I'm still working on my photos and postcards and the registration system I have made for them, and I have only reached the year 2003 - but I think I'm over the worst part of it because in 2003 I already had a digital registration system running, and I had a computer screen with at at least XGA resolution. And why is that relevant? Well, because many of the small errors I have corrected were leftovers from the phase where I changed the number and apparent size of items that could be shown on one line. I used some conversion scripts on my html files to change the images widths and heights, but in many cases I had been forced to squeeze things before on my small screen, and then the squeezed measures weren't corrected. I had also bought a camera with at least 3x zoom after my problems during my first safari in 2000, where I came home with lots of pictures of animals standing very far away. Luckily they were fairly crisp and sharp so I could do some cropping, but to do this I sometimes had to do a bit of rearranging because the critters on the photos didn't stand close together. Finally I had already done some photo editing at this point because all my photos and all my postcards already had been scanned, and the software I use even today (from the company Ulead, now defunct) followed as a gift with a scanner I bought in the early noughties. By the way: many of the most ugly colors and of course all my moiré problems were found with my postcards only, and I bought fewer postcards and took more pictures after we had passed into the new millennium.
So I expect the rest to be more orderly (even though the number of items to be scrutinized still is huge), and I do see a possibility that I can end this job before I have to do my next voyage - and until then studying will be at a minimum.
GER: Heute bin ich aus einem komplett deutschsprachigen Traum aufgewacht, in dem ich in einer Klassenunterricht mit andere Leute teilnahm. Die Lehrerin verteilte durchsichtige quadratische Blätter von eine Sorte Plastikfolie zu uns, und darauf mußten wir in zehn Zeilen - nicht mehr, nicht weniger - mit Filzdruckern unsere Studienprofile beschreiben (dh. wer wir waren, warum wir studierten usw.). Und ich saß da und hatte bereits ein Stück Folie komplet ausgefüllt und mußte um no. zwei bitten, und alle andere waren fertig weil sie nur die gewünschte zehn Zeilen geschrieben hätten, aber ich wollte nicht so wenig schreiben. Als ich zur Lehrerin sagte: ich könnte vielleicht zehn Zeilen Resumé nachher schreiben, aber dann muß ich ja logischerweise zuerst den ganzen Kram fertiggeschrieben haben, und das wird voraussichtlich noch eine Weile dauern, so, sehr geehrte Dame, bitte Geduld haben und ruhig warten während ich schreibe...
Ich bin aber nicht damit fertig geworden, bevor ich aufwachte. War dieser Traum vielleicht einen Hinweis auf mein aktuelles Photoundpostkartenregistrierungssystemfehlerkorrigierungsprojekt?
Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
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OnlineIversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
It has become evident even to myself that revising my photo/postcard/registration system will take longer than expected, and it would not be acceptable not to study languages for so long so now I expect to blend in a limited amount of language learning into the program - which of course will make the whole revision process to take even longer. Which just goes to tell that everything has its price ...
This morning when I woke up at 6 o'clock I thought that I ought to do something about Greek grammar, and then I read the chapters about nouns and adjectives in Routledge Essential Greek grammar, which I have standing on the chair that's makes it out for a night table in my flat. You may remember that I have mentioned it before, but I have not read anything the last couple of nights because I slept almost before I had had time to lay down - not because the revision process is physically exhausting, but I find it difficult to stop before it is absolutely necessary (read: before I drop down from the chair), and then I just continue and continue...
GR: Φυσικά δεν μπορώ να γράψω μια διατριβή στο ακαδημαϊκό επίπεδο με την γραμματική, αλλά μπορώ να αναφέρω μερικά πράγματα που είχα αναφέρει - όπως ορισμένα θηλυκά ουσιαστικά έχουν μια προαιρετική κατάλιξη -εως της γενικής - για κυβέρνηση - κυβέρνησης ή κυβέρνησεως (government). Πώς μπορείτε να ξεχάσετε κάτι τέτοιο;
The accusative is of course placed between the nominative and the genitive (as it should be), ha ha.. which is the sign of a good grammar - we have discussed this before. Routledge is good at pointing out relevant rules of thumb, but some things in Greek just aren't easy to pin down in the form of a simple rule - like the gender of substantives on -ος or the accentuation of the genitive plural of antepenultimately stressed substantives. But Routledge has some lists of example words, and I think a good way of learning these points is to make some wordlists with the words in the relevant forms or environments - i.e. the 'ossians' with their respective articles and the genitival plural forms of the words mentioned in the book instead of the usual naked nominative singular form.
AF: Ek het nou net 2007 bereik (ek het in daardie jare as 'n besetene gereis!). Ek het vroeër geskryf dat ek verwag het om vinniger met my poskaarte en foto's van hierdie millennium te kan werk, want ek het beter kameras gehad en minder poskaarte gekoop. Daar was inderdaad ongelooflik baie poskaarte met moiré of 'n ongelukkige kleurskema of kromme lyne, en ek het hulle al te lank aanvaar. Safaris te dokumenteer is algemeen problematiek omdat die diere loop rond of sy wegsteek, maar daar is meer goeie foto's as ek kamera's met beter zoom kry. Dit is egter ironies dat ek nie het gebruik zoom om die beeld hieronder te maak nie. Die jonge leeus was langs die pad en hulle het sy nie 'n sentimeter beweeg nie.
This morning when I woke up at 6 o'clock I thought that I ought to do something about Greek grammar, and then I read the chapters about nouns and adjectives in Routledge Essential Greek grammar, which I have standing on the chair that's makes it out for a night table in my flat. You may remember that I have mentioned it before, but I have not read anything the last couple of nights because I slept almost before I had had time to lay down - not because the revision process is physically exhausting, but I find it difficult to stop before it is absolutely necessary (read: before I drop down from the chair), and then I just continue and continue...
GR: Φυσικά δεν μπορώ να γράψω μια διατριβή στο ακαδημαϊκό επίπεδο με την γραμματική, αλλά μπορώ να αναφέρω μερικά πράγματα που είχα αναφέρει - όπως ορισμένα θηλυκά ουσιαστικά έχουν μια προαιρετική κατάλιξη -εως της γενικής - για κυβέρνηση - κυβέρνησης ή κυβέρνησεως (government). Πώς μπορείτε να ξεχάσετε κάτι τέτοιο;
The accusative is of course placed between the nominative and the genitive (as it should be), ha ha.. which is the sign of a good grammar - we have discussed this before. Routledge is good at pointing out relevant rules of thumb, but some things in Greek just aren't easy to pin down in the form of a simple rule - like the gender of substantives on -ος or the accentuation of the genitive plural of antepenultimately stressed substantives. But Routledge has some lists of example words, and I think a good way of learning these points is to make some wordlists with the words in the relevant forms or environments - i.e. the 'ossians' with their respective articles and the genitival plural forms of the words mentioned in the book instead of the usual naked nominative singular form.
AF: Ek het nou net 2007 bereik (ek het in daardie jare as 'n besetene gereis!). Ek het vroeër geskryf dat ek verwag het om vinniger met my poskaarte en foto's van hierdie millennium te kan werk, want ek het beter kameras gehad en minder poskaarte gekoop. Daar was inderdaad ongelooflik baie poskaarte met moiré of 'n ongelukkige kleurskema of kromme lyne, en ek het hulle al te lank aanvaar. Safaris te dokumenteer is algemeen problematiek omdat die diere loop rond of sy wegsteek, maar daar is meer goeie foto's as ek kamera's met beter zoom kry. Dit is egter ironies dat ek nie het gebruik zoom om die beeld hieronder te maak nie. Die jonge leeus was langs die pad en hulle het sy nie 'n sentimeter beweeg nie.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
My sister came today to visit me and some museums in this town, and after she left I have spent some of the evening entering the latest photos on my camera to the system so that I can show them to her and my mother during the upcoming weekend. On top of that I added a few voyages to my ongoing photo/postcard revision project so that I now have reached new year 2009/10. This means that the rest should be plain sailing without really problems - but not that it can be done in less than a couple of days, nor that I can return to my normal full study program here and now .
However I did perouse one more chapter in my Greek grammar yesterday evening, and today I went through a couple of short texts from my Romanian astronomy collection - one about a surprisingly small star and another about a magnetar which according to the current theories should have become a black hole (maybe it shed a lot of material at the very last moment to get under the weight limit?). I'm not going to get into details, but just mention that I keep reading such articles from the site descoperi.ro in spite of its simplified spelling that doesn't mark the special Romanian lettters. You actually need to know Romanian already before such sources can be used, both because they teach you some quite bad habits and because dictionary lookups may fail. So when I copy these texts I spell the words with the correct letters just to protest against such sloppiness. But unfortunately it seems to become more and more common, and in the end the Romanians may end up with an orthography that isn't adequate to cover the sounds of the language.
By the way, I have not had to solve captcha riddles for quite some time, but now they have returned. And I still get logged out after some minutes, but for weeks the first time it happened came fairly long time after the first login - now the interval seems to have been reduced, and nothing I do seems to have any influence on this problem. I got one 'too many connections' error yesterday morning so maybe that has something to do with it. At least it points towards a serverside problem rather than a problem specifically with my account.
However I did perouse one more chapter in my Greek grammar yesterday evening, and today I went through a couple of short texts from my Romanian astronomy collection - one about a surprisingly small star and another about a magnetar which according to the current theories should have become a black hole (maybe it shed a lot of material at the very last moment to get under the weight limit?). I'm not going to get into details, but just mention that I keep reading such articles from the site descoperi.ro in spite of its simplified spelling that doesn't mark the special Romanian lettters. You actually need to know Romanian already before such sources can be used, both because they teach you some quite bad habits and because dictionary lookups may fail. So when I copy these texts I spell the words with the correct letters just to protest against such sloppiness. But unfortunately it seems to become more and more common, and in the end the Romanians may end up with an orthography that isn't adequate to cover the sounds of the language.
By the way, I have not had to solve captcha riddles for quite some time, but now they have returned. And I still get logged out after some minutes, but for weeks the first time it happened came fairly long time after the first login - now the interval seems to have been reduced, and nothing I do seems to have any influence on this problem. I got one 'too many connections' error yesterday morning so maybe that has something to do with it. At least it points towards a serverside problem rather than a problem specifically with my account.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
NBo captcha today -so far.
I have been one a two days trip to Copenhagen for a meeting in my travelclub, where one of our younger members spoke about her recent trip to - of all places - Syria. Central Damascus seems to have escaped the fighting almost unharmed, and Crac des Chevaliers has also survived, but the town Homs has almost been razed to the ground, and another recent visitor could add that the same had befallen Hama a bit further North, and I have read that Aleppo was one of first towns to succomb to heavy fighting so that town is probably also just a heap of ruins now. I have visited all three places, and it is sad to hear that they have been destroyed. Maaloula is a special case. this small town near the border to Lebanon has not been bombed or shot to smithereens, but it seems that almost the whole population has fled so now it looks like a ghost town. It was renowned for being one of the last places where the old Aramaic language was spoken. Time will tell whether this historic language will survive the diaspora of the last people who spoke it.
I visited Syria almost twenty years ago and painted a scary painting afterwards. But Syria was at this point in time still a peaceful normal dictatorship, and I had no idea how prophetic my painting would turn out to be (I'll add it to this message as soon as possible).
IT: Oggi ho visitato il giardino zoologico, dove hanno ceduto alla tentazione di ricevere due panda - ed i bambini tanto amano questi animali idiotiche perché hanno l'aspetto così carino. Ma io non sono contento. La distribuzione delle panda non ubbedisco alle regole normale degli giardini zoologici di questo mondo, che sono accettti per tutt'altra specie, anche animali più rari delle panda. Ma le panda hanno quest'aspetto carino...
Scrivo questo in italiano perché ho mangiato una pizza, il che mi a provedetto della prima occasione di parlare italiano dopo il 'gathering' a Bratislava nell'anno scorso, dove ho fatto una piccola conferenza improvvisata nella lingua.
I have been one a two days trip to Copenhagen for a meeting in my travelclub, where one of our younger members spoke about her recent trip to - of all places - Syria. Central Damascus seems to have escaped the fighting almost unharmed, and Crac des Chevaliers has also survived, but the town Homs has almost been razed to the ground, and another recent visitor could add that the same had befallen Hama a bit further North, and I have read that Aleppo was one of first towns to succomb to heavy fighting so that town is probably also just a heap of ruins now. I have visited all three places, and it is sad to hear that they have been destroyed. Maaloula is a special case. this small town near the border to Lebanon has not been bombed or shot to smithereens, but it seems that almost the whole population has fled so now it looks like a ghost town. It was renowned for being one of the last places where the old Aramaic language was spoken. Time will tell whether this historic language will survive the diaspora of the last people who spoke it.
I visited Syria almost twenty years ago and painted a scary painting afterwards. But Syria was at this point in time still a peaceful normal dictatorship, and I had no idea how prophetic my painting would turn out to be (I'll add it to this message as soon as possible).
IT: Oggi ho visitato il giardino zoologico, dove hanno ceduto alla tentazione di ricevere due panda - ed i bambini tanto amano questi animali idiotiche perché hanno l'aspetto così carino. Ma io non sono contento. La distribuzione delle panda non ubbedisco alle regole normale degli giardini zoologici di questo mondo, che sono accettti per tutt'altra specie, anche animali più rari delle panda. Ma le panda hanno quest'aspetto carino...
Scrivo questo in italiano perché ho mangiato una pizza, il che mi a provedetto della prima occasione di parlare italiano dopo il 'gathering' a Bratislava nell'anno scorso, dove ho fatto una piccola conferenza improvvisata nella lingua.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
Iversen wrote: I have been one a two days trip to Copenhagen for a meeting in my travelclub, where one of our younger members spoke about her recent trip to - of all places - Syria. Central Damascus seems to have escaped the fighting almost unharmed, and Crac des Chevaliers has also survived, but the town Homs has almost been razed to the ground, and another recent visitor could add that the same had befallen Hama a bit further North, and I have read that Aleppa was one of first towns to succomb to heavy fighting so that town is probably also just a heap of ruins now.
It's very good to hear that some Syrian cities have escaped the worst of it. It must be particularly sad for you to hear about the cities devastated by war after spending time there, interacting with the locals, etc.
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OnlineIversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
I don't know how the situation is around the country, but Damascus could be the only major city that hasn't suffered serious damage - at least in the town center. Crac des Chevaliers is still there (and it is hard to destroy such a fortress), but we saw a metal sign from its entrance which had been hit by numerous bullets so there has probably been fight even there. I won't write any political comments about the situation here, but just state that I hope that the fights will end so that the rebuilding process can start.
Btw: the original Palmyra painting from the message above has a 'big brother' , namely the one shown below:
Btw: the original Palmyra painting from the message above has a 'big brother' , namely the one shown below:
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
I have now reached annuum domini 2015 in the revision of my photo/postcard registration system and the text in it. But there are still some tasks to do, and I may choose to postpone the revision of those parts until after the upcoming voyage to Eastern Europe, which has planned in the firm belief that I would participate in the gathering and maybe even do a wee speech there (a dream that brutally thwarted by the censorship committee). For instance the system also contains photos and postcards from the travels of my mother (which has turned out to be a very useful part of the system since we now run through one or two of her travels every time we meet - it is easier for her to see pictures which are shown on a big screen than to run through the original pictures in a photoalbum). I have also a section with clickable maps, and I have to find some easy wholesale way to check image sizes etc. in that part of the system. But I have now almost finished one part of the job, and maybe I can find time to do some serious language study before my departure. The rest can wait.
SLOK: Len rezervoval som si lety a ubytovanie (za týždeň!) v Bratislave za účelom účasti na zhromaždení polyglotov. Nedávno som navštívil Nitru a dvakrát Bratislavu a radšej by som išiel inde, ale peniaze boli zaplatené, takže teraz musím cestovať do Bratislavy. Vzdych!
