Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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There's probably a word I've been pronouncing wrong my whole life that I don't know about (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts

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Just based on how often I notice someone mispronounce a word without realizing it (or have done so myself and realized it later). Statistically I'm probably still doing it with some word.

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[–] aulin 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But isn't that exactly why it's called loan words? In Swedish we've borrowed words like radio and nylon and we initially pronounced them as in English. But eventually we started to pronounce them as the spelling would dictate in Swedish (the English pronunciations would've been spelled rejdio and najlon). For toilet it's the opposite. We borrowed toilette from French, but eventually altered the spelling to match the pronunciation: toalett.

I'll grant you that once we have adapted and incorporated the words, we are no longer borrowing them. Maybe we should stop calling them loanwords at that point. But while they're still new and don't yet fit in, I would say that borrowing sounds about right.

On another note, I can't understand why a people wouldn't want to make every word work in their language. You completely lose the flow of speech when you have to pronounce something that doesn't fit naturally into it, and you either come off as a pretentious douche or a stupid person.

[–] CoggyMcFee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll grant you that once we have adapted and incorporated the words, we are no longer borrowing them. Maybe we should stop calling them loanwords at that point. But while they're still new and don't yet fit in, I would say that borrowing sounds about right.

Well, the definition of “loanword” means it isn’t just being used ad hoc because it is brand new, but rather that it has been incorporated into the language at least to some extent!

[–] aulin 1 points 1 year ago

If that's the case, I agree that it's a bit strange.