyk dis
dat 1
Seriously I should shoot myself for doing that.
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Like a thousand needles poking your brain.
Generally, I find new ways of speaking English interesting, so naturally, I took a shine to this language: http://web.archive.org/web/20080318145227/http://www.maimiti.pn/poetry.htm
That's some poetry written in Pitkern, which is primarily a spoken-only version of 17th century English mixed with Tahitian. It is a separate language, spoken by about 47 on the Pitcairn island, and an additional 380 on Norfolk island, where another kind has developed, called Norfuk, which is apparently a standardized version of Pitkern, so basically, same language.
Here's some sample text in Pitkern/Norfuk as it's written today: "Norfuk esa laenghwij spoken i' Norfuk Ailen. Es a' miks a' oel Inglish en Tahityan laenghwij, en es riilated t' Pitkern. Mani word i' Norfuk a' f' Erabek, liik "shuga" an "koton," an mani word a' f' Inglish, liik "ailen" an "tiemsoen.""
Another English language I find interesting is Nigerian Pidgin English. It's an English Creole language with lots of Yoruba language words sprinkled in. There's a sample of it here, see if you can keep up! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nKR3gYRY8
I know suffer no be small
Upon say I get sense
Poverty no good at all, no
Na imma make I join this business
419 it no be thief, it's just a game
Everybody dey play em
if anybody fall mugu,
ha! my brother I go chop em
[chorus]
National Temples -- na me get em
National Stadium -- na me build em
President na my sister brother
You be the mugu, I be the master
Oyinbo man: I go chop your dollar!
I go take your money and disappear!
419 is just a game, you are the loser I am the winner
The refinery -- na me get em,
The contract -- na you I go give em
But you go pay me sum mo money make I bring em
you be the mugu, I be the master…
na me be the master ohhhhh!!!!
When Oyinbo play wayo,
dey go say na new style
When country man do him own,
them go dey shout: bring em, kill em, die!
That Oyinbo people greedy, I say them greedy
I don't see them tire
That's why when they fall into my trap o!
I dey show them fire
Oh what the hell, I'm on a roll. If you think that was hard, check out the Krio language, spoken in Sierra Leone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krio_language
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Let's just all start speaking Vasudan and heck with the rest of the world.
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Speak zod? Over my dead body!
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I's be real mad at yo nigga ass.
Can i's axe you's when my burfday is?
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added some much needed options :D
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Why is it that languages are so needlesly complicated?
English is spelled one way, written another and read in a third. It sucks. For comparison, in my language, what you write is what you read. If you can write it, you can speak it, and vice-versa.
But, my language has more complex grammar.
every language has SOME point of stumbling..be it grammar, spelling , writing, or something else.
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Snuffleupagus.
Being a native Finnish speaker, I am naturally receptive to compound words, so I see nothing wrong with that developement when the words phonetically sound like they belong together. Having one and two "correct" versions (can not, can't) doesn't mean a third one (cannot) would be inferior. Usage of each would depend on the style of writing you have selected. Using the long, separated forms tends to sound, I don't know, maybe more official or serious.
Examples of evolution of English language:
-disappearance of thou/thee as the singular second person pronoun.
-disappearance of ye/you as the plural second person pronoun (and, later, formal second person pronoun)
These two were eventually replaced with "you" which originally evolved to be used as the objective form of "ye", and "thee" was objective form of nominative "thou".
As the language evolved, the pronouns became simplified, although the use of "you" could be considered as a form of continuous T-V distinction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction); when it's capitalized it actually means the exact same thing as German "Sie" as a respecting way to address someone.
"We are honoured to inform You..."
Would you like to know more? (http://www.bardweb.net/content/thou.html)
Another example of simplification:
-hither -> here
-thither -> there
-whither -> where
Noticing a pattern yet?
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I'm not voting because...
1) 'It's "can" and "not", not "cannot", this is why there's "can't".' is not how I feel;
2) 'It was my birthday yesterday, everyday, and everymonth.' is wrong, because 'everymonth' is not a word, and I see no reason to observe my own birthday;
3) 'Foreign language words in scrabble is cheating.' is wrong, because 'scrabble' does not have a capital S and, hence, using foreign languages while scratching/groping for items is not a crime;
4) 'Shudup!' is not a word;
5) 'LOL is a word and should be spoken out loud.' is not how I feel;
6) 'i DO'NT Need NO gRAMMARZ OR, NO SPELLIGNS?' is garbage; and
7) 'today, i helped my uncle jack off a horse.' is ambiguous and wrong, because 'today' does not have a capital T, I do not have an uncle called Jack, I am unable to help my uncle jack off a horse, and the whole excuse of a sentence is not how I feel.
