I hobbled blankfist because: http://blog.videosift.com/blankfist/Stupid-in-America?loadcomm=1#comment-1311443

These are some of the worst things anyone can call me and I will not ignore it.

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.

>> ^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.

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.

In recent years the swiss got increasingly anti-german and their school-classes of high german language lose popularity. (Edit: Dunno why I wrote that, probably to underline the relation between politics and language)

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Thanks for your reply. I suspect a field trip would help me understand more, particularly in Oktoberfest season : Well, maybe one day.

Thanks also for posting the English translation of that Swiss German insult, google translate really had no idea (try it in yourself, but for me it passed it through unaltered and didn't even try to translate!).

In Germany, it's mostly like this: Whenever you are doing math yourself, you use commas before decimal digits (or whatever they are called) and the point every thousand- step is optional, but make it easier to quickly see how big a number is: 1.234.567,89 is one million twohundredthirtyfourthousand fivehundretsixtyseven point(comma) eightynine; and so is 1234567,89. Up and coming is the version with spaces between the thousands: 1 234 567,89

Some companies have started to use a decimal point in their advertisments: http://www.rewe.de/ , but this would be wrong if used by mathematicians/pupils. And I have just checked on a receipt, the prices on there are with comma again.
On menus, you would most likely encounter commas as separators, and I don't think we have any roadsigns on which there is a decimal number... if there are, it would be with comma (I think). In publications there are almost always the periods for thousands, some few times the spaces between the thousands (1 234 567,89).

If you look here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland versus here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany at the population numbers etc, you can see the difference, until now I had never really thought about it.


In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
I have an American/UK studies question for you, if you have a minute to spare.

In the Patriotic-Millionaires-TAX-ME video, your countryman luxury_pie put in a comment using the period as a thousands separator and the comma as the decimal radix... which I would expect as I have always been taught that much of continental Europe uses this convention. Then in later discussion an Englishman who has traveled widely in continental Europe and lived in Spain pointed out that in his travels, he has never seen this.

So, my question is how widely is each convention used in Germany in the parts an English speaking visitor would encounter? Should he have come across the period thousands separator and/or the comma decimal radix at all? Road signs? Menus?

The on-line (American!!!!) information just says that in Germany this is how it is, and never says "oh, but in shops the price might use a period".

Congrats! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocUWxaouMvs

Congrats!

Thx, le fixed

In reply to this comment by direpickle:
*dead

http://videosift.com/video/NOFX-Don-t-Call-me-White-Live-German-Festival-Version

Your profile picture, your username, your real name, and your videos are awesome!

Yes, quite possible. I'd love to make it more sweden-y, but i don't know enough. And what I was missing were options to increase spending for education, for example.

What's your opinion about Australia's remnants of monarchy?

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
This must be the first time that one has been blocked for me but not for you

Well I only have to look to the U.S. to see how lucky we are here! I could quibble with one or two things, but they're little things like people tinkering with their own consoles being treated as criminals... not big things like the country being on the verge of bankruptcy

Your choices on the quiz appear to be aimed at making each choice to be as close to your own country's policy as possible, right? I think I have probably done the same.
In reply to this comment by DerHasisttot:
Thanks! For me, it's not blocked. I've thrown my two cents in the discussion :-)


How are politics in Australia at the moment? Anything you'd like to see changed?

Thanks! For me, it's not blocked. I've thrown my two cents in the discussion :-)


How are politics in Australia at the moment? Anything you'd like to see changed?

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
The comments on this video are interesting - http://videosift.com/video/TDS-Dancing-on-the-Ceiling

The vid itself is probably as blocked for you as it is for me... but the nyt "how would you fix the debt problem" survey answers seem right up your alley. If you are able to draw any conclusions about the differences between responses from the U.S. reds vs blues and between the U.S. and the rest of the world, I'd love to hear them.

I do, of course, realise that sifters are hardly a representative sample of their respective countries.

Some of Netrunner's other recent postings will probably also interest you, on the same basis.

Nerdfighters! :-)

I take my hat off to you, sir. Three teenage daughters sounds like you are a man who has seen hell and thought: "Meh. You gotta do better to scare me."

In reply to this comment by Lawdeedaw:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Something


Morality is selective. I would believe in the bible except I would have to stone all three of my teenage daughters by their teenage years; and I don't want to do that.

Thank you very much! :-)



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