I’m so fascinated by languages with different levels of formality built in because it immediately introduces such complex social dynamics. The social distance between people is palpable when it’s built right into the language, in a way it’s not really palpable in English.
So for example. I speak Spanish, and i was taught to address everyone formally unless specifically invited otherwise. People explained to me that “usted” was formal, for use with strangers, bosses, and other people you respect or are distant from, while “tú” is used most often between family and good friends.
That’s pretty straightforward, but it gets interesting when you see people using “tú” as a form of address for flirting with strangers, or for picking a fight or intimidating someone. In other languages I’ve sometimes heard people switch to formal address with partners, friends or family to show when they are upset. That’s just so interesting! You’re indicating social and emotional space and hierarchy just in the words you choose to address the other person as “you”!!
Not to mention the “what form of address should I use for you…?” conversation which, idk how other people feel about it, but to me it always felt awkward as heck, like a DTR but with someone you’re only just becoming comfortable with. “You can use tú with me” always felt… Weirdly intimate? Like, i am comfortable around you, i consider you a friend. Like what a vulnerable thing to say to a person. (That’s probably also just a function of how i was strictly told to use formal address when i was learning. Maybe others don’t feel so weird about it?)
And if you aren’t going to have a conversation about it and you’re just going to switch, how do you know when? If you switch too soon it might feel overly familiar and pushy but if you don’t switch soon enough you might seem cold??? It’s so interesting.
Anyway. As an English-speaking American (even if i can speak a bit of Spanish), i feel like i just don’t have a sense for social distance and hierarchy, really, simply because there isn’t really language for it in my mother tongue. The fact that others can be keenly aware of that all the time just because they have words to describe it blows my mind!
But you do have it! because American English has titles and also hierarchical treatment of last names (if your name is Jeremy Jefferson, there’s a huge semantic weight difference between Jerry, Jeremy, Mr. Jeremy, and Mr. Jefferson, for example). English marks hierarchy and familiarity even if it doesn’t do it in more grammatical terms. Think of being a kid and your parents yelling your full name across the house when you were in trouble.
I speak Icelandic. Icelandic doesn’t have titles or last names or everyday use of a formal plural or any other obvious markers of formality and intimacy. Formality is still marked, just in non-grammatical lexical terms…but because it’s not marked in ways I as a L1 English speaker recognize, it’s harder for me to reproduce.
The reason you feel like this doesn’t exist in English to the point where it exists in Spanish is because it’s easier to spot for a L2 learner who has to think about categorizing the new language in a way that makes sense in the L1, and unless you have some more in depth information about language registers and intimacy marking and whatever it’s easy to consider this as a novel phenomenon in the L2. But a lot of this semantic stuff is pretty universal, just marked in different ways.
THANK YOU. This is a misconception. Speaking from my experience of living in Japan and studying Japanese while being a native speaker of American English:
1. For folks who don’t know, Japanese words/grammar change depending on formality, the genders of the speaker and listener, the age of the speaker and listener, etc.
2. But English words/grammar ALSO change depending on the above contexts described. It’s just not formalized in grammar books. Consider the differences:
A. “The honor of your presence is requested for dinner this evening.”
B. “I would like to invite you to dinner.”
C. “Do you want to get dinner together?”
D. “Wanna grab a bite to eat?”
E. “Yo, bro, you want a burger?”
Etc. People will be like “it’s wild that Japanese has different words for ‘meal’ depending on formality!! Gohan? Omeshi? Crazy!!!” But ENGLISH IS THE SAME WAY.
And this actually makes it harder for speakers of languages like Japanese to learn natural English, because they’ve been taught that there’s no difference in tone between telling a waiter “I’d like a coffee” and “I want coffee.” Since one of those feels easier to learn, they’ll choose the option that makes them sound weirdly dickish to the waitstaff.
In short: English has levels of formality! Conveniently, saying otherwise fits the stereotypes of rigidly hierarchal East Asians, refined and sophisticated Europeans, and lawless/casual Americans and Australians—but us not recognizing these differences makes it harder for ESL speakers to learn real English
One of the things I don’t like is people saying they have suspected ID (intellectual disability).
It might be a personal problem, it might be a community problem, I’m not sure. However, I do know that it just gives me an icky feeling. The ID community has asked that people without ID, don’t self diagnose it.
