English thread. Why not?

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Gez
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Gez »

"Liberating" is a euphemism, typically used if the guys you're stealing from are your enemies.

"Hawking" means aggressively selling stuff, not stealing. Like a vendor on a market, shouting to attract the attention of passersby.

"Jacking" is short for "high-jacking" which means taking control over a vehicle, such as an airplane or a ship.


"Saga" is a Norse word, that originally applied to Norse tales. "Franchise" is a French word. :p
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Reactor
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Reactor »

I think I read "hawking" as a synonym for stealing at Stephen King, in the novel "It".

BTW guys, a quick question: How do you pronounce these abbrevations in everyday speech, like IMHO, IIRC, FYI and such? Letter by letter, such as FBI, or as a whole word?
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Trance
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Trance »

I pronounce internet acronyms as the words they represent, because I'm not 14.

FYI actually predates the internet by several decades, and it's pronounced letter-by-letter.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Matt »

As a word whenever possible (under the ordinary rules of pronouncing spoken English) and I have reason to believe the other person would actually understand it.

So yes, "imho". lol. (except that I'd never use such an expression because there is literally nothing humble about waggling your opinion around)
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Apeirogon
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Apeirogon »

Okay mister/senior/don/ser linguist, tell me, how i must name "dust in inaccessible places"?
Or "chair, that can roll only at counterclockwise direction"?
Or "sweater dressed inside out"?
Or "person that late for a train/plane/ship/taxi/bus"?

And how its related with this this video with such timecode?
https://youtu.be/NORNpBqsGAY?t=40m25s
Spoiler:
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kodi
 
 
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by kodi »

"time traveler, that "oldered"/aged to dust in few seconds" in one word
"chronoclasmee"
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by NeuralStunner »

Spoiler:
And because someone has to:
Spoiler:
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Reactor
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Reactor »

kodi wrote:"chronoclasmee"
"Einstein wanted me to warn you that the Chronosphere can produce unknown side effects. Be careful when using it...!" :D
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Reactor »

Quick question: What's the key difference between "forged", "staged" and "fixed"? I'm referring to their common meaning of faking, counterfeiting something of course.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Gez »

Forgery has a specific legal definition and refers to the counterfeiting of documents. At the core, the forgery is an imitation -- it tries to look like something else. Etymologically, it does come from its obvious origin, the forge, and so refers to craftsmanship. You can forge a letter, you can forge an item, but you cannot forge something more abstract such as a coup. Example: "this signature has been forged!"

Staging refers to the theater. There's a lot of things that you can stage, though. At the core, the idea of staging is to arrange things such that they will be able to proceed in the desired manner, which makes it a quasi synonym to organizing. So this is the opposite of forgery, in that you cannot stage an item, but you can stage a process. So you can stage a coup, a revolution, or whatever, which makes it a word of choice for fans of conspiracy theories who see false flag operations everywhere. In other contexts, you can see staging used for things such as the placement of tools and materials in a factory to allow efficient production of something; the placement and movement of aircraft in an airport so that they can load and unload their passengers and cargo quickly, move to their runway without traffic jams, and take off without colliding with other aircraft; or the design and process of rockets by which several elements (appropriately called stages) will work then detach so that the upper stages can replace them. Remember Doom 64 MAP01? "Staging Area"? That's the area where you organize personnel and materiel to sustain an operation. Example: "these protests were staged!"

Fixing, etymologically, is to put something (that broke loose) back in its place, and hold it steady. This notion of position, of something that will not move, can be seen in words like prefix or suffix (since we're talking language), fixture, or fixed point. In common parlance, to fix something is to repair it, hence expressions like "it it ain't broken, don't fix it" or "fix for bug #42069" or whatever. By extension, it means making sure that a process will yield the result you want (instead of the natural result it could have had without interference). In that sense, a synonym is "rigging". Example: "these elections were fixed!"


In short: you forge an item, you stage an event, and you fix a process.
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Reactor
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Reactor »

Now this makes sense! Explainations of Merriam-Webster were a bit confusing, so I wanted to ask you before I start using these words in the wrong context. As for "fixing", I was referring to, for instance, a competition or a soccer match, where the outcome is already decided.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Naniyue »

!!!! Word Crimes !!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

I LOVE the part about irony and coincidence!


Every language has its idioms, puns, trite phrases, shades of meaning, and down right nonsensical stuff. And this is just the spoken part, never mind written things!

The English idiom, "bumping/running into each other" is a fun one, as it's more like almost doing so.

I once worked with a lady who was part Czech, part German. She hated that some of the English she learned was incorrect, thanks to being around people who didn't care the slightest about proper language, and yet her own was way better than most natives! I was also acquainted with a Vietnamese guy whose English was spot on, but his accent was so thick that even I had a hard time understanding him.

Speaking of accents, there was this one British game show host a long time ago that I just couldn't understand at all! I wish I could remember his name.

One should be proud of an advanced vocabulary! Don't EVER let others convince you to dumb down your speech! At the same time, don't be afraid to ask what something means either, as there are so many words to forget, and words you may never get to know.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Marrub »

Hearing people pronounce the article "ye" as /jiː/ always makes me sad. :P
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by Drake Raider »

I grew up in the country, and my parents were both extremely well-read. As a result, I didn't realize that some of the vagaries of our oration were in fact ascendantly non-colloquial. Moving into the workplace as an adult I had some issues learning to connect.
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Re: English thread. Why not?

Post by NeuralStunner »

I've had the same problem. The worst part is when people think I'm especially smart. :lol:
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