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1:18 PM
@terdon That's so...Google Translate.
 
@JasperLoy you full of star bait today
@JasperLoy Bon appétit!
You of course realize that there's no word for that in English.
Because English food
More like at the end of an English meal: 'My condolences.', or 'I'm so sorry for your loss'
 
@Mitch I just had a cheese and pickle sandwich. there's no way that doesn't prove English cuisine is leagues beyond anywhere else
 
You know how to get past the 140 character limit in twitter?
Multiple tweets
seems stupid
and may very well be so
 
@Mitch pictures that are words
 
but sometimes it's just not worth trying to squeeze into a size 6 dress, when you can fit into 3 or 4 much more easily
@MattE.Эллен Oh
and that
 
1:27 PM
I'm sure I'm not the first to say this... http://t.co/L9F9kWJ6WY
@Mitch lol
 
@MattE.Эллен ...I've heard
@MattE.Эллен Nice!
 
thanks :D
 
but to bleach out all humor from that, it is a little more labor intensive to type it out in some editor, make a screen shot, save the png and then import into a tweet...
when instead you can just reply to your previous tweet one after another.
 
I think it's less difficult than trying to link together multiple tweets
 
then again if you screw up, deleting and resending tweets is a pain.
Let me think about it. I'll post an analysis
 
1:30 PM
:D
 
a spreasheet
 
but, I think I disprove my own belief when I post multiple, replied tweets
 
with quantitative assessments
@MattE.Эллен one negative (or is it a positive), you can't cut and paste images as easily as strings
You're getting in my way of replying to all of @JasperLoy's chats here.
@MattE.Эллен mmmm...
also distracting
@JasperLoy I regret reading them all.
@JasperLoy Start with a voiced uvular/velar fricative. just like a Spanish or Greek intervocalic 'g'.
 
@Cerberus Isn't it though? Greece is full of people who labor under the misapprehension that they speak English so they do this sort of thing themselves instead of getting a translator.
 
@DEAD I know who you are only because I don't know who you are. And You're the only one I know like that, so I know who you are.
Unless you're not. Then I've made a mistake.
 
1:36 PM
@terdon Hmm but do you really think they thought butt was the name of a fish?
 
@Tonepoet they have a similar heat to light ratio
 
It rather looks like an unfortunate dictionarial look-up to me.
 
@Cerberus any old fish will do. they just want to see a fish butt.
 
Or Google Translate, which is the same thing except with phrases.
@Mitch I do appreciate the nice perversity of it.
 
@Cerberus Absolutely. They just looked it up in the dictionary and took the first meaning. This is the same style of translation that has given us "peasant's intestines" for something that would be better translated as "village-style tripe" or "rustic tripe" or something along those lines.
And yes, that's a real example.
 
1:40 PM
Haha great.
I do hate tripe, though.
 
@JasperLoy Why so elliptical?
@Cerberus Fish are like the oldest thing that are still like us (have most of the features and organs that we do), but they' missing some tell-tale things.
Butts for one.
The big fleshy parts
@Cerberus or stomach. It's the texture that puts me off.
andouille is OK because really who knows where any of that stuff comes from anyway
 
@Mitch Hmm I suppose they are the oldest chordates, or what do you call them?
Do birds have butts?
@Mitch The texture is indeed too rubbery. But the taste, oh, how revolting.
 
@Cerberus Well, duh!
 
I found andouillette disgusting.
 
@Cerberus Yes, the chordates with the oldest existing fossils
maybe sharks
 
1:47 PM
Right.
 
> 6. Chiefly British Slang A young woman.
 
Sharks don't have bones.
@terdon Ahh, that kind of bird.
 
@Cerberus now that I think about it, and for the record I'd rather not, but I think only people and maybe chimps have voluminous gluteals.
 
Also known as deer.
@Mitch Not bulls?
 
@Cerberus bone-like?
 
1:49 PM
I suppose it's not so big.
 
too flat
for my taste
so to speak
 
Suum cuique.
 
Not that flat. There's a definite bulging going on there.
 
sui generis
 
@Mitch Cartilage.
 
1:50 PM
pig butt
 
You like that, huh? Oh, yeah.
 
@Cerberus Cartilage delenda est
 
Hell, put a pair of shorts on it and it will look like Trump's ass.
 
