So in a nutshell, working at Nintendo has been lovely. According to company policy, however, I shall not be discussing anything remotely contentful relating to my work there.
Thus, Imaginary Readers, I leave you with this linguistic/gamer tidbit. On the fridge in the break room, there is a sign that asks employees to take home their food “nightly”. And of course, someone added an extra K.
Viva la nerd. I like this place. :)
I pretty much never watch commercials these days, since it’s 2008 and all. Praise DVR technology. But when I’m watching background TV while cooking or cleaning or some other around-the-house hands-on task, I’ll let the commercials run so I don’t have to interrupt my activity. And thus begins the rage/bafflement at the few ads that do get through to me.
I just saw one such Dunkin Donuts ad on Comedy Central, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
On the one hand, it’s potentially funny, I guess — I’m a total sucker for musical spoofs, and I laughed out loud at the baffled array of faces. But on the other hand, Grant puts it blunter than I do (for once):
[18:35] Hasukawa: Man, I’m tired of the “OMG WTF FANCY COFFEE?! I JUST WANT A COFFEE! HA HA HA” joke.
[18:35] Hasukawa: It’s, like, 20 years old. Fuck you.
Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg of Bad Gods fame is to blame for all of my problems today.
For this reason.
I’m notorious for getting songs repetitively stuck in my head, and I’m also notorious for obsessing over rhyme and meter, creating accidental crap-tastic parody songs of any melody my poor ears are subjected to. The OCD functions in my brain will refuse to do anything useful or productive on a given day, but I can make up my own song-spoof tunes like you wouldn’t believe.
And now, during one of the busiest weeks at work, when I need all my extra brain-power for linguistic testing, all I can do is parse everything I read (in three languages) into Camptown Races ditties, and mentally scan texts and spreadsheets and command-prompt windows for isolated snippets with the appropriate number of syllables.
Thanks a LOT, Lore. I’m going to somehow hack a clip of “This is the song that never ends…” to play nonstop on your page. I have no idea how (or when), but someday I will exact this inane revenge plot, just you wait.
Just the other day, I overheard someone saying that he “sunk up with [a coworker]” about a certain issue at a meeting. HA! Right, because “synchronize (up)” shortens to “sync (up)” which sounds like the verb sink, past tense sunk… God. That would make a great paper topic, “Syntactical innovation with verbal homonyms” or something. Man do I miss being a linguistics student sometimes.
Some more Catalan words for which we have no exact equivalent (and keep in mind this is just a SMALL sampling):
camaleònic - chameleon-like
ignívom - that vomits fire (I assume this is akin to fire-breathing? But no, they don’t have to compound to express that concept, there’s a WHOLE WORD for it!)
galamó - double chin
Not to mention that in Spanish, there are words for the sore muscles you get from working out (agujetas), for the dark circles you get under your eyes after not sleeping (ojeras)…
I know English is a rich language and all, but, I’m just sayin’ - I respect a language that needs no word-breaking characters to express such thoughts. See? Even “word-breaking”. I bet at least one clan of the Romance language folks have a single word for that concept too, but I can’t look it up, because it’s not a single word in English. Sigh. These are the obstacles I face this Monday. Could be worse, I agree.
