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Journal mcgrew's Journal: I was strolling, he was trolling 17

Journal by mcgrew

There are things that just can't be said out loud in English; at least, not said and understood. The illiterate do not understand this.

The other day I had a discussion here that got seriously offtopic, but somehow none of the comments were modded down. The modding doesn't matter, but the discussion does even though I think I was trolled.

Every few years some illiterate noncompose comes up with the brilliant and original idea that English should be phonetic like Spanish is. Sometimes it gets slapped down quickly, but sometimes the meme takes hold and the "loosers" take "they're" argument to a louder buzz where "there" slapping down is a bit harder.

The flyswatter is in the fly's water. The dog was cooled when he was schooled. The footstool is the foot's tool.

You can't say those things out loud. Not and have anybody have a clue what you're saying. But they're perfectly understandable when written.

I don't know any Spanish or Thai well enough to enjoy poetry in those languages; in Thai I'm complletely illiterate. Their alphabet is completely different than ours. I used to speak and read Spanish pretty well, but rust never sleeps and disuse has made it hard to understand Spanish these days.

But at any rate, I doubt Spanish poetry is as beautiful as English poetry just because of the vagaries of the English language. I'm told English is one of the hardest foreign languages there is to learn, and barring evidence to the contrary it makes sense to me.

English is a bastard language, especially American English, having borrowed or stolen words from most other languages, and all other European languages. I don't think I would want to learn German, with its knifing and laughing and coughing. You can go on a phishing expidition or a ghishing expedition (yes, I know the "gh" for an "f" sound only happens in the middle of a word).

There's nothing wrong with these funny spelled words and contradictoiry rules of spelling, at least if you've read enough. Especially if you are a hyperlex.

I wonder why it's pronounced "coughey"? I mean, "coffee"?

I am the wall, Russ.

Lets all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born. Though she was born a long, long time ago, your mother should know. Your mother should know. Sing it again...

Lets all get up and dance to a song that was a hippie 'fore your mother was born. Though she was born a long, long time ago, your mother should know. Your mother should know. Sing it again...

Lets all get up and dance to a song that was a hippie four. Your mother was born, though she was born a long, long time ago. Your mother should know. Your mother should, no?

I'm don't think you could do that in Spanish.

And though that was fair use I hope the two dead Beatles don't sue me.

Now, phonetic English simply could not work. The regional and cultural spoken dialects are too different. Is "car" spelled kar (midwest), kower (south), ka (new England), or Kwa (Bronx)? Is it a chimney or a chimbley? A window, a windah, or a winder?

If you see the "phonetically written English" meme, please slap the illiterat ignoramus down. Hard.

Shakespeare is not a loud hear. He has been Bard.

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I was strolling, he was trolling More

I was strolling, he was trolling

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  • ... but I don't find English poetry more beautiful than Spanish poetry because of the vagueness of it, but I find them very different, in my opinion what makes Spanish poetry beautiful is because of things like the verb conjugation (which is what makes Spanish harder to learn as a second language than English).

    They are words that sound almost the same as other words, but are less common, I cannot think of an example matching the lyrics you just wrote, but they exists.

    But anyway, my opinion is biased,

    • The deep beautiful expression of poetic inpiration finds is expression in whatever idiom or language.

      Spanish poetry is capable of a different beauty than English poetry. That said, language shape culture and psychology - to varying degrees. There are some things that can't be expressed in Spanish - with the distinctions or layers that English would afford. But chances are, those aren't really Spanish thoughts, either.

      English's power and beauty is that of connotative and associative meaning. Having six p

    • because of the vagueness of it

      Just FYI, McGrew said vagaries [reference.com], not vagueness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      ...verb conjugation (which is what makes Spanish harder to learn as a second language than English).

      Maybe it was because I was much younger then (2 years Spanish in HS, 1 more in college), but I didn't have (or don't remember having) any trouble with conjugation. But somehow I'm reminded of The Life Of Brian where Brian wrote onm the wall and the Roman Soldier was going to castrate him because of conjugation...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Abreu ( 173023 )

        Spanish doesn't have as many irregular verbs as other languages.

        However, one thing that comes to mind when speaking and writing in Spanish is the fact that most words have a specific gender.

        This gives interesting options to a poet, but it makes it hard to translate works when the author is trying to disguise the gender of the subject of the conversation, for example

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          However, one thing that comes to mind when speaking and writing in Spanish is the fact that most words have a specific gender.

          Yes, I was always intrigued by that. I thought it funny that there couldn't be any ladies' bathrooms, because bath and room are both masculine!

          When I worked at Disney the most asked question was Donde es el cuarto de bano? (apologies for the missing "enye" and the substitution with "en". I guess I could have spelled it banno, since they said the "enye" was originally two Ns, one on t

  • send me a link I got mod points.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      Thanks, but as it was a few days ago it wouldn't matter. However, this comment's [slashdot.org] moderation could use some fixing; someone modded it "redundant" even though no earlier comment said anything like it, and in fact it said things nobody else did. Apparently someone modded it "underrated" because it's "1, redundant" now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Abreu ( 173023 )

        McGrew,

        The other day I noticed that someone placed a -1 Troll to several of your comments in a row.

        I had mod points, so I modded them up +1 insightful.

        I know this is not how the moderation system's supposed to work, but since metamod is broken...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          Thanks, it looked to me like one of my freaks had mod points. Funny thing about my freaks, I'd figured they were trolls and flamers (there's an AC that stalks me) but looking at their achievent pages it looks like they mostly have good karma.

          Funny thing, people. But in any case, thank you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )
        Done
  • YUMMY! I love you as a friend! 3

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