Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]

An anarchist here to ask asinine questions about the USSR. At least I was when I got here.

she/xe/it/thon/seraph | NO/EN/RU/JP

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • Sorry, you’ve misread the page, it’s actually claiming the exact opposite.

    Etymology sections in dictionaries can be kind of confusingly phrased sometimes, so I’ll break it down:

    also goddamn, late 14c.

    This means that the phrase “God damn” has been around in the English language since the late 14th century.

    from God + damn (v.).

    This means the phrase actually is, straightforwardly, from the English words “God” and “damn”.

    Goddam (Old French godon, 14c.) was said to have been a term of reproach applied to the English by the French.

    This part is saying that Frenchmen supposedly corrupted the English phrase “God damn” into godon (and variants like goddam, goddem) as a derogatory term for Englishmen — apparently mocking Englishmen for being foul-mouthed or uncouth, i.e. that Englishmen say “God damn!” so often that it might as well be their name.

    Hence French godan “fraud, deception, humbug” (17c.).

    This is to say that that French-language derogatory term for Englishmen, about three hundred years after the phrase “God damn” first entered the English lexicon, came to take on a new meaning in French of “fraud, deception, humbug”.






  • For whatever it’s worth, despite never formally studying Chinese, I managed to read both the Chinese sentences, albeit with the wrong tones. Like to be fair I have studied Japanese, and I am generally a bit of a weirdo with a knack for this sort of thing — but I do still have to wonder if more people are just going to start casually picking up hanzi just from exposure like I have, as China becomes more prominent. I could certainly see it happening.

    “China is the future” is a bit of a vague question, though. Just from my interpretation of it…

    I absolutely think that the USA is currently crumbling as the world’s hegemon — interestingly enough, the USA’s flag actually has stars on it to represent a “new constellation”, using the constellations in the sky as an allegory for the rise and fall of nations; so it indeed seems like the fifty-star constellation is beginning to fall beyond the horizon, as a new five-star constellation rises.

    This being said, I don’t think China’s behavior as future hegemon will be the same as the USA’s current behavior as present hegemon. I don’t necessarily know what to expect from the future, though, so it’s probably best to prepare for all possibilities until we gain a clearer understanding of the situation.








  • During his inauguration speech, [Trump] referred to the U.S. as a growing nation expanding its territory.

    “Yo, Klaus, what is this?”

    “It is the natural Order. My Beer requires enough Territory to support its Population.”

    “Dude, make some room in there, I just got some Soft Parade for my friend in Michigan and I want it to be cold by tonight.”

    “That’s not going to happen.”

    “Excuse me??”

    “German Beer is superior both in Taste and Culture. It must be allowed enough Territory to survive and to thrive, lest less civilized Beers, which are more energetic, take their Place. A Day will come when the Fridge is dominated by the Laws of Nature, and Nature favors those Beers which are of a more brutal Vim. It is only right that the strong and the pure should dominate, and not every Beer has a Right to exist.”

    “Are we… still talking about beer?”

    “Of course we are. What else would we be talking about? — Besides, your Pisswater has its Place, in the Back, where it belongs.”

    “OK man, well um… I gotta go do some work.”

    “Auf Wiedersehen.”




  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlRednote right now
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    1 month ago

    If what you’re trying to get at is that whereas it is very important to unlearn the lies and exaggerations one was told about a country, that people also need to avoid replacing these lies with an overly simplistic and uncritical understanding of that same country, and that the current social media landscape makes it very difficult for many people to have the necessary nuance to avoid this pitfall… Then I would agree with you, but I’d also tell you that mentioning the eugenicists’ favorite way of measuring “intelligence” is a very bad way of phrasing this idea, and that your standards of what counts as “circle-jerking” about a country are probably not nearly as inviting of nuance as you’d think.