The New ZBB Quote Thread

[Raphael]

I remember well my first experience with paging materials from a university library in Germany. In those days, you had to fill out slips by hand and submit them. I meant to request three books on the Catalan language; I got back one book on the Catalan language, one on Fasnacht in Basel, and one entirely in Polish on I don't know what subject. After that, I spent most of my time browsing the reference collection or the small "Freihandmagazin".

[Qwynegold]

"Some people are angry on Tumblr" is about the lowest level of crisis possible.

[Qwynegold]

Ser giving an example of a possible Mandarin chat converstion:

- "this is today's route. very forest! [image]" ('This is what today's route was like. It was very forested [image of tree branches/leaves narrowing the hiking path].')

[akam chinjir]

I think what we learn from all this is that it's a fine, fine line between Sumer and Shang.

[Zju]

We trust y'all not to go wildly bumpilicious.

[Raphael]

Nothing he [Trump]'s done so far, and he's done a lot, has created any pushback, except for Mitt Romney. Half of Mitt Romney.

[Raphael]

I got a random friend request the other day from a sketchy-looking user, which I normally would have just deleted, but in his profile, he said he was "Learning Azerbaijani" so I decided to have some fun. The conversation went like this:

"Niyə azərbaycan dilini öyrənirsən?" ("Why are you learning Azerbaijani?")
"English."
"Sən yalançısan." (You're a liar.")

Now his reply has been replaced with a message saying "the sender's account requires verification".

[Raphael]

Just realized COVID gave a new emotional dimension to the expression "to avoid sth like the plague".

There's a meme going around to the effect of "We need a new expression because it turns out humans don't avoid the plague".

[Raphael]

Zompist being optimistic:

Also coming soon, an introductory video. I still need to add the sound portion, and though it's going to be simple, I have to learn how to do that.

[Zju]

The Translation of "The Book of Mormon" into Mayan Hieroglyphic. [...] I'm an expert in Mayan Hieroglyphic writing and all 50 or so known logographic writing systems (ones like Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Cuneiform) [...]

I could become quite famous and celebrated for doing this.

[WeepingElf]

Is that a Bobquote? (EDIT: Of course it is.)

[alice]

I'm tempted to post a picture of a robin here, for much the same reason one posts a duck in response to quackery.

[Yalensky]

Bob was eminently quotable. My favorite Bobism:

I'm probably the most advanced scientist of logographic writing systems to ever exist. So as bad as my conlangs probably look to most people on this group, logographic conscripts look far worse to me. If I wanted to tear them apart, I could, but there wouldn't be much point except for me to wear the jerk badge.

There's a million and one little details to logographic writing systems which I hope to put into a book or two by the end of my life. But can be found discussed nowhere else.

I've been posting my conlangs on here and making clear what I research and my success with it. And then I don't have the patience anymore to be given that sort of hassle. Doing what I've done has been very demanding.

I've thought about making this a Translation Challenge.

[Raphael]

In a previous job, one of our more important systems ended up being called "Kevin" because I suggested it as a joke and nobody could think of anything better.

[Qwynegold]

How quickly you get a response to a question just depends on who's reading at any given time and what their interests are. Sometimes you ask a question about numbers and Janko's on the toilet. It happens.

I accuse you of spreading false rumours here. The man has surely long trascended such material necessities.

[KathTheDragon]

Native Old Japanese roots are nearly always two syllables. This is also true of the vast majority of words that can be traced to Proto-Tungusic. Native Korean roots are usually two syllables or show obvious signs of being two syllables in the past. But I am certain that none of these languages had hard rules precluding any roots from being monosyllabic.

Proto-Uralic comes in this camp.

Oh, sorry, I didn't know we were including conlangs.

[Qwynegold]

coudl

This word infuriates me. The middle finger of the left hand presses a key. Then its next action is the simplest thing in the world: just return to the resting position and press downward. But no! Before completing this simple task the left hand must wait for the right hand to tap dance across half the keyboard like a cat chasing a laser pointer. It's no surprise that the left hand, waiting for its companion to finish typing its retinue of idiotic silent letters, gets impatient and hits the final key a split second too early. And then left brain complains "Oh that's not right! Oh that's a typo!" as if he wasn't the same son of a bitch in charge of that ludicrous display a second ago. I got no time for your shit, left brain! No time!

[bradrn]

Other horrors to come: the Mexica weren't just cannibals, they were also socialists and believed in common ownership of the means of production. Did their pagan lawlessness know no limits?

[Linguoboy]

I've read Capital in the 21st century, but I've not tackled Capital and Ideology yet. It kinda scares me.

If a work of scholarship is too intimidating for a French person, what are the rest of us supposed to make of it?

[Linguoboy]

I'm Ser but now going by as Nectar.

Sweet.