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nnozomiThis got quite long...
Random language questions:
・I found myself saying "a ways to go" elsewhere, and started wondering if that was a regionalism. Do other people use this phrase, and if so where is your English from?
・For metaphorical dizziness, people in China (I'm told) say 晕了, I'm dizzy. People in Taiwan say 昏倒, I'm out cold. People in Japan say 目が回っている, my eyes are spinning. What do other languages/dialects say?
Random in general:
・Today, as it happened, we hit 200 days' straight posting at the guardian_learning comm, and I'm feeling pleased with myself and everyone else there.
・I tried my hand at tzatziki the other day, on account of someone gave Y way too many cucumbers, and it turned out very well. Very easy, except that the grating is a pain. Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, grated garlic, chopped dill, chopped mint, lemon juice, olive oil, perfect summer snack/light meal.
・For the first time I can remember, my three favorite baseball teams (the Swallows, the Carp and the Tigers) are all in the top half of their (six-team) league. Let's see if they make it to the end.
・I remembered the city-guessing site; it's very restful, you just drift along a street in a random city and observe until a useful hint comes up.
・Still very slowly reading Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, in the interstices of other things, I might be finished by autumn? “The pile of books was impossible to read in my lifetime and I involuntarily took a liking to the owner of the room. Anyone who liked books couldn't be a bad person.” I am growing increasingly fond of Kim Dokja himself, but otherwise I think my favorite character is Han Sooyoung, who unquestionably has all the best lines (and knows from transformative works).
Rereading a bunch of YA novels which are all about/by young second-generation American women of color, and involve poetry or near offer. Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong, a short, gorgeous verse novel about high school sophomore Emily Wu and her relationships with her parents, her art, her two best friends, a boy who turns out not to be all he’s cracked up to be and another who turns out to be a good friend, set in suburban Virginia with a quasi-epilogue section in Taipei.
One thing these brought to mind was that there are few if any corresponding books in Japan—YA/MG novels about growing up as a minority (Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Ainu, burakumin, even Okinawan). The total number of YA/MG books is a lot smaller (even including translations), but more than that it's still...less of an openly discussed issue? I can think of a few short stories by Sagisawa Megumu which focus on growing up Korean-Japanese, but that’s about it. (There are a number of adult novels on the topic by Korean-Japanese and a few Japanese writers, but not in the same sense. I do remember one in which the protagonist discovered in her teens that her family was Korean and went to great lengths to conceal it, bizarre to me after interacting mostly with the out-and-proud products of Korean schools in Japan). (For the record, Japan does have a non-zero number of novels about growing up LGBT, thanks cultural permeation of manga etc.) People in other non-English-language countries, what’s the story where you are?
Photos: also way too many, they seemed to pile up all of a sudden. Notably, the two white-striped morning-glories are growing on the same plant (on my veranda), just taken at different times and in different weather.
Be safe and well.
Random language questions:
・I found myself saying "a ways to go" elsewhere, and started wondering if that was a regionalism. Do other people use this phrase, and if so where is your English from?
・For metaphorical dizziness, people in China (I'm told) say 晕了, I'm dizzy. People in Taiwan say 昏倒, I'm out cold. People in Japan say 目が回っている, my eyes are spinning. What do other languages/dialects say?
Random in general:
・Today, as it happened, we hit 200 days' straight posting at the guardian_learning comm, and I'm feeling pleased with myself and everyone else there.
・I tried my hand at tzatziki the other day, on account of someone gave Y way too many cucumbers, and it turned out very well. Very easy, except that the grating is a pain. Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, grated garlic, chopped dill, chopped mint, lemon juice, olive oil, perfect summer snack/light meal.
・For the first time I can remember, my three favorite baseball teams (the Swallows, the Carp and the Tigers) are all in the top half of their (six-team) league. Let's see if they make it to the end.
・I remembered the city-guessing site; it's very restful, you just drift along a street in a random city and observe until a useful hint comes up.
・Still very slowly reading Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, in the interstices of other things, I might be finished by autumn? “The pile of books was impossible to read in my lifetime and I involuntarily took a liking to the owner of the room. Anyone who liked books couldn't be a bad person.” I am growing increasingly fond of Kim Dokja himself, but otherwise I think my favorite character is Han Sooyoung, who unquestionably has all the best lines (and knows from transformative works).
