And did you know? that when people intone every sentence as if it were a question? it gets really fucking annoying?

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by ReverendTed.

I'm guessing that they're trying to give Americans a feeling for what it is like to listen to an American accent as a foreigner by mixing in gibberish words that still contain the American pronunciation features and also speaking their lines while using American sentence stress and intonation features. The result is a spoken dialogue that is mostly unintelligible in the sense that you can't pick out specific words but in general understandable in the sense that you can use the context cues, line delivery, and a few unchanged words to figure out what is going on.

If you've ever played any of the Sims games you should be familiar with the concept, as they did something similar with Simlish.

>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^Shepppard:
I wonder if this is live.

Not sure, it may be. google would know.


It's the kind of semi-live that electronica artists tend to do. There are so many instruments that it would require 20+ musicians to play it "real live". Just take a look at J-M Jarres concert where every sound was made live (sorry couldn't find a link).. It is still shame that they don't play the themes. The performance is more "meta", where the actual melodies are not played but their intonation, the emotion part of the sound is manipulated live (timbre, levels, effects etc.)

So to asnwer that, no it isn't "live" but it is live performance.. It all depends on the individuals own definition of live performance... Most electronic artists do their live in this format and as a performer my self, it certainly is as intense as old school live gigs, maybe even more as the technology is fragile.. Anything can go wrong by simply pressing one wrong button, just like in every other kind of performance..

There is such a huge contrast in demeanor, reasonableness, and verisimilitude between those representing Occupy and other protests around the country/world, and the politicians and talking head tools of the plutarchy. I don't understand how anyone with a brain and just a modicum of tangible social experience can observe the bearing, manner, and intonation of an Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, any given Republican Presidential candidate or Fox & Friend and, unfortunately (for me), a Barack Obama, and not just feel played, condescended, and lied to. Perhaps it's what happens when one is finally exposed to intelligent, real people, and not just those studied in syntactical ambiguity and the dissemination of bullshit.

Cool, did not know that. The one we get to hear most often is the ghoti = fish example for unphoneticness of English.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
How about Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?

Your point about the sounds shifting is interesting, I've noticed that if I watch a long enough (subtitled!) Dutch movie, by the end I can pick up a few words which are similar or the same as English once a few sounds are changed a little.
In reply to this comment by DerHasisttot:
I've onyl read ballads and such from these periods, I can read middle english Ok, old english: Not really, only if I really get into it and learn some symbols again. Reading frisian is far easier than understanding it by hearing, the same probably goes for swabian. Most of the times you just have to shift some different sounds to certain letters and you've got an approximation of a more standard german.
The northern german intonation (of their dialect) however is hell for me to understand, that's completely different, as you said. Swabian is spoken more softly and sonorant in the back of the throat, whereas northern german sounds 'headier' and nasal to me.

How about Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?

Your point about the sounds shifting is interesting, I've noticed that if I watch a long enough (subtitled!) Dutch movie, by the end I can pick up a few words which are similar or the same as English once a few sounds are changed a little.
In reply to this comment by DerHasisttot:
I've onyl read ballads and such from these periods, I can read middle english Ok, old english: Not really, only if I really get into it and learn some symbols again. Reading frisian is far easier than understanding it by hearing, the same probably goes for swabian. Most of the times you just have to shift some different sounds to certain letters and you've got an approximation of a more standard german.
The northern german intonation (of their dialect) however is hell for me to understand, that's completely different, as you said. Swabian is spoken more softly and sonorant in the back of the throat, whereas northern german sounds 'headier' and nasal to me.

>> ^oritteropo:

Have you ever read any old or middle English? I studied "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", which is middle English, but old English should be a bit closer to Frisian... which as I read it would be about as far from swabian as you can get?
In reply to this comment by DerHasisttot:
Hehe. I had to think about it for a second before I knew what he meant with "gopfertamti." A northern german would have been unlikely to understand the phrase, but my dialect (swabian) and his dialect (high alemannic) are related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German (It's funny to hear french people from the Alsace with a related dialect in a different language.)
That's also why you can't get a translation from the internet, it's more of a dialect than a variant.
[...]


