Comments by "" (@dingokidneys) on "RobWords" channel.

  1. Not to be a Chicken Little or anything but 1984's Newspeak - or dumbing down of the language - was a way to control thought to keep people in check. I think we need to be careful about how language changes so that, as your guest pointed out, precision and accuracy are retained.
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  2. As a young man I once worked with a beautiful, tall, blonde Finnish woman. I had a Swedish girlfriend at the time so was a bit familiar with Swedish and thought Finnish would be something like that. Then one day the Finnish woman's husband phoned in to talk to her and they started conversing in Finnish. I was really set back as it seemed very harsh and guttural and not at all like what I'd imagined. I probably over coloured it, but the image I was left with was like sawing wood with your teeth. Sorry Finnish people. Since then I've heard Finnish many times and while it's never had that sudden jarring impression on me subsequently, I never did think it was a pretty language though it seems that J.R.R. Tolkein used it as a structural basis for Elvish which as Rob said is considered and was intended to be a very beautiful language.
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