Zompist Bboard Again

In the UK I would expect an "avenue" to be lined with trees and/or to be used on a housing estate to give the impression of some idyllic setting. Smaller roads in town are often called "street" whereas "road" might also include big roads that go to other places. But it'...

I think, at least to start with, AI art will mostly be restricted to cases where people wouldn't have paid for it anyway. I'm never going to pay someone to create art for my conworld for me - but I'd happily let a computer do it for free (or maybe for a small fee). Nobody actually loses out in that...

Having grown up in the UK, I don't think I ever particularly associated the monarchy with imperialism until I started spending too much time on Twitter. Of course there were a few things (e.g. Victoria's title Empress of India, the Order of the British Empire), but colonialism was far from the first...

Directly with regards to AI creating art... right now, as a person of limited artistic ability and limited access to art supplies, the only way for me to get a custom piece of artwork--with obvious benefits of improving the conditions I live in, holding important personal meaning for myself, etc.--...

My understanding is that the Bechdel Test isn't necessarily very much use applied to a single film (there's all sorts of reasons a film might fail without being particularly unfeminist), but gives interesting results when applied to lots of films at once, because a large proportion of them fail it a...

I had a lot of contact with "people like me" as a teenager via this forum and others to do with fandoms. I'm not sure it decreased my sense of alienation in real life. If anything it increased it (because it encouraged the sorts of hobbies that made me feel different - I wouldn't have got ...

literally complaining about "womyn", a spelling that a tiny group of people used in their own writing to make a rhetorical point—never suggesting that it be universally adopted or that it was in any way the solution to any problem—and that nobody has used in earnest in forty fucking years...

This is not really about politics, but it is very much about Britain: does anyone else find it a bit weird that so many people, both British and non-British, keep calling the 9th-largest island and 13th-largest landmass in the world a "small island"? I just saw that phrase again in a book...

Am I the only person in the world who loves to read, but hardly ever re-reads anything? And when I do re-read stuff, it's usually essays, blog posts, or other non-fiction - I'm not sure when was the last time I re-read a work of fiction. But when I read what other people who love reading have to sa...

Hmm, I thought so. I had another tussle with the relative clauses in a conlang, and I was trying to figure out what to do when there is something that can't be relativized. (I know that sentence had more to do with anaphora than relative clauses, but anyway...) What should I write in a grammar? Sho...

[French has almost completely left number marking to determiners at the beginning of an NP (if we ignore its orthography), but this has not produced much ambiguity since NPs generally must start with one such determiner.** It would've been interesting if determiners had been forbidden in some conte...

I have a vague impression that Calormen may be inspired in part by medieval Christian ideas of the East: e.g. Lewis didn't think Muslims worship a literal demon (his comments about Islam elsewhere are pretty complimentary), but some (most?) medieval Christians did. Certain aspects of Calormen are re...

bear, bore/born/borne, bairn, bier, birth

Suddenly piqued by vanity, I changed my username from Ars Lande to Ares Land. You didn't choose Arse Land? ;) I keep reading it as "land of Ares". Which led to me wondering how to say that in Latin (and I do rather like the sound of "Aris Terra"), which in turn led me to wonder ...

I would suggest that from a conlanging perspective the most important thing, probably, is how individual languages divide up their aspectual categories (which if you want inspiration is probably best gleaned from detailed grammars of particular languages). It's entirely possible that a universal un...

I would suggest that from a conlanging perspective the most important thing, probably, is how individual languages divide up their aspectual categories (which if you want inspiration is probably best gleaned from detailed grammars of particular languages). It's entirely possible that a universal und...

I don't like a lot of Bob's presentation style, but I can't say I'm too bothered about whether he writes "of" or "GEN". It's clear enough what is meant either way. I’m actually not too bothered about it either. But Bob’s presentation style doesn’t have too much explanatory text,...

I don't like a lot of Bob's presentation style, but I can't say I'm too bothered about whether he writes "of" or "GEN". It's clear enough what is meant either way.

Maybe if you spent less time attacking people for criticising you you'd have some spare time you could use to rewrite your Facebook posts in a ZBB-friendly manner.

Most of us manage not to talk about our conlanging "qualifications" very much if at all. As has been said, let your work speak for itself. Formal academic qualifications don't necessarily mean very much when it comes to conlanging anyway.