Whatcha Readin'?

[Vampyr]

Just finished reading Daemon and its sequel Freedom by Daniel Suarez:



Very good techno-thriller books, would recommend to anyone, especially if you're into technology. The books were written by a real software developer, so there aren't any of those "that's not how it works" moments.

Getting ready to read The Passage by Justin Cronin.

[Typhoid]

I'm currently reading a book about the origins and evolution of the English language, to the current, and future progression.

Highly interesting book [stuff like this fascinates me].


Like for example, one of the main reasons English has so many words for one thing, and is therefore so hard for other people to learn, is because we've assimilated so many other languages and meshed them into our own to incorporate them over hundreds and hundreds of years. During the Renaissance 10,000-12,000 new words were created. Shakespeare created many of the phrases that we still use today [the only one I remember right now] like "I'm in a pickle." Pickle at the time being a relish-type of thing, therefore the statement making no absolute sense, but people would quote it constantly as people did with "Wazzap".

What fascinated me the most was the evolution of 'ebonics', and the explanation behind it. The slaves picked up 'pidgin' [not a real language, but a basic type of english to get a point across] from people who spoke English as a second language. Which is why things such as "is" and "are" are omitted from 'ebonic speech'. They served no purpose in pidgin English. And explains why "th" and "t" is pronounced like a hard "d" sound.

Also, if two people who speak pidgin English have a child, that child cannot speak Pidgin English, because it doesn't exist - that child now speaks Creole.


Fascinating.

[Vampyr]

That's one of my favorite things about English, just how mashed up and crazy it is. There's actually a movement out there to remove all the duplication and non-nonsensical parts, but I think that would kill the beauty of the language.

Also, I started reading The Passage last night. It is an awesome book, I'm about 100 pages in out of over 800, and the character development is superb. It's a vampire horror novel, but more along the lines of I am Legend than Dracula. It hasn't "jumped" yet, but supposedly the book covers hundreds of years of time. Very epic.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

That's one of my favorite things about English, just how mashed up and crazy it is. There's actually a movement out there to remove all the duplication and non-nonsensical parts, but I think that would kill the beauty of the language.

I was talking to my dad about something to that effect [he gave me the book]. He said he was talking to a Chinese guy who said "English is so hard because you have so many duplicate words for things. Like small. You have so many ways to say it."

But then I made the point to my dad that there is only one way to say small - small. There are things like 'tiny' and 'miniscule', but those don't really mean small. It's a measurement scale that's signified in words. You wouldn't say "It was a tiny battleship", but you'd say "It was a small battleship", because 'tiny' would portray being palm-sized, while small would signify that it's smaller than normal, or large, while still being big in context of battleships.

Fascinating.

[Angrist]

I'm reading Blindsight by Robin Cook. I'm at 1/3, so far it's good. Nothing scary or too suspicious though, so perhaps it's a bit slow.

I love reading when I have the time for it.

[Angrist]

I finished Robin Cook's Blindsight, which was ok (better than Mindbend, not as good as Terminal).

Now I'm reading Leviathan by some guy. His writing style isn't perfect, but the story is good so far. Huge firespitting monster, what's not to like?

[BreakABone]

Just got this in the mail can't wait to get through it.