For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don’t want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That’s ludicrous!
That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use “less” when they should use “fewer”
A simple one I think, I refuse to call twitter by other names.
I do love, however calling it Xitter where X is pronounced “sh”
Like Xi Jinping. (Shi )
Wonder if Xi scrolls through Xitter on the xitter.
Is it? The voice in my head pronounced zshi when I read it.
Wikipedia says. ʒI: where “ʒ” is the S in pleasure or the g in beige
Which is to say (smoking my pipe like oxford don) I was making a scatological joke.
Shitter
That’s fine, it’s just hard to know without hearing native speakers’ pronunciations and you’ve only read it. Thanks for the reply!
I’ve never actually heard anyone call it X before, unless they were making a joke about the whole thing. Everybody I know still calls it Twitter. Calling it X is just embarrassing.
If it were supposed to be pronounced “jif” it would have been spelled that way, I don’t give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.
Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced “Gah-nome”, or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way
or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced
But they did! You’re the one who fucked it up by using an “x” (Latin letter x) instead of a “χ” (Greek letter chi).
(Also, you didn’t capitalize or format it correctly. It’s supposed to be rendered as “LAΤΕΧ”, and yes, those last three letters are
Τ Ε ΧGreek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)🤓
Lol, the only way to be more obtuse would be to say “our project name has no approved transliteration or Unicode string… Render this svg inline or don’t talk about us.”
New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today
from languages in actual use today
Nuh uh
Gnome is spelt the way they want it to be said. Are you suggesting that gnome should be pronounced ‘nome’ like the garden ornament with a silent g.
I don’t care. Will always be Nome. Fuck Pedo Stallman’s preference.
Is it not?
Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.
I always respond that in that case, “jpeg” should be pronounced “jfeg”.
But why? We don’t pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn’t pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn’t pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn’t split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn’t pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn’t get pronounced like Identification.
We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.
Tbf, you’re pointing out the vowels which make the sounds needed to pronounce the acronym as a word. But I get it, either way, we’re pronouncing the word as a standalone word.
Right in the same neighborhood… Jpeg (photographic)
Time to pronounce it jfeg lol
🤷 just cause?
Also, “gift”
Have any examples where the first letter of the acronym isn’t pronounced the same? (I’m sure there are some)
AWOL, OSHA, AIDS, ICE
UFO, not that that’s a super relevant question if we’re already admitting that our opinions are “just cause.” I think at that point the better question is “if just cause, why is there such a split in opinions?”
I think the reason GIF is so contentious is that if we can there’s a tendency to make acronyms sound like words if possible. FUBAR and SCUBA are pronounced the way they are because we’re trained from words like tuba to see the UBA and use a long U. Something like “oofo” (or “uh-fo” as you would likely argue) for UFO sounds like half a word, hence pronouncing the letters individually. The thing about GIF is that both pronunciations sound like a word, and so both feel valid enough that there can be a split in opinions. Any arguments one way or the other is just trying to justify a gut feeling about which way is “proper.”
To be fair, UFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But at the same time, if it was, I think it’d still be an example, because we’d likely pronounce the U like “oo” (as in “boo”), lol
Nearly all acronyms are technically initialisms
Nah, there’s plenty of both, even mixed in very similar subject matter. Example:
An ATM (initialism) takes a card then asks you for its PIN (acronym).
we all know it’s actually pronounced “yiff”
uwu
The thing is, that argument doesn’t really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.
English being a bad language doesn’t excuse incorrect pronunciations. And if your argument was to hold any water, it’d be pronounced jraphics.
If it were meant to be pronounced ‘giff’ as in ‘goober’, it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.
It always WAS an acronym. That’s the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.
Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The reason it’s pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.
Discord is not a good replacement for support forums. Discord isn’t searchable by search engines.
Historically, if I had an issue with a product and I googled “[product] [issue]” I’d be met with a support forum post, with someone describing the same issue. I could read the thread to find how they resolved it. I don’t actually have to interact with the post at all, and I don’t need to ask the same question again. For most (decent) forums I don’t even need to make an account just to read the post.
Discord throws that all out the window. Now I’m met with a “JoiN OUr dIScoRd SerVEr to GEt suPPorT” page. Nothing is searchable via a search engine. And Discord’s server searchability (even in the app) has always been, at best, absolute dogshit. You already need to know exactly which text thread things were posted in, (because you can’t search the entire server at once), and you need to know exactly what was said, (because there’s no fuzzed search terms).
