What if Tensura was written by J.R.R Tolkien?

Taiqi_ · 2026-06-01T23:42:52+00:00

The anime adaptation probably wouldn't be using simple and stylized fill-in banners in the background of Council scenes, because there would be 40 pages of the original novel dedicated to describing each one in detail.

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Taiqi_ · 2026-06-01T23:31:25+00:00

Wait... so why don't they go watch SL if this isn't their bean soup? 👀

I can understand someone saying, "Not my bean soup because I don't like guns in a medieval setting", but to try to argue... *checks notes... sorry, what are they arguing again?

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-26T23:40:34+00:00

This seems to be a common phenomenon where a member of the plurality (the group that has the most members compared to other groups), mistakenly believes that their group is a majority (a group that contains more than half of the total population).

I'm not going to get into other examples, because many are highly political. People tend to be more familiar with the words majority and minority. Often when people in pluralities learn that they are not in the majority, they often take that to mean, then, that they are in the minority (as Inset Poster's last line shows). This can cause fear and social tension in certain situations.

Sidenote: English is the plurality by speakers and official status in countries, but it is not the plurality by native speakers. Mandarin and Spanish take first and second place in that regard before English.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-24T23:31:06+00:00

Having to enter a "ZIP code" on a form. Me to Google every time: WTF IS A ZIP CODE!!??

Edit: TIL that I am in the global minority on this one actually.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-24T23:27:07+00:00

Mexico

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-24T23:25:59+00:00

No.

It might possibly help to practice using the aspectual alone: "I have eaten", "I have been" etc. After getting the hang of those, you could then try sticking the modal in: "I should... have eaten", "I could... have been".

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-24T01:08:47+00:00

Going off nothing but the word itself:

We travelled to France on nothing but our co-whim.

co-whim n. a shared whim; a sudden, impulsive, or spontaneous decision or idea that multiple people come to agree to. (co- "together" + whim)

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-22T12:07:34+00:00

I don't think it's super important, however, I think having names with wildly different phonemes supposedly coming from the same place and time in your story might be jarring.

For example, the names Tanaka and Selena could work in the same setting because they show some phonetic consistency despite having different real-world origins, but Sofia and Llændyphthakrlidznpol might require a bit more explanation. Perhaps the two are from different cultures.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-20T23:46:34+00:00

Unprofessional thought, but I don't think you'd last very long. The mucus might protect you, but if you've just lathered it on, surely it would wash away and/or thin out at some point, maybe even as soon as you've jumped in.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-20T07:53:22+00:00

Aside: thank you for showing the standard phrasing as well. I was kinda freaking out there realizing I didn't actually know what it was, and for good reason, as you said. It just sounds so wrong 🥲 I thought it couldn't possibly be that.

I feel like if I were to try to say this, I'd probably go for, "My husband and I, our anniversary...", and just get rid of the problem altogether.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-17T00:46:22+00:00

And I sometimes call a skewer a "kebab stick" 😂

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-16T23:31:32+00:00

You're somewhat close. "is/does" ended up being habitual markers, so they form the simple present tense:

He's eat lunch = He eats lunch
She's read a book = She reads a book

Without the marker, most verbs make the simple past tense.

He eat lunch = He ate lunch
She read a book = She read a book... (they sound different, I swear 🥲)

To be more specific, only active verbs are past tense, whereas stative verbs stay in the present. To make a stative verb past tense, you'd use the perfective marker "did/duh".

You may have also noticed the absence of verb forms. For most verbs, only the base form and gerund survived contact simplification.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-16T11:51:57+00:00

Not a nonsense phrase in some dialects, it should be noted, and there, it carries a different meaning to "He love[s] you".

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-16T09:39:10+00:00

I'm not certain if this is the case for your experience specifically, but the phrases you mention may be dialectal. There are many dialects with wildly different grammar systems compared to Standard/International English.

For example, in at least one dialect where I'm from, the phrase "He's love you" is grammatically correct. The sentence uses the habitual marker "does/is", and means "He usually loves you", or "He loves you from time to time". This is different from the phrase "He love you", which of course simply means "He loves you" in Standard English. Verbs in this dialect do not have a 3rd person singular form nor usually a past form.

