Useless Thread

[herman]

This is Dunluce Castle on the north coast of Northern Ireland, it was built in the 17th century and was also used as the great Castle of Pyke, seat of house Greyjoy in Game of Thrones

I was about to say, this one has GoT vibes (from dragonback). Very nice work!

 

[Highlander]

Nice work Arn, beautiful.  May I ask what sort of equipment you are using? I assume you can do video as well?

 

[Arn]

Thanks guys, appreciate the kind comments  ;D

Highlanger, I'm flying a DJI Mini 2 drone. Technically it exempts you from requiring licenses and taking Civil Aviation courses, but I did them anyway, don't want to be responsible for taking down a plane or something!

And yeah, I can do video, but I have to say I prefer the photos at this stage. Taking video and getting it to be half decent is tricky to control the drone and also the camera.

Here's a few bits of video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQTqo5pRd1Q
That's the Game of Thrones Castle again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgkbOkjReQ0
This is an old dilapidated Linen Mill a couple of miles from my house, closed down in 1986 after opening in the 1800s. It supplied linen to the Titanic, I believe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdBDsfhD9j4
This is the beach in Portrush which is on the nort coast of Northern Ireland, and spins past the Royal Portrush golf course where the Open was held

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo5eq1c1Log
And a very old lighthouse

 

[Guilt Trip]

Nice vids..Love the beach.

 

[louisstamos]

So, is anyone else generally not superstitious most of the time, but goes all in at playoff time (both beer league and NHL playoffs) for some reason?

Or is it just me?

 

[rdowdall]

So, is anyone else generally not superstitious most of the time, but goes all in at playoff time (both beer league and NHL playoffs) for some reason?

Or is it just me?

I'm fighting against that feeling all the time.  Nothing that I do will impact the output of the game.  However those thoughts do pop themselves in to my head all the time.

 

[Highlander]

Thanks Arn for the tip, I will check it out. 

 

[Wendel's Fist]

Just wanted to mention, because I've seen and heard it way too much............there's no "s" at the end of anyway.

If I say anyway, what way am I leaving out that would require an "s" to clarify things?

To someone who knows the difference, when you say anyways, you sound like someone who might say.... anydays, anywheres, anyhows, anymores, anytimes, anyones etc..

Just because every generation dumbs down the english language a bit more, it doesn't mean you have to jump on the stupid train.

Anywhos, No offence.

 

[rdowdall]

Just wanted to mention, because I've seen and heard it way too much............there's no "s" at the end of anyway.

If I say anyway, what way am I leaving out that would require an "s" to clarify things?

To someone who knows the difference, when you say anyways, you sound like someone who might say.... anydays, anywheres, anyhows, anymores, anytimes, anyones etc..

Just because every generation dumbs down the english language a bit more, it doesn't mean you have to jump on the stupid train.

Anywhos, No offence.

anyways
[?en??w?z]
ADVERB
NORTH AMERICAN
informal or dialect form of anyway.
"you wouldn't understand all them long words anyways"

Love the sentence to explain its usage.

 

[Wendel's Fist]

Just wanted to mention, because I've seen and heard it way too much............there's no "s" at the end of anyway.

If I say anyway, what way am I leaving out that would require an "s" to clarify things?

To someone who knows the difference, when you say anyways, you sound like someone who might say.... anydays, anywheres, anyhows, anymores, anytimes, anyones etc..

Just because every generation dumbs down the english language a bit more, it doesn't mean you have to jump on the stupid train.

Anywhos, No offence.

anyways
[?en??w?z]
ADVERB
NORTH AMERICAN
informal or dialect form of anyway.
"you wouldn't understand all them long words anyways"

Love the sentence to explain its usage.

If enough people said anwheres, that'd be accepted in time, too. Doesn't mean it's right or sounds smart. Hence my bolded part about dumbing down the language.

Would that line that you had in your bit have confused you without the s? If so then, carry on.

 

[Bullfrog]

Adjusting to vernacular isn't dumbing down; it's evolving. Most of the way we speak is an evolution of the language. Our current speech is significantly "dumbed down." Our language used to have many more inflections.

"You" used to be used only for plural with "thou" as singular. We now use "you" for both plural and singular, yet we conjugate "to be" with you with a plural verb ("you are" rather than "you is".) "You is" probably sounds wrong to us modern people, but grammatically it's more correct.

 

[Wendel's Fist]

Yeah, but I'm not talking about a hundred years of vernacular evolution. This s at the end of anyway just happened in the past decade or so. Sos if everyones just started adding an S to everythings, woulds we be evolvings or sounding stupid? Just because things evolve, it doesn't always mean it was for the best.

Find me one song lyric or any literature from 2000 and before that has anyways in it. I'm not talking about some obscure example, I mean something that a lot of people would know.

 

[groundskeeper willie]

Yeah, but I'm not talking about a hundred years of vernacular evolution. This s at the end of anyway just happened in the past decade or so. Sos if everyones just started adding an S to everythings, woulds we be evolvings or sounding stupid? Just because things evolve, it doesn't always mean it was for the best.

Find me one song lyric or any literature from 2000 and before that has anyways in it. I'm not talking about some obscure example, I mean something that a lot of people would know.

I know I said "anyways" in high school (1997-2002) because my girlfriend at the time made fun of me for it.

 

[rdowdall]

Just wanted to mention, because I've seen and heard it way too much............there's no "s" at the end of anyway.

If I say anyway, what way am I leaving out that would require an "s" to clarify things?

