No to be honest "I" am not running this game Randy is so if he sees the Rules as Rules than that's what counts.
Are you referring to me Mikey? I'll admit that I've made a suggestion or two over the years (most notably the use of enclosing a word or two in <> to make meaning clearer), but by no means am I running nor have control over this Word Link thread.
No to be honest "I" am not running this game Randy is so if he sees the Rules as Rules than that's what counts.
Are you referring to me Mikey? I'll admit that I've made a suggestion or two over the years (most notably the use of enclosing a word or two in <> to make meaning clearer), but by no means am I running nor have control over this Word Link thread.
Yes I was, you started this Thread a LONG time ago so I guess you get to decide what's okay and what's not, though to be honest there really isn't much need for that kind of stuff.
My cry for rules was, strictly speaking, a joke—no need for rules.
They have a lot of these rules at SETI's word link game. I tried it before. Regularly any of my posts of a hyphenated word was dropped by the moderators, true experts in contemporary and ancient English. There are few words you are legally allowed to bind together with a hyphen in English. I'll never understand which ones and when. You know, German words are different. They aren't words but "alphabetical processions" [1]; compound words. To play a word link game in English means to restrict my toughts all the time to the very shortest of words. That's difficult.
Example: There's a shop somewhere in Berlin which rents the more expensive machines for DIY home improvement. Some type is used to grind down concrete floors before gluing on new carpet or laying laminate panels. So, there's an illuminated name along the whole shop front which reads:
"Fußbodenschleifmaschinenverleih" - literally: foot bottom (floor) grinding machine rental, one word in German: simple, self-explanatory. Foreigner think it's strange, it isn't.
[1] from: "The awful German language", in: Mark Twain: "A Tramp Abroad", 1880, appendix D, p. 612, --> page 22 of the linked PDF
Heh, reminds me of a discussion I once had in Eve chat. I was explaining the intricacies of Dutch (i.e.:what makes it so horrible) and gave them an example: the word afvalscheidingsstation, meaning "waste separation station". They were very surprised we even had a word for that. I explained that we use as many words as the English do, we just like to stick em together. We're Germanic, we like it nice and cozy. With one exception that makes us slightly better than the Germans: we have our lovely guttural G. ;)
Heh, reminds me of a discussion I once had in Eve chat. I was explaining the intricacies of Dutch (i.e.:what makes it so horrible) and gave them an example: the word afvalscheidingsstation, meaning "waste separation station". They were very surprised we even had a word for that. I explained that we use as many words as the English do, we just like to stick em together. We're Germanic, we like it nice and cozy. With one exception that makes us slightly better than the Germans: we have our lovely guttural G. ;)
BOTH of those last two posts show why I much prefer English, why jam words together when you don't say them that way when you try to tell others what they mean? I mean sure we could use grocerystore for grocery store or placewhereyouborrowbooks for library but WHY? You only jam them together when you are speaking to people who know what they mean before you start talking anyway.
Heh, reminds me of a discussion I once had in Eve chat. I was explaining the intricacies of Dutch (i.e.:what makes it so horrible) and gave them an example: the word afvalscheidingsstation, meaning "waste separation station". They were very surprised we even had a word for that. I explained that we use as many words as the English do, we just like to stick em together. We're Germanic, we like it nice and cozy. With one exception that makes us slightly better than the Germans: we have our lovely guttural G. ;)
also works in German: Abfallscheidungsstation. Hmm, sounds like a century old. Abfall=Müll, scheiden=trennen : Mülltrennstation. Simple and short.
Dutch is easy to read—hearing and understanding it is IMPOSSIBLE. They have their "lovely guttural G" and other strange accents. (I bought my car there last year; only has a Dutch manual. I preferred to speak English with the car dealer).
mikey wrote:
BOTH of those last two posts show why I much prefer English, why jam words together when you don't say them that way when you try to tell others what they mean? I mean sure we could use grocerystore for grocery store or placewhereyouborrowbooks for library but WHY? You only jam them together when you are speaking to people who know what they mean before you start talking anyway.
I can clearly see that Mark Twain, the great admirer of the German language, who at that time was still dealing with the old, educated upper-class German, its column-long sentences, with countless embedded clauses, very long chains of words, which culminated with the *verb*, so that finally, arriving at the very end, and being ultimately able to grasp what it was all about, not an atypical representative of the American nation *was*. ;-)
It seems Mikey agrees with him still today, 140 years later: [from Twain's book:]
"These words are marching majestically across the page. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject."
"These long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed."
"I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments. [...] Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel."
Heh, reminds me of a discussion I once had in Eve chat. I was explaining the intricacies of Dutch (i.e.:what makes it so horrible) and gave them an example: the word afvalscheidingsstation, meaning "waste separation station". They were very surprised we even had a word for that. I explained that we use as many words as the English do, we just like to stick em together. We're Germanic, we like it nice and cozy. With one exception that makes us slightly better than the Germans: we have our lovely guttural G. ;)
also works in German: Abfallscheidungsstation. Hmm, sounds like a century old. Abfall=Müll, scheiden=trennen : Mülltrennstation. Simple and short.