ID is such a complicated thing, with a variety of severity. Saying suspected, means that you suspect you have it. But you don’t know what severity. You don’t know how it affects you. You don’t even know if you have it. And I think I get the icky feeling, because a lot of times, people who say they suspect they have ID is for the wrong reasons.
“Well my comprehension skills are bad” “well I’m stupid” “well I never did good in school” “well I never did this or that” and all of this just makes my skin crawl, because none of these automatically scream “I have ID”.
Comprehension problems can be from many things, like autism, Auditory processing disorder, brain damage, a different processing disorder, learning disabilities, etc etc. none of it screams ID. Why? Because Mild ID(what most people believe they suspect they have) doesn’t have a definitive thing that screams it. It’s like a spicy add on for most people with Mild ID. It’s something that makes your life harder but you just can’t usually pinpoint. Know what I mean? Although it does greatly affect my life, and there’s no doubt about that.
I don’t like people saying they suspect they have ID, because in the long run, you TRULY don’t know unless you get the testing. It’s not a disorder that comes with a book that says “yeah this is definitely this” like autism or ADHD. It affects everyone differently, and that needs to be talked about.
I’m not saying stop saying it, I’m just saying really think about it.
if may…
don’t have ID, but here list summarized from hear friends & others with ID talk about why from hesitant to against self diagnose ID (EDIT: for other people who not know about it. not at OP). (say suspect have slight different from say self diagnose but same points apply)
like said above: reason say for suspect/self dx ID not automatic mean ID, & instead often come from not fully understand ID (that it disorder that affect *general everything* functioning) or from own stigma ableism against ID (like the “i’m stupid”). not do differential diagnosis (which need do for any diagnosis professional or self)
there not much self diagnosis guides for ID like there is for (low support needs/level 1/mild/whatever language use) autism. there not much first-person-account lived experience information for ID. there not much info about ID in general. this “have LOT less (lived experience) information” difference between ID & (LSN/level 1/etc) autism reason why self diagnosis should be approached differently.
ID very serious thing that again affect everything. “even” mild ID very serious. if really genuinely wonder about ID, reallly need see someone professional.
you or people around. really Would Have Known Something Wrong before you see tumblr post about ID n suddenly Everything Click. now, are there people with borderline & mild ID who never been diagnosed ID even as adult, because inequalities or severe abuse neglect? maybe, yeah. except again, it not comparable to (LSN/level 1/etc) autism not diagnosed until adult, because once again “even” mild ID affect general everything functioning in giant way. these people with undiagnosed ID am talking about *that still alive as teen or adult (many aren’t)*… most of them illiterate, low/no education, in prison, institutionalized, or gotten some level of at least bare minimum support through other diagnoses or like, extreme family privilege. n select few who not any of that, still would have realized something different before see tumblr post (there plenty people w ID who not have self awareness realize. but they tend not be in this group). if you ever had full neuropsych assessment (way to Officially Diagnose autism ADHD etc) which 99% time include full scale IQ n some amount of adaptive functioning assessment, & ID n intellectual functioning concerns never been brought up in it, then there pretty much no chance have ID
No cause you explained this perfectly and this is such a good addition. Thank you so much!!
Yes. I think that’s why I get so defensive at times. I don’t think people who see my posts that talk about ID and go “omg..wait..” really understand ID. It affects everything.
When I was younger, my mom KNEW something was wrong. Said so to multiple doctors. Saw MULTIPLE doctors. Finally saw a doctor who was like “oh yeah, something here is wrong”.
When people meet me, they know something is wrong. Sometimes they can’t pinpoint it, sometimes they can. But they do. Even though I have Mild ID, it affects everything. It’s not just brain, it’s everything.
I hate that the “shauty getting sexually gross with it” comment is a niche thing that only my friends and I know about and not common knowledge because I constantly want to to reference it but no one would know what I’m referencing
honestly, the radicalizing event that made me ditch faux-ironic detachment is when I sent a hard-to-write sentimental message to someone I was (at the time) close with, and they sent the vomiting emoji back. it was like oh okay, that sucks. I am now of the opinion that it is 100x cooler and braver to be sappy with the people you care about.
I like when there’s something in the news that’s perfect for a kid to print out… take this to school as your current event. Let the whole class weigh in. Is farts art?
There are so many unintended consequences to well-intentioned actions. It feels like a game you can’t win.
