Feb 8

Random Things–The Things I Love Edition

1.  Bob Krumm is talking my favorite thing in the world: copyright.  Ah, copyright, if you were a person, I would make sweet, sweet love to you.  Shoot, if I could print you out and shape you into a smooth enough paper machete mache * phallus, I would make sweet love to you**.

2.  Is there a word for when someone seems blissfully and yet almost evilly un-self-aware?  This word, in your mouth, would taste like hypocrisy with a marshmallowy layer of sweet refusing to consider others covered in bitter chocolate.  Maybe there’s not such a word.

What’s it called when you make someone’s last name into a noun?  Is there a similar word for when you make someone’s last name into an adjective?  And, to that extent, do Germanic names make better adjectives? 

3.  Oh, B-Dub, you tickle me.

Last time I checked my address I lived in America where we speak English.  Why is it so wrong to declare that the government is going to conduct their business in that language then?  Are you all suggesting we whore ourselves even more than we already have as a country?

Let’s hold you to your English-only nonsense, shall we? 

Last–Comes from the Old English last, so you can keep that.

time–Old English tima, so you can keep that.

I–I, Old English

checked–Old French, eschequier, so that’s out

my–comes from mine, which is actually older than English.  I guess we have to get rid of that, too, since we speak only English.

address–from the French, addresser, so that’s out.

lived–from the Old English, libben

in–Old English

America– From the Italian, Amerigo.

where–Old English

we–common Teutonic, older than English, so it’s out.

speak–Old English

English–Older than the English language, may be Teutonic or Latin, so that’s out

So, if we purge the non-English words from your first sentence, because, we speak English, we end up with:

Last time I [] [] [] I lived in [] where [] speak []. 

I look forward to you buying yourself a copy of the OED and similarly purging all non-English words from your vocabulary.  It’ll make your posts read like very angry MadLibs, which has a certain charm, you must admit.

 

 

 *Dear god, that was an unfortunate misspelling.

**Oops, I think I just killed my chances of working for Edwards! 

11 thoughts on “Random Things–The Things I Love Edition”

  2. Well, I hope when our English-only overlords take over, they at least let us sign in Spanish for Coronas. They can take away a lot, but they start fucking with a girl’s beer and they’re looking for a fight.

  6. In addition, a preponderance of these English-only folks (at least the ones I’ve talked to) also think that if they go abroad to a non-English speaking country, all of those people should speak English as well.

  7. ASL is kind of a misnomer; it’s really just USASL. MSL (Mexican Sign Language — Mexico being part of North America) is different from SSL (Spanish Sign Language), and both are way different than ASL. But if you can find a server who can interpret any kind of sign, boo yah!

  8. You’re right, Bridgett; also I think that Quebecois sign is different from that of France (which is very similar to USian because USian was originally based on it). However, according to one of my deaf cousins, most fluent signers find it remarkably easy to communicate with signers across (sign) language boundaries. He says it usually takes about 20 minutes before they get a fairly extensive mutually understandable vocabulary worked out. I’ve never asked him about ordering beer, though.

  9. If it makes you feel any better, the state encourages us employees to learn Spanish. They even paid for one of my classes.

  10. One of my colleagues is deaf. He’s fluent in a number of other manual languages, but the common academic language is an international sign that he says is readily understandable even if you have not seen it much before. He travels a lot (no language barriers, yeah) but the only place that he’s found challenging was really rural India and parts of Cambodia.I know the sign for beer. Right hand up next to mouth, thumb slightly cupped, lift it slightly twice OR rock it back and forth slightly twice. Like you’re drinking a beer. Or like you’re miming "I want a drink" in a noisy bar.Problem solved. Cerveza, por favor.

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