£N61!$H Language

[Liam]

I didn't suck at it, I was awesome. I just gave off the impression that I sucked because no one could understand what I was saying half the time. Anyone who's talked to me on Skype will understand this.

Yes. I know this too well.

People who know me well enough can understand me 95% of the time though.

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/5/5d/English_Motherfucker_Do_You_Speak_It.jpg


That is all.

What is no place I've ever heard of. Do they speak English in what?

 

[wheelieotter]

I didn't like English classes very much, mainly because they were so boring.

...the football team had 5 times the budget of the English class...

That's Texas for you. Yet, because of it's size, Texas gets to decide what's in the textbooks for many other states.

I've been told that English 'borrows' from other languages. Bullshit. English doesn't just borrow from other languages, it follows them into dark alleys, knocks them unconscious, and rifles through their pockets for loose vocabulary.

 

[Tabasco]

Engrish is hard.

 

[SirRob]

i dnt liek inglish

thts y i butcher it

Also, I hate English class with a BURNING FIERY PASSION.

 

[Jashwa]

Why would someone be a reincarnated animal covered in blood? That's silly.

 

[Viva]

I like French more...:V

 

[Mufasa's_Boy]

I like English, it is one of my favorite subjects this year (along with French and History) I have always been pretty good at writing essays and all I do in that class is read so its pretty simple.

 

[abitfuzzy]

i just speak american. yup the white trash dialect.

 

[ToeClaws]

It was because you're in America. HURR

I hope not. :/ Would be bad if most of the classes were like that.

 

[Browder]

I think Attaman once said on another thread that English is so versatile because it's the linguistic eqivalent of a fifty cent whore when it comes to loan words.

The moral? Stick to a language with experience, because it knows more tricks.

 

[Liam]

English doesn't just borrow from other languages, it follows them into dark alleys, knocks them unconscious, and rifles through their pockets for loose vocabulary.

That is a quote from somewhere...
"
The quote is from James D. Nicoll, a Canadian science fiction writer.
It’s actually, “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
The funny part is that this is not just true of English, but all languages."
Oh, yes.

I think Attaman once said on another thread that English is so versatile because it's the linguistic eqivalent of a fifty cent whore when it comes to loan words.

The moral? Stick to a language with experience, because it knows more tricks.

The drawback? People are not walking dictionaries. They cannot be expected to know the entire vocabulary. But, the dictionary industry keeps lobbying to keep this language growing. >:[

 

[Hir]

I got A* in it (A+). :3

 

[wheelieotter]

That is a quote from somewhere...

The quote is from James D. Nicoll, a Canadian science fiction writer.
It’s actually, “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
The funny part is that this is not just true of English, but all languages."

I never knew where that came from originally, I've heard it from a few different sources. Apparently I hadn't heard the whole quote, either.

 

[Liam]

I never knew where that came from originally, I've heard it from a few different sources. Apparently I hadn't heard the whole quote, either.

I've heard different versions of it. Quoting from memory does that. I just looked for it online, found it in a forum, and posted it here in quotes.

 

[foxmusk]

bloody fuckin' wankers.

 

[Irreverent]

The quote is from James D. Nicoll, a Canadian science fiction writer.

He's actually not a writer, he's a SciFi reviewer and Usenet pundit.

 

[Liam]

He's actually not a writer, he's a SciFi reviewer and Usenet pundit.

He's Canadian, is that not accurate enough? Especially for a direct quotation from god knows where aka it wasn't my fault?

 

[Thatch]

The most complex of languages

Give up. :V

 

[Tycho]

Give up. :V

What the fuck, Poland. Polish jokes seem that much more well-founded now.

 

[Tewin Follow]

I got A* in it (A+). :3

-high five-

I scored A,A for both English GCSEs... but my only A* was Christianity.
FFFF---

 

[Thatch]

What the fuck, Poland. Polish jokes seem that much more well-founded now.

It's more comfortable than you'd think. Gives the language a whole new level of flexibility.

 

[Viva]

I just saw the poll. I hate english class. The writing is okay, but I hate reading. The only things I read are science articles and anything informative. I don't have the time to read fiction "for pleasure".

 

[Mayfurr]

Give up. :V

On the other hand, how does that compare to the Singlish (Singapore English) expression Teh lum pah chi saht? ;-)

From "The Coxsford Singlish Dictionary":
One of the most graphic expressions in this dictionary, it is also one of the most inspired. Literally, it translates from Hokkien as “to commit suicide by squeezing your testicles”. The Hokkien equivalent of hara-kiri, it expresses profound regret and frustration, and is often said after a confession of having done something monumentally stupid.
“Ah Beng accidentally threw his winning 4D ticket into the incinerator? Wah lau, like that he might as well t’eh lum pah chi saht.”

Singlish - putting English, Malay, Hindi, and Hokkein together then stirring them together in a pot for a hundred years...

 

[M. LeRenard]

I hope not. :/ Would be bad if most of the classes were like that.

They are. The high school in my town is exactly like that, and possibly worse. I was once asked to read an essay written by a national merit scholarship finalist (let that sink in for a minute) that read like it was written by a third-grader. People don't teach English in America. They teach literature, but not English.

Anyway... my favorite thing about English is the versatility of intonation. Comparing it to French, for example; in French, when you hear people speak, it always has the same sort of rhythm to it (monotone-monotone-monotone-UP-monotone-monotone-UP... etc, until finally monotone-monotone-down, end of sentence. It's weird). So you end up sounding foreign when you try to speak French with English intonation, which is to say, giving each sentence a completely different rhythm, the subtleties of which indicate your true meaning.
It's also hilarious how incredibly un-phonetic a language it is. Letters are pronounced about a million different ways, so if you've never seen a word before, you have to look up its pronunciation to know how it's actually pronounced. Like that word 'hilarious': I actually pronounce it more like 'huh-lair-ee-us'. For people trying to learn the language, phonetics has got to be one of the most confusing and aggravating aspects of it.

 

[Shark_the_raptor]

I didn't suck at it, I was awesome. I just gave off the impression that I sucked because no one could understand what I was saying half the time. Anyone who's talked to me on Skype will understand this.

Oh god. Especially when you're drunk. I have never heard anyone talk so fast.