Sort of reminds me of what a good idea I thought it was that taking a foreign language course was NOT part of getting an engineering degree at Duke. I did manage to get fairly conversational in Portuguese while working in Brasil - but I don't think I'd have ever made any progress in the agglutinating languages.
Agglutinating?? Wow, where else would you find that other than the thread for words you like or dislike?
Kinda. They have two syllabaries and they also use characters they borrowed from Chinese.
Strictly speaking they are syllabaries and not alphabets because each symbol is an entire syllable in and of itself. The symbols in the syllabaries are meaningless, much like our alphabet.
By way of contrast, the symbols they borrowed and sometimes adapted from Chinese all have meaning, and not just sound, attached to them. Finally, to ramp up the fun, almost all the characters they borrowed from Chinese have at least two different readings; in other words there are at least two different sounds to use when reading them (but in any given context, only one of them is correct). To read a newapaper, you need to be able to recognlze and understand at least 1800 of these symbols.
I've this creeeeeeping . . . . suspicion that, back in the day, someone might have served a Mormon mission (sorry, "a mission on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"; gotta get the 2020 nomenclature right) in Japan. As devildeac might say, "Amirite?"
Oh, and "nomenclature" is also a word I like.
"Amazing what a minute can do."
Detritus.
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
draff-the damp remains of malt after brewing often used as an appetizer or supplement in animal rations
Hmm, this might be applicable somewhere else, too.
An additional/alternative definition would also apply in yet another location.
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
Not making this up. Gotta love the Brits.
Cockwomble - (noun) A person, usually male, prone to making outrageously stupid statements and/or inappropriate behaviour while generally having a very high opinion of their own wisdom and importance.
Just learned this word. It's a good one! Apophasis:
A•poph•a•sis
n. Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned, as in "I will not bring up my opponent's questionable financial dealings."
n. In rhetoric, denial of an intention to speak of something which is at the same time hinted or insinuated; paralipsis (which see).
n. A figure by which a speaker formally declines to take notice of a favorable point, but in such a manner as to produce the effect desired. [For example, see Mark Antony's oration. Shak., Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.]
Someone used 'gullywasher' today. Its one of those words you can see/feel what it describes. I like it.
whoa, thanks for the shout out! Distaste may be too strong, we kind of see them as our idiot cousins, kind of like Randy Quaid in Christmas Vacation.
It's been said (so it must be true) that English has twice as many words as any other tongue, which is a glorious thing.
I just read a book in which the word "disorientated" was used several times, and was distressed to find that it is deemed quite acceptable. Balderdash I say!
Quaff is one we've been trying to use more over in the Ymm, Beer thread. I first read it in a Peanuts strip when I was a kid - "The World War II flying ace going to quaff a few root beers". Have liked that word ever since.
"That young man has an extra step on his ladder the rest of us just don't have."