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This isn't really humor but it's a fun thought experiment I've been playing with, that I thought this community may enjoy.

Basically, I found a game that asks you to connect 2 random words together using only their synonyms. With all the multiple meanings that words have, it's pretty fun and can be surprising and satisfying. It's got me wondering if it's truly possible to get from any English word to any other English word within 8 (or a different number of) degrees.

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts or a way they would approach this. Maybe I should post it in r/math instead?

The game for those interested (or in case I butchered this explanation): synonymcircuit.com

Pues bueno, he vido a casa y me he comierto dos bollos de crema. Por haber hacido esto, mi madre me ha decido que soy un gordo glotón y me veré posido en el infierno por gula si no me he deshacido de mis pecados pronto. Tras haber llegarto al polideportivo, hube de haber nadarto unos 20 largos olímpicos en la piscina cuyos cimientos fueron construyertos* hace casi cuatro décadas.

So, I came home and I ate two crème buns. For having done this, my mother has told me I'm a fat glutton and I'll see myself put in hell for gluttony if I haven't got rid off my sins soon. After having arrived to the sports center, I must have swum 20 Olympic lengths in the pool whose foundation was built almost four decades ago.

*«construídos» is an pluralized adjetive whose singular form is used as a participle.

Hello. I am a Japanese student who majors in syntax. Consider the example below.

(1) my loved mother

I think that the expression "my loved mother" denotes "my mother, whom I love". If so, it might be argued that "my" has a dual theta role: it is both the Agent of the verb "love" and the Possessor of the noun "mother". Of course, I know that there are many ways to claim that this doesn't count as an exception to the theta-criterion, but isn't it at least the case that there are two theta roles in (1) and both are interpreted as 1SG (even if they aren't assigned to the "same" syntactic element)? Dear (or, "my loved") native speakers of English, please teach me whether my interpretation of (1) given above is correct.

Was reading the book Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lioni to my 4yo daughter, and noticed something that made me run a little experiment with her classmates. They all seem to consistently associate one of the two big shapes with papa and one with mama (the small one is little blue/yellow).

Can you guys let me know what you think? I won't reveal what the kids said until after the poll is closed, in case it biases you.

who is papa blue and who is mama blue?

who is papa yellow and who is mama yellow?

View Poll

“The Irish language could be easily revived, if the grammer were simplified, and the phonetic richness of the vocabulary protected.”

Everyone knows the real language is the phonetic inventory. Morphosyntax? Semantics? Rubbish! Amaidí chainte!

Bonus points for the suspicions directed towards Big Language Revitalization. Nothing gets past this one.

Over my past week of internet usage, I've encountered a number of people using the word "aesthetic" to mean "aesthetically pleasing" - for example, "these photos are so cute and aesthetic" - only for the comments to complain about how that isn't proper usage. Of course, the very idea that they get to decide what words mean for people is ludicrous, but it became even MORE so when I decided to check the Oxford English dictionary for the earliest attestation of 'aesthetic' as 'aesthetically pleasing' - it was 1833!!!!! It's been attested in English for one hundred and ninety one years!!!

My only explanation for why people hate it is that this usage is associated with young white women, whose speech patterns are often disliked by a culture's elites because of misogyny, but I could be off here. What's y'all's take on this?

I got some interesting answers asking this from non-Finnish speakers, so what sounds do you hear in this word? Where do you hear the stress as placed? And what is your native language? (If you can guess from the spelling, go with what you hear regardless of what you think it should be)

https://forvo.com/word/y%C3%B6py%C3%A4/#fi

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https://preview.redd.it/mkln3vde2i0d1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc76fa784c3b81768d96b69803e0326765972a0b