matt_mcl
09-19-2002, 07:49 PM
(Historical note: I wrote this post on Wednesday and emailed it to myself in preparation to post it. Yes, I am addicted.)
/Ej/) If the metro people can persuade unionized workers to successfully maintain a functioning railway system by working four hours a night between 1:00 am and 5:00 am, it seems to me you could contrive to hammer at whatever it was you were hammering at and move whatever furniture you were moving OUTSIDE OF CLASS TIME. This bullshit is hard enough to concentrate on as it is. Hammer, hammer, whrrrrrrr, clump, hammer, hammer, hammer, drllllllll, clump, rattle, bang, hammer, hammer, hammer. I was ready to claw my own eyeballs out with a spoon. AAAGH!!!
/bi:/) I hated phonology, especially vowels. Okay fine. So I finish with that, forget about it for a year, then unsuspectingly take a dialectology course. That ends up being all about phonology. ESPECIALLY VOWELS. Argh.
/si:/) Why is it that academics feel the constant need to drop extracts of foreign languages I do not speak, untranslated, into all their papers? Is it just to keep us on our toes, or render them even more incomprehensible than they already are, or something? It's not even always the same language:
The "marge de sécurité" between two phonemes is called the "Scheidung der Elemente (p. 315), "die Abgrenzungen der Verbreitungsgebiete" (p. 315), "ein Gefühl für den geringsten Abstand je zweier benachbarter Laute" (p. 316). The "case vide" is recognized when Luick finds it characteristic that again and again "der eine Laut die Stelle besezte, die der andere früher eingenommen hat" (p. 315), and it is referred to as "der fehlende Laut" in what is otherwise "ein geschlossenes System" (p. 319). Finally, the principle of maximum differentiation within the "überall sich findende Harmonie des Lautsystems" (p. 317) is clearly described as "das Streben nach ungefähr gleichen Abständen" (p. 319).
(Moulton, William G. "Dialect Geography and the Concept of Phonological Space." Word 18, 1962, p. 25, published in New York, for Chrissakes.)
I especially like the last sentence there. Nice irony. It goes on like this throughout the entire document. And I have to read this shit for credit.
This stuff is already dry enough to choke a goat. Why must life throw more obstacles in my path? *sob*
/Ej/) If the metro people can persuade unionized workers to successfully maintain a functioning railway system by working four hours a night between 1:00 am and 5:00 am, it seems to me you could contrive to hammer at whatever it was you were hammering at and move whatever furniture you were moving OUTSIDE OF CLASS TIME. This bullshit is hard enough to concentrate on as it is. Hammer, hammer, whrrrrrrr, clump, hammer, hammer, hammer, drllllllll, clump, rattle, bang, hammer, hammer, hammer. I was ready to claw my own eyeballs out with a spoon. AAAGH!!!
/bi:/) I hated phonology, especially vowels. Okay fine. So I finish with that, forget about it for a year, then unsuspectingly take a dialectology course. That ends up being all about phonology. ESPECIALLY VOWELS. Argh.
/si:/) Why is it that academics feel the constant need to drop extracts of foreign languages I do not speak, untranslated, into all their papers? Is it just to keep us on our toes, or render them even more incomprehensible than they already are, or something? It's not even always the same language:
The "marge de sécurité" between two phonemes is called the "Scheidung der Elemente (p. 315), "die Abgrenzungen der Verbreitungsgebiete" (p. 315), "ein Gefühl für den geringsten Abstand je zweier benachbarter Laute" (p. 316). The "case vide" is recognized when Luick finds it characteristic that again and again "der eine Laut die Stelle besezte, die der andere früher eingenommen hat" (p. 315), and it is referred to as "der fehlende Laut" in what is otherwise "ein geschlossenes System" (p. 319). Finally, the principle of maximum differentiation within the "überall sich findende Harmonie des Lautsystems" (p. 317) is clearly described as "das Streben nach ungefähr gleichen Abständen" (p. 319).
(Moulton, William G. "Dialect Geography and the Concept of Phonological Space." Word 18, 1962, p. 25, published in New York, for Chrissakes.)
I especially like the last sentence there. Nice irony. It goes on like this throughout the entire document. And I have to read this shit for credit.
This stuff is already dry enough to choke a goat. Why must life throw more obstacles in my path? *sob*