Suck it. :p
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Snuffleupagus.
Being a native Finnish speaker, I am naturally receptive to compound words, so I see nothing wrong with that developement when the words phonetically sound like they belong together. Having one and two "correct" versions (can not, can't) doesn't mean a third one (cannot) would be inferior. Usage of each would depend on the style of writing you have selected. Using the long, separated forms tends to sound, I don't know, maybe more official or serious.
Examples of evolution of English language:
-disappearance of thou/thee as the singular second person pronoun.
-disappearance of ye/you as the plural second person pronoun (and, later, formal second person pronoun)
These two were eventually replaced with "you" which originally evolved to be used as the objective form of "ye", and "thee" was objective form of nominative "thou".
As the language evolved, the pronouns became simplified, although the use of "you" could be considered as a form of continuous T-V distinction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction); when it's capitalized it actually means the exact same thing as German "Sie" as a respecting way to address someone.
"We are honoured to inform You..."
Would you like to know more? (http://www.bardweb.net/content/thou.html)
Another example of simplification:
-hither -> here
-thither -> there
-whither -> where
Noticing a pattern yet?
Yes; Germanic languages are usually spelled phonetically. Latin languages are usually pronounced phonetically. God bless anyone who insists on pronouncing a German word as it is on paper.
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Well i know some of this stuff has beenaround for centuries. My understanding of cannot is that it's two words, not one. What'sthe logic behind cannot when you have the same thing by placing a space between can and not.
What'sup with combining two words as one? In the end you end up with some words that you aren't sure is even normally a two word combination. Theway i see it, is combination words like into is actually in and to.
I picked up the scrabble cheating thing the other day. My mom plays a lot of multiplayer scrabble over the internet daily. One dude from some part of the world beat her by using a yiddish word. It made methink of how ridiculous scrabble is with the scrabble dictionary. Scrabble has elevated beyond the status of requiring a dictionary for allowed words since basically now all words are from i guessyou could say all languages sincethe scrabble dictionary keeps expanding at a retarded rate. Whyuse it any more?
It's just time to deal withthis. NAACP is a word, and cannot is just one word and not actually two in usage and understanding. :doubt:
Were these spelling mistakes intentional?
As for using foreign words in Scrabble, that all depends if that word has fallen into everyday usage in english, i.e. bidet. and words of that ilk.
P.S. I also notice you used aren't instead of are not. :P
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In stead of concentrating on afore mentioned words that have morphed in to single words due to their close assocation to each other, why do we not try and find as many of these examples as we can?
Be sides, there are words that have different meaning when separated in to their parts or glued to gether. It is merely a demonstration of con venience affecting the evolution of the language. To day, I have not been able think of any reason why this should be a bad thing.
Oh, and English language should be capitalized (re: thread title)
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Nor have I, but I'd like to remind you, Herra, that as a stickler for English and self-proclaimed Grammar Nazi, deliberately putting spaces in between established conjoined words like "instead", "aforementioned", "into", "besides", "together", "convenience" and "today" doesn't quite cut it. I can spot every mistake made, if I have that kind of energy to spend on something like that, or if I desperately want to annoy everyone. To date, I've already annoyed one Mexican. :p
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Just pointing out that there's nothing separating "cannot" from the established conjoined words besides time it has been in use.
We use conjoined words all the time, and I see no reason to protest about new conjoined words being introduced as viable spelling forms.
I am more annoyed by the lack of interest, even blatant disregard to correct spelling and grammar that many native English speaker seem to be plagued with, and I suspect it's closely related to the reading habits of the majority of people. Reading books is the best way to achieve good vocabulary and spelling skills, and best of all it happens by itself especially if you read a lot while growing up... Frankly, I don't understand why so many people seem to dislike reading books. :blah:
Besides, separating "instead" into "in" and "stead" is used all the time. Most often when something goes between them, as in "in your stead" et cetera.
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7) 'today, i helped my uncle jack off a horse.' is ambiguous and wrong, because 'today' does not have a capital T, I do not have an uncle called Jack, I am unable to help my uncle jack off a horse, and the whole excuse of a sentence is not how I feel.
