moretalk

[moretalk]

2024’s public domain is a banger

They stole something from you. For decades, they stole it. That thing they stole? Your entire culture. For all of human history, works created in living memory entered the public domain every year. 40 years ago, that stopped.

First in 1976, and then again in 1998, Congress retroactively extended copyright's duration by 20 years, for all works, including works whose authors were unknown and long dead, whose proper successors could not be located. Many of these authors were permanently erased from history as every known copy of their works disappeared before they could be brought back into our culture through reproduction, adaptation and re-use (copyright is "strict liability," meaning that even if you pay to clear the rights to a work from someone who has good reason to believe they control those rights, if they're wrong, you are on the hook as an infringer, and the statutory damages run to six figures).

Works that are still in our cultural currents 50 or 70 or 90 years after their creation are an infinitesimal fraction of all the works we create as a species. But these works are – by definition – extraordinarily important to our culture. The creators who made these works were able to plunder a rich public domain of still-current works as inputs to their own enduring creations. The slow-motion arson attack on the public domain meant that two generations of creators were denied the public domain that every other creator in the history of the human race had enjoyed.

As 2019 drew nearer, the copyright resistance who had fought over this grew nervous, then…elated. Was Congress actually going to heed the evidence of a decades-long failed experiment and decline to extend copyright again?

https://archive.org/details/MarybethPetersFormerUsRegisterOfCopyrightsOnTermsBeingTooLong

I had pitched email debates with comrades over this. Michael S Hart, visionary founder of the Project Gutenberg, was certain it wouldn't happen (he didn't live to see it). But then, miraculously, astoundingly, 2019 rolled around and we got new works in the public domain!

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2019/

For decades, Jennifer Jenkins from the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain published an annual lament for the public domain works we weren't getting that year. Jenkins painstakingly cataloged the materials that the public would be denied, though their creators had been only too happy to release them with the belief that the copyright would be 40 years shorter than it turned out.

Starting in 2019, those laments turned into celebrations, starter pistols for a generation of creators discovering a living public domain for the first time since the Carter administration. The 1923 works that entered the public domain in 2019 were mostly curiosities, but with each successive year, the public domain's new arrivals get ever more vibrant.

The public domain shipment that arrived on January 1, 2023 was a banger: we got some Virginia Woolf, some Hemingway, some Kafka, some Faulkner, some Agatha Christie and Edith Wharton, as well as Proust and Hesse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/20/free-for-2023/#oy-canada

All of Sherlock Holmes came home to the public domain last year. We also got "Ol' Man River," "Puttin' On the Ritz" and "Mississippi Mud."

What we didn't get 2023? Sound recordings. The Music Modernization Act froze all sound recordings in copyright until 2024 – that is, until 11 days hence.

Those old 78RPM recordings exist in an odd superposition. On the one hand, they have real cultural value and bring great joy to many listeners. On the other hand, they produce either zero (in the case of out-of-print recordings) or very little revenue for labels.

The Internet Archive, a public library, has preserved over 400,000 of these recordings through its Great 78 Project. Like every library with a sound recording collection, the Archive lends out access to these recordings to people with library cards:

https://great78.archive.org/

But the record industry has decided to attack the library and its founder. In a lawsuit that could shut down the Internet Archive and bankrupt its founder, they claim that internet-based libraries can't do what their physical counterparts have done since literal time immemorial:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/08/14/internet-archive-responds-to-recording-industry-lawsuit-targeting-obsolete-media/

The Big Three labels (Universal, Sony and Warner) who bought out all their rivals until three companies ended up owning 70% of all in-copyright sound recordings do not take their responsibility to preserve the recording history they bought and now would exercise eternal dominance over. Even as they attack independent efforts to preserve our culture, they fail grotesquely to preserve it on their own:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html

January 1 won't change any of that: come this year's public domain day, the record labels will still own the vast majority of all the music in the world, and they'll still be indifferently preserving it, and they'll still be trying to kill the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine, and they'll still be trying to eviscerate Brewster Kahle.

