Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3221 to 3225 (16 - 20 May 2016)
AtomicBlueFA1:
Considering how much attention people have been paying to the clock lately, I'm quite surprised nobody has questioned Jeph's classification of it as a cuckoo clock. There really is no indication that it is a cuckoo clock aside from Jeph saying so, but as an amateur clock enthusiast, I really would like to say that I believe that he is incorrect. A cuckoo clock that anybody might recognize as such would have many carvings and ornamentations around the case that would still be visible from the back, which is the only view of it we have been given thus far. A cuckoo clock would also have a minimum of four chains hanging from the bottom (technically two chains with both ends hanging down, with a cast iron weight attached to one end of each). It seems to me that what she has is simply a small spring driven mantle clock, which of course may still be of German origin.
jwhouk:
Well, see, I don't play armchair psychologist since a.) I graduated with a degree in Psychology, and b.) I am a counselor (a "youth counselor", but still).
The technical term we have for Brun is "somethin' not quite right there."
Case:
--- Quote from: Storel on 20 May 2016, 16:07 ---
--- Quote from: Case on 20 May 2016, 15:09 ---Loanwords & plurals: We do the same with "Computer" - German plural is "Computer", just like the German "Rechner", despite the English plural being "Computers".
--- End quote ---
Huh, I would have expected it to be "Computern" or something like that. 8-)
...
--- End quote ---
Actually, "Computern" is
a) The plural of the dativ-case, i.e. "den Computern"
b) A colloquial weak verb, meaning "to do smth. with a Computer" -> German is ... rather neologism-positive. Truth be told, enthusiastically so (And "Administrative German" has mutated to the point where ordinary Germans utilize software for their tax-declaration - of course with course-material explaining what all the weird terms actually mean(*)) - to the point where Germans often don't bat an eye at encountering a word that's not listed in any dictionary.
Often, Germans start using "mock German neologisms" that later might become actual words. E.g. "computern", as a verb, could have been smth. lil' Case & friends might have used in the 80s, just for fun, and because it sounds droll - today, it's in the dictionary.
(*) For example "Garage" - there's two words for the place you put your car (into). One is "Garage" - that's what ordinary Germans use when talking to ordinary Germans. Then there's the "officious version" - "Kraftfahrzeug-Einstellplatz" - literally: Motorized-vehicle-put-into-place. A place to put your motorized vehicle into. Note that a car is an "Auto(mobile)", but also belongs to the larger category of "Kraftfahrzeug" - motorized vehicle. Office German is mostly just ... incredibly mindless concatenations of the most literal-minded and unwieldy terms one can possibly use.
That's "office German" for two of the more common German words - that's not even the point where German Bureaucrats engage their higher cerebral functions ... :mrgreen:
Storel:
Haha! Very cool, thank you Case!
Perfectly Reasonable:
--- Quote from: zmeiat_joro on 20 May 2016, 06:22 ---Speaking of the numbers of vowels in languages: Ubykh has two vowels, and so does Mandarin in some analyses of its phonology. But I really don't want to get deep into this, unless someone wants me to go into phonological analysis and diachronical reconstruction. IIRC Swedish has the most among European languages.
--- End quote ---
You might find this amusing: Nothing is Perfect
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