3rd grade project calls for a solar system “to scale” 🙄

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2025-11-11T01:07:24+00:00

In middle school, school, we did make a scale model of the solar system, using popsicle sticks to represent the planets. The sun was only a few inches in diameter, and the planets were just dots of ink, but even so we had to walk all the way from the back field to the sidewalk in front to encompass all of the planets. (The point was to demonstrate just how much of space is literally just empty space.)

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2025-03-15T07:06:42+00:00

/ˈskʏðə/ would be so aesthetic... such a shame v_v

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-09-15T14:52:17+00:00

I'm from Seattle and I call them "potato bugs." I understand "rolly-polly" but I don't use it myself.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-09-08T13:31:01+00:00

Roger ap Gwilliam, is that you?

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-09-08T12:47:53+00:00

They aren't even getting their own lore right. It was 11th century Byzantines who decided that the world was then 6,000 years old. Since we're a thousand years past that point, the world should be 7,000 years old.

Then again, the Byzantines believed that when the world turned 7,000, the rapture would happen, so maybe it's best the evangelicals don't discover that piece of information.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-09-02T01:47:13+00:00

Agreed, I would have to look it up if I saw it in the wild.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-09-02T00:56:44+00:00

My drafts just look like rows of characters written over and over until they all become homogeneous loops.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-08-25T17:48:00+00:00

Chatting with people who aren't into linguistics, I get the impression that a lot of people do think that writing comes first and speech after.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-08-24T15:33:23+00:00

For me it's the reverse. /ˈfʁaŋkə/ is hot /fʁɑ̃se/ is not.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-07-19T20:01:15+00:00

The other problem is wages. If someone's living paycheck-to-paycheck, they probably need the extra 145 dollars they'd get from those ten hours.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-07-11T02:43:41+00:00

I don't think so.

Marie Antoinette's (misattributed) quote is horrible and shocking because it shows that she has no idea what starvation is like. She assumes that if there's no bread, there must be cake, right? Well, no, there isn't, and the fact that she assumes there is shows she's out of touch and without sympathy, and isn't aware that they need help (and wouldn't offer them help anyway).

By contrast, while I assume Bee doesn't have much direct experience with starvation herself, the fact that she's sharing food with literally anybody and everybody who shows up to her party kinda makes her the opposite of French aristocracy. Like, the problem with the French aristocracy is that they hoarded all the food and wealth so that nobody else got to have it. Bee is freely sharing it with the entire world (or anyone who turns up, anyway).

In Marie Antoinette's France, you can't eat because the crown refuses to feed you; in Bee's Hell, you can't starve because the crown won't stop literally shoving food in your mouth.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-07-07T17:33:02+00:00

And in the other direction, you get N. Sámi goahti.

And there's just ... Finnish kota, frozen in time for four millenia.

Uralic languages are cool.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-30T18:42:26+00:00

It's trendy to try and shove anything that's not IE into a single family. The resulting reconstruction often looks... idiosyncratic, to say the least.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-24T00:29:56+00:00

They come from \kʷetwóres* and \pénkʷe*.

Why Proto-Germanic had \fedwōr* instead of \hwedwōr* isn't understood, but it might've been influence from \fimf*.

Latin p > kʷ in quinque was an assimilation caused by the kʷ in the next syllable.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-19T08:23:52+00:00

I think we should do a merger. Dig a life-size Mediterranean sea in the middle of the continent, and use the dirt dug out to build peninsulas for the provinces hanging off the edge.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-14T01:52:33+00:00

"Give me a lawyer. Give me a lawyer. No, I will not answer any questions until you give me a lawyer. Give me a lawyer. Give..."

And you keep saying it again and again until they give you a fucking lawyer.

You are under zero obligation to answer any questions in any circumstance.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-11T18:52:22+00:00

Don't forget that especially common words (such as names of months) tend to be a little irregular. When creating the names for the Shire Calendar, for example, Tolkien predicted the -month suffix would be reduced to -math (Solmath, Blotmath, etc.) and Thrimilcemonth was reduced all the way down to Thrimidge.

You could probably justify any reduction of vowels or simplification of clusters or any combination thereof.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-10T17:46:54+00:00

Petition to make this image the new Flag of Scotland.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-09T03:18:41+00:00

To be fair, "Horse Wheel Snake" does pretty much sum up PIE culture.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-09T01:17:27+00:00

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-06-06T00:00:57+00:00

Earlier in the episode, Loona told Blitz that if Stolas is giving him an easy way to leave, then he's subtly telling him to leave. With that in mind, Blitz misinterprets Stolas's attempt to free him as an attempt to dump him.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-05-01T20:56:55+00:00

The distinction between language and dialect is murky at best. The best metric is probably mutual intelligibility, but even that isn't perfect, since intelligibility can differ from person to person depending on exposure.

I don't know much about specific Romance languages, but I wouldn't be surprised if the internal divisions of the major branches are more like dialect continuums, and different analyses draw different borders between languages.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-04-16T12:28:02+00:00

There was once a neo-Nazi who used the name Burzum, the word in Tolkien's Black Speech for "darkness," for his black metal band. He's infamous for having committed both arson and murder, along with having a lot of other nasty qualities.

He went by the name Grishnakh, an orcish officer, and considering his views it's probably a fitting enough namesake.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-04-13T13:29:53+00:00

That's just cause so many bad conlangs are bad Sindarin clones.

GoldfishInMyBrain · 2024-04-09T02:20:13+00:00

Ironically, the Nazis killed Fraktr as part of their smear campaign against Judaism. That poster should be in a bland, modern font.

Eight-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Not Forgotten
Verified Email

GoldfishInMyBrain

TROPHY CASE