But at least we'll get some music in the public domain again this year. Indeed, this year's public domain is shaping up to be an even bigger banger than 2023:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2024/

The majority of works entering the public domain this year are from 1928, six years before the Hays Code – a regime of self-censorship overseen by the motion picture cartel that banned sex, radical politics, queerness, and everything else good in this world for generations – came into effect. 1928 was the year that the "Magna Charta" of the movie cartel was adopted – a set of voluntary guidelines that were roundly ignored by the studios:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code#Pre-Code:_%22Don'ts%22_and_%22Be_Carefuls%22,_as_proposed_in_1927

The late 1920s were super horny. This year's public domain time-capsule from 1928 includes DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Cole Porter's Let's Do It, Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Khan and Donaldson's Makin' Whoopee, and, horniest of all, Milne's House at Pooh Corner, featuring the first appearance of literature's greatest perennial sex-pest: Tigger.

Getting all this sexy stuff from 1928 in 2024 – when panicked bigots are waging war on sex in popular culture – is quite timely. These pietist prigs keep acting like sex in popular culture, "where the children can see it," was invented five years ago by Scholastic editors with purple hair, neopronouns and septum piercings. Earth to Moms For Liberty: the "good old days," free from sex in culture, ended 2 billion years ago when horny eukaryotes invented fucking.

But 1928 wasn't all flappers doing the horizontal Charleston with college men in the backs of jalopies. Our newly liberated cultural forebears found time to create the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, Brecht's Threepenny Opera (including Mack the Knife), and Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train.

WEB Dubois's Dark Princess comes home to the public domain on Jan 1. So do Robert Frost's West-Running Brook and Buster Keaton's The Cameraman. We're getting Charlie Chaplin's The Circus and Leni's The Man Who Laughs, which Bob Kane plundered to create The Joker. You can record Sonny Boy, I Can't Give You Anything But Love or I Wanna Be Loved By You.

In addition to all the compositions entering the public domain in a few days, there's the first shipment of recordings in two years: the Charleston, Yes, We Have No Bananas, and Satchmo singing with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band on Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More.

Also noteworthy: the works of MC Escher are starting to enter the public domain. The records are fragmentary, but Tower Of Babel is yours for the taking on Jan 1 (this is especially satisfying given that the estate is a noteworthy bully that has sent me baseless threats).

There's a lot of other visual art that may be entering the public domain in 2024, but because the registration records are so poorly organized, it's hard to tell. A lot of that art may not have been registered or renewed, and already be in the public domain. 80% of the books published between 1924 and 1963 are in the public domain on this basis!

https://www.crummy.com/2019/07/22/0

Among those works that are Secretly Public Domain? HP Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu, which has been public domain since 1956 (the Lovecraft estate is another one of those bullying monsters who will be put out of business soon, thanks to the reawakened public domain).

The main event, of course, is Mickey Mouse, who enters the public domain along with his first two short cartoon appearances: Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie. Though there's been a lot of FUD about trademark keeping Mickey out of the public domain, it's a lie. He's all yours (mostly):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/15/mouse-liberation-front/#free-mickey

It's wonderful to see the public domain growing again, but spare a thought for the orphan works whose copyright caging outlasted the works themselves. This year saw several silent films entering the public domain – but some of those films no longer exist in their entirety, or at all. They were set afire in the slow-motion arson attack on our culture the monopolistic entertainment industry began 40+ years ago.

Today, the world's worst people remain in charge of that culture, and they're still destroying it. David Zaslav, the loathsome villain of this year's writers' strike and actors' strike, has pioneered the permanent erasure of beloved movies and TV shows as a cheap way of getting tax credits for the bloated post-merger behemoth of that is Discovery-Warner:

https://insidethemagic.net/2023/04/warner-bros-under-fire-for-destroying-history-af1/

The purpose of a system is what it does. It's not that the media execs who demanded copyright extensions in the seventies and nineties failed to foresee that this was a mass cultural extinction event. It's that they didn't care. David Zaslav burning down his own company's vault is part of a multigenerational tradition in his industry. Those media execs know exactly what they're doing. They just don't care.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/20/em-oh-you-ess-ee/#sexytimes

