Listen up, university, we need to have some standards here D:

It’s such a great thing that I’m not teaching the Language Documentation class, because I wouldn’t laugh at those people, I’d make them cry.

This is like, nightmare fodder. Or alternatively, an awesome proof for sneering programmers of how dumb the  humanities people really are.

Brilliant Princess 1

‘So first, we would need to ascertain whether the people who live  in the, you know, jungle just talk normally, like we do, you know, small talk and stuff, or whether they only speak when they work or want something from each other.’

Yes, those silly savages! Of course they wouldn’t engage in any sort of social behaviour! They live in a jungle, after all. Small talk? Pah! Pointless babble? Nuh-huh. It’s a 2o century Western invention, didn’t you know?

(Possibly, this was the first time ever in my life when I really wanted to just stand up and smack somebody on their stupid face)

Brilliant Princess 2

‘So, what we should look into first, well, I think, I think we should start with standard language, and progress from there.’

OH MY DARWIN YES OF COURSE PEOPLE WHOSE LANGUAGE HAS NEVER BEEN WRITTEN DOWN AND WHO STILL LIVE IN SEASONAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE BLOODY JUNGLE TOTALLY HAVE STANDARDISED LANGUAGE OF COURSE.

How can you be a third year linguistics student and say stuff like that? And if you can, can you forget about breathing, too?  And if so, why don’t you just do that?

Brilliant Princess 3

‘I’m sorry, I just have a question. I mean, it just got me thinking. Do you do documentation of the normal languages… I mean, standard languages, too? Like German or Dutch? I mean, you know, just the normal stuff?’

MY EYES THEY BURN BUT ONLY BECAUSE MY EARS HAVE FALLEN OFF ALREADY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

Note: all brilliant quotations was painstakingly transcribed during my language documentation seminar. By me.

Because that sort of brilliance deserves to be preserved for posterity.

Note 2: “princess” has nothing to do with the gender of the “princesses”. This is what I call people I really dislike when I want to swear but won’t.

 

 

Nuns beat up children, news at 11

A tourist witnessed a nun beating up a disabled child. He did what any decent person would do, which is to film everything and run to the nearest TV station*.

Here’s the video in which you can see the nun (first 30 seconds or so is the tourist talking about what he saw) beating up a kid.

Now, what happened after the nuns were confronted by angry journalists?

They said it was self-defense on the part of the nun (yeah, I’m not making this up), and she got some vacation. End of story. The local authorities also ignored all the complaints.

BUT RELIGION IS GOOD ISN’T IT?

* This is completely unironic.

Don’t discriminate against the little grey persons, says Bob the little grey person

Guys, I must admit I’m ashamed of myself. When I first saw this picture:

Visual aid 1: the ad in question

I admit I was a little irritated. What’s wrong with those people, I thought to myself, do they really believe this is what the ideal of female beauty looks like? With  her head bigger than her torso? With grotesque stick-like hands and legs, vaguely reminiscent of the Arachnida class?

But then, Bob the Little Grey Person from the Campaign for Equal Rights for Little Grey Persons Intgl, sent me a passionate e-mail:

How can you say all those hateful things about a beautiful Little Grey Person female? Do you not see how speciecist that is? Don’t you realise how that makes us feel? We are sentient beings too, and, in fact, our culture considers big, (adorable) heads, and so-called “stick-like” hands and legs highly erotic.

Why are you so dismissive of paradigms of beauty different from the one you’re most accustomed to? Nowadays, with humanity (and by the way, do you even realise how alienating it is for us, Little Grey People, to always be excluded from the humanity‘s progress and accomplishments?) striving to be more and more accepting of plus-sized models, models with disabilities, and even dead models, one can’t help but wonder what the source of the deep-rooted prejudice and systematic discrimination against Little Grey Person models, and Little Grey Persons in general, might be.

Wow. I must say, this blew me right out of my seat. I never realised the extent of prejudice against Little Grey Person models, Bob. I’m terribly sorry for what I said, and I urge my readers to be as ashamed as I am.

Little Grey Person models are just as beautiful as other models are, and our human standards should not be applied to Little Grey Person models. I’m sorry I was such a speciecist arsehole :(

Important visual aid 2: Bob the Little Grey person and his human ally (note the uncanny resemblance to the female of the species)

Yes yes yes, you’re stupid. Nope, I don’t care, you could have ten millions degrees, you still fail at Introduction to Common Sense, you so do!

Yesterday night, I was snarling happily and reading about social categories in language. It was fun.

I should never have taken a break to check my e-mail, and troll the internet for fun stuff, because this is what I found.

(I was following a trail of links to posts about the use of the word “myth” for “Biblical stories”, by the way. Those posts were fun.)

Where should I even start? There’s so much to trash!

(Cut because the stupid, once replicated, could very well implode the internets or something)

SNAAAAAAAAAAAAARL

What am I doing wrooooong?

Yesterday, everybody thought I was American*. Today, everybody thought I was British**. Should I stick a tiny Polish flag to my forehead****? Gah.

Still, that’s not nearly as bad as the seven million***** Japanese people asking my Thai friend “SO DO U RIDE ELEPHANTS TO SCHOOL IN THAILAND LOL?”.

So maybe I should just shut up.

(Why so clueless though, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???And I don’t even really care, it’s just, the assumptions! Also, really, guys, more than half the people you meet online are likely to be ESL. Really!

I’m not. English is my third language *snaaaarl*)

* Americans: stop thinking that every white person you meet abroad is American.

** Americans: stop thinking that every person with a funny accent is British. I could as well be Canadian***. You never know.

*** But I’m noooooooooot.

**** But then everybody would think I’m from Indonesia or Monaco. I want to dieeeee.

***** This is only a slight exaggeration.

SNAAAAAAAAAAAARL

Caution: what follows is the most whiny, absurd post in the entire blogosphere. Read at your own discretion.

Freaky fringe theories and LINKSPAM <3<3<3

Warning: please refrain from drinking any beverages while reading this post. The penis part made me spit some coffee on my monitor.)

1. This is so absolutely stupid it sounds like a parody, but, apparently, is for real. So, the USian extreme right is demanding to be shown Obama’s penis.

Wherein Sendaianonymous is loved, but not by bipeds, and the Universe sucks in many creative and depressing ways

The fact is: I am very much loved, but not by bipeds. Whenever I come back to the dorm, my squishy squishy shiny (ew) oozing (whyyy) little (yeah right) friends come out to the veranda to greet me:

Exhibit one, giant moth (weirdly reminiscent of the giant bats flying frogs butterflies from Ishinomaki. One of them collided with my face. I was not amused.):