Rereading a bunch of YA novels which are all about/by young second-generation American women of color, and involve poetry or near offer. Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong, a short, gorgeous verse novel about high school sophomore Emily Wu and her relationships with her parents, her art, her two best friends, a boy who turns out not to be all he’s cracked up to be and another who turns out to be a good friend, set in suburban Virginia with a quasi-epilogue section in Taipei.
Alex Huang's painting: / A grove of bamboo, / spring-green leaves / slender and shapely / as so many small fish / swimming among stalks / thrusting up toward sky / in a pattern of vertical lines / fluid and rhythmic as music, / the supple columns burnished / a rich purple-black, / the slimmer shafts glowing / grass green or cider gold, / wood gleaming / as if polished flute-smooth.Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier, a long, lavish, slightly experimental novel about Dimple Lala and the summer before her senior year, with kind parents, a quirky cousin, a best friend who seems to want her whole identity, potential boyfriend included, and a camera that gives her life.
Their hair mingled when they hugged. It was an embrace that excluded everyone, and I came back to myself, and somehow I'd gone into the sad part of the punch. What a trip simply crossing the room had been: from insecurity to hope to fear, to curious jubilation, and now to a strange strain of melancholy. These seemed to be the ingredients of the fish tank drink, not so much arrack and water, sugar and citrus, spice.The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, a verse novel about strong, silent Xiomara, her quiet twin brother, their gentle best friend, their fiercely religious and demanding mother, the sweet boy she falls for, the poetry group at school that helps her find her voice, a surprisingly understanding priest and so on.
I wanted to tell her that if Aman were a poem / he'd be written slumped across the page / sharp lines, and a witty punch line / written on a bodega brown paper bag.Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero，the diary (and occasional poems) of high school senior Gabi Hernandez, self-proclaimed gorda; her family and friends provide a soap-opera-worthy list of crises, but it’s all believable somehow, sometimes painful and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.
Can you help the way you feel? If so, good for you but I kind of like the way I feel. Though I would never admit it because you would say something like "I thought fat girls were different." And I would say "Fat girls are different."All recommended one way or another.
One thing these brought to mind was that there are few if any corresponding books in Japan—YA/MG novels about growing up as a minority (Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Ainu, burakumin, even Okinawan). The total number of YA/MG books is a lot smaller (even including translations), but more than that it's still...less of an openly discussed issue? I can think of a few short stories by Sagisawa Megumu which focus on growing up Korean-Japanese, but that’s about it. (There are a number of adult novels on the topic by Korean-Japanese and a few Japanese writers, but not in the same sense. I do remember one in which the protagonist discovered in her teens that her family was Korean and went to great lengths to conceal it, bizarre to me after interacting mostly with the out-and-proud products of Korean schools in Japan). (For the record, Japan does have a non-zero number of novels about growing up LGBT, thanks cultural permeation of manga etc.) People in other non-English-language countries, what’s the story where you are?
Photos: also way too many, they seemed to pile up all of a sudden. Notably, the two white-striped morning-glories are growing on the same plant (on my veranda), just taken at different times and in different weather.
Be safe and well.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 02:13 pm (UTC)I say this occasionally, and I've always vaguely wondered if it was a regionalism too. I went and checked the OED just now, so... you get a long answer. XD
As far as I can tell, the original usage of "ways" to mean "distance" required an adjective, as in "a little ways," "a great ways," etc. There are examples like this in the OED starting from the later 1500s (e.g. from 1588 "They ... came vnto the gates of the cittie, after they had gon a good wayes in the suburbs"), continuing on to later examples quoted from authors like Henry Fielding ("that is a great Ways off yet") and Lord Byron ("Falmouth ... is no great ways from the sea"). However, the definition for this usage has a note that says "Now colloquial (chiefly North American)," and I think all the OED examples from the late 19th century onward are American.
