Transparent Moderation Log & Site Topics - Part I

Originally Posted by why

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In August 2009 he goes between his trademark broken English and a much more fluent English.
:

Yes, that's why I'm convinced he's an act. Lately he's been consistently more ungrammatical.

By the way, 'a' isn't a preposition, it an article.

Originally Posted by Teacher

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Yes, that's why I'm convinced he's an act. Lately he's been consistently more ungrammatical.

By the way, 'a' isn't a preposition, it an article.

I think he was referring to the preposition "a" in Romance languages.

Originally Posted by why

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I was thinking about this when I was running and concluded that he's most likely foreign. A few things came to mind: He always says 'lip the *****', which makes no sense in any other language because licking is always assumed to come from the tongue and not the lips. The only single word I can think of that involves both the lips and the act of licking (via the tongue) are the reflexive verbs that translate as 'to lick one's lips'. Unless hws were a poster with a lot of linguistics training to adequately hide a morphological mistake as phonetic (why go through all the trouble?), he is most likely a legitimate foreigner confusing 'lip' and 'lick' with each other because of their similar connection to the human face as well as the the plosive consonants on the end of each word being phonetically similar (unvoiced plosives only separated by a small difference in the location of the articulators -- coincidentally, the lips and tongue). A foreigner trying to learn these words most likely originally would hear them in speech and try to phonetically transcribe them (confusing the K in 'lick' with the P in 'lip'), whereas someone who isn't exposed to the words in speech would almost always get the phrasing correct since 'lick' translates quite literally across all Indo-European languages due to a common etymological root (leigh-*). Less complicated than the above is the translation of his prepositions. When I asked if he lived in Switzerland (the country where he'd most likely hear German, French, and Italian which he commonly uses words and phrasing from in his English), he said 'I live close of Alps'. He's using the preposition 'a' which generally means 'to' unless it's referring to a location of origin in which case it best translates as 'of'. It's unlikely that somebody simply messing around with an online translator could replicate this common mistake unless he were specifically trying to make the mistake in the first place, which would presuppose knowledge of the intricacies of translation (meaning he had already learned both and was well-versed in them as well as their idiomatic differences -- unlikely). What really threw me off was how he used 'Flugzeug' instead of 'airplane', which made no sense to me at all. The words are recent lexical entries and have no common phonetic or morphological root. They don't even come close to translating by cognative relationship, so why would he mistake one for the other? But this doesn't mean he's a sock puppet messing around with online translators, it simply means he is using translators. Given the two aforementioned examples (of which I'm sure there's more), this mistake can be indicative of nothing more than a mistake in itself; the phonological evidence in my first example seems to indicate that he's exposed to at least three foreign languages in his everyday life (which is why I guessed he was Swiss).
I wish my mechanics were even 1/100th of this, even if a linguistics prof could chew it up, and even if you're entirely wrong.

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

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hws = why
Awesome.

Originally Posted by why

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I'm sure a linguistics professor is laughing at my elementary analysis while he's busy recreating mood and aspect in some ancient Semitic language or something.
Well, I still think it's pretty cool. I do little with detailed linguistic analysis in my own work, even less with European languages, and almost nothing with specific grammars... so it's neat to see how other people approach articulating what is "hidden" in the plain view of text. One of the most interesting things to me is how people "read" and the strategies they use to articulate meaning or interpret. In my quick "I think HWS is full of ****" bit, I never even thought to look at it in terms of linguistics to that degree. Instead, I was (while very generally) just thinking of it in terms of habits or textual practices... the sorts of patterns used in writing, both "correctly" and "incorrectly." They seemed "off" to me, or suspicious.

Originally Posted by why

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In August 2009 he goes between his trademark broken English and a much more fluent English. I have stuff to do but I'll return to ponder more...as a professor once told me 'Careful with this stuff. It will make you crazy'.

He also seems to have a "meme-literacy" (for lack of a better word) far out of whack with his writing competency. One might say he's just copying them, but they seem largely to be used correctly, in the right places, while the grammar or words around them are not. That's also a bit fishy, because despite his L1 or his competency therein, that kind of metalinguistic awareness won't come with somebody who is still at the level of "you must to vote."