[moretalk]

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

[moretalk]

[moretalk]

I can't stress enough how much I miss StumbleUpon

[moretalk]

Top Ten Websites For Boy Crazy Individuals

Pinterest

Tumblr

Fan website made by a 15 year old girl in 2003

Fan website made by a 40 year old man in 1996

Youtube

Getty Images

Bing Reverse Image Search

Vimeo

Website where it's unclear if you'll make it out alive

Google Images

[moretalk]

Youngster slang

À balle: in large quantities

Avoir le seum: being angry

Bananer: fooling someone

Barré/cramé/fêlé/flingué/ouf/taré: crazy 

Bébar/chourave/chourrer/karna/piquer/taper: stealing

Bebom: verlan for Bombe, super hot girl

Bédo/oinj/sandwich/splif: joint 

Beuh/beu/chichon/hash/herbe/shit/teuchi: weed

Bicher, bolosser, faire la misère: annoying/harassing someone

Biff, fric, moula, oseille, thune: money

Binks, cité, tèce, téci, tess, tiécar, zone: Parisian suburbs

Blinde, f: a lot

Boloss: loser

Ça caille/pèle: it’s cold

Ça me saoule/gonfle/fait chier: that’s pissing me off

Capter: understanding (T’as capté?)

Carrément: you bet! (- Do you want to come over? - Carrément!)

C’est bon: that’s enough, shut up

C’est carré: it works for me, it’s all good

C’est clair: totally

C’est claqué (au sol): it’s shit

C’est le sang: I love that person, we’re like relatives

C’est mort: that’s not happening

C’est tout pété: it sucks

Chelou: verlan for Louche, Weird

Chienne: bitch

Clope, f: cigarette

Comme jaja: like never before - short for Comme jamais

Crever: to die (Je crève de faim)

Dalleux, chien de la casse: annoying horny man

Darons: parents (un daron, une daronne)

De ouf: yes, a lot (Je bosse de ouf en ce moment)

Délire/kif: something cool, exciting

Démonter: fucking someone up

Disquette/douille/pilule, f: a lie

Eins: verlan for Seins, Boobs

Être chaud: being excited about doing something

Être en chien: being horny

Être en PLS (position latérale de sécurité): being exhausted/uneasy

Faire du sale: doing bad or illegal things

Faire le canard: acting like a simp

Faire le gars: acting tough

Faire tiep: verlan for Faire pitié, being pitiful

Feumeu: verlan for Meuf, verlan for Femme, Woman

Fonsdé: verlan for Défoncé, High (on drugs)

Galocher: kissing (Je l’ai galoche)

Gérer: being good at something

Gérer, ken, pécho, serrer: having sex (Je vais ken ce soir)

Gratter: con something out of someone (Je peux te gratter une clope?)

J’ai la dalle: I’m hungry

Je m’en bats les couilles: I don’t give a damn

Je suis refait: I’m lucky again after being unlucky

La flemme: can’t be bothered

Larchouma, tehon: shame

La vie de ma mère: I swear to God (rude)

Malaisant-e: cringy

Mes couilles/mon cul: yeah right

Mettre un coup de pression/stress: scaring someone with authority

Mettre une disquette: fooling someone

Meuf: verlan for Femme, Woman

Michto: nice, hot

Michetonneuse: sex worker

Mifa: verlan for Famille, Family (usually about close friends)

Morfler/prendre cher: being harmed, going through a lot

Mytho: liar

Narvalo, m: dumbass, dude

Nique sa race: fuck it

Oim: verlan for Moi, Me (Je rentre chez oim)

Pélo: dude

Perso: short for Personally

Puer la mort: stinking

Psartek: congratulations

Quetru: verlan for Truc, Thingy

Ras le cul: I don’t give a damn anymore

Relou: verlan for Lourd, Annoying (technically Heavy)

Reuch: verlan for Cher, Expensive

Reuf: verlan for Frère, Brother

Reuss: verlan for Soeur, Sister

Rien à battre/carrer/cogner/foutre/taper: I don’t give a damn

S’arracher/se casser/se tailler: leaving quickly during a bad situation

Se capter: meeting with someone (On se capte après manger?)