@Mitch Poor shark.
 
it's actually its thighs, not ass
 
1:50 PM
@terdon Tsk!
 
@Cerberus slowly roasted over an open fire till the meat just slips off the bone.
 
Well, well.
 
@terdon that started off in a direction for which I didn't expect it to end
 
@caub But butts are attached to thighs always?
 
@Cerberus that's from an advertisement for some kind of barbeque sauce
 
1:51 PM
is butt part of thighs?
 
the glutes are distinct from the hamstrings
which, funnily enough are the backs of the thighs, not the hips.
the hips are more commonly known as side-butt
 
@Mitch Babecue, barbapappa.
 
is butt to legs what shoulder is to arms?
 
what is the official medical term for hamstrings? And why are the quads so chunky in comparison when you'd think the extensor would provide more power for running than the flexor?
@Cerberus de la barbe au cul
@caub if by shoulder you mean deltoids, then yes.
 
ah, ok, technical :)
 
1:54 PM
You have a fixation on queues, don't you?
@caub Or what's the plural?
Not queuex?
 
queues
 
@Cerberus note the edit
 
I think
 
I don't think -ex is possible at all.
Ah OK.
@Mitch Ohh.
 
@Cerberus queux?
 
1:55 PM
Kinky.
@Mitch That's spelled qu'eux.
 
@Cerberus a little PG-13
 
What's that?
An aeroplane?
With a butt?
 
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/… French is horrible
 
@caub I don't think the analogy is perfect because of the physics and slightly different anatomy (the shoulder is way more complicated than the pelvis because of all the neck stuff messing things up.
that is if one were trying to subclass 'limb' for two purposes.
 
@Mitch yes, clavicle, etc.. it's quite more complex
more degrees of freedom
 
1:58 PM
@Cerberus movie rating on how terribly much it will ruin children's minds or interest adult ones.
@caub and more tubes to redirect
but then again, the pelvic bone is sorta weird looking, nothing like that hear the neck
@caub C'est le cas de le dire
Oh you meant the French language
 
@Mitch Ah, so you think cul is appropriate for 13-year-olds?
 
@Cerberus Well, that particular pun is very popular in that age group, I think.
And cul is really not vulgar. Just barely crude. I'd put it somewhere between bum and ass.
 
A pun from queue to cul?
 
@Cerberus when you say it that way, not particularly.
 
Right.
How do you spell the word that means cunt?
Cu?
 
2:03 PM
9 mins ago, by Mitch
@Cerberus de la barbe au cul
barbe au cul <==> barbecue
@Cerberus Con
 
Ahhh I see!
But there's also one that sounds like cu.
 
Also, there's a lot of inflation. all the 10 and 11 year olds sneak in to see the PG-13 shows. and 14-15 year olds to see R-rated ones.
 
Quue.
 
There may well be. My French isn't all that good.
 
No idea.
At least my friend told me so.
We we playing bridge and called the Queen the Q.
Which sounds like cu.
"You're hiding your Q."
 
2:05 PM
@Cerberus wait...that's a pun? I always thought it was just two cognates, one a slight euphemism of the other.
 
They may very well be cognates.
I know them as independent words.
Queue being rather broader?
 
@Cerberus 'cul' sounds like qu, pretty sure sounds if not identical, extremely close to queue
Who's our French butt expert here?
 
Umm.
Eu doesn't sound like u in this case.
 
close though
 
Not at all!
 
2:07 PM
closer than 'ca'
actualy, I take that back.
 
Perhaps, but still not close at all.
 
@Cerberus OK, but why cunt? Ass fits just as well here.
 
Because there was no l, and because she said it meant cunt.
 
And yeah, in mainland French anyway, cul sounds very close to Q
 
Perhaps she was mistaken, or it is some slang term that we don't know?
 
2:08 PM
ø and y ...
 
@Cerb the word cul means butt in French
it rhymes with the name of the letter Q
 
@Cerberus I don't not take that back!!
 
@Mitch Very different sounds.
 
The l isn't actually pronounced. The French love decorative letters.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I know.
 
2:08 PM
They're both back rounded vowels, right?
 
@Mitch Then I'll keep it!
 
@Cerberus to cover your ass
 
Perhaps eu and u sound more similar to you because you don't have them in English?
@Mitch I don't need that.
 
