I share your interest. The differences between Peninsular and American Spanish are fascinating.
Uncle Thing? Is he Uncle Fester's brother in this mythos?
1: Do you also share my interest in fixing that typo in the post? Because I JUST DID.
Why does Cousin Itt have so many aliases? I think that's mighty suspicious. Has he been engaging in criminal activity?
3: I did, but I figured it best not to mention.
3: I think that's really too bad. You shouldn't have to change your art just because you share a blog with neb.
Now that I think about it, I've always thought Itt had suspiciously shifty eyes, too.
2: The wikipedia pages (in English and Spanish) indicate that Itt was a cousin of Gomez, whereas Fester was Morticia's uncle.
Until this moment, I had never reflected upon the fact that Spanish really doesn't have an equivalent for the English "it." Thank you, moment.
Huzzah, CB had a moment! The post was not in vain!
However, to nitpick, there's no word for "it" as a subject, but there are words for "it" as an object, whether direct or indirect.
I didn't realize Cousin Itt was such a philanthropist. And yet: ITT Tech
9: To pile on, Spanish doesn't really need a subject "it" as much, for the same reason it doesn't use the Spanish words for "I" or "you" as a subject as much as in English--they're usually implied by the verb conjugation.
Homework due tomorrow.
Homework due tomorrow.
Are you studying Spanish, PA, or was that a joke gone over my head? You've made a few recent comments about the language that caught my eye.
BTW, I think Wednesday is a charming name. I haven't seen anyone named that in real life IIRC, though.
Spanish, PA
It took me a while not to read this as a place. I blame the PA commenters.
13: I study spanish on my own (mainly memorizing lots of vocabulary with a flash card program) so it's on my mind a lot. The remark was mocking the didactic triviality of the rest of the comment.
15: That's like a Pat's/Geno's throwdown waiting to happen.
16: Got it. Thanks. I recommend proz.com as an interesting (and free!) if not wholly reliable resource for individual phrases and the like.
There's a crime movie from the early 1930s where a character hides out and when the people looking for him hear he's in Philadelphia, one of them says something like "No one ever goes to Philadelphia unless he has to." Starring someone named Mae, I think.
21: As long as they didn't say it at Geno's in a non-English language. That behavior is UNTOWARD.
Trolls, the lot of you. Well, actually just eb.
My sister was in fits once when I was quoted in a Spanish-languge newspaper. I'm not sure what she found so amusing about it. It did not have to do with the Geno's controversy.
I had a Spanish-language dinner party the other night. Turns out it is hard to enforce linguistic obedience among non-native speakers after a certain hour of the evening/amount of wine.
Aesthetic considerations demand the creation of a Delaware River Valley escort service called Menunka Chunk Badonkadonk.
OT: Just to reassure my tenuous grip on reality. The thread below about the "thread what sleeps wit da fishes" was truncated before it was closed, right?
Turns out it is hard to enforce linguistic obedience among non-native speakers after a certain hour of the evening/amount of wine.
I've seen that dynamic run exactly in the opposite direction. Lots of people claim to speak [whatever non-native language] better after a few. Of course, the results are mixed, but people sure try.
And I'm offended I wasn't invited to your shindig.
The thread below about the "thread what sleeps wit da fishes" was truncated before it was closed, right?
Yup. And the part that was excised was really, really awesome.
It gave mice everywhere like 30 goddamn orgasms.
Titties everywhere went "Hooray!"
And all across the land, there was rejoicing.
Gayatollahs everywhere finished us all.
And I'm offended I wasn't invited to your shindig.
Guess it's time to repost my standing invitation to members of the Unfoggeditariat. Spanish-speaking and not-.
34: Aw, shucks. Duly noted! I've been passing through Philly a lot more lately.
I think I disparaged Philadelphia, jokingly, when I met Witt. So sometimes people act exactly the same online and offline.
"Winsday" looks more like a boy's name.
Wow. Google's pretty smart. (Of course, I got the joke anyway.)
Spanish had no word for "wizard cocksucker", nor does it need one.
We have a very large Disney book of Donald Duck comic strips, and in the back it has a list of Disney character names in lots of different countries. I was fascinated by that when I was about 10. If I was more fascinated now I could go upstairs and get it and tell you some of them.
Do it, asilon, before someone starts talking about that fucking thread again.
Oh, and you just lost the game, cabrones!
No one ever goes to Philadelphia unless he has to.
But, I've been told there's a lot, a lot of culture there.
47: One of the parts of Pittsburgh that struck me as strange when I first got here (but that I now rarely notice) is how little space Philly occupies in in peoples' consciousness. Outside of sports, you never see Philly in the paper unless it is an especially bad crime or something.
49: Not having lived in Philly, but having spent some time there, I suspect that's a two-way street you're describing.
49, 50: I was trying to come up with an equivalent, but the best I could do was Miami/Jacksonville.