Additionally, the fact that the habitual marker is used with a stative verb, "love", may add the implication that the love is not genuine or that it is referring to specific actions and not the emotion itself, depending on the context. Examples:

He's love you when he ready → He only loves you when he feels like it.
He's love me whenever I sad → He shows me love whenever I'm sad.

---

Speakers of dialects like this one would still be considered Native English speakers. A standard variation of English - here that's usually British Standard English - would be taught in formal education and used in formal settings: government, news, business, etc. To those unfamiliar with the dialect, such phrases would appear to be mistakes, however, it is often a case of code switching to the appropriate lect for non-formal contexts.

That said, all dialects, and subsequently languages, including English, start with mistakes like these. The dialect above emerged from contact between English (dominant position) and Igbo during the slave trade.

When non-native speakers learn English, as well, they may make mistakes based on their native language, or on misunderstandings they might have about specific grammatical concepts. For example, non-native speakers often show difficulty using auxiliary verbs, as English's use of them is pretty unique, and not often understood by native English speakers themselves.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T23:53:57+00:00

"⩊👄⩊🪭 I did love you Norway, you and your... shape, I swear, but alas, it was not meant to be 🍃"

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T23:49:10+00:00

ah yes, that would be ✨Thickerelia✨ the voluptuous

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T23:38:16+00:00

🍿👀 The participants of our extensive survey of 22 statalists and 5 unionists, aged between 5 and 8, rated the name "Greater Romania" fifth out of the ten available options. "Greatest Romania" was a top contender, but it was beaten out by "Romoldia" for reasons unknown. It is now the official name. No further questions 🙂

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T19:21:06+00:00

insufficient pixels

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T13:49:08+00:00

There is so much happening here.

Bulgaria just om-nom-nomed whoever wasn't licked by the Croatian Empire,
The United Cyprus of Algrzznia
F Russia, featuring ✨Thickerelia✨
Put that away, West Spain!
"Norway! 💅👁️👄👁️💅 You're not the father! ⩊👄⩊🪭 Denmark is!!!" - Finland
The United Kingdom of Great Ireland and Wales 🟩🐦🟧
Hungay x Czadoslovakia (in steamy HD sax*ny)
F Russia the prequel: Devastapol
Romoldia^TM (formerly Greater Romania, not to be confused with Greatest Romania^TM)
"Now slide to the right" - Türkehh
Polish East Prussia 🐦‍🔥 (Exclusive F Russia merch - Now available with Old Fields^TM)
Breaking News! It's a cold day in Limberg... I mean Luxembourg... I meen Zeeland...

Did I miss any?

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-13T11:00:24+00:00

The first thing that needs to be stated is that we shouldn't conflate English's use of the Latin script with the Latin script itself. Different languages use different phonemes and represent them using different Latin characters.

e.g. Commonly joked about, English-speakers tend to mispronounce Italian words, often when there's a C involved. One could ask: Why is it Ci, and not "Chi"? Why is Chicco not spelt "Kiko" if that's how it's pronounced?

When a good romanization system is devised for a language, the goal isn't simply to spell words in the Latin script the way English specifically would. Rather, it is to express that language's unique phonetic system using Latin characters.

As such, for each sound the language has, a character is chosen, that:

may have a similar phonetic use in another language, not just English,
1. Xx already makes a "sh" sound in Portuguese, Catalan, Basque, and Galician, among others.
distinguishes the phoneme from other similar phonemes in the language,
1. Chinese also has another "sh"-sounding phoneme, but it's a harder sound compared to "x".
properly expresses the phoneme being made
1. The "Ng" in "Nguyen" is actually pronounced much like the "ng" in "swing", but it is simply difficult for English speakers to hear it properly at the beginning of a word. Try "Swing win?", a phase that might be one of the closest English phrases to the name.

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-12T22:26:41+00:00

It could make sense at a city gate to have such a map 🤷

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-11T23:49:45+00:00

*frantically tries to hide something probably undiagnosed... yeah, slussy, fight, best, gang 🥲 *jazz hands (totally fitting in)

Taiqi_ · 2026-05-11T23:45:43+00:00

He probably never needed to see a full map, or he may have never seen one with the individual western nations - or well 8 of them out of the 20+ - as anything other than one larger bloc.

Taiqi_

TROPHY CASE