@Cerberus metaphorically
 
@terdon Wait a minute, it isn't!
I thought it was.
 
2:10 PM
/y/ is high front rounded
/ø/ is high _back_ rounded
 
Then it must indeed have been the same word.
 
No, it sounds very much like the letter Q
 
@Mitch butt rounded
 
like comparing unrounded versions i and u
 
Then the question remains, can cul also mean cunt?
 
2:11 PM
no because con does
 
@Mitch Of course there is, it's just stereotypically understated ... "Here, try some." (just kidding :) )
 
@Cerberus Not that I know of, but I'm a little rusty
But you can go cul -> fanny (US) -> fanny (UK) -> cunt... ?
 
cul is more like tail (literally and metaphorically)
 
@Mitch they sound totally different
 
Hmm.
 
2:14 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They sound different, yes. Wouldn't go all the way to totally. Not to my ears, anyway.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well, the french have a different word for everything
 
@terdon well... it's a short word, but the vowel is quite different
Wiktionary says the etymology is totally different as well
 
> cul
C.− Partie du corps contenant ou constituant le sexe.
1. [En parlant du sexe de l'homme ou de la femme]
So it can mean "the cuntal area".
 
hm, wiktionary didn't include that sense.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It took me at least 2 years of living in France before I could hear the difference clearly. It's one of those sounds that sound very similar to non natives.
 
2:16 PM
In a vulgar way, not only because of the topic, but also because of the register.
 
@Mitch The automatic name-insertion has the potential to change the meaning of what you type.
 
@Cerberus Is that cul?
 
@terdon They don't sound similar at all to me!
@terdon Yes.
 
@Lawrence whose name?
 
@Cerberus Maybe your ear is more attuned because of some other language. I can tell the difference easily now, but I certainly couldn't at first.
 
2:18 PM
It is because Dutch has the same vowels.
 
There you go
 
And more.
We have u, eu, ui, and ei.
 
French people too :D (. )
 
Those are killing for learners.
 
@caub You're French, aren't you?
 
2:21 PM
unfortunately yes
 
@caub Don't let the Dutch superiority in vowel quantity damage your self esteem
That's really all the Dutch have going for them.
Zing!
 
@Mitch Follow the back-link.
 
It's not quanity, but quality.
And we have yet another trump: consonants!
The concept of consonants is all but unknown in France.
 
@Lawrence Oh. Dog meat is too stringy to consider.
 
They think consonants are only decoration, like the -l in cul.
 
2:25 PM
@Cerberus Give them a few more years and the French will get rid of the last remaining consonants
 
@caub Could be worse. I'm Greek and American. Probably the most expensive combination possible.
 
@Cerberus and vowels too like the u e u e in queue
 
@Mitch Exactly.
 
Oh, didn't know French language had many vowels
 
@Mitch True.
 
2:26 PM
vieux jeu
 
@caub Written French has all sorts of funky little extras added. They provide variety, I guess.
 
@caub well, they have enough vowels, just the loss of all the other things does leave much more than nuanced grunting.
 
Do the French pronounce all the vowels in French words?
 
'hein?'
 
@Lawrence No
 
2:26 PM
un bon vin blanc?
 
no
 
un rouge?
 
Or, rather, kinda. They sometimes affect the way the word is pronounced without being pronounced themselves. So beau is pronounced baw (kinda).
 
hon hon
 
hon hon hon!
 
2:28 PM
But eau is always pronounced that way so you could argue that the extra vowels are pronounced, in a sense.
 
@terdon That answered my follow-up question. :)
 
Kinda like saying that the silent e is pronounced in that it modifies the pronunciation of other letters.
 
Yes.
 
With that perspective, right, it's not pronounced at all then, just badly spelled
 
Cf. also English words on -e.
 
2:29 PM
employee?
take away one and you still have one in reserve?
just in case
chef boyardee?
tree?
 
@Mitch Take one away and it's the other person. (Before the edit.)
 
the past tense of 'trd'
@Lawrence and once they're married they become the same. spouses (or épouses)
 
@Mitch How apt. The two become one.
 
@Mitch Like pike there are stores: wake, bloke, mete come before thine eye.
 
