Posts Tagged ‘lainaus’

Symptoms of our societies

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Being angry for the sake of being angry
Brutality as justification for greater brutality
Loud talkers refusing to listen to quiet talk
Pursuing profits for personal pleasure and calling it something else
Acting like the past or the future are different from the present
Having children to feign responsibility
Refusing to see governments as an image of ourselves
Trusting words too much
Equating charismatic with credible
Doing less than what’s required when requirements are low
Listening to music with your eyes open
Supporting war
Not being able to look at pictures of dead people
Politics as a playground of the highest bidders
Praising childhood and stripping it away from children
Decaffeinated coffee
Giant supermarkets with millions of tiny packages
Food without origin
Acting like responsibility is a burden
Trying to kill pain with a chemical substance
Diagnosing discomfort
Gender roles as an explanation for anything
Pretending to believe as a form of consolation
The thought of thoughts after the brain has died
Valuing life only when it is valuable
Technology as a substitute and not a tool for understanding
The failure to talk and listen to young people
Arrogance masked as affection
Violence and love in the same sentence
Giving off the air of infallibility
Treating art as property
Only making records if records are forever

Don Johnson Big Band: All Hope (emphases are mine; on spotify)

Tongue twisters in Finnish

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Tongue twisters in Finnish. Couple of times I have been asked if Finnish has tongue twisters, and I have failed to remember any.

  • Mun mummoni muni mun mammani, mun mammani muni mun = My grandma hatched my mom, my mom hatched me (song)
  • Appilan pappilan apupapin papupata pankolla porisee ja kuohuu = Appila vicarage’s assistant pastor’s beanpot is steaming and boiling on the stove

I find the kind with lots of declinations (declensions) particularly interesting (I found the translations on the page rather poor):

  • syyttämättäjättämispäätöksestään = of his/her decision to refrain from accusing (this is real Finnish, probably used in official documents and news with bureaucratic language)
  • epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkään ~  even with his quality of having a lack of having been made disorganized OR even with his state of having a lack of having disorganized* (something, object not mentioned; no Finn understands this intuitively and most even not after trying)

* According to Yahoo! Answers, alternative translations include “even with its quality of not being possible to be made irrational.” and “not even when taking into account his/her/its way/ability/tendency of not disorganizing” but I think they are wrong.

(Stopped using Flock after realizing YouTube does not work in it, although other Flash videos do.)

J’Attendrai Le Suivant (I’ll Wait for the Next One)

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

J’Attendrai Le Suivant (I’ll Wait for the Next One)
Thanks to Özhan for the link.