negaduck: http://shaenon.livejournal.com/36669.html

Edited by author 01-23-2010 01:08 PM
Nice link on languages there!

You might also find http://weblog.masukomi.org/2010/01/22/on-creating-my-own-language interesting, a friend of mine on her invented "conlang".

I always assumed English was about the easiest to learn - maybe one of the tougher to get perfect, though. But rather than being all "go me!" in learning a tough language I was digging an excuse for being so grindingly monolingual.

PS, re the English major remark, and finding language boring...
I find grammar super dull and annoying, am a terrible speller, but I like what language can do, and a bit about how it does it... (also I guess "English Lit" is a bit different than "English"?)

I guess I'm writing this as a disclaimer, maybe you won't find my link there that interesting after all...

Edited by author 01-23-2010 11:02 PM
re the English major remark, and finding language boring...

"[A]s I wasn't an English major because I found language boring" was meant as a double negative; ie, I was an English because I DON'T find language boring. I should've said "I didn't become an English major..." As one can see, I am better described as a failed English major, as I dropped out of college after a year and a half.

Bill - yes, I saw that page some time ago while Googling around for Ma Hunkel. I got a big grin out of it.

I've recently been working with a lot of people from other countries - that is, coworkers, not patients or stuff - and I believe that English is one of the hardest languages to learn because of its irregularity. Most other languages are fairly logical, but English, because it is such a mongrel language, is all over the place, especially in terms of spelling. Compared to that, Japanese, with its adjectival nouns and verb conjugation not for person but for formality, is straightforward. (The spoken language, that is, not the written version. Kanji, oy.)

I do believe that language reveals a lot about how people think and perceive the world. For example, you wouldn't find a phrase like "reap what you sow" in a hunter-gatherer culture, and on reflection it makes sense that people whose lives depend on knowing where they are in the landscape would focus on absolute directions rather than relative. This is actually a topic that I've thought about a lot over the years, because when I write, I narrate viewpoint subjectively, and do my best to use terms and phrases that would be appropriate to that specific viewpoint.

Language is a fun subject. People who know me from RHPS or the fandoms I write in are sometimers surprised when they set me off on the topic.

Bill: ah that makes more sense

Negaduck re: English learnability.

I'm not sure if I'm dissuaded from my opinion that English is easier than most to get the basics of, and then one of the harder to perfect, in terms of spelling etc. I think it's why it might remain the "lingua franca" even as the Chinese become more of a main force of the Business etc world.

And then pointing out the disconnect in written/spoken Japanese... I think there's a pragmatism in languages where the written version is basically the spoken.

LOL, I answered the questions honestly, not trying to get any particular answer--since as the Brig says, "Splendid fellows, all of them"--and surprise, surprise...

"You are the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy). You’re a dark horse aren’t you? Highly intelligent, you love to cook up a scheme and you’re not inclined to keep your friends in the loop – you’re a bit of a loner."

Oddly accurate. ;)

as the Brig says, "Splendid fellows, all of them"

I think that line would work better as "Splendid fellows, all of him."

I got Tenth 2 times, despite somewhat different (but still self-descriptive) answers, but Seven sounds more like me personally. If anyone ever describes me as having "a roving eye," they'll mean that it fell out of its socket.

Who was the Doctor who hated cats? Feed him to the Silurians, say I!

Actually that's a bit of highly inconsistent characterization with Ten (though by no means not the only one)--he gives a wide berth to a cat in one instance cos of the vaguely menacing cat-nurses in 'New Earth,' but subsequently gets all snuggly with kittens in 'Gridlock,' so...yeah. Really doesn't work at all, especially when you consider how Six always wore a cat pin on his lapel (as Colin Baker apparently is a Crazy Cat Man in real life, as I've seen numerous RL-pictures of him with his kittehs over the years).

My abject Whogeekery, let me show you it.

Edited by author 01-29-2010 08:00 PM
Lili:
Related: LOLCats

I've had conjunctivitis a number of times thanks to my tendency toward dry eye, and it is misery. Get that animal to a vet before she starts scratching her eyes out, not to mention infecting the other cats!

Yes, it's super-contagious. However, it might be irritation or a scrape on the eye from her rubbing her face on things or getting a foreign object in it -- I know it's bad when this is the silver lining we're looking for. Pepe had a couple episodes of irritation when she rubbed her face against scratchy things. Of course, she'd rub her face on anything: when she was a kitten she once rubbed on a hot iron before I could stop her and burned off all the whiskers on one side. I was very worried about her eye then, but she seemed to suffer no ill effects except lopsided whiskers for a month or so.

I've had conjunctivitis too and it's absolutely no fun whatsoever. I think the peace of mind you will get from having Killsy diagnosed and treated will hopefully ameliorate your distress at having to take her to the vet in the first place...?

*hugs & pets to all concerned at Killian and Company*

Conjunctivitis was my uneducated diagnosis based on the symptoms listed on a cat health site. Jessica (who works in a cat shelter) said the same as you, Linda, and suggested waiting until the end of the week before calling the vet.

Today her eye is still watery, but it's back to normal size. And if it's contagious, surely by now one of the boys should have it. Looks like a false alarm at the moment. Lily, I would've made an appointment in an instant if she'd shown any discomfort. That's the real reason I waited. I'll keep an eye on her, um, eye, and see if it continues to improve.

Thanks for your input, fellow cat fanatics!

Thanks for the clarification re: Facebook, since I was equal parts befuddled and amused when I got home from Cinematic Titanic late last night to discover your friend request, as I definitely would have thought you were the last guy on earth to even have a Facebook page. (I'm hardly ever on there anymore either; it's all pretty much Twitter and LiveJournal for me, along of course with the two forums I admin.)

Incidentally, I can't recommend Cinematic Titanic enough. The gang riffed on Danger on Tiki Island--featuring John Ashley of Attack of the (the) Eye Creatures fame--and apart from laughing my ass off, what I loved about seeing the live show was when they'd screw up their lines, or start laughing at each others' delivery. Utterly nonpareil riffing from beginning to end, and absolutely equal to MST3K at its best. (And I say that only slightly influenced by how oddly emotional I got when Joel first came out to introduce everyone. No, really!!)

Argh -- our condo ass is awful, too. They also murdered our beautiful magnolia trees, no explanation. And they freak out and send me hate mail if I leave my trash cans in front of my garage instead of behind it -- which I do if it's raining and I will otherwise leave ruts in the grass that they do (well, should) maintain. The landscapers they have hired have been ordered not to touch my lawn because I complain when they raze the tufty long grasses they insisted on planting to the ground, but when they want to test new weedeaters or whatever they proceed to murder my grapevines again and again. Le sigh.

Ice-Nine. I love you. :)