50: I'm sure it is true, but that doesn't seem as difficult to explain. Pittsburgh is the less significant city by nearly any standard. You'd think simple self-interest would be enough to get Pittsburgh watching Philly more frequently.
52: it's all about Cleveland, isn't it?
Maybe if Philly was the state capital people in Pittsburgh would care what goes on there.
I've really enjoyed the time I've spent in Philly.
53: Cleveland, specifically, but also Ohio and West Virginia generally. Part of it is geography. I can drive to any point in Ohio far quicker than I could get to Philly.
54: Given how much more pull Philly has in the legislature, I'm not sure that it matters Philly isn't the capital.
The pull that any city has in the legislature seems to be a drop in the bucket compared to the influence of the Real God-Fearing Americans from places like Hollidaysburg and Schuylkill Haven and Potter County.
Pennsylvania's a weird state. I tend to default to lumping in with New England, politically, and then remind myself (or, more likely, get reminded) that much of the population seems downright reactionary.
I don't think PA is reactionary, at least not compared to national averages. Just that for union/ethnic reasons, PA still has white, social conservatives in the Democratic party. In most places, these people have either left the party or shifted social views.
59: Yeah, "reactionary" was probably too strong a word. For some reason, I tend to think of PA as progressive and then get periodically reminded that there are a lot of social conservatives there. This tendency is almost certainly a error in my thinking of which I should rid myself.
Pennsylvania is really not New England at all, culturally, politically, economically, or socially. "Philly and Pittsburgh with Alabama in the middle" was James Carville's line about the politics of PA, but that sort of understates just how unique both Philly and Pittsburgh are. Philly is Northeastern but with an extremely distinct culture -- and was traditionally more industrial/manufacturing oriented than the other big Northeastern cities -- and Pittsburgh also has a really distinct political and social culture. The entire state is politically more rust belt midwest than Northeastern, but it is really sui generis.
A friend of mine from rural northern PA had a theory that there were two kinds of Eastern hicks, "Northern" and "Southern" (red flannel jackets vs. confederate flag decals) and that the border between Northern and Southern hicks ran somewhere in Pennsylvania about 100 miles south of the NY state border. Interesting theory.
"Philly and Pittsburgh with Alabama in the middle"
You're lucky Cala's not here.
If it helps, just remember that Pittsburgh is the capital of Appalachia (this is, in a sense, literally true: it is the largest city/metropolitan area that is located in what is technically defined as Appalachia; furthermore, the distinctive Pittsburgh accent is closely related to Appalachian speech). The city is more progressive than that designation might suggest, but it captures a lot of the insular local mindset.
Yesterday I had a revelation about east vs. west in PA: western PA's little shit towns are rarely picturesque, even when they're reasonably old and intact, whereas eastern PA's little shit towns are usually quite attractive, unless they've been completely blown out by history. The reason, I think, is that settlement was so long delayed here - 150 years is reasonably old, while in eastern PA 250 years isn't unusual - and, as a result, the peak of rural small towns simply didn't last long enough to leave a heritage of handsome old buildings in dense little settlements. The population of New Bethlehem PA in 1890 may have been similar to that of McConnellsburg, PA, but New Bethlehem was only a few decades old and on the cusp of decline, while McConnellsburg was a century old, and wouldn't be so drastically affected by decline.
If it helps, just remember that Pittsburgh is the capital of Appalachia (this is, in a sense, literally true: it is the largest city/metropolitan area that is located in what is technically defined as Appalachia; furthermore, the distinctive Pittsburgh accent is closely related to Appalachian speech).
It's interesting, though; no one there thinks of it as Appalachia. (Well, okay, not no one - just look at you! But you get what I mean.)
Is "swamp yankee" the term for New England hicks?
64: Sure. And "You keep fucking that chicken" is a general phrase for encouraging coworkers.
64: my people!
Actually I hadn't heard the term before, but looking it up on wikipedia it appears to describe half my family tree remarkably well.
I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up. I see that Wikipedia has separate categories for "Pejorative terms for people" and "Ethnic and religious slurs". Probably a useful distinction, but...
Huh. Interesting that it is somewhat RI centric. The only people I've heard use the term are RIers. (These same people laughed at me when I pronounced Pawtucket "paw-tucket" and not "p'tucket.")
That chicken is so attractive, I want to p'tucket.
How can Pittsburgh be part of Appalachia? We just built a giant penis-building to honor our most famous playwright.
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/09260/998652-53.stm
70: How did someone miss that resemblance during the design phase? Or was it intentional?
Or was it intentional?
I'll let JRoth speak to the fixations of his profession. But I will say I'd driven by it a half-dozen times while it was under construction and noticed nothing.
Really, western PA wasn't substantially settled until mid-19C? Did people leapfrog over it to the Midwest at first or something?
It just occurs to me that the penis-building is pointed at the back of the Federal Building. So, I'm now guessing intentional.
