• palordrolap@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    I envy these linguists’ ability to either not be irked by grammar errors at all or to be able to deal with their irritation when errors arise.

    • gwl [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      18 hours ago

      They actually are the reverse of irked, cause like an archaeologist finding a new artefact, they find the cool thing of evidence of the shift of language.

      Not errors, evidence of change

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
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        15 hours ago

        What’s your opinion of the word “neologologist” and are you proposing that these “most linguists” are in fact described by it? And what do you think their opinion of it would be? ;p

        • gwl [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          14 hours ago

          I would say that most aren’t, but some definitely are

          It’s a study of both the past and the present, many study both, many study just one, some flip-flop between

    • lad@programming.dev
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      24 hours ago

      I also envy their ability to understand what was meant, because sometimes there are enough errors to make meaning completely impossible to discern

      • gwl [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        18 hours ago

        There’s this thing in linguistics, casual language requires backchanneling - to respond back with either short utterances that show you understand, or to show confusion and then ask for clarity

        The reason formal language is formalised, as in the shit used in essays, is that there is no easy way to say “what did you mean?” - the feedback loop is far too slow for that process and by the point the author(s) get to respond they likely forget what they meant as well

        • lad@programming.dev
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          17 hours ago

          This makes so much sense, my most painful experience in understanding department is from forums where feedback is at best hours long, and infinitely long at worst if the person never ever replies