The English Language Has Bad Syntax & Stupid Sounding Words;

[TaG]

does anybody besides me think that this thread is useless?

You're expecting useful threads in off-topic? You don't always get useful topics in the main forums.

 

[nickspoon]

A slightly more reliable source (a dictionary of etymology) says that golf comes from the Scottish "gouf", which is believed to be an alteration of the Middle Dutch "colf", meaning "bat" or "stick".

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

I am more amazed by the origins of certain terminologies, one such example is:

Before we had proper flooring, we used to use the offcuts from the harvested wheat which was called the thresh. We used to lay the thresh on mud floors, and over time the thresh would build up. Eventually it would spill out of the door so they placed some wood across the bottom of the door to keep the thresh inside. This they called the Threshold!

Another is kinda morbid:

When we used to rely on coal fires for heat, the chimneys were cleaned by brushes, but they also used children to go up into the chimneys to manually clean them, the children were also referred to as "Brushes". Sometimes the children would fall and smack their heads and have brain damage. The term "Daft as a brush" refers to these poor kids.

 

[aaron11193]

IMO English = FAIL.

 

[gp32rich]

IMO English = FAIL.
Kinda in the same way that M$=FAIL??

 

[aaron11193]

IMO English = FAIL.
Kinda in the same way that M$=FAIL??

!true

M$=Über FAIL

English=FAIL

 

[plopperz]

!true

M$=Über FAIL

English=FAIL

Well I guess that makes sense.
It's cool to hate the mainstream.

 

[nickspoon]

English is a very messed-up language indeed. The structure is bizarre, the way you pronounce words makes no sense ("thorough", anyone?) and we have a great propensity for irregular verbs. Compared to English, most languages are very logical. Russian is a good example. In Russian, words are almost always spelled how they sound, and vice versa.

 

[aaron11193]

English is a very messed-up language indeed. The structure is bizarre, the way you pronounce words makes no sense ("thorough", anyone?) and we have a great propensity for irregular verbs. Compared to English, most languages are very logical. Russian is a good example. In Russian, words are almost always spelled how they sound, and vice versa.

hmmm..... tho (th-O) rough (ruff) :huh:

Even then, rough (r-ugh)

I'm not too good with the pronunciation thingys but you get my point.

I agree with you about the Russian words I can't speak or write Russian myself, but I have done a bit of research about the language when i was looking for a way to say family so that nobody knew what it meant.
(I found that 'familia' is pretty much universal for a lot of languages)


EDIT:
offtopic: I noticed that a lot of board members have something custom where it says GP32 Hardcore in my thing over there <<<
Just wondering, how do you get it? or is it just for members with a level high enough?

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

offtopic: I noticed that a lot of board members have something custom where it says GP32 Hardcore in my thing over there <<<
Just wondering, how do you get it? or is it just for members with a level high enough?

It's called a Custom member title and you can edit that in your control panel. Click the My Controls link at the top and edit your profile information.

 

[daclassicgamingmaster]

The Engligh language is pretty strange indeed. I remember when I took French, almost all my teachers would bring up the fact that English is probably one of the most difficult languages in existence. Iirc, Arab is also up there.

 

[geo12]

Here's what I like about English:
I wrote
You wrote
He/she/it wrote
We wrote
They wrote

Versus:
Yo escribí
Tú escribiste
Él/ella/Ud. escribió
Nosotros escribimos
Uds. escribieron

 

[aaron11193]

Here's what I like about English:
I wrote
You wrote
He/she/it wrote
We wrote
They wrote

Versus:
Yo escribí
Tú escribiste
Él/ella/Ud. escribió
Nosotros escribimos
Uds. escribieron

But what sounds sexier?

We wrote...

or

Nosotros escribimos

??

offtopic: I noticed that a lot of board members have something custom where it says GP32 Hardcore in my thing over there <<<
Just wondering, how do you get it? or is it just for members with a level high enough?

It's called a Custom member title and you can edit that in your control panel. Click the My Controls link at the top and edit your profile information.


I did what you said but I don't see any mention of a Custom member title...

 

[gp32rich]

offtopic: I noticed that a lot of board members have something custom where it says GP32 Hardcore in my thing over there <<<
Just wondering, how do you get it? or is it just for members with a level high enough?
It's called a Custom member title and you can edit that in your control panel. Click the My Controls link at the top and edit your profile information.I did what you said but I don't see any mention of a Custom member title...Try here ...
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=01
First box in the main section (not on the left) marked Custom member title

 

[aaron11193]

offtopic: I noticed that a lot of board members have something custom where it says GP32 Hardcore in my thing over there <<<
Just wondering, how do you get it? or is it just for members with a level high enough?
It's called a Custom member title and you can edit that in your control panel. Click the My Controls link at the top and edit your profile information.I did what you said but I don't see any mention of a Custom member title...Try here ...
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=01
First box in the main section (not on the left) marked Custom member title


I get this:

 

[quasist]

There is a common russian phrase "Да нет наверное" that means polite refusal

да = yes
нет = no
наверное = maybe

Yes, english is a poor language, I prefer C or Pascal


P.S: Custom avatar title after 300 or 400 messages appears

 

[___]

The Engligh language is pretty strange indeed. I remember when I took French, almost all my teachers would bring up the fact that English is probably one of the most difficult languages in existence. Iirc, Arab is also up there.

LOL... what? English is like the easiest language to learn in my opinion. Your grammar is so easy and simple. It might not make a lot of sense but have you ever tried German? Not only that the words are really hard to pronounce for foreigners, the grammar is fucked! We've got 3 different genders and therefore need three different articles for either determined and undetermined nouns. But it doesn't stop there... if you build a sentence and the noun is used in different cases you have to change the article into another, which essentially changes the gender of the noun. Also this does not follow any logical rules so you pretty much can't ever learn this if you haven't been born here and even then some Germans can't get this right. I remember being in Canada and looking through a paper the German class teacher wrote and laughin my ass off because it looked like a 5 year old typed it up. She couldn't get any of the grammar right and still she was a highschool language teacher ^^.

We also combine words in our sentences. In English you might combine two words and connect them through a hyphen, in German you just put word after word until you have crazy combinations like: "Baggerfahrerparty" (which would be a party for excavator pilots... yeah, I made this up ^^) or "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän". Yeah, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
More of these examples with an english explanation

If you think English is a hard language, I can only laugh at that. For Germans, it's really easy. Most Germans speak English and a large part of the population speak English near perfect (minus the accent).

 

[nickspoon]

The only thing I find peculiar about German is the need to move the verb to a certain position in the sentence depending on the words you use at the beginning (als, aber, wann). The change in article depending on the case seems sensible enough to me; a number of languages do it to denote case. Russian and Latin change the endings, German changes the articles. English has nothing that defines case except for the position of the words relative to each other. At least German follows some fairly regular rules - English has an uncanny number of irregular verbs and pluralisations.

Also, the reason Germans find English easy is because they are taught it from a very young age. Growing up with a language allows you to learn it much more quickly and fluently than if you are taught it in secondary school as most English people are taught French/German/Spanish.

 

[aaron11193]

Yes, english is a poor language, I prefer C or Pascal

P.S: Custom avatar title after 300 or 400 messages appears



+1 for C

Haven't tried Pascal though... I'll have a look after work

P.S Looks like I'll be waiting a while for that custom title lol I only have 120-something posts

EDIT: Typos. I hate my mum's keyboard. The keys refuse to press easily sometimes, it's like a damn typewriter!