Or, Thou’s momma is so hot, the bitch spits ashes and sets fire to bark.
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
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I postulate that the word “fuck” will survive as long as humanity survives.
Science fiction assures us it will, somehow, transmogrify into “frell” at some point in the future.
Actually, I think cranky is right — and that entropy demands that eventually every idea be expressed using only that word.
The Smurfs are truly an ancient race.
“frell” or “frak”?
Momma thine ashes spits and to bark fire sets, so hot the bitch.
Your grammar was too modern.
Only until 2615, when the Homomdan Empire takes over.
Actually, I think cranky is right — and that entropy demands that eventually every idea be expressed using only that word.
I worked with a bosun once who exclaimed about the equipment we had just retrieved onto the deck, “Fucking fucker’s fucked”.
L’Hommedieuan Empire?
OT: This has to be the line of the day (via Glenn Reynolds):
“Bill Ayers will claim The Company You Keep is just another bomb that hurt nobody.”
As humorous lines go I’d proffer the line from one of Insty’s correspondents: “The optics on this alone should haunt her for the rest of her sad, pathetic, cravenly political life.”
The very idea that Hillary Clinton could possibly be “haunted” by something [anything!] she has done has to be one of the funnier things we’ll encounter today.
The very idea that Hillary Clinton could possibly be “haunted” by something [anything!] she has done has to be one of the funnier things we’ll encounter today.
Oh, the first glance in the mirror of a morning ought to haunt her until at least lunchtime.
When you start looking up the etymology of words, it seems there is only a handful of basic words and everything springs from those.
I may have this a little wrong or there may be some different opinions from real linguists but, the word “ball” for round thing we throw around and “ball” for dancing are related, think “ballistic”.
The origin of “ball” itself I believe refers to a “hair ball” either a wad of hair played with or something stuffed with hair. A small wad of hair is a “pill” and that is what is used for a small ball of medicine. Spanish uses “pelota” for ball.
To round it out, “pill” and “ball” sound enough alike that it is not a coincidence.
Bruin/bear refers to the color of the animal “brown”. Fun stuff.
Isn’t Noam Chomsky the one who is all about a theory of a universal language? I thought that theory had been shot full of holes.
I understand Chomsky believes in universal thought ;)
Trouble is, we are limited in the sounds we can make and we may have a basic word list but, the meaning of the words quickly diversifies and like slang you have to be part of the in crowd to understand.
However, I think really basic and survival-based words probably are the most “universal”. For example, most words for “water” sound similar.
The real question, is if 700 modern languages are used by “more than half of the world today”, what the hell are the other half speaking?
gee, I only know one modern language, I must be in the other half.
It’s a good thing for Hillary and Bill that the Erinyes don’t actually exist.
“Isn’t Noam Chomsky the one who is all about a theory of a universal language? ”
I tend to agree with him that there’s probably some sort of embedded “grammar machine” in the hardware of the brain, but I never found his “poverty of the stimulus” notion particularly convincing.
“However, I think really basic and survival-based words probably are the most “universal”. For example, most words for “water” sound similar. ”
Um….
Anglo Germanic Wasser/ Water/Wedor
Greek Hudor/hydro
Latin Aqua/agua
Japanese Mizu
Hindi p?n?
Arabic/Hebrew Ma/Mayim
Persian Aab
Nahuatl Eau
p?n? -> pani
Mandarin shui
“Scribe of Slog (McGehee) says May 7, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Actually, I think cranky is right — and that entropy demands that eventually every idea be expressed using only that word.
The Smurfs are truly an ancient race.”
The Tick agrees with you: (21 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rpin-Kp8HE
I may actually have seen that episode, though I can’t say for sure. That show was kind of like what they say about the ’60s.
I thought it was Noam, who I always think of as “Gnome”.