#CHIDI WAS RIGHT
The Good Place really went with making their new Point ‘there is no ethical consumption under capitalism’ and I respect that
And then went on to say “blaming individuals for all of this is absurd and evil, as is locking them up for punishment instead of rehabilitation” and I respect that
Also, “consequentialism is a fundamentally flawed branch of ethics”
this remains one of my favorite shows ever made, simply because it had very real things to say, and said them explicitly, in a way that encouraged further discussion of those themes, all while being very entertaining.
No don’t be silly, I don’t want want ALL characters in my media to be girls. At least some of them need to be boys who look like girls and have complicated gender feels about it.
What about trans boys in your media?
As long as at least some of them look like girls (on purpose, rather than “not passing”), then they’re allowed to look like boys.
[ Image description: a green train standing by the end of the tracks. The screen that usually displays the number and destination of the train reads “Ich bin kaputt!”, which is German for “I am broken!” End description ]
kids are not inherently annoying oh my goddddd. i have been witnessing an uptick in this behavior IRL and online, but especially IRL? it’s disturbing to me. kids playing is not inherently annoying. kids laughing is not inherently annoying. kids making mistakes is not inherently annoying. kids not knowing things is not inherently annoying. kids needing help is not inherently annoying. kids crying is not inherently annoying. kids stimming is not inherently annoying. kids being overstimulated is not inherently annoying. kids needing to use the restroom is not inherently annoying. kids getting sick is not inherently annoying. kids being hungry, thirsty, or needing the bathroom is not inherently annoying.
kids are not inherently an inconvenience. kids do not have to be completely still and dead silent in order to be around adults or in public. if you feel as though kids having basic needs or being happy in your vicinity is annoying, you really need to reassess why, because that is not a healthy mentality to be trapped in because it ends up hurting both you and the child. kids don’t deserve to be made miserable because you view them as a wholesale inconvenience. they will pick up on the fact that you view that way. kids aren’t as stupid as you think they are- they’re learning, and they learn fast.
thank you to the folks who pointed this out in the reblogs:
children ARE allowed to be annoying sometimes, whether or not you like it. children are learning, and they will make mistakes, sing too loud, chew with their mouths open, grab things too hard, pull on hair, and do things that are inconveniencing at times. kids are allowed to do this. annoyance does not need to beget violence and cruelty. even if a child annoys you, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be punished, abused, or miserable. even if a child is mean to you, they don’t deserve to be treated like shit for it. we have to give children permission to make mistakes so that they can learn.
we have forgotten how to deal with being annoyed as a culture. annoying shit happens all the time. the person in their 40s who looks like they should clearly be able to use their debit card that they guaranteed use multiple times a day who keeps putting their pin in then hitting “cancel” on the keypad at the grocery store is really fucking annoying, but do they deserve to be screamed at? no. adults can be just as if not MORE stupid and annoying than children. and yet we don’t encourage people to scream at other adults and make them feel embarrassed for existing. adults piss me off and annoy me all the goddamn time. i let them do it because i don’t have the right to be rude as fuck to them because they did something that temporarily inconvenienced me.
you being temporarily inconvenienced does not give you a pass to be cruel to anyone. children are going to inconvenience you at times. you have to learn how to deal with inconveniences and annoyance. sometimes you will be uncomfortable and there’s nothing you can do about it. sometimes you will be annoyed or embarrassed and there’s nothing you can do about it. taking it out on someone else won’t make you feel less embarrassed. learn how to cope with transient emotions, especially when they’re “negative”.
Not for everyone but I personally started feeling less annoyed by children once I started asking “am I annoyed by this trait in them, or is it something I’m ashamed of in myself?”
kids are not inherently annoying oh my goddddd. i have been witnessing an uptick in this behavior IRL and online, but especially IRL? it’s disturbing to me. kids playing is not inherently annoying. kids laughing is not inherently annoying. kids making mistakes is not inherently annoying. kids not knowing things is not inherently annoying. kids needing help is not inherently annoying. kids crying is not inherently annoying. kids stimming is not inherently annoying. kids being overstimulated is not inherently annoying. kids needing to use the restroom is not inherently annoying. kids getting sick is not inherently annoying. kids being hungry, thirsty, or needing the bathroom is not inherently annoying.
kids are not inherently an inconvenience. kids do not have to be completely still and dead silent in order to be around adults or in public. if you feel as though kids having basic needs or being happy in your vicinity is annoying, you really need to reassess why, because that is not a healthy mentality to be trapped in because it ends up hurting both you and the child. kids don’t deserve to be made miserable because you view them as a wholesale inconvenience. they will pick up on the fact that you view that way. kids aren’t as stupid as you think they are- they’re learning, and they learn fast.
