April 2009
gifparty:
Animal Sounds in Other Languages →
French ducks apparently say “coin coin”.
an old ventriloquist trick
ragbag:
to simulate the w sound (which requires movement of the lips) in a way that requires no movement, make a quick ‘oo’ sound. ergo: oo-ich oo-ay to the oo-aw-ter (which way to the water).
This makes perfect sense phonetically. Lip-rounding lowers formants (particularly F2)—it extends the vocal tract, creating a larger resonance cavity—and /u/ (“oo”) has very low...
March 2009
whythef***doyouhaveakid.com →
livejamie:
Another genius use of Tumblr
Oh god this is so cruel/awesome.
“The fighting in the 1840’s was at a time of British expansion in India....”
– The Peccavi Pun (via The Gospel of Moll)
YTMND - Sex School →
perpetua:
I love this! I love this, I love this, I love this. But I have a simple request: Can someone make another YTMND that just loops the hook, a la the Picard Song? (via Douglas Wolk)
I woke up with this song stuck in my head this morning. Seriously, what’s going on in Utah?
Pun For The Ages (NYT) →
pterodactyls:
HAH take that, Moll.
‘Some Whately-isms are so complex that they nearly amount to honest jokes: “Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred.”’
unobtainium
wordjournal:
noun • an extremely rare, costly, physically impossible or otherwise unobtainable material that, if obtained, could solve an intractable problem with ease.
Note: While unobtainium is merely unobtainable, handwavium is simply impossible.
are-you-serious:
Is this seriously a word?
It’s used in engineering scholarship. This is seriously a word.
Slim Thug & Mike Jones - Still Trippin’ (Great...
woopwoop died? →
:(
Dear music tumblrs,
If you’re concerned about universal et al, just do video posts and kill older audio posts (strike-through out the title, replace the song with a link to tumblr.com). That’s what other music blogs do—put two-week or month-long expiration dates on posted audio.
Welp
Two months until I see Mary again.
“It’s not an accident that people like me.”
– TJ (via marykgo)
Out of context, this makes me sound douchey. Which is why I think Mary posted it. No, she’s not that mean.
lucubrate
kfellows:
I’m a literature major, so I hear random words spoken fairly often. I read them, as well, but—believe it or not!—there ARE some people who actually use Word Journal-esque terms in everyday conversation. No, really.
I was asking in particular about the word “lugubrate” being spoken. It has no currency in everyday English, so it’s meaning seems fixed diachronically....
lucubrate
wordjournal:
verb • /ˈluː.kjə.bɹeɪt/ • to work diligently by artificial light; to study at night.
From Latin lucubro: to work by lamp-light, work at night
kfellows:
I hope someone calls me out on this, but I really don’t think that’s the meaning. Certainly, the word’s origins lie in that meaning. But, I’ve never heard the word used in this way before. I even pulled out a few different...
Watchplayerspulse:
New Punch-Out!! Trailer
With the debut of the Disco Kid, Nintendo shows that this game will not just be a simple remake of the original NES title which is pretty great news for those interested. You will actually have to learn new opponent patterns as opposed to remembering the ones from your childhood!
Punch-Out!! is currently slated for a May 18th release on the Wii.
I hope...
Watch
Super Mario goes to Chicago (via bg5000, windycity)
1 tag
Payout expected in class action claim involving... →
pterodactyls:
up-schist-creek:
Claimants are sofa king happy the ordeal is over.
The corporate chairman has tabled the issue for now. Man, that guy loveseating Turkish food though, he’s practically Ottoman.
Game over—no one can compete with pterodactyls. Any clever ideas you thought you had need to be throne away.
linguistic question (aka tristanjay7 bait)
luminosa:
I’m editing a friend’s thesis right now, and I noticed that he keeps on confusing “bold” and “bode.” At first I thought this was odd, since they aren’t even close in meaning, but then I remembered that he generally elides the l in consonant clusters. So I’d be more likely to hear “I toad him” than “I told him” if he were speaking. It stands to reason that he’s been conflating the two...
por favor
vruz:
it’s not interesting, it’s stupid. nice people say please at every chance they get in spanish too. it’s unfortunate the author hasn’t been in good company. it’s also stupid to generalise a perceived trait and make it extensible to 400 million spanish-speaking people, extrapolating from a five-day vacation in Ibiza. that would be a stupid thing to do about any language in the world. I...
1 tag
Robot Fish to Monitor Coastal Pollution →
pterodactyls:
Holy carp! Eel be watching this story for further developments - this excites me on a really bass level. I thought I smelt something fishy when I saw the headline, but it’s just a fintastic project. A-dory-ble robot, too.
And just for the halibut, here’s a story about octo-robots.
What are you talking atrout?
“English-speakers are keen to say please politely in other languages, even if...”
– Mind Your Language (via offnotesnotes, Marginal Revolution)
I’m not sure how accurate this statement is—I imagine there’s variation among Spanish-speaking countries—but the general idea is interesting.
Edit: vruz reminds us of how stupid this claim about Spanish is. My...
Re: Strunk & White
mrgan:
“The way [Language Log] call The Elements of Style “horrid” is juvenile, but understand that the Language Log contributors are reacting emotionally to this sort of thing; their position is like that of music theorists faced with a book of “compositional recommendations”, among which is a matter-of fact instruction to avoid the bassoon.”
eush:
I read Strunk & White once. Nothing about...
“Oh, English… The only thing the French managed to truly conquer and keep. Haha,...”
– I’m here all week… (via spellingbee)
Tumblr Tag Feeds
Attach “/rss” to the end of a tag query URL to view an RSS feed for that tag. For example, I have a tag called “pun action”. Here is its query and its rss feed.
“Commenters on usage quite commonly attribute the motive of...”
– Language Log » Wordy, not classy, and lazy
“[Added 3/24: several readers have pointed me to Missy Elliott’s 2002 song...”
– Language Log » had did