#Language is nonsense

[sarahmaclean]

when did people start saying "sexy"? this feels like a thing you would've researched before giving sesily that nickname and my own googling has been unfruitful

oooh! this is a GREAT question, and making me think that I should bring my favorite Twitter thing, Foul Language Etymology with Sarah, to Tumblr!

So! Those of you who have read Bombshell know that much of London calls Sesily Talbot "Sexily Talbot" which is supposed to shame her and only makes her more committed to f*cking things up. Fun writing fact, this happened because every time I typed Sesily while writing the first book she appears din--her sister Sophie's book, The Rogue Not Taken--autocorrect would correct Sesily to Sexily. And I was delighted. (Sometimes you just write where the universe leads you.)

BUT...you can't just let autocorrect from 2015 tell you what to write in 1830, so...you have to go to the source! The source, in this case, being the Oxford English Dictionary which is amazing and provides etymology on every word in the English language (at least the ones that have been around for a while). Fun additional fact: if you have a library card, you very likely have free access to the OED online. Get a library card. Libraries are the literal best.

So. To the tape!

"Sexily," as an adverb, meaning "In a sexy manner," is first seen in print in 1929 with the following line in New Statesman: Simply I will say—slowly, sinuously, but not, I hope, sexily, ‘Welcome, Miss Bumfiddle! welcome, Alimony!’ Which...well...I'm not quite sure what to say about that, except to say that I needed another explanation for her name.

"Sexy," as an adjective, meaning "Containing or characterized by explicit sexual content; erotic, risqué; bawdy, saucy," is an American word from the 1890s, first spelled seksy (Come on, America, Really?) in a text by Enoch Arnold Bennet that reads "Lane had decided..not to handle your work of genius, on the score that it was seksy & America didn't want no seks-problems." Now. I don't know if "work of genius" is a euphemism or what, but I can say America, in fact, has a fair share of seks-problems, so Lane is a dirty liar.

Now, an important thing to note is that words like this (foul language, words relating to sex, and slang), are often in common language for years before they end up in a dictionary. So it would be reasonable to suggest that "sexy" might have been around since the 1860s or 70s. But my book was in the 1830s, so I needed something earlier.

"Sex," as a noun, to describe male or female has been around for what historians refer to as "a long ass time." It's in the Bible. But that doesn't really work. What's worse? "Sex" as an action -- touching butts, if you will -- isn't in print until 1900! HOW! Literally HOW! Honestly, I don't know. Language is nonsense.

BUT. A writer who is procrastinating really will not be thwarted. Because there, way down on the list of OED references to "sex" is:

"Sex: slang or euphemistic. A person's genitals."

1664. T. Killigrew Princess  ii. ii, in  Comedies & Trag. 22 Another ha's gon through with the bargain... One that will find the way to her Sex, before you'le come to kissing her hand.

And there it is. The winner. Historical romance novelists have been referencing his or her sex for literal decades, and this is why! Even better, calling someone "Sexily" is even more slut-shamey than before now that it's literally referring to a body part. Perfection. Sexily can laugh in the face of society, Caleb can come absolutely unhinged, and on with the show.

Read all about it in Bombshell.

Also, as always when I talk about the way we police language, please accept this: Words are not inherently dirty. They are just words. When we police language--especially language used by marginalized groups--we are often policing something else entirely. If you're interested in how smashing the policing of language can also smash the patriarchy, please read Mona Eltahawy's The Seven Necessary Sins for Women & Girls.

#etymology #Foul Language Etymology with Sarah #Language is nonsense #words are not bad people are bad #bombshell #the rogue not taken #sexy sexily sex

[misterradio]

Im really curious how people know about Esperanto. Since its a relatively recent language (from the 1880s), its obviously not going to be as widely spoken in the world as other languages (altho apparently it is the most widely spoken constructed language). I assume most people are introduced to it later in some way?

If u know what Esperanto is, feel free 2 reblog this and say how you learned about it in the tags.

