Innovative Usage Thread

Natural languages and linguistics
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Nortaneous
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

Salmoneus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:01 pm
<Ser> oye, pásame tu pack 'hey, can you send me your starter pack?' (where "starter pack" is a clothing attire)
I have never seen either 'pack' or 'starter pack' used in that sense in English. Although admittedly, teenage fashion discussions are something I don't have a lot of experience of.
Image
^ maybe in that sense? or, like, the sense that also gave rise to that; I've never seen it in a sense that wasn't supposed to be insulting, but in the culture of the Imperial Corridor it is impermissible to feel anything but contempt, so I wouldn't have
Duaj teibohnggoe kyoe' quaqtoeq lucj lhaj k'yoejdej noeyn tucj.
K'yoejdaq fohm q'ujdoe duaj teibohnggoen dlehq lucj.
Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq. Teijp'vq.
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Linguoboy
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Linguoboy »

Salmoneus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:01 pm
<Ser> (in the same post) te reto, sashay away 'I challenge you, sashay away' ("sashay away" is a RuPaul expression meaning 'you're defeated, now walk like a proper sexy girl', sashay itself is a deformation of French enchanté since people get charmed by the sexy walk)
I seriously doubt the latter! It sounds like a folk etymology. [a) that's really semantically stressed, b) that's very mangled diachronics, and c) the 'sexy walk' meaning of 'sashay' is secondary; it can also just mean to move in a quick and lively manner, particularly to move sideways, particularly with a sense of freedom and ease. In England, it's not (all that) infrequently used to describe men playing sports]

Wiktionary and etymonline both have it from chassé, the name of a French dance move, via metathesis.
IIRC (I don't have the DLF to hand right now), the metathesis of chasser > sacher is attested for Louisiana French. (Cf. sécheresse > chésseresse, which I was able to confirm.)
Salmoneus wrote:I'm not familiar with this particular phrase, but if it's a catchphrase of a specific US comedian I guess that would explain it. I'm not sure it really counts as "borrowing from English" if you're borrowing something from the idiosyncratic speech of a single English speaker, that most people wouldn't understand as having that meaning...
RuPaul only popularised the expression; there are thousands of English-speakers who use it on a regular basis. I mean, the expression is so well-known in US English that this is a thing that exists: https://www.amazon.com/Ruiyida-Doormat- ... B07GT5QMFQ.
MacAnDàil
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by MacAnDàil »

The same metathesis is attested in Réunion Creole, especially among the local Highland poor whites, including in the word chécheresse.
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Linguoboy
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Linguoboy »

MacAnDàil wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:44 pmThe same metathesis is attested in Réunion Creole, especially among the local Highland poor whites, including in the word chécheresse.
Corrected. (Chécheresse exists besides chésseresse, but this may be a secondary development from palatalisation of the cluster /sr/.)
MacAnDàil
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by MacAnDàil »

This form is also attested in the Altas Linguistique de La Réunion. I think therefore that both likely existed already in France, most likely in Normandy, which has been mentioned having sibilants in different positions to other langues d'oïl.

Other similar forms include [ʒyʃka] and [ʃaʃe].
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Linguoboy
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Linguoboy »

MacAnDàil wrote: Sat Sep 14, 2019 12:29 amOther similar forms include [ʒyʃka] and [ʃaʃe].
Looking through the DLF I found more examples of “sibilant harmony” than of metathesis. Examples include:

chisse “stingy” > chiche
chose “thing” > choge, choche
chaise “chair” > chaige
juste “just” > juge

There’s no data on which varieties are affected; all I can say is that the shift isn’t characteristic of my preferred variety (Vermilion Parish). And—contrary to what I thought—it doesn’t seem to affect chasser.

(Given that Vermillion also has chésseresse, I think you’re on the mark about this being an inherited dialect form.)
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alynnidalar
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by alynnidalar »

Salmoneus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:01 pm
<Ser> (in the same post) te reto, sashay away 'I challenge you, sashay away' ("sashay away" is a RuPaul expression meaning 'you're defeated, now walk like a proper sexy girl', sashay itself is a deformation of French enchanté since people get charmed by the sexy walk)
I seriously doubt the latter! It sounds like a folk etymology. [a) that's really semantically stressed, b) that's very mangled diachronics, and c) the 'sexy walk' meaning of 'sashay' is secondary; it can also just mean to move in a quick and lively manner, particularly to move sideways, particularly with a sense of freedom and ease. In England, it's not (all that) infrequently used to describe men playing sports]

Wiktionary and etymonline both have it from chassé, the name of a French dance move, via metathesis.

