Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by zodPod on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @10:39AM (#11336903)

I'm probably going to have my foot in my mouth pretty quickly about this but how bizarre is the Swedish language that "entrails" and "in-river" could be the same word? lol

Is it a slang term of some kind?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by Agentlien on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @11:16AM (#11337180)

No, it's no slang. Entrails are, in plural, "inälvor". You can see the "in" there and "älv" is a Swedish word for river.

edit: I do not know the etymology of the Swedish word for entrails, but I'd wager it's just coincidence that it is seemingly made up of two other words. It's not unlike the English word "searing" seemingly being composed of "sea" and "ring".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by xingxiong on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @10:55AM (#11337023)

No more bizarre than Ent Rails (you know, railways for Tolkien Ents) is the same as entrails in English.

Just as you can't actually say inriver and pretend it means something in the river in English, you can't say inälv and mean something in an älv in Swedish. But as a pun it is okay, everyone gets the word play.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by XaspR8d on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @12:45PM (#11337820)

> Just as you can't actually say inriver and pretend it means something in the river in English

I think "in-river" is pretty acceptable in speech, and mildly so in writing. If you said there was an "in-river pool", I wouldn't bat an eyelash.

That said, the relation between the adjectivizing(?) morphemes "in-" and "at-" (e.g. "at-home bar") and their corresponding prepositions is weird and makes my brain hurt.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by yongjik on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @01:12PM (#11338053)

Allow me to hijack this thread to tell you about my favorite[1] word.

A Korean word "inbun", when followed by a number, means "amount of serving". So "3 inbun" means "serves three", or "a dish for three".

When NOT followed by a number, it is a different word (with exactly the same spelling and sound). It means "human feces".

[1] LOL, not really.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by jacobush on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @04:28PM (#11339735)

And to this day (?) Korean farmers had pigs eat human feces. And the word for pig-sty and out-house are apparently of similar origin?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet ... by yongjik on Tuesday March 22, 2016 @04:47PM (#11339842)

Eh, that practice is gone for at least thirty years, probably more. Health concerns aside, you cannot run a for-profit pig farm with your family's "output"...

I have no idea what your second sentence is talking about. :/

[ Parent | on HN ]