Se faire cramer: being catched red-handed

Se la raconter: bragging

Se maquer: seriously dating someone (Il s’est maqué l’an passé)

Se taper: doing, watching a movie, reading a book, having sex, fighting, eating (Je me suis tapé le dernier Fast and furious)

Squatter: crashing somewhere and chilling with friends

Tchoin, timp: slut

Téma: verlan for Matter, Look! (Téma la meuf)

Ter-ter: short for Territoire; someone’s block

Tu connais les bails: you know what I mean

Tu m’as tué: you killed me (after a joke usually)

Vénère: angry

Vivre sa meilleure vie: living one’s best life

Wesh: aight

Zyva: verlan for Vas-y, Come on

[moretalk]

Ten expressions

Faire le mur : to sneak away at night without telling parents

Jouer un sale tour : to play a trick on someone

En avoir marre : to have enough of something 

Encore et toujours : still

Par terre : on the floor/ground 

Se mettre à : to start practicing something 

Se retrouver avec : to end up with 

Se faire recaler : to get flunked/denied access to a place

Foncer à : to rush somewhere

Se déplumer : to start losing your hair

[moretalk]

Ten expressions

Chiant-e : annoying (formal : ennuyeux/euse)

Cinglé-e, taré-e, cintré-e, givré-e, timbré-e, marteau, allumé-e, maboule, Dingue, barge : crazy (formal : fou/folle)

Claqué-e, naze, mort-e “dead” : tired (formal : très fatigué-e, épuisé-e)

Camé-e : drug addict (formal : drogué-e)

Foutu-e : fucked, damned, ex : je suis encore en retard, je suis foutu!

Mytho : liar (formal : menteur/euse)

Pif (m), tarin (m) : nose (formal : nez (m))

Couilles (f) : balls (formal : testicules (f)) / bite (f) : penis

Clapet (m) : mouth (formal : bouche (f)), ex : ferme ton clapet!

Ciboulot (m), cigare (m), citron (m) : brain (formal : cerveau (m))

[moretalk]

Ten expressions

Derche (m) : ass (formal : derrière (m), fesses (f))

Binouze (f) : beer (formal : bière (f)) / pinard (m), rouge/blanc/rosé (m) : wine (formal : vin (m)), ex : qui veut un autre verre de blanc? / piquette (f) : cheap wine / bibine (f) : cheap alcohol

Came (f) : drug (formal : drogue (f))

Bouffe (f) : food (formal : nourriture) / barbaque (f) : meat (formal : viande)

Flotte (f) : water (formal : eau (f)) + to rain, ex : il flotte

Patates (f) : potatoes (formal : pommes de terre (f))

Casse-dalle (m) : snack (formal : casse-croûte (m), encas (m))

Dalle (f) : hunger (formal : faim (f)), ex : j’ai la dalle!

Panards (m) : feet (formal : pieds)/paluches (f) : hands (formal : mains)

Chicots (m) : teeth (formal : dents (f))

[moretalk]

Ten expressions

Un peu, mon neveu! (a little, my nephew) : you bet

Poireauter : to wait (poireau (m) : a leak - the food ; Ça va faire un quart d’heure que je poireaute dans le froid, dans dix minutes je me casse)

Compter sur : count/rely on someone + ‘let’s say’ (I thought I’d be able to be there at 10 but compte plutôt 10:15, I’m stuck in traffic)

Avoir crevé : having a flat tire (popular) / être crevé-e : to be exhausted (fam) / crever : to die (fam)

Être dans la lune (being in the moon) : to daydream

En moins de deux (in less than two) : in a very quick amount of time

Ni vu ni connu (not seen not known) : incognito

Grouiller (to crawl - as in bugs crawling) : to hurry (Putain, grouille-toi! le tram va partir! (fam, spoken))

