Open Menu
AllLocalCommunitiesAbout
lotide
AllLocalCommunitiesAbout
Login

Dirt Man

⁨996⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨fossilesque@mander.xyz⁩ to ⁨science_memes@mander.xyz⁩

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/7a5a08a1-89c1-4ca0-b4f5-a767cc156786.jpeg

source

Comments

Sort:hotnewtop
  • ook@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just read one of Urusla Le Guin’s books where humans sent off some unwanted people, no scientists, to another planet and they brought up how hundreds of years into living there, they still give arbitrary names to things. E.g. naming an animal Heron because it kind of resembles one, but this is an alien world, so it is really not.

    Anyways, at one point one of the characters asks why people still use the name Victoria for the planet, as this was named by Earth people. And then suggested to just call the planet Mud, since they got so much of it. Was half a joke but later in the book some people do use Mud as a name for it.

    source
    • fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yesss, I just Le Guin pilled someone last week. Fingers crossed they read it. They asked me for a general book list and chose one of hers from it.

      source
      • tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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!

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • Toneswirly@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • ook@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I am going through her catalogue. Whatever is available at our library. So far I liked them all. Least of all Lavinia, that started off quite weak but also got better, but out of all the strong books it was the one at the bottom so far.

        source
    • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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

      Telephone sanitizers?

      source
      • jaemo@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s just the “B” arc. Ah. But I forget about the mutant star goat.

        source
      • jaybone@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Are those people? Are they unwanted?

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ursula

      Ursulandia and NoUrsulandia ?

      source
      • ook@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Careful, if you go there you might run into Zensursula.

        source
    • toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.”

      source
      • ook@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Heh, gotcha’!

        source
  • xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, it should be translated to Bearable and Unbearable.

    source
    • WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Bare and barenaked

      source
  • hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just wait until they realize we named everything in space after milk.

    source
    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “And your sun system is located in the milky milk?”

      source
      • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Our Sun is a Sun, not THE sun but The Sun

        source
    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not everything

      … But yeah, a crazy number of things relate to dairy.

      source
    • Hupf@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Space bird:

      Image

      source
  • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Took me too long to remember “Arctic” and “Antarctic” and I kept wondering how “North Pole / South Pole” translated to “Bearlandia / Not Bearlandia”

    source
  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In Chinese (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?

    source
    • Kushan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

      source
      • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        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.

        source
      • randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

        source
    • TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Read Three Body Problem if you wanna know how that goes

      source
      • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Tbf she was an alien-worshipping cultist

        source
        • -> View More Comments
      • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Heh, I understood this obscure sci-fi joke!

        source
        • -> View More Comments
    • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Maybe we should let someone from China contact the aliens?

      FTFY

      source
      • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s what they said

        source
        • -> View More Comments
  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just wait until they hear about Virgin-land.

    source
    • BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Gonna need you to be more specific about that. We have a lot of virginlands in the Americas

      source
      • JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Wyoming

        source
        • -> View More Comments
  • Im_old@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They’re actually called penguinland and no-penguinland

    source
  • TankieTanuki@hexbear.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    TIL what “Arctic” means.

    source
    • floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I love the bear monkeys

      source
  • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Nah, isn’t it more Towardsbearland and Awayfrombearland?

    source
    • Kirp123@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

      source
      • Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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’

        source
      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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

        source
    • lime@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      bearland and unbearland

      source
    • marcos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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).

      source
  • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

    source
  • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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

    source
    • nBodyProblem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And wouldn’t you say the opposite of bearlandia is not-bear-landia?

      source
      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        As I said, “opposite of”, not “the opposite of”

        source
  • RattlerSix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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

    source
  • Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    ChatGPT or Bing Translate?

    source
    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Is there a difference?

      Copilot is basically just repackaged chat gpt.

      source
  • SektorC@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Source: ayellowbirds.tumblr.com/…/so-your-planet-dirt

    source
  • Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    pleated-jeans.com/2023/03/08/translation-fails/

    source