What's the French word for Schadenfreude?
A few random non-modern notes on words and language.

Here's a neat French bit of Schadenfreude. Rather effective. A very old song that parodically "commemorates" a stupid English attempt to take over France. The song "sympathizes" with the plight of Lady Malbrough after her husband's raiding party died on foreign soil.



Professor Polistra finds it interesting that Malbrough is pronounced /mɒlbruχ/. A fossilized remnant of the original value of the 'gh' symbol. Since then it migrated to f or w or silence in English, and most final consonants in French migrated to silence, but this one old sound, preserved in a tasty jar, held its own. Malbrough succeeded in planting a phoneme instead of a flag.



The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ is a delicate sound. Its fate depends on its necessity. In languages like Arabic where it's part of the grid, alternating clearly with /χ/, it tends to stick around. In languages where it's a transition or an allophone of /g/, it usually disappears or fades into v or f or w, as it did in English. Prof P is tempted to postulate that the allophonic /ɣ/ lives and flourishes in more intimate cultures where people are close enough to hear delicate sounds, while it mutates or disappears in more distant cultures. Probably not a valid hypothesis, but a nice thought.

[Looking at the diagram, Prof P can't resist a side-thought: /ɣ/ is the Bad Girl of phonetics. It sounds like a mating call and it goes everywhere.]

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Premonish:

A classic back-formation. If we have admonition and admonish, why not premonition and premonish? The question seems to have been answered only once, and it didn't last.

The Army's Signal Service began as a specialized branch dealing with semaphores and carrier pigeons, and soon became the telegraph specialist. After Bloodthirsty Madman Lincoln's Grand Genocide, the Signal Service somehow lost its original mission and turned its telegraph network into a Weather Service for civilian purposes. From 1870 to 1890 the Signal Service was effectively the Weather Bureau and nothing else. In 1890 the Weather Bureau was mustered out into civvies, and the Signal Corps regenerated into a remarkably efficient builder and innovator in telegraphy, telephony and radio.

During the 20 years when weather was a military specialty, premonishing was the main task and mission of the Signal Service, and it premonished with great efficiency and precision.



It was the envy of the world:



Will this historical parallel premonish modern idiots? No. Modern idiots will continue to make their "forecasts" by the Carbon Psychosis instead of science, they will continue to assume that the Planet Is BURNING BURNING BURNING BURNING BURNING BURNING BURNING BURNING, and they will continue to repeat every old suicidal mistake over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine.

Labels: Carbon Cult, Language update

  ¶ 3:15 AM