So apparently the term "patch" in software development comes from punched paper tape.
"Small corrections to the programmed sequence could be done by patching over portions of the paper tape and re-punching the holes in that section."
Many people dread small talk (not us, now tell us about your vacation plans). Human connectivity researcher Georgie Nightingall says it can be a way of building deeper connection, trust and curiosity. “You can actually realize that you do want to know more rather than having that sense of like, I’m just asking for the sake of asking,” she told Vox. Here are some tips on how to improve your small talk abilities. We want to know, how do you feel about the art of chitchat?
#Language #Conversation #Relationships #Lifestyle #SmallTalk
Bonus panel here: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/why-6
#smbc #hiveworks #comics #webcomics #language
There are always new surprises when you publish your comic under Creative Commons:
Wow, English-only people (or Western languages, for that matter) are so naïve. In case you didn't know, the lang attribute is very important in East Asian languages.
https://lobste.rs/s/9ck6y9/what_programming_language_is_this_code#c_0zuhqs
What I was talking about a few months ago - now found in the book that was waiting in my "to read"-pile
“In 1938, Boas made an acute observation about the role of grammar in language. He wrote that, in addition to determining the relationship between the words in a sentence, ‘grammar performs another important function. It determines those aspects of each experience that must be expressed.’ And he went on to explain that such obligatory aspects vary greatly between languages. Boas’s observation was rather inconspicuously placed in a little section about ‘grammar’ within a chapter entitled ‘Language’ within an introduction to General Anthropology, and its significance does not seem to have been fully appreciated until two decades later, when the Russian-American linguist Roman Jakobson encapsulated Boas’s insight into a pithy maxim: ‘Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.’ The crucial differences between languages, in other words, are not in what each language allows its speakers to express – for in theory any language could express anything – but in what information each language obliges it speakers to express.
Jakobson gives the following example. If I say in English ‘I spent yesterday evening with a neighbour’, you may well wonder whether my companion was male or female, but I have the right to tell you politely that it’s none of your business. But if we are speaking French or German or Russian, I don’t have the privilege to equivocate, because I am obliged by the language to choose between voisin or voisine, Nachbar or Nachbarin, sosed or sosedka. So French, German, and Russian would compel me to inform you about the sex of my companion whether or not I felt it was your business. This does not mean, of course, that English speakers are oblivious to the differences between evenings spent with male or female neighbours. Nor does it mean that English speakers cannot express the distinction should they want to. It only means that English speakers are not obliged to specify the sex each time the neighbour is mentioned, while speakers of some languages are.
On the other hand, English does oblige you to specify certain bits of information that can be left to the context in some other languages. If I want to tell you in English about a dinner with my neighbour, I may not have to tell you the neighbour’s sex, but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining, and so on. Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action each time they use a verb, because the same verbal form can be used for past or present or future actions. Again, this does not mean that Chinese speakers are unable to express the time of the action if they think it is particularly relevant. But as opposed to English speakers, they are not obliged to do so every time.
Neither Boas nor Jakobson was highlighting such grammatical differences in relation to the influence of language on the mind. Boas was concerned primarily with the role that grammar plays in language, and Jakobson was dealing with the challenges that such differences pose for translation. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the Boas–Jakobson principle is the key to unlocking the actual effects of a particular language on thought. If different languages influence their speakers’ minds in varying ways, this is not because of what each language allows people to think but rather because of the kinds of information each language habitually obliges people to think about. When a language forces its speakers to pay attention to certain aspects of the world each time they open their mouths or prick up their ears, such habits of speech can eventually settle into habits of mind with consequences for memory, or perception, or associations, or even practical skills.”
Excerpt From "Through the Language Glass" by Guy Deutscher
What if colour adjectives were used with people to describe not race or skin, but tea preference? 
Any suggestions for a high level language which is most effective?
I know that it's kind of vague question but still. Something capable of easy and quick development but fast ib startup and operating.
#question #programming #language
one thing I liked about chinese is that the pronunciation of a character remains constant unlike English
"As climate gets weird, so does language," writes Arno Kopecky for The Walrus. He writes about terms like "polar vortex" "firenado," and "thundersnow."
"New ones appear every season. That in itself signals something that’s become unusual: attention to the natural world," he writes. "But there’s a deeper meaning too. For all its diversity, this new climate vocabulary evokes a common set of attributes: acceleration, intensity, violence. A lurch to extremes."
#Language #Linguistics #Climate #ClimateChange #Environment #Weather #ClimateCrisis
Where Portuguese is spoken in the world:
Brazil;
Portugal;
Angola;
Mozambique;
Guinea-Bissau;
East Timor (Timor-Leste);
Equatorial Guinea;
Cape Verde (Cabo Verde);
São Tomé and Príncipe.
Notice the words "progressives" continue to use as insults:
insane
crazy
lame
fat
Notice how they have little to do with choice and a lot to do with things people *are* and have little choice about?
