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On 7/8/2011 12:34 PM, Alain wrote:
>
>> Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, an "oreo"
>> is an obscure brand of biscuit. So... WTF?
>
> How can you call Oreo an "obscure brand of biscuit"?!?!
> It's probably one of the most archetypal biscuit you can find, toggether
> with the Whipet ;P
Do you live in Quebec? Around here I'm only used to "whippet" referring
either to the dog or to getting high on nitrous oxide from whipped cream
containers.
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> Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, an
"oreo" is an obscure brand of biscuit.
Between this and "die," I'm thinking we must have grown up on different
planets.
- Slime
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On 09/07/2011 05:16 AM, Slime wrote:
> > Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, an
> "oreo" is an obscure brand of biscuit.
>
> Between this and "die," I'm thinking we must have grown up on different
> planets.
Or maybe just different regions of the same planet where local dialect
and vocabulary varies? :-P
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On 7/8/2011 3:08 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, an "oreo"
> is an obscure brand of biscuit. So... WTF?
Oreo is also derogatory American slang.
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On 7/11/2011 7:29, Tom Galvin wrote:
> On 7/8/2011 3:08 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
>>
>> Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can determine, an "oreo"
>> is an obscure brand of biscuit. So... WTF?
>
> Oreo is also derogatory American slang.
I had an entire explanation of that typed out, until someone said "No,
oriole." :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Coding without comments is like
driving without turn signals."
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Slime <pov### [at] slimeland com> wrote:
> Between this and "die," I'm thinking we must have grown up on different
> planets.
If the plural of "die" is "dice", then is the plural of "lie" "lice"?
--
- Warp
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On 12/07/2011 07:18 AM, Warp wrote:
> If the plural of "die" is "dice", then is the plural of "lie" "lice"?
No, see, you're thinking that the English language follows some kind of
*logic*.
It doesn't. It's purely a random historical accident. :-(
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> No, see, you're thinking that the English language follows some kind of
> *logic*.
The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.
For example, how do you pronounce the word "read"? Impossible to say all
by itself. It depends on the context. (Or, more precisely, it depends on the
tense of said verb, both present and past tenses being written identically
but pronounced differently.)
In Finnish, at least, you know how a word is pronounced, regardless of
context. This even in the case that you have never heard or seen that word
before in your life, nor know what it means.
--
- Warp
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On 12/07/2011 09:09 AM, Warp wrote:
> For example, how do you pronounce the word "read"? Impossible to say all
> by itself.
As well as "read" being pronounced either like "red" or like "reed", I
also love how "reading" and "Reading" are also completely different.
> In Finnish, at least, you know how a word is pronounced, regardless of
> context. This even in the case that you have never heard or seen that word
> before in your life, nor know what it means.
Now, see, this is how an alphabetic script is supposed to work. That's
the whole idea. The fact that English is a random mixture of a dozen
incompatible languages with no rhyme or reason such that it fails this
basic definition is another matter...
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > In Finnish, at least, you know how a word is pronounced, regardless of
> > context. This even in the case that you have never heard or seen that word
> > before in your life, nor know what it means.
> Now, see, this is how an alphabetic script is supposed to work. That's
> the whole idea. The fact that English is a random mixture of a dozen
> incompatible languages with no rhyme or reason such that it fails this
> basic definition is another matter...
Btw, Spanish is another language where you know how to pronounce written
words unambiguously, even without context or previous knowledge.
OTOH it's slightly "inferior" to Finnish written language in that some
letters have different pronounciations depending on the surrounding letters
(which is something almost completely inexistent in Finnish; AFAIK there's
only one such case). The pronounciation of complete words is still completely
unambiguous, though. It just means that there's no full 1-to-1 correspondence
between letters and how they are pronounced.
(Written Spanish is also slightly "wasteful" in that the letter H is
completely silent, making it kind of obsolete. It's also a common source
of grammatical mistakes because the pronounciation of the word does not
indicate the presence of the letter. Also, there are words which differ
from each other only in whether they have an additional H or not, which is
confusing and a source of even more grammatical mistakes.)
--
- Warp
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