So 99% of the time, you just end up asking the same question that has already been asked a hundred times in the past, and now you need to wait for someone to respond. It also puts a lot more strain on the support staff, because they’re answering the same question a hundred times instead of just the once in a forum.
And don’t come at me with the “but Discord recently added a support forum feature where people can start threads and save the conversation for later” bullshit. That’s a band-aid, at best. It still isn’t searchable via search engines, so it means the above issues with Discord’s search function still apply, and the forum function is essentially useless as support forums.
Lastly, why the fuck should I be forced to join another server just to get support? What if I don’t have a discord account? What if I live in a region that Discord doesn’t support? What if I just plain don’t want to clog up my server sidebar with dozens of servers that I have only visited once? What if I just really hate the fact that your server has been configured to push notifications for every single message by default? What if I just fucking want to google my issue, and get an answer without any further effort?
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OP asked for petty/pointless/pedantic hills. Did you miss that?
I’d argue that this is petty, because you’re still technically able to get support for your issue in the end. It just takes a lot more effort in everyone involved; More effort on your end to actually get support, and more effort on support staff because they have already answered your question a hundred times further up the thread.
No. Using discord is unacceptable. It’s not pettiness.
The medical symbol of the staff with the snake is only supposed to have 1 (one) snake on it. A staff with 1 snake is the Rod of Asclepius (the son of Apollo and Greek demigod of medicine), a staff with 2 snakes is a Caduceus which is carried by Hermes as a messenger or herald.
Physicians get 1 snake. Couriers and heralds get 2 snakes. Any medical professional or organization that uses 2 snakes is wrong and needs to go study the humanities and classics for a bit.
Would two snakes on an ambulance be acceptable? They’re kind of like couriers of the sick and injured.
That’s the only time I think it’s acceptable. Ambulances are kind of a venn diagram of healthcare and couriers, so the 2 snakes on the star of life makes sense.
They may need to mix it up by switching to 2 crossed staffs with a total of 3 snakes to get it juuusst right.
Similarly, the Shamrock, (☘️) an important symbol for Saint Patrick’s Day has three leaves where most SPD kitch sold in the US features four-leaf clovers (🍀) an unrelated good luck symbol. I dont object because I feel Ireland needs a better iconic saint (and a better holiday) than the guy who brought the imperialist religion under which the native Irish would be subjugated.
They need someone like Joan of Arc who ran the English out (of settlements in France).
Wait, he didn’t chase out literal snakes?!
While I know you’re being funny, for those unaware, the snakes being referred to with St Patrick were a euphemism for the non-Christian beliefs in Ireland.
… But 2 snakes looks cooler…
Also Hermes -> Alchemy -> Medicine. I can grok that.
Given the thread we’re in: grok is not a word.
Isn’t the one snake staff more of a trans symbol?
Look I’m all for trans homies and positivity but not everything has to be a fuckin trans symbol.
This is what I was thinking of, which does have two snakes and a stick in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias
That would be more similar to the Caduceus anyways given the number of snakes.
“white chocolate” doesn’t exist. It’s just sugar and a little bit of cocoa butter. It’s edible wax. It’s not chocolate and it doesn’t belong in any assortment of sweets, ever. Cocoa butter is skin moisturizer and that’s it.
It provably does exist. And it’s delicious. I could go to the supermarket and buy some right now. Except I’m fat and trying to lose weight.
It does exist in the way that chocolate ‘solids’ exist as an element of chocolate. A typical chocolate bar consists of both chocolate solids and cocoa butter. It’s still an element of what you’re eating,
So just cuz you eat ‘chocolate’ because you think you only favor the solids, you’re still eating the butter too in what makes chocolate. It’s like drinking milk products and then getting pedantic over people who use butter as a food even though milk contains some the same elements.
But again this is about stupid hills to die on. And you picked an intolerant and ignorant stance so I guess you technically win in this particular topic.
No need for personal attack, this is all in good fun.
But personal attacks are funny.
I’m fine with changing the name for it, but you sir can fuck right off if you want me to stop eating it instead of your “real” chocolate
The most delicious edible wax I’ve ever had.