Examine the ableism and other systemic oppressions embedded in your language and thought processes.
Why isn't it a greater insult to say:
mendacious
lying
thieving
stealing
cheating
chiseling
treasonous
homicidal
genocidal
fascist?
#lispyGopherClimate #lisp #programming #podcast #live Wednesday 0UTC https://archives.anonradio.net/202503050000_screwtape.mp3
#climateCrisis #haiku and #risk #inequality #essay by @kentpitman
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2013/08/lien-times-for-startups.html
#libre #archive update from @hairylarry https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry/114106383066762290
https://www.european-lisp-symposium.org/2025/index.html
#ELS2025 submissions extended to Sunday. #LaTeX #ACM #primer / past #proceedings
Notes from my first #language #parser #commonLisp #mcclim #chess
If there are guests, there are guests(?)
All known human languages display a surprising pattern: the most frequent word in a #language is twice as frequent as the second most frequent, three times as frequent as the third, and so on.
The same pattern is universally found across human languages bit also occurs in #whale song.
This complex signaling system, like human language, is culturally learned by each individual from others.
#biology
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-whalesong-patterns-universal-law-human.html
If you post something in a different language, say French & your usual language is English
Then you can change the post language to match what you post
On Tusky there's a language indicator at the top, click that & you can change the post language, it may be in a different place on other apps
This means other readers who's own post language doesn't match your post get a 'translate' option when reading it
餅㵢
身㛪辰𤽸分㛪𧷺，
𠤩浽𠀧沉買渃𡽫。
硍湼默油𢬣几揑，
𦓡㛪刎𡨹𬌓𢚸𣘈。
Bánh Trôi
Thân em thời trắng phận em tròn,
Bảy nổi ba chìm mấy nước non.
Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn,
Nhưng em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son.
Bánh Trôi (Floating Cake)
My body is white; my fate, softly rounded,
rising and sinking like mountains in streams.
Whatever way hands may shape me,
at center my heart is red and true.
English translation was copied from: https://www.nomfoundation.org/nom-project/Ho-Xuan-Huong/Ho-Xuan-Huong-of-poems/8-The%20Floating%20Cake?uiLang=en
餅㵢（一種越南甜點，形似湯圓）
我身潔白而圓潤，
七沉三浮歷山川。
柔軟堅實任人捏，
我心依舊赤誠存。
漢語譯文整合自Copilot、DeepSeek、Kimi的翻譯結果。
#vietnamese #Vietnam #ViệtNam #Tiếngviệt #poem #poems #poetry #quote #quotes #quoteposts #quoteoftheday #quotepost #culture #writing #handwriting #english #englishtranslation #中文 #翻譯 #㗂越 #越南 #越南语 #literature #language #languages #languagelearning
Methodical banality
Like today’s large language models, 16th-century humanists had techniques to automate writing – to the detriment of novelty
by Hannah Katznelson
Gargantua at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=gargantua&submit_search=Search
Erasmus at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/3026
Marked decline in semicolons in English books, study suggests
Usage of punctuation down almost half in two decades as further research finds 67% of British students rarely use it
BY Amelia Hill
More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon
As a non-native English speaker from a not-so-popular language group, learning to read even casual science stuff was an uphill battle. First I had to learn English to a reasonable level. Then I realized that English-Romanian dictionaries hadn’t really kept up with science.
I eventually managed to get my hands on a fancy English-only dictionary (yes, a printed one, this was a while ago), but then I ran into another problem: I'd start from one definition, only to find another unfamiliar word in the explanation, then another one in that definition and so on, until I forgot where I had started. And even when I did understand a concept, I'd often be stuck with the English word and with a lot of frustration about trying to convey that in my own language.
Some of those struggles are outdated now. At least you no longer have to deal with a giant dictionary pressing into your ribs if you’re reading lying down. But the language gap in science communication still exists.
That’s why I’m launching a community project: The brain across languages.
We’re inviting students who speak more than one language to help us translate Neurofrontiers content into as many languages as possible.
If you’re interested (or know someone who might be), details here: https://neurofrontiers.blog/the-brain-across-languages/
Boosts are very much appreciated!
#neuroscience #SciComm #scienceOutreach #science #language #multilingual
today I learned the difference between 是 and 很. at first it was so confusing but then I watched a video on bilibili where a teacher explained what's the difference between two of those :D
I'm curious to know how many people on the Fediverse are multilingual compared to non-multilingual.
How many languages are you fluent in (that is, you can either read, speak, and/or write it to get by in most situations)? Feel free to boost this to increase the sample size, and feel free to comment which languages you're fluent in!
![Avatar for imdat celeste :v_tg: :v_nb: :v_genderfluid: [witchzard]](/proxy/identity_icon/274064813870274322/ad687999ad.png){kind=icon}
[witchzard]
alternate