I'm not familiar with this particular phrase, but if it's a catchphrase of a specific US comedian I guess that would explain it. I'm not sure it really counts as "borrowing from English" if you're borrowing something from the idiosyncratic speech of a single English speaker, that most people wouldn't understand as having that meaning...
Maybe in the UK it has a broader meaning, but in the US, I pretty strongly associate sashay with an exaggerated hip-swinging model-type walk, and interpret any other usage as tongue-in-cheek. If you talked about sports players sashaying around I would think you were making a joke about them moving in an odd or mincing manner!
<Ser> Sorry not sorry, peros los ingenieros somos más en plan de: [Funcional > Estético]. 'Sorry but not sorry. We engineers are more of a [functional > aesthetic] mentality'
Interestingly, this is in my experience only something said by people in internet forums, who are just as likely not to be native speakers; it's not grammatical English.
What, "sorry not sorry"? I say that pretty frequently... at least among 20-something American women, "sorry not sorry" is definitely spoken aloud, not just written.
Vijay
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

I personally recall seeing it as "sorry (not sorry)." It never would've occurred to me to consider it ungrammatical.
Kuchigakatai
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Kuchigakatai »

Salmoneus wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:01 pmTo be fair, a lot of these either aren't exactly borrowings or aren't really from English...

[...]

I think most of these borrowings are just, as it were, evanescent "coolth" markers, which have to be continually regenerated, and which as a result do indeed very often get borrowed from other language, but only a small number of which will leave any lasting impact, or else are technological terms for things that didn't yet have a fully established term in the language...
I largely agree with your point of view really. It just happened that I used "borrowing" with a much broader meaning than you do. :P Consider that this came up in a conversation about linguistic purism, and purists do get concerned about "cool" youngsters saying things like "rainau" [rajˈnaw] or "streaming" [esˈtɾimin] ~ [esˈtɾimiŋɣ]. Yeah, these "borrowings" are often ephemeral.

Nortaneous is right about the meaning of "starter pack" I intended.
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Linguoboy
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Linguoboy »

“Calvin is sitting still now, staring at Dene mess with the recording equipment.” (Tommy Orange, 2018)

That “mess” tripped me up. I would’ve expected “…staring at Dene as he messes with…”. But “watching Dene mess with” sounds perfectly fine.
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Raphael
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Raphael »

Doesn't sound unusual at all to me.
Salmoneus
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

It's horrific. Completely ungrammatical for me. I would assume non-native, or some sort of creole...
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KathTheDragon
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

I'd prefer "messing" there, but bare "mess" works well enough.
Vijay
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

I have exactly the same reaction as Linguoboy.
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Linguoboy
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Linguoboy »

Salmoneus wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:56 amIt's horrific. Completely ungrammatical for me. I would assume non-native, or some sort of creole...
Also with "watching" or any other verb?
Salmoneus
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

No, it's fine with "watching". Or, say, "hearing", or "having". But not, say, "learning about", or "describing" or "wanting".

English verbs are particular.
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Zaarin
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Zaarin »

Salmoneus wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:56 am It's horrific. Completely ungrammatical for me. I would assume non-native, or some sort of creole...
Likewise. I had to read it twice just to understand what the writer was trying to say.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me?
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by zompist »

Linguoboy wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 9:27 pm “Calvin is sitting still now, staring at Dene mess with the recording equipment.”
My guess is that it's an editing error. That is, they wrote "...watching Dene mess with the recording equipment", and then changed "watching" to "staring at" without looking closely at the rest of the sentence.

(The syntax behind this is interesting and I'm not even sure what transformation it is. Maybe a fourth version of Comp-Placement?)
Vijay
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

I had to reread it a few times, too, because at first, seeing "Dene mess" made me think of Na-Dene + the Indian use of mess, so I thought of a Navajo cafeteria or something.
Richard W
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Re: Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Richard W »

missals wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:12 am I recently saw a reddit comment featuring "he literally post it on Facebook" - i.e. the past tense of post as post, not posted. This reflects an ongoing (centuries-long) trend of English verbs ending in /t/ and /d/ taking past tense forms identical to the stem. (I helped open the thread with a similar observation about the verb nut, but it got a cool reception...)
Or it could just be a typo, with the phonetic similarity of 'post it' to 'posted' hiding the omission of the past tense suffix.
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