this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
850 points (95.1% liked)

Funny: Home of the Haha

5832 readers
340 users here now

Welcome to /c/funny, a place for all your humorous and amusing content.

Looking for mods! Send an application to Stamets!

Our Rules:

  1. Keep it civil. We're all people here. Be respectful to one another.

  2. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other flavor of bigotry. I should not need to explain this one.

  3. Try not to repost anything posted within the past month. Beyond that, go for it. Not everyone is on every site all the time.


Other Communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The worst part is that technically isn't incorrect in English. Conversationally, most people might take a second, but grave does also mean serious

[–] CheezyWeezle 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Absolutely if someone said "it's not grave" to me I would understand it to mean "it's not serious" or "it's not very important"

[–] Ignisnex 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Man, language is wild. If I heard "It's not grave", after assuming English as a second language, I'd immediately jump to assuming something like "it's not vital" complete with emphasis. Similar to saying "nobody will die if this isn't done, but we'd all really rather it was done" as the subtext.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds correct Im wondering if it instead comes from latin infact in italan witch is the most similar language we have the same word grave (with a different pronunciation ) to mean something important (not grave something not that important ) but grave its also an old word meaning something heavy like in old physics experiments ... So maybe it became to be as something like it's not a weight that heavy for me to carry if u don't do this thing ... more tied to the metaforical uncomfortableness given by a heavy weight ... feel free to correct me I have never done latin at school ... ( fun fact Yes more Italian than u think has done at least 5 years of latin )

[–] Jeanschyso 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Coming from French, grave means a low note all the way to the left on the piano, or a significant negative adjective. For example, an injury can be "grave" as in it can be significant, like losing a finger. Breaking a nail wouldn't be "grave".

I think your description of assigning weight to a matter is spot on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah we use it for the piano too ... it would be cool to take into comparison the different pronunciation ... its interesting how we have been able to pass between cultures a specific order of characters with an associated meaning but everyone chose it's pronunciation... in italian is so different ... (From the English one)

[–] Urist 4 points 1 year ago

It could be a grave misunderstanding