The Awful German Language (1880)

Post by h1d » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

spiralx wrote: post #310

h1d wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For English, aside from do/does useless distinguishment, the lack of a gender neutral noun for a person usually make people write in a way "he/she". You could say, "the person" but it's long. And months should be represented as numbers instead of names in spoken languages too which is easier to use and remember to have a globally common form. Also, as a Japanese, I'm not sure if singular and plural forms make much se…

> For English, aside from do/does useless distinguishment, the lack of a gender neutral noun for a person usually make people write in a way "he/she". You could say, "the person" but it's long. You mean "they", used as far back as Shakespear?

Post by bmn__ » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #301

delib wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I scratch my head at a society that makes its members memorize such useless information. Such a weird perspective on language and on the agency of societies. There are tons of "useless" things in any language. For instance, why not get rid of all the tenses in English? Do we really need the past progressive? To make English spelling more "logical" (so people need to remember less useless information!), we should ag…

>To make English spelling more "logical" (so people need to remember less useless information!), we should again look to Mark Twain: >> Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. ( http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm ) And we should also look to George Bernard Shaw. He proved that, in English, "fish" can be spelled "g…

Post by spiralx » Tue, Oct 09, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

iodiniemetra wrote: post #53

GreeniFi wrote: post #27

I’m not German but spend a lot of time with Germans who are more often than not fantastic fun. And quite “freigeistlich” I find. This is an excellent German stand-up comedian who plies his trade in London: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=48gV9W9UZHk A curious thing that I have noticed that when Germans speak and write English, they often don’t differentiate between 2 previously mentioned subjects or objects. For exampl…

English has a lot of unwritten rules as well. Which sounds correct? I have a large red ball. I have a red large ball. I imagine german has the same, and I wonder if it's one of those cases. For example, to a german speaker, it would be completely clear that Dave is the one who forgot the book because the first subject mentioned is always the relevant one, or something like that.

Post by spiralx » Tue, Oct 09, 2018, 12:39 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #90

lucb1e wrote: post #25

Reminds me of this joke, the basis of which seems commonly attributed to Mark Twain but as far as I can find, it not actually from him. Not sure what the original is, but here is one of its many copies floating around: https://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/european-commission.html

That definitely wasn't Twain. It originated as a letter to the editor (perhaps to the Economist?) and got revised as people passed it around on the internet. Unfortunately I can't now find the article I once read which traced this. Perhaps someone else can conjure it up.