DDOS Attack Takes Down Russian Source of Canon Pre-Release Details

[Deleted member 381342]

Other than reducing Russia's GDP 35%

I think that is one of the most American ways of looking at something and it just doesn't compute in the minds of people in other countries. GDP is important to some people and some counties, but irrelevant to others. Maybe it makes it slightly more expensive for someone to repay their mortgage? But that is more on the counties bank to set the interest rate and if my countries GDP dropped I would still earn and spend the same amount of money.

Apparently Scotland dissolving the union would drop our GDP, leaving the EU dropped out GDP as did Covid... but those GDP drops haven't changed a single thing to what you spend your money on.

 

[SteveC]

The Ukraine comes from the more literal translation being The border lands. Like how we call Nipol, Japan. I am unsure why we don't just call each country by their own defined name, it seems daft each language has their own word for another nation.

In some cases a language doesn't have the proper sounds to render the other country's name the way they do, and even if they sort of do, it will end up being thickly accented. For example, China's name for China is spelled, in Pinyin, Zhongguo, but it doesn't sound at ALL like it looks (About half of the consonant sounds in Chinese are not in English at all, so the "mapping" of sounds to letters in Pinyin is totally counter-intuitive). If you hear it spoken and don't know Chinese it will sound something like "chong-woe" but that first sound is not actually a "ch" sound; it's something we don't have so our brains basically guess and decide it's a "ch."

There's basically no way an English speaker is going to get "Zhongguo" right without learning some Chinese. I know I can't do it.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

In some cases a language doesn't have the proper sounds to render the other country's name the way they do, and even if they sort of do, it will end up being thickly accented. For example, China's name for China is spelled, in Pinyin, Zhongguo, but it doesn't sound at ALL like it looks (About half of the consonant sounds in Chinese are not in English at all, so the "mapping" of sounds to letters in Pinyin is totally counter-intuitive). If you hear it spoken and don't know Chinese it will sound something like "chong-woe" but that first sound is not actually a "ch" sound; it's something we don't have so our brains basically guess and decide it's a "ch."

There's basically no way an English speaker is going to get "Zhongguo" right without learning some Chinese. I know I can't do it.

If you were taught the counties and capitals of the world as a child I am sure you would get. Saying Zhongguo right while teacher is there isn't going to be any different than remembering this other collection of characters means China. To me It has always irked me that a rather imperialist practice is considered ok just because it is easier to say. My family used to call the footmen Henry and Harry interchangeably regardless of their names, because it was easier to remember that footmen are called Henry or Harry.

 

[takesome1]

Like how we call Nipol, Japan.

When making corrections one should be correct.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

When making corrections one should be correct.

Nihon, though to my ears when said it sounds like Nipol. However you are suggesting I was making a correction which is incorrect.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

It certainly is. I can document this easily. I still can't understand what you're talking about. What is this "Nipol" you said?

日本 - Ni-hon. Sounds to my ears like Nipol and nether sound like Japan.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

What the heck are you talking about?

You've clearly missed the last few decades.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

I don't know about that. I've lived in five countries and they all compute like that. Granted that's 200 countries I haven't lived in, but which country is it that you're saying doesn't care about their GDP or personal income? Stop talking in riddles and just say what you mean. Tell us that country X doesn't understand or care about economic well-being, and we'll take it from there.

While there are various calculations for GDP it remains irrelevant. If your countries GDP goes down your wages don't suddenly drop. Indeed more often than not GDP shrinking means less people are spending money on products and services so that may impact companies more than individuals. Regardless, GDP growth or shrinkage is rarely relevant to matters of war or passion. The UK left the EU and GDP went down, yet to those in England that isn't relevant because now they have their country back.

 

[takesome1]

You've clearly missed the last few decades.

You mean he is unable to do a simple google search to read this:
Historians say the Japanese called their country Yamato in its early history, and they began using Nippon around the seventh century. Nippon and Nihon are used interchangeably as the country's name.
Still looking for Nipol. It seems to be some type of rubber.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

We also read that Nippon. It sounds nothing like "nipple" or whatever you're saying. I've lived here since 1991 and no-one would understand what the hell you were talking about if you went around saying nipple nipple. It's weird. Why are you posting all this strange stuff?

