The Quick Question Thread

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

I still want to know why, for all its infuriating illogical spellings and irregularities, English is one of the few (only?) major language which mostly has non-gendered nouns. I mean if everything in French was Le (or La) or everything in German was Das (neuter), would much be lost? I don’t mean that as a dig or to denigrate those languages, but for all the ways language has evolved, removing gender from nouns for which there is no reason for them to have a gender (which is most of them) would be much easier all round. I think there are some instances where the same word has a different meaning depending on the gender (not that I can think of any in my admittedly limited schoolboy French or German!) but it’s such an odd quirk of how languages have developed but one that didn’t happen in English. I appreciate there are some cases where a gender is ascribed to a noun that doesn’t have one such as referring to a ship as “she” but that’s essentially colloquial rather than a spelling/grammar matter. 
 

(Don’t anyone even think of making some comment about wokeness. This has nothing to do with that or how people define their gender, just a quasi-academic observation about language.)

[Naïve Old Fart 9,533]

I don't understand why an inanimate object should have male or female characteristics.

We were gender neutral before the rest of the world. That's us Brits: leading the way 

[Bespin 8,483]

I think this is more civilized to have two declinations to designate a man and a woman (ex. : Le vendeur, la vendeuse) than to have to add "woman" or "female" after eveything (e.g. the female seller), which makes English look like a language of pygmies.

 

Speaking of the german "DAS", in French we can also use a neutral demonstrative formulation when we don't want to specify the gender. "C'EST une personne agréable" (THIS is an enjoyable person), rather than "IL est une personne agréable" (HE'S an enjoyable person), ou "ELLE est une personne agréable" (SHE'S an enjoyable person").

 

Then in French some rare words are masculine in their singular form and feminine in plural (ex. : UN grand amour, DES amourS mortES; UN grand orgue, de grandES orgues).

 

That's a level of style unreachable for English I think!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,533]

3 hours ago, Bespin said:

I think this is more civilized to have two declinations to designate a man and a woman (ex. : Le vendeur, la vendeuse) than to have to add "woman" or "female" after eveything (e.g. the female seller), which makes English look like a language of pygmies.

[Bespin 8,483]

I want to dedicate the next song to my friend Richard!

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

4 hours ago, Bespin said:

Le vendeur, la vendeuse

 

Lx vendx is preferred now

[Bespin 8,483]

5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Lx vendx is preferred now

 

Wrong.

 

In fact, some very serious people (yeah right) already proposed new non-binary pronouns in French.

 

But, sorry... I don't speak Wokee!

[HunterTech 994]

What the hell do you think non-binary means?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

5 minutes ago, Bespin said:

In fact, some very serious people (yeah right) already proposed new non-binary pronouns in French.

 

It'll catch on just as quickly as Esperanto did

[HunterTech 994]

I'm definitely one to prefer terms that actually sound natural for the language (Latine instead Latinx for the Hispanic crowd)

[Bespin 8,483]

If you hesitate referring to me as a boy or a girl, use simply "God". 

 

Thanks.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, Bespin said:

If you hesitate referring to me as a boy or a girl, use simply "God". 

 

Thanks.

 

So inspiring! Live life as your true self!

[HunterTech 994]

Are these people not real to either of you?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Their vanity is very real

[HunterTech 994]

Maybe it's my autism speaking, but I kind of figured you'd just, I don't know: let them be? I really don't get why someone would be so caught up in poking at enbies if the end result is just more needless friction between groups.

[Bespin 8,483]

12 minutes ago, HunterTech said:

Are these people not real to either of you?

 

They are real but they want to change my language.

 

I say NO.

 

Anyway that's the usage which define a language... we'll see.. we'll see...

 

Many tries to reform French for sooooo many years now... spelling simplification (removing double letters, etc), simplified vowels (very popular in Paris), now non-binary pronouns... 

 

Learn (a bad) English if French is too hard for you hehe... 

[HunterTech 994]

Uh. Don't have non-binary friends, I guess? You can probably keep your language free of a mere extra few terms that way.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Anyone else old enough to remember when it was progressive to reject the notion of gender stereotypes, as opposed to treating them as set down in stone?