thank you to the folks who pointed this out in the reblogs:
children ARE allowed to be annoying sometimes, whether or not you like it. children are learning, and they will make mistakes, sing too loud, chew with their mouths open, grab things too hard, pull on hair, and do things that are inconveniencing at times. kids are allowed to do this. annoyance does not need to beget violence and cruelty. even if a child annoys you, that doesn’t mean they deserve to be punished, abused, or miserable. even if a child is mean to you, they don’t deserve to be treated like shit for it. we have to give children permission to make mistakes so that they can learn.
we have forgotten how to deal with being annoyed as a culture. annoying shit happens all the time. the person in their 40s who looks like they should clearly be able to use their debit card that they guaranteed use multiple times a day who keeps putting their pin in then hitting “cancel” on the keypad at the grocery store is really fucking annoying, but do they deserve to be screamed at? no. adults can be just as if not MORE stupid and annoying than children. and yet we don’t encourage people to scream at other adults and make them feel embarrassed for existing. adults piss me off and annoy me all the goddamn time. i let them do it because i don’t have the right to be rude as fuck to them because they did something that temporarily inconvenienced me.
you being temporarily inconvenienced does not give you a pass to be cruel to anyone. children are going to inconvenience you at times. you have to learn how to deal with inconveniences and annoyance. sometimes you will be uncomfortable and there’s nothing you can do about it. sometimes you will be annoyed or embarrassed and there’s nothing you can do about it. taking it out on someone else won’t make you feel less embarrassed. learn how to cope with transient emotions, especially when they’re “negative”.
Not for everyone but I personally started feeling less annoyed by children once I started asking “am I annoyed by this trait in them, or is it something I’m ashamed of in myself?”
If you ever feel like you must be the most unobservant person in the world, remember: I once spent half a year failing to notice that my new favourite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the Ukrainian mafia.
(I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect, the fact that it was always dead no matter the time of day - I think the busiest I ever saw it was five people, myself included - well, that should have been a tipoff. Also, the waitstaff kept calling me “Mr. Prokopetz”, which I had assumed was just part of the restaurant’s gimmick, but given that “Prokopetz” is a Ukrainian surname, I’m now force to wonder whether they’d thought I was, you know, in the business. I just liked the pierogi!)
What I need to know is how on earth did OP finally realize his favorite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the mafia.
I’d like to say I put together the clues, but in reality, I just showed up one day to find that the place had been indefinitely shut down, and later learned it was because the managers had all been arrested.
What I really want to know is how good the food was?
Excellent, if your tastes run to the “heavy cream and too much garlic” end of the spectrum.
Every crime front I’ve ever eaten at has had completely amazing food, honestly. I am pretty convinced that if you want to open a front, you don’t choose “restaurant” as your front-business unless you have a relative who loves to cook.
It tickles me that this is evidently a sufficiently common experience that people find it relatable. (Seriously, check the notes!) We should write reviews or something.
did I just read the line “every crime front I’ve ever eaten at” with my own two eyes
Look, I went to college and lived my early adulthood in a town whose entire thing was import/export, and we had a lot of restaurants that were suspiciously empty except when they were closed and filled with very serious men in nice clothes.
They were usually run by someone who was about the right age to be some adult’s parents or grandparents, and in the case of the two Korean restaurants matching this description, they didn’t speak English. Universally though, they were very pleased to see customers, very proud of their cooking, and very very interested in keeping us far away from the aforementioned serious men in nice clothes. And despite having huge dining rooms and never having more than a couple customers, they never went out of business.
Also, because I am very, very stupid and sometimes don’t think before I talk, I once said loudly, over the phone, while sitting in one of these places, “Hey! Yeah if you want to meet us, we’re eating at [place]. You know…[place]? You totally know it. The Front, on Warwick st!”
The looks I got from every single employee were amazing and then I left.
We had a corner store/deli-place near our apartment in college. Everyone knew they were in on something and no one cared because they looked out for their customers and their neighborhood as a whole.
They started stocking my favorites because I mentioned them within hearing range once, would tell their “vendors” to move out of the way if we stopped in. I walked a different route home and got harassed one night and they asked after me. When they found out what happened, they declared “Consider it taken care of, you should never be afraid around here.” Never happened again.