#esperanto #original nonsense #i think i saw a tumblr post abt it uears ago but i think the first time i really learned what it was was because #i would listen to the night on the galactic railroad ost on youtube and all the titles are in esperanto. #and i found out later that kenji miyazawa was into esperanto and sometimes wrote in it. so i guess the ost was titled in #that language in reference to that? i think its neat ::-) #thank u all for blowing this post up i love seeing what everyone says. and i accidentally taught some people about esperanto's existence! #hall of fame

[chiropteracupola]

Creamthing d'or passant reguardant, by a sheaf of arrows percée ...and Montjoy also.

[creamthing is the creation of the inimitable @samsketchbook; despite this choice of adjective, I have nonetheless tried my best at a little heraldic creamthing]

#em draws stuff #creamthing #le roy d'armes des françois (dit montjoye) #<- look who has a montjoy tag now. only montjoy tagging because this is kind of nonsense. #sometimes the mood is creamthing heraldry. who can explain it who can tell you why. #midway through this piece I had a Weeping Session over the meaningfulness of like. Most of my art actually. #and then I took a break and redid the colors with sort of a red-yellow-blue forced focus which helped a lot #and also I decided that if you Believe in your silliness then it can be Meaningful Intertextuality. #the journey of creamthing. the journey of montjoy. creamthing as a pelican in its piety. #spent a Lot of time on heraldry wikipedia and then ancient archival scans of heraldry encyclopedias to try and get the description right #heraldic language is Hard and I still definitely didn't get it right but I Tried. and I like how it turned out :)

[lurkingteapot]

Free Thai language learning resources

I’ve been learning Thai for the past 20 months. This list is by no means complete or comprehensive, what works for me doesn’t have to work for you, etc etc. That said: I’ve used most of these and found them useful, I thought you might, too. Have fun!

Youtube channels with free video lessons:

There are tons of wonderful teachers on youtube; this is by no means an exhaustive list. The three channels listed here are comprehensive, long-running, and updated regularly; if you have other favourites, please reblog and append!

Comprehensible Thai is a channel that teaches Thai in Thai, from zero, via the comprehensible input method. They have videos from total beginner through upper intermediate/lower advanced levels available.

Learn Thai with Mod – Mod runs a language school that offers good, structured group classes; she and her co-teachers often upload short videos about specific aspects of Thai. The channel has been around for a long time and they cover a lot of topics, including grammar points.

Thai Lessons by New (Learn Thai one Word one Sentence) – lots of good vocabulary and situational phrases

Other channels I like:

Advanced Thai with Kruu Momm -- one of my favourites, Momm’s a star. Not included in the upper list only because this is definitely more of an intermediate-advanced resource.

Thai with Grace -- I knew of Grace via her polyglot channel and travel vlogs before I realised she also teaches Thai. Fun stuff.

Kat talks Thai -- I believe Kat is more active on instagram (@kattalksthai), but these are still really neat.

Perth Nakhun’s Basic Thai playlist

Honourable mentions because they’re interesting and can be nice supplements (yes, the video titles on these channels tend to be clickbaity, the content is useful, though):

Stu Jay Raj: Stu is a polyglot based in Thailand. His channel is a bit of a mixed bag, but he has a very interesting approach to languages and sometimes does foreign accent reduction / accent analysis sessions on his channel (with consent and participation of those whose speech he dissects).

Thai Talk with Paddy: Paddy is an Australian who learned Thai when he was a volunteer in Thailand, he’s kept it up. Fun things about language learning and culture

Listening comprehension

I’m assuming many folks on here who are interested in Thai already watch some Thai shows (yes I’m stereotyping but also this is tumblr), which means you’re spending time listening to Thai.

