Okay... so I don't know how many of y'all there are in here, but I have a favor to ask, specifically of native US English speakers for whom the word "y'all" is a significant part of your idiolect. I would just do an APB for Southerners, but I'm not sure that's as accurate anymore... anyway.

Thinking about your everyday, informal manner of speaking, I would like you to read the following sentence, and then pluralize it:

You don't know what you're talking about.

Just leave the result in a comment, along with any demographic information you wouldn't mind leaving, up to and including age, gender, location, etc. And try not to read other comments before submitting yours. This is the best way I could think of to ask this question, and there is a reason behind this that I'm contemplating.

Thanks in advance, y'all!

Hey, guys. I'm doing some writing about Hindi films for an audience who I can't assume has any prior knowledge of the topic or of the language, and I'm running into a bit of a problem. I'm trying to give a brief translation of the movie titles just in parentheses, but I don't really know what to do when the movie title is just the name of a character. Is there some kind of set protocol for what to do in this case? I'm not sure how much space each movie I'm mentioning is going to get.

Hey all,

I want to send a postcard to the parents of a friend of mine, which I stayed with for two weeks over the summer. Could someone correct my spelling/grammar mistakes and maybe point out what would be hard to understand?! Thank you!


Здраствуйте,
Много приветов из моего родины, Кливленд. Я здесь во время каникул у мамы (она очень нравится платок, спосибо) и мои браты. С рождеством и новым годом!

This one Japanese person has the link to my website on his link list, and now as the URL has changed, I would like to inform him about it ^^
The problem is, I don't know Japanese too well (i only know some words / sentences)...

The message should be something like this:
"Hello! The address to my website has changed. Could you please update the link? The new address is: *my website's URL*.
Thank you!"

I would be very grateful if someone could help me :)

Anyone know of any decent Ukrainian resources online? Dictionaries, grammar references, etc, in English or Russian? I need it for a tattoo.

Hi all~

I've had this groovy song for years, but I have no idea what the lyrics mean. It's essentially one verse repeated over and over again. It's part Algerian Arabic and French - I think the French means, "Me and you, western woman, I'm sick of this", but I am not educated on Arabic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z_Lcs57vSM

Merci^^

Dear friends,
please, could you explain me in which cases we use prepositions IN, ON and AT with the word "workplace". I've seen different variants but can't find any rules explaning this.

As people who had ever spent a night in a U.S. hotel or motel and are curious enough to look into nightstand drawers know, there is a Bible published by Gideons International in each room.

Among other things, it contains translations of the verse John 3:16 in 27 languages understood by more than three quarters of the world's population. I find some of the choices a little peculiar. Do you?

http://www.sporcle.com/games/leob/Gideons_languages

Hello dear guys!

I need some urgent help. Would you be so kind to translate the following phrase into Swedish?

"I know that you've loved me since you were a child and I'm really grateful for that. I wish all your dreams come true. You are a very gifted person, an outstanding girl. Hope you get everything you want. Love, N."

Thank's in advance!

I have translated some puja from sanskrit, but a text has comments in Nepali.
Can any one help me with translation from Nepali to English?

( the comments in Nepali )

Hello fellow Linguaphiles,

I was told that the Armenian for thank you was shnorhakalutyun (transcribed), and that perhaps it was a loanword or something like that. Does anyone know its etymology and what it means literally in the language it was presumably borrowed from?

Not wishing to affront the chaste sensibilities of this community, I have confined my comments on the draft OED entry for the verb felch to this posting on my blog. Your comments and inquiries are most welcome there.

Hi there,

I need help please - I need to call somebody in Japan. Can you please translate the following into romanji, please? I can only read hiragana/katakana, not kanji.

Thanks so much in advance!!

Here goes:

1. Sorry that I have to call you this early.

2. Has the parcel I sent arrived?

3. Is Koji in?

4. I tried to call him, but he didn't pick up his phone.

5. I really, really need to talk to him. Please help me.

Those would be all. Thanks so much once again!

I realize that < ll > is pronounced differently in different countries where Spanish is spoken. I'm wondering whether -- within any given dialect -- it is always pronounced the same, no matter where it is in a word, or whether even within a given dialect < ll > might be pronounced differently from word to word (ie if the ll in 'calle' might be pronounced differently than the ll in 'llueve').

I'm traveling to (Buenos Aires) Argentina soon so I'm most curious about that dialect, but any information would be great.

Thanks in advance! Happy holidays!

 I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for two and a half years now through the Integrated Chinese series, but I don't feel as if I'm progressing very quickly in the language. I feel as if, after all this time, I should be able to read a newspaper article and be able to get at least the gist of it, but here my skills are stuck in recognizing only the characters every now and then and not actually understanding what's being said.

Does anyone have any tips on how to progress more quickly? Any recommendations for learning materials, perhaps?

