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[Rolan7]

Yeah the final replacements are particularly weird.  The "x" replacement in particular threw me.  Plus "orthographical" should be "orthographic", I mean "orxogrefk".

[Avis-Mergulus]

You messed it up!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

[Graknorke]

http://soundsfromdeusex.tumblr.com/
This site is exactly as advertised.

They don't have "FUCKING GUNSHOTS" in there.

Those are really just samples of a huge depository of files. Unless "FUCKING GUNSHOTS" is from a specific character though, I don't think it's in there. It's not in the unsorted mess of unnamed NPC lines at least.

[SealyStar]

http://soundsfromdeusex.tumblr.com/
This site is exactly as advertised.

They don't have "FUCKING GUNSHOTS" in there.

Those are really just samples of a huge depository of files. Unless "FUCKING GUNSHOTS" is from a specific character though, I don't think it's in there. It's not in the unsorted mess of unnamed NPC lines at least.

I wasn't expecting it to have literally every sound file from the games. I think "FUCKING GUNSHOTS" is just an unnamed guard line in HR, but I've heard it more than any other single line of speech in that game to the point where I was surprised that it hadn't become a maymay.

[redwallzyl]

flint knapping in history class today. only minor bleeding.

[Flying Dice]

-snip-

In my semantics class, one of the talking points was that there is actually no redundancy in natural languages (in a synchronous perspective, as in, in the language's current state at a given time), or at least, there is a tendency toward elimination of redundancy.

Now, that may seem to contradict my previous bit about redundancy being everywhere, but you seemed to interpret redundancy as having multiple words referring to the same thing, but differing by degrees of meaning, and I just went with it. What I mean here is that there is a tendency toward reduction of true redundancy - words that refer to the same thing and have no difference in degrees of meaning, attached value judgment, stylistics, etc. As in, with every usual (I mean "which is in use", dunno if this is the English term) pair of words with seemingly similar meanings, there's going to be at least one context where one is acceptable from a native speaker's perspective, while the other is not. So, there's no word pairs that have a completely identical range of acceptable contexts. If such a pair was to appear, one of the words in it would fall out of use, is what I've been taught. It seemed quite convincing.

Redundancy as you're describing it (the multiple shades of meaning thing) is just an universal for any natural language, and as such I have no strong feelings towards it one way or another. It's just how things are. I am, however, a second-year ling student, so I'm just approaching it from a less artistic perspective because that's what I'm supposed to do... I guess. I haven't figured it out completely yet.

Mm, I don't necessarily disagree. I'm mostly speaking in terms of common usage: most people don't choose between dozens of choices every time they need to express something, they tend to just use a couple catch-alls with broad coverage without much thought. Hence, for everyday use, vast swaths of vocabulary are functionally redundant insofar as that most people won't use them or recognize the intended nuance when someone else does. That's why I brought up writing: it's an area where the fine distinctions of word choice can be intensely important, and one which has an audience more predisposed to recognizing those distinctions.

Basically I'm addressing the issue of actuality of language usage rather than theoretical applications, if you take my meaning. In theory you can express meaning to a very fine degree through careful word choice, but in practice almost nobody bothers and most of those who do typically have it go unnoticed, except in environments where a meaningful percentage of the population is predisposed to speak precisely and understand when others do so. (Note that I'm not intending to suggest that people are "bad" or "stupid" for not doing so, that sort of simplification of communication seems to be more natural than not, given how consistently it appears.)

[Avis-Mergulus]

-snip again-

You might think I'm being anal here, but define "everyday use". Is it what, when I'm talking to strangers in person? My friends? My parents? Talking on the net? Each of these situations has different "catch-alls", and a different proportion of catch-alls to elaborations (because when I'm describing to my friends how atrocious the food in my canteen is, I sure as hell will elaborate). Note that I'm just accepting the whole "catch-alls vs. elaborations" dichotomy without complaining - even though there are causes for complaint, in theory.
After you've defined "everyday use", explain why the fact that some words don't fall under this definition makes them redundant. I mean, they are important for narrower contexts, within which you couldn't substitute them for catch-alls. I mean, "fucknugget" is just "person" with a negative value judgment attached to it (oversimplifying, but who cares). Now substitute it for "person" in the phrase "Eat shit and die, fucknugget". Do you, as a speaker of English, consider the result to have the same meaning as the original?
A dumb mechanical analogy is that if a part of a mechanism is way smaller than many other parts, that hardly makes it redundant. Language can communicate nuance when it is necessary. If it isn't necessary in all contexts, or even most of them (also a bit dubious), that doesn't mean nuance is redundant.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Flying Dice]

-snip again-

You might think I'm being anal here, but define "everyday use". Is it what, when I'm talking to strangers in person? My friends? My parents? Talking on the net? Each of these situations has different "catch-alls", and a different proportion of catch-alls to elaborations (because when I'm describing to my friends how atrocious the food in my canteen is, I sure as hell will elaborate). Note that I'm just accepting the whole "catch-alls vs. elaborations" dichotomy without complaining - even though there are causes for complaint, in theory.
After you've defined "everyday use", explain why the fact that some words don't fall under this definition makes them redundant. I mean, they are important for narrower contexts, within which you couldn't substitute them for catch-alls. I mean, "fucknugget" is just "person" with a negative value judgment attached to it (oversimplifying, but who cares). Now substitute it for "person" in the phrase "Eat shit and die, fucknugget". Do you, as a speaker of English, consider the result to have the same meaning as the original?
A dumb mechanical analogy is that if a part of a mechanism is way smaller than many other parts, that hardly makes it redundant. Language can communicate nuance when it is necessary. If it isn't necessary in all contexts, or even most of them (also a bit dubious), that doesn't mean nuance is redundant.