Did you miss the original post where there was talk that The Ukraine is considered offensive and how the country is known as The Ukraine? There are only three pages here so I'll let you get caught up on your own.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

Still looking for Nipol. It seems to be some type of rubber.

Phonetic spelling of how it sounds to my ears seems not to have been the best example.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

Are you a troll or something?

I've lived in London three years and have dozens of friends there. You'll not find many more money-concious English speakers than Londoners, and they're pissed as hell about the drop. Where are you getting your information? And what do you mean, have their country back?!!? When did they not have their country?

Londoners by far voted to remain so of course they are worried about that. Those that voted to leave don't give a monkeys about the GDP drop because now they can't be controlled by Europe and don't have any evil immigrants. Did you miss all of the unpleasantness of England leaving the EU? People that had lived in England for years getting letters though their door informing them "We voted you out?".

 

[Kit.]

what other major allies does he have?

As usual for Russia: the Army and the Fleet. Ah, now also the Nuke.

No. Western Europe is not socialist. Most people don’t understand political and economic terms. For example, the states we call communist, are actually socialist. The ruling parties are called communist, but even they aren’t communist. We have socialist parties in Europe, but the governments and countries themselves aren’t socialist. They are capitalist. A socialist state has all means of major production and distribution owned by the state. That’s not the case in Europe.

Most people (including you) don't understand political terms, in part because political terms are chosen to be intentionally misleading. What you are calling "socialism" is technically state capitalism. Both Commies and Nazis were calling themselves "socialists" just because in the discourse of the early 20th century Europe "a socialist" was a synonym of "a good guy".

 

[SteveC]

Phonetic spelling of how it sounds to my ears seems not to have been the best example.

And you just made my point for me, thank you.

Their consonants don't quite match the ones you're used to--articulated just a bit differently--so you guessed what you were hearing and heard it wrong.

You'd probably have a riotous time with languages that distinguish between an aspirated p and an unaspirated one. English does not, but we very consistently aspirate the p in pot but do not aspirate the p in spot. We don't even notice the difference but to, say, Koreans, these are two very different sounds. Pinyin uses B for an unaspirated p, and P for the aspirated p; so we look at it and say why the heck didn't they use P for P and B for an aspirated P? Because B is never aspirated when we speak it, and it sounds more like an unaspirated P (to them) than an aspirated P does.

If we tried to pronounce every country name the way their residents do, we'd simply butcher almost all of them. You're doing it with Japan, while arguing it wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

And you just made my point for me, thank you.

Their consonants don't quite match the ones you're used to--articulated just a bit differently--so you guessed what you were hearing and heard it wrong.

You'd probably have a riotous time with languages that distinguish between an aspirated p and an unaspirated one. English does not, but we very consistently aspirate the p in pot but do not aspirate the p in spot. We don't even notice the difference but to, say, Koreans, these are two very different sounds. Pinyin uses B for an unaspirated p, and P for the aspirated p; so we look at it and say why the heck didn't they use P for P and B for an aspirated P? Because B is never aspirated when we speak it, and it sounds more like an unaspirated P (to them) than an aspirated P does.

If we tried to pronounce every country name the way their residents do, we'd simply butcher almost all of them. You're doing it with Japan, while arguing it wouldn't be a problem.

If taught in school I am sure most would pick it up in the same way you learn how to spell and pronounce the English names.

 

[unfocused]

@Photo Bunny, I think you are in that situation where the best way to get yourself out of a hole might be to stop digging.

I do find it interesting that English speakers seem hellbent on anglicizing even simply pronounced place names. For example, why we call Firenze "Florence" and Roma "Rome." Or, for that matter, how did Deutschland become "Germany?" I am sure there is some linguistic history there. And, it does seem like we are getting a bit better about respecting some place names -- Beijing instead of Peking and Mumbai instead of Bombay, for example.

 

[TMHKR]

Some incredibly crucial info on a photography gear rumors website, I'll keep that in mind when Canon releases R3.6 with an active caesium-137 filter.
Unbelievable.

 

[mjg79]

Irregardless its true that alot of native english speakurs say and rite stuff that ain't propur and thunk its just honkey dorey.

The point is, if a country (or an individual, for that matter) specifically asks to be referred to in a certain way (as the government of Ukraine did in 1993), it's disrespectful to refuse to honor that request.

The United States of America and the United Kingdom are referred to with a definite article ('the') because they are compound nouns with adjectives. Ukraine is not. Ignorance is the natural excuse of the ignorant.

