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Cake day: March 17th, 2024

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  • We’ll have lots of English speakers here given the language the question was asked in, so I’ll do Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) instead: dìochuimhneachadh, at 17 letters. It means “forgetting”, and it is pronounced /ˈd̥ʲĩə̃xənəxəɣ/. No, I can’t say it smoothly.

    Gàidhlig isn’t one of those languages that can compound words like Finnish or German, this one is just a consequence of a few different things. Firstly, the language’s spelling rules result in a lot of letters that do impart information but aren’t directly pronounced. Consonants have two forms depending on which of two sets of vowels they are next to, so any consonant or consonant cluster must always have vowels from the same set on either side. For example, the “i” in the “imhne” bit in the middle is basically only there to match the “e” at the end, since u and e aren’t in the same set of vowels and we need to know which version of the consonants between them to use. Every h is a modifier on the consonant preceding it as well. Second, the root of it is “un-remember”, so it’s already a shorter word with a prefix. Third, we’re using the verbal noun version, so it’s “the act of forgetting” rather than present-tense as in “currently forgetting something”

    There are probably longer words in the language, but I don’t know it very well yet and this was the longest one I could find on a word list. I think there’s actually a version of dìochuimhnich that includes a suffix marking it as being a conditional first person plural doing the forgetting, so “we would forget”, but I don’t understand how that part of the language works. If I was to say that at the moment, I would use two words to do it, so I don’t feel like I can give it as an answer here











  • I am quite fascinated by the TTRPG Eclipse Phase’s depiction of humans in an extremely high-tech future. Why physically travel between planets when you could just email over a copy of your mind, have it stuck in a rented body, and then download the copy’s memories once it has done whatever you needed done? There’s absolutely no requirement for your new body to be a human-shaped one either, provided you can maintain your composure while being in such a different physical form. Some people get really weird with it, others think that it’s abominable. There’s a mobster who puts her enemies’ minds into fish and keeps them in a tank.

    I’m not so keen on everything about the setting, and I’ve never gotten a chance to play a game of it so I have no idea how the mechanics are, but there are cool ideas in there


  • That’s kind of them! But you will probably need to replace that car in the future

    I’m not trying to tell you that you absolutely must learn manual. Whether or not it makes sense to do so basically just depends on your personal circumstances. I learned manual, but I live in a country in which automatic gearboxes were pretty rare until quite recently and I enjoy driving (much as I support replacing most driving with public transport). I just wanted to bring up the second hand market as something to consider


  • Skua@kbin.earthtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    2 months ago

    One other thing to add that I don’t see mentioned yet: if you can drive a manual, you have more options when buying second-hand cars. How many more options will vary depending on where you are, but if cost is a significant concern then it might let you get a much better deal