Comments | cofax7: Linkspam dislikes spreadsheets with tiny tiny font

cofax7

Linkspam dislikes spreadsheets with tiny tiny font

Jul 27, 2010 11:10

Language Log talks about vowel mergers--i.e., the inability to distinguish between "pen" and "pin", for instance. One of the commenters claims he can distinguish between "they're", "their", and "there", which I have never heard of before. People can do that?

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Kate Elliott hosts a discussion of the Bechdel test in epic fantasy.

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Comments 20

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veejane July 27 2010, 18:38:08 UTC

If it makes you feel any better, I discovered during a geology class that stereoscopic photos make a certain non-small percentage of the population dizzy, neauseated, or headachey. I discovered this by getting a headache, basically at about the same time that the teacher began warning us of the possibility. My depth-perception is absolutely normal as far as I know.

(Stereoscopic photos are basically antique 3-D.)

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veejane July 27 2010, 20:35:24 UTC

You know, my eyes are rather narrow-set. So your eye specialist might have a thesis there.

Thread 5

rednikki July 27 2010, 18:32:35 UTC

Morena Baccarin is lucky enough to have a stylist...

cofax7 July 27 2010, 18:41:11 UTC

Yes, that would help!

somedaybitch July 27 2010, 23:35:01 UTC

that colorist is exceptional; very subtle color changes and depth. :::hates Morena just a little:::

rachelmanija July 27 2010, 18:33:10 UTC

It's still better than S.M. Stirling's bizarre fixation with ethnicity (and inability to count 9 months wtf).

Explain?

I enjoyed reading Elegy Beach but yeah, lots of issues. The mother can't just die, she had to die in excruciating agony. I'm surprised she didn't burst into flames on the ceiling - oh wait, she wasn't blonde.

cofax7 July 27 2010, 18:40:32 UTC

I read the first of Stirling's Willamette Valley post-apocalypse novels, memfault on the name. It's the one where, like in Boyett, one day all technology just stops working (although there is no magic to take its place). And the way that society develops and people adapt is that they go back to their ethnic roots! So the woman with a Mac- in her name starts wearing tartan and runs a clan/tribe of farmers with bows and swords. And the guy with a Finnish background is all Viking, and the Brits all re-learn how to be bowmen. And the inner-city* folks? Well, they all become barbarians and cannibals, a horde of murderous rapists who will swarm out of the cities to take down the nice civilized communities in the farm country ( ... )

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cofax7 July 27 2010, 18:52:13 UTC

My original comments on it, with additional information in the comments by meara. I'd forgotten that in addition to being post-apocalypse, it's also a retelling of the Arthur cycle.

Thread 8

veejane July 27 2010, 18:34:40 UTC

On re they're/their/there, most Appalachian and some western dialects turn the third one into "thar", while the first two might stay about the way you and I hear them, or be a little different.

But obviously he can't distinguish it in all speakers, because you and I and probably 90% of the people we know don't make the distinction. (What's more, plenty of dialects the world over reduce "they're" and "their" to a single word, "they," so those speakers couldn't even be asked to make a vowel distinction.)

hederahelix July 27 2010, 18:55:45 UTC

I find linguistics fascinating. I blame that obsession on having moved around within the US a lot as a kid. I'm a hodge podge of so many different regions that you can practically tell how old I was when I learned a given word based on which regional variation on pronunciation I have ( ... )