I've onyl read ballads and such from these periods, I can read middle english Ok, old english: Not really, only if I really get into it and learn some symbols again. Reading frisian is far easier than understanding it by hearing, the same probably goes for swabian. Most of the times you just have to shift some different sounds to certain letters and you've got an approximation of a more standard german.
The northern german intonation (of their dialect) however is hell for me to understand, that's completely different, as you said. Swabian is spoken more softly and sonorant in the back of the throat, whereas northern german sounds 'headier' and nasal to me.

God this checkbox bothers me.

Sarcastic intonation is a fucking sin. Like, there is actually a level of hell for it. If you can't say it deadpan then don't say it, otherwise you may as well follow every sarcastic comment with the inverse. This Checkbox is really cool! (The checkbox isn't cool - ed)

So I'm torn between not using it, or using it on every single post like some sort of metasarcasm.

@hpqp

I've watched a lot of his videos too... not sure why you keep assuming I haven't. Check out some of his other vids on the Sift and you'll see I've downvoted many of them (not all--it's hard for anyone including Pat to be wrong 100% of the time) too. The more I watch, the less I think he is being ironic and the more convinced I am he is being dead-straight honest.

In fact, I don't see how this video can be interpreted to be ironic in any way, shape, or form. If we use Wikipedia again to look at the definition of verbal irony we see that:

Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example of this is when someone says "Oh, that's beautiful", when what they mean (probably conveyed by their tone) is they find "that" quite ugly.

So how is this diatribe ironic? For it to be ironic, what he is expressing must be the opposite of what he is saying. In other words, he must mean that he really doesn't want them to feel bad after he insults them. In fact, he agrees with their methods. Clearly that's an absurd interpretation of this video.

He is being sarcastic in this video (according to the definitions from my last post), he is being a hypocrite (saying he believes the meaning of life is joy but then arguing its okay to insult other people cuz, you know, they started it), but I don't see how you can argue he's being ironic.

I understand that you believe Pat actually means "criticize" when he says "insult" but taken as a whole I don't think this video gives you much evidence to support that view. Conversely, there's lots of support there to show that when he says insult he means insult. For example at 1:34...

"And for this reason not only do I have a perfect right to insult your religion, I have a right to insult you personally the moment I have to hear about your poxy religion."

FYI according to the urban dictionary "poxy" means: crappy, stupid, dumb.

It's pretty difficult to explain that statement away as a criticism of religion and not a direct insult. Just look at how he says that sentence (his facial expression, intonation, etc.). He is dead-serious.

Just to recap my main points:

1) Claiming that it's okay to insult religion because "they started it" makes it difficult to take your arguments any more seriously than a childish rant
2) Throwing insults around is not likely to accomplish anything--even though you have the right to do something, doesn't always mean it's a good idea to do so.

I absolutely agree with you that we should not let people squelch criticism of religion by claiming that criticism is equivalent to insult. But neither should we, in turn, equate blatant insult with genuine criticism.

As far as Sagan goes... when you have to change multiple parts of someones quote in order to make it sound like they support your views, you're not really quoting them--you're just putting words in their mouth. Sagan was a class-act gentleman who knew how to argue rationally and found no need to throw shit around like some angry ape in order to make a point. Pat could learn a great deal about persuasive arguing from Sagan.

The Big Lie About The Great Depression

Ben Shapiro

In her vital and fascinating new book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes tells a story about national icon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after FDR took office, Shlaes explains, he began arbitrarily tinkering with the price of gold. "One day he would move the price up several cents; another, a few more," writes Shlaes.

One particular morning, Shlaes relates, FDR informed his "brain trust" that he was considering raising the price of gold by 21 cents. His advisers asked why 21 cents was the appropriate figure. "It's a lucky number," stated Roosevelt, "because it's three times seven." Henry Morgenthau, a member of the "brain trust," later wrote: "If anybody knew how we really set the gold price through a combination of lucky numbers, etc., I think they would be frightened."

