English, the Language.

[mimic]

Aggggh! Why did she take the tardis out of its original packaging? She's just dropped the collector value!

Because I don't care about collector value! The cardboard is no longer attached - fixed that a few months ago.

And of course I sound perfectly normal - I have no accent.

I do rhyme our/are and tour/torr. And sometimes I say harr-ible instead of hore-able.

 

[Sean Aaron]

*/pedantry The eight-legged critters with oval bodies aren't spiders, they're harvestmen (the proper term is opiliones). They are arachnids, though. */pedantry

 

[iBender]

*/pedantry The eight-legged critters with oval bodies aren't spiders, they're harvestmen (the proper term is opiliones). They are arachnids, though. */pedantry

Are they like some Vegitarian/Vegan Spider-Thing that harvests Grass?
I wonder if that's why they're soo skinny?

My question is nothing but an observation, not a real question, infact, I guess you could call it one of those rhetorical questions. It's just an observation. Not to be taken too seriously or as anything but.

 

[Sean Aaron]

My question is nothing but an observation, not a real question, infact, I guess you could call it one of those rhetorical questions. It's just an observation. Not to be taken too seriously or as anything but.

Damn, I was all set to answer too! I honestly don't know why they're called harvestmen, but that's what I've seen them called colloquially in science texts.

In the States I remember we called them "daddy longlegs" in Britain I've seen that term used to refer to crane flies and what we used to call "cellar spiders" in Illinois - long-legged six-eyed spiders with elongated bodies that live in disorganised webs in basements and other dark places, Genus Pholcidae.

 

[Deckerd]

So, lurok, do you pronounce "enough" as "enoog-hh"?

We should all pronounce words like we did before the great vowel shift. Words ending in e should pronounce the e. Words like Knight should pronounce the K and the gh (it should be [knIxt] assuming I have the phoneme [x] correct. Essentially, the ch in German words). After all, everything else is just a corruption.

[enter know-all] That isn't an example of the GVS. That's an example of elision due to usage. An example of GVS is that the word 'twilight' was pronounced twoiloight in Shakespearean times (like Pingfah's bumpkin neighbours still pronounce it) and tweeleecht in early MA.[exit know-all]

 

[backstept]

my head looks like an egg

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhiYmrhpywU[/yt]

 

[Miss Chicken]

*/pedantry The eight-legged critters with oval bodies aren't spiders, they're harvestmen (the proper term is opiliones). They are arachnids, though. */pedantry

In Australia, the term daddy-long-legs does refer to a spider (Pholcus phalangioides).

Edited to add - it would seem that Australian daddy-long-legs are the same creature as the Illinois daddy-long-legs i.e. the cellar spider. However they also live in the corners of the rooms here.

 

[MacLeod]

^It generally refers to that same type of spider in the UK as well Miss_Chicken

 

[trampledamage]

*/pedantry The eight-legged critters with oval bodies aren't spiders, they're harvestmen (the proper term is opiliones). They are arachnids, though. */pedantry

Thank you - I've been meaning to respond to point this out - and that harvestman is what I call them, but just thinking about them freaks me out so I stop

^It generally refers to that same type of spider in the UK as well Miss_Chicken

Does it? I've always used "Daddy Long-legs" to refer to crane flies (think that's what they actually are - flying bugs with really long legs - like a harvestman - and a long thin body)

WARNING FOR ARACHNOPOBES - PHOTOS BEHIND SPOILER TAG

and boy is it giving me the shivers doing this!

Spoiler: Pictures of harvestman and crane fly inside

Harvestman

Crane fly - what I call a daddy long-legs (and according to Wiki, what people in the UK, Ireland and Newfoundland call a Daddy long legs too )

 

[Trilliam]

The body is different. If you have these, you won't have much trouble with redback spiders.

 

[RoJoHen]

Don't we have a rule against posting spider pictures?

 

[Thestral]

Really? That seems silly.

 

[Trilliam]

My number3 son would NOT be happy with all the spider pictures.

 

[RoJoHen]

Really? That seems silly.

It does, but I remember it became an issue once because a certain poster had a terrible fear of spiders, and it wasn't fair for him to randomly stumble across the pictures in a thread that is not explicitly about spiders.

 

[scotpens]

. . .
In the States I remember we called them "daddy longlegs" in Britain I've seen that term used to refer to crane flies and what we used to call "cellar spiders" in Illinois - long-legged six-eyed spiders with elongated bodies that live in disorganised webs in basements and other dark places, Genus Pholcidae.

That’s a family, not a genus.

. . . An example of GVS is that the word 'twilight' was pronounced twoiloight in Shakespearean times (like Pingfah's bumpkin neighbours still pronounce it) and tweeleecht in early MA.

And it should be pronounced “tweeleecht,” because that’s how it’s written, dammit!

my head looks like an egg

This guy doesn’t see anything wrong with your head.

Don't we have a rule against posting spider pictures?

Really? That seems silly.

It does, but I remember it became an issue once because a certain poster had a terrible fear of spiders, and it wasn't fair for him to randomly stumble across the pictures in a thread that is not explicitly about spiders.

Then I suggest we change the title of this thread to “English, the Spider.”

 

[Trilliam]

That's NOT a spider: THIS is a spider























you thought I was going to post a photo of a Sydney Funnelweb, didn't you

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Don't we have a rule against posting spider pictures?

Really? That seems silly.

It does, but I remember it became an issue once because a certain poster had a terrible fear of spiders, and it wasn't fair for him to randomly stumble across the pictures in a thread that is not explicitly about spiders.

No, we don't have a rule against posting spider pictures. We have a rule against trolling people, as in one guy saying "I'm deathly afraid of spiders and can't even look at them online" and then a couple people started immediately posting dozens of spider pictures in the thread he was already participating in to mess with him (which was the Thread Bombs topic, so not some small topic on a single obvious subject that one should be able to easily avoid).

Of course, on this board where nothing happens without being blown completely out of proportion, you can't even politely ask people to stop one time while not punishing or even threatening to punish anyone without it becoming a problem (not by you, by someone at the time) or it being misinterpreted as some kind of permanent board rule rather than a specific reaction to a single incident.

 

[Deckerd]

Don't we have a rule against posting spider pictures?

Really? That seems silly.

It does, but I remember it became an issue once because a certain poster had a terrible fear of spiders, and it wasn't fair for him to randomly stumble across the pictures in a thread that is not explicitly about spiders.

No, we don't have a rule against posting spider pictures. We have a rule against trolling people, as in one guy saying "I'm deathly afraid of spiders and can't even look at them online" and then a couple people started immediately posting dozens of spider pictures in the thread he was already participating in to mess with him (which was the Thread Bombs topic, so not some small topic on a single obvious subject that one should be able to easily avoid).

Of course, on this board where nothing happens without being blown completely out of proportion, you can't even politely ask people to stop one time while not punishing or even threatening to punish anyone without it becoming a problem (not by you, by someone at the time) or it being misinterpreted as some kind of permanent board rule rather than a specific reaction to a single incident.

No, no we want the 5 minute argument.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

No, no we want the 5 minute argument.

No, you don't.

 

[Deckerd]

It belatedly occurred to me as soon as I posted that witty comment that you were perfectly capable of doing it.