Irregardless still isn't a real word

[brewfreeordie]

I hear it all the time. Can't stand it.

I literally can't stand it.

 

[cheezydemon3]

I know that many people will very intentionally refrain from saying irregardles in order to distinguish themselves from the people who are irretarded.

I hear it all the time. Can't stand it.

I literally can't stand it.

You poor fellow! Do you need us to call someone to help you up?

 

[seabass07]

I know that many people will very intentionally refrain from saying irregardles in order to distinguish themselves from the people who are irretarded.

I think you got that backwards. Irretarded, while also not a word, can be inferred to mean not retarded.

 

[Oldskooler]

To continue this Blather is irresponsible...nuff said

 

[cheezydemon3]

I think you got that backwards. Irretarded, while also not a word, can be inferred to mean not retarded.

.....that was the joke!lol.

 

[BobbiLynn]

What bothers me is "shrimps" and "fabrics". There are multiple shrimp or multiple pieces of fabric, not shrimps and fabrics. Also "Big Foot" when there is more than one, why not "Big Feet"?

 

[seabass07]

Maybe he only has one big foot?

 

[craigger64]

Maybe he only has one big foot?

now THAT'S funny!


i hate hearing supposively or supposably instead of SUPPOSEDLY

and the use of "that" instead of "who" when talking about people: "I know some guys that brew beer"........no, you know some guys WHO brew beer.

and please, please, please, don't EVER, under ANY circumstances start a sentence with the word "him" or "me"

 

[BobbiLynn]

Me still pondering the one big foot, irregardless of what others think.

 

[Cromwell]

One of the greatest poets of this time: "sing me and Julio down by the schoolyard."

Of course, he is one of the shrimps, so maybe he's allowed.

 

[mike_in_ak]

Inflammable

 

[Cromwell]

If language is plastic, i.e. constantly changing and adapting, then maybe it's time we reassigned the definitions of "affect" and "effect"? In my experience, people use the wrong one more than half the time. Therefore, we could make an instantaneous and effortless improvement in America's literacy by simply swapping the definitions.

Just throwing that out there.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Inflammable

OK, I am intrigued. Without googling, it means: Not flammable. Not able to be on fire. Right?

 

[Cromwell]

OK, I am intrigued. Without googling, it means: Not flammable. Not able to be on fire. Right?

Nope, it means the same thing as being flammable. Another case where "in" is from the Latin, and means "on".

 

[cheezydemon3]

Nope, it means the same thing as being flammable. Another case where "in" is from the Latin, and means "on".

So we see some clashing where Latin collides with some of the evolutions it spawned. Interesting.

 

[nukebrewer]

OK, I am intrigued. Without googling, it means: Not flammable. Not able to be on fire. Right?

Nope, it means the same thing as being flammable. Another case where "in" is from the Latin, and means "on".

Makes sense, I suppose. The root word here is inflame, so it's not really a conflict, per se, but it does cause quite a bit of confusion.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Affect and effect give me occasional trouble.

I bother to learn the RIGHT way, and then it doesn't come up for a long time and I second guess myself.

It really doesn't help that the words have multiple meanings. for instance, affect also meaning "Expression" as in facial expression or spontaneous emotional response. Inappropriate Affect is a disorder where someone laughs at hearing of tragedy, etc.

 

[MalFet]

Nope, it means the same thing as being flammable. Another case where "in" is from the Latin, and means "on".

A parallel example would be "duh" and "no duh".

Another fun one is naprons and noranges. Over time, "a napron" and "a norange" got reanalyzed as "an apron" and "an orange".

 

[passedpawn]

A parallel example would be "duh" and "no duh".

Another fun one is naprons and noranges. Over time, "a napron" and "a norange" got reanalyzed as "an apron" and "an orange".

norenge. then une norenge (fr.)

 

[mike_in_ak]

Inflammable means flammable?



[youtube]nO3Wfenv4Mo[/youtube]

 

[emjay]

So we see some clashing where Latin collides with some of the evolutions it spawned. Interesting.

English is not derived from Latin...

 

[TNGabe]

English is not derived from Latin...

Well, not the whole language....

 

[MalFet]

English is not derived from Latin...

Not directly, but it's been a major superstrate language for as long as English has been around. I'd say cheezy's description of the ongoing borrowings, reborrowings, and reanalyses was accurately stated.

 

[emjay]

Not directly, but it's been a major superstrate language for as long as English has been around. I'd say cheezy's description of the ongoing borrowings, reborrowings, and reanalyses was accurately stated.

Sure, but he talked about "'Latin' colliding with 'the evolutions it spawned'". Seems kind of strange to attribute them both to the same thing.

 

[cheezydemon3]

I appreciate the distinction emjay.

Guess I was under the impression that English, Spanish, and French were derived from Latin or "vulgar" latin.

 

[Cromwell]

Spanish and French are "romance" languages, and are derived from Latin.

English is "Germanic" and is derived from Proto-Germanic which originates in northern Europe. (A whole 'nother D) branch of language.)
The numerous words of Latin origin in English are due to it's extensive borrowing from other languages.

 

[MalFet]

Spanish and French are "romance" languages, and are derived from Latin.

