The history of maps is actually pretty hilarious. People would just make shit up cause if you haven't been there and don't have another map for comparison who the hell knows? Map makers would also put fake towns on their maps so they could see if anyone was plagiarizing them. It was basically all grifters for a while.
If it's in a dictionary and has a definition isn't that just a new real word?
a "real" word is one that people actually use to communicate. i could see a dictionary coinage making its way into real world use, but i don't know of any such examples
If no one orders a meal but its still on the menu it's still a meal.
No, the dictionary isnt the king of language. If no one is using word, and the editor just invented that word, you cant go out and use the word expecting anyone to know what youre talking about. It only becomes a word if people know what the fuck youre saying.
Dictionaries describe the language that already exists, they dont create new language from thin air and enforce its use.
Not necessarily. Plenty of dictionaries have been written as attempts at language reform rather than as exercises in just describing existing language as objectively as possible. Noah Webster for example didn't invent entirely new words, but he pushed certain spelling reforms in his dictionary that in no small part is responsible for American vs British differences such as "Color" vs "Colour". I can't think off the top of my head of a dictionary created with significant intention to promote a specific additional vocabulary, but I'd be thoroughly surprised if its never been done before.
With the recent decline of linguistic perscriptivism falling ever more out of vogue, some people seem to have adopted a hardline descriptivist view of language as only ever evolving from unplanned organic use, which is completely ahistorical. There have been many centralized top-down reforms of language, where there was an explicit survey and analysis of dialects across a region, followed by an intentional reformation of the language into a planned form seen as more standardized and consistent. As the Roman Empire dissolved in much of Western Europe, Latin began to fracture into regional isolates that were quickly becoming unintelligable to each other. The Carolingian Empire attempted several language reforms (with varying degrees of success) to create a once-again universally intelligable language. For English, the Court of Chancery played a major part in the standardization of the language, promoting certain styles vocabularies and spellings over others.
Yeah they do. By making up words and putting them in the dictionary they are doing just that.
Every word at some point was "just some guy inventing a word". I'm sure they were't ALL dictionary editors, but I'd bet some of them were
I was watching Dateline or some shit like that, and they were interviewing someone about a traumatic event, and they said something along the lines of "I was feeling so many different things, I was having feelings that Webster hasn't even come up with a word for yet" and i had to pause for a second to take a step back and try on their worldview of linguistics which was so much different than mine.
I'm sure this reflects on their view on linguistics and not just what they said in the moment while recollecting trauma.
Well big map and big globe does have a racist, xenophobic conspiracy going on, so there is something to look into about that if you're not already familiar. A lot of it has to do with a form of white supremacy making white, western counties appear much larger than say continents like Africa and South America
Also imaginary cartography seems to basically be a breeding ground for “the real map isn’t racist enough” versions lol
Yes same with so much alternate history fiction. Vast majority is unreadable racist garbage
Yeah, my brother (crypto fash guy I suspect) reads some alternate history book series that’s “what of the confederates won!” And I assume “and it was good actually!”
Yup very few people end up telling the story, "but what if the Nazis won" and have it be actually a bad thing. Much more interesting to me but in general I grew out of it the more I learned about how they did actually win in many ways, just not militarily.
If I was going to read alt history now a days it would be something a bit more interesting to my tastes like if the soviet union didn't collapse. That seems much more interesting world building and not so fuckin depressingly gross
Alt history if Germany actually went communist and allied with the Soviet Union: “And then everyone lived happily ever after”
If people actually had solidarity early enough with the trade unionists and the communists and anarchists that could be a cool story about toppling the fascist takeover. Like a civil war type shit
You would have to alter so much other stuff for the Nazis to have ever won the war. They could have maybe done better but winning was really never gonna happen.
Idk if you've watched a Man in the High Castle but the first season was alright, it was a bit too lib for me to get really into but they at least made it pretty clear it was a bad thing.
Unlike the reality where uhhh, we recruited a bunch of nazis and scientists into high levels of government with high level security clearance 🤔
Final season of it had black communists being supplied by rebels in China as protagonists
Yup thats that type of :LIB: shit I noticed within the first few episodes. It's a shame, could have been a decent premise all things considered
Haven't. I generally think it's a silly concept because you would have to change so much about the circumstances leading to the war that Germany would have won WW1. The nazis were never going to win.
Absolutely yes that too. It was too fictional to be interesting to me because they didn't really address much of that, basically just pretended like so much shit didn't and did happen to world build. Which is fine you know for fictional stories, just couldn't suspend so much of my knowledge of it all to be all that interesting
Well big map and big globe does have a racist, xenophobic conspiracy going on, so there is something to look into about that if you’re not already familiar. A lot of it has to do with a form of white supremacy making white, western counties appear much larger than say continents like Africa and South America
I thought that was just a side effect of the Mercator projection, which happened to be a useful navigational tool (that also, in a "full" map, would make Antarctica an infinite size)
It is, but it makes little sense to keep using it for teaching geography in which people are not using for navigation. It should have evolved by now since the 1500s
Maps were invented by the bourgeoisie to make people think real estate is real.
People have accurately pointed out that a lot of furry hate is rooted in homophobia, but I think ableism against autistic people plays a big and largely unexamined part too.
It's quite common, yeah. The furry fandom has a lot to appeal to people on the autism spectrum, the most obvious being that furry characters tend to have large, friendly, easy-to-read faces.
Furry stuff started in alternative art zines in the 80s, definitely predating 4chan.
Are there any resources on this history? I'm asking for a friend.
Also for myself because I am shamelessly interested in furries, but my friend might like it too.
If you consider a well-produced YouTube mini-documentary a resource, then here's the one that I semi-remembered that factoid from.
Oh it totally was and hating furries was pretty much the norm until around 2010ish. Then most people grew up and realised it's not doing any more harm than anything else people do.
Which is just the typical projection they do, seeing as basically everyone on that site is a pedophile.
i think it's half 8chan, half actual pedos who want people to yell at them, with a significant amount of overlap
The Wall, the name of our post-revolution, firm but attentive re-education/therapy center
Not to be confused with the wall, any wall that exist contemporary to the revolution for reactionaries, fascists, and counter revolutionaries
There are a lot of things I think people should be :owned: for and I’m not at all squeamish about it. But I feel like pedophilia files under mental illness in a lot of cases and I feel like they should be given the chance to be rehabilitated. This is obviously something that should be assessed on a case by case basis by the community but I think killing pedophiles sight unseen in general is not great, especially since a lot of them know they’re struggling and do their best to stay away from kids and stuff
If you're a member of a literal pro pedophile group then yeah, lower case wall. I'm with you, case by case depending on damage done.
There was a dude who went around a few years ago and did interviews - he was a non-offending pedo who just wanted help so he'd never hurt anyone and he couldn't even bring it up with therapists because he had one call the cops on him for admitting it in the past. I think he founded a forum for other non-offenders too. Just felt absolutely terrible for the guy.
oh yeah, I have definitely seen screenshots were 4chan people try and like astroturf that stuff.
I'm sure the pedos themselves want to be part but no one LGBT wants them in
Lmao :freeze-peach: and now pedo apologia, so this person was definitely a libertarian at some point in their back story.