'today, i helped my uncle jack off a horse.' is an example of why failing to capitalize things correctly can lead to epic fail. makes me glad i lack both an uncle named jack and a horse. since im shift key lazy.
Snuffleupagus.
Being a native Finnish speaker, I am naturally receptive to compound words, so I see nothing wrong with that developement when the words phonetically sound like they belong together. Having one and two "correct" versions (can not, can't) doesn't mean a third one (cannot) would be inferior. Usage of each would depend on the style of writing you have selected. Using the long, separated forms tends to sound, I don't know, maybe more official or serious.
kinda intresting you mention that, if you noticed the number of my posts that ive editid you can blame this ****er here:
alot
while a majority of english dialects consider compounding the words a and lot to be evil. in some dialects of american english (uncapitalized oxymoron?) it is quire acceptable. in every one of my english classes it was 100% acceptable to compound those two words. mr happy up there seems to me to be a total insult to speakers of those dialects.
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I can write alot if I want to. However, I actually do prefer writing them separately, since it's a case of indefinite article in front of a word rather than two words conjoined.
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NEWSPEAK DOUBLEPLUSGOOD RECOMMEND FULLWISE RECTIFY OLDSPEAK
(yeah yeah okay I'm terrible at it but who gives a crap)
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7) 'today, i helped my uncle jack off a horse.' is ambiguous and wrong, because 'today' does not have a capital T, I do not have an uncle called Jack, I am unable to help my uncle jack off a horse, and the whole excuse of a sentence is not how I feel.
'today, i helped my uncle jack off a horse.' is an example of why failing to capitalize things correctly can lead to epic fail. makes me glad i lack both an uncle named jack and a horse. since im shift key lazy.
Snuffleupagus.
Being a native Finnish speaker, I am naturally receptive to compound words, so I see nothing wrong with that developement when the words phonetically sound like they belong together. Having one and two "correct" versions (can not, can't) doesn't mean a third one (cannot) would be inferior. Usage of each would depend on the style of writing you have selected. Using the long, separated forms tends to sound, I don't know, maybe more official or serious.
kinda intresting you mention that, if you noticed the number of my posts that ive editid you can blame this ****er here:
alot
while a majority of english dialects consider compounding the words a and lot to be evil. in some dialects of american english (uncapitalized oxymoron?) it is quire acceptable. in every one of my english classes it was 100% acceptable to compound those two words. mr happy up there seems to me to be a total insult to speakers of those dialects.
What ever happened to the canon cannon? IIRC, here, it used to substitute a similey (like the a lot alot) one) to insult the poster. :P
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Probably because FS2 being a military type game, some people will type cannon and mean cannon and not canon, something which the site can not differentiate between.
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Yeah, seeing "beam I-can't-spell-canon" would get old really fast. :p
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I am more annoyed by the lack of interest, even blatant disregard to correct spelling and grammar that many native English speaker seem to be plagued with, and I suspect it's closely related to the reading habits of the majority of people. Reading books is the best way to achieve good vocabulary and spelling skills, and best of all it happens by itself especially if you read a lot while growing up... Frankly, I don't understand why so many people seem to dislike reading books.
Precisely. Separated or compound words are not problems if there is a much more blatant and atrocious disregard for grammar and spelling. I have always been wondering why it is "some day" instead of "someday", but then again my native is Finnish. I also don't see a reason why evolution in language would be a bad thing. Of course the immediate discredit to my argument is that Finnish is known for being a refrigerator language that preserves thousands of years old words that have already evolved to something else in original languages. ;7
Besides, Herra brings a good point: why words starting with "con-" or any similar word in English shouldn't/couldn't be separated as in Germany? And continue that line of thought why you couldn't combine words like "some" and "day" or "every" and "one", or "any" and "one". "A a planatic lens" would be quite funny to hear instead of "an aplanatic lens", the first "a" being the indefinite article and the second "a" being a negation. And come to think about "an anastigmat" - and yes, "anastigmat" is actually a proper English word. Even though the spell checker (<- why this must be separated?) obviously doesn't think so.
As this is slightly related to topic, does anyone know where I can get to know where does the meaning/context of some English words or phrases come from? Like "cool as a cucumber". How is a cucumber cool? It's a frigging vegetable! Or who was the idiot who said "as surely as there will be a sun rise tomorrow" when reality so obviously contradicts it! I have one case ready, where does the word "spline" come from? I know it is originally a draftman's (<- and yet again spell checker complains, I mean why draftsman's?) tool, but is there a reason why that tool is called "spline"?
