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Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 7:34 am
by Kuchigakatai
I notice that lately in the Spanish weeb online sociolect some people use the English word GOD, in all caps, as a suffix for the speaker's favourite characters in a show. E.g. KazamaGOD.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2022 7:23 pm
by axolotl
An innovative usage from 5-or-6-year-old-me.
One morning I kept drinking water because it felt like I had something stuck in my throat. My dad asked why I was drinking so much water, and I replied "I have a golk in my throat."
It felt like it was in the back, like where g is pronounced (but further back), and it felt like it was shaped like an egg yolk, so this made it a golk. This felt incredibly obvious to me at the time. Of course, my dad was very confused, considering that I had just invented a word.
(I think I may have pronounced it with a uvular, or "as far back as I could." No way to be sure, of course, because six-year-olds don't exactly know their articulations).
I was reminded of this by a similar story I read online, where someone as a young child said "my skin is spicy" to describe an itch, not knowing the word.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:24 am
by Kuchigakatai
I don't know how innovative this is, but I notice people sometimes say "if no" and "or no" on the Internet, while I never see either in formally published prose, which have "if not", "or not" instead. Here's an example by Moose-tache from another thread:
Moose-tache wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 11:42 pmIf yes, accept one allowable meaning; if no, return to sender." Rules dictating which of an infinite set is the best one, rather than rules dictating which single combination is allowable, are still rules.
It seems strongly influenced by the language of programming in this specific quote though, which maybe makes the artificiality of "if no" more acceptable. Unless "if no" is really something Moose-tache regularly says.
Another example I just came across, from a chatroom, by a speaker from Louisiana:
those exist in the middle ages, depending on whether the local language had /ʃ/ or no
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:46 pm
by linguistcat
I don't think I would read "If yes... if no..." as strange; it's just a parallel construction as far as I'm concerned. The "...or no." in the second example sounds more like it's dialectal or idiolectal.
Meanwhile, if the construction were "If [verb phrase] ... If no..." I'd find that a bit weirder. I would use "if not" in that case whether it was formal or informal. EX: "If you go, tell Bob my decission. If not, I'll see him Monday."
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:34 pm
by Travis B.
If yes ... if no ... is understandable to me but feels kind of weird overall; if no feels even weirder when not juxtaposed with if yes to me.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
by Raphael
On the other hand, Wenn ja... ... wenn nein... feels like perfectly regular German to me.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:02 pm
by Travis B.
To me if yes ... if no ... feels like a short form for if it is yes ... if it is no ..., which feel more natural to me.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:07 am
by Kuchigakatai
Someone in a chatroom somewhere wrote:Anyone else notice that people are saying "If only I would have done X" instead of "If only I had done X"
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:31 am
by Linguoboy
Kuchigakatai wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:07 am
Someone in a chatroom somewhere wrote:Anyone else notice that people are saying "If only I would have done X" instead of "If only I had done X"
If anything, I'm noticing more use of simple past in protases, e.g. "If only I did X" (when the action is punctual, not habitual).
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:54 pm
by Ryusenshi
Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
On the other hand,
Wenn ja... ... wenn nein... feels like perfectly regular German to me.
It's also perfectly normal in French:
si oui... si non.... In fact, it's so common that the last two words have fused into
sinon, which can be used in other contexts to mean "otherwise, or else".
It's interesting that almost every programming language uses
else in this sort of environment...
Code: Select all
if <condition> then
<do_something>
else
<do_other_thing>
... even though it wouldn't be idiomatic in regular English. I once read an article wondering how it came to be, and speculating that it was due to non-native English speakers, but I can't find it at the moment.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:23 pm
by Raphael
Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:54 pm
It's interesting that almost every programming language uses
else in this sort of environment...
Code: Select all
if <condition> then
<do_something>
else
<do_other_thing>
... even though it wouldn't be idiomatic in regular English. I once read an article wondering how it came to be, and speculating that it was due to non-native English speakers, but I can't find it at the moment.
Perhaps the designers of programming languages thought that "
otherwise" would be too long?
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2022 6:18 pm
by zompist
Cute coinage found on Twitter to describe Russia's failed attempt to overrun Ukraine in the spring: "cringe-krieg"
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:25 pm
by Ryusenshi
Probably not a recent development, just one I only noticed recently – and an interesting case of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon.
Last week, I read some online rant, which said at one point:
"And then this thing happened. SIKE! No, actually, the opposite happened."
A comment mentionned that sike should be spelled psych and also berated the main post for using such a childish joke.
I didn't know this usage, or the word sike: I thought I had never seen someone using sike or psych this way before. And then, the following days, I encountered the same pattern three times in unrelated contexts.
It's possible that I had seen this before, but hadn't noticed because I didn't understand it. I probably thought sike meant something like "sigh" or "yikes", instead of being a respelling of psych.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:45 pm
by Ryusenshi
Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:54 pm
I once read an article wondering how it came to be, and speculating that it was due to non-native English speakers, but I can't find it at the moment.
Found it! It's here:
https://github.com/e-n-f/if-then-else/b ... en-else.md
Apparently, the first computer-related use of the word
else was in a paper by German scientists, which had been hastily translated into English. The German proposition was the cleanest and was eventually adopted, despite not being idiomatic in everyday English.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 1:42 am
by fusijui
It sounds perfectly idiomatic to me, in terms of 19th century English and early-mid 20th century formal (written) English norms.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 12:51 pm
by Qwynegold
Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:25 pm
Probably not a recent development, just one I only noticed recently – and an interesting case of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon.
Last week, I read some online rant, which said at one point:
"And then this thing happened. SIKE! No, actually, the opposite happened."
A comment mentionned that
sike should be spelled
psych and also berated the main post for using such a childish joke.
I didn't know this usage, or the word
sike: I thought I had never seen someone using
sike or
psych this way before. And then, the following days, I encountered the same pattern three times in unrelated contexts.
It's possible that I had seen this before, but hadn't noticed because I didn't understand it. I probably thought
sike meant something like "sigh" or "yikes", instead of being a respelling of
psych.
It used to be psyche, as in "to psych someone" (to disturb them so that they perform badly in a game). Back then I would mostly encounter it in speech rather than writing. But then people started using it online, and I guess they didn't know anymore where it came from, so they just pronunciation spelled it. You never see anyone spell it psych nowadays.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:20 pm
by Kuchigakatai
I'm really surprised by this conversation. I've lived here in Vancouver for nearly 15 years now and I don't recall ever hearing this sike!/psych! interjection. Let's see if the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon ends up applying to me too. Or maybe it just isn't used here.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:52 pm
by zompist
Qwynegold wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 12:51 pm
It used to be psyche, as in "to psych someone" (to disturb them so that they perform badly in a game). Back then I would mostly encounter it in speech rather than writing. But then people started using it online, and I guess they didn't know anymore where it came from, so they just pronunciation spelled it.
I learned this from my nieces when they were young, which would have been in the 1980s.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 6:09 pm
by Ryusenshi
Qwynegold wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 12:51 pmIt used to be psyche, as in "to psych someone" (to disturb them so that they perform badly in a game).
I knew about this use, or similar ones. What surprised me was its use as an exclamation to immediately contradict yourself, kinda like yelling "Not!" as in
Wayne's World. I imagined it started as a way of saying "fooled you", and was later extended to cases where no one is fooling anybody.
Re: Innovative Usage Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:47 pm
by Rounin Ryuuji
I'd actually forgotten the sike spelling.