Imaginary Gardens

English has different words for mouse and rat but in Chinese they're both the same creature (laoshu) so I asked my mom well how do you differentiate between mice and rats. She, clearly having never felt the need to do so, was like uhh big laoshu and little laoshu I guess. Then I went online to see how the difference between (the English words) "mouse" and "rat" was being explained to CN->EN learners and there are numerous articles delving deep into the analysis. Bigger vs smaller, indoors vs outdoors, cute and favorable connotations vs evil and ugly, tail length, fear factor, emphasis on the fact that you cannot call it a "computer rat." Much thought is being expended on this little mystery of the English language

Last time I was looking for an apartment, the guy showing me a room that opened directly to the alley was like 你怕老鼠嗎？and I, hoping to distinguish mouse vs rat, asked 大的還是小的? To which he replied, with great satisfaction: 都有!😃

Translation: "Are you afraid of rodents?" "Big ones or small ones?" "We've got both."

official linguistics post

…is this sarcasm, or?

No this is completely legit. One of my favorite reviews to a chapter goes “I finished this with 5% battery and now I am crying in Target HOW DARE YOU”

sharing a full screenshot uncropped is kind of like bending over in a little skirt and pulling it up a little

lowkey kinda hate how all the pride flags are just stripes, can we get some shapes up in here pls

Hell yeah 🤙

Biczechual

reading a good interesting book after a horrible reading slump and suddenly you can feel the sun shining again and the sky is more beautiful than ever and birds are all singing songs to you

Stephen King’s Fujo