Pronouns are fighting me.

[StillStunned]

And they kept the Old English "hw" sound (as in Beowulf, "hwaet") in words like what and where, lost in almost all other dialects of English.

I have a personal theory that "Hwaet!" is just a phonetic representation of the skald clearing his throat to get everyone's attention.

(I don't really. But it would make sense.)

 

[Britva415]

Then there is the Maine dialect, where many words end in an ah sound—moving my carah!

I recently came to consider that the Maine dialect is to Boston as Kiwi is to Aussie.

(They’re very very similar but Maine doesn’t have that broad, fronted, “chewing on the words” energy that Boston has, which is how I’d also describe the difference between Kiwi and Aussie)

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OMG, what have I done?

 

[Areala-chan]

OMG, what have I done?

What you had to do, @TarnishedPenny. What you had to do.

 

[stickygirl]

Recently been teaching some beginners' German, and explaining that all nouns ending in -chen or -lein are neuter (das). Which means that to answer the question 'Siehst du das Mädchen?' (do you see the girl?) the grammatical answer is 'Ich sehe es." (I see it)

By the time I'd done A-level German plus a couple more years, I got to the point of almost always being able to tell the gender of a noun, because there are patterns of how words divvy up. Almost anything ending in -e is feminine, all professions are masculine, foreign words are neuter, anything ending in -heit, -keit or -ung is feminine. It's only der vs das words that can be tricky, and lots of native speakers get confused with some of them, especially loan words. And grammatically, most of the articles and adjective endings are the same for both.

(Yes, German has 54 adjective endings to learn - 3 genders plus plural, for 4 cases, and for using after the definite, indefinite and no articles - but over half of them are -en and you can mumble most of the others if necessary...)

In contrast, verb forms are way easier than in English - none of this 'I go, I am going, I do go, I be going, I have been going, I have gone' all representing the present tense!

I found this item useful in understanding Deutsch sentence construction

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

You, (a highly specific) can use these no gender pronouns if you want, "one," "you," "we," and "they." I give you my permission to do so! Also, "them," "their," "nobody," "anyone," "no one," "none," "themselves," "their-selves." "Thing," "creature," "blob," "whatsit."

HAHA... "Whatsit"

"Captain whatsit sat on my face and they, them, she, splooged."

Sorry... that was the juvenile teen in me acting up again.

<slaps self> "Bad Carmine! Baaaad Carmine!"

 

[CarmineBlancheJr]

Then there is the Maine dialect, where many words end in an ah sound—moving my carah!

The Maine dialect.

Spent a brief period of time in Bar Harbor and remember a very heated session with two men in the bar trying to teach me thing like how it's "Bah Hahbah" and not Bar Harbor. And how I drive a "Cah" and "Ayuh" means yes, and what it means when someone says something like, "Yah wanah go upta the kitchen?"

It all made more sense the drunker I got, but my contract ended before I became too fluent in "downeasterner".

 

[Britva415]

It all made more sense the drunker I got

Story checks out

fluent in "downeasterner"

We'd just call it "downeast."

 

[SPARTAN047]

Do you really want to come home and find your table with its legs in the air?

At this point in my life, I'd be happy to. Maybe put a little pair of panties, an ass mold and a pussy mold at the appropriate places on it. And a dick mold between the opposite pair of legs.

 

[Plathfan]

How is it useful for a table to have gender?

It's useful in cultures that view every object as having a character, where anthropomorphism thrives. It works wonders for poetry--if you’re able to absorb it.

How is it useful for a language to have 16 tenses when there are really only three?

Obviously, anyone used to this madness might believe the continuous and perfect tenses make sense, but they don’t.

 

[XerXesXu]

How is it useful for a language to have 16 tenses when there are really only three?

Obviously, anyone used to this madness might believe the continuous and perfect tenses make sense, but they don’t.

Tagalog verbs have only 3 general forms, complete, incomplete and contemplated. To make up for this, they have 7 foci, irregularly indicated by prefixes, suffixes and infixes plus focal markers adjacent to the nouns. I can understand the focal equivalent of subject, object and indirect object, even so, it's easy to ask, 'Can the fish buy the old lady for the woman?', which brings a smile. I have no idea what the other foci are. If you know the root forms, context reveals what is said. If you say, but I'd say '....', you're told 'It's the same.' I have no idea why. However, I can confidently handle many tenses, which may confuse non-native speakers, in English.