https://twitter.com/ClarityInView/status/1663464384570576896

To Preserve and Restore the Best of Classical Liberal Western Civilization, where Individual Liberty is the Foundation of the Social Compact in Free Societies.

  • muddi [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Chengyu are 4 letter idioms which often have a cultural or historical tie.

    There aren't a lot of 4 letter acronyms which English speakers across all dialects and closely-related-yet-separate languages like Frisian would recognize the meaning and context. Maybe just something like RSVP. Not very flexible at all

    • Antoine_St_Hexubeary [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think a more general way to describe this phenomenon might be: the English language didn't develop any completely-natural-sounding poetic forms until very recently.

      E.g. due to some combination of "inferiority complex" and "pathological obsession with tradition" (probably more of the latter), Anglos spent the Renaissance writing poetry in iambic pentameter, which was borrowed from ancient Greek, a language whose prosody has nothing in common with English prosody. Thanks to Bill Shakespeare and the Anglo education system's obsession with him, everyone reading this probably knows a couple of stock phrases in iambic pentameter, but they're not that useful in everyday conversation, are they. Part of the reason for this is they do not sound like normal English.

      Ironically (or not), the earliest example of a poetic form that is exceptionally well-adapted to English might be blues lyrics. This might explain why Blues-derived (or, if you prefer, "Blues-appropriated") musical genres have had such staying power in the Anglo world, and why their lyrics often seem so quotable.