Dutch is easy to read—hearing and understanding it is IMPOSSIBLE. They have their "lovely guttural G" and other strange accents. (I bought my car there last year; only has a Dutch manual. I preferred to speak English with the car dealer).
mikey wrote:
BOTH of those last two posts show why I much prefer English, why jam words together when you don't say them that way when you try to tell others what they mean? I mean sure we could use grocerystore for grocery store or placewhereyouborrowbooks for library but WHY? You only jam them together when you are speaking to people who know what they mean before you start talking anyway.
I can clearly see that Mark Twain, the great admirer of the German language, who at that time was still dealing with the old, educated upper-class German, its column-long sentences, with countless embedded clauses, very long chains of words, which culminated with the *verb*, so that finally, arriving at the very end, and being ultimately able to grasp what it was all about, not an atypical representative of the American nation *was*. ;-)
It seems Mikey agrees with him still today, 140 years later: [from Twain's book:]
"These words are marching majestically across the page. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject."
"These long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed."
"I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments. [...] Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel."
I kinda like being compared to Mark Twain but don't his ability or eloquence of putting words together.
You should try reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. His sentences have been described as aqueductal ie. like a large volume of water flowing past. Some examples :
"The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil constitution."
"If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice."
"A historian will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the sciences and literature of ancient Greece."
"On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and, after bestowing a careless glance on five or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind."
"In their censures of luxury, the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial; and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any colour except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or silver, downy pillows (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone), white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator."
..... which can be an exhausting exercise to understand fully! :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Even by German standards, this is "aquäduktisch". Takes time and focus to understand...
Well-chosen words, particularly the large variety of expressive, often synonymous adjectives, adverbs, ... instead of simply using comparative or superlative forms of frequent words seem to be characteristic for an 'exquisite English'. When leaving out such extinguished words in Edward Gibbon's work, it was written approximately in the usual expression, typical for German and which Mark Twain disliked too:
"I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the re-Pa-renthesis, the re-re-parenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-re-parentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-enclosing King-parenthesis. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of this law should be punishable with death."
Such expression can still be found in books, major (weekly rather than daily) newspapers, administrative declarations, legislative texts, but is becoming rare anywhere else. We have lost linguistic precision to write such sentences. That's the art of writers today, but once was the usual education standard of the upper classes and the bourgeoisie. Today the trend is to write ever shorter straightforward sentences like in American English. Complicated grammatical constructs are used less and less—a loss of culture. That's the way things are, otherwise immigrants would be lost in despair today. Only Mark Twain, who had enough time and money, learned the old German well enough to publicly give cheerful speeches (page 35/38) in high society clubs.
I find it interesting how little written American English has changed within 140 years; hardly any difference. In contrast in German it's extreme: The following sentence from a diplomatic cable described a dispute of the Prussian King with the French ambassador. Its publication in French newspapers triggered the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 only two days later. (such expression seems alien today):
"Da Seine Majestät dem Grafen Benedetti gesagt, daß er Nachricht vom Fürsten erwarte,
hat Allerhöchstderselbe, mit Rücksicht auf die obige Zumuthung,
auf des Grafen Eulenburg und meinen Vortrag, beschlossen,
den Grafen Benedetti nicht mehr zu empfangen,
sondern ihm nur durch einen Adjutanten sagen zu lassen:
daß Seine Majestät jetzt vom Fürsten die Bestätigung der Nachricht erhalten,
die Benedetti aus Paris schon gehabt, und dem Botschafter nichts weiter zu sagen habe."
(Since His Majesty has told Count Benedetti that he was expecting a message from the Prince,
has 'The-Most-Highly-Themselve', with regard to the above impertinence,
upon the Count Eulenburg's and my advice, decided,
not to receive Count Benedetti any more,
instead only let him be told by an aide-de-camp:
that His Majesty has now received from the Prince confirmation of the message,
which Benedetti has already had from Paris, and has nothing more to say to the ambassador.)
I think I'll stop this... hmm... digression now... back to the word link game...
mikey wrote:LOL!!!No to
)
Are you referring to me Mikey? I'll admit that I've made a suggestion or two over the years (most notably the use of enclosing a word or two in <> to make meaning clearer), but by no means am I running nor have control over this Word Link thread.
Seti Classic Final Total: 11446 WU.
RandyC wrote: mikey
)
Yes I was, you started this Thread a LONG time ago so I guess you get to decide what's okay and what's not, though to be honest there really isn't much need for that kind of stuff.
My cry for rules was,
)
My cry for rules was, strictly speaking, a joke—no need for rules.
