Miscellanea linguistica

[muckefuck]

• My word of the day is änewäg, Breisgauer Alemmanic for "nevertheless". I love it because of the coincidental resemblance to English anyway(s). (The wäg element is cognate to English way, but the first element could be related to äne "over there".)
• I've noticed that, when speaking of movies, I'm more likely to say I haven't seen that than I didn't see that in almost every case. It used to be that I preferred the former for movies currently playing and the latter for those which had left the second-run theatres, but technology shifts have ensured that most movies are currently playing somewhere, on NetFlix if nowhere else.
• I was a bit surprised to find that NATH's new Ecuadorean boyfriend can say coger without sniggering. He also says naranjillo instead of lulo and calls turkeys pavos. Next time, I'll have to check out what he has for rubio, coche, cacahuete, tinto, and other variable words.
• Also, who knew the Ecuadoreans also told pastuso jokes? I heard a great new one, but I'm saving it for the next time I see e. (BTW, e., he liked your sirena joke.)

Comments

[strongaxe.livejournal.com]

I would be inclined to think that "I haven't seen it" would be more appropriate. I would tend to use "I didn't see it" to refer to a specific time or place, like "Did you see that squirrel just jump out of that tree?", where "I haven't seen it" would refer to something that offers many opportunities for viewing.

The positive offers a bit more flexibility, in that "I have seen it" (i.e. at some unspecified point in the past I saw it), and "I saw it" / "I did see it" (i.e. at some particular point in the past I saw it) are both correct in cases like the movie above.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Ask him about cuy too, while you're at it.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I finally had a chance to last night and, yes, that's the word he uses.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

I will never forget crawling out of a packed bus into the depot at Los Banos and seeing the Quecha women roasting cuy on spits over a charcoal grill.

Good times.