Ignorance of basic economics — and the concurrent attempt to obfuscate that ignorance by employing class-conscious demagoguery — remains the staple of the Democratic Party. For over 60 years, Democrats and their allies in the media and public school system have taught that the Great Depression was an inevitable result of laissez-faire economic policies, and that only the Keynesian policies of the FDR government allowed America to emerge from the ashes. The Great Depression, for the left, provides conclusive proof that when it comes to economics, government works better than business.

This point of view has a sterling reputation. That reputation, unsurprisingly, was created by FDR himself. FDR turned the Great Depression into a morality play — a morality play in which those in favor of individual initiative were the sinners, while those who relied on government were the saints. "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," Roosevelt intoned in 1937. "We know now that it is bad economics."

This, as Shlaes convincingly shows, is hogwash. The Depression lasted nearly a decade longer than it should have, due almost entirely to governmental meddling under both Herbert Hoover and FDR. High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare. Only the devastation of World War II lifted America out of the mire, solving the drastic unemployment problem and providing a legitimate medium for FDR's pre-war wartime policies.

Nonetheless, the myth of a grinning FDR leading America forth from the soup kitchens remains potent.
And today's Democrats rely desperately on that fading falsehood, hoping to bolster their bad economics with worse history. Hillary Clinton routinely hijacks Rooseveltian language, most recently disparaging the "on your own society" in favor of a "we're all in it together society." John Edwards' "two Americas" nonsense drips of FDR's class warfare. Never mind that Keynesian economics does not work. Never mind that it promotes unemployment, discourages investment and quashes entrepreneurship. For Democrats, the image of government-as-friend is more important than a government that actually protects the rights that breed prosperity.

"The impression of recovery — the impression that a President was bending the old rules and, drawing upon his own courage and flamboyance in adversity and illness, stirring things up on behalf of the down-and-out — mattered more than any miscalculations in the moot mathematics of economics," novelist-cum-economist John Updike recently wrote, defending FDR from Shlaes' critique. "Business, of which Shlaes is so solicitous, is basically merciless, geared to maximize profit. Government is ultimately a human transaction, and Roosevelt put a cheerful, defiant, caring face on government at a time when faith in democracy was ebbing throughout the Western world. For this inspirational feat he is the twentieth century's greatest President, to rank with Lincoln and Washington as symbolic figures for a nation to live by."

For Updike and his allies, image trumps reality. The supposed harshness of the business world matters more for Updike than the fact that profit incentives promote economic growth, efficiency and creativity. The "caring face" of government is more important for Updike than creating a framework that produces jobs and affordable commodities. Updike's sporadically employed father liked FDR because FDR made him feel "less alone." No doubt Updike's father would have felt less alone if he had been steadily employed by a private enterprise — the kind of enterprise stifled by Roosevelt.

"We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal," FDR announced in 1937, as unemployment stood at 15 percent, "and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world." Today's Democrats continue to embrace the vision, even at the cost of a prosperous reality.

>> ^SDGundamX:

I teach at university in Japan. I don't know how to feel about this. My students are self-conscious enough about speaking English without knowing that their accent is being ridiculed on the Internets. It doesn't help that what you're seeing in this vid is a valid pronunciation practice technique called "shadowing." This kind of practice (recording what you're saying so you can compare it with the actor) helps the learners spot their intonation, rhythm, and other errors.
EDIT: Sorry, after more thought I have to downvote. I think it just promotes racial stereotyping (if the YouTube comments are any indication).


I humbly respect your opinion in regards to this clip... I can understand if this maybe something that is *controversial although as I said before, this is pretty much like when you have English dubs for anime... Some things are just better off staying in their own language...

And I'm sure that if one of your students can easily out perform this guy...