Likely coming to London in about a month, by the way. PM me if you want to see.
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The "cool" in "cool as a cucumber" doesn't refer to being "awesome," but instead to temperature. Cucumbers tend to stay cool inside (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/010708/plus7.html), even in relatively warm weather. So if you're as cool as a cucumber, you generally stay calm, even when under pressure.
And I'm not really sure what you mean by reality contradicting the sun rising every day. :p
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Wait until texting becomes standard. There are already classes in schools where students are allowed to write using it.
I think will fall out of popular use soon. The reason for that was the constraining input of a old school cellphone where you didn't have a keyboard or a touch screen. Also the constrained size of the messages that you were allowed to send. Both the "full" keyboard and touch screen make input easier and thus some of the laziness will go away. It's hard to read...even for someone who can understand it easily.
Take away some of the constraints and make it easier to use more full messages.
Not to say that they will suddenly develop perfect grammatical form. I don't even have that.
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Compound words are a hallmark of most Germanic languages. Since Norman French started heavily influencing English in the High Middle Ages, people have been trying to make English into Latin. For example, there's no good reason why you can't start a sentence with "however" or why you can't end one with a preposition except that both aren't allowed in Latin.
Regional variation and what I like to call 'Standardization Snootiness" is a product of the printing press and late Middle English. Before it was 'decided' that the East Midland Dialect of Middle English would evolve into Standard English, alternate spellings based on pronunciations were commonplace. Hell, in Old English þu bist - you are, was just as acceptable as þu eart. Since the printing press was developed, English has been standardized. Just because something is "right" now doesn't mean it will be forever.
English is one of the most etymologically diverse languages on the planet, of course its complicated!
ghost and ghastly should be spelled gost and gastly but for a printing error of an English text in Denmark. . .
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Besides the alot smiley, there are a few others on HLP. I've seen them before.
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such as turrent and infact
in fact is another one that some us schools teach as a correct alternative, but i prefer the two word convention anyway. teaching english in the way that they teach math is stupid. given the dynamics of language it seems like a bad idea to set strict boundaries of whats correct and whats wrong. the gray area of acceptable usage should be wide enough to allow some flexibility (but not so wide that it causes absolute confusion). otherwise the use of language becomes less like an art and more like engineering.
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I agree that standards in English Education have gone down though. A local butchers has a sign in the window that states.............
"All major credit cards excepted" :rolleyes:
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I've said it before and I'll say it again:
If yu cn rd this thn you dnt nd 2 spl wrth a dmn.
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The "cool" in "cool as a cucumber" doesn't refer to being "awesome," but instead to temperature. Cucumbers tend to stay cool inside, even in relatively warm weather. So if you're as cool as a cucumber, you generally stay calm, even when under pressure.
And I'm not really sure what you mean by reality contradicting the sun rising every day.
I never thought it would mean awesome, but for example, to describe that some person remains calm. The reason the cucumber expression doesn't make sense is that the cucumber only remains above zero for about five months in a year around here... And two of those months are cold enough that you won't notice the difference.
What it comes to sun not getting up, ever been around the Arctic circle in winter time?
But really, how about that "spline"? Where does it come from? Somehow related to "spine"? Any takers?
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But really, how about that "spline"? Where does it come from? Somehow related to "spine"? Any takers?
Wikipedia suggests connection to "splinter", I would put my money on "splint" as in splint mail. Splint is a thin long strip of metal, which is essentially what the flat spline tool is as well (though it can be other material than metal as well).
However, the etymology of the word is unknown according to Merriam-Webster and a few other dictionaries.
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I never thought it would mean awesome, but for example, to describe that some person remains calm. The reason the cucumber expression doesn't make sense is that the cucumber only remains above zero for about five months in a year around here... And two of those months are cold enough that you won't notice the difference.
What it comes to sun not getting up, ever been around the Arctic circle in winter time?
Keep in mind that these expressions were coined by cultures in more temperate, lower-latitude climates, where they'd actually make sense. They may not apply to those who come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. :p
Hammer of the gooooooods...
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"can not" is quite legitimate and it's correct grammatical spelling is actually "cannot." The space is omitted because there are two soft vowel signs adjacent to each other separated only by the same consonant. It's analogous to how "a les" in French becomes "aux." Written language is derived from spoken, and separating "can" and "not" in English speech is linguistically difficult.