English is "Germanic" and is derived from Proto-Germanic which originates in northern Europe. (A whole 'nother D) branch of language.)
The numerous words of Latin origin in English are due to it's extensive borrowing from other languages.

Over the last few decades, there's be a general trend towards regarding Modern English as a creole of a Germanic language and a Romance language. The structure of English is actually pretty consistent creole typologies. It's a fairly technical distinction, but a fun idea nonetheless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_creole_hypothesis

 

[seabass07]

Over the last few decades, there's be a general trend...

Am I the only one who read this in a pirate voice?

 

[MalFet]

Am I the only one who read this in a pirate voice?

Who be you to make fun of how I talk?!?

 

[Cromwell]

Over the last few decades, there's be a general trend towards regarding Modern English as a creole of a Germanic language and a Romance language. The structure of English is actually pretty consistent creole typologies. It's a fairly technical distinction, but a fun idea nonetheless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_creole_hypothesis

Fascinating. At what point is the threshold from "extensive borrowing" passed to "creolization"? Is it a function of grammar as opposed to simple loaner words?

I'd say that several dialects of pidgin contributed to English, but that English was modified for them, as opposed to descendant from, in the cases of Chinese, Hawaiian, etc. I'd also guess that this was simply true to a larger degree with French.

 

[SwivelHips]

Some of you posting here might enjoy Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue - English and How It Got That Way

Not a comprehensive analysis, but fun and illuminating. Ever wonder why 'teeth' and not 'tooths'.

 

[MalFet]

Fascinating. At what point is the threshold from "extensive borrowing" passed to "creolization"? Is it a function of grammar as opposed to simple loaner words?

I'd say that several dialects of pidgin contributed to English, but that English was modified for them, as opposed to descendant from, in the cases of Chinese, Hawaiian, etc. I'd also guess that this was simply true to a larger degree with French.

It's a somewhat arbitrary distinction, but it basically comes down to how the language is learned and passed on.

A creole is essentially the second+ generation of a pidgin. A pidgin is an ad-hoc communication system built to facilitate functional communication between the speakers of two different languages. When children learn a pidgin as a native language, however, they tend to embellish it with particular kinds of syntactic regularities. Loan words tend enter a language gradually and in some registers faster than others. Like you say, it tends to expand vocabulary without fundamentally altering functional structure. A creole, on the other hand, tends to come about very abruptly, and it frequently takes on features that neither of the parent languages have.

Considering that this all happened a thousand years ago, much of the thinking is speculative, but there's more and more evidence accruing that the shift from Old to Middle English was dramatic and sudden. Most people can understand Middle English with a bit of training, but Old English may as well be Greek.

 

[passedpawn]

Some of you posting here might enjoy Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue - English and How It Got That Way

Not a comprehensive analysis, but fun and illuminating. Ever wonder why 'teeth' and not 'tooths'.

I love this author. Read several of his. Very witty and informative writing.

 

[Cromwell]

It's a somewhat arbitrary distinction, but it basically comes down to how the language is learned and passed on.

A creole is essentially the second+ generation of a pidgin. A pidgin is an ad-hoc communication system built to facilitate functional communication between the speakers of two different languages. When children learn a pidgin as a native language, however, they tend to embellish it with particular kinds of syntactic regularities. Loan words tend enter a language gradually and in some registers faster than others. Like you say, it tends to expand vocabulary without fundamentally altering functional structure. A creole, on the other hand, tends to come about very abruptly, and it frequently takes on features that neither of the parent languages have.

Considering that this all happened a thousand years ago, much of the thinking is speculative, but there's more and more evidence accruing that the shift from Old to Middle English was dramatic and sudden. Most people can understand Middle English with a bit of training, but Old English may as well be Greek.

This is great, I'd never heard this. And it makes pretty good intuitive sense.
Here's a question though: If modern English is the descendent of a pidgin between French and Old English, then presumably it would have less in common with other proto-German descendants than say, Spanish and French. Let me clarify - since Spanish and French and Italian are all descended directly from Latin (correct?) then they might have some level of familiarity with each other. Is that approximate to the similarity between say, English and Swedish, or English and German? Or Swedish and German?

 

[MalFet]

This is great, I'd never heard this. And it makes pretty good intuitive sense.
Here's a question though: If modern English is the descendent of a pidgin between French and Old English, then presumably it would have less in common with other proto-German descendants than say, Spanish and French. Let me clarify - since Spanish and French and Italian are all descended directly from Latin (correct?) then they might have some level of familiarity with each other. Is that approximate to the similarity between say, English and Swedish, or English and German? Or Swedish and German?

Right, I think the general consensus is that English has a lot less in common structurally with Swedish, German, or Flemish than those languages do with each other. It gets a little more complicated because English had a second period of significant borrowing from Norse languages in the 12th century, and we get a big chunk of our pronoun system from that. The closest living relative to Old English is probably Frisian, which would be quite unintelligible if not for the fact that it underwent significant influence from French as well.

It's remarkable how unintelligible Old English is. It's actually quite a bit closer to modern German than modern English is.


Some of the specifics here are above my pay grade. I don't do any work with English or any other European languages. My apologize in advance if I've got anything wrong here, but that's my understanding of the current thinking at least.

 

[mike_in_ak]

I think you mean irregardless of the general consensus.