Finnish, evil (not really related to Hyperborea)

[Ari Rahikkala]

http://www.aspdesign.no/nightwis...hich ... 903dbThese fools fail to understand the depth and complexity of the Divine Language. One can't blame them for lacking bravery - however, knowing the limits of their own abilities is something they should learn much sooner than Finnish. Only the most masterful of native Finns are able to survive in the most advanced areas of this extremely delicate structure where the duplication of a single letter (*) or the place of a single comma (**) might be the difference between life and death. The attempts of those whose minds and brains are not trained and wired to understand Finnish at birth to produce or translate even the simplest sentences will inevitably lead to destruction, death, or at least misunderstanding and comedy. (***)Oh, and if you don't want to read through all that stuff, I'll try to scare you anyway... a while after I watched the movie I shot Andy Warhol (Google for "Valerie Solanas" for information about the person the movie told of) I got this weird idea in my head about trying out how many different meanings of the phrase "Ammuin Andy Warholia" I could create with minimal changes while keeping the sentence grammatically correct... and here's a very non-exhaustive list:Ammuin Andy Warholia - I shot Andy Warhol and hit but was not necessarily succesful in killing himAndy Warholia ammuin - the sameAmmuinko Andy Warholia - Did I shoot Andy Warhol?Andy Warholiako ammuin - (slightly bad style) Was it Andy Warhol who I shot (and hit but was not necessarily succesful in killing)?Ammuinpa Andy Warholia - I happened to shoot Andy Warhol (and hit but was not necessarily succesful in killing him)Ammuinkin Andy Warholia - either "It was Andy Warhol who I shot (but I could have shot someone else)" or "I did shoot Andy Warhol after all" (and hit but was not necessarily succesful in killing him)Ammuin Andy Warholiakin - I shot somebody else (one or more people) *and* Andy Warhol (and hit but was not necessarily succesful in killing him)Ammuin Andy Warholia kohti - I shot at Andy Warhol (but was not necessarily succesful at hitting him)Ammuin Andy Warholin - I shot Andy Warhol and killed himAmmuin Andy Warholinkin - I shot Andy Warhol and one or more other people, killing at least Andy Warhol and one more personAmmuinkin Andy Warholin - either "It was Andy Warhol who I shot and killed (but I could have shot someone else)" or "I did shoot and kill Andy Warhol after all"etc... there are way too many possibilities to list...(*) Tapaan sinut huomenna - I will meet you tomorrowTapan sinut huomenna - I will kill you tomorrow(**) Armoa, ei Siperiaan - have mercy, don't deport me to SiberiaArmoa ei, Siperiaan - no mercy, deport this person to Siberia(***) This sentence is a bit like German... In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to a Finn.

[UEC]

Riiight....... E. Metzler (UEC)Duke of Brookshire"Never use a BOO/\/\ist as a diplomat" -- GSClicky Clicky..., Tiss for your own good ya know.

[Scott Alexander]

Teehee, yes.I was trying to translate some of the articles in the Helsinki Verkkoliite the other day. One of the articles I translated somehow as "the United States government is going to consistently repeat the massive power outages in order to see how they happened." Luckily it was taken from the Washington Post and so I went and checked that and it turned out they were going to *investigate* the outages. Nice to know...donnerwetter.kielikeskus....-index.htm is surprisingly helpful. Sorta. Edited by: Scott Siskind  at: 8/19/03 5:18 pm

[UEC]

MUAHAHHAA.... POWER OUTAGES!... MAUAHHAHAHAH E. Metzler (UEC)Duke of Brookshire"Never use a BOO/\/\ist as a diplomat" -- GSClicky Clicky..., Tiss for your own good ya know.