To someone who knows the difference, when you say anyways, you sound like someone who might say.... anydays, anywheres, anyhows, anymores, anytimes, anyones etc..

Just because every generation dumbs down the english language a bit more, it doesn't mean you have to jump on the stupid train.

Anywhos, No offence.

anyways
[?en??w?z]
ADVERB
NORTH AMERICAN
informal or dialect form of anyway.
"you wouldn't understand all them long words anyways"

Love the sentence to explain its usage.

If enough people said anwheres, that'd be accepted in time, too. Doesn't mean it's right or sounds smart. Hence my bolded part about dumbing down the language.

Would that line that you had in your bit have confused you without the s? If so then, carry on.

I was agreeing with you.

 

[Wendel's Fist]

Just wanted to mention, because I've seen and heard it way too much............there's no "s" at the end of anyway.

If I say anyway, what way am I leaving out that would require an "s" to clarify things?

To someone who knows the difference, when you say anyways, you sound like someone who might say.... anydays, anywheres, anyhows, anymores, anytimes, anyones etc..

Just because every generation dumbs down the english language a bit more, it doesn't mean you have to jump on the stupid train.

Anywhos, No offence.

anyways
[?en??w?z]
ADVERB
NORTH AMERICAN
informal or dialect form of anyway.
"you wouldn't understand all them long words anyways"

Love the sentence to explain its usage.

If enough people said anwheres, that'd be accepted in time, too. Doesn't mean it's right or sounds smart. Hence my bolded part about dumbing down the language.

Would that line that you had in your bit have confused you without the s? If so then, carry on.

I was agreeing with you.

Oh crap, sorry about that.

 

[Wendel's Fist]

Yeah, but I'm not talking about a hundred years of vernacular evolution. This s at the end of anyway just happened in the past decade or so. Sos if everyones just started adding an S to everythings, woulds we be evolvings or sounding stupid? Just because things evolve, it doesn't always mean it was for the best.

Find me one song lyric or any literature from 2000 and before that has anyways in it. I'm not talking about some obscure example, I mean something that a lot of people would know.

I know I said "anyways" in high school (1997-2002) because my girlfriend at the time made fun of me for it.

Let me start this with saying that I love Italian food and women BUT, I remember back in the 80's, when I was in highschool, Italian girls putting an S at the end of anyway. Kind of like when you pissed them off, they'd say........."anYways." And they'd pronounce it like that. Emphasis on the the "y" for some reason.

I never thought that it would catch on to the rest of the world as it has.

 

[Kin]

I get into arguments with my Brother frequently about this subject. He's a linguist and feels pretty passionately that any change in the language is no dumber than another. All language is just an agreed upon set of terms with no absolute truth. If enough people called a fork a spoon and a spoon a fork then the language doesn't change, forks and spoons do.

I don't always agree with him on this, we've had a very long and dumb argument about the pronunciation of Worcestershire, but food for thought. 

 

[herman]

I get into arguments with my Brother frequently about this subject. He's a linguist and feels pretty passionately that any change in the language is no dumber than another. All language is just an agreed upon set of terms with no absolute truth. If enough people called a fork a spoon and a spoon a fork then the language doesn't change, forks and spoons do.

I don't always agree with him on this, we've had a very long and dumb argument about the pronunciation of Worcestershire, but food for thought.

Good to see you back, Nik. Hope things are going better these days.

Linguists break into two camps: descriptive and prescriptive (see all the comments under Dictionary twitter accounts). Ultimately, I think the descriptivists win out because the inertia of the masses is inexorable.

Don't see too many people hollering that holidays should continue to be called Holy Days, which is pretty funny considering the consternation around Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays that is an annual stumping point for political chicanery.

 

[Bullfrog]

I'm not a linguist by any means, but it's one of the topics I read about and listen to a lot, in particular the history of English. It's just fascinating.

I would have definitely been closer to a prescriptivist in my younger years, but a descriptive in my older years. "Can't Get No Satisfaction" used to drive me up the wall, but I've come to accept it. There's no doubt that people understand it to mean "can't get any satisfaction", and therefore it's successful in conveying the meaning of the thought.

What's interesting is that "ain't" which is often viewed as vulgar or informal, actually used to be the preferred term for many years. It was simply a contraction of "am not" but is now stigmatized as informal language.

Also, something like the condemnation of a preposition at the end of a sentence is really just a reaction to certain higher-ups deciding that "them's the rules." Essentially, it is a holdover from the latin influence on modern English. But there's nothing wrong with it at all....if you get from where I'm coming/if you get where I'm coming from.

The history of english podcast is great, though long and sometimes a bit dry.

 

[Arn]

I did English Literature for one of my A Levels at school and one of our required texts was The Pardoner's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. One of the Canterbury Tales written in the middle ages around the late 1300s.

One of the points of that was to help show the evolution of language and we spent the first few weeks of the study literally "translating" it from old English to modern English.

Obviously 600 years is quite a while, but it really did drive home how much a language changes and meanings can totally flip.

This:

In Flaundres whylom was a companye
Of yonge folk, that haunteden folye,
As ryot, hasard, stewes, and tavernes,
Wher-as, with harpes, lutes, and giternes,
They daunce and pleye at dees bothe day and night,
And ete also and drinken over hir might,

has become this:

Once upon a time there were three young men who lived in Belgium who liked to live on the wild side. They partied, gambled, visited brothels, and went to bars where they stuffed themselves with food and wine and danced all night and day to the music of harps and lutes and guitars.

Some of it you can kind of get, some of it is just... tricky. Example - "play at dees" = "play at dice" = gambled