this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
804 points (98.3% liked)

Linguistics Humor

1228 readers
2 users here now

Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it


For serious linguistics content: !linguistics@mander.xyz


Rules:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 80 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Finnish:

oak month (or central month if you don't use current meaning of the word)

pearl month

ground month

clearing the forest of trees for field month

planting seed month

summer month (or plowing month by original meaning)

hay harvesting month

grain harvesting month

autumn month

muddy month

death month

yule month

[–] Chariotwheel@kbin.social 62 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Finland would have a higher population if they would just get rid of Death Month.

[–] Atrabiliousaurus@lemmy.world 42 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's just a name, like the Forbidden Month or the Month of No Return, all the months have names like that in the Season of Terror.

[–] Chariotwheel@kbin.social 21 points 2 years ago

No, Finland becomes the Purge for a month, ensuring that only the strongest and craftiest Finns survive. If you see an old Finnish person, better respect them. They survived decades of annual battle royals.

[–] loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago

!unexpectedfuturama@lemmy.ml

[–] sab@kbin.social 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As a Scandinavian who wasn't familiar with Finish month names... Yeah, death month is a much more accurate name than November. Ugh.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Jakylla@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"clearing the forest of trees for field month"

Favorite month for Amazon forest

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Krachsterben@feddit.de 69 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Idk why Japan is being credited for being the logical one when they simply copied the Chinese system/characters

Chinese weekdays make a lot more sense as well

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 32 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Any system that does not have 13 months of 28 days each, plus a remainder day to keep pace with the sun, is not logical.

[–] gxgx55@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Having a "remainder day" is weird, but it's hard to avoid. It really sucks that 365 doesn't divide nicely into much at all. 5 and 73 are the only non-trivial answers. five 73 day months? Can't even call it a month at that point.

I guess 13x28 + 1 does indeed make most sense...

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

There's always a remainder day, and it's not precisely 24 hours. That's why we have leap years and sometimes leap seconds. You could get rid of that by cramming all of the time into one day of varying length. This year, maybe it's 29.75 hours. Maybe next year it's 31. Astronomers and physicists could fight it out and see how closely they can match the previous year.

[–] AngryMob@lemmy.one 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

May as well embrace the weird, cuz we dont orbit in exactly 365 days anyway. So theres gonna be leap year type adjustments anyway.

1 odd day from 13x28 is the perfect excuse for a new holiday too. And avoids having to figure out is it a weekday or not. It gets to be neither, a unique special holiday not tied to religion, nationality, culture, politics, etc (though many oppose it for reasons within those topics).

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

We need to push the Earth into a higher orbit.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

The Baha'i calendar is 19 months with 19 days, and a 4 or 5 day celebration in between months 18 and 19. The year starts the day that coincides with March 21.

If no logical system can be created with missing information, very few systems are logical.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty much all of East Asia is a knockoff of China.

Alright, so I assume I started WWIII there, better get to my bunker. /s

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

Nah, you didn't call it Western Taiwan, you should be good.

[–] iByteABit@lemm.ee 55 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I just realized that about September-December, that's mindblowing and hilarious

[–] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 2 years ago (3 children)

the roman year started on march 1 so thats how they numbered months. English never caught up.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Neither did other European languages

[–] mapro@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

*some. For example Croatian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian are using local names.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] octoperson@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago

Better yet they only had 10 months, and the remaining 60ish days of the year were just 乁⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠_⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠ㄏ

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 10 points 2 years ago

The Roman year originally started in March (the month of Mars) because that's when the war season started. January and February were at the end of the year and originally weren't named at all.

But at some point, the Romans had a problem with one of their politicians. He had a one year term. To get rid of him, they moved the new year to January. It was supposed to be temporary but somehow we're still living with the results of that lifehack.

[–] ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I hope the guy responsible for that got stabbed

[–] Kierunkowy74@kbin.social 48 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Polish:

A contacting one
Fierce
War God
A flowery one
Earth Goddess
Maggot (especially cochineal*), but also knawel
A linden one
A sickle one
A heathery one
A shives one
Leavesfall
A lump/clod one

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] nxfsi@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Romans: having 10 months in a year 2000 years before the metric system.

[–] teuast@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 years ago

they're so metric even their calendar is metric

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] FederatedSaint@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And they're not even correctly numbered! Stupid Julius and Augustus ruined friggin EVERYTHING

Sep - 7 Oct - 8 Nov - 9 Dec - 10

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As someone else already pointed out: it was January and February that were added later. July and August just replaced the old names.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

To add for anyone that's new to this, January and February were originally considered not a real part of the year because everyone was hunkered down for the winter.

[–] ComradePorkRoll@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

We should do that again.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

The Romans had a 10 month calendar that started with March. Then later they added January and February to better match the lunar cycles in a year. Hence the mismatch of the numbered months.

[–] Alto@kbin.social 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that July (Julious) and August (Augustus) were the two shoehored in

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 28 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

No they just renamed Quintilis (5th) and Sextilis (6th) to July and August

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] dentoid@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I always assumed this is why the leap day is in february, since it would coincide with the end of the roman calendar

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago

English got lore

[–] meeeeetch@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's always rubbed me the wrong way that Oktoberfest doesn't happen in October OR the 8th month.

[–] Prof_Eibe@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

thats because the roman year started in march and october was the 8th month in their calendar.

[–] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 years ago

Naw, its cause it used to start in october but they moved it to september for better weather.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 years ago

Oktoberfest ends in October.

[–] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, but try counting the days in those months

[–] Jakylla@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Going to memorize the elements

Traditional week

  • Sunday
  • Moonday
  • Fireday
  • Waterday
  • Woodday
  • Goldday
  • Soilday

But a new version just dropped:

Modernized week

  • Hydrogenday
  • Heliumday
  • Lithiumday
  • Berylliumday
  • Boronday
  • Carbonday
  • Nitrogenday
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Rin@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I'm slightly mentally slow and still don't remember all of the months in a year. I'm 23 years old.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] einfach_orangensaft@feddit.de 6 points 2 years ago

i did read that as "moth names"

load more comments
view more: next ›