English but not in a Brexit way.

Successor account to WatTyler@lemmy.sdf.org.

  • 0 Posts
  • 31 Comments
Joined 7 months ago
cake
Cake day: December 11th, 2023

help-circle









  • The problem is that, this helps Putin. If we assume he has no regard for human life, then this is a massive opportunity for him. He’s made the most out of opportunities like this one in the past.

    This attack on innocent lives is a profound tragedy as it is. I wish I could spend more time dwelling on the plight of the victims but my brain won’t stop panicking about all the ways Putin can exploit this situation to ruin even more lives.

    It’s why I couldn’t shake the idea that this might be a false flag operation. It’s why I can’t deny the prospect that perhaps Russian security services didn’t do all they could to stop this before it occurred.

    My thoughts to the victims and those close to them.


  • Come on. Few people are as angry with our society as it stands as I am but the United Kingdom is fit to burst with amazing cultural heritage which we should share with the world (some of it we didn’t even steal!).

    Furthermore, for as regressive and bigoted as a lot of our media and politicians are, a very large proportion of British people are tolerant, curious, and kind-hearted.

    The United Kingdom is much more than our current and historical governments. If we are ever going to establish ourselves as a force for good in a worsening world, we need people to realize that we genuinely are more than Brexit, Rwanda deals and Partygates.

    Getting the Tories under 100 seats at the next GE and encouraging the Labour party to not be afraid of being a tolerant, democratic socialist party are the first steps towards that.


  • Like all reasonable people interested in linguistics, I’m a descriptivist. However, something about the idea of language being adapted to cater to an algorithm turns my stomach.

    I know it’s hypocritical. The Attention Economy shouldn’t be any less valid a linguistic influence than the Norman Conquests, just because they occurred a millennium ago.

    I genuinely think we’re lucky in Britain that the soft power we have (for the time being) has prevented our culture being entirely supplanted by the United States.



  • I understand their justification and I assume both the author and their editors are aware of the real term. However, before I noticed that this was from the AP, I assumed this story was from a less-prestigious source because referring to Varadkar as a PM felt like a mistake akin to if someone referred to Rishi Sunak as a ‘President’ (as the Spanish use it) or ‘Chancellor’ (as the Germans use it). I wouldn’t have even commented upon it if this was the Daily Mail or such but I’d have assumed the Associated Press would respect their audience enough to understand the word with context and perhaps a short disclaimer.


  • It’s less of a grey area because Ireland is a predominantly English-speaking country. The official name for his office in both English and Irish is Taoiseach. This is in contrast to the President of Ireland, whose official title in English is ‘President’.

    I’m British and we never refer to Varadkar as the prime minister. Any news coverage here refers to him, correctly, as the Taoiseach.

    EDIT: And this is coming from the country who, regrettably, are the reason why Ireland now has to be so careful to maintain their ancient language after centuries of us trying to eradicate their native culture.





  • WatTyler@lemmy.ziptoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldTwinsies
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    A lot of the lowest-rung, easiest targets for ridicule are those who are very loudly, uncritically on one side of an argument or another. People who are of middling intelligence correctly identify this as an opportunity for themselves to demonstrate that they are very clever and superior by taking the piss out of the silliest of the left and the right. This leads to Enlightened Centrism™.

    This works phenomenally well until they meet someone who has genuine convictions based on their own individual morals and rationale and not how they can differentiate themselves from others.

    This is my own slightly bitter, slightly drunken, leftist rant. My own bitter POV is that Enlightened Centrism is a shortcut to smug emotional and intellectual superiority for those who can’t come up with their own convictions.