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Things English lacks.

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Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Having grown up in Minnesota, English is seriously lacking in words to describe different types of snow.
Click to expand...

Snow
Heavy Snow
Light Snow
Flurries
Wet Snow
Snow that's good for making snowballs
Sleet
Slush
A lot other I'm not listing
We've got plenty, as I write from Duluth 😛


The whole 'eskimos have 20 different words for snow' thing is just because of the way their language is set up. Adjectives are sort of combined with the nouns, as far as I understand it (which isn't very far).
 
Originally posted by: dbk
In Korean, you have a complete set of words to use when you're speaking to someone with respect (teachers, parents, police, older folk, etc) - goes beyond saying please, yes maam, etc. Hard for non-Koreans to understand.
Click to expand...

same with Spanish. Tú - Usted
 
Originally posted by: Barfo
Originally posted by: dbk
In Korean, you have a complete set of words to use when you're speaking to someone with respect (teachers, parents, police, older folk, etc) - goes beyond saying please, yes maam, etc. Hard for non-Koreans to understand.
Click to expand...

same with Spanish. Tú - Usted
Click to expand...
Well it's probably more extensive than just two words in Korean. In Vietnamese you have several depending on the degree of respect, which usually is related to age.

Here are just a few for example: Em, Anh, Ch?, Cháu, Chú, Bác, Cô, C?u, Ông, Bà, B?n, etc.

Those are just some off the top of my head. Surely I'm missing some. To add to the confusion, many of them can be used as "I" as well as "You."
 
Originally posted by: Auryg
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Having grown up in Minnesota, English is seriously lacking in words to describe different types of snow.
Click to expand...

Snow
Heavy Snow
Light Snow
Flurries
Wet Snow
Snow that's good for making snowballs Not one word
Sleet
Slush
A lot other I'm not listing
We've got plenty, as I write from Duluth 😛


The whole 'eskimos have 20 different words for snow' thing is just because of the way their language is set up. Adjectives are sort of combined with the nouns, as far as I understand it (which isn't very far).
Click to expand...

What do you call the hated snow that sounds like breaking styrofoam when you walk on it?
What do you call the kind of snow that has a crust which resists breaking for a millisecond before you break through?
What do you call the type of frost that looks like individual crystals glued to whatever it stuck on?
What do you call the kind of snow stuck on vertical walls?

There are endless types of snow and ice that it takes an entire paragraph to describe instead of just one word. Think how much more efficient weather reports could be. 🙂
 
#1: you all works just fine

#2: They, what's wrong with that? If they is wrong, I don't want to be right.
 
Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Originally posted by: thecrecarc
Overall, I think English is a great language. However, I often notice that there is a strange lack of words when I want to say something.
One of the major ones I notice is a lack of the plural form of "you". It often seems incorrect to use "we" or "us" or "they". Instead, there is this awkward "You guys" or "Y'all" or some other strange stop-gap measure. I believe we as ATOT should finally formalize a form of "you plural" for English.
Another missing component is the lack of a genderless human pronoun. Sure, we have "it", but it symbolizes more of an inanimate object, a distant cold pronoun. However, if we are referring to an actual person, but one whose gender is unknown, it seems wrong to use "it.

Is there any other "missing" components of English?
Click to expand...

FAIL. Go learn English. It's supposed to be masculine.
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Technically that's correct, but in our PC culture it's incredibly antiquated.
 
Originally posted by: lyssword
Originally posted by: AreaCode707
My brother in law tells me we're missing a word for the color orange. "There's orange, and then there's THIS color." (He points at another, differently shaded orange object.) He's a Russian speaker and they are two distinct colors in Russian apparently.
Click to expand...

Gold, darkorange? Peach? gold? Maybe he meant brown? I Don't remember different color for orange (I grew up speaking Russian) but there is for light-blue.
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vermilion?
 
In Urdu we have a lot of different words for uncles and aunts (and pretty much any relation you can think of), depending on whether they belong to your paternal/maternal and also if they are related to you by blood or through marriage. For instance:

1) Taaya (paternal uncle, older than Dad)
2) Chacha (paternal uncle, younger than Dad)
3) Phuphu (paternal aunts)
4) Mama (maternal uncle)
5) Khaala (maternal aunt)

These are all blood relatives. Their respective spouses would have their own designation (in the above example, they would be taayi, chachi, phupha, mami and khaalu). Ditto with cousins, in-laws etc. No generic 'Tony's my brother-in-law', the title would reveal if Tony was married to your sister, or if you were married to his.
 
English is one of the most descriptive languages on the planet .. we've got, well, a lot of words for a lot of things (due to the fact that English is a bastardization of many languages). I do often wish we had a specific word for "you" plural as well, but that's about it.
 
I was told by a woman who speaks 7 languages fluently that English is by far the most expressive and creative, or at least of the ones she knows. She speaks English when she really wants to insult someone because just about anything can be insulting, but in other languages there are things that just won't make sense as an insult regardless of how hard you try. I thought that was amusing.
 
Originally posted by: thecrecarc
Overall, I think English is a great language. However, I often notice that there is a strange lack of words when I want to say something.
One of the major ones I notice is a lack of the plural form of "you". It often seems incorrect to use "we" or "us" or "they". Instead, there is this awkward "You guys" or "Y'all" or some other
Click to expand...

it is "Y'all." just accept it.

A perfectly cromulent word.
 
Originally posted by: thecrecarc

Another missing component is the lack of a genderless human pronoun. Sure, we have "it", but it symbolizes more of an inanimate object, a distant cold pronoun. However, if we are referring to an actual person, but one whose gender is unknown, it seems wrong to use "it.
Click to expand...

That's why you would use "they." Are you new to English?
 
Originally posted by: dbk
In Korean, you have a complete set of words to use when you're speaking to someone with respect (teachers, parents, police, older folk, etc) - goes beyond saying please, yes maam, etc. Hard for non-Koreans to understand.
Click to expand...

Japanese too. That's the form I learned way back when I was taught (and didn't really learn) Japanese.
 
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
Originally posted by: thecrecarc
Overall, I think English is a great language. However, I often notice that there is a strange lack of words when I want to say something.
One of the major ones I notice is a lack of the plural form of "you". It often seems incorrect to use "we" or "us" or "they". Instead, there is this awkward "You guys" or "Y'all" or some other strange stop-gap measure. I believe we as ATOT should finally formalize a form of "you plural" for English.
Another missing component is the lack of a genderless human pronoun. Sure, we have "it", but it symbolizes more of an inanimate object, a distant cold pronoun. However, if we are referring to an actual person, but one whose gender is unknown, it seems wrong to use "it.

Are there any other "missing" components of English?

Edited for grammar Nazis.
Click to expand...

English used to have a plural form of "you". It only dropped out of common use about 200 years ago. I wonder why.
Click to expand...

That's why southerners use "ya'll".
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GAH!!! it's "Y'ALL."

wtf is "YA" supposed to be short for? Don't you people know how to use a fucking apostrophe??? GAhHHHHH!!!!!!

you + all = y'all

ya'll = ya.... + ll? .....wtf is that??????????????
 
Originally posted by: Auryg
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Having grown up in Minnesota, English is seriously lacking in words to describe different types of snow.
Click to expand...

Snow
Heavy Snow
Light Snow
Flurries
Wet Snow
Snow that's good for making snowballs
Sleet
Slush
A lot other I'm not listing
We've got plenty, as I write from Duluth 😛
Click to expand...

you forgot:

Yellow Snow

🙂
 
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