Posts by stancarey@mastodon.ie
(DIR) Post #AXpMTP6NZovnljlmjY by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-18T18:29:40Z
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Saw another list of "untranslatables" with the usual suspects (schadenfreude, hygge…). Couple of things:—Funny how lists of untranslatable words always supply translations. The words usually just don't have precise, one-word translations—esp if they're culturally very specific—Except sometimes they do. Schadenfreude has a little-known English equivalent, epicaricacy, borrowed from Greek & listed in some English dictionaries since the mid-18C#words #translation #language
(DIR) Post #AXpMZGQSkNgUb8xRw0 by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-18T18:45:13Z
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@mansr What – and do actual research!?
(DIR) Post #AY3OiEqDzrfjTa9tCa by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-25T12:52:44Z
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A literary anecdote I've always liked is this exchange of telegrams:Publisher: "NEED 2-PAGE SHORT STORY TWO DAYS."Mark Twain: "NO CAN DO 2 PAGES TWO DAYS. CAN DO 30 PAGES 2 DAYS. NEED 30 DAYS TO DO 2 PAGES."#writing #WritingCommunity #publishing #editing #literature #ShortStory #MarkTwain
(DIR) Post #AY5u1ibF49HGAQq56u by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-26T16:48:55Z
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Trying to write like the young people of today but I don't know how even to can
(DIR) Post #AY9nR1gQjd7Z0AQjHU by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-28T14:47:58Z
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#Writing tip: Ignore pseudo-rules based on superstitious 19thC dogma that wanted English to behave like Latin
(DIR) Post #AY9nR2ZNRL4bka8bvU by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-28T14:54:43Z
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If you're wondering what kind of English usage myths to ignore, here's a whole A–Z of them: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/a-to-z-of-english-usage-myths/ #grammar #EnglishUsage #language #linguistics #PoliticsOfLanguage #writing
(DIR) Post #AY9oIiFxBEyYO4e5h2 by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-28T15:30:01Z
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@grammargirl Thank you! I think it's probably possible for one's peeves to be internally consistent, but not through the canonical ones: they're just a mess
(DIR) Post #AYBjcKWh0TMF7vvids by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-29T12:46:37Z
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Maybe #Grammarly has improved a little since this test by Lane Greene at the Economist, but it remains a cautionary case study:https://archive.ph/brLvq#language #grammar #writing #editing #EnglishUsage
(DIR) Post #AYBjcNDJ10dHSfsmLA by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-29T13:25:13Z
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@mlanger Well, I sympathize with the impulse to rely on an automated shortcut, since not everyone has the time, energy, or cognitive bandwidth to learn this stuff
(DIR) Post #AYBjcNbPZNumfRA1ui by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-29T12:57:17Z
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This thread from 2019 may also be of interest, on what #Grammarly can do with the text and data it hoards: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1104132993893904386.html#WritingCommunity #writing #editing
(DIR) Post #AYIU97EBEVDAHJbNBI by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-07-31T18:08:25Z
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An old folk belief in Ireland held that there are 12 different winds and each has its own colourAlso (from a different source) pigs can see the windhttps://archive.org/details/smallersocialhis00joycuoft/page/528/mode/2up#folklore #IrishFolklore #wind #nature #Ireland #mastodaoine #pigs
(DIR) Post #AYIU98iLhowCtAiyqO by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-08-01T09:25:58Z
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@clickhere Yes, that's a linguistic rather than a perceptual thing. Blue is one of the later colour terms to join the basic sequence in a given vocabulary
(DIR) Post #AYIU9A9gLgObMEWK5Q by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-08-01T09:55:44Z
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@clickhere Guy Deutscher, whose book on linguistic relativity looks in depth at colour words, tried a little experiment on his daughter to see if she would identify the sky as blue without being prompted to: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/the-linguistics-of-colour-names/#comment-142152
(DIR) Post #AYYRqSfIzMq8fYzYUS by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-08-09T12:40:13Z
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One of the most common errors I fix when editing is known as false attraction, a form of subject–verb disagreementHere's an example of what I mean, in a recent (and well-written) article in The Atlantic: "Research into such conditions are grossly underfunded"A post on why it happens and some of the forms it takes:https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/grammatical-disagreement-through-false-attraction/#grammar #copyediting #editing #proofreading #writing #EditorsOfMastodon
(DIR) Post #AYlUQtMcdEQE0DLbyy by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-08-15T12:42:24Z
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Has 'greenlit' been greenlighted? New post on a verb we haven't made up our minds about:https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2023/08/15/has-greenlit-been-greenlighted/#language #words #linguistics #grammar #EnglishUsage #etymology #writing #editing #blogging
(DIR) Post #AZMqEY3fPIdWHzWAqG by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2023-08-31T17:18:02Z
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Scott Kim's symmetrical alphabet, a beautiful mirror ambigram#design #alphabet #ambigram #art #typography #calligraphy #wordplay
(DIR) Post #B18fRALNXiSIZjLzRw by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2025-12-11T12:27:02Z
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@futurebird I heard someone say "fecund" with the stress on the second syllable this morning and had to look it up to see which of us had gone astray all our lives (it was them)
(DIR) Post #B18jqme2g362Q6YQjY by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2025-12-11T13:16:30Z
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@futurebird Because alternatives to "enshittification" often overlap in meaning only partially, "encrappification" or "crappification" may have mileage as a non-sweary (though mildly vulgar) option, since it's transparently a version of the same word and it works the same way morphologically
(DIR) Post #B1N2yoRuTGaPftrPyi by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2025-12-18T10:56:42Z
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@futurebird In this case it's euphemism, but some jargon is necessary and useful
(DIR) Post #B22nZPqKQVmMy66NEG by stancarey@mastodon.ie
2026-01-07T13:25:02Z
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@andrewstroehlein Yes but can we stop calling it that