POL: Jedynym nowym miastem na mojej trasie jest Lwów. Albo Львів, jak to się nazywa w języku ukraińskim.
GR: Εξακολουθώ να διαβάζω την ελληνική γραμματική ως ανάγνωση της καληνύχτας.
SLOK: Len rezervoval som si lety a ubytovanie (za týždeň!) v Bratislave za účelom účasti na zhromaždení polyglotov. Nedávno som navštívil Nitru a dvakrát Bratislavu a radšej by som išiel inde, ale peniaze boli zaplatené, takže teraz musím cestovať do Bratislavy. Vzdych!
POL: Jedynym nowym miastem na mojej trasie jest Lwów. Albo Львів, jak to się nazywa w języku ukraińskim.
GR: Εξακολουθώ να διαβάζω την ελληνική γραμματική ως ανάγνωση της καληνύχτας.
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
I have now finished the revision project that has been occupying me for some days. Evidently I haven' been able to do intensive language studies while I was working at my computer, but in some cases I have run into things that reminded me about the linguistic aspects of my travels - like when I saw the small house below in a zoo in the Netherlands. I think it was Stephen Fry in the QI quiz of BBC who pointed out that ALL names for toilets are euphemisms - including the word "toilet" (from French - literally a place to pimp yourself up rather than a pooh-and-pee installation). "Water closet" is of course just a basic technical description of the central part of the installation, and "lavatory" is a place where you wash yourself ... with no mention of the reason to do it. "Powder room", "the loo" or "the John" are of course also euphemisms (the etymology of "loo" is unclear, but maybe it comes from French "lieu", place). To get some something in English that isn't an euphemism you can of course use some of the slang expressions, but you won't see those in a decent newspaper or the catalogue of a real estate agent.
In Denmark we have had "retirader", i.e. oldfashioned installations with a long tube down into the Earth whence a special corps of socalled 'natmænd' ('night men') would collect the collected fecal matter during the dark hours. But then we also got water closets, and we promptly dubbed them WC (even though we don't use the term "water closet"), and they are placed in the "toilet" (with the accent on -let, also used about the porcelain bowl itself) eller "lille house" (in jest - meaning 'the little house'). Old and grubby places can be called "lokum" (from the Latin word for place") - but again: only in slang will you meet non-euphemistic expressions, which of course are no less gross then those used in English. In the interest of decency I shan't repeat them here.
So in this world of shameful euphemisery it felt almost liberating to see the clear indication of what is happening inside this wee house near the entrance to the Beekse Bergen zoo in the South Eastern Netherlands:
DU: Ik ben een paar jaar geleden naar Nederland gereisd om een visum voor Suriname te krijgen bij de ambassade in Amsterdam (mijn vertrouwen in de postdiensten is minimaal), en om ook andere delen van het land te zien huurde ik een hotelkamer in EIndhoven en bezochte vier dierentuinen in deze deel van Nederland. Beekse Bergen was waarschijnlijk de meest indrukwekkende hiervan - het is zo groot dat je rondzeilt in een boot. Daarnaast bezochte ik ook zowel Dierenrijk als Oliemeulen in Tilburg en BestZoo in Best (wat een ingenieuze naam!). En natuurlijk ook Artis in Amsterdam. Ik heb ongeveer 560 dierentuinen en aquaria bezocht tijdens mijn leven, en de lijst zal nog grooter werden. Ik heb bijvoorbeeld geplant 4 of 5 dierentuinen in Oost-Tsjechië te zien in plaats van de gathering van dit jaar in Bratislava, die ik zal boycotten.