Faire du boudin (making black pudding) / faire la gueule : to pout, sulk

Ça commence à bien faire (It’s starting to do well) : I’ve had enough, I’m getting pissed (Il devait être là il y a plus d’une heure, ça commence à bien faire)

[moretalk]

Ten food-based expressions

Rouler dans la farine (to roll in flour) : to fool someone

Tomber dans les pommes (to fall in the apples) : to faint

C’est du gâteau (it’s cake) : it’s easy

Se mêler de ses oignons (to meddle with one’s onions) : to care about one’s own business - and not anyone else’s

Avoir la pêche (to have the peach) : to be cheerful, lively

Raconter des salades (to tell salads) : to tell lies

Bête comme chou (dumb as cabbage) : very simple, obvious

Cracher dans la soupe (to spit in the soup) : to be ungrateful

Jus de chaussette (sock juice) : bad, tasteless coffee

Ne pas mâcher ses mots (to not chew one’s words) : to speak frankly

[moretalk]

Negations

A

Au grand jamais - never 

Aucun-e(s) - none : Je n’en ai vu aucun / I have seen none of them  

Aucunement (rare) - by no means 

D

Dégun (southern slang) - no one 

E

En aucun cas - under no circumstance 

En aucune façon - under no circumstance 

En aucune manière - under no circumstance 

En rien - under no circumstance 

G

Goutte - nothing (old, rare) : On n’y voit goutte ici / We can’t see anything

Guère - almost not/nothing (old, rare) : Ce n’est guère plus rapide que le train / This isn’t any faster than the train 

J

Jamais - never : Plus jamais ça! / Never again! 

Jamais au grand jamais - never ever (dramatic)

Jamais de la vie - never ever 

K

Keud (slang), short que ‘que dalle’ (slang for Nothing)

Keutchi (slang) 

N

N’ - ne + vowel : Je ne t’aime pas / I don’t love you 

Nada - nothing at all : - Did you hear about that? - Nada! 

Nan (slang) - nah 

Ne - not : Je ne sais pas / I don’t know 

Ni - neither/nor : Je n’ai vu ni le chien ni le chat depuis que je suis arrivée / I haven’t seen neither the cat nor the dog since I got here 

Niet - nope! (often angry) 

Non - no 

Non plus - (n)either : Je ne sais pas non plus / I don’t know either 

Non plus que

Nul-le - none : Nos jeunes filles à nous sont tellement accomplies, que nulle des filles d’Ève ne peut lutter avec elles ! — (Modeste Mignon, Honoré de Balzac, 1844)

Nulle part - nowhere : Je ne le vois nulle part / I can’t see him anywhere 

Nullement - not in any way 

O

Ô/oh grand jamais : never ever (dramatic)

P

Pas - not : Je ne sais pas / I don’t know 

Pas autrement - not any other way : C’est comme ça et pas autrement

Pas encore - not yet 

Pas forcément - not necessarily 

Pas plus que

Pas un-e - not one : - Did they offer their help? - Pas un! 

Pas un chat - not one cat : Il n’y a pas un chat / There’s no one here 

Personne - nobody : Il n’y a personne ici / There’s no one here 

Plus : no more - Je ne t’aime plus / I don’t love you anymore 

Point - not : Je ne sais point / I don’t know (rare, old)

Q

Que dalle (slang) - nothing : - Did you know about that? - Que dalle! 

Que nenni - no (old) : - Are they here yet? - Que nenni! 

