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Post by therealriga on Feb 28, 2018 17:34:02 GMT
Alright then, what about the "wonders" of articles? Take just a limited example, water-related geographical places. Seas usually have the definite article: The Baltic. Lakes usually don't: Windermere, Baikal. To be fair, other languages' rules regarding presence or absence of articles (for languages that actually *have* a definite article) on the water features you cite can also be inconsistent. And they also have the complication of gender to deal with. Why, for example is a lake "der See" (masculine) in German, but the sea "die See" (feminine)? I've long been amused that in Spanish, one of the most feminine articles of clothing, a dress, is a masculine noun whereas a man's c.o.c.k is a feminine noun. This being my point, Irish is no more irregular than a lot of the others. This is not why it will remain a minority concern, it's because it's fairly useless in the grand scale of things. As an example from my own experience, I attended a catholic boy's grammar school in Belfast. In the first three forms we had to study French and Latin. In the first form we also did Irish. At the end of the year we had the choice of continuing with that or switching to German, Italian or Spanish. To help us decide, the teachers of the respective languages came round and gave a speech selling the merits of their respective languages. The Irish teacher gave a dewy eyed speech along the lines of "it's your language, lads. Don't let it die." We were 12, who cares much about cultural heritage at that age? The Italian teacher went down the cultural route as well. Musical history and so on, zzzzzzz to a 12-year-old. The German teacher gave a speech which would have gone down great with our older selves, about how the E.E.C. would soon become the E.U. and how important German would be. At that age, none of us thought greatly about work so again, meh. The Spanish teacher painted a picture of us walking down sunny beaches, chatting to hot bronzed ladies in their own language, topping it off with a promise to watch Spanish football in his lessons. Sign me up. That, ultimately, is the elephant in the room that Sinn Féin are up against. It's hard to sell people the idea of investing time, money and energy in a language spoken by few people when they could focus on a larger world language which will be much more valuable to them in their career. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2018 18:15:15 GMT
Whilst I do not wish to drag this thread into the trivial matter of electoral politics, I was interested to see that the SDLP had 60 odd workers out in Strabane at the weekend. "60 odd" rather than "60, odd..." linguistic fans....  |
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Feb 28, 2018 23:47:03 GMT
Well, English is a Germanic language, after all. In German, "if you had to explain that to them tomorrow " would be a Konjunktiv II clause, in which the auxiliary verb would be hätte*, a form of haben ('to have'). The simple past form of that same verb, hatte, would be employed to make the pluperfect in most cases. My best guess is that English ended up using 'had' for both types of clause when it lost diacritic marks from its writing system. Yes, the expression "get one's head around" doesn't involve any actual movement of the head, because 'head' in that instance is obviously a reference to the brain. I wouldn't want my native language to be one with absolutely no figurative phrases whatsoever. As Chris from Brum pointed out, others languages which have separate definite and indefinite articles are equally inconsistent, arbitrary and seemingly illogical in their usage of them. * [In this particular instance you could probably get away with just the active verb, müßte... but let's not complicate matters too much.]I strongly doubt the use of past forms in second conditional sentences has anything to do with German because that seems to form conditional sentences differently. My German friend, who usually speaks excellent English often says things like "If I would have time, I would go there." They'd do it the same way in Russian and Latvian. I'd say "If I had time, I would go there." Or "If I went to Panama next week, I would sunbathe." Again, a past form used to speak about the future. At the risk of turning a thread about a Northern Irish by-election into a German lecture (cheers @boogieeck), I can assure you that my theory holds precisely because of the examples you cite, rather than in spite of them. Germans often phrase the past conditional that way because there is no difference between that and the imperfect subjunctive in their language, so they're often taught bad habits when it comes to forming such structures in English. The only distinction between many past conditional sentences and the pluperfect is frequently an umlaut. English does not use umlauts. Notably, in both the examples you cite, the first clause could be rephrased using a rare English subjunctive: "If I were to have time... " and "If I were to go to Panama... " respectively. Yes, among the biggest barriers for non-native speakers are the diversity of meanings for 'get' and the multiple ways in which we use 'do'. It's also very difficult to directly translate the phrase 'so-and-so sucks' which was once just a nasty Americanism, but is now widely used across the anglophone world. Whilst I do not wish to drag this thread into the trivial matter of electoral politics, I was interested to see that the SDLP had 60 odd workers out in Strabane at the weekend. "60 odd" rather than "60, odd..." linguistic fans.... Should it not carry a hyphen when it has the meaning of 'an approximate figure'? |
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johnloony
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Post by johnloony on Mar 1, 2018 3:35:41 GMT
As a result of this thread, I suddenly remembered that I have a Teach Yourself Cornish book which I bought 3 years ago, but never got round to reading. I have now read the introduction and the first lesson. The introduction is daunting because Cornish has multiple complicated rules of pronunciation, including long and short vowels, stressed and unstressed syllables (and how to remember which syllable is stressed), unstressed vowels often being reduced to a schwa, S being pronounced as S or Z, different varieties of U and A, and so on. Far more complicated than Welsh pronunciation.