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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I think hws is T's creation. Thomas set the bar too damn high with ElHawat.

Thanks, but I'm out of the sock puppet business.

I am considering having 'crotchless burkha' put on my headstone, though. I was kind of proud of that one.

Originally Posted by Thomas

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Thanks, but I'm out of the sock puppet business.

I am considering having 'crotchless burkha' put on my headstone, though. I was kind of proud of that one.

I've always wanted a sockpuppet, but I have absolutely no ability to write or talk any differently than I do normally. As such, I think people would realize it was me really quickly and all fun would be lost.

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

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I've always wanted a sockpuppet, but I have absolutely no ability to write or talk any differently than I do normally. As such, I think people would realize it was me really quickly and all fun would be lost.

You can borrow one of mine.

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

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I've always wanted a sockpuppet, but I have absolutely no ability to write or talk any differently than I do normally. As such, I think people would realize it was me really quickly and all fun would be lost.

no offense but youre too smart for a sock puppet. Youll drop "insouciant" and everyone will be all

Originally Posted by iammatt

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You can borrow one of mine.

24k posts on this acct + total of all sock posts =

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

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I've always wanted a sockpuppet, but I have absolutely no ability to write or talk any differently than I do normally. As such, I think people would realize it was me really quickly and all fun would be lost.

Really? I was certain that Grandmaster Baggins belongs to you.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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You can borrow one of mine.
MacLovin for the win.

Originally Posted by robin

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Really? I was certain that Grandmaster Baggins belongs to you.

LOL. Yeah right.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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LOL. Yeah right.
o rly? It sounds like you know something I don't.

Grandmaster Baggins was not funny.

Originally Posted by robin

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Really? I was certain that Grandmaster Baggins belongs to you.

I thought so, too.

In the backstory I've created for you in my mind you were raised in a nunnery in the french countryside run by fat, abusive, grammar fascists. You found solace in the kitchen and the tender ministrations of a kindly grounds keeper whom you both despised for his low breeding and crass manners and loved for his manly influence and unremitting almost dog like kindness.

Originally Posted by why

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I was thinking about this when I was running and concluded that he's most likely foreign. A few things came to mind:

He always says 'lip the *****', which makes no sense in any other language because licking is always assumed to come from the tongue and not the lips. The only single word I can think of that involves both the lips and the act of licking (via the tongue) are the reflexive verbs that translate as 'to lick one's lips'. Unless hws were a poster with a lot of linguistics training to adequately hide a morphological mistake as phonetic (why go through all the trouble?), he is most likely a legitimate foreigner confusing 'lip' and 'lick' with each other because of their similar connection to the human face as well as the the plosive consonants on the end of each word being phonetically similar (unvoiced plosives only separated by a small difference in the location of the articulators -- coincidentally, the lips and tongue). A foreigner trying to learn these words most likely originally would hear them in speech and try to phonetically transcribe them (confusing the K in 'lick' with the P in 'lip'), whereas someone who isn't exposed to the words in speech would almost always get the phrasing correct since 'lick' translates quite literally across all Indo-European languages due to a common etymological root (leigh-*).

Less complicated than the above is the translation of his prepositions. When I asked if he lived in Switzerland (the country where he'd most likely hear German, French, and Italian which he commonly uses words and phrasing from in his English), he said 'I live close of Alps'. He's using the preposition 'a' which generally means 'to' unless it's referring to a location of origin in which case it best translates as 'of'. It's unlikely that somebody simply messing around with an online translator could replicate this common mistake unless he were specifically trying to make the mistake in the first place, which would presuppose knowledge of the intricacies of translation (meaning he had already learned both and was well-versed in them as well as their idiomatic differences -- unlikely).

What really threw me off was how he used 'Flugzeug' instead of 'airplane', which made no sense to me at all. The words are recent lexical entries and have no common phonetic or morphological root. They don't even come close to translating by cognative relationship, so why would he mistake one for the other? But this doesn't mean he's a sock puppet messing around with online translators, it simply means he is using translators. Given the two aforementioned examples (of which I'm sure there's more), this mistake can be indicative of nothing more than a mistake in itself; the phonological evidence in my first example seems to indicate that he's exposed to at least three foreign languages in his everyday life (which is why I guessed he was Swiss).