If you’re not:

Netflix, Youtube, WeTV, and Viki all have several Thai shows with English subtitles available. The Youtube channel of Thai broadcasting giant GMMTV has English subtitles on nearly all of their uploaded series, some series are also subtitled in languages other than English. one31 is another huge channel; they have English subtitles on some series and some series also have subtitles in Thai. There’s tons more – find a rec list and a Thai show that sounds like you’d enjoy it, chances are you’ll be able to watch it for free, legally, on youtube. You can use the youtube controls (or the ones on netflix) to turn the speed down to 75% —this can make it a lot easier to catch what’s being said. 50% gets so draggy that I personally find it almost harder to understand, but ymmv—give it a shot!

https://lingopolo.org/thai/ has real-life recordings for listening practice; sign-up is required but it’s literally just an e-mail-address, user name and password. Using the site is free.

https://www.activethai.com/ has a section dedicated to learning the tones (under “Overview of Thai Tones”) including a self-test for listening that I found very useful.

Learning to read

I will always, always, ALWAYS recommend learning to read the Thai script. All available romanisations for Thai have drawbacks, and besides, you learned to read English with its “though through thorough tough thought”, you can damn well learn to read Thai. I promise it will help you improve your pronunciation (yes, really) and overall understanding of how the language works.

Learn-to-Read-Thai resources that seem comprehensive and like they should do everything in one:

Anki decks “Read Thai PHASE 1 - The Consonants“, “Read Thai PHASE 2 - Thai Vowels“, “Read Thai PHASE 3 - Consonant Classes” and “Read Thai PHASE 4 - Tone Rules” by Khruu Gaan (ครูกานต์). Anki is probably the most powerful spaced repetition software I have ever used. It’s free on all desktops and android. These decks have sound.

Memrise course “Read Thai: A Complete Guide to Reading Thai“

Other resources I used (In hindsight, I feel like I should’ve picked one resource to learn to read from and stuck with it; I think I was rushing and made things more complicated than need be for myself with my hodgepodge mix-and-match approach. But hey, I can read now.)

https://www.activethai.com/ – the site I started with. Teaches the consonants separated by class and with sound. The only reason this is no longer my top recommendation is that I ended up using this alongside a resource that helped me memorise what the words used to represent the letters actually mean because the site itself didn’t tell me, and I wanted that easy way to have 44 vocabulary words ready as soon as you’re done learning your consonants, and it gives you access to neat mnemonics such as ไก่จิกเด็กตาย(เฎ็กฏาย)บนปากโอ่ง.

The chart on Wikipedia’s English article on the Thai Script

the reference section of Thai-Language.com

In order to better learn to read Thai written in different fonts (modern and handwriting fonts can be tough at first), the Thai Script typographical styles overview on Thai-language.com was a huge help, as was throwing simple phrases things into gdocs and messing around to see how different fonts made them look. This chart from sanukmaak.com also helped.

Speaking and pronunciation

The hardest one for any new language for most folks. For me personally, finding someone who speaks the language and is willing to correct me was an absolute necessity, but I know that’s not always an option. If you’re going it on your own, make sure you check out the resources above for learning to hear the tones and those sounds and sound clusters not present in your own language correctly first.

Things to try on your own:

shadowing: Whenever someone on a show utters a sentence you think might be useful, or provide a useful pattern, or something just sounds cool, rewind and try to speak along as they say it, trying to make it sound as close to their pronunciation as you can.

try to record yourself and listen back -- yes, it’s cringe af but it will HELP.

memorising short sentences and phrases: tying back to the section above, there's a ton of youtube videos that is "phrases to use in [situation]" that are great for targeted learning if you're up for it

self talk (cautiously! don't want to cement bad pronunciation habits)

if you’re linguistically inclined: looking up descriptions on how to make a sound correctly sometimes helps, as does watching videos of folks who’ve successfully learned the language.

once you’ve learned to read: find sentences to read somewhere (twitter, a textbook, whatever) and read them into your phone’s dictation engine. See if the software understands you correctly. Adjust as needed until it does.

