Anyone else wanna make a conlang with as little standardized spelling as medieval English. Like you just spell things however feels right
People keep adding “lol that’s how french is” to this when France has one of the most rigorously controlled language standardization systems around. They’ve got the Académie française over there frantically trying to make up new French words for stuff like walkman and email to prevent English loanwords from entering common parlance.
I’m not just talking about spelling being disconnected from pronunciation, English is already knee deep in that. I’m tualkng abaut efferee worde beying spelt diferent eich tyme. Absoulut wyrd anarchie. Daythe to perskriptivizm, aul puhwer too thee piepull
Spelle itt howe yoo lyke, but god it shoor isse a fite agnst the autocorrekt
self-love is the one of the most radical things you can practice in a society that wants you to be apathetic and self-loathing. learn to LOVE yourself! you’re fucking worth it!!!
any noun can become a verb if you don’t care enough
This point is invalid unless you use an example in your sentence
I CAN SENTENCE HOW I WANT THANK
BEAUTIFUL
you see thats why i love english
I like to
velociraptor around my house at 2 in the morning.
GOOD
My headache makes me want to clothesline into a wall
why do these make some semblance of sense 😨
Because brains don’t brain logically
Brains do brain logically! But when english doesn’t logic englishly, brain brains by itself to logic that english !
any noun can be a verb if you ungiveashit enough
(and we need a word coined to mean chaotic apathy as an active, rather than passive, connotations. don’t-give-a-fuck as a reason TO do things, as opposed to a reason to not do things.)
Every word that starts with an N should have a silent G in front. Gnorway. Gnuclear. Gnervous system. Gnipples.
At some point my brain decided based on the word knee that body parts beginning with a n sound should have a silent k (particularly the word neck) so I am against gnipples wholeheartedly, it should clearly be knipples!
How about a compromise? Gn words and kn words get switched. So now it’s gneecaps and gnowledge, but it’s also knome and Knosticism.
the problem with this is that it doesn’t account for the original dilemma, which was gnipples vs. knipples
I, for one, think it should be pnipples, like pneumonia
Okay, but what about mnipples, like ‘mnemonic’?
Gkpmnipples (pronounced “nipples”)
This is the kind of content I remain for. (and y’all provide on the regular, I love you)
people who dont even care about language: how can you just CHANGE grammar??? add new wORds?? unacceptable!!! language must never change!!!!!11 kids these days cant even spell!!
people who study language: ANARCHY!! ANARCHY!!!! LANGUAGE IS FLUID AND WORDS AREN’T REAL!! change! the! grammar! rules!! burn a dictionary!!! NO ONE CARES!!!!!
If languages weren’t able to change none of us would be speaking the languages we speak nowadays.
The current English language is a mix of German, French and Old English (or whatever language Anglo-saxons spoke).
The current Spanish is a mix of Vulgar Latin, Arabic, Occitan (really old French) and Basque.
Languages are alive because WE are alive. Languages change because WE change.
‘Queer’ was reclaimed as an umbrella term for people identifying as not-heterosexual and/or not-cisgender in the early 1980s, but being queer is more than just being non-straight/non-cis; it’s a political and ideological statement, a label asserting an identity distinct from gay and/or traditional gender identities.
People identifying as queer are typically not cis gays or cis lesbians, but bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, intersex, etc.: we’re the silent/ced letters. We’re the marginalised majority within the LGBTQIA+ community, and
‘queer’ is our rallying cry.
And that’s equally pissing off and terrifying terfs and cis LGs.
There’s absolutely no historical or sociolinguistic reason why ‘queer’ should be a worse slur than ‘gay.’ Remember how we had all those campaigns to make people stop using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’?
Yet nobody is suggesting we should abolish ‘gay’ as a label. We accept that even though ‘gay’ sometimes is and historically frequently was used in a derogatory manner, mlm individuals have the right to use that word. We have ad campaigns, twitter hashtags, and viral Facebook posts defending ‘gay’ as an identity label and asking people to stop using it as a slur.
Whereas ‘queer’ is treated exactly opposite: a small but vocal group of people within feminist and LGBTQIA+ circles insists that it’s a slur and demands that others to stop using it as a personal, self-chosen identity label.
Why?
Because “queer is a slur” was invented by terfs specifically to exclude trans, nonbinary, and
intersex people from feminist and non-heterosexual discourse, and was
subsequently adopted by cis gays and cis lesbians to exclude bi/pan and ace
people.
It’s classic divide-and-conquer tactics: when our umbrella term is redefined as a slur and we’re harassed into silence for using it, we no longer have a word for what we are allowing us to organise for social/political/economic support; we are denied the opportunity to influence or shape the spaces we inhabit; we can’t challenge existing community power structures; we’re erased from our own history.
Pro tip: when you alter historical evidence to deny a marginalised group empowerment, you’re one of the bad guys.
“Queer is a slur” is used by terfs and cis gays/lesbians to silence the voices of trans/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/ace people in society and even within our own communities, to isolate us and shame us for existing.
“Queer is a slur” is saying “I am offended by people who do not conform to traditional gender or sexual identities because they are not sexually available to me or validate my personal identity.”
“Queer is a slur” is defending heteronormativity.
“Queer is a slur” is frankly embarrassing. It’s an admission of ignorance and prejudice. It’s an insidious discriminatory discourse parroted uncritically in support of a divisive us-vs-them mentality targeting the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community for lack of courage to confront the white cis straight men who pose an actual danger to us as individuals and as a community.
Tl;dr:
I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m too old for this shit.
I know I keep reblogging posts like this, but it matters to me. “Queer is a slur” is a TERF dogwhistle, and a lot of the younger generation is falling for it. Please pay attention to history and ask questions about who’s behind social media campaigns that undermine the inclusivity of your community.
Queer is an excellent word, especially when your identity doesn’t fit neatly within one little label. Queer is also an explicit rejection of normative expectations sexuality and gender. It’s radical as fuck.
Word is arguing with me that “theirselves*” is not a word, but the Scottish part of my brain is refusing to give it up. I have been using that word since I was knee high to a splinter, it makes sense in my head, but I know someone would bitch about it as a grammatical error or some such if I used it in Phangs.
Which is unfortunate, cause as it would turn out, I’ve used it. A lot.
*themselves just doesn’t have the same meaning? Don’t ask I don’t know. It’s likely a colloquial thing.
I get it, you want a possessive pronoun instead of an objective one?
YES, thank you I’ve been trying to pin it down and sitting here just saying the word over and over trying to figure out why it feels right.
There is a slight semantic difference! You’ll see people claim that ‘theirself’ is technically incorrect grammar but that’s prescriptivist talk. If there’s a hole in the lexicon someone will fill it 😉
I mean it’s already there, it exists in Scottish dialect. I just know I’ll likely get schtick for putting it in a book, or some pedant will pick up on it and leave a remark about it not being “proper English”, which no, it’s not. But I feel it should be. It fills a gap, as you say. And language ought to change with the times.
Huh. I’d never realised I used theirselves until this very moment. It’s a real word dang it!
Right?! It wasn’t until it got pointed out to me and I had to run stuff through Word to fix something that I was like “what do you mean that’s not a word, it is too a bloody word!”
I also only recently discovered that “outwith” isn’t a word outside of Scotland…that might have been one of your revelations too but I can’t remember. Either way, the rest of English is missing out.
It’s fucking what now?
But…but it’s such a good word… what do people say instead? Outside? Without? … but they don’t have the same inherent meaning.
Oh well. Fuckit.
Sorry Phangs readers, but you’re about to get a crash course in learning Scots dialect. Hold onto yer bunnets.
how would someone use ‘outwith’, what’s it mean?
“Outwith the norm” or “outwith his expectations”.
Which I suppose “outside” would work, but it feels janky on my tongue to say that. I’ve always used outwith when talking about like thingy-things like experiences or perceptions, while outside is reserved for real physical things like “you’ve parked outside the line” or “he’s outside the house”, though I dare day there’s some folk use “outwith” for those too.
I’m pretty sure we do have that in US English, it’s just two separate words.
“out with the old, in with the new”
Out with and outwith have very different meanings though.