There's also a separate entry for "a ways" with no adjective, as in your example ("a ways to go"), which says "colloquial (originally U.S., chiefly North American)." The earliest example given is from 1858. So I guess the version with no adjective is more recent, and the version with an adjective originated in England and is older, but has now become regional to North America as well.
There's also an entry for "way," singular, as used with the same meaning, as in "a long way off," "a way to go," etc. The note for that one indicates that, as with "ways," the usage with an adjective ("a long way to go") came first, and uses without an adjective ("a way to go") came later. The entry has examples as far back as 1175 in early Middle English (I thought it was Old English until I looked up the source; it's completely unreadable to me! "Mihhtenn þeȝȝ fullwel Binnenn þrittene daȝȝess. Vpp o þatt der. þatt iss swa swifft full mikell weȝȝe forþenn." I presume "weȝȝe" is "way," from Old English "weġ," but I sure can't parse the rest of it. o_O) There are some examples from a couple centuries later that sound pretty much like modern usage, e.g. "stonde a goode way of, and come not to nygh her," from 1486. So anyway, I guess the singular predates the plural usage!
For metaphorical dizziness, people in China (I'm told) say 晕了, I'm dizzy. People in Taiwan say 昏倒, I'm out cold. People in Japan say 目が回っている, my eyes are spinning. What do other languages/dialects say?
The first thing that came to my mind for Cantonese was 陀陀擰, which is "to be running around in circles; to be confused or disoriented; to have one's head spin; to be up to one's ears in." I've only actually heard it used once, though -- no idea how common it is!
...Now I'm confused about "晕了," though! I would have assumed 我晕了 would mean "I fainted," because in Cantonese 晕 + [completion marker 咗] definitely means that someone has passed out (I've seen enough movies with people passing out to be confident of this XD ). But maybe 晕 as "faint" is dialectical? Or does it depend on what completion marker you use? Wiktionary has 暈倒 as "to faint," and it looks like that one at least works for Mandarin as well as Canto... So I guess 了 and 倒 indicate different results?
Photos: also way too many
Definitely not too many! I've never seen striped morning-glories before. They're really pretty. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 03:55 pm (UTC)Or does it depend on what completion marker you use? Wiktionary has 暈倒 as "to faint," and it looks like that one at least works for Mandarin as well as Canto... So I guess 了 and 倒 indicate different results?
I think it's not different completion markers, but different verbs. With 晕倒 as a verb of its own, "I fainted" would be 我晕倒了 ...?
no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 04:42 pm (UTC)Me: "Oh, huh. I've always thought of 到 as a completion marker?"
Me: "Wait."
Me: ... *facepalm*
(In my defense, 倒 and 到 are pronounced the same in Cantonese. Foiled by homophones again! Well, and by the fact that 晕 + [completed-aspect marker] in Canto means "fainted," so as a verb I think of 晕 as meaning "to faint." For "dizzy" I'm used to hearing 头晕...)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:43 pm (UTC)So I guess the version with no adjective is more recent, and the version with an adjective originated in England and is older, but has now become regional to North America as well.
one of the older terms which has mostly been retained only in the younger country, maybe? It sounds slangy enough to me that it's fascinating that people were using (versions of) it in the 1500s! And it makes sense to me that the singular usage, which makes logical sense, would come first and then people would add an s in casual conversation.
Wiktionary has 暈倒 as "to faint," and it looks like that one at least works for Mandarin as well as Canto... So I guess 了 and 倒 indicate different results?
Yeah, I think as Dora suggests above, 晕倒 and 晕了 are separate? (It took me WAY too long to realize that this was 倒 and not -到, aagh). It looks also like they're all kind of slang terms, so the line between "I'm dizzy" and "I'm out cold" may be fuzzy...
Morning-glories come in so many colors here! I'm still trying to grow the solid-color ones, but I've had a striped one every morning lately.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 03:05 pm (UTC)Remind me please if you read fic for The Untamed? I finally got around to reading the big baseball AU for that show and it was great.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:33 pm (UTC)Surprised at how widespread this is!
Remind me please if you read fic for The Untamed?
I do! Not sure if I've read the baseball AU or not but would love a rec either way.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 03:47 pm (UTC)I know it, but I don't use it myself - it always sounded like a regionalism to me. (My English is mostly British, but after decades on the internet, when it comes to colloquialisms who can even say?)
