h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Twaon's use of "awful" was at the time when the meaning was changing from "that which causes awe" to its present signification. Being a funny fellow, (care to comment on the changes in those two?) he probably wanted both meanings

briefly on German gender - and indeed grammatical gender as compared to 'sex'. Bels said:

"The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay."

But i don't think that a)any one individual 'invented' the language as a whole, nor b) 'allotted' gender to each word according to 'sexual' considerations.

Although the example of 'little girl' being neuter seems rather fitting, in terms of 'sexuality'.

Whilst anglophones tend to draw a clear distinction between 'latin' languages and 'Germanic' languages - isn't it true that German was heavily influenced by Latin between about 500ad-1500ad (approx. Luther's translation of the Bible).

Gender was a useful way of indicating which adjective went with which noun, in languages where word order did not make this clear. English uses word order and gender simply lost it's importance. When? I don't know. In fact, i've already gone a little further than my actual knowledge takes me. Sue me!

As to Twain seeing no 'system' to the genders - didn't he notice that whole groups of nouns can easily be 'sexed' according to their endings? Any noun ending in '-keit' is feminine, all '-ung' nouns are feminine, etc, etc

there *are* indicators. Same applies to French.

I agree with all of you, even when you disagree with each other!

Except for the statement: "We think in language" which, as has been said, is definitely questionable, as I have often found that my mind stores things which I have heard as a concept and can sometimes not remember which language I originally heard or read it in. There is a sub-level of thought, or ROM, which condenses information for retrieval at will, I am sure, into some kind of code without the use of language - it is images which come to the fore first. These then have to be translated into words for communication to others.

How often have you had a concept in your head and not been able to express it immediately - even when you are trying to do this in your own language?

And I wish Ukkeli success with his campaign. Not because I think he will be able to change the way the English use their language, but he may be able to make them think a bit more outside the box and become aware that there are other ways of communicating, other mentalities, other cultures. (This ties in with my complaint that H2G2 is an almost exclusively WASP community)

The question of articles is quite settled by jwf's example alone, I should think - i.e. "A change is as good as a rest" vs "The change is as good as the rest". I mean, the second one can only mean that the menopause is just as much fun as the remaining phases of your life. Oh come on, who are you kidding? But nobody would challenge the first statement (in principle, anyway).

I shan't feign modesty - I know nearly all genders in German of the words in my active and passive vocabulary, although lots of them are illogical. And there are plenty of rules, like Spiff says, to help you. But I don't think anyone would be laughed at for getting them wrong -

a. Germans themselves sometimes get them wrong
b. some have more than one option (der Salz, das Salz)
c. There are regional differences sometimes, especially with newly-introduced words
d. Someone who is obviously foreign and takes an interest and tries to learn from his mistakes will surely be taken seriously anywhere?


was there any more? Ah well, do carry on then.


Have some until the next post comes along.

I'm afraid a certain American writer will forever more be known in spiffland as Mr Twaon - to rhyme with 'coin'.

"Someone who is obviously foreign and takes an interest and tries to learn from his mistakes will surely be taken seriously anywhere?"

Whilst this is partly true, there can be an irresistably comic effect when getting genders wrong, especially with certain words or contexts.

Slightly different, coz it's a pronunciation thing, but if you have a sore neck, and want to say so in French, you could say, 'J'ai mal au coup.'

The 'ou' sound and the 'u' sound are often mixed up by anglophones, resulting, in this context, in 'I've got a sore a**e'!

This will always raise a laugh, even among the most helpful and sympathetic of friends, and understandably so. They *are* laughing at you, but not out of meanness; it just *is* a funny mistake to make.

Similarly, if you are a lad talking about a young lady who's taken your fancy, and you refer to her with a masculine adjective, sniggers may ensue...

tschussi
spiff

The words for "cheers" and "s**t" (I think it is) are very similar in Hungarian and you really have to watch the pronunciation, I have been told.

*reaches for the button in horrified disgust at the foul and offensive language used by a so-called fellow 'researcher'!

Shame on you, Enfant de Trillian!

jwf, please let's not do the split infinitive again! Oh, all right....

"To not understand" was such a howler I almost hit the moderation button! Surely "not to understand" sounds better even to the most hardened supporters of the split infinitive. There must be better phrases that could be used in advocacy.

Manolan, 'to not understand' isn't a split infinitive, 'to undernotstand' is.

but of course it should *really* be 'undernottostand'.

Every time I travel on the tube (London underground) I am annoyed by the notice about the emergency handle.
It includes these words 'the driver will stop at the next station where help may be more easily given.'

Your point being that everyone knows fine well that help is not to be more easily given at any tube station?

That reminds me of the chewing gum ad here in Germany where the guy gets on the tube at Berlin Alexanderplatz and sits happily chewing and he suddenly realises he's at the metro stop "Arc de Triomphe" in Paris. (The idea being that the chewing gum still tastes good after so long)

Obviously that driver was having trouble finding help, too.

Isn't the negative of understand 'misunderstand'?(even in German)
This thread has recently got extremely erudite. Sorry to let the side down with smelling pistakes.

I don't think misunderstand means the same as not understand. If I say something to Joe and Joe misunderstands, then he thinks he knew what I meant, but he got it wrong. If I say something to Paddy and he doesn't understand, he says "Sorry, I don't follow you".

Now that you come to mention it, I agree with you

If we're following the common theory that this is a Latin rule overenthusiastically applied to English, then surely it is really 'understand-to' and the split is 'understand-not-to'.

Completely different but perhaps tied into the latin bit of the previous post. The paper this morning asked the question 'what is a nocebo', the answer being that it was the opposite of a placebo in that it would be an inert medicine (pill whatever) given to a test subject to see if they report imaginary side effects.

Is this right? Sounds made up to me....

Well that was a reasonable description of a placebo (except not all placebo effects are imaginary, the brain is a complicated thing ), so I'm not sure if nocebo is supposed to mean anything different. What was the context?

k

http://www.quinion.com/words/turnsofphrase/tp-noc1.htm