Friday, June 22, 2007

l33t

Jangari over at matjjin-nehen has raised an interesting question: aside from the usual English-based acronyms like omg and lol, are there any acronyms based on other languages used in their respective variations of 133t5p34k?

My answer: sure there are. Here are just some of those Slovak ones I found in my ICQ logs.
(Warning, foul language ahead!)

d = ďakujem = thank you.
p = prosím = you're welcome.
nzc = nemáš za čo / niet za čo = you're welcome (cf. German "keine Ursache" or French "de rien").
mfp = mám f piči (correct spelling: mám v piči) "I have it in my cunt" = I don't give a fuck.
ppf = po piči front = totally cool. Or totally fucked up, depending on the context.
jj = jo jo (Czech: jo = "yes") = yup; sure.
njn = no jo no (no = "well") = yeah, well; what can you do.

The first three are pretty self-explanatory, although it should be noted that they are used alongside their English equivalents (ty, yw and also np).
As for mfp and ppf, they further illustrate the popularity and varied usage of the term "piča" (discussed in brief here). Please don't ask me what "po piči front" is all about. All I can tell you right now is that "po piči" (lit. "alongside a cunt"?) means something along the lines of "cool, great, awesome" and can be used both as an adverbial as well as an adjective (both predicatively and attributively). Just who added "front" ("front" as in military front or weather front) and what it's supposed to mean is still a mystery to me.
mfp also provides additional material for the comparative study of abuse language: as michael farris pointed out in the comments to the aforementioned thread, in Polish,

There's also 'mieć X w dupie' (have X in (one's) ass) which means (IMO rather counter-intuitively) 'don't give a shit about'.

The Slovak version is not only counter-intuitive, but also anatomically inappropriate, since it is used prevalently by male speakers (no surprise there, since a statement like that made by a woman would probably invite a response of the "Oh really? So what else..." kind). Considering the number of such anatomically impossible insults and terms of abuse, I'm starting to think there is a pattern to it: the more outrageous, the more unlikely, the more unreal the connection, the stronger the insult is. Time to look closely at the semantics, wouldn't you agree?

UPDATE

Dang my stupid head, how could I have forgotten this gem?

c2 (courtesy of enzo)

Doesn't ring a bell, does it? One tiny hint: try prounouncing it as if it were an English acronym (and it helps if you're not a native speaker of English). You get something like [sɪ tu] which, by sheer coincidence, sounds almost exactly like Slovak "Si tu?" meaning "Are you here?"
Pretty cool, heh?

Monday, June 18, 2007

lol

What so special about cats anyway?


White-eared bulbul, Pycnonotus leucotis.
Image source: Wikipedia user AshLin.
This image is published under the GNU Free Documentation License.




Taiwan bulbul / Styan's bulbul, Pycnonotus taivanus
Image source: Wikipedia user FrankyBoy5.





White-spectacled bulbul, Pycnonotus xanthopygos
Image source: Nir Ofir.
This image is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Friday, June 15, 2007

bandwagon

I hope it's not too late to jump on it...



Ľudovít Štúr speaking before the Hungarian Assembly. In a speech held on January 15th, 1848, he advocated the use of vernaculars (other than Hungarian, naturally) in education and proposed to amend the legislation under debate accordingly.
Image source: www.stur.sk






Michal Hodža, one of the authors of the 1852 ortography reform which established the so-called "etymological principle". This included the introduction of the letter "y" (absent in Štúr's codification), a move widely criticized, especially by Slovak schoolchildren.
Image source: www.stur.sk



Now let's see if anybody gets this one... :o)
Image sources:
Original image: hethitologie.de
The cuneiform character: John Heise's Akkadian page.


And finally, a big lolthanks to lolpresident for the inspiration. The one with Bush and Topolánek - priceless. And the bukkit category is a masterpiece of the lolart.