And speaking about fauna: some of it is self-employed, which doesn't hinder me from trying to photograph it. And during the course of my revision project I noticed that I had misindentified two thrushes, one from Sweden, the other from Romania. And then I thought: aha, a chance to add some Swedish and Romanian vocabulary to the storehouse at the upper level in my head. The bird in question is called "sjagger" in Danish, "fieldfare" in English, "björktrast" in Swedish (literally 'birch trush') and "cocoșarul" or "sturzul de iarnă" ('winter trush') in Romanian, but in my system I had twice used the name of another species which has a longer history here in Denmark, namely the "sangdrossel" ("song thrush"), which of course is an unpardonable mistake since they have quite different colours. The one below is the Romanian cocoșar, which I photographed in the Botanical garden of Cluj:
RO: Dar numele de animale, inclusiv numele de păsări, sunt bineînțeles o zonă de cunoaștere în care este practic imposibil să-și amintește de tot pentru că este destul de imprevizibil ce sunt numele animalelor mai puțin cunoscute în diferite limbi. Animalele exotice mari din grădinile zoologice au adesea nume recunoscutabil, dar speciile mici care trăiesc în curțile proprii ale oamenilor li s-au dat numele cu mult timp în urmă, și la acea vreme nimeni nu a încercat să le alinieze.
SW: Men skillnader i djurnamn kan vara allt annat än förvirrande - de kan också vara roliga. Till exempel fotograferade jag en gång en skrattmås och en sothöna (blackhooded gull resp. common coot) uti Malmö, som är en svensk stad få mil från Köpenhamn. På danska hetter de "hættemåge" og "blishøne" (literally 'hooded gull' and 'blaze hen'), och de svenska namnen är för os danskare otroligt löjliga. "Skrattmås" låter för oss som "skrattaröv", ock 'sot' är det som kommer ut ur en våt skorsten -ock endast det. Men de svenska namnen är på sin vis logiska: skrattmåsen hetar Larus ridibundus på latin (bokstavligen en mås som är benägen att skratta), och sothönan är faktiskt mest svart - urom den lilla vita fläcken som vi danskare påpekar med det danska namnet. Zoologisk nomenklatur är inte lätt att hitta runt i.
In Denmark we have had "retirader", i.e. oldfashioned installations with a long tube down into the Earth whence a special corps of socalled 'natmænd' ('night men') would collect the collected fecal matter during the dark hours. But then we also got water closets, and we promptly dubbed them WC (even though we don't use the term "water closet"), and they are placed in the "toilet" (with the accent on -let, also used about the porcelain bowl itself) eller "lille house" (in jest - meaning 'the little house'). Old and grubby places can be called "lokum" (from the Latin word for place") - but again: only in slang will you meet non-euphemistic expressions, which of course are no less gross then those used in English. In the interest of decency I shan't repeat them here.
So in this world of shameful euphemisery it felt almost liberating to see the clear indication of what is happening inside this wee house near the entrance to the Beekse Bergen zoo in the South Eastern Netherlands:
DU: Ik ben een paar jaar geleden naar Nederland gereisd om een visum voor Suriname te krijgen bij de ambassade in Amsterdam (mijn vertrouwen in de postdiensten is minimaal), en om ook andere delen van het land te zien huurde ik een hotelkamer in EIndhoven en bezochte vier dierentuinen in deze deel van Nederland. Beekse Bergen was waarschijnlijk de meest indrukwekkende hiervan - het is zo groot dat je rondzeilt in een boot. Daarnaast bezochte ik ook zowel Dierenrijk als Oliemeulen in Tilburg en BestZoo in Best (wat een ingenieuze naam!). En natuurlijk ook Artis in Amsterdam. Ik heb ongeveer 560 dierentuinen en aquaria bezocht tijdens mijn leven, en de lijst zal nog grooter werden. Ik heb bijvoorbeeld geplant 4 of 5 dierentuinen in Oost-Tsjechië te zien in plaats van de gathering van dit jaar in Bratislava, die ik zal boycotten.
