Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3356-3360 (21st to 25th November 2016)
TheEvilDog:
I think the discussion is more to do with how slang varies from region to region and where the confusion leads to delightful conversations about where one person says "I thought it meant..." and everyone laughs at the misunderstanding like the end of a cheesy and horribly dated sitcom. Because let's laugh at the funny foreigners!
No, the fact is that we have had similar discussions before and to be honest, I like hearing what others say. Its interesting, because despite the fact we share the same language, there is a certain amount of lingual drift where a word in one country has a different meaning in another and a wildly different meaning in a third. Not to mention that due to the fact that English is the current lingua franca, there are many on the forum for whom English is a second or even third language, this type of discussion both helps them understand the vagaries of the language and to help them connect to others.
Though this might be a forum about a comic in a North American setting, it is an international forum and this type of discussion is going to crop up from time to time. None of us can claim to know everything (except Akima, but that's because she actually does know everything and able to prove it), but if we can learn something else from others, great.
Blood-Tree:
It's possible that we may be worrying over nothing:
--- Quote ---Unless the present progress of change [is] arrested...there can be no doubt that, in another century, the dialect of the Americans will become utterly unintelligible to an Englishman... Thomas Hamilton, 1833
--- End quote ---
After all, tis not as if any man hast axed for eggys:
--- Quote ---And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage. William Caxton, 1490
--- End quote ---
Tova:
--- Quote from: Blood-Tree on 21 Nov 2016, 15:51 ---It's possible that we may be worrying over nothing:
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's what we do here. :laugh:
Case:
--- Quote from: Tova on 21 Nov 2016, 13:32 ---Regarding the bait that I threw out there (sorry, Case, I was deliberately referring to this): David Mitchell
--- End quote ---
Why, did you now? Really? What a sneaky ... sneaker you are.
Jokes aside - The BBC-link in the post you're referring to just jumped from the page when I googled the ratio of non-native to native speakers of English. Couldn't resist using your bait as a "Steilvorlage" ...
Good thing about the spread of social justice-jargon? At least people have stopped crying 'racism' when they mean 'chauvinism' or 'nationalism' - that one always irked me pissed me off. :evil:
P.S.: The 'could care less'-fallacy is also at the heart of the (allegedly) shortest math-joke: 'Let epsilon be smaller than zero'. A favourite of natsci-undergrads around the globe ...
Tova:
--- Quote from: Case on 21 Nov 2016, 16:05 ---Jokes aside - The BBC-link in the post you're referring to just jumped from the page when I googled the ratio of non-native to native speakers of English. Couldn't resist using your bait as a "Steilvorlage" ...
--- End quote ---
That is a marvellous word. I wish there were an English language equivalent.
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