[HunterTech 994]

.....is that not what being non-binary is?

[Bespin 8,483]

I'm old enough to have a known a person who was a man, then a woman, went back to a man, now it wants to be a car!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, HunterTech said:

.....is that not what being non-binary is?

 

From my perspective, it's saying "I don't fit the stereotypical idea of [insert gender], therefore I must be not that gender."  as opposed to "I don't fit the stereotypical idea of [insert gender], but that's ok, there's no one right way to be a [insert gender], this is my way."

 

The former reifies stereotypes by treating them as rigidly true, the latter recognizes biological truth while embracing freedom of expression.  Not trying to be a troll here, honest.

[HunterTech 994]

I wouldn't think it's that simple, since gender dysphoria is a very complicated subject to tackle. It's as much about the features of one's body as it is particular behavioral traits, and let's just say beauty standards are hellish enough already on cisgender folk to where it can mess with their brains a lot.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

On 05/10/2022 at 4:39 PM, Disco Stu said:

In English, since these nouns are the general concepts of life and death, we'd say "Dark is life, is death" with no articles.

In short: The rule of general concepts not requiring an article is a case by case matter in German.

 

Two more examples:

I love nature./Nature is beautiful. = Ich liebe die Natur./Die Natur ist wundervoll.

I hate war./War is terrible. = Ich hasse Krieg./Krieg ist schrecklich.

 

The latter example works like in English, however, only if you refer to war in general.

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

Yeah I knew I'd regret my post... sorry to anyone who thought I was denigrating anyone else's language, it's always just been one of those sources of fascination for me. I can totally see how have masculine and feminine versions of certain words can be useful (which we do obviously have in English for plenty of things) but that isn't really the majority of things. I guess when you're English trying to learn French, German, Spanish etc. at school, the gender thing is a baffling additional thing to try and learn. I suppose a follow up question (and I will likely regret this too... but here goes) is whether native speakers in those languages with genders ever get them confused or mixed up or forget. I mean, as I settle into middle age (a work in progress for a good 30 years now), I find myself forgetting words now and again (although my recall is pretty decent) but I can't imagine then trying to remember if that word was masculine or feminine. I mean, I suppose you just remember it as part of the word since it's an essential part of the understanding (and being a natural part of your native language, something you just learn without thinking about it) but I can imagine circumstances must arise where you (finally) remember the word for some arcane object but can't recall the gender. Or maybe you just do?! Time to sleep, my brain hurts.

 

Recommendation of the day: Ennio. The Morricone documentary. Watch it. It's superb. I've not actually finished it yet as I've not quite had time to watch it in one go, but so far it's absolutely terrific. A fascinating insight into a great composer and artist. Don't let the fact that it has Hans (and Bruce Springsteen... no, I don't know why either) in it put you off (although I gotta say, so far, his comments have been actually more interesting than JW's brief contribution, nice though it is to hear him talking about one of the few film composers who is genuinely one of his peers).

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

16 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

but it’s such an odd quirk of how languages have developed but one that didn’t happen in English.

 

I may be wrong, but isn't it rather that English, having common roots with German & Co, had it and simply lost it over the years, exceptions like actor/actress being the last remnants of it? Sort of like the distinction of addressing someone in the 2nd or 3rd person got lost with "thou" - another case where English speaking people probably can't even imagine the trouble German (and other) speakers can have just figuring out how to use their own language correctly in a specific context without offending someone (and in this case, it's not the much lamented modern kind of being offended, but the very traditional, conservative, righteous kind of being offended by someone not respecting your superior standing in society by addressing you with too familiar grammar).

 

 

45 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I suppose you just remember it as part of the word since it's an essential part of the understanding (and being a natural part of your native language, something you just learn without thinking about it) but I can imagine circumstances must arise where you (finally) remember the word for some arcane object but can't recall the gender.

 

It's mostly just part the vocabulary I guess - and when you're fluent in German, the correct gender for a specific noun just seems natural based on whatever hidden rules you've internalised together with the vocabulary. Though there are cases where people just can't agree on what the "correct" gender is, and some everyday nouns like Teller (plate, dish) and Joghurt can have any of the three available genders depending on the dialect - and even people of the same dialogue may not always agree on one.

