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Posts
46
Comments
132
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • It's available to me. Before the dinner, Karoline Leavitt says to a journalist: "He is ready to rumble, I will tell you. This speech tonight will be classic Donald J Trump. It'll be funny, it'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room. So everyone should tune in, it's going to be really great."

  • There's actually no proof the Moscow theatre hostage crisis was staged either. You're supporting a conspiracy theory by pointing to an another conspiracy that you just made up. Y'all have completely given up on critical thinking.

  • Old-timey paintings of towns are super super comfy to me, I guess it's the same feeling

    (Florence, by Hartmann Schedel, Liber Chronicarum, 15th century)

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    conservarule

  • That's an impressive level of disingenuousness.

  • Show the rest of the graph please.

  • hmmm

    Jump
  • I am disappointed this isn't used on any Wiki article.

  • Oxen is historically a 100% English plural, just like child-children, it wasn't loaned. (I should check, but I'm pretty sure it's the same -en as in German plurals: das Auge, die Augen.)

    Some of these Latin plurals can survive for technical terminology. But it's pretty much only Latin ones, due to the historical prestige. Nobody talks of Soviet apparatchiki, it's apparatchiks.

  • The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots.

    That was the idea in ancient Greece when the name of the endavour/field was created (etymon = "true"). In the 19th century when linguistics became a serious science it was effectively becoming abandoned, and quite clearly criticised by 20th century linguists. Words' meanings and forms shift inevitably, they've always been shifting, and trying to pick one single stage of this process as the right one is basically like saying that the earth is flat because from any individual vantage point it looks flat to you.

    If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense.

    No, you don't. 99% of people don't know the etymology of 99% of the words they use. Not even linguists have definitive answers for the etymology of words such as 'boy' and 'dog'. Words' meanings are actually established by usage, by tradition as it's handed down to us, with some leeway in how we accept and modify the tradition. (These mechanisms of language change are many and affect various levels of language.) Note that cultures that don't have scientific etymology still have perfectly functional languages.

    It seems like the argument for descriptivism is “let’s not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language”

    That's one of the arguments, but as you can see I don't think it's crucial.

    I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.

    There are some professional linguists who are active as prescriptivists. Their number varies depending on the country, in Anglophone countries their number is miniscule. In countries with a more pronounced prescriptivist tradition (as in mine, I'm from Croatia) their number declines through time as academia accepts and integrates modern linguistic theories, and the remaining prescriptivists' positions soften. And I can't help but notice that many of the current prescriptivists are shoddy linguists and ideologically motivated (elitists, conservatives).

    The prescriptivists are actually quite thin on the justifications for their approach. They won't theoretically or empirically defend prescriptivism, arguments for it amount to vague and unscientific claims of a need for order and clarity in language (which exist regardless of prescriptivist intervention), and such stuff. But even they usually don't dare to go so far as to claim etymology is the source of correct meanings, because they know that holding such a position would immediately lead into absurdity and extremism. Leaf through an etymological dictionary and try to stick to the oldest meaning described there. You'll quickly realise that the source of correct meanings can't be the words and forms from 500, 1000, or 4000 years ago. In fact, I've seen prescriptivists attack usage that's been around for centuries, or demand people follow semantic distinctions between words or constructions that never existed at all.

    A book recommendation, if you're interested: L. Bauer and P. Trudgill, Language Myths.

  • World News @lemmy.world

    Gennady Zyuganov [chairman of Communist Party of the Russian Federation] warns of the risk of a revolution in Russia as early as this fall

    ua.news /en/war-vs-rf/video-ziuganov-zaiaviv-pro-rizik-revoliutsiyi-v-rf-uzhe-voseni
  • And so ends the epoch of black-and-white Daily Bunnies

  • Putting aside the technicalities (it is not language that is prescriptive or descriptive, but linguistics), that's a widespread position among perfectly literate people, including professional linguists. Nothing to do with the number of "likes".

  • It was a wolf who promised to the sheeps he'll eat all the cows so the sheep will have more grass for themselves.

  • If you can't help but see a consistent position against the death penalty as "Nazi apologia", that's your problem.

  • Wtf, I support Israel now!

  • hexbear.net has raised over $1500 for Palestine over the past few weeks

    Jump
  • And I love you

  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    rule яule яυle яυl€ яυ|_€

  • Technology @lemmy.world

    The Foundation Is Strong: What TDF Is, Why It Matters, and Where It Is Going - TDF Community Blog

    blog.documentfoundation.org /blog/2026/04/17/the-foundation-is-strong/
  • LibreOffice @discuss.tchncs.de

    The Foundation Is Strong: What TDF Is, Why It Matters, and Where It Is Going - TDF Community Blog

    blog.documentfoundation.org /blog/2026/04/17/the-foundation-is-strong/
  • Removed Locked

    Lemmy.jpeg

    Jump
  • "Laughable", "disingenuous", "you're wilfully lying", wow easy with those arguments there. I made the comparison based on your own logic.

    Try walking into Gaza like that.

    Try walking into an Uyghur reeducation camp, lmao.

  • Removed Locked

    Lemmy.jpeg

    Jump
  • If I were a zionist, I'd definitely use this sort of argument when talking about Palestinians. Lol you can go to West Bank and talk to them, therefore there's no genocide.

  • LibreOffice @discuss.tchncs.de

    The Document Foundation Blog: Let's put an end to the speculation

    blog.documentfoundation.org /blog/2026/04/05/lets-put-an-end-to-the-speculation/
  • Technology @lemmy.world

    The Document Foundation Blog: Let's put an end to the speculation

    blog.documentfoundation.org /blog/2026/04/05/lets-put-an-end-to-the-speculation/
  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    rulefield

  • LibreOffice @discuss.tchncs.de

    LibreOffice Drama: TDF Removes Collabora Developers in One Sweep

    itsfoss.com /news/document-foundation-collabora-feud/
  • Technology @lemmy.world

    LibreOffice Drama: The Document Foundation Removes Collabora Developers in One Sweep

    itsfoss.com /news/document-foundation-collabora-feud/
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz

    Ten Years of Glossa: A Decade of Diamond Open Access in Linguistics

    www.openlibhums.org /news/930/
  • Art @lemmy.dbzer0.com

    NEGATIVEMEDITATION, by u/Whitecalx_

  • Wikipedia @lemmy.world

    Entirety of Wikinews to be shut down

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2026-03-31/News_and_notes
  • World News @lemmy.world

    Slovenia election sees ruling party tied with opposition

    www.dw.com /en/slovenia-election-sees-ruling-party-tied-with-opposition/a-76473130
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz

    Denny Moore: Fact checking Geoffery Pullum's claims about Daniel Everett in Brazil

    ling.auf.net /lingbuzz/009832
  • 196 @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    I should try it, I guess (rule)

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz

    China’s new language law to criminalise advocacy of ethnic minority rights

    www.tibetanreview.net /chinas-new-language-law-to-criminalise-advocacy-of-ethnic-minority-rights/
  • Traditional Art @lemmy.world

    Paul Klee: "They're Biting" (1920)

  • News @lemmy.world

    Death of Fredrick Brennan, creator of 8chan forum where QAnon emerged

    www.lemonde.fr /en/pixels/article/2026/02/23/death-of-fredrick-brennan-creator-of-8chan-forum-where-qanon-emerged_6750792_13.html