Challenge #01999-E175: Versatility — Steemit
Thackians believed in hammers. Most societies prefer to believe in things which could not be proven to exist or not exist, but Thackians believed in hammers. Most importantly, they believed that there were few problems that the right kind of hammer couldn’t solve.
This has caused much confusion amongst others. At least until Linguistics Professor Gorx decided to spend some time with them and analyse their usage and history of the tool.
Once they got there, and passed the barrier of distrust, LingProf Gorx found the most astonishing thing.
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Challenge #01898-E074: But We Made It Home Alive — Steemit
“And after we make it through the wormhole, we should be aces,” said the Ship’s Human, Lyn.
Their Captain bristled, literally. Defensive spikes raised along her carapace. “Should is a word that should not exist,” she said.
“Uh… you just used it.”
“Yes, the corruption spreads far,” said Captain G'orp. “A future tense qualifier adverb is an uncertainty we do not need in the middle of space. We need rock-hard certainty. Not your human ‘luck’.”
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Challenge #01465-D004: The Wrong Question
English is… well… it’s a Germanic language where sixty percent of it is based on Latin.
That should tell you everything you need to know about how awful a language English is. – @recklessprudence
The current meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Original English wound to a cold halt. “Who let the linguist in?” demanded someone in the assembly hall.
“Uh,” said the unexpected linguist. “This isn’t a language study group?”
The Chair-being took a deep breath. “This is the society for the preservation of original english. Not the study of its roots. Not the examination of where it came from. We preserve it. In its pristine form.”
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Speaking of linguistics, there’s one particular linguistic tick that I think clearly separates Baby Boomers from Millennials: how we reply when someone says “thank you.”
You almost never hear a Millennial say “you’re welcome.” At least not when someone thanks them. It just isn’t done. Not because Millenials are ingrates lacking all manners, but because the polite response is “No problem.” Millennials only use “you’re welcome” sarcastically when they haven’t been thanked or when something has been taken from/done to them without their consent. It’s a phrase that’s used to point out someone else’s rudeness. A Millenial would typically be fairly uncomfortable saying “you’re welcome” as an acknowledgement of genuine thanks because the phrase is only ever used disengenuously.
Baby Boomers, however, get really miffed if someone says “no problem” in response to being thanked. From their perspective, saying “no problem” means that whatever they’re thanking someone for was in fact a problem, but the other person did it anyway as a personal favor. To them “You’re welcome” is the standard polite response.
“You’re welcome” means to Millennials what “no problem” means to Baby Boomers, and vice versa.The two phrases have converse meanings to the different age sets. I’m not sure exactly where this line gets drawn, but it’s somewhere in the middle of Gen X. This is a real pain in the ass if you work in customer service because everyone thinks that everyone else is being rude when they’re really being polite in their own language.
This is weird because I’m among the last of the Baby Boomers (I remember being told so) and I’ve always said “no worries”.
Maybe it’s an Aussie thing…
(via guernica322)