There are a lot of things that make me despair for the future of the English language (the number of dunces who use "then" in place of "than," for example, is astounding) but 'cannot' isn't one of them.
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Truly, English has bigger problems than the addition and change of words or the subtle change of grammer. This is hardly new, nor is it a bad thing.
I've seen "then" in place of "than," but that seems much less widespread than complete and utter abuse of the trifecta of "there," "their," and "they're."
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I guess "spline" will remain as a mystery then. But I think that the draftman's spline was not made of metal strip. See for reference http://math.emich.edu/~aross15/coursepack3419/draftspline_files/draftspline.jpg (http://math.emich.edu/~aross15/coursepack3419/draftspline_files/draftspline.jpg) There is few pictures of that tool in the Google's image search, though it has been used in the airplane construction and ship building long before computers were available.
There are a couple of others: where are the roots for the word "program"?
What is the idea behind the phrase "Easy come, easy go"? I do know the meaning of the phrase but still it is hard to understand what is going on in the native English speaker's mind when he says that.
Where does the word "midge" come from? I think "midge" cannot be related to "midget", or is it?
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"Incase anyone was wondering..." - Certain mistakes should have violent, physical consequences! :mad2:
Also, I tend to get annoyed when I see native English speakers make mistakes that I made when I was learning the language when I was about 13-years-old. One thing that really bugs me is the "there", and "their" thing - Same amount of letters. That implies some pretty profound intellectual laziness as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, I have a test for you guys, stop the errors in this sentence: "Who you going to the store with?"
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Random guess, but shouldn't that sentence read:"With whom are you going to the store?"
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Oh, I have a test for you guys, stop the errors in this sentence: "Who you going to the store with?"
Depends on whether you consider ending a sentence with a preposition to be an error, but it definitely misses the auxiliary verb "to be".
"Who are you going to the store with?"
"With whom are you going to the store?"
In spoken language, the "are" can be omitted or included as an almost silent "who're". Personally I don't consider finishing a sentence with preposition to be a mistake, especially if it's spoken language or dialogue.
Of course, an example of the superiority of Finnish language is that you can say the same with four words:
"Kenen kanssa menet kauppaan?"
All behold the elven tongue. :p
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If you think English is hard, try Dutch. It's my native language, but I'm actually having less problems writing in English. We have a ton of non-coherent rules. For example, with word compositions, you have to do them either connected to each other, with a space in between, or with a dash. And if you connect them, you have to put an n, an s or just nothing in between. All this is governed by rather dumb rules. So far so good, people can remember all that, if they try.
But, we also have a club of old mad people who change all the ****ing rules every ~5 years! By the time people get to know the rules, they change again!
I used to be fairly good at spelling, even ended up pretty high in a contest once, but I gave up at the latest rule change. Now I just write whatever I think is fitting. The good thing is, the one who reads what you've written probably doesn't know the rules either.
[/rant]
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There are a couple of others: where are the roots for the word "program"?
"1625–35; < LL programma < Gk prógramma public notice in writing."
What is the idea behind the phrase "Easy come, easy go"? I do know the meaning of the phrase but still it is hard to understand what is going on in the native English speaker's mind when he says that.
Your average English speaker would probably be thinking something along the lines of, "Well, if I came by this easily, i.e. for free, and then lost it, I haven't really lost much of anything in the long run." Easily come by, easily gone.
Where does the word "midge" come from? I think "midge" cannot be related to "midget", or is it?
"bef. 900; ME mygge, OE mycg(e); c. G Mücke, ON mȳ; akin to Gk myîa, L musca fly "
Dictionary.com is fun! :p
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Were these spelling mistakes intentional?
As for using foreign words in Scrabble, that all depends if that word has fallen into everyday usage in english, i.e. bidet. and words of that ilk.
P.S. I also notice you used aren't instead of are not. :P
Yes the mistakes were intentional. My point was that my fear of the future of english will include remarkably stupid compound words that don't exist like "everymonth". I still feel that using foreign words in scrabble is cheating. Just purely from the absolutionist frame of mind i look at it with. It doesn't matter if a foreign language word has gotten into everyday usage among english speakers, because that foreign language word is still a foreign language word.
So i used aren't. Don't, isn't, can't, didn't. The shortening of the word not is actually handy. I don't really consider this zombifying the subject or me waiting until i could have the last word. Just me finally able to reply to another topic after fixing the local landfill's electronic scale computer (2 weeks of fixing a problem that was a pain my ass, but getting my work sub contracted got me $1200).