Everyone needs their friendly neighborhood crime lord.
This is both my favorite and makes me fondly remember home. Less of the eateries, more of the mysterious retail joints that never seem to close despite no one ever buying anything, though. Well. Aside from the juice bar. Didnt last, though.
the summer is like well what if it was unbearable outside and you can’t wear any cool jackets. and everyone’s going to tell you that this is the best time of the year. and you’re the crazy one
sometimes im like “wow holy shit im being really fucking annoying. i should stop talking” and then i pull out my magic 8 ball and it says “youve always been annoying and your friends chose to talk you anyways. youll be fine” and im like wow thanks magic 8 ball. and then the ogre attacks me
u can become fully immune to a lot of scaremongering transphobic headlines simply by being chill about otherkin stuff. ‘what’s next? children identifying as CATS and DOGS??’ why not! i hope they have a lovely time doing it.
obviously being trans & being otherkin aren’t directly equivalent to each other but like. a major part of LGBT acceptance is u know 'people should be able to do whatever they want so long as it’s not harming anyone’ so a lot of these slippery slope type arguments are just. very silly. it literally doesn’t effect me at all if people want to identify as animals. also people have been doing that for years and it hasn’t brought about the downfall of society yet so i think we are okay.
like. there’s a whole goddamn spectrum of becoming, from “momentary whim” to “this is who I am now.” most kids spend huge amounts of time being cats and dogs, knights and princesses, space heroes and cowboys, characters in the last book they read, themselves visiting the setting of the last book they read, doctors and mothers and astronauts and outlaws, grown men and women.
some of them grow up and become things they once played at being. some of them become things they played at being and then grow up. some of them are things they cannot become yet, and pass the time by pretending to be them. some people can’t become the things they are because it’s not physically possible (dog) or culturally available (medieval princess, superhero) and devote significant aspects of their lives to an acceptable mimicry or remaking (furries, ren faires, conventions).
some of these things are transient, and some of these things will become a permanent part of you, and even some of the things you hold and let go will still play their part in shaping you.
but, like.
we’re getting to the point of people unironically being the anti-imagination mom from Miracle on 34th St or the headmistress from A Little Princess (who stopped the servant children from having a little tea party in their garret with pretty decorations and saved treats), just downright ugly beliefs about forcing humans to stick to “their place” and demonizing even imagination as too subversive to be allowed.
Bro I loved buying used books people literally do not care about their books at all. I got a copy of an out of print art book that I’ve wanted for a while.
I got it on sale because it was listed as damaged, with the damage being “pen markings” on the title page.
Those pen markings are a fucking signature by the artist
A new cat color has been spotted in Finland. This is really interesting. A lot of common cat coat patterns have only evolved in the last 1,000 years. The tabby cat coloration only evolved in the Middle Ages.
they’re calling it salty licorice because of its visual similarity to the popular Finnish sweet, it reminds me of blue tick coloring in dogs or the blue roan coloring in horses and cows.
i loooove when a cat is posing for a photo documenting it bro you are a specimen and you have no idea
Picture of the die of Intel 8086, which was released all the way back in 1978, started the x86 architecture that still domintes the computer industry today.
One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal.
This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds]
What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us.
There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign?
“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”
Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down:
In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder).
“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing.
“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”
“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match.
Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine.
I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently).
The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn” is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss).
“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L.
The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron.
The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.
Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud.
Girl the meanest thing my best friend Dylan has ever done to me is lock me in the car with his fart
I can’t even pillow fight with this man one time I was bored af at his house and I smacked him with a couch cushion while he was playing videogames. He looked at me and said with the saddest little voice “why did you do that 🥺🥺”
also speaking of. why do people always stick their tongue into their cheek to imitate sucking a dick. who the hell is getting their face fucked sideways. who is getting millennium puzzle dimension in the thrussy
getting your dick sucked non-euclidean style thursday vision board
putting it in my cheek pouch for later thursday vision board
“nyahh, see?” with the penis thursday vision board
Conservatives vent so much spleen on moral relativism and then treat empirical truth as epistemically impossible. “My facts don’t care about your feelings and my feelings don’t care about your facts”
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
I couldn’t remember the word “doorknob” ten minutes ago.
ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website
REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER’S LIFE
LIFE SAVED
REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE
I use this every time I sit down to write. It’s the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!
