Linguist Forum
General Linguistics => Linguist's Lounge => Topic started by: lx on January 16, 2015, 05:51:17 AM
-
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/yes-firstable#.db1E8MoDk
Isn't the future great? 8) I am totally on board with this becoming a thing.
Thoughts? Can you imagine in 100-200 years scientific papers including such words? Stranger things have happened!
-
Meh, semantic discord.
First of all, -able is primarily denoting something able or fit to be done; second of all, "to second" is to agree with or support, and "secondable" is the ability or fitness to be seconded.
(1a) I second that suggestion.
(1b) That suggestion is secondable.
"First" doesn't exist as a verb as far as I know, but following the semantics of "second", it could be used to mean to initiate or do something for the first time, or to bring something to the front or otherwise a first ore foremost position. Thus "firstable" would be something able or fit to be initiated, suggested, set out, etc., or something able or fit to be placed before something else.
(2a) I want to first an idea for a book. (do for the first time)
(2b) That idea for a book is firstable.
(2a) I will first that article. (placing before others)
(2b) That article is firstable.
Count me out.
EDIT:
Besides, there are already shorter alternatives to "first of all", and "second of all": firstly, secondly; and there's no discord in these words. Bloody hippies...
-
I think the (playful) tone of my post might have been slliiiiggghtllly lost in your interpretation, freknu. 8)
Besides, it wasn't about finding alternatives that were shorter or fitted better. It was about grammaticalisation/reanalysis going on in the moment (albeit in a tiny amount of cases). The novelty was that grammaticalisation as an academic discipline is rather full of people trying to imagine these cross-over stages where some people in the population started to re-interpret something and it's always being a conceptually difficult thing for people to wrap their heads around. This just showed a contemporary candidate for how it might be to see such flux in action. Things that didn't make sense or couldn't be logically analysed (like in your post) have, time and time again, arisen in the speech community and managed to spread like wildfire, take over and become the norm. Think of all the things we say now in English which came down from reanalysis of more systematic utterances. Think how "Goodbye" doesn't mean a type of 'bye' that is good but has its roots in "God be with ye." Utterly nonsensical yet we say it anyway as if it made the most sense in the world.
That was firstable, I had a secondable but I've forgotten it now. ;D
-
Well, I wasn't focusing on your post, but ah, I see. Also, "goodbye" would be a case of shortening/reduction or an older meaning being lost, cf. butterfly... but I digress. English and its "memes" is quite a topic of study.
-
Well, I wasn't focusing on your post, but ah, I see. Also, "goodbye" would be a case of shortening/reduction or an older meaning being lost, cf. butterfly... but I digress. English and its "memes" is quite a topic of study.
Do you have any good examples of similar stuff from Ostrobothnian / (Finnish) Swedish / Finnish?
-
Well, I wasn't focusing on your post, but ah, I see. Also, "goodbye" would be a case of shortening/reduction or an older meaning being lost, cf. butterfly... but I digress. English and its "memes" is quite a topic of study.
Do you have any good examples of similar stuff from Ostrobothnian / (Finnish) Swedish / Finnish?
No, not really, and I guess that's the problem. When confronted with the seemingly profilic phenomena of English I can't "feel" it like a native speaker, resulting in me becoming annoyed. However, I can't speak for native Finland-Swedish or Finnish speakers, some of their dialects can be quite the earful, mixing Swedish, Finnish, and English, even Russian in some southern dialects.
My tongue is "understandable", and I like it that way :)