matthewsnyder‭

Everyone knows what "nifty" is. It's obvious, isn't it? A thing which possesses nift. But what is this mysterious nift? Looking at things that are considered nifty, I cannot quite come up with a g...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by Jirka Hanika‭

English speakers from certain areas, in particular British, seem to add an extra r sound after vowels. For example: Idea -> idea-r Drawing -> draw-r-ing China -> China-r What is th...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Eric Isaac‭

It seems like a lot of humor has an element of surprise. Sudden meanings, unexpected turns of the plot, language unexpected given the context (impolite language in polite context, technical in a no...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by Eric Isaac‭

The original meaning of humor of course refers to the obsolete theory of the four humors and their effect on human temperament. I'm not asking about that. It appears that initially, the meaning sh...

2 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  last activity 3mo ago by Jirka Hanika‭

An eponym is the thing after which something else is named. For example, the linguistical concept of eggcorns is named after the word eggcorn, hence the word eggcorn is the eponym of the concept. ...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  edited 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

Devalue is commonly used to mean diminish value. Seems like the prefix re- is sometimes used with opposite effect to de-, as in reinforce meaning to increase force or refried meaning more fried. ...

0 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

Asking for translations is a common and normal technique that novice language students use to learn their language of choice. This allows them to connect and transfer some of their existing languag...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

My own experience has been that: You can definitely learn a lot by only listening/reading, never speaking You will still gain some ability to speak/write even though you never practice it It w...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

The quoted definition appears to answer your question already. An 300 ml cup of water is full if and only if it contains exactly 300 ml water. There's no mystery there, if you think of a cup the i...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭  ·  edited 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

This is not something unique to Chinese, it is most commonly seen with British speakers: https://languages.codidact.com/posts/288307 The Chinese were historically much more exposed to British, in ...

posted 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