[Bespin 8,483]

@Tom GuernseyNo we don't forget the gender of nouns... but some native French speakers often use the wrong gender for words. We hear that alot in Québec, people who will say "une avion" instead of "un avion" (a plane). "Une autobus", instead of "un autobus" (a bus). It's seems related to the fact that we do pronounce the "n" in French, so it confuse some people (we say Un "n"avion).

 

Every culture has its illiterates... And French is indeed very hard to learn even if it's your native language.

 

And well, the gender of nouns are totally illogical in French when you think about it, but as you learn a new noun... it just come with a gender, that's as simple as this.

 

For us it's just natural.

 

And well, few, very fews words don't have the same meaning if we use it with the masculine or feminine gender... very few.

 

One thing that is funny, is the difference of gender in some expressions of different language.

 

In French we say "la mère patrie" (literally the motherland), in german, it's "fatherland". I wonder how they say this in Wokee language!

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

7 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I may be wrong, but isn't it rather that English, having common roots with German & Co, had it and simply lost it over the years, exceptions like actor/actress being the last remnants of it? Sort of like the distinction of addressing someone in the 2nd or 3rd person got lost with "thou" - another case where English speaking people probably can't even imagine the trouble German (and other) speakers can have just figuring out how to use their own language correctly in a specific context without offending someone (and in this case, it's not the much lamented modern kind of being offended, but the very traditional, conservative, righteous kind of being offended by someone not respecting your superior standing in society by addressing you with too familiar grammar).

 

You may well by right, I honestly have no idea, but as you say, given how languages developed across Europe, it seems more likely that English lost that aspect than others acquiring it. I suppose applying a gender to nouns must be due to the fact that the original frame of reference would have been male and female animals, so somehow this distinction got applied to everything but then, as you say, lost with English. Makes me wonder how much overlap there is between languages and what gender ended up being applied to which noun. Or how words co-opted from other languages are assigned their gender or if it's just one of those things that randomly develops (why is weekend masculine in French... who knows?!). We should definitely bring back "thou"... erm, though.

 

8 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

It's mostly just part the vocabulary I guess - and when you're fluent in German, the correct gender for a specific noun just seems natural based on whatever hidden rules you've internalised together with the vocabulary. Though there are cases where people just can't agree on what the "correct" gender is, and some everyday nouns like Teller (plate, dish) and Joghurt can have any of the three available genders depending on the dialect - and even people of the same dialogue may not always agree on one.

I guess people get gender wrong in the same way people get spelling wrong, but I suppose your brain just learns the gender of common words without you thinking about it consciously. I guess it must be a challenge where the gender of a word in your language is different in another language?!

 

7 hours ago, Bespin said:

@Tom GuernseyNo we don't forget the gender of nouns... but some native French speakers often use the wrong gender for words. We hear that alot in Québec, people who will say "une avion" instead of "un avion" (a plane). "Une autobus", instead of "un autobus" (a bus). It's seems related to the fact that we do pronounce the "n" in French, so it confuse some people (we say Un "n"avion).

 

Every culture has its illiterates... And French is indeed very hard to learn even if it's your native language.

 

And well, the gender of nouns are totally illogical in French when you think about it, but as you learn a new noun... it just come with a gender, that's as simple as this.

 

For us it's just natural.

 

And well, few, very fews words don't have the same meaning if we use it with the masculine or feminine gender... very few.

 

One thing that is funny, is the difference of gender in some expressions of different language.

 

In French we say "la mère patrie" (literally the motherland), in german, it's "fatherland". I wonder how they say this in Wokee language!

Thanks, that's interesting, and I guess roughly what I assumed was the case, it's just a natural part of the language learning process, but even more interesting that sometimes the gender is randomly changed! I think you'll find it's the Parentland ;-) However, I'd not thought of that one before - as I say, who decides this stuff?!

[Brundlefly 2,385]

2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I guess people get gender wrong in the same way people get spelling wrong, but I suppose your brain just learns the gender of common words without you thinking about it consciously. I guess it must be a challenge where the gender of a word in your language is different in another language?!