For metaphorical dizziness, people in China (I'm told) say 晕了, I'm dizzy. People in Taiwan say 昏倒, I'm out cold. People in Japan say 目が回っている, my eyes are spinning. What do other languages/dialects say?
Oooh, neat! In German: "mir schwirrt der Kopf", my head is buzzing/whirring.
Today, as it happened, we hit 200 days' straight posting at the guardian_learning comm, and I'm feeling pleased with myself and everyone else there.
That is such an accomplishment! Thank you so much for making it happen!
And those are not too many pics AT ALL. They're lovely, as usual. :D
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:32 pm (UTC)lol too true, and not even limited to the Internet--I grew up in the States and have some Britishisms thanks to reading too many British kids' books in my youth.
"mir schwirrt der Kopf", my head is buzzing/whirring.
That's really expressive! It does feel like that sometimes.
<3 <3 <3
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 10:06 pm (UTC)Ahhh I was trying to figure out the German equivalent, but I got stuck on "ich versteh nur Bahnhof" (I only understand train station) and felt it was too... deadpan confusion to compare it to dizzy :D!
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 04:16 pm (UTC)In Spanish, you could say, me da vueltas la cabeza/la cabeza me da vueltas, pretty much "my head is spinning."
I, an American, do say "a ways to go." Interestingly, considering the information
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:20 pm (UTC)Good to know, closer to the English...
I would never use it with an adjective, like "a long ways to go." I would only ever say "a long way to go."
Huh! I think my instinct is about the same, but "a long ways to go" doesn't sound wrong to me either. Dialects are so much fun.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-29 09:14 pm (UTC)That's awesome! Congrats!
As always, I'm enjoying the combined composition of your photos: circles, slants, angles. :D
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:19 pm (UTC)Lovely way to put it, and thank you!
*hugs back*
no subject
Date: 2022-07-30 03:54 am (UTC)But I've got a ways to go
I've got a ways to see
It'll take a while to know
What empty hands will bring
(CN for mention of pregnancy miscarriages if you look up the song!)
Today, as it happened, we hit 200 days' straight posting at the guardian_learning comm, and I'm feeling pleased with myself and everyone else there.
Congrats! :DD (And has it been that long?? I feel like it was only a few months ago that you started it!)
Han Sooyoung is wonderful and she grew on me so much. I was neutral on her at first, but she so charmed me.
The flowers are as always a soothing feast for the eyes, and OMG the togarashi! they look so pretty growing upright.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:18 pm (UTC)I feel like it was only a few months ago that you started it!)
Well, 200 days basically is a few months ;) Not much in terms of long-term language learning but not bad for a daily basis.
(Let me know if you have any fic recs for ORV? I don't mind being spoiled for any and all endings.)
Wish I could send you some 唐辛子! 🌶️
no subject
Date: 2022-07-31 07:33 pm (UTC)Oh! Wow! Kudos to you - and it is 99% you - keeping up the daily posts. \o/
I love the Morning Glories, and wooot! Chilies! So many. O_O
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:13 pm (UTC)Wish I could send you some chilis! 🌶️
no subject
Date: 2022-07-31 11:59 pm (UTC)I say this, and I think it's a Britishism? Or at least more common over here than in NA. Not sure about Australia et al.
You should absolutely feel pleased about 200 days of guardian learning, it's an impressive achievement, and certainly much appreciated by me.
Very pretty morning-glories!
(entirely unrelated, but Zhu Yilong's version of the 重啟 song just came on, and I'm finding it's not bad for listening practice - pretty clear, when I don't get distracted by the voice or beat...)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-03 12:12 pm (UTC)Huh. It turns out a lot of people say it! I have a handful of Britishisms in my speech just from a misspent youth reading British kids' books...
and certainly much appreciated by me.
<3 <3 <3
Zhu Yilong's version of the 重啟 song just came on, and I'm finding it's not bad for listening practice
His pronunciation when singing is really helpfully precise! The trouble is that the 重启 song always makes me cry, which is, as you say, distracting...