4 ms·
> The words for “nose”, for instance, often involve either an “n” sound or an “oo” sound, no matter the language in question. The wording here is almost painfu
by hawkice 10y ago
> The words for “nose”, for instance, often involve either an “n” sound or an “oo” sound, no matter the language in question.
The wording here is almost painful. You can't play "often" as a minimizer against "no matter the X in question" like that. It is terribly confusing and the mark of someone who wants to sound sure, isn't sure, and isn't capable of making a more nuanced statement.
- asdfologist 10y agoAs a self-diagnosed abuser of nitpicks, I have to say that this is a nitpick. The intent here is pretty clear.
- snogglethorpe 10y agoSeriously, that wording is bizarre, like they started with "often," and then later made a "use more convincing language" pass without really paying much attention... [Nose in Mandarin: bí or bízi...]
- hawkice 10y agoNo joke, the Mandarin translation was almost the comment I made. Just before post I reread it and discovered that their misleading phrasing tricked me into almost saying they were wrong. With all the conflicting modifiers, I suppose they are right, but man did I feel like I was supposed to be convinced of the false statement I thought I read.
- gnipgnip 10y agoIn Japanese, it's "Hana", and in Mandarin it's "Bizi". Seems like they're only talking about IE languages, and those influenced by them.
- lgessler 10y agoThis isn't true--the study considered 4,000 languages from all the world's major language families: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/09/06/1605782113.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/09/06/1605782113.abst...
- Grue3 10y agoJapanese fits perfectly, actually. Nose - hana has N in it. Sand - suna has S. Round - maru has R.