allthingslinguistic: There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown one&rdq
allthingslinguistic: There’s a theory that early Europeans started saying “brown one” or “honey-eater” instead of “bear” to avoid summoning them, and similarly my friend has started calling Alexa “the faceless woman” because saying her true name awakens her from her slumberEnglish has an avoidance register used in the presence of certain respected animals, which sounds fancy until you realize it’s spelling out w-a-l-k and t-r-e-a-t in front of the dog.Mx. Leah Velleman on twitter -- source link