It is, having different articles for nouns in your native language doesn't make it easier to learn another language with several articles. Luckily, French which I learned at school only has two and not three of them.

 

Sometimes, there is even confusion among Germans about the correct article. Many people here think that "das Kommentar" is correct, but it actually is "der Kommentar" (meaning: commentary/remark). This misunderstanding originates from the frequently used saying "Kein Kommentar" (meaning: no comment): The word "kein" in this form could refer to something male or neutral, so you can incorrectly deduce from this saying that "Kommentar" is neutral.

 

We even have some terms that change their meaning if you change their article:

das Schild = (traffic) sign

der Schild = shield

[GerateWohl 4,370]

21 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

Sometimes, there is even confusion among Germans about the correct article. Many people here think that "das Kommentar" is correct, but it actually is "der Kommentar" (meaning: commentary/remark). This misunderstanding originates from the frequently used saying "Kein Kommentar" (meaning: no comment): The word "kein" in this form could refer to something male or neutral, so you can incorrectly deduce from this saying that "Kommentar" is neutral.

I never met anyone with that issue.

 

I know, depending on region it is in question if you say "der Apfelmus", "das Apfelmus" or "die Apfelmus". But that's more or less it.

 

Spelling is a completely different issue as language is in the first place spoken medium and writing is just an abstracted artificial adaptation of it.

 

Almost unrelated topic, there are some recent adaptations from the english language in German, that I really dislike. It has become quite common in some media to say: "Ich erinnere dieses Ereignis." That is really awful language. It is adapted from the english "I remember this event". In english that is fine and correct. But in correct German you should say "Ich erinnere mich an dieses Ereignis."

 

[Bespin 8,483]

@BrundleflyAh we have more than just 2 articles in french hehe.

• > Les articles indéfinis : un, une, des.
• > Les articles partitifs : du, de la, de l', des.
• > Les articles définis : le, la, l', les et les articles définis contractés : du, des.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

3 hours ago, Bespin said:

@BrundleflyAh we have more than just 2 articles in french hehe.

• > Les articles indéfinis : un, une, des.
• > Les articles partitifs : du, de la, de l', des.
• > Les articles définis : le, la, l', les et les articles définis contractés : du, des.

The red ones are all non-existent in English and in German!

 

However, we have the funniest four cases-gender-chart:

Nominativ:   der/die/das - ein/eine/ein

Genitiv:        des/der/des - eines/einer/eines

Dativ:           dem/der/dem - einem/einer/einem

Akkusativ:   den/die/das - einen/eine/ein

 

I'm happy that I don't need to learn that overcomplicated shit.

 

The English version is quite boring in comparison:

subject:               the/the/the - a/a/a

indirect object:   the/the/the - a/a/a

direkt object:      the/the/the - a/a/a

genitiv not available for articles

[Bespin 8,483]

A a a!

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

Some really interesting responses so thank you. Also good to know that it’s not just us linguistically incompetent English speakers who get gender wrong in other languages. But we do try!

[Bespin 8,483]

In 1994, Charles Aznavour (born in Paris from immigrant parents who didn't speak french) wrote a great song about a man who struggles to write a love letter to his lover, using some difficulties of the French language and famous homonyms. The man ends up calling his girlfriend on the phone!

 

By example, Aznavour wrote « Je n'ai foi qu'en toi. Comment écrire foi privé d'un dictionnaire? Il y a tant de fois dans le vocabulaire! » (I have only "faith" in you. How to write "foi" without a dictionnary?  There's so many "times" in the vocabulary!).

 

Indeed, "la foi" means faith, "le foie" means "liver" and "une fois" means "once" ("deux fois", means twice, etc)

 

Je t'aime A.I.M.E.

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

@Marian Schedenig

saw this today

 

[Bespin 8,483]

The attraction for English is undeniably worldwide due to the apparent (I say apparent) ease of use.

 

Writing or speaking bad English has less consequences than speaking bad French.

