Had to fill out a new form for my psychiatrist's office recently -- pretty standard stuff, including a drop-down for race/ethnicity and another for primary language.

But when I entered "english" in the Primary Language search bar as requested, it offered me some amazing, exciting options.

[ID: A screengrab of the form, where I have typed "eng" in the search bar; three options are visible below. The options are "English", "English, Old 450-1100" and "English, Middle 1100-1500".]

I know it's just because the form autoloaded a preset list of languages from somewhere that included Old and Middle English, but I'm still tickled by the idea that Clarity Clinic Chicago has people onboard who could prescribe Adderall for Caedmon or help Shakespeare sort out his gender issues.

Can we talk about how that was the perfect cross-cultural example? I was like "oh this sounds so pleasant, how is it-" then Pumped Up Kicks came on and i was like "oh. Oh yeah okay."

sequel to Uno called Twono

whoops i completely forgot about the spanish language

I just realized that the kanji for bone, 「骨」, looks like a little skeleton fella, and I can't get over it...

english's pronunciation rules are absolute bullshit poopoo made up crap but one of my favorite side effects of this in written english specifically is like. altering the spelling of a word in such a way that it's technically pronounced the same. but reads very differently when your eyes go over it in written form. and that sort of dissonance between the proper spelling and the altered spelling producing the same basic sounds in your brain creates an unprecedented level of comedy.

ingredience. creacher. both of these are pronounced essentially exactly the same but the altered spellings are just hilarious for some stupid reason. the english language is a disaster but at least whatever is wrong with it is REALLY funny.

the english language is truly a wonder

all hail william the werewolf, proto-enby

Diversity win! The werewolf in your village goes by þei

p iracy is BAD!!!!!!!1!

i think piracy is EVIL!!!

ANYONE that pirates ANYTHING should go to JAIL!!

NOBODY should EVER take this base64 string (aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZvbGRlci9NQTB4aElZSSNQX3BqNl82SkxkaFdCcl9odllqSm13) and put it into the converter at https://www.base64decode.org/ to get all the major adobe programs for free! that would be a crime!

ANYONE that pirates adobes 500 dollar programs should be ASHAMED!

that would just be evil!

Jesus christ, I wish to just one day be this pinnacle of wit, horniness, and sacrilege.

how dare you leave this in the tags @choirstud: #this is like so close to being a hozier song

underrated form of humor: just making shit up in past tense

My personal favourite:

i love it actually when nonnative speakers make mistakes that reveal how their native languages work.

lots of koreans online say they "eat" drinks which would assume they only have one word which covers the concept of consumption.

arabic immigrants in sweden (my mother included) have a hard time differentiating between "i think/i believe/my opinion is" which suggests that in arabic these different modalities of speaker agency is treated as one or at least interchangeable.

swedish speakers in english will use should/shall/have to/must with much higher nuance precision than native english speakers, to the point where they sound well awkward, because the distinction between these commands in swedish is much clearer than in english. i make mistakes between is/am/are and has/have constantly because swedish only has one pronoun covering all grammatical persons.

i've heard speakers of languages without gendered pronouns (finnish, the chinese dialects, and a tonne more) make he/she mistakes because it's hard(!!) to learn two or more gendered pronouns and when to use them correctly.

how neat is that?! it add a charm to international english usage in particular and make our appreciation of both our native languages and our learnt ones stronger...!!

i love this! one thing i notice with a lot of people (native speakers of polish, romanian, french and others) is no differentiation between present simple (i go) and present continuous (I am going), because those languages only have one present tense to cover both. it's so lovely every time i hear it

i always think one of the most fun things about learning languages is that it teaches you how weird your own is! especially english phrasal verbs (the very different meanings of stand up, stand down, stand off, stand up to), or trying to explain the difference between being up to something and being up for something to my french friend. I love it!

another tag reminded me of how spanish speakers often mix up /v/ and /b/ because in panish they pronounced identically!

I wish more people had the ability to become bilingual because you're right, it makes you understand your own language at a more intimate and analytical level!!

People whose native language is heavily gendered often apply gendered pronouns to English words that don't have them. For example, my Brazilian sports coach referred to my knee as "she" instead of "it". It's even more interesting when you realise that Old English did have gendered nouns, much like German, and we've essentially lost that entire element of our language.

Oh no, oh no, he is seducing me with his deep passion for his field of study and his genuine joy at teaching people about it

Jesus dude relax I’ve missed TWO DAYS of German

YOU KILLED HIM!!!!!

HE WOULD HAVE KILLED ME IF I HADENT

You! American fan of foreign or otherwise un-American media! Are you aware of the nuances and cultural differences that are portrayed in that media and have an understanding that you as an outsider looking in should be careful with the lenses you analyze that media in because you have a different perspective that is not catered to?

You get it

I just learned that the Russian word for “ladybug” translates to “God’s Little Cow”

It’s the same in Irish! bóín Dé!

in hebrew it’s “our rabbi moses’s cow”

Oh I love this news!!!!

Multiple cultures upon seeing a ladybug for the first time: “Who’s cow is this????”

in Argentinian Spanish it's "Saint Anthony's little cow!!!"

i love the french, i love the way they pronounce Rs like they're disgusted with them

the english meanwhile seem to have developed some sort of phobia about them

When we were discussing the surgery I'd need for my sleep apnea, the surgeon told me I'd never be able to speak French properly because the French R is a uvular sound and I'd no longer have a uvula.

... that's okay? I'm not French? I don't speak French? I've always thought it was the weirdest thing for him to say!

Huh. Didn't know you could have French surgically removed.

sorry i just cannot get this out of my head. Like, "oh you speak french? i hear there's an operation for that"