I’m allergic to chocolate solids but can eat cocoa butter. So, in a society that is unreasonably obsessed with chocolate, it is nice that there is occasionally a “white chocolate” option on things that for some reason come in 15 flavors of chocolate and little else.
You have my sword.
And my bow.
And my axe!
Oh crap, I zoned out. What are we doing?
Hey, you. You’re finally awake.
Dunking on a dude that doesn’t think white chocolate is chocolate, hope that helps
The invocation is complete.
Have you tried ruby chocolate yet? I’m guessing you won’t be impressed.
Ruby chocolate?
What is Ruby Chocolate? Everything You Need to Know
I’ve tried it a couple of times, but it’s a little hard to find.
It gets it’s name from it’s reddish-pink color.
@[email protected], this one trigger you to?
Blocked.
I would argue it’s actually congealed demon jizz but it’s definitely not fucking chocolate.
Thank you for being fun and not a terrible person.
its “I could not care less” and not “I could care less”. This one drives me nuts
Thank you for fighting the good fight.
I adore David Mitchell and his rants. I really liked the one about how “rape” should not become socially acceptable and silly when followed by “pillage” just because the Vikings are depicted as having worn silly hats.
Ever since I saw that video 14 years ago, I always pause for a moment to make sure I actually say it properly
I agree with this statement, but I never notice its wrong until someone points it out. Then my inner grammar teacher has an aneurysm and I go off on a tangent.
It’s so close to being right that you don’t think about it, until you do. Then OCD sets in.
i don’t record or watch vertical videos
Same. Don’t get me wrong, short form content is okay (I prefer long form). But the shit you see on Tick Tock and YouTube Shorts is so ridiculous that I can’t help but reactively close the app out of self preservation…
It all started when someone wanted to fry chicken in Pepto-Bismol…
It was getting better until tiktok
If something’s rate of hype is too fast for my internal meter, I will become immediately skeptical of the trend/show/etc. and not care about it, solely because everyone is caring about it too much and too fast.
I call it the “trying too hard” put-off. The harder you try to sell me on something, the more I’m sure I don’t want or need it.
And that is exactly how I ended up never watching Game of Thrones.
With very few exceptions, that popular TV show you like with either end bad or get cancelled before it gets a chance to end bad.
Ice bucket challenge? Ha, get fucked.
With my friends it was the cinnamon challenge. I have zero regrets noping out of that one.
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Psycholinguisitics understands this effect. The “wrong” word is increasing cognitive load and slowing down the listener’s comprehension. The exact same thing happens when pronoun use is unclear and a person has to parse the most likely referent from context.
Language, especially English, is not computer code but leveraging the existing “libraries” of meaning and declaring variables carefully is usually very useful.
I wish we had a dialect or subset of English that was intended to be more like computer code, and would be used for precisely specifying things. I have no idea how we’d do such a thing, and it’d never be adopted (and probably it’s been tried!). But trying to write English in a way that can’t be misinterpreted can be a real chore.
This does exist in professional disciplines as jargon. I work in Orthopaedics and we do not say the “over here, inside part of my knee in the front. “. We say, “inferior, medial pole of the patella”
That’s true and a great example of what my industry needs.
To make an analogy, in the software industry we call 7 different knee-like things “knees”. Not to be confused with the product, Knee, which is also knee-like, but due to its name either pollutes the search results for other knees OR can literally not be searched, and is only a very specific case of knee anyway!
My reasoning is that a hotdog is a sausage. When you say you want a sandwich, you don’t say “pass me a ham” you say “pass me a ham sandwich.” When ordering a named sandwich, “I’ll have a Ruben” it’s widely understood that a Ruben is a sandwich so the modifier is already packaged in the name. A sandwich has “Sandwich” as a defining modifier.
When you ask for a hotdog you don’t say, “give me a hotdog sandwich” you say, “give me a hotdog.” The same situation works with bratwurst, you don’t order a brat sandwich. To further reinforce this, if you’re in the south and central US and order a Hotlink it comes on it’s own or in a hotdog bun but if you order a “hotlink sandwich” you get two hotlinks cut length wise and placed on a hamburger bun or bread.