I teach at university in Japan. I don't know how to feel about this. My students are self-conscious enough about speaking English without knowing that their accent is being ridiculed on the Internets. It doesn't help that what you're seeing in this vid is a valid pronunciation practice technique called "shadowing." This kind of practice (recording what you're saying so you can compare it with the actor) helps the learners spot their intonation, rhythm, and other errors.

EDIT: Sorry, after more thought I have to downvote. I think it just promotes racial stereotyping (if the YouTube comments are any indication).

Hey Sarzy.

"Someone being wrong about something isn't automatically irony." No, that's not what I was saying at all! If the guy is perfectly aware that they won't be arresting anybody and yet still comes out with a crazy line like that, they are being ironic! It's all about intonation with verbal irony (hard to express in text). "All languages use pitch semantically, that is, as intonation, for instance for emphasis, to convey surprise or irony, or to pose a question."

Have look at linguistic usage disputes and cosmic irony.

"It's a death row pardon two minutes too late" is an example of the "irony" Alanis Morrisette used. It's confused with cosmic irony, but it's really 'the mere "coincidental or unexpected"'. It's a popular understanding of irony. "A lifeguard drowning" is the same thing. One doesn't expect a lifeguard to drown, but it isn't ironic because it doesn't "describes a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results." What if someone held a lifeguard underwater and they drowned? How would that be ironic in any way? Maybe you'd have more of an argument with some context, like the lifeguard went to save someone's life and ended up drowning (or near drowning) in the attempt while the victim escaped alive. Or as dannym3141 suggests, they kill the person they're trying to save.

Take a look at the bulletproof glass example on wikipedia. It's (situational) irony because bulletproof glass should stop bullets and normal glass shouldn't. If it were normal glass the bullet would go straight through and miss the president. Because it is bulletproof, it bounces off and hits the president. Situational irony. Compare that with your seatbelt example. Does anyone claim that a seatbelt would save your life in an incident that occurs underwater? I doubt even the wildest marketer would claim such a thing. It's not irony because seatbelts should assist in a collision with another vehicle, an impact collision, where the impact would normally kill/heavily injure you. Water isn't going to do that. A response of "but seatbelts should save your life!" ain't going to cut it.

My example of "pleasant day" when it's raining is an example of verbal irony (i.e. "a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect."). You don't need to try to belittle it (or me) with "lesser-used" and "if it's irony at all." I'm not trying to attack you or bring you down.

Having read the situational irony as described in wikipedia, I think the video title is correct. It is ironic. The expected result is one or more terrorists being arrested; the actual result is that they're all COPs (of a form). My example ("four arrests in one!") is a verbal irony statement because clearly you can't arrest any of the people.

I must admit, I don't really like situational irony, it can be so easily confused with coincidence and unexpected situations, and so one ends up with endless discussions about irony (such as this one). If only we could only ditch it and go back to dramatic and verbal irony I'd be a lot happier. Nevertheless, the examples on wikipedia are pretty good. It needs to be read closely, so the expected/actual dilemma can be uncovered.

On re-reading your initial comment, your cancer drug example is a good example of situational irony. The lifeguard and seatbelt ones, one the other hand, would need a lot more context before they could become ironic.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^ledpup:
Well, this may be a trap, but Sarzy, none of your examples are ironic. They're all Alanis Morissette irony. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony. E.g. The image of a person holding a sign that says "I can't afford an actual sign" is a perfectly good example of irony. All your examples are just things that happen. Irony is all about truth and the assertion of it by proposing its negation. Eg Saying "Gee, what a pleasant day we're having" when there is a hurricane outside that is ripping off the roofs of houses. That's ironic.
Irony has to be the most misunderstood of all English words.

No, my examples are all correctly ironic -- going by the information on the wikipedia page you linked to, they are situational irony, which is almost always what people are referring to when they call something ironic (whether they're using the term correctly or not). Your hurricane example, if it's irony at all (which is debatable), would be dramatic irony, which is definitely a lesser-used variety of the term.



And I really don't see how your example would make this video ironic. Someone being wrong about something isn't automatically irony.