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This blog is written in en-GB

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Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#121

Post by myrmidon »

mghackerlady wrote: post #50

[flagged]

Regarding spelling: As an unbiased foreigner, many American variants seem superior to me (color, defense, program, meter) with british just being weird (and/or tainted by the french).

Regarding Rowling: It seems to me that she gets more pushback/hate being, say "50% modern left-ish" than people that are even less aligned with left values. This gives me kinda medieval religion vibes (better an unbeliever/outsider than an apostate). I think such a valuation system is inherently flawed. Curious about your view on this.

Sidenote: If you're referring to the zombie-ant fungus, those go by Ophiocordyceps nowadays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis).

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#122

Post by kunley »

HPsquared wrote: post #115
kunley wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I discovered just this week that the numbering of weeks within the year is different between US and Europe, thus, cal -w can show different numbers for some years depending on the locale. Outlook can probably also show different things depending on the system settings. Europe uses the algo according to the ISO 8601 standard, where the week no.1 is the one with January 1st occuring between Monday and Thursday, inclusi…

Even the concept "within that week" depends on whether you consider the week to begin on Monday or Sunday. (or elsewhere I suppose)

Yes but for the purpose of mentioned ISO 8601, the start of the week is assumed to be Monday.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#123

Post by unfamiliar »

ChrisRR wrote: post #80

Americans often don't twig how many random american terms we brits have to learn the double meaning of and don't pipe up about. I'm not talking the well-known ones like cookies, but even things like "the ER" meaning "A&E" Sometimes it's their turn to repay the favour

If you want to read some hilarious reactions of Americans panicking when they are suddenly exposed to non-American English/British accents, check out these threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/1q68v16/british_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/PawPatrol/comments/17wcsdm/my_digit...

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#125

Post by physicsguy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #38

I was raised by an English mum[0] (scouse, to be precise -actually, her mum was scouse, me mum was posh). I've traveled all over the world, and the one place that I've had the most difficulty understanding, was London. Cockney is hard . It's not just the patois. It's the cultural references and slang. [0] https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm

Not many Cockneys in London these days, they're all in Essex

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#126

Post by amiga386 »

dabber wrote: post #66
card_zero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's ever been able to explain to me what those concepts are, so I don't believe it.

Family relationships are the first thing that come to my mind. In Spanish for example, consuegro and consuegra refer to the father and mother of your child's spouse. The Spanish words succinctly encode that relationship while English requires verbally traversing the family tree.

That's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology and yes, you can categorise languages by the extent of their kinship terminology.

You could postulate that a language developed specific words for family and relatives because they prized those specific family structures? Or that language copied another language that did.

Similarly, you can categorise languages by how they group numbers, e.g. French is vigesimal while English is decimal.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#127

Post by seanplusplus »

This was a great read and it reminded me of Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. Such an awesome overview o how diverse and quirky and globally distributed English has become today. With the web and now the bots herding us into a more homogenized language, I'm a huuuuge fan of what this dude is doing here!!

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#129

Post by ocschwar »

biofox wrote: post #28

I am the only Brit in the department I work in. No one gets the cultural references or British idioms I use, and I've found myself significantly changing the language I use to a very utilitarian and direct style to prevent the endless blank stares... reading this blog post just made me realise that this self-editing has made my interactions rather more 'flat' and unnatural, as they now lack spontaneity, with everythi…

I'm often shuffled into teams where I am the only American and everyone else is Indian, working in India, and I take a small measure of pride in switching to the formal register that Indians like to use in workplace English, and using the idioms they have.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#130

Post by umeshunni »

freehorse wrote: post #100
umeshunni wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Historically many (predominantly muslim) places in near and middle east have been very diverse, though maybe not exactly the kind of diversity usually conceptualised in the west. If anything, the idea of homogeneous nation states is more like rooted in the enlightenment.

[flagged]
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