Que tchi (slang) - nothing 

Queude (slang, short for Que dalle) - nothing 

R

Rien - nothing : Je ne vois rien / I don’t see anything 

[moretalk]

Internet French

As promised, some keyboard slang (we stole a lot from you)(sue us). I wrote what is accurate at the moment, a few years ago it was quite popular to write lik this m8 but it became pretty unhip (I could tell you that you can type “aussi” (: too, as well) “O6″ but literally no one has done that since 2008) most people write normally and add some of the following words :

Basics :

jpp (je n’en peux plus) : I can’t stand it anymore, I’m dying from the lols

osef (on s’en fout) : no one cares

mdr (mort-e de rire) / ptdr (pété-e de rire) : lol

cmb / ctb (comme ma bite/comme ta bite) “like my dick/like your dick” : easy punchline to almost anything, ex : ‘the line was so long!’ ‘cmb’ ‘you have a short memory’ (tu as la mémoire courte) ‘ctb’

cmt (comment) : how / cmb (combien) : how much/many

slt (salut) / bjr (bonjour) / bsr (bonsoir) : hello

bn (bonne nuit) : good night

bcp (beaucoup) : a lot, much, many / tp (trop) : too, too much

mtnt (maintenant) : now / ajd (aujourd’hui) : today / jms (jamais) : never

srtt (surtout) : especially, above all / vrmt (vraiment) : really

jsp (je ne sais pas) : I don’t know / ms (mais) but

pr (pour) : for / pcq / pq (parce que) : because

pq / pk (pourquoi) : why

ss (sans) : without OR (sous) : under / sr (sur) : over, on

tt (tout) : all, everything OR (tant) : so much, as long

mn (mon) : my (m) / tn (ton) : your (m) / sn (son) : his/her

ns (nous) : we OR (nos) : ours / vs (vous) : you (pl) OR (vos) yours (pl) / lr (leur(s)) : their / theirs

fr (faire) : to do, make

tmtc (toi-même tu sais) : you know what I’m talking about, private joke

tkt / tqt (ne t’inquiète pas) : don’t worry

c (c’est) : it is OR (sais/sait) : know (½/3p sg) / ct (c’était) : it was

d (des) : some, ex : mange des chips / t (tes) : your (pl for one person)

h (heure) : time/hour, ex : on se voit à ql h? (at what time do we meet?)

keske (qu’est-ce que) : what is, ex : qu’est-ce c’est?

kesta (qu’est-ce que tu as) : what’s up/wrong with you?

ke / q (que) : that/what, ex : ke ve tu? (what do you want?)

ql / kel (quel(s)/quelle(s)) : what/which

askip (à ce qu’il paraît) : from what I’ve heard, apparently…

oklm (au calme) : relaxed, calm, ex : petite soirée oklm 

Borrowing to english or kids :

go : to leave (j’y go)

dodo (beddy byes) : to sleep, sleeping (je vais dodo)

miam (aka “yum”) : to eat (je vais miam)

lol, the legendary

chiller : to go somewhere and not do shit

fat : something big/amazing, ex : cette soirée est trop fat!

Dropping the vowels : 

It’s hard to explain but since so many words in french contain “ou”, “an”, “ai” or “on” (…), when we need or want to make verbs (or possessive pronouns as we have already seen) smaller, we drop those letters and the other person guesses what’s missing regarding the context.

A few examples (but you can play with lots of other verbs) :

vx / vt (veux/veut) : to want, ½/3psg, ex : tu vx d pom? je ss o magasin (do you want apples? I’m at the store) ; (voit) : to see, meet, 3psg

ss / st (sais/sait) : to know, ½/3psg ; (suis/suit) : to follow, ½/3psg ; (suis/sont) : to be 1psg+3ppl, ex : où st t chats? (where are your cats?)

cns (connais) : to know someone, 1p sg

pvs (pouvons) : to can, be able/allowed to, 1p pl

Please note : I have used 1/2/3psg or pl several times in that post, if you have doubts it means that those forms are the conjugated forms - Reminder : je / tu / il-elle-on (singulier) ; nous / vous / ils-elles (pluriel).

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“year in fashion” documentaries chronicling runway fashion by year (hour long each) 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

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fashion eras 1977-2015

annie hall to anna wintour: 1977-1988

eighties hangover: 1989-1992

i was a baby: 1993-1997

y2k: 1998-2002

iraq war and visible thongs: 2003-2005

zooey deschanel and the great recession: 2006-2010

post-hipsters: 2011-2015

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Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.

S.T. Gibson (via bludblum)