And speaking about fauna: some of it is self-employed, which doesn't hinder me from trying to photograph it. And during the course of my revision project I noticed that I had misindentified two thrushes, one from Sweden, the other from Romania. And then I thought: aha, a chance to add some Swedish and Romanian vocabulary to the storehouse at the upper level in my head. The bird in question is called "sjagger" in Danish, "fieldfare" in English, "björktrast" in Swedish (literally 'birch trush') and "cocoșarul" or "sturzul de iarnă" ('winter trush') in Romanian, but in my system I had twice used the name of another species which has a longer history here in Denmark, namely the "sangdrossel" ("song thrush"), which of course is an unpardonable mistake since they have quite different colours. The one below is the Romanian cocoșar, which I photographed in the Botanical garden of Cluj:
RO: Dar numele de animale, inclusiv numele de păsări, sunt bineînțeles o zonă de cunoaștere în care este practic imposibil să-și amintește de tot pentru că este destul de imprevizibil ce sunt numele animalelor mai puțin cunoscute în diferite limbi. Animalele exotice mari din grădinile zoologice au adesea nume recunoscutabil, dar speciile mici care trăiesc în curțile proprii ale oamenilor li s-au dat numele cu mult timp în urmă, și la acea vreme nimeni nu a încercat să le alinieze.
SW: Men skillnader i djurnamn kan vara allt annat än förvirrande - de kan också vara roliga. Till exempel fotograferade jag en gång en skrattmås och en sothöna (blackhooded gull resp. common coot) uti Malmö, som är en svensk stad få mil från Köpenhamn. På danska hetter de "hættemåge" og "blishøne" (literally 'hooded gull' and 'blaze hen'), och de svenska namnen är för os danskare otroligt löjliga. "Skrattmås" låter för oss som "skrattaröv", ock 'sot' är det som kommer ut ur en våt skorsten -ock endast det. Men de svenska namnen är på sin vis logiska: skrattmåsen hetar Larus ridibundus på latin (bokstavligen en mås som är benägen att skratta), och sothönan är faktiskt mest svart - urom den lilla vita fläcken som vi danskare påpekar med det danska namnet. Zoologisk nomenklatur är inte lätt att hitta runt i.
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-
OnlineIversen
- Black Belt - 4th Dan
- Posts: 4784
- Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
- Location: Denmark
- Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more... - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
- x 15031
Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
Today I have been celebrating the final step of my revision project (surely not the last project in the row), and I celebrated it with the consumption of an article in Polish about the weird object 3753 Cruithne (named after an old Irish tribe). And afterwards I also read the Polish Wikipedia article about it, but the first article (from aspress.com.pl) is more detailed. I first heard about it in QI when wily mr. Fry posed the question "how many moons does the Earth have?". And then he went on to point to Cruithne as our Moon no. 2. Actually this is not correct, but I wouldn't dare to try to explain the reason in Polish so let me just quote Wikipedia:
Jest to planetoida krążąca wokół Słońca w rezonansie 1:1 z Ziemią. Ze względu na powiązanie grawitacyjne niektórzy uważają ją za „drugi księżyc Ziemi”, ale nie jest to określenie precyzyjne, gdyż 3753 Cruithne nie obiega naszej planety, lecz porusza się po orbicie wokółsłonecznej. Mimośród planetoidy sprawia, że w swoim ruchu orbitalnym 3753 Cruithne w peryhelium przecina orbitę Wenus, a w aphelium orbitę Marsa.
Now that everyone knows from a reputable source why Cruithne isn't really a moon I'll give my own simplistic explanation, being that it runs around in the vicinity of the Earth like a little dog, and it keeps track of where we are - but it circles the Sun much more often than it circles the Earth.
In a later program it was stated that the Earth doesn't have a Moon at all since the thing that circles the planet actually is a part of our planet which just got kicked out of the motherlode by a passing object during the late heavy bombardment. And if you are in that mood you could actually claim that the Earth is the Moon's moon - but the reality is that the difference in weight makes the Moon circle the Earth, and the common barycenter is inside the Earth - which should settle the matter once and for all. In other words: Terra lunam modo UNAM habet, et nomen suum Luna est!
PO: Ale mogę napisać, że polski artykuł jest przeznaczony do edukacji szkolnej, chociaż nie jest określony na jakim poziomie.
![Image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Horseshoe_orbit_of_Cruithne_from_the_perspective_of_Earth.gif)
Yesterday I briefly touched upon the topic of animal names. It is clear that I know more European animals (incl. birds) by name in Danish than in other languages, but in Africa the balance is different because of my travels down there. I have bought field guides to the local fauna (especially the birds) in many parts of the world, but only in languages I can read. So I do have a few field guides in other languages like Spanish and Icelandic and Afrikaans, but the overwhelming majority are in English.