The universal-ish words mentioned in the article seem to be regarding one’s mother (similar in many languages) and words about shelter. The Romance languages have a surprising number of crossover words that are completely unlike the Germanic languages. English borrows words from everyone and everywhere is very difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Not that we require that of anyone, even our native born. Japanese is relatively easy to learn, but you’ll never get the nuance even if you live there as a Westerner.
Bgbear is correct about slang. It changes likes the weather and the landscape.
I tend to agree with him that there’s probably some sort of embedded “grammar machine” in the hardware of the brain
They did an experiment with baby birds, separating them from their parents while very young. Some of them they exposed to total silence, others to recordings of adults of their species, others to adults of other species.
The ones who heard nothing still sang something structurally similar to their species’ song (say that seven times fast), but it didn’t have the inflections of their geographic “tribe”. Those who heard their own species of course learned the song perfectly. I can’t remember what happened to those who heard someone else’s song.
We’re definitely hardwired to learn a semiotic system (verbal or gestural), so it stands to reason that there are “containers” for nouns, verbs, descriptors, etc. so that whatever you are exposed to clunks into place.
There is a limited window for humans to learn certain sounds. I have forgotten what the age is, but it is very young when not yet speaking, but while being exposed to one’s family’s language. It’s part of the reason we aren’t able to pronounce “l’s” if we are native speakers of Japanese and some Chinese languages and that just about no one can speak the “clicking” language of native African tribes.
No one in my family speaks French as a cradle language, but I have a good French accent and picked it up quite easily. I can understand Italian and Spanish if it isn’t spoken too quickly or sloppily, but not Portuguese which baffles me. My grandfather learned to speak English as a young man and always had a hella German accent and would speak it with his brothers when he didn’t want my grandmother to know what he was talking about. I’ve taken German lessons, but the grammar is a mess and it’s so different from the Romance languages that I stick to the easy stuff: menus, buying things, saying please and thank you, etc. I can swear in several languages, but that doesn’t come in handy very often.
I’ve taken German lessons, but the grammar is a mess
You think so? It seems remarkably structured and has far fewer irregular verbs than English.
The gender-specific “the” forms (and having gender-assigned to nouns at all), and the adjective endings were the most difficult parts as I recall.
Japanese… that’s a scary one. I don’t do well without a common alphabet.
The Emperor Frederick II is reputed to have done something similar with a baby.
I can’t remember what happened to those who heard someone else’s song.
– They all flew off and joined a commune in Oregon. That’s what happens when you substitute dog whistles for common sense.
– In other news…… drip…..drip…..drip
“drip”
what difference does it make?
You think so?
Yes. I had problems trying to remember that there cannot be two verbs together in the body of a sentence. You tack the second verb on to the end of the sentence and it can completely change it. Of course, I never got far enough with it to be conversational. I was still doing a mental translation back to English when I’d listen. I’m a whiz at vocabulary lists, though. It was just translating it all into something that didn’t come out as total gibberish.
Of course, it was 35 years ago that I took lessons, so I could be completely disremembering it.
– Getting your linguistics disremembered must be really painful.
Yer tellin’ me! ; )
What time do the hearings start, BBH? I don’t want to miss it.
– 11:30 am ET
Thanks!
– I’m still trying to figure out that “not an immediate member of the family” bullshit. Whatever they’re covering up, it must be Armageddon political career killing bad for the rats to paint themselves into such a point of no return corner. They all seem to have gone to the “If I go down, I take you with me” position.
– Hillery can’t rat out Bumblefuck because she needs his base support if she has a hope in 2016.
– Bumblefuck can’t rat out Hillery because her and Willy have the goods on him from the campaign digging they did.
– Any underling in the inside circle might as well forget working for a living if they spill.
– So they’re all just sitting there in a locked lie.
palaeomerus, “wa” or “wuh” seems common in several of your examples(you can include Russian vodor/wodor).
“wash” comes from old English
I think there are other Greek words for water that might fit.
“eau” is French for water or an incredible coincidence for the Aztec.
Funny. The Lemon Song’s lyrics, translated to ancient language, come out exactly the same.