this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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Penguins 🐧 (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] loaExMachina 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

In French, the "correct" word for "penguin" is "manchot" /mãʃo/ , and "pingouin" /pɛ̃ɡwɛ̃/ stayed the word for "great auk" for longer... But translating "penguin" as "pingouin" has grown more and more common. First as a mistake, but at that point it's not clear anymore what is correct or not. Someone a bit pedantic might correct you if you say "pingouin" instead of "manchot", but is a linguistic mistake still a mistake when it's understood by the majority?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

My wife and I watched this documentary when it first came out and laughed at him the whole way through. It came up when he was on The Graham Norton show.