Okay.

I'd define "everyday use" as situations in which people communicate outside of the context of professional interactions, ceremonies, and situations involving court, officially sanctioned speechgiving, &c. That is to say: meeting friends from work for drinks vs. giving a presentation to coworkers and superiors, appearing in court vs. watching court TV with your family, meeting your company's CEO vs. meeting the owner of your favorite restaurant, talking about politics with friends vs. giving a speech on national television about the political climate, posting on a forum vs. writing an article for publication, &c. In other words, casual situations, the sort of interaction that is ordinary and routine.

And again, as I stated previously, the redundancy is one of practice rather than meaning (though PoH raises a relevant point)--any given person is unlikely to vary their vocabulary much, or think very hard about everything they say and the exact nuance of it.

The example you raised isn't actually accurate -- "person" doesn't remotely equate to "fucknugget". There's an intrinsic difference in meaning; one is both general and highly neutral, the other is obviously pejorative. It'd be more appropriate to compare "fucknugget" with, say, "asshole," "moron," or something else, in which case... yes, they're more or less equivalent. Profanity's one of the cases where there's relatively little shared meaning in the words, it's all about the tone and body language. You get vastly different meanings even from the same word if the context and related communication is different -- a stranger you just cut off in traffic shouting, "Fuck you, asshole!" while waving their fist vs. a close friend that you just teased laughing out the same phrase.

It sounds like we're basically saying the same thing, albeit from different directions and with a difference of opinion regarding one of the details (ironically enough): I specifically brought up more limited situations where variety in language is not only helpful but outright necessary: contexts in which you need a fine degree of granularity in your communication. But that isn't day-to-day life (unless your life is entirely composed of complex work), and most people don't communicate with that degree of complexity all the time.

I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding here: I'm not arguing "a complex vocabulary is superfluous in day-to-day life, ergo it is wholly redundant and can be safely discarded", but rather that in routine life it isn't strictly necessary, and that people can communicate meaningfully without it regarding the typical subjects which arise in conversation in said life, and that it is therefore redundant in those situations. Though, again, PoH's point is a good one, it shows the importance of the distinction between arguing that a deep vocabulary isn't necessary to communicate about basic subjects vs. arguing that a language doesn't need one at all. As per their example, three different people might greet others in three different ways which all equate to "hello" for their purposes, but it allows them to express their individuality and makes mundane conversation slightly more interesting.

[KingofstarrySkies]

We finished our goddamn character sheets for Rogue Trader. Plus, the ship is finally ready. Now we wait on the GM and one other person, before finally playing.
so, so fucked

[Avis-Mergulus]

I still do not think that your definiton of everyday use has much to do with reality. You just lump together all non-ceremonial or informal language, more or less. I quote, "the sort of interaction that is ordinary and routine". Right now, we're using fairly complex and nuanced vocabulary, despite the fact that we're in a casual situation, by your own definition, and they, again in your own words, don't need a great degree of granularity.

Of course, one might say that we're discussing a thing, and that makes it a sort-of-formal situation because there are rules for this sort of productive two-sided conversation. But then there are rules for any kind of conversation, and the whole distinction becomes unnecessary. You assume that you watch yourself when you're giving a presentation to your boss, but then, you also watch yourself when you talk to your friends. It is just that different things are allowed in these situations, and both of them have a vocabulary attributed to them. The level of nuance actually doesn't have much to do with how casual the context is - it has to do with how thin you have to slice things in this particular conversation.

I do see a reason for excluding, for example, liturgical language and formulaic speech like poetry into its own subclass. But why the everyday use thing? Writing consists of vocabulary that you would use when talking to your friends or boss or whoever, had you been forced to convey to them thoughts that are as complex as your usual writing subject. And sometimes, you have to do that. Like we are doing now, for example.

[ggamer]

just smoked a fine ass cigar and read the new steven universe art book, which was literally a book fair scholastic wank book. However, I got the cigar, so no regrets.

[Bauglir]

i want to get off mr bones' wild ride

Spoiler: Undertale (click to show/hide)

i'm having a bad time

[Gentlefish]

HAHA HEY SPEAKING OF UNDERTALE

I bought it for two people recently. I'm eagerly awaiting feels.

[Bauglir]

I bought it for two people recently.

what a coincidence

so did i