• Squids@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Does guillotine count as a loanword when it’s actually named after someone? That’s like saying pasteurise is a loanword because Louis Pasteur was French, even though the word is clearly just his name

    • SolarNialamide@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Fun fact about the guillotine, it’s not named after the person who ‘invented’ it (there were other iterations outside of France). Or well, it was briefly, it was called the louisette after Antoine Louis, but the guy named Guillotin was just the person who proposed using it as a more humane way to carry out the death penalty instead of the more brutal breaking wheel at the very beginning of the French Revolution.

    • Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Anyone looking to remember the difference: “id est” (that is) vs “exemplī grātiā” (for the sake of an example). You use the first to clarify meaning, and the second to begin a non-exhaustive list of examples.

      What matters is ultimately if you can convey your ideas, so using the wrong term is fine when people can still figure out what you meant. But it’s still a good idea to learn the difference, because there will be times when mixing up “i.e.” and “e.g.” will create ambiguity or misunderstanding.

      The best idea is maybe to use “for example” or “that is to say”. The former could be abbreviated to “f.ex.” like in Norwegian, and the latter could be abbreviated “t.i.t.s.”

      …Alright, on second thought maybe don’t abbreviate that one.

      In any case, the Wikipedia Manual of Style recommends avoiding use of “e.g.” and “i.e.” in regular running text altogether, saying that these abbreviations are better fit for parentheticals, quotations, citations, tables, and lists. This is because there is no word or character limit on Wikipedia, nor is there on Tumblr, and so the language is more clear when abbreviations are avoided. Even when someone is using “i.e.” and “e.g.” in the prescribed way, that doesn’t guarantee that the reader knows the distinction.

  • nottheengineer@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    And then there’s Zangendeutsch, where germans replace every single loanword with a calque. It doesn’t matter how much sense it makes, all that matters is that it’s technically correct.

  • Jax@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Did anyone notice the funny that you could literally only guess at?”

    Odd way to write.

    • Turun@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Well, it is obvious that calque is not a calque. But I did not care to notice that until it was pointed out explicitly.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        It will be a memorable day when I see on Lemmy a screenshot of a Twitter, Tumblr or Reddit post screenshotting Lemmy.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Hey Japan? Yeah we already have three discreet words for “savory,” “meaty,” and “delicious” - you can have your ambiguous catch-all back.

    • Classy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Sure but having a singular catchall for the phenomena around that taste is actually better and I would argue more discrete (wait wtf is it discrete or discreet?). Imagine if we had to describe the fundamental tastes like this:

      • Salty
      • Sweet
      • Sour
      • Bitter
      • Savory, meaty and delicious