A sausage can have a bun as a condiment and still be just a sausage. A sandwich can have sausage, but is still refered to as a sandwich. So a hotdog is a sausage served with bread, not a sandwich.
taxonomy
shit
Is that the right word
I’ve been using “ontology” when talking about item classification to sound smart
I guess it worked bc no one said “You mean taxonomy, right?” yet. My illusion of pretending I’m not a dumbass to people IRL isn’t broken yet I hope.
To streamers, YouTubers, etc. Your Patreon supporters are called Patrons. Not fucking “Patreons.”
Since I only ever had heard this english word in the specific context of YouTube, I’m not even sure what is difference in prononciation btw the two.
Patreon is a brand name that allows monetization for artist etc.
Patron means supporter.
Yeah but my issue is with how to pronounce it.
Patreon = pay-tree-on
Patron = pay-trun
I think fewer of people when they misuse words. Their not that hard too tail a part.
I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn’t take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It’s clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother’s mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.
Like taking a bath in a rash.
You’re the worst. But you did good, kid. You did good.
Wow, well done. If op could read they would be pissed!
YYYY/MM/DD
Things happen by accident or on purpose. No one over the age of 3 should be using “on accident”.
It’s concrete, not cement. (Sidewalks for example, or foundations of buildings, etc)
Cement is an ingredient in concrete.
The word “literally” has been forever ruined by people who use it to mean “figuratively.” Worse, there is now literally no way to actually convey the original meaning of the word “literally” in a concise, clear way.
You have to say something like, “A is literally 10 times bigger than B…and I mean that ACTUALLY literally.” And then people will STILL assume that you’re speaking figuratively.
Try using “precisely” or “roughly” where applicable. It lets people know you’re talking about firm realities and aren’t using hyperbole.
It’s a stupid, imperfect workaround and I hate that it’s necessary, but it’s the best we have for a decade or three until people stop bastardizing “literally”.
Right with ya. I literally refuse to use the word when I mean figuratively.
Wait are you being literal right now? Like, actually??
Yes. And by actually, I of course mean facetiously, because language changes.
The same can be said about “ignorant”. Calling a person ignorant because they say something that peeves you, doesn’t make them ignorant. It makes them infuriating. Idk how often people use the word ignorant in this way, but my mother does and doesn’t get it when I call her ignorant about ignorant.
Literally can mean literally ( My girlfriend literally stabbed me in the back. I’m bleeding out and need an ambulance. )
It can also mean emphatically ( My girlfriend stabbed me in the back. She emptied my bank account, shot my dog and left town with my best friend. )
I won’t use it in the latter way, and will sometimes use the adjective proverbial ( proverbially ) if my metaphor could be plausibly read as literal. ( I could drive to Maryland and assassinate Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh for a fresh cruller right now. )
There literally-literally is.
And to over-egg that particular
puddingpoint, word doubling might be a common thing in “simpler” languages and, ahem, pooh-poohed in “complex” ones, but that second “literally” restores the original meaning.For now.
Until some bright spark starts using “literally literally” to mean “figuratively” anyway.
That’s how language works.
Many words shifted meaning over time, some gained connotation, some lost it, some turned to something completely different.
Just look at the word “gay”, it shifted from “happy” to “haha homosexuals are outwardly happy, so we call them gay semi-ironically” to “homosexual”. The homophobic connotation was added, then the original meaning got lost.
You can complain, sure, but just read an old text from the 17th century and try to find a sentence that means exactly the same today as it did back then.
I’m fine with language evolving; my issue is that there used to be a word that succinctly conveyed a particular idea, and now there is no way to concisely convey that idea in English.
“Gay” changing its meaning isn’t the same thing, because there are still plenty of ways of saying “happy” in English.
Are there ways to say exactly this kind of happy? I’m pretty sure, happy and gay didn’t mean exactly the same. Synonyms rarely are drop in replacement.
But yes, there is a gap now. That might get filled with another word, or people get better at discerning ironic and unironic meaning. Or maybe people stop using it in this way - groovy or rad aren’t exactly common today either.
Are there ways to say exactly this kind of happy?
Festive.
I never called things “gay” growing up, I found it disparaging and offensive.
I came out as queer in my 20s. Now I ironically say “shit’s gay” and stuff like that all the time hahaha
“That’s our word”
It’s like an angel getting its wings, except with my first same-sex experience I got the card.
