Zompist Bboard Again

I wonder if I can cheat and ask about the planets and their relevance in Almean cultures, :lol: but that's probably another topic entirely. Thank you for the answers! Hm. I see that you're new to this forum, and I remember that I've seen other forums elsewhere on the web where only moderators, or a...

OK, I had a wrong idea of what ɐ means.

Lērisama wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 1:20 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 11:38 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 11:33 am
I'm familiar with "one-lane road" myself.

Thank you!

I'd say "single track road" or "country lane" myself.

Thank you, too!

Wiktionary suggests Kontrastfigur . Does that work? (Each Wikipedia language is basically a separate project, at least as I understand it. So it’s pretty bad for that sort of cross-linguistic search.) Yes, the semantic elements sound right, and so does the explanation at the Duden website. Thank you!

How I always understood StG was that /ʁ/ was vocalized to either [ɐ̯] in a syllable coda or, as in this case, /əʁ/ as a whole is vocalized to [ɐ] when the /ʁ/ falls in a coda position, and that not doing this is a feature of Swiss Standard German, as StG goes, and many Alemannic varieties in partic...

I thought "Spengler" was [ˈʃpɛŋlɐ] in StG. Hm, I don't really understand IPA that well, but depending on whether you talk more colloquially or more overly formally correct, it ends either with a more or less "ah"-like vowel, or with a more or less "eh"-like vowel follo...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 11:33 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 9:47 am Do I get this right that these are called single-track roads in BE and one-lane roads in SAE? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-track_road

I'm familiar with "one-lane road" myself.

Thank you!

How would you express this concept in German? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(narrative) As you can see, it doesn't have a corresponding German Wikipedia article. Given that Germans of a certain level of education sometimes love to contrast their own cultural sophistication with the supposed phi...

Do I get this right that these are called single-track roads in BE and one-lane roads in SAE? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-track_road

I wasn't sure whether to ask this in one of the political threads or in one of the linguistic threads, so I'm starting a new thread for it. In George Orwell's lengthy essay Looking Back on the Spanish War https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-ba...

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2026 4:47 am at about 27,000 words

Note that that's more than the 12,300 words I had reported a while ago.

A draft of the novel half-way done. See here: https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?t=1781

Now about half done. Se here: https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?t=1781

After roughly 18 months and intermittent complaining, I finally got my 2024 tax assessment from the Luxembourg authorities, and it ended up being a rather plump refund. (On the other hand, trying to figure out how they got to the exact numbers they did is a bit puzzling, but some things are perhaps...

I've mentioned that I'm trying to write a novel here or there on the ZBB. It's now perhaps a bit more than half done - well, the current draft is - at about 27,000 words and three out of six of the weeks during which the story is supposed to happen. It's science fiction, but perhaps a bit unusual in...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2026 2:25 pm
A bandaid is a type of bandage to me.

I'd say that the part of me that got some limited medical training long ago kind of agrees with you, while the rest of me agrees with Lērisama.

Raphael, uncapitalised band(-)aid is probably your best bet. It is marked as foreign here, but it will be understood, probably more recognised than ‘plaster’ is outside the UK, and you're aiming for American English anyway. Please don't use ‘bandage’ to refer to one, because it will either mislead ...

In news of the random and irrelevant things, while writing on my story, I just wanted to have a character tell a younger character something starting with "Back when I was your age..." and initially mistyped that as "Back when I was my age".

Leilis wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2026 11:23 am
In lowercase ('band-aid' or even 'bandaid') it's less obtrusive. You said American English so I can't suggest 'plaster' instead ... (:

For 'Kleenex' specifically, you can use 'tissue'.

Thank you, too!

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2026 9:41 am

No.

Thank you!