For the mean time, it's currently popular to not read your books, eat your wheaties, have horrible grammar and spelling, and to speak like a two year old with a speech impediment (gangsta talk). Stuff i am't (yes that means am not) happy about. Engrish is too flexerble.
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Read some primers in language change and revise your arguments.
My point was that my fear of the future of english will include remarkably stupid compound words that don't exist like "everymonth"
If that becomes the standard spelling, it won't be considered "remarkably stupid" when it'll be used like that. Words change. Get over it. Read some older (100-150-year-old) pieces of writing, and look for compounds that "don't exist", or words that you know as compounds but exist in a separated or a hyphenated form.
It was clarified already that "everyday" exists as an adjective: "an everyday activity"; but: "I go swimming every day/once in every week/every weekend". "Everymonth" will not become a word because we have "monthly" to denote the same idea.
It doesn't matter if a foreign language word has gotten into everyday usage among english speakers, because that foreign language word is still a foreign language word.
So consider isn't a valid Scrabble word because it comes from Latin? What about taxi, or chauffeur, or pizza, or lance? Or units of measurement such as meter/metre; liter/litre? Who decides which ones are "pure" English words and which ones aren't? You? And what about forum? It's not an English word, either.
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Quote from S-99
For the mean time, it's currently popular to not read your books, eat your wheaties, have horrible grammar and spelling, and to speak like a two year old with a speech impediment (gangsta talk). Stuff i am't (yes that means am not) happy about. Engrish is too flexerble.
And of course, the most brilliant way of countering this is then to spell things intentionally wrong in public media.
Hearing "LOL" being said repeatedly by a Finnish teenager as a reply to a joke his buddy made sounded really atrocious for me. How much can you copy from other cultures or from the internet and think it is still cool? Hopefully it sounds the same for them and this wave of stupidity passes by, like many others before it. Luckily English is so far from Finnish that English acronyms sound outright stupid when being said here.
Surprisingly, I find it that it is most difficult to talk English in UK, as in there I really need to think about what preposition I'm supposed to use with each word.
Shooting down posts with bad grammar sounds like the way to go, should the problem become serious. I have seen a lot worse in C Programming forums where on some occasions it is impossible to even guess what the original poster even wanted to ask.
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Hearing "LOL" being said repeatedly by a Finnish teenager as a reply to a joke his buddy made sounded really atrocious for me.
It happens in Hungary, too. I don't find it atrocious myself. It's slang, that's prone to change very rapidly. What I find interesting, however, is that mostly it's not followed or preceded by laughter, which means that it's used more like a fashion word than a word of expressing fun.
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If that becomes the standard spelling, it won't be considered "remarkably stupid" when it'll be used like that. Words change. Get over it.
But, if people in the past were able to see the future. Then they'd probably consider the use of everymonth to be retarded.
It was clarified already that "everyday" exists as an adjective: "an everyday activity"; but: "I go swimming every day/once in every week/every weekend". "Everymonth" will not become a word because we have "monthly" to denote the same idea.
Of course everyday is a word. I never said it wasn't. Just using it as a comparison to a word that doesn't exist in a so called step up from the word, the next best thing to everyday would be everymonth, but how about we follow up everday with everyhour? Here's another one, "todayly" (it's an adverb now).
So consider isn't a valid Scrabble word because it comes from Latin? What about taxi, or chauffeur, or pizza, or lance? Or units of measurement such as meter/metre; liter/litre? Who decides which ones are "pure" English words and which ones aren't? You? And what about forum? It's not an English word, either.
The words that already exist as part of the english language backbone is one thing. Another is new foreign words that don't really need a place that not everyone knows. My absolutionism for scrabble really just tends to wish a fire death to the foreign language words that currently don't exist as part of english that get used in the game all the time.
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So, summing your whole post into a single statement: "Change is bad."
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Yep. Language evolution cannot and should not be legislated; trying to impose some rules on which words can and which words can't be used by administrative fiat just doesn't work.
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The words that already exist as part of the english language backbone is one thing. Another is new foreign words that don't really need a place that not everyone knows. My absolutionism for scrabble really just tends to wish a fire death to the foreign language words that currently don't exist as part of english that get used in the game all the time.
Let me recite my question:
Who decides which words belong to which category? With time, bidet will also be as much of a valid word as any unit of measurement or a food of foreign origin (pizza, spaghetti).