Websites and apps to find language partners or (paid) tutors

Like any other app where you ‘meet people’, please exercise caution on these.

italki (mainly for finding tutors and teachers, but you can find language partners on the forums)

Preply (web/app) (for finding tutors/teachers)

hellotalk (app only, iOS/android) for finding language partners -- free to use basic features like messaging, voice rooms, etc; has annoying ads

tandem (app only, iOS/android) for finding language partners -- free to use basic features, has ads

any other app or website that’ll let you meet people, like local facebook groups (yes really), instagram, etc

(note: Neither hellotalk nor tandem allow users to sign up without selecting a binary gender. it sucks. I’ve seen people who managed to circumvent this on Hellotalk by signing up via apple ID (? I think), but it’s hearsay and I have not managed to do so myself.)

Books (a book) that are (is) worth spending money on imo

Higbie & Thinsan: Thai Reference Grammar. The Structure of Spoken Thai. Orchid Press: Bangkok, 2002. Yes, it’s ancient in textbook terms. It’s not perfect, but it’s still the best reference grammar for Thai I’ve come across so far, and I use it frequently.

Random bits and bobs

Stu Jay Raj has two videos in particular that I, as a phonetics-and-phonology-loving person, loved and found extremely useful and wished I’d watched before I started to try and learn the script: Thai Vowels for Dummies in 5 Min v2 - A System Impossible to Forget and Thai Bites Extended Edition - Transliterating Thai using IPA. I realise these may be overwhelming and less helpful for people with no prior phonetics or phonology training, but they helped me so much it’d feel amiss not to include them.

Resources I recommend AGAINST using when starting out

drops/hello words -- seems like their Thai courses have been created using machine translation that wasn’t sufficiently proofread. They will assign you nouns in places of the corresponding verb or false cognates, and that’s within the first 10 or so lessons. Might be useful once the level where a learner can tell “ah, yeah, that’s … not right” has been reached? idk.

transcription as generated by google translate: BURN IT WITH FIRE. it’s a transliteration, i.e. 1-to-1 representation of 1 Thai letter = 1 Latin letter (extended), it’s not phonemic, it’s not going to help ANYONE (and those who can make sense of it presumably already read Thai and would be better off with just Thai script). Just. Stop.

Google translate as a dictionary: still shitty but not AS bad as the transcription function. Still, for the love of all that you hold dear, please, save yourself the pain and confusion and just use thai2english or thai-language.com instead.

---

And that’s that from me, friends. Yeeting this into the void before I second-guess myself more. Please append additional resources!

Edited to fix a couple of typos and errors on 2023-06-15

#thai language #learning thai #ภาษาไทย #เรียนภาษาไทย #Thai from English #language learning #language resource #language learning resource #idk what the hell else to tag this #free education #don't get me started on 'creative' 'free-form' 'by-ear' romanisations; we'll be here all day #my nonsense

[peanutblowandjobsandwich]

they should invent a knowing a language that does not involve studying said language

#language learning #chaotic academia #langblr #studying #cloud nonsense #shitpost

[mommyashtoreth]

I think it's Easy but also extremely lame to reduce Crowley's element of "temptation" down to "he's horny and he Awakens Lust Within Aziraphale." Like don't get me wrong, I love gay sex, but Any of the deadly sins can be gay sex if you try! Isn't it more interesting to represent Aziraphale's desire for Crowley through something like, idk, "gluttony" which is more in line with how Crowley repeatedly "tempts" him (ox ribs = gay sex, anyone?)? Look I'm gay I know how this stuff works, all-consuming 6000-year desire stops being just Lust at some point. Crowley made Aziraphale realize he's been starving his entire life and that's not gay sex enough? Just in general Crowley awakening "sin" in Aziraphale and Aziraphale awakening "virtue" in Crowley is sooooo sex to me. Girls we need to talk about this more

#and i could keep going. desire is greed. desire is envy. desire can be wrath. crowley tries to make az pride himself above god #for the record *i* don't think any of this is Sinful i'm just using the language of religion to strengthen how sexy it all is #this is a nonsense post but it's gay sex we all love gay sex. if anyone has thoughts abt this sort of thing hmu i need to get more insane #open mick night #good omens #gomens #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands

[disfrutalaisla]

Reminder that the qsmp has more admins than just the ones that play eggs. It’s entirely possible and very likely that the random federation worker with an entirely different admin number is not one of the eggs.

