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Words for “yes” in Romance languages

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Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#111

Post by shasheene »

js2 wrote: post #106
kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself. A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before…

> A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!”

That pronunciation was popularized by the famous South Park episode on World of Warcraft [1] [2] which first aired in 2006. So it's not actually particularly new at all.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPx__G9GkRY [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#112

Post by bartread »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #83
make3 wrote: post #4

I really like profanity laced erudite articles, for some reason. Maybe it scratches a similar hitch that Rick does in Rick and Morty. Which makes me think, man I'd love to read a scientific paper written by Rick! :)

In Greece we had a writer called Nikos Tsiforos whose schtick was exactly that. He wrote entire history and mythology books in a Greek argot (the language of the "manges" and the rebetika, which you probably won't find about on the 'net). He used the slang of a criminal subculture that was full of profanity, sarcasm and disdain for authority and polite society to treat scholarly subjects like the Francocracy, the Con…

This idea isn't particularly new: even the New Testament is written in what was basically street Greek rather than the more formal variant usually employed for written documents.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#113

Post by osrec »

js2 wrote: post #106
kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself. A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before…

It's more like "this... is the correct answer, and it so obviously resonates extensively with everyone else that I feel no need to substantiate any further, other than with an abrupt and final full stop".

To me it sometimes comes across as "you made your comment, I agree, and I'll take the liberty to suggest that it's so obvious and insightful that probably everyone must agree".

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#114

Post by [deleted] »

kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

[deleted]

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#115

Post by heavenlyblue »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #81
EB-Barrington wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Albanians (like Bulgaria, Albania shares a border with Greece) also nod up and down for no, and turn their heads left-to-right for yes. As in Bulgaria, this is not universal throughout the populace - making it all the more confusing when you come across it during conversation. Related: in Albanian, yes is "po", no is "jo".

French people also nod upwards to say "no". This is just one swift nod, not an up-and-down nod, and it's usually accompanied by a quick drawn-in breath. I've never seen that anywhere else. My friends who did that were Occitan btw. so maybe it's not all of France.

If you saw a Russian doing that it would most probably be a sign of hidden negative reaction to whatever you are doing.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#116

Post by MayeulC »

> So they combined hoc with ille, which means “that” (but also comes to just mean “he”: compare Spanish el, Italian il, French le, and so on)

Well, I have to disagree on this bit. French for "he" is actually "il"; while "le" is "the".

If you are more interested, "that" would be "ce", or if you want to stress it/be more accurate, "cela" (can be contracted to "ça"), or "celui-là" -- literally "that him there" -- while "this" would be "ceci". Yeah, lots of words to mean the same, you would usually be fine just picking one.

Interesting read nonetheless.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#117

Post by logicallee »

kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

To me the word you quoted is much stronger than "exactly" or "I agree." The latter two are about the sentiment but the former means something like "This is the best possible phrasing I can imagine: I completely agree and you have captured everything, perfectly." While for a deep discourse (as on HN) --

Oh.

Okay so nevermind. When I started to write this comment I was going to say that here on hacker news it fosters a deeper discourse, but as a poor reader on Reddit reading through 700 comments, do you really want to read the long sentence I just quoted, or are you helped by reading "this", to call your attention upthread.

However I realized that Reddit's 700 comments on each thread are - almost all noise. "This" is a kneejerk one word answer that completely shuts down discourse.

So after actually writing my comment I have switched my opinion. Which itself may well have been due to the style of discourse encouraged here!

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#118

Post by hiccuphippo »

kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

For me the worst offender is

/thread

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#119

Post by namenotrequired »

interfixus wrote: post #58

So, ' si ' does survive in French after all. I never would have guessed. Perhaps somewhat interestingly, the Scandinavian languages (Danish/Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, etc.) make a similar distinction between plain 'yes' (' ja ') and the affirmation of a negation (' jo ). English seems to have largely discarded that subtlety, despite the presumed influence of vikings from the north as well as those from across the…

Dutch makes this distinction as well: "ja" and "jawel".

"jawel" is a contraction of "ja" and "wel", which both mean "yes", but are used differently. "Ja" would be the opposite of "no" and "wel" the opposite of "not".

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#120

Post by namenotrequired »

blowski wrote: post #53
woodruffw wrote: post #47

Interesting notes about Latin. I always learned that Latin didn't have a direct analogue to "yes," with the closest thing being "ita vero"[1] (not just "ita"). But "sic" makes sense in many contexts. [1]: "thus it is so," or "it is true," or "and how!".

In Portuguese, although ‘sim’ means yes, when answering a question in the affirmative you often use the same verb as the question. For example: “Gosta frango? Gosto.” “Do you like chicken? I like it.” Also, it’s common to say ‘isso’ to agree with something. It means ‘this’ and Anglophones are now doing the same thing, at least online.

My impression is that the Brazilians use "sim" a bit the same way the french use "si".

"Você vai?" "Vou" ("are you going?" "I am going") "Você não vai?" "Sim" ("Aren't you going?" "yes I am")

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