The Other Snark raises some good points... again.

Sacred hamburger: the role of our heroes in the decline of the newspaper comics page.

Am I sleepsnarking or something? Websnark keeps writing stuff that I'd like to say.

Though he's more generous than I.

I think Breathed jumped the shark even before Bloom County made the transition to Outland, and I think that, because of Watterson's "principled" refusal to market Calvin & Hobbes, the most enduring legacy of his strip will be the ubiquity of "Peeing Calvin" bootleg window stickers.

The Other Snark raises some good points... again.

Sacred hamburger: the role of our heroes in the decline of the newspaper comics page.

Am I sleepsnarking or something? Websnark keeps writing stuff that I'd like to say.

Though he's more generous than I.

I think Breathed jumped the shark even before Bloom County made the transition to Outland, and I think that, because of Watterson's "principled" refusal to market Calvin & Hobbes, the most enduring legacy of his strip will be the ubiquity of "Peeing Calvin" bootleg window stickers.

Impressing Forms about Tongues on my Number-Counter

In a locked post in his journal, a friend of mine observed that science fiction writers often make aliens sound "aboriginal":

People with warp travel and a high tech, computerized society say things like "The day of lightning", "the trial of strength", or "the forbidden land". In short they typically end up sounding like Native Americans, or more accurately, what white people think Native Americans sound like and wrote dialog for in spaghetti westerns.

Speaking a polyglot language like English tends to distort one's perspective. We simply don't notice when we use words and phrases that are pretty much exactly like that.

I mean, on the Day of the Thunder God, I got a call on my hears-far in the middle of watching my sees-far, and had to get in my moves-by-itself to head to The Place Below The City. I traveled on the Road Between Estates to the almost-island, and spoke to One Who Knows The Word Of Water at the All-Together in the High Woods about the Balance of Eating-Away.

Which is exactly the same thing as saying "On Thursday, I got a call on my telephone in the middle of watching television, and had to get in my automobile to head to the suburbs. I traveled on the interstate to the peninsula, and spoke to a hydrological scientist at the University in Palo Alto about the equilibrium of erosion."

And if I spoke Spanish, Greek, or Latin, that sentence would sound as much like the first version as the second.

So, basically, English sounds more "sophisticated" to an Anglophone because it's chock full of foreign words whos meanings we either don't know or don't really hear.

Incidentally, I've never understood the assumption that people in Sci Fi shows were actually supposed to be speaking English. Nobody ever makes that assumption when they're watching something set in, say, 17th Century France or Pharaonic Egypt. On Star Trek, they might be speaking Esperanto, or some kind of interlac of Terran, Vulcan, and other languages. We're just watching a translation into our Primitive 20th-Century Dialect.

Impressing Forms about Tongues on my Number-Counter

In a locked post in his journal, a friend of mine observed that science fiction writers often make aliens sound "aboriginal":

People with warp travel and a high tech, computerized society say things like "The day of lightning", "the trial of strength", or "the forbidden land". In short they typically end up sounding like Native Americans, or more accurately, what white people think Native Americans sound like and wrote dialog for in spaghetti westerns.

Speaking a polyglot language like English tends to distort one's perspective. We simply don't notice when we use words and phrases that are pretty much exactly like that.

I mean, on the Day of the Thunder God, I got a call on my hears-far in the middle of watching my sees-far, and had to get in my moves-by-itself to head to The Place Below The City. I traveled on the Road Between Estates to the almost-island, and spoke to One Who Knows The Word Of Water at the All-Together in the High Woods about the Balance of Eating-Away.

Which is exactly the same thing as saying "On Thursday, I got a call on my telephone in the middle of watching television, and had to get in my automobile to head to the suburbs. I traveled on the interstate to the peninsula, and spoke to a hydrological scientist at the University in Palo Alto about the equilibrium of erosion."

And if I spoke Spanish, Greek, or Latin, that sentence would sound as much like the first version as the second.

So, basically, English sounds more "sophisticated" to an Anglophone because it's chock full of foreign words whos meanings we either don't know or don't really hear.

Incidentally, I've never understood the assumption that people in Sci Fi shows were actually supposed to be speaking English. Nobody ever makes that assumption when they're watching something set in, say, 17th Century France or Pharaonic Egypt. On Star Trek, they might be speaking Esperanto, or some kind of interlac of Terran, Vulcan, and other languages. We're just watching a translation into our Primitive 20th-Century Dialect.

I love the Cinema Saver 10!

The Cheap Theater in Milpitas has a double feature of Shaun of the Dead playing with Team America.

There is no way I'm going to get quelonzia to see Team America, since she loathes both marionettes and South Park-style humor.

All seats, all shows, $3.50... or $1.50 on Tuesday.

I'll pay 75¢ to see Team America, all righty.

Who wants to mob?

I love the Cinema Saver 10!

The Cheap Theater in Milpitas has a double feature of Shaun of the Dead playing with Team America.

There is no way I'm going to get quelonzia to see Team America, since she loathes both marionettes and South Park-style humor.

All seats, all shows, $3.50... or $1.50 on Tuesday.

I'll pay 75¢ to see Team America, all righty.

Who wants to mob?