#qsmp #every time someone lags yall assume stuff #and I hate to be that guy but literally everyone in the server experiences lag and connection issues from time to time #and a lot of it is regional #and you’re not gonna believe this but they specifically look for admins that speak the languages of the people on the server #which results in the admins being largely from the same places the players are from #which means they experience the same lag issues isn’t that nuts #isn’t that crazy #wow whodathunk #sorry I’m tired and cranky and I saw someone on twitter saying nonsense

[queerism1969]

#lgbtqia #lgbt pride #lgbtq community #lesbian #lgbtq #nonbinary #queer #sapphic #nonbinary lesbian #gay girls #pronouns #language #gender #gender identity #queer stuff #gnc #gender nonconforming #gender noncomformity #gender non binary #gender nonsense #gender non compliant

[philosophybits]

The results of philosophy are the discovery of some piece of plain nonsense and the bumps that the understanding has got by running up against the limits of language. They – these bumps – make us see the value of that discovery.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

#philosophy #quotes #Ludwig Wittgenstein #Philosophical Investigations #nonsense #language #meaning #limits #limitations

[friezaglasiencold]

Lil Algid what do you like about Yamcha☺️💕

#img response #((he’s in the awkward language learning spot where he’s mostly coherent but then trails off into nonsense))

[canisalbus]

wait ive been reading some of these asks. do machete & vasco have a written out story? or comic? i havent seen any links on your page for something like that (unless I'm looking over em :"D) but I'd love to read/hear more if so!

Hh sorry, they have lots of story stuff planned out but it's all just rattling around in my head, there's no comic, written fiction, lore depository or anything substantial that I could direct you to. I mostly just design characters for my own enjoyment and then put them in little imaginary situations because it's a fun and inspiring thing to do.

#answered #friendofbones #this is actually kind of new to me as well I've had these guys for a long while #and have been thinking about them more or less every day for years #but until this May or so I've mostly kept it to myself because at some point I got really embarrassed and skittish about sharing oc stuff #a proper long webcomic would be the optimal way to go about dealing with this whole thing but it's a massive undertaking #I don't think it's a very feasible option I'm afraid #and I've never written fiction let alone in English which isn't my native language I'm not sure how that'd turn out #I'm sorry to disappoint you it's terribly flattering you think my character nonsense is interesting and want to learn more

[peachsayshi]

(non curse au) thinking about sukuna - doberman boyfriend coded; rough around the edges; who who truly believed that he could never make a relationship work because he was told (by his previous partner) that he was impossible to love 💭

#soft sukuna hours #his love language is different 🥺 he just needed somebody to understand him 🥺 #me writing nonsense while eating the best steak salad ever

[lurkingteapot]

The subs here had "the drunkard", and that's fine and works and is correct, the GMMTV subtitling team knows their shit and I respect them so so so much. BUT. I still got caught on this. Because. The Thai says

สายทิ้งตัว sǎːj tʰíŋ tuːa

and idk how to best translate "สาย" but they're using it like "the one who …" here? which makes this

"the one who [abandoned/discarded/threw away/cast out] himself

and like, yes, that's close to 'the one who's wasted' or indeed 'the drunkard', but in conjunction with how he gets called a burden (ภาระ /pʰaː ráʔ/) over and over even just in this episode—by his friends and strangers alike, and probably his family too— ughhh my feelings.

(disclaimer as always: not fluent, still learning and happy to be corrected on stuff I got wrong)

#only friends the series #only friends เพื่อนต้องห้าม #เพื่อนต้องห้าม #only friends #only friends ep 1 #language soup #only friends meta #languages #language meta #my nonsense

[hellaace-purpleperson]

If you don't like Noah Schnapp, it's fine. If you want to stop watching ST, it's fine. If you don't root for byler anymore, it's fine. Do whatever you want, but I am tired of people shitting on Noah and ST and byler on the fucking byler tag. So get the fuck out of this tag because this is really getting on my nerve. Thank you

#byler #Im tired of people whose not even relate to this war and conflict just ruing my day in the byler tag #and I keep trolling them in the comments but its like arguing with a fucking brick okay #my main language is not english so pls ignore my grammar mistakes thx #Keep it out of the fucking tag omg #Just a disclaimer that I still love Noah ST and byler #Okay I hope to never troll anyone about this situation again but my changes are sooooooo low #a most necessary edit to the tags #But i have been vibing in the byler tag and block everyone who speak this kind of nonsense in the tag #Doing wonders for my mental health #warmly recommended

[averlym]

miscellany (again),, tags in the last image by @pyrotechnicarus

#adamandi #vincent aurelius lin #quincy cynthius martin #ambrose wellington bassford #portia elizabeth harper #beatrix valeria campbell #bit of nonsense bit of sillies (ohhh she thinks she's so funny huh.. anyways the brainrot. out out out) #please don't ask me about them take them at face value laugh and move on or smth i keep worrying i've read them Wrong #these have been living in my head rent free for a week and i'm now evicting them politely #anyway i drew all these as scribbles in my sketchbook in-between exam week and today i wanted them out of my head. so digital it is #i've spent two hours on this haha as a. would you even guess. a break from the beatrix thingy i've been planning because that one's rendery #quiet little notes on this... um.. i have started drawing quincy (idk how!!!) #yknow after the last ambrose literal study. i'm kind of mad about the fact that doing an unintentional study Worked??? #like. he's the ONE character i have a grasp of how to draw. everyone else is 'randomly whack until you get the vibes and vague structural #integrity'. can we talk about shape language real quick though because ambrose is oval beatrix is circle quincy is rectangle #vincent is square and portia is triangle. that's how it is in my head. #texture wise. vincent is charcoal and graphite. ambrose is traditional painting blended. beatrix is crosshatching and ink. #quincy is like... marker? and watercolour. portia is digital and cell shading. i can't explain any of the correlations they just Are #for the. oddly detailed quincent i Wasn't intending to draw i had to pull up the musical and re-reference them. could draw one then not the #other?? so i struggled with quincy until i Got them and then i couldn't for the life of me get vincent right.... is it something about like #drawing one character at a time? like there's only room in my mind to understand one set of proportions at any given moment??? #a fun little fact was just that i began photo refs as always from hahnji jang's page (which has been? saved in my search autofill now??) an #i didn't even have to get a specific image of quincy being in angst. but for smiling vincent i had to purposefully find oh ms reporter #well! consider this yet another part in the trying to figure out how everyone looks like/vibes as/gets drawn as Characters #a secret little code i keep for the stuff i make now is that i need to have something about the drawn medium that makes it unique to itself #as like opposed to a gif or screenshot or photoedit. it has to have extra meaning. and this appears two ways: one is through Implications i #the more Finished stuff. (aka poster series?) and the other one is by engaging in Ideas (generally posts. or memes/incorrect quotes/etc.) #had a really really interesting convo with a friend irl about fanart and fandoms. they were really active for genshin and stuff and so the #experiences between large and small fandoms were fascinating to compare.. i think i prefer the .. intimacy(?) of just doing what i obsess #over instead of looking for the statistics and clout and notes now. the art i make feels more meaningful and intentional that way.

[squidcandy]

Horrible boyfriend chronicles 10: this is what you get for dating a soggy sad lyricist guy, Kiryu

#myart #enstars #ensemble stars #kuro kiryu #kurokei #keito hasumi #soup as anlove language #justkidding kuro is an acts of service guy to his core #keito is both words and actions but sometimes hes sooo tired and so filled with love that he ends up. like this #but even his nonsense blubbering is grossly romantic so kuro has to kiss him senseless anyways #because he just doesnt know how to make it stop and hes going to exolode if keito calls him beautiful one more time #sorry ill be quiet now