Comments on "Infectious language" - Faerye Net

Re: Jane Austen

2004-04-29T01:34:57+00:00

Xue shengci is study new words. We get around 110-120 new words per week – but at least they’re not all new characters – many of them are just recombinations of old characters.

Re: Jane Austen

2004-04-23T08:48:26+00:00

Mwa ha ha! That’s hilarious. What is xueing and shengci? Conjugating and verbs or soemthing?

Jane Austen

2004-04-21T20:31:21+00:00

I bought Emma and Pride and Prejudice here, and rediscovered how great Jane Austen is. Problem is now I’m also using Austen speech, and combining it with Chinglish. Makes for some interesting sentences:

“How was class?”
“It was tolerable, but I was quite relieved that we didn’t have to xue as many shengci as usual.”

Re: It is indeed

2004-04-21T12:42:22+00:00

Yeah, bad spelling can be contagious too. I am not sure what a sneeky critter is, but I bet language is that as well as a sneaky critter.

It is indeed

2004-04-21T12:40:07+00:00

I think we are all subject to the language bug. Virulence is part of its nature. How else would it evolve? Slang in particular is extremely contagious, and once it is established in the population, has become endemic as it were, it then becomes an official part of the language. What a sneeky critter.

Re: Language (and the sponging thereof)

2004-04-19T14:44:46+00:00

Curse…you…and…your…making…me…stifle guffaws…at work!
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

(Note in my defense: The vulgar expression attributed to me at the beginning of Mr. Wonko’s post is an excellent example of my permeability to language, being as it is a favored exclamation of my father’s.)

Language (and the sponging thereof)

2004-04-19T13:53:29+00:00

This from the woman who introduced me to that wonderful catch-all exclamation, “fuck a shit-piss!”

With the exception that I am always eager to learn new and interesting ways of being vulgar, I react to language in much the same way. Having read nothing but O’Brian and Melville for the past few months, I’ve developed a tendency to use structured 19th-century language with a nautical bent. This is all the more humorous since my task at work for the past few weeks has been to write user documentation. The other day I actually caught myself using the phrase “taken aback the mizzen-mast” when describing a caveat of an API function.