Nasrudin (or Nasreddin)[0] is an apocryphal Sufi priest, who is sort of a "collection bin" for wise and witty sayings. Great stories. Lots of humor, and lots of wisdom.
One of my "go-tos" from him, is the Smoke Seller[1]. I think that story applies to the Tech Scene.
I first heard the GC quote as attributed to Will Rogers, then, to Rita Mae Brown.
I was there for the first few iterations of TPP and it is probably my favorite moment of the internet.
The lore created around TPP was insanely good and captivating, like ascribing god-like status to certain Pokémons and finding funny interpretations of in-game events and random Pokémon names
That seems to be the (uneditorialized) title: "Generative AI exists because of the transformer (This is how it works)". Maybe the context of 'it' was lost on the submitter.
This reminds me of the absolute amazement and wonder in the faces of people who are tricked in older movies or video clips, sometimes with simple or outright ridiculous tricks (by today's standards).
It's not a great example (and the best I have on hand)... but the Rick and Morty episode where Morty meets the Knights of the Sun and similar groups from other celestial bodies shows elements of this as well.
I have the impression people on average were way more gullible the further you look back in time. I wonder then if LLMs suffer from a lack of data about such cases that may have been common in the past but became obsolete before the internet became mainstream.
It's more that hyper-empathy and more broadly hyper-emotionality is how social media goes.
In real life, someone asking to cut in line because they are sad might get a "I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm in a rush too."
But online, callousness in response to emotional vulnerability is generally down voted while empathy is upvoted on something like Reddit.
Well guess what data source was being used to train appropriateness of responses to input? All that karma wasn't being thrown out the window.
So we have LLMs that in their core network have effectively learned to output responses that would get upvoted on Reddit and avoid comments that would get down voted.
Appealing to empathy or sentimentality works because lurkers upvoted feel good comments.
The most important thing to know about the current tech is that LLMs do not reflect humanity - but they do reflect the version of ourselves that we collectively projected online. Which is a highly exaggerated form of the real thing.
> people on average were way more gullible the further you look back in time
Only because they kept running into the protagonist, Odysseus Polymetis.
(seriously, there's a long history of tricksters; people are on average the same level of gullibility but inventing a new trick format or new fraud is a technological level up in the same way as a rifle against a phalanx is. See cryptocurrency)
Pyjamas, guru, khaki, avatar, bandana, jodhpurs, and shampoo are but a few of the many words drawn from Hindi and Sanskrit.
Urushiol, kudzu, futon, and karate from Japanese.
Orangutan, bamboo, cassowary, paddy, ramie, rattan, gong, and camphor from Indonesian (and related languages).
Ammonia, banana, bongo, cola, dengue, ebony, and gnu are of African origin (numerous languages).
Algebra, algorithm, alchemy, and alcohol all come from Arabic ('al' is the definite article in Arabic). So too do numerous terms for textiles: chiffon, gabardine, satin, tafetta, and wadding. Tahini, tuna, tamarind, talc, tangerine, and talisman as well.
All these use a non-Latin script, in some cases no script at all.
Fair point as I'd chosen to use Hindi (culture) rather than India (geographic region), though of course India itself derives from Hindi (the word).
A fuller set of candidate languages, from Wikipedia: Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Tamil, Teluga, Bengali, Assamese, Bengali, and Marathi.
I'm sure someone will pitch in with specific sub-dialects as well shortly.
I'd reported languages based on Wikipedia's citing. That's publicly-editable, and if you have sourced references the