Digest-- Flags, millionaire, etc. (mostly OT)

> From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: Vowelless Sentences
>
> Joe Mondello wrote:
> > I noticed this evening, after someone mentioned a language with the
potential
> > for vowelless sentances, that mine shared this ability.  Of course the
> > sentences are often strange, but the longest one I've come up with is:
> >
> > n~      pn~dr~s tr~gn~r~ sn~dr~ r~sr~   gr~   zr~wm~b sr~.
>
> Are these syllabic n's and r's?
>
> Many rhotic dialects of English have vowel-less words, like "curb"
> (/kr=b/)
Well, except that the "syllabic R" in English is a rhotacized schwa (in
XSAMPA /@`/ and /3`/... is 3 right?).
So <curb> is /k3`b/.

> From:    Danny Wier <dawier@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT: Mr. President (was: Old Norse)
>
> > > Slick Willie can rightly be addressed as "your excellency" [...]
> >
> >Absolutely not!  (Unless you mean in his former role as Governor of
> >Arkansas, where he may or may not have held that title -- see below.)
>
> I don't know.  But in Texas, some say 'gubner' or something like that.
> (Many more use the term 'gubernatorial'.)
The magic of Latin, turning politicians to peanuts...

> From:    Roger Mills <romilly@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re: Flag of England)
>
>         It would be interesting to see a European version, since the level
> of general education is supposed to be a bit higher there.  It is
dismaying
> and depressing to witness the abysmal performance of some of the
contestants
> in the US. (One woman didn't know the $100 question about "Simple Simon
met
> a pie-man.....".
ISTR one fellow who couldn't identify what kind of poem "There once was a
man from Nantucket" was.

> From:    Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...>
> Subject: Re: New to the list
>
> >I have the feeling that many artlangers intuitively understand their
> >invented phonologies better. But I don't remember anybody to discuss
> >cross-linguistic phonologies e. g. of a multinational conworld, with
> >languages borrowing words from each other. Am I wrong?
> >
>
> That's an interesting subject. Anyone wants to reply?
Well, I don't entirely understand all my invented phonologies...;)  I do
better with those conlangs that have phonologies evolved from older states
(and not a priori created) because of, e.g., "this 'y' came from a 'gg', so
it _sounds_ like a 'y' that came from a 'gg'"--it helps get into the
"accent".

I think my concultures would do the same thing English does when borrowing
other words--either pronounce and spell them the same way (eg résumé,
savoir-faire), or spell them the same way and pronounce them as natively (eg
'robot', 'Potemkin').

> From:    BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
> Subject: Re: language flags (was Flag of England)
>
> At 17:06 19.6.2000 +0000, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>
> >What about language flags. Isn't it time for those languages (and others,
> >e.g. Arabic, Mandarin, German, ?Swahili?) to get those?
>
> But what should they look like?
As different from Esperanto's as possible =)

Nah.. perhaps just a ...oh wait.

Flags of conlangs:
http://www.fotw.net/flags/lingplan.html

Er, yes... A language flag's design should have something important to the
language, not just speakers in one country/culture or another.... which
makes it difficult.

ObConlang:  What would _your_ conlang's flag look like?   Why?

There were at least two different flags for my last conlang... one was more
location-centric (green with a white horizontal stripe, and on the stripe
the Pillars of Hercules--a modified Andalusian flag) and another more
generic (a white triangle with red, yellow, and blue corners representing
the different races of speakers, with a location-specific emblem in the
center).

> From:    Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>
> Subject: Re: language flags (was Flag of England)
>
> >But what should they look like?
>
> Let's ask a vexillologist. The national flags were pretty arbitrarily
> designed at some point in history, right? So couldn't new ones be made?
Well, there's arbitrary and there's _symbolic_ arbitrary =)

What represents speakers of a language as a whole?  ...words of the
language, most likely, but words don't usually end up on flags (because they
end up having a "front" and a "back", which isn't a good idea...)


> From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Millionaire (was Re: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re: Flag
of
>          England))
>
> Never been much of a fan of it.  It's just boring to watch one person
> being quizzed by Regis.  I much rather prefer Jeopardy where A) there's
> competition, you have three people all competing against each other, so
> you can root for one or jeer another :-), Millionaire is like watching
> someone take a test, B) It's fairer, you miss a single question in
> Millionaire, you can lose as much as $468,000 [if you miss the
> $1,000,000 question, going from $500,000 to $32,000], in Jeopardy, you
> miss a question, it's not the end, C) the questions are generally more
> intellectual, and D) Alex Trebeck is far less annoying than Regis.
Um, ... ... B.
That's my final answer.

> From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: yalls's
>
> > I don't think I'm aware of a themself/theirself form.  [Err... ok,
Altavista
> > gives 26353 'themself' references and 1158 'theirself' ones.  But the
first
> > hits that come up are from grammar sites telling you not to use them...]
>
> Which is the surest evidence that it IS used that way.  :-)
Well, maybe, but not always ;p
For example I've seen grammars that call "should of" and "would of" as
grammar errors instead of spelling errors (for "should have" and "would
have")...

An injunction against "themself" may be speaking from a grammatical POV that
doesn't recognize a "singular they".

> > I think "yalls's" has an 'intensive' meaning that the other
mine-equivalent
> > pronouns don't have.
>
> I don't think I've ever heard it used that way around here.  Must be a
> regional variation.
Or it might just be me =)
I don't pay attention to other people's yalls much.

> From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: English: Thou
>
> > Also I think 'thou' /Dau/ is kind of a mouthful.  Maybe it oughtta be
/Du/,
> > to rhyme with 'you'.  Or maybe I'm just used to 'gotcha'-forms.
("Gottha?
> > Whadja got?")
>
> Or /D@/, which I believe is used in some English dialects.
Is that /D@/ or [D@]?  Even someone who didn't speak that dialect with that
accent would pronounce it like short "the"?

[short the = "the cat" /D@/, long the = "the underwear" /Di/]

> From:    Barry Garcia <Barry_Garcia@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re: Flag of England)
>
> I think a part of it
> is manyAmericans take the attitude that if they dont like it, or dont see
> it's importance, they cant be bothered to learn it. And, part of it is
> also some people just dont care for one category or another. Sports
> questions would kill me.
I spoke with someone today (well, yesterday now) who refused to take history
classes--with arguments like "we don't need to be dwelling on that kind of
thing" and stuff.  Very alarming...

> From:    Danny Wier <dawier@...>
> Subject: Re: Millionaire (was Re: CHAT: Vexillology and games (was: Re:
Flag of
>          England))
>
> > D) Alex Trebeck is far less annoying than Regis.
>
> You find Regis annoying?  Better thank Providence that Kathie Lee ain't
the
> host.  Or Rosie.
Or--to fudge a category--Fran Drescher.
<music sting>


     *Muke!