• daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    Spanish:

    “Me cago en la leche” I shit on the milk -> something bad happened, and I’m angry.

    “Eres la leche” You are the milk -> you are great.

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      7 days ago

      Damn, in English we can say one “shit the bed,” but I might need to adapt this Spanish phrase and start saying I shit the milk.

      • Logical@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        Not to be one of those people, but the poster you sent is actually not Swedish. The first sentence is either Danish or Norwegian. You’re still right about the word fart meaning something different in Swedish though.

    • CluelessDudeEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      Not joking, this is how I passively learned it Courage, Muttley,KND those were the shit.

  • weeeeum@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    7 days ago

    This is due to the legendary reputation of “the shit”, which is distinct from the ordinary “shit” we are all familiar with.

    “The shit” has rarely ever been so equaled by a living being that its use is usually correlated with great admiration and flattery.

    In some convoluted terminology, “the shit” can be referred to simply as “shit” confusing it with its inferior cousin.

      • spinnetrouble@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        71·
        8 days ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

        “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a grammatically correct sentence in English that is often presented as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs through lexical ambiguity. It has been discussed in literature in various forms since 1967, when it appeared in Dmitri Borgmann’s Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought. The sentence employs three distinct meanings of the word buffalo:

        • As an attributive noun (acting as an adjective) to refer to a specific place named Buffalo, such as the city of Buffalo, New York;
        • As the verb to buffalo, meaning (in American English[1][2]) “to bully, harass, or intimidate” or “to baffle”; and
        • As a noun to refer to the animal (either the true buffalo or the bison). The plural is also buffalo.

        A semantically equivalent form preserving the original word order is: “Buffalonian bison that other Buffalonian bison bully also bully Buffalonian bison.”

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        16·
        7 days ago

        It doesn’t, but that won’t stop pedants from pretending it does so they can feel smarter than you.

        • lugal@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          This isn’t pedantic, it’s just a fun playing with word. And don’t even bother to call me a pedant for pointing this out.

    • Tyfud@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      8 days ago

      Buffalonian bison that other Buffalonian bison bully also bully Buffalonian bison.

    • BossDj@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      In the title of the show, there are spaces between Tom and And and And and Jerry.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.worldEnglish
    451·
    8 days ago

    The King’s English

    I take it you already know
    Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

    Others may stumble, but not you,
    On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.

    Beware of heard, a dreadful word, That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
    And dead: It’s said like bed, not bead – For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!
    Watch out for meat and great and threat… They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

    A moth is not the moth in mother, Nor both in bother, nor broth in brother.
    And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
    And then there’s dose and rose and lose – Just look them up – and goose and choose.

    And cork and work and card and ward, And font and front and word and sword.
    And do and go, then thwart and cart, Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
    A dreadful language? Why, sakes alive! I’d learned to speak it when I was five.
    And yet, to write it, the more I tried, I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five

  • Owen Earl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    332·
    8 days ago

    shit - adjective, bad

    the shit - noun, good

    .

    you are shit - shit is an adjective, you are bad

    you ain’t shit - shit still functions as an adjective, in some contexts this might be a good thing, but the phrase “you ain’t ____” most often is used to say the person doesn’t reach the level of the blank. For example “you ain’t all that” means you think/act like you are “all that” but you’re not at the level of “all that” you’re less than all that. If you “ain’t shit” it means you’re so bad that you’re less than shit, you dont even reach the level of shit with how bad you are. This is a devestating insult.

    you are not the shit - the shit is a noun, its good, so not being the shit is insulting

    you are the shit - the shit is a noun meaning good so this is a complement

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      8 days ago

      ain’t is a contraction of “am/are not” popularized in the early 1700s, combined with the syncopic haplology of a definite article: so still works with the noun part. I agree this doesn’t make it easier for people to learn English, but it’s not like every other language in the world doesn’t have this.