I'm hoping this hasn't been asked before (this is my first post to this community, and I'm a little nervous,) but does anyone here know the difference between the German verbs 'zerbrechen' and 'brechen' (I'm not sure but I think I've seen this with zerfallen and fallen as well)?

In doing some informal rehearsing the other day, we were all saying things similar to this:

"First I say, 'In the name of our Lord, I, gordoom, promise that I will one day blah blah blah, by the faith that is in me.' And then you say, 'In the name of our Lord, I, dustthouart, in the form and manner wherein blah blah blah, by the faith that is in me.' Then the priest..."

Also found in this example from the BBC miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice:
Mrs. Bennet: "'My dear friend,' there now! 'Dine with Louisa and me today... la-di-da, la-di-da, la-di-da... as the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.' - Oh, that's unlucky! Still you must go and make what you can out of it."

Another use, commonly encountered in linguistic pursuits, is in filler for templates such as... actually I can't think of any in English right this moment, but I can think of some in Chinese, such as 以什麼什麼為主. In writing this would usually be 以......為主. Which is "take... as primary" literally, and would be said aloud as "take what what as primary." In English I would say "something something" for this kind of filler. In both languages, the "what what" and "something something" are said quickly and kind of blur together.

Another one of these "speech replacement words" in English is "yadda yadda yadda", from (I assume) Yiddish.

1. Is there an actual linguistic term for this phenomenon?
2. What words or phrases do people use in other languages for this purpose?

OK, I've been feeling kind of dumb about this, and wondering if I'm alone: until this year I had never heard that any Christians had a problem with using "X-mas" as opposed to "Christmas". Apparently it is seen as "taking Christ out of Christmas".

Am I alone in my cluelessness? Or are there places where it's not an issue? One explanation I read was that it only became a problem as fewer and fewer people were taught classical languages at school, but that's been the case for decades, so I'm not sure why it would suddenly be a big deal in the last ten years or so. Which is apparently the case, though like I said, it's news to me.

?




ETA: I should add that I do know that X-mas has been used for centuries, and that X is the symbol for the Greek letter Chi, first letter of Christ's name. What I was asking had more to do with how long it's been considered offensive and anti-Christian, presumably by people who have no idea that the X actually refers to Christ.

     Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates them - and good wishes to all the rest!
There's something I have been thinking of recently and I wonder if you could please help me find the right answer. Over the past years, I've noticed that characters in many English/American movies (or literature) are called Mr./Mrs., which is followed by the first letter of their name, often in a humorous way, for example in the movie 1776::
    T. Jefferson: "But I burn, Mr. A!"
    J. Adams: "So do I, Mr. J!"
Also, I noticed it also appears when a one character harbours romantical feelings for another one, such as Ms. Lovett who would sometimes call Todd Sweeney "Mr.T".
    Such form of address is certainly not popular in my native language (Czech) and even seems slightly weird to me, yet I really find it interesting, so can anybody please tell me a bit more about it? Are there more situations when you use it? Does it have a history? Does its origin come from some particular book or something else? Thanks! 

a question for commuters using regularly the underground (the tube, subway) in the UK, the US, Canada and other English-speaking countries. I wonder if there is a common question you'd use when travelling on a crowded train to find out if the person/people who is/are closer to the doors is/are going to leave the train at the next station or otherwise let you through? Can you think of any? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: if you have something to say about other means of transport (buses, trams, etc.), go ahead.

The etymology of 'yule' is said to be obscure. Any interesting theories on the origins of this term?

Hello, all! I just got into an argument about whether or not "pleaded" is a word and was ganged up on so badly that I need to find an answer!

Earlier, a few people and I were sitting around and the claim was made that "pleaded" is not a word. So, I figured I would look "plead" up in the dictionary, and sure enough "pleaded" is an accepted form of "plead." Somehow, it being in the dictionary was not good enough for these people!

I just read here that "pleaded" is the preferred form, however WikiAnswers is definitely not how I am going to resolve this argument.

What I am looking for is some sort of peer reviewed explanation for why and how "pleaded" became/is a word (because...the dictionary isn't good enough...?)

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

My friend posted a Facebook status saying that he was back in Southern California, which would be surprisingly early for winter break, and five or six of us have commented on it saying just "already??" Another friend posted "なにー？？" (which he and I are aware doesn't translate to "already??"), which got me wondering as to how to say "already" in the sense that we're using it in other languages. The direct Spanish translation would be "ya", and the Chinese translation would be "已經", but both don't have quite the same meaning as "already"; my friend who posted in Japanese said that "もう", similarly, sounds awkward, and my boyfriend added that "sudah" in Indonesian isn't the same, either. "なにー？？" and "真的??" capture our confusion but not the way we've basically been copying and pasting each others' responses.

How would you translate "already??" into other languages in a way that's both grammatical and felicitous (in the linguistic sense)?