The language thread

crpgnut said:
yet I have a hard time getting through to the minions at the Mexican and Chinese restaurants :D
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Don't give me pictures, please ! :lol:

Small, yellow … wearing huge glasses and blue work clothes … and looking for a big bad boss … :lol:



On-topic : Is anyone able to tell me the etymology of the tiny word "too" ? Like in "it's an interesting discussion, too" ?

That's a thing that I'm asking myself since I learned it. And that was approx. 30 years ago.
 
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too is and additional form of to.

I has Germanic roots. In Low German the spelling is tau.

In High German the equivalent terms are: zu and dazu, auch.

The word too is not so old, it was introduced in the 16th century, before only to was used. The double oo simply indicates to speak it long.
 
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Some of you may have noticed that words can have more than one meaning. Usually they don't conflict, and it's easy to determine the meaning from the context.

Some words can have opposite meanings. I'm not talking about constructions like "terribly happy" or irony like "Yeah, EA is a great company". Some word have officially diametrically opposite meanings, and it's not possible to find out the exact meaning from sentences.

In Norwegian we have the word "bestride". Danish and Swedish have the same word, and it's also in German: "bestreiten".

The most commonly use of the word in Norwegain is to deny or reject something. Like "Jeg bestrider fakturaen" ("I reject the invoice"), meaning that I don't accept the bill, and won't pay. But the same word can in Norwegian also have the opposite meaning, "å betale" ("to pay"), as in the identical sentence "Jeg bestrider fakturaen", now meaning that I intend to pay it. It's not possible from the sentence alone to decide if a person will pay the bill or not. Although, based on typical use, we would assume the latter interpretation.

I wasn't aware of the alternative meaning until 2 days ago, and it was the wife who told me. Of course I didn't believe her, which I kind of regretted afterwards. Apparently the same problem exist in Danish, Swedish and German, and possibly other languages (?), it would be interesting to know how the word is most commonly used.

I read somewhere that the Swedes have a blacklist of words that should be avoided by the authorities, and "bestrida" is on that very list.

pibbur who wonders if there are other words like this out there.
 
'Rational' is a word with conflicting meanings. It is used in a general sense to refer to logical thinking, and is often used in the context of science. But, in the proper sense, rationalism is the diametric opposite of the empiricism of science - it is the idea that knowledge can be derived from pure reason, without reference to material perception, and is essentially metaphysical.
 
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In German bestreiten can be used for a lot of things:

Ich bestreite einen Wettkampf
I take part (compete) in a contest

Ich bestreite dieses getan zu haben
I deny/disclaim that I have done this

Ich bestreite meinen Lebensunterhalt selbst
I earn my own living / I support myself

Ich bestreite deine Argumente
I challenge/contradict your arguments

...

Streit = challenge
bestreiten = challenging something or having a challenge in some way
 
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Ripper said:
'Rational' is a word with conflicting meanings. It is used in a general sense to refer to logical thinking, and is often used in the context of science. But, in the proper sense, rationalism is the diametric opposite of the empiricism of science - it is the idea that knowledge can be derived from pure reason, without reference to material perception, and is essentially metaphysical.
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You also have "rationalize": "To explain or justify (one's behavior) with incorrect reasons or excuses, often without conscious awareness". A typical psychological defense mechanism.

pibbur who prefers to rationalize rationally
 
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An auto-antonym in German is the word 'Untiefe':

Untiefe can mean 'not very deep' = shallow
or 'very very deep' = depth
 
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An auto-antonym in English is the word quite:
It can mean "slightly" (quite nice) or "completely" (quite beautiful).

Interesting are the words awful and awesome:
The words have been around hundreds and hundreds of years. While they were constructed by combining awe with -ful or -some, once they became lexical items as complete words, their meaning was able to drift like any other lexical item — the fact that each word is composed of a stem and suffix doesn't stop this. (Also, bear in mind that -some, the suffix, doesn't mean "some of X", it means "having the quality of X". Think fearsome, loathsome, cumbersome. And -ful is basically the same as -some in its meaning, with all words.)

Originally, awful had the meaning of being awe-inspiring (including positive connotations), as well as "worthy of, or commanding, profound respect or reverential fear." It was not a far stretch to then use it also to mean "Causing dread; terrible, dreadful, appalling." The earliest records of these uses date back to at least 1000 AD. Between 1000 and 1800, the word evolved to the current meaning: "Frightful, very ugly, monstrous; and hence as a mere intensive deriving its sense from the context = Exceedingly bad, great, long, etc."

Awesome came around much later than awful. It is first recorded in 1598, after awful had been around hundreds of years. Perhaps the need for this word arose because awful had already taken on such a strong negative connotation by this time. So awesome stepped in to again have the meaning of "awe-inspiring", but without the strong negative connotations. Ultimately, in the mid-1900s, the word awesome went from awe-inspiring to its more common use today: "amazing, great, etc."

So, this is how the words ended up like this. Yes, you do have to memorize the words to some extent, because they have certain connotations and colloquial meanings that are extremely common. But, again, part of the problem is treating -some like some. None of the -some words have a connection to the current meaning of some.

(All of this data came from the OED.)
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In finnish language the word "No niin" means many different things depending on how its said.

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Hey, that can't be Finnish. The words are much too short.

pibbur who doesn't know what he's talking about.
 
Apologies for the off-topic, but I love Big Train, and here are two of my other favorite sketches.




 
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HiddenX said:
An auto-antonym in German is the word 'Untiefe':

Untiefe can mean 'not very deep' = shallow
or 'very very deep' = depth
Click to expand...

There's a soing by Genesis : "In too deep".
I needed very long until I understood that the translation that makles - at least to me - most sense is "in zu großer Tiefe". Which is quite a difficult wording compared to the "kurz & knackick" "in too deep" of the English language.

"Kurz" = "short"

"Knackig" is a word originally describing the "cracking" noise or feeling if you bite into a carrot, or destroy the outer hull of a nut.
It has since then got an additional meaning that something is positive. I guess that the English "he has a knack of doing that" comes from this. The English "knack" seems to have been wantered from the German language into the English language, somehow. The German verb "knacken" actually means "cracking" something, a nut, or a treasure chest.
Besides, the word "nackig" without the "k" means in German language just "nude". So make sure that you do pronounce the "k" in "knackig" ! :lol:
 
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