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Post by markgoodair on Mar 1, 2018 7:46:40 GMT
Any idea was to when this byelection is going to be? If Sinn Fein have selected their candidate it can't be far away.
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Chris from Brum
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Post by Chris from Brum on Mar 1, 2018 9:08:16 GMT
This. And is there any news on selections from SDLP, UUP, DUP and AP (and any others?) Will there be a "unity" unionist candidate?
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CatholicLeft
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Post by CatholicLeft on Mar 1, 2018 9:14:24 GMT
This. And is there any news on selections from SDLP, UUP, DUP and AP (and any others?) Will there be a "unity" unionist candidate? The SDLP don't appear to have selected as yet but Daniel McCrossan's face is across every leaflet so I imagine he'll be back as the candidate, but I can't see beyond a comfortable win for SF, whether there is a Unionist 'Unity' candidate or not. |
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Post by greenhert on Mar 16, 2018 19:34:48 GMT
When are they going to move the writ for this by-election?
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Harry Hayfield
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Mar 16, 2018 21:57:24 GMT
When are they going to move the writ for this by-election? Mid Ulster 2013: Notice of Resignation June 11th 2012, Writ Moved January 2nd 2013, Date of Election March 7th 2013 Belfast West 2011: Notice of Resignation January 20th 2011, Writ Moved May 16th 2011, Date of Election June 9th 2011 In other words, we cannot expect the writ to be moved much before the local elections in May. |
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Post by greenhert on Mar 16, 2018 22:30:35 GMT
Canada requires that all federal by-elections be held within six months of the vacancy occurring. We really need this rule in the UK (Mid Ulster was vacant for nine months).
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Post by greenhert on Mar 16, 2018 22:50:18 GMT
By "vacant" I mean lacking an MP. Just because a constituency's MP does not take up their seat does not mean the seat is vacant.
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 16, 2018 23:13:44 GMT
What actually stops an ex MP who is also an Assembly Member from doing the non-chamber work anyway?
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johnloony
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Post by johnloony on Mar 17, 2018 3:02:11 GMT
(Mid Ulster was vacant for nine months). No it wasn't. Martin McGuinness resigned on 2nd January 2013. |
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johnloony
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Post by johnloony on Mar 17, 2018 3:07:52 GMT
When are they going to move the writ for this by-election? Mid Ulster 2013: Notice of Resignation June 11th 2012, Writ Moved January 2nd 2013, Date of Election March 7th 2013. Wrong. 2nd January was when he resigned. The writ could not have been moved on 2nd January because the House of Commons would not have been sitting then. If the by-election was on 7th March, the writ would have been moved in early February. |
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Post by LDCaerdydd on Mar 17, 2018 7:00:35 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2018 9:51:23 GMT
Canada requires that all federal by-elections be held within six months of the vacancy occurring. We really need this rule in the UK (Mid Ulster was vacant for nine months). Ireland too, I think. |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Mar 17, 2018 10:29:56 GMT
A time limit to call a by election would be a good idea. While we're at it, it seems to me that setting the date ought not to be a political decision, and ought to be made by someone impartial e.g. the Speaker or maybe the returning officer.
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Post by LDCaerdydd on Mar 17, 2018 11:08:40 GMT
A time limit to call a by election would be a good idea. While we're at it, it seems to me that setting the date ought not to be a political decision, and ought to be made by someone impartial e.g. the Speaker or maybe the returning officer. And the ability to simply resign rather than request to be appointed to some bizarre office. |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Mar 17, 2018 11:38:13 GMT
Yes fair enough that too.
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 17, 2018 15:35:58 GMT
Canada requires that all federal by-elections be held within six months of the vacancy occurring. We really need this rule in the UK (Mid Ulster was vacant for nine months). Ireland too, I think. ISTR a court case after a TD was elected an MEP in 2009 and the seat was vacant for nearly 18 months. Sinn Fein won both the case and the by-election. |
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