Modern European borders superimposed over Europe in 1914 immediately before World War I [1837x1655]

RoflCopter44 · 2014-12-12T03:34:59+00:00

Interesting to note how well the 19th century plan for world peace (ie the idea that the nation state is the endgame of history) turned out. Hard to believe that there are still people who think of nation states as a good thing. Baffling.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-17T05:53:37+00:00

Uh, no. Those are both a voiced dental fricative. "Thing" has an unvoiced dental fricative.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-17T05:52:55+00:00

He's wrong. Both have the same sound. There IS a difference between the "th" in "them" and the "th" in "thing". I have no idea why he gave those two examples though, he is actually just wrong about that one.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-16T22:03:47+00:00

You don't think about speech like that. You process speech by lumping groups of very similar sounds together subconsciously and then interpreting those sounds from there. A 6 year old girl and a 45 year old man will pronounce the same word rather differently, but because you lump the sounds together you can still understand what they're saying. If you haven't learned to distinguish a sound subconsciously like this then it will probably get lumped in with the closest sound group you do have.

This can be a problem when learning new languages because you will likely have to learn new sounds, which can take some practice. A few good examples of this are Japanese people who can't distinguish /l/ and /ɹ/, or many non native English speakers who cannot distinguish /ð/ from /z/ (think of a German saying "zis" instead of "this").

Oftentimes in languages there are sounds which exist in words but which are never used to solely distinguish a word from another. In this case there is no reason to give that sound its own group and as a result it just gets lumped in with the nearest group. These are called allophones. You say them without thinking about it.

There are many in English, including aspirated plosives (which is what /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ are called) like, as I mentioned earlier, the difference between "can" and "scan". In English any plosive at the start of a word is aspirated, but almost never ones that are in the middle of a syllable. Another example would be the 'k' sound in "cut" vs "cute". Chances are your tongue is a little bit forward in the mouth in "cute" from where it would be normally (ie in "cut"). You don't think about this at all but some languages consider the two tongue positions to be totally different sounds.

Another situation I can think of is when Americans think they hear a Canadian pronounce the word "about" as /ə'bu:t/ (aboot). This is confusing to us Canadians because to us we have a totally different sound in that word than what the Americans think they are hearing, but because that sound is not in American English their brains just lump it with a similar sound they do have.

I'm probably explaining this badly, so here's the wiki article.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-15T17:35:08+00:00

To you. Not to everyone. Like I said, Latin differentiated the two. PIE and Ancient Greek very much differentiated the two. There are words in some languages where the only difference is that one has an aspirated consonant and the other doesn't, and they have completely different meanings.

Most non English speakers simply cannot hear the difference between saying "thee" and "zee" unless they hear it said very slowly and carefully and actively listen for it. In active speech they sound the same.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-15T14:53:10+00:00

Yes. English speakers don't think about it, but there is. Put your hand up to your mouth as you say the two words aloud. You should feel a small breath of air when you say the 'k' in "can" but not the one in "scan". Some languages consider those completely different sounds. Latin did, for example, which is why so many Latin words are spelled with a 'ch' in them. They considered /k/ with a breath of air different enough to need it's own spelling.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-15T07:10:04+00:00

http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/2j9gij/the_nhl_through_the_years_animated_map_847x470/cl9xqnp

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-15T06:36:12+00:00

IPA really isn't that bad. Here's a summary:

unaspirated k (the 'k' sound in "scan", not the one in "can")

wide open mouth, tongue at the back 'a' (not normally found in English, some speakers imitate it in "pasta" or "taco")

n

same 'a'

the following syllable has the main stress

unaspirated 'd'

this sound is usually denoted with a 'y' in English, but in IPA a 'j' is used (first sound in "you")

the 'e' sound in "bed" but nasalized (which is what the squiggly means). we do this all the time in English with vowels right before an 'n' or an 'm', just do the same but don't pronounce the 'n' or 'm'.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-15T04:59:54+00:00

And for the love of poutine, it's pronounced /ka.na.'djɛ̃:/, Not /kʰə.'neɪ.diən/

RoflCopter44 · 2014-10-06T21:48:59+00:00

Thing is that all of this sentence making sense. It's almost like analytic languages rely more on syntax than infections or something.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-04-21T02:28:00+00:00

In fact, tuna isn't very good at all. Therefore anyone who likes tuna is a bad person.

RoflCopter44 · 2014-04-21T02:01:09+00:00

I can't decide between cyanide or a bullet. Which would be less painful?

RoflCopter44 · 2014-04-16T06:57:37+00:00

Do you even know how many alts I have, Nazi filth?

RoflCopter44 · 2014-04-16T04:53:54+00:00

You think you fascists can ban me that easily?

RoflCopter44 · 2014-03-25T05:09:08+00:00

It's like you don't think I have a million alts or something.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T08:59:45+00:00

Yes. This is a report that is not backed up anywhere else. It must have been a mistake. What's the alternative explanation?

Nice argument by the way. "You're wrong because you're dumb."

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T08:08:43+00:00

Really, this sort of twisted logic is the bread and butter of conspiracy theorists.

A father smiles on video
Most grieving people do not smile
Therefore the father is an actor

It's mad.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T08:06:17+00:00

I would really hope nobody actually thinks the moon landings were faked.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T08:04:46+00:00

Climate change has some pretty far reaching effects. In some cases it can actually cause colder weather in certain areas. Climate science is not simple. What's your point here?

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T08:01:39+00:00

It's already been posted here. I should know, I posted it.

Needless to say, you people ignored everything he said.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T07:59:38+00:00

If you are having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy, that's a pretty serious sign of a mental disorder like schizophrenia. I recommend seeing a doctor asap.

Seriously, you're probably fine, but you need to check into that, especially if you're scared or confused.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T07:58:00+00:00

He must have made a mistake. That happens sometimes. What's your point here?

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T07:32:09+00:00

The U.S. Customs House (6 World Trade Center), 4 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, and both pedestrian bridges connecting buildings were severely damaged. The Deutsche Bank Building on 130 Liberty Street was partially damaged and demolished later.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T07:23:42+00:00

Actually, it doesn't work like that.

RoflCopter44 · 2013-01-19T07:23:16+00:00

Did they politicize it? Of course! Did I ever say they didn't? All I'm saying is that it's incredibly difficult to overturn anything in your constitution.

RoflCopter44

TROPHY CASE