this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Memes

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A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.

An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.


Laittakaa meemejä tänne.

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[–] xusontha@ls.buckodr.ink 94 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you read read as read and not read, you have to re-read read as read so you can read read correctly so it can then make sense

[–] WoodenBleachers@lemmy.basedcount.com 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m so English I got it right first try 😎😎😎

[–] xusontha@ls.buckodr.ink 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never noticed, but is part of the joke with that Simpsons bit that that sentence is technically grammatically correct? Even unpossible is a real word, just outdated.

[–] Fifteen_Two@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well just learned something new about an episode I have watched probably 30 times! Thanks for that one.

[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, what's missing is the punctuation and his delivery but it could be "Me? Fail English? That's unpossible!"

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 77 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yeah, but at least you don’t have to learn whether a fridge is male or female.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 28 points 1 year ago (5 children)

How do gendered languages even deal with non-binaries?

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] leftzero@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Grammatical gender ≠ biological gender ≠ gender identity. 🤷‍♂️

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[–] Knusper@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago

Gendered languages can also have a neutral gender. For example, in German masculine/feminine/neutral 'the' is: der/die/das

But yeah, as others said, these don't have much to do with the gender identity. For example:

  • the person → die Person (feminine)
  • the girl → das Mädchen (~~objectifying women~~ neutral)
[–] RaptorMother@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Badly. Really badly..

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The trick is to carefully check underneath the ice dispenser.

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[–] itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People who speak English as their first language don't even get this stuff right

[–] Kalothar@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

I mean we kind of get it, but i would guess it would be no more than a native Italian speaker understanding how to use irregular verbs and all their tenses properly.

Source: am learning Italian, get wildly confused every now and then haha.

[–] saltnotsugar@lemm.ee 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Welcome to English!
“What are the rules?”
(Satanic laughing)

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

“Do you even follow the rules”

“No but if you break them in a way that doesn’t feel intentional we’ll laugh at you”

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[–] hstde@feddit.de 16 points 1 year ago

"Well take the rules of all the languages of the ones that conquered England and you get a pretty good idea. Oh and drop the grammatical gender, we don't do that anymore."

[–] leftzero@lemmy.ml 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

It's easier to understand when you look at English history and realize that English is essentially three different languages (old Saxon, Norse, and Norman) badly put together (a great example of this being meats having different names than the animals they come from, since the people farming said animals spoke Saxon, but the people eating them spoke Norman), with plenty of Latin, Greek, French, and other languages sprinkled on top, all written with a limited alphabet that's incapable of properly reflecting the pronunciation of those languages' words.

It doesn't help, though ,that at some point the English alphabet got simplified with things like ō becoming things like oo, without taking into account that things like oo were already being used to represent different sounds, or that at one point over a period of a few decades in the middle ages for some reason all English speakers seemed to decide to randomly switch around the pronunciation of all their vowels without changing how they wrote them (!?), or that, while all languages borrow words from others, unlike most others English for some reason doesn't bother to adapt their orthography or grammar (a French or Catalan speaker will have no problem understanding why façade is written like that and pronounced fassade instead of fackade, for instance, but I'm sure most English speakers won't be so lucky, especially if they write it facade... and then you've got things like fiancé, or the plural of radius being radii, and so on)... and you end up with the oos in book, blood, door, and boot all being pronounced differently... and, for some reason (probably the borrowing one), the one in brooch being pronounced a particular fifth different way... 🤷‍♂️

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[–] phlemmy@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

[–] Doesnotexist@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Police police police police. Who polices the police police? The police police police police police police.

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[–] aksdb@feddit.de 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That was thoroughly thought through.

[–] xX_fnord_Xx@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ADTJ@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought it was pretty thorough throughout

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[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

touch and though really show the fucking weirdness of English best.

I hate that its the world language. Where did Esperanto go. Its an actually made up language, composed or many ones, easy to learn.

Language sucks. The history of English, German, damn Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, are all so damn weird. And we literally live a few days by bike apart from each other.

Why do there need to be multiple languages really? Its such a barrier.

If everyone would just learn esperanto, we could focus on learning something actually useful, like signing (gesture language). Then we have two languages we can talk with about everyone in the world.

[–] Longpork_afficianado@lemmy.nz 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Everyone learning esperanto is a bigger ask than overhauling the spelling of what is already an internationally spoken language.

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[–] philycheezestake@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

English is the Taco Bell menu of languages

[–] icydefiance@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds accurate

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thou thought thoroughly. Though throughout tough times, through tenacity, 'tis taught.

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[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Taut and tout as well

[–] rurutheguru@lemmings.world 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They forgot about "throat"

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[–] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It gets dumber when you realize stonks is not only a real word, but it's used to describe military armament supplies like rockets and mortars

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[–] moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Just memorize them by rote. There's nothing actually connecting them via spelling; they're completely different words with completely different backgrounds and that's a thing you have to get used to in English.

Remember English is a creole of a bunch of different languages and that's why it is the way it is. It doesn't really have rules like that aside from some basic grammar.

[–] GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah it's like a mad concoction of Germanic, Brythonic, old French, and Norse influences. So many loan words!

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[–] S_H_K@lemmy.fmhy.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hahhaa tell that to the Shi poem in mandarin. 94 times the frikin shi word!

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[–] sajran@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Of course, this can be confusing, but wouldn't every single language have some confusing parts? As a non native English speaker who tried to learn other languages (without much success for now) I find English to be actually rather easy.

What would you propose as an easier alternative for a "universal" language?

[–] wieson@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Out of the languages I know, non have the nonsensical letter-sound pairings that English has. French has some combinations you wouldn't expect (like eaux= o) but they are consistent in every word they appear. Irish also has some wild letter combinations, but I know to little about that to know, if it's as confusing as English.

To illustrate, I would say you could write the words above a lot easier and understandably:

Taut, thou, thaut, thru, thruout, thorou, tuff

Grammatically, English is pretty easy. But the pronunciation is so inconsistent, that it is necessary to hold spelling bees in school. My language doesn't need spelling bees for example.

[–] Masimatutu@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Still inconsistent. Better would be toht, ðow, þoht, þruw, þruwawt, þərow, təf in American English.

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