Anyone who has tried learning a second language has no doubt come to the independent realization that the way humans communicate can be pretty chaotic and absurd at times. Why do some languages insist that chairs have genders, while others have no qualms about stringing together multiple nouns into one long monstrosity?
“The Lingwist” is a Facebook page dedicated to interesting and downright hilarious linguistics memes. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your own language-based memes and ideas in the comments section below.
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While English doesn’t assign random genders to nouns, many languages across the globe do. If you have ever attempted to learn French or Spanish as a native English speaker, you will quickly ask questions like “why do I need to know if a table is a girl?” This is a very reasonable question and you often won’t hear a reasonable answer.
Often, there is no logic behind it, besides the form the word happens to take. Most languages differentiate a noun’s gender with a suffix, and often have some other rules about pronunciation as well. Native speakers tend to not even notice how unintuitive this can be until it’s pointed out, these days, often in a meme.
As my drill instructor would say if someone said "I'm sorry" *ahem* "I know you are! I didn't ask for a character reference!"
Do you know why women prefer to 77 instead of 69? They get 8 more.
Back in the 90's my college had a student magazine. It's motto was, "You read it, now work for it." I always thought it was cleaver, because they put it on the back cover. It could be "You 'red' it," or "You 'reed' it" and either would work.
I used to say "data" until Star Trek The Next Generation came out. Now I say "data".
I don't waste my time decoding emojis. My time is too valuable.