[karelm 2,913]

What are your thought of Ready Player One?  At first, I thought this was a really weak film but have come to enjoy it very much.  A smart villain, good story, exciting music, great nostalgia, loads of easter eggs.  This is a film where I re-evaluated my initial impressions and have come to enjoy it.  

[Disco Stu 15,495]

My appreciation for the score has grown a lot with time, but I watched the movie again earlier this year and still did not like it at all. 

[karelm 2,913]

What do you think of 2010: The Year We Make Contact?  Though clearly not as transcendent as Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001, it has a fine cast, director (Peter Hyams other films include Capricorn One, Outland (oh how much better 2010 would have been had it been scored by Goldsmith!), End of Days, etc.), script, and continues the enigmatic story justly. What say you?

[Stark 316]

2 hours ago, karelm said:

What do you think of 2010: The Year We Make Contact?  Though clearly not as transcendent as Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001, it has a fine cast, director (Peter Hyams other films include Capricorn One, Outland (oh how much better 2010 would have been had it been scored by Goldsmith!), End of Days, etc.), script, and continues the enigmatic story justly. What say you?

2010’s score is great!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,533]

12 hours ago, Stark said:

2010’s score is great!

Indeed. It's my second favourite score of 1984.

[bollemanneke 3,348]

Question about ripping audio CDs.

 

I’m trying to rip my Harry Potter audiobooks (downloads have inferior quality). Every time I try this, the drive starts crashing towards the end of the discs. The discs play perfectly fine and are not damaged at all.

 

So far I’ve tried Express Rip and Cdex. I’ve tried three different drives and also slowing down their speed because sometimes I can hear the speed decreasing as the ripping continues and the glitching begins (after the laser spends some time going back and forth like mad).

 

Nothing works. Every single time, the final tracks sound like a really badly damaged CD. What’s going on? Not a single music CD I have has this problem.

 

[karelm 2,913]

I've come to realize that JW has probably scored more planet blow ups than any other composer ever.  What are all the times he's scored a planet/moon/artificial planet's destruction?  Top of my head there are two in ANH, Krypton, ROTJ deathstar 2, a few from star killer base, am I missing any?  

[Jay 37,364]

How many planets did Unicron eat in the Transformers movie? 

[Holko 9,526]

9 hours ago, Holko said:

I [...] watched How the West Was Won - a big eh. [...] The only aspect that manages to capture, live up to, hell almost even surpass its ambitions of being a grand mythic generation-spanning story of all the peoples of the country is the score, holy shit the score. Listened to the expansion too afterwards and I adore most of it. Are there any chances of a reexpansion from one of our label friends, or is it the most comprehensive release possible from the best source possible? The sound is overall insanely impressive for its now 60 years of age (compare the opening brass notes to scores recorded in the 70s!) but the choir for example is often lower quality.

 

[Jay 37,364]

Well the 2-CD edition released by Rhino in 1997 would be the one to get for now

Whether or not the specialty labels would/could tackle it for improved sound quality and/or additional music, I have no idea

[Holko 9,526]

I'm very glad it's available to buy on Presto and stream on Tidal, Rhino's good about not burying its expansions.

[Holko 9,526]

I guess I could ask roughly the same about Taxi Driver?

[Bespin 8,483]

23 minutes ago, Holko said:

I guess I could ask roughly the same about Taxi Driver?

 

For Taxi Driver, the release to get is the Arista one from 1998 (remastered from the original master tapes). As you perhaps knows, Herrmann died very shortly after the last recording session of Taxi Driver. For the album that was released at the time, they asked an arranger, Dave Blume, to re-record half of the tracks (they were all featured on the B-side of the LP if I remember well). The problem is these arrangements were made a bit according to the flavour of the day in 1976... Oh, they were far to be bad, but they never really sounded like "Herrmann"...

 

The Arista release features all the score conducted by Bernard Herrmann, and as a BONUS, two alternates and the tracks arranged and conducted by David Blume for the OST.

 

Bernard Herrmann – Taxi Driver (Original Soundtrack Recording) (1998, CD) - Discogs

[Holko 9,526]

Ah, nice, that's the one streaming. Although it doesn't have the reversed overlay in the final track, the last thing he ever recorded I think.