Gosh, what an unpleasant diatribe. Your immediate resort to personal insult is very telling - it's as sure a measure as one will ever find that someone has no valid argument. Suffice it to say that when it comes to both the subject of the history of that part of the world and certainly when it comes to linguistics, the ignorance is yours.

You might not like it, but history and languages are complex subjects. Generally speaking the native speaker should be afforded the right to speak his native tongue as he sees fit. To call the Ukraine, the Ukraine is perfectly valid English, in the same way you'll find many old Bombay families who are English speakers or from the Parsi community in Bombay won't call the city Mumbai when speaking their own language, even when Hindu right-wing thugs threaten them they (justifiably) refuse to change, or you'll find some people in various parts of China legitimately use the name Peking when writing English.

Combined with the right of the native speaker to speak his own language of course there is a desire to not offend and to try to reach compromise. But someone came on here and immediately and unfairly criticised another for saying the Ukraine. I thought it impolite, especially as said person wasn't a native speaker. The English language is hard to pin down, it takes many forms - this is actually a great strength. That there is no central committee who gets to dictate what word we use for this or that is a welcome reality.

 

[ethanz]

the only significant ally they have now is China, which has publicly begun to step back from the broad cooperative agreements they made right before the war, where Putin, in his meeting with XI, failed to mention his intention to invade. China is rightfully angered. We’ll see what happens.

China apparently knew: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukraine-china.html

 

[mjg79]

@Photo Bunny, I think you are in that situation where the best way to get yourself out of a hole might be to stop digging.

I do find it interesting that English speakers seem hellbent on anglicizing even simply pronounced place names. For example, why we call Firenze "Florence" and Roma "Rome." Or, for that matter, how did Deutschland become "Germany?" I am sure there is some linguistic history there. And, it does seem like we are getting a bit better about respecting some place names -- Beijing instead of Peking and Mumbai instead of Bombay, for example.

That's an interesting point because it illustrates the complexity of the subject. Bombay as a name is about the same age as Mumbai - neither is more right than the other. Neither as it happens is the first name. Bombay is the English name, Mumbai the Marathi name. The people who lived there for centuries and built the city as a thriving, unusually open and pluralistic city virtually all called it Bombay. Many others in that region who only spoke Marathi moved to the city in the middle of the 20th century and eventually wielded political power through some quite extreme groups - in India they are called the Hindu right wing or Hindu chauvinists - in the west they would simply be called fascists. Some, not all but some, would be perfectly happy to run every non-Marathi person out of the city but they realised, especially given international condemnation of the 92/93 Bombay Riots (a pogrom where hundreds of Muslims were murdered), that they would have to be more subtle. So they decided to force non-Marathi speakers to use the Marathi name even when speaking the multitude of languages one finds in Bombay. My grandparents came from the city, it was a wonderful place, they loved it and insisted on being buried there after years living in the west, one couldn't find people more devoted to the "mother of cities" as Kipling called her, and they always called it Bombay when speaking English or Gujarati.

As for Peking and Beijing - both are just different ways of expressing the same name in English. The British first encountered the language from the south of China where Peking made more sense. Following the conquest of the country by the Communists - the people who went on to quite literally be the most murderous group in the entire history of humanity - Beijing became more popular because said Communists had their main power base in the north and wished to stamp their authority over the country, right down to the pronunciation of words by non-Chinese people.

I go into such detail just to show it really isn't a question of "getting better" respecting names or that the "nice side" demand this or that change. Sometimes it's brute power or political intrigue - hence the rather pointless debate going on in this very forum, there isn't always going to be a right and wrong. If you spend any time in India you'll find many places have several different names - an English name, Hindi name, a local name, a nickname, the official name, the name whichever political group in power uses etc etc - it can be rather mystifying for a non-Indian. To call Bombay by it's Marathi name would be roughly equivalent to Le Pen winning the election in France and renaming Marseilles because she didn't like it having a Greek name. Frankly I would ignore such a change, at least unless it got established over a prolonged period and maybe represented a long-term and organic change, eg France becoming fascist, in the same way one must now really call Constantinople by the name Istanbul - to stick to Constantinople is several centuries and an entire civilisation out of date! The modern fad though of changing the language at political behest strikes me as being as unwelcome as needless intransigence.