AF: Die laaste keer dat ek in Suid-Afrika was, het ek 'n gids genaamd "Watter voël is dit" in Krysna gekoop (of so iets), maar die boek het net name in Afrikaans, nie in Engels of Latyn nie. So ek gooi 't uit en het 'n ander een gekoop, die "Roberts Voëlgids", wat ek van A tot Z gelees het tydens die reis. Dit is nog steeds die enigste volledige boek in Afrikaans wat ek gelees het. Dit moet egter erken word dat dit 'n bietjie repetitiew is: daar is nogal 'n paar voëls met wit maag en 'n bek aan die eene kant en wat hun eiers minstens een keer per jaar lê.
Die foto hieronder wys die beroemde Knysnaloerie (Knysna Louri). Ek het die foto in 'n oord naby Plettenburg geneem.
Jest to planetoida krążąca wokół Słońca w rezonansie 1:1 z Ziemią. Ze względu na powiązanie grawitacyjne niektórzy uważają ją za „drugi księżyc Ziemi”, ale nie jest to określenie precyzyjne, gdyż 3753 Cruithne nie obiega naszej planety, lecz porusza się po orbicie wokółsłonecznej. Mimośród planetoidy sprawia, że w swoim ruchu orbitalnym 3753 Cruithne w peryhelium przecina orbitę Wenus, a w aphelium orbitę Marsa.
Now that everyone knows from a reputable source why Cruithne isn't really a moon I'll give my own simplistic explanation, being that it runs around in the vicinity of the Earth like a little dog, and it keeps track of where we are - but it circles the Sun much more often than it circles the Earth.
In a later program it was stated that the Earth doesn't have a Moon at all since the thing that circles the planet actually is a part of our planet which just got kicked out of the motherlode by a passing object during the late heavy bombardment. And if you are in that mood you could actually claim that the Earth is the Moon's moon - but the reality is that the difference in weight makes the Moon circle the Earth, and the common barycenter is inside the Earth - which should settle the matter once and for all. In other words: Terra lunam modo UNAM habet, et nomen suum Luna est!
PO: Ale mogę napisać, że polski artykuł jest przeznaczony do edukacji szkolnej, chociaż nie jest określony na jakim poziomie.
![Image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Horseshoe_orbit_of_Cruithne_from_the_perspective_of_Earth.gif)
Yesterday I briefly touched upon the topic of animal names. It is clear that I know more European animals (incl. birds) by name in Danish than in other languages, but in Africa the balance is different because of my travels down there. I have bought field guides to the local fauna (especially the birds) in many parts of the world, but only in languages I can read. So I do have a few field guides in other languages like Spanish and Icelandic and Afrikaans, but the overwhelming majority are in English.
AF: Die laaste keer dat ek in Suid-Afrika was, het ek 'n gids genaamd "Watter voël is dit" in Krysna gekoop (of so iets), maar die boek het net name in Afrikaans, nie in Engels of Latyn nie. So ek gooi 't uit en het 'n ander een gekoop, die "Roberts Voëlgids", wat ek van A tot Z gelees het tydens die reis. Dit is nog steeds die enigste volledige boek in Afrikaans wat ek gelees het. Dit moet egter erken word dat dit 'n bietjie repetitiew is: daar is nogal 'n paar voëls met wit maag en 'n bek aan die eene kant en wat hun eiers minstens een keer per jaar lê.
Die foto hieronder wys die beroemde Knysnaloerie (Knysna Louri). Ek het die foto in 'n oord naby Plettenburg geneem.
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- javier_getafe
- Orange Belt
- Posts: 142
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:28 am
- Location: Spain
- Languages: Spanish (N), English (B2). In the way to get C1 certificate this year 2022. Wish me luck ;)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10163
- x 123
Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread
Iversen wrote:
So in this world of shameful euphemisery it felt almost liberating to see the clear indication of what is happening inside this wee house near the entrance to the Beekse Bergen zoo in the South Eastern Netherlands:
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
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