They have a lot of these rules at SETI's word link game. I tried it before. Regularly any of my posts of a hyphenated word was dropped by the moderators, true experts in contemporary and ancient English. There are few words you are legally allowed to bind together with a hyphen in English. I'll never understand which ones and when. You know, German words are different. They aren't words but "alphabetical processions" [1]; compound words. To play a word link game in English means to restrict my toughts all the time to the very shortest of words. That's difficult.
Example: There's a shop somewhere in Berlin which rents the more expensive machines for DIY home improvement. Some type is used to grind down concrete floors before gluing on new carpet or laying laminate panels. So, there's an illuminated name along the whole shop front which reads:
"Fußbodenschleifmaschinenverleih" - literally: foot bottom (floor) grinding machine rental, one word in German: simple, self-explanatory. Foreigner think it's strange, it isn't.
[1] from: "The awful German language", in: Mark Twain: "A Tramp Abroad", 1880, appendix D, p. 612, --> page 22 of the linked PDF
[Google Drive link above provided by U.S. Embassy, Berlin, see: https://usa.usembassy.de/classroom/Mark%20Twain/Mark%20Twain%20Awful%20Broschuere.pdf ]
Heh, reminds me of a
)
Heh, reminds me of a discussion I once had in Eve chat. I was explaining the intricacies of Dutch (i.e.:what makes it so horrible) and gave them an example: the word afvalscheidingsstation, meaning "waste separation station". They were very surprised we even had a word for that. I explained that we use as many words as the English do, we just like to stick em together. We're Germanic, we like it nice and cozy. With one exception that makes us slightly better than the Germans: we have our lovely guttural G. ;)
E pluribus unum
Jinkei wrote: Heh, reminds
)
BOTH of those last two posts show why I much prefer English, why jam words together when you don't say them that way when you try to tell others what they mean? I mean sure we could use grocerystore for grocery store or placewhereyouborrowbooks for library but WHY? You only jam them together when you are speaking to people who know what they mean before you start talking anyway.
Jinkei schrieb:Heh, reminds
)
also works in German: Abfallscheidungsstation. Hmm, sounds like a century old. Abfall=Müll, scheiden=trennen : Mülltrennstation. Simple and short.
Dutch is easy to read—hearing and understanding it is IMPOSSIBLE. They have their "lovely guttural G" and other strange accents. (I bought my car there last year; only has a Dutch manual. I preferred to speak English with the car dealer).
I can clearly see that Mark Twain, the great admirer of the German language, who at that time was still dealing with the old, educated upper-class German, its column-long sentences, with countless embedded clauses, very long chains of words, which culminated with the *verb*, so that finally, arriving at the very end, and being ultimately able to grasp what it was all about, not an atypical representative of the American nation *was*. ;-)
It seems Mikey agrees with him still today, 140 years later: [from Twain's book:]
Scrooge McDuck wrote: Jinkei
)
I kinda like being compared to Mark Twain but don't his ability or eloquence of putting words together.
You should try reading The
)
You should try reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. His sentences have been described as aqueductal ie. like a large volume of water flowing past. Some examples :
"The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil constitution."
"If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice."
"A historian will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the sciences and literature of ancient Greece."
"On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and, after bestowing a careless glance on five or six of the races, he hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind."
"In their censures of luxury, the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial; and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any colour except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or silver, downy pillows (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone), white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator."
..... which can be an exhausting exercise to understand fully! :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Even by German standards,
)
Even by German standards, this is "aquäduktisch". Takes time and focus to understand...
Well-chosen words, particularly the large variety of expressive, often synonymous adjectives, adverbs, ... instead of simply using comparative or superlative forms of frequent words seem to be characteristic for an 'exquisite English'. When leaving out such extinguished words in Edward Gibbon's work, it was written approximately in the usual expression, typical for German and which Mark Twain disliked too:
Such expression can still be found in books, major (weekly rather than daily) newspapers, administrative declarations, legislative texts, but is becoming rare anywhere else. We have lost linguistic precision to write such sentences. That's the art of writers today, but once was the usual education standard of the upper classes and the bourgeoisie. Today the trend is to write ever shorter straightforward sentences like in American English. Complicated grammatical constructs are used less and less—a loss of culture. That's the way things are, otherwise immigrants would be lost in despair today. Only Mark Twain, who had enough time and money, learned the old German well enough to publicly give cheerful speeches (page 35/38) in high society clubs.
I find it interesting how little written American English has changed within 140 years; hardly any difference. In contrast in German it's extreme: The following sentence from a diplomatic cable described a dispute of the Prussian King with the French ambassador. Its publication in French newspapers triggered the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 only two days later. (such expression seems alien today):
I think I'll stop this... hmm... digression now... back to the word link game...
magnetoshere --> space.I
)
magnetoshere --> space.
I mean "outer space". Why there's no single, precise word in English? 'Weltraum' in German, 'космос' (cosmos) in Russian... scratching my head...