321–330 of 408 posts
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Seeing people fail to meet a standard does not mean that the standard does not exist.
I think the deeper question is whose standards and why should we consider them the standard?
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Calling someone Sir or Madam also exists in English and is nothing special. You left out most of the interesting things. For example the vocative case is partially dissapearing. Someone from Finland can actually understand this topic, since Finnish has multiple cases - more than in Polish language (meanwhile English has one case and if we try very hard we can squeeze something similar to a case - so let's say it has…
In English you can use 'sir' as an insult, which is quite creative.
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Sorry, that wasn't really what I was getting at. The thing I find interesting with orientalism is that it has a mirror in chauvinism from the other direction, both sides reinforcing the idea that there is something special about the cultural norms of people from East Asia in particular. It's almost as if there is a deliberate effort to reify cultural differences in a way that feels counterproductive. I think these fo…
> it was quite reassuring to find that - outside of the folks who really did hold chauvinist and/or racist views - most people in China cared no more about how I ate than how anyone else ate OK I agree completely. You will see atrocious manners in an average bar there. But my in-laws are brilliant scientists and thoughtful, gracious people. My mother in law is my hero. If I can reduce any friction in her life I will.…
I think the confusion may be in a situation (regardless of culture) where one knows that a loved one’s family has a high regard for courtesy and manners, and you’re willing and eager to please them, sometimes this desire could be mistaken by others for an obsession or “reification” of the specific culture of the family.
I have enjoyed the politeness of the comments from you both and appreciate your courtesy!
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I’m right handed, but eat with the fork in my right hand and knife in the left. Is the issue that people have difficulty cutting with their left hand? Because if you can the process of eating is pretty efficient: hold with fork, cut with knife, move food on fork to mouth …
I'm in Europe and I did the same as a child because it just felt the most natural. But you better believe our teachers in school would try to force the opposite. The argument was that imagine if everyone cuts with their right hand, but then you cut with your left and cause a lot of annoyance by bumping your elbow info your table neighbor's elbow. Absolutely a non-issue in reality obviously. But nowadays I do hold my…
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The original reasons for not putting your elbows on the table (limited space, as well as some others) just don't apply anymore. There's no reason _not_ to put your elbows on the table other than "that's how it's always been done". As such, at least in my opinion, the rule no longer applies.
sailors eat with their elbows on the table, to keep their fare from sliding as the boat rocks. don't look poor!
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To add to this, voicing is also a way for Japanese words to become more “coherent”, the same way you write “dislike-chopsticks” as one combined noun, and not “dislike chopsticks”.
Someone downvoted this, but the poster is correct, so there was absolutely no reason for downvoting. Rendaku, i.e. the voicing of the initial consonant, happens in the native Japanese words (i.e. not in the Japanese words of Chinese origin), in most cases when they are a part of a compound word and they are not the initial word. This serves indeed to distinguish a sequence of unrelated words from a compound word. The…
Well, there is a convention that syllables starting with h- are spelled with f- (in foreign transcription) if the following vowel is -u. There's not much difference in the pronunciation itself; maybe there was more of one when the spelling convention was set.
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More like oppressed people by all those bs rules.
The only thing being “oppressed” are people’s animal instincts to be disorderly.
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The difference between the American and European styles has been used as plot point in fictional works, including the 1946 film O.S.S. and the 2014 series Turn: Washington's Spies.[5] In both works, using the wrong fork etiquette threatens to expose undercover agents. Nuts. Apparently I have been a German spy all this time. I don't have time to waste swapping a fork around.
Tarantino has a bit about it in inglorious bastards.
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If mentally adding an "s" to the original comment enables you move past this issue and actually consider the comment as it was intended, then I would say that is well done and worth the effort to get to this point. :) Have a great Sunday!
Please don't do passive aggression here :(