Ne Cresin so Arthaey

There's no reason you can't utilize the na...

2011-11-23T09:02:44.110-08:00

There's no reason you can't utilize the nano community every November, and just work on whatever you're working on, at a pace that fits with your life. They're very nice, they don't care if you're moonlighting. :)

"She [i.e. me] had taken several photos and u...

2011-09-24T20:46:38.108-07:00

"She [i.e. me] had taken several photos and uploaded them. I may have gotten a little jealous and defensive, but I'm not admittin' to nothin'. ..."

You may cease feeling defensive, as I have stopped uploading & posting. It just took too doggone long. I was spending more time doing the uploading thing than spending time with yo' Daddy. I will postdate and publish the daily blogs upon our return.

""Can I tell you something... in Confidence?" "

Oh yes! Give that man a big hug for me! :-)

as for the rest of the post ... I am *so* glad that I know you are currently safe-and-sound (thank you, FB) and that I can continue to read the post without feeling the need to panic that my firstborn will never been seen again. :-)

Enjoy your trip ... we are FINALLY on the westward route of our trek. :-)

If you think about it or get the chance, Santa Fe ...

2011-09-22T06:24:30.257-07:00

If you think about it or get the chance, Santa Fe is amazing! It's as old as some of the settlements out east after all.

My sister and I had a great time at WorldCon this ...

2011-09-05T19:46:16.307-07:00

My sister and I had a great time at WorldCon this year! It will be in Chicago next year. I hope you can make it then. :)

Wish I could have gone to Renovation. Several of ...

2011-09-03T12:10:56.747-07:00

Wish I could have gone to Renovation. Several of my friends went. Hope you had a good time in Reno.

Because we think they are cool, I guess. Also, wh...

2011-06-05T09:41:11.109-07:00

Because we think they are cool, I guess. Also, what counts as famous? Is Lojban famous? It's no Esperanto, but it does seem to attract a bunch of people, at least online.

Everybody I know makes the syllables rhyme: soo-do...

2011-05-28T11:42:20.274-07:00

Everybody I know makes the syllables rhyme: soo-doo.

I know! Let's invent a language with no ambigu...

2011-05-25T20:46:57.207-07:00

I know! Let's invent a language with no ambiguity whatsoever. Should be a snap. That will solve everything. Probably bring about World Peace, even. ;)

Oh, I don't know. Consider how many things
2011-05-25T20:35:31.767-07:00
Oh, I don't know. Consider how many things hard means: hart, schwierig, fleißig, schwer, mühsam, heftig, stark, streng, alkoholisch, gut, scharf, kräftig, anstrengend, usw. Then there's in fact, which can mean any of in effeti, di fatto, infatti, in realtà, anzi, però, tant'è vero che, per esempio, a dire, il vero, ecc. [Examples due to Douglas Hofstadter.] English is just too vague to be intelligible, and the lack of morphology only makes it worse.

Indeed. "The trick is, rather than cultivati...

2011-05-24T09:08:20.237-07:00

Indeed.

"The trick is, rather than cultivating the desire to be right, to cultivate the desire to become right and remain so. That way, when you find out that you were wrong, instead of being crushed, you are elated because you were wrong but have now become right. And because you're elated, you then rush off to tell your nearest and dearest that whereas previously you were wrong, you are now right, and isn't that amazing? And of course that totally overrides any recollection of how obstinately and vehemently you were sticking to your incorrect opinion before." —me

Oh you know it. Look at this English here -- each ...

2011-05-17T11:20:15.842-07:00

Oh you know it. Look at this English here -- each word only carries one measly meaning! Well, I suppose the verbs carry two, but that's still pretty weak. What's the world coming to??

;)

Yup, Vietnamese sure is primitive, and English and...

2011-05-17T08:28:09.921-07:00

Yup, Vietnamese sure is primitive, and English and Chinese are up to their necks in muck side by side.

That sounds a lot more probable to me. It's f...

2011-05-05T09:53:43.202-07:00

That sounds a lot more probable to me.

It's funny how you can't trust native-speaker intuition.

That rule sounds like complete nonsense to me. Th...

2011-05-05T07:39:52.236-07:00

That rule sounds like complete nonsense to me. The rule I learned forty years ago was: v is /v/ in foreign words, /f/ in native words. Note that this completely explains all her examples, whereas such an ordinary word as November, which she doesn't mention but has /v/, is mis-explained.

So the great bulk of all v words take /f/, but when a German sees a novel word in v, they'll tend to pronounce it /v/.

I found your "missing" comments! They go...

2011-04-07T13:13:35.454-07:00

I found your "missing" comments! They got flagged as spam, probably because of the legalese. ;)

That was the first legitimate comment that's been misidentified as spam, so I didn't know where to look. Sorry about that.

Yes, that sounds right. There is a desire in Germ...

2011-03-30T17:34:09.711-07:00

Yes, that sounds right. There is a desire in Germany that foreigners be "perfect" and ultra-formal all the time.

(I apologize for the length of this comment, for I...

2011-03-30T17:28:42.650-07:00

(I apologize for the length of this comment, for I had not time to make it short.)

Well, as in most of Europe, there is Platt proper and there is Standard German with a Platt accent. (Standard German itself is really High German with a light Platt accent already!) The first is being rapidly replaced by the second, especially in the cities.

For example, Berlin speaks only Standard German, but with Platt features like wat, dat for was, das/dass. Older people in the surrounding countryside may still speak East Platt, though.

There's probably has the usual level of stigma and ignorance, but there's literature written in it, too. A standard written variety used to exist, and was used by the Hanseatic League. There's no standard written form today, though.

The same language is also spoken along with Dutch in the Western Netherlands.

