Old English just has some wonderful words and kennings. I mean, really:
Their word for sea? It was often swan-rad or “road of the swan.” Spider was gangelwaefre, literally “the walking weaver.” They had the simple and now-obsolete word uht, which describes that time just before sunrise when mist still hangs heavy over all the fields and lakes and the last few stars are still out.
…Also, they didn’t say body. They said ban-cofan, which means “bone-cave,” and if you don’t think that’s some hardcore shit right there then you need to get out of my face before I turn your skull into a mead-cup.
also guys i think it’s time to start spelling ‘small’ right again,, it’s been long enough
see the thing is, at this point, smol isn’t even a “mispelling” of small anymore; it has its own connotations. while small is a regular adjective, smol acts more like a diminutive marker, which English has been lacking
in essence, a smol dog will always be a small dog, but not all small dogs are smol.
at what point in history do you think americans stopped having british accents
Actually, Americans still have the original British accent. We kept it over time and Britain didn’t. What we currently coin as a British accent developed in England during the 19th century among the upper class as a symbol of status. Historians often claim that Shakespeare sounds better in an American accent.
whAT THE FUCK
I’m too tired for this
Always add in the video that according to linguists, Native southern drawl is a slowed down British.
T’ be or not t’be, y’all.
Fun fact: Same thing happened with the French accent. French Canadians still have the original French accent from the 15th century.
Êt’e ou n’pô zêt’e, vous z’auts.
I’ve been trying to find this post for months. I’m freakishly obsessed with this and want the truth of what early colonists sounded like.
The early colonists would probably have sounded a lot like Shakespearian Original Pronunciation. Watch this… (and listen).
In Spanish it’s machoplantear which is a combination of macho “male” and plantear(se) “to lay out (an idea) / to consider”
We could have had hombrexplicar [hombre “man” + explicar “to explain”] and I’m not sure why we didn’t? Some peopple disagree over which is better.
The noun form is el machoplanteamiento “mansplaining”
My guess is“hombrexplicar” doesn’t capture the critique of “machismo” in quite as pointed a way; that is, “machoplantear” points directly at the problem/the term already generally used to discuss problems of masculinity.
Anyway, I’m delighted by all of this.
You make a very good point
in hebrew it’s הסגברה / hasgvara – basically a mashup of hasbara (explaining, but also carries the implication of ‘propaganda’) and gever = man
do you ever read an article so bad that it makes you want to get a PhD so that you can publish a response and thinkshame the author’s opinions with authority
“thinkshame” is officially the greatest word we’ve come up with as a species.
intp: syzygy (n) an alignment of celestial bodies istj: vellichor (n) the strange wistfulness of used bookshops infp: nefelibata (n) “cloud walker” one who lives in the clouds of their own imaginations or dreams; one who does not obey the conventions of society, literature, or art estp: clinomania (n) excessive desire to stay in bed istp: pluviophile (n) someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days esfj: eloquence (n) the art of using language in an apt, fluent way estj: petrichor (n) the pleasant, earthy smell after rain isfp: phosphenes (n) the light and colors produced by rubbing your eyes infj: sonder (n) the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own enfj: limerence (n) the state of being infatuated with another person isfj: ethereal (adj) extremely delicate, light, not of this world esfp: supine (adj) lying face upwards intj: luminescence (n) light produced by chemical, electrical, or physiological means enfp: chatoyant (adj) varying in colour when seen in different lights or from different angles entj: denouement (n) the final resolution of a plot entp: defenestration (n) the act of throwing someone out of a window
idk I just love how we Young People Today use ~improper~ punctuation/grammar in actually really defined ways to express tone without having to explicitly state tone like that’s just really fucking cool, like
no = “No,” she said.
no. = "No,” she said sharply.
No = “No,” she
stated
firmly.
No. = “No,” she snapped.
NO = “No!” she shouted.
noooooo = “No,” she moaned.
no~ = “No,” she said with a drawn-out sing-song.
~no~ = “No,” she drawled sarcastically.
NOOOOO = “No!” she screamed dramatically.
no?! = “No,” she said incredulously.
I’ve been calling this “typographical nuance” and I have a few more to add:
*no* = “No,” she said emphatically.
*nopes on out of here* = “No,” she said of herself in the third person, with a touch of humorous emphasis.
~*~noooo~*~ = “No,” she moaned in stylized pseudo-desperation.
#no = “No,” she added as a side comment.
“no” = “No,” she scare-quoted.
wtf are you kidding no = “No,” she said flatly. “And I can’t believe I have to say this.”
no no No No NO NO NO NO = "No,” she repeated over and over again, growing louder and more emphatic.
nooOOOO = “No,” she said, starting out quietly and turning into a scream.
*no = “Oops, I meant ‘no,’” she corrected, “Sorry for the typo in my previous message.”
I cannot express how strongly I absolutely love language and writing and communication but if anyone asks why I will be showing them this post from now on
this is great, but I got to “no no No No NO NO NO NO” and immediately started singing “mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia let me go”
it’s kinda cool how our generation has created actual tone in the way we write online. like whether we: write properly with perfect grammar, shrthnd everythin, use capitals to emphasise The Point, use extra letters or characters for emotion!!!!!, and much more – it means we can have casual conversations, effectively make jokes using things like sarcasm that’s usually hard to understand without context and much more. this “incorrect English” has really opened avenues of online conversation that isn’t accessible with “correct English” which is pretty interesting
My class and I literally taught some of the nuances of this to our english teacher, things such as the difference between “yes” and “yes.” or “..” and “…”. It makes perfect sense linguistically that we would create this complexity to ease communication in a medium without body language and tone, but what my teacher was really floored about was that none of this had ever “learned” it, we’re “native speakers” of a whole new type of english.
Solutions Without Problems 