• tetris11@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Same! I snuck up behind and choke-holded them with Wizard until they passed out from Ged overdose, and then I crammed Atuan into each and every orifice before I left them for dead.

        I can’t wait to have a new book bestie!

        • toynbee
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          1 year ago

          While I recognize the humor, I wish I had a book bestie.

        • shneancy
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          1 year ago

          i recently read through the series and now i only have the last short story left– and i don’t want to finish it becuase then it’ll be over :(

          so few authors manage to make me sad this way

      • Toneswirly
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        1 year ago

        The ones who walk away from Omelas is one of my favorite stories. Powerful metaphor, that.

        • meyotch@slrpnk.netdeleted by creator
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          1 year ago

          God she was an epic baller of a person too. An amazing personal story and she herself was a deep well of insight and compassionate wisdom. It comes through in most everything she wrote or said.

        • captainlezbian
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          1 year ago

          Its currently sitting in my library app, but I’m bracing myself because of how hard the left hand if darkness broke me

        • shneancy
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          1 year ago

          i don’t know if it was intentional, but one of Expedition 33’s endings gave me vibes of that story

    • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot
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      1 year ago

      humans sent off some unwanted people, no scientists, to another planet

      Telephone sanitizers?

        • Grostleton@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Idk, someone’s gotta clean those things. I would’ve gone with telemarketers tbh. Those mfs can all be sent to mars for all I care.

          • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            It’s funny, as I got older I became kind of a germaphobe. (Like I’m usually carrying a pack of antibacterial wipes.)

            When I was young payphones were still a thing. And I used them frequently. I couldn’t see myself doing that now. I have to wonder if people got weird ear diseases or ear infections from those things. I don’t remember any stories about it. Though it seems like the kind of thing that would become an urban legend.

    • toynbee
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      1 year ago

      There is a clear thematic connection here, but when I started reading your comment I thought you were going to say it was because “Ursula” resembled “Ursus.”

  • OhStopYellingAtMe
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    1 year ago

    Took me too long to remember “Arctic” and “Antarctic” and I kept wondering how “North Pole / South Pole” translated to “Bearlandia / NoBearlandia”

  • In Chinese (I mean like most dialects), North Pole is just 北极 (“Northern Extreme”), South Pole is 南极 (“Southern Extreme”). Arctic is just 北极 with the extra character 地区 meaning area (“Northern Extreme Area”), Antartica is 南极洲 (“Southern Extreme Continent”).

    There’s no weird etymology involving bears lol

    Maybe we should let someone from China or Taiwan contact the aliens?

    • Kushan
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      1 year ago

      Someone once told me that the Chinese word for penguin translated to “business goose” and I cannot tell you how crestfallen I was when I looked it up and found out it wasn’t true.

      • I mean “企” character by itself isn’t really a word, but maybe the person thought of 企业 (Enterprise/Bussiness), which I would say technically that person isn’t like lying, just a misunderstanding of language.

        But then again, I’ve only attended primary school grade-levels in China, so I’m no word expert either.

      • randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Penguins are called 企鵝/企鹅 (qì’é, [tɕʰi˥˩ ɤ˧˥]) in Chinese. It would be better literally translated as standing goose. It just so happens to share the same character 企 with the word for business. Most people don’t know that 企 means standing anymore though.

    • TargaryenTKE
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      1 year ago

      Read Three Body Problem if you wanna know how that goes

  • someguy3
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    1 year ago

    Just wait until they hear about Virginland.

  • Im_old
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    1 year ago

    They’re actually called penguinland and no-penguinland

    • Kirp123
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      1 year ago

      Arktos means bear in Ancient Greek and the name Arctic comes from Arktikos which could be translated as near the bear. One theory is that it was named because of the Ursa constellations (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor). Antarctica just means opposite of the Arctic.

      The scientific name for Brown Bears is Ursus Arctos. Ursus means bear in Latin while Arctos means bear in Ancient Greek so their name translated is Bear Bear.

      • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        And then there’s the grizzly bear, ursus arctos horribilis, horrible bear bear. My favourite part is that ‘horribilis’ is a mistranslation from English into Latin; ‘grisly’ is synonymous with ‘horrible’, but ‘grizzly’ actually means ‘greyish’

        Edit: Ursus arctos griseus or Ursus arctos canescens would be the most likely names of it had been translated correctly (grey bear bear and greying (with age) bear bear, respectively)

      • FooBarrington
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        1 year ago

        If it comes from the constellations, we got pretty fucking lucky

    • marcos
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      1 year ago

      Yep. It’s Towards-bear-land, and Against-towards-bear-land.

      IMO, nobody every made it clear if it’s (against-towards)-bear-land, what would be away-from-bear-land, or against-(towards-bear-land).

  • Dicska
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    1 year ago

    This joke would be rather hard to translate to my language because we use the same word for dirt (as in, ‘soil’ - in fact, in certain cases for actual soil, as well) as for Earth. Or ground.

    We only have a separate word for the unclean meaning of dirt, or a compound word containing dirt to denote soil.

    I can easily imagine this as an actual attempt from a beginner English speaker from home.

  • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    But Antarctica doesn’t derive from “not Arctic”, but from ‘opposite of Arctic’. The bear part is right, though.

  • RattlerSix
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    1 year ago

    A bit disappointed this isn’t about the funny YouTube song about the Dirt Man