A Thought for the Day

[Doctor X]

Which every forum should have. Various bon mottachi-thingies to help you through that Inevitably Consistent Disappointment that is your existence.

This from someone commenting on proper use of the umlaut:

The umlauts aren't decorative, they're essential.. "näin äitiäsi eilen" - I saw your mother yesterday, "nain äitiäsi eilen" - I fucked your mother yesterday.

--I_L

Dick Joke Site

--J.D.

[sparks]

If the umlaut is all that differentiates between those two meanings, then I'm surprised that culture hasn't wiped itself off the face of the Earth.

[Doctor X]

I have, I think, blathered on how the length¹ as in time of vowels in Japanese can utterly alter meanings. English speakers tend to stress and lengthen vowels in this way for emphasis. "I Aaaaaam going to fuck your cat!"

In Japanese the "long" vowel does not change from a "short" vowel, it is just either held for one beat or two beats. An example one speaker gives a friend tried to proudly announce he was someone's "assistant" and ended up saying he was his "anus." Similarly, be careful if you need to go to a hospital, you may end up in a beauty parlor.

--J.D.

¹Technically "long" and "short" vowels are different tones. They may or may not be the same length as in duration. Perhaps I should use "duration" instead. I have always held that it is duration and not leng[Get on with it!--Ed.] . . . er . . . yeah. To give an example: the always mispronounced shōgun is not simply "show-gun" without the final "w" sound. The "ō" represents this lengthened vowel. It is "long" like our "ō" in "hole." The "u" is not our short "ŭ" we see in "gun," it is our long "ū" or "oo" sound. So it is "shō-ō-goon" with a "short long u!"

The issue is this is phonemic in that the difference in sound--in this case duration and in the other the use of the umlaut--conveys meaning.

[Anaxagoras]

As I may have mentioned before, Japanese can be tricky too (as can English if it's not your native language of course).

There are English words that sound very different to me, which my wife waifu cannot distinguish (or at least has difficulty).

Likewise the difference between "grandpa" and "uncle" in Japanese depends on the length of the vowel sound you make:

ojisan is uncle, ojiisan is grandpa. Likewise, obasan is aunt while obaasan is grandma. No difficulty for Japanese in distinguishing between them but for foreigners it takes some getting used to.

[Abdul Alhazred]

In Italian, a double consonant is pronounced differently:

Quanti anni hai?

How old are you? (How many years do you have?)

Quanti ani hai?

How many anuses do you have?

[DrMatt]

Well?

[Doctor X]

--J.D.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Well?

59 and 1 respectively.

[gnome]

He is of no use to me.

[Doctor X]

You will always be limited by the technique you have.

--Murry Spivack

--J.D.

[Doctor X]

井の中の蛙大海を知らず。

The frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean.



--J.D.

[hammegk]

[asthmatic camel]

hammegk is a



with added amlauts and fucking cunts.

[Doctor X]

Or to put it simply: "Tinkerbell is a biker's glove."

--J.D.

[pillory]

isi ei tykkää nyt yhtään--isi on ottanu pari kaljaa

can't this be deleted even tomorrow,when it's too late

[Doctor X]

Which are thoughts which make My Drunk Bitch cry!

--J.D.

[pillory]

you really can make man cry

[Doctor X]

“A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.”

― Charles Chaplin

Or lack there of.

--J.D.

[pillory]

so true is c'est la vie

[Doctor X]

“A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.”

― Charles Chaplin

Or lack there of.

--J.D.