If you want to look at a bit of Platt in linguistic context, here are links to the Brothers Grimm story "The Fisherman And His Wife" in English, Scots (scroll down), Dutch, Plattdeutsch (as the Grimms collected it), Standard German, and a Southern U.S. cultural translation. And here are the opening lines of each version (the Platt version is the most forthright about the "filthy shack"!):

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a filthy shack near the sea. Every day the fisherman went out fishing, and he fished, and he fished. Once he was sitting there fishing and looking into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat. Then his hook went to the bottom, deep down, and when he pulled it out, he had caught a large flounder.

Thare wis ance a fisher an his wife that steyed thegither ablo a cowpit chantie aneist the sea. Ilka day the fisher gaed til the sea for tae fish, an he fisht an he fisht. Ance he sat fishin an glowerin intil the clear watter, he sat an he sat. Syne the line gaed tae grund, deep doun, an as he heezed it oot, he heezed oot a muckle rodden fleuk.

Er was eens een visser en z'n vrouw, die zo arm waren, dat ze alleen maar in een pot konden wonen, vlak aan zee. De visser ging elke dag hengelen; en dan hengelde hij en hengelde hij maar. Zo zat hij ook eens bij zijn hengel en keek steeds in 't blanke water, en hij keek en keek. Daar dook de dobber diep onder, en toen hij 'm ophaalde, had hij een grote bot.

Daar was mal eens een Fischer un siine Fru, de waanten tosamen in’ n Pispott, dicht an de See – un de Fischer ging alle Dage hen un angelt, un ging he hen lange Tid. Daar satt he eens an de See bi de Angel un sach in dat blanke Water, un he sach ümmer na de Angel – daar ging de Angel to Grun’n, deep unner, un as he se heruttreckt so haalt he eenen groten Butt herut.

Es war einmal ein Fischer und seine Frau, die wohnten zusammen in einer kleinen Fischerhütte, dicht an der See, und der Fischer ging alle Tage hin und angelte; und er angelte und angelte. So saß er auch einmal mit seiner Angel und sah immer in das klare Wasser hinein; und so saß er nun und saß. Da ging die Angel auf den Grund, tief hinunter, und als er sie heraufholte, da holte er einen großen Butt heraus.

One afternoon a poor man was fishing in the creek not far from the tarpaper shack he shared with his wife. He had caught a good string of fish - enough for supper and breakfast too, but since the sun had not quite set, he cast his line just once more. And he got a bite! And reeled in a small, colorful fish unlike any he'd ever seen before.

I'm going to have to read up on Plattdeutsch. ...

2011-03-28T13:33:22.985-07:00

I'm going to have to read up on Plattdeutsch. It sounds interesting! Do you know anything about its socio-linguistic acceptance? Is it just what people in northern German speak, or is it a stigmatized dialect, or what?

I don't know what happened to your other comment -- that's really weird. Anyhow, thanks for pointing me to the right section of the California code. I'd found something else marriage-related in the 400's, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

That's what I've read about preterite vs p...

2011-03-28T13:16:19.411-07:00

That's what I've read about preterite vs present perfect in German. But then sometimes native Germans correct my writing to use preterite where I had used present perfect.

Perhaps it's like a English speaker who might correct a written "gonna" to "going to," even in a blog post where the less formal register really is the better choice?

There is no semantic difference between the preter...

2011-03-28T11:29:03.956-07:00

There is no semantic difference between the preterite and the present perfect, though there are differences of style and register. Except for haben and sein, you don't ever need to use preterite forms, and lots of Germans don't except in writing. In the South, even hat and seit as main verbs are avoided in favor of habe gehabt and ist gewesen.

Ganz héich Radioaktivitéit am Mierwaasser gemoo...

2011-03-28T11:13:10.220-07:00
Ganz héich Radioaktivitéit am Mierwaasser gemooss is Plattdeutsch; the éi indicates a borrowed ä. Heich, without accent, is the Scots word for 'high' and is cognate to it; it's kind of cool that in Scots heich and laich 'low' rhyme.

I commented on Quaker-type weddings in California, but the comment vanished somehow. Anyway, you want Section 307 of the California Family Code (search on the page for 307).

It's the homophony of isst and ist
2011-03-23T16:39:14.846-07:00
It's the homophony of isst and ist:

"The cake is ready and everybody is a piece."

Old, but still classic.

I seem to be missing out on the joke. :/

2011-03-22T18:01:24.943-07:00
I seem to be missing out on the joke. :/

~~ laughs hysterically ~~

2011-03-22T17:40:21.623-07:00
~~ laughs hysterically ~~

Blast it, my comment vanished. I'll try to re...

2011-03-20T00:30:22.722-07:00
Blast it, my comment vanished. I'll try to reconstruct it.

Section 307 of the California Family Code tells you what you need to know:

307. This division, so far as it relates to the solemnizing of marriage, is not applicable to members of a particular religious society or denomination not having clergy for the purpose of solemnizing marriage or entering the marriage relation, if all of the following requirements are met:

   (a) The parties to the marriage sign and endorse on the form prescribed by the State Department of Public Health, showing all of the following:

      (1) The fact, time, and place of entering into the marriage.

      (2) The printed names, signatures, and mailing addresses of two witnesses to the ceremony.

      (3) The religious society or denomination of the parties to the marriage, and that the marriage was entered into in accordance with the rules and customs of that religious society or denomination. The statement of the parties to the marriage that the marriage was entered into in accordance with the rules and customs of the religious society or denomination is conclusively presumed to be true.

   (b) The License and Certificate of Non-Clergy Marriage, endorsed pursuant to subdivision (a), is returned to the county recorder of the county in which the license was issued within 10 days after the ceremony.

So you need that form, and you need to either join or constitute yourself into a religious society (now you know why the Quakers are formally the Religious Society of Friends). In any case, you will need a marriage license.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice.