The Off Topic Topic

[Syt]

Ireland, Wales and Scotland used to have no words for this predicament.

[The Brain]

In Swedish it's sticka.

[garbon]

Fascinating and depressing.

Depressing? I feel like there is a much higher bar to be categorized as such.

[The Minsky Moment]

Fascinating and depressing.

Indeed, for centuries Scots, Welsh and Irish managed to avoid small pieces of wood under their skin; now they suffer just as the English.

[HVC]

It's getting easier for people in the uk to communicate. The horror!

[Sheilbh]

We just need the North-East to assimilate now 

[Valmy]

We call it "splinter" in the United States as well so I feel like we had a role to play in that unfolding splinter tragedy.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The death of dialects.

I've always used both "splinter" and "spelk", but the second term only in NE England. Not sure folk like my grandparents even knew it was dialect.

[HVC]

Hmm, just had a random thought, did the other names only mean a splinter in your finger, or did the meaning extend to wood itself? Did "that wooden post splintered" turn into " that wooden post spelked" ?

[Josquius]

We call it "splinter" in the United States as well so I feel like we had a role to play in that unfolding splinter tragedy.

Honestly I always just thought this was an Americanism.

It's always been a spelk for me - it being a word that only really ever comes up around my dad.

[mongers]

We call it "splinter" in the United States as well so I feel like we had a role to play in that unfolding splinter tragedy.

Honestly I always just thought this was an Americanism.

It's always been a spelk for me - it being a word that only really ever comes up around my dad.

My copy of the 'Chambers dictionary of etymology' has it's borrowed from the middle Dutch 'splinter'

Your dialect word could be derived from the middle German 'spelte' for splinter?

[Richard Hakluyt]

A "spelt" would be a thin piece of wood about 8" long; one would light it on the fire and use the brning spelt to light a candle, lamp or cigarette etc

Heven't used that one since open fires went out of use 

[Tamas]

Considering how a lot of conflicts in life are from a failure to communicate, the sooner dialects and different languages die out the better.

[Syt]

Considering how a lot of conflicts in life are from a failure to communicate, the sooner dialects and different languages die out the better.

The humble Babelfish disagrees.

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

[Jacob]

Considering how a lot of conflicts in life are from a failure to communicate, the sooner dialects and different languages die out the better.

I suspect that more conflicts, cruelty, and straight up killing has been done in the name of eradicating dialects and different languages compared to those caused by "failures to communicate" because people had different mother tongues. Especially when you consider language is often used as an identifier by people perpetrating genocide.