Another follow-up question: do French vowels ever modify the pronunciation of other vowels far away? I.e. separated by at least 1 consonant? (Engilsh example: hose is pronounced with a long o. Without the e, it would be pronounced with a short o.)
 
2:35 PM
(Phew, I had to avoid all articles and conjunctions.)
 
@JasperLoy I ate a meal at a restaurant called 'Inspector Magret cooks a canard'
@Cerberus melee
I can't think of any (other than tree) that are not french
 
You're making it too hard.
Just one unpronounced -e will do.
 
@curiousdannii That question would be a good fit for Science Fiction & Fantasy, if not here. Just sayin'.
 
oh. I'm trying to tink of unpronounced e's that don't diphthongize the preceding vowel
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? by Redhart on english.stackexchange.com
 
2:39 PM
@Mitch Double-E, you mean? How about bee?
 
@Mitch Matte?
 
@Lawrence nice
@Cerberus nice!
 
No, I think nice has a diphthong.
 
Latte
 
I think that e is pronounced.
 
2:42 PM
@Cerberus Damn you!
argh!
partay
 
@Mitch Now you've given up, I see no e's altogether.
 
@Mitch "Hanged".
 
cursèd
i think we're getting off track here.
 
Also, why the hell do "hanged" and "changed" not rhyme? Stupid English language :-P
 
doing a walkabout
 
2:43 PM
Hehe.
 
@Cerberus No, those E's are both pronounced.
 
@Randal'Thor I think -ed generally does not diphthongise the preceding vowel, cf. belonged.
@Randal'Thor Oh, are they? I was trying to make a choking sound.
 
sing -> sang (the following ed mysteriously lost)
 
How mysterious.
 
@Cerberus Is it the fact that it's "ed" which stops the diphthongisation, or the fact that there are two consonant letters?
I mean, there's no diphthongisation in "curse" or "flange" either.
 
2:48 PM
different etymologies and spelling histories
also I was wrong to call it diphthongization, because it is much more than that
 
@Randal'Thor That's one of the few that actually make sense! Change has a silent e which makes the a long but hang doesn't. So, that change and hang don't rhyme is perfectly reasonable as is, by extension, that changed and hanged don't either.
 
@terdon Only if you look at the base (e.g. infinitive) forms of the verbs. Looking at the words "hanged" and "changed" on their own, it seems ridiculous.
 
Sure. But who looks at words on their own!? The gall!
 
@Randal'Thor I rather think -ed has no diphthongising effect anywhere?
 
@Randal'Thor for some true fun, try reading this out loud: sharengive.com/2014/05/…
 
2:53 PM
The vowel of an English verb stem remains unchanged if you conjugate it.
 
@Cerberus I can't think of an example, but usually that's because when the infinitive form ends in a consonant, the -ed form doubles the consonant - so it could still be about two consonant letters (e.g. "buzed" would probably be diphthongised, but "buzzed" isn't).
 
@Cerberus Oh? How about be?
 
@KitZ.Fox nice save with 'meh'. My sad initial attempt just made things worse.
@terdon I do? If they can't stand on their own, how will they make it out in the real world?
 
@Randal'Thor That's the vowel-consonant-vowel "rule", which states that in such cases, the first vowel will be long. Hence mete but met, hate but hat etc.
 
@Randal'Thor Yes, but whatever happens upon conjugation never changes the stem vowel.
 
2:56 PM
@terdon Heh. Seen that one before, but it's still fun :-)
 
@terdon True, be/been is kind of an exception.
 
@Cerberus not entirely unseerious: bring-> brought
 
^^
 
@Mitch Those are two different stems.
 
seek -> sought ?
 
2:56 PM
yeah!
 
The present stem and the past stem.
 
zero -> naught?
Sorry, got carried away
 
all irregular forms were regular at some point.
 
But affixion doesn't change the vowel normally.
 
@Mitch That sounds more glib than true.
 
2:57 PM
@terdon you may have something there (with none-> nought)
 
@Mitch But vowel changes used to be regular. Not any more.
 
@terdon I challenge you!
 
We only have affixion now.
 
notty, knotty, naughty, noughty boy...
 
dough, doughy, dinghy, dingy
 
2:59 PM
Enough.
 
Ding dong the witch is dead?
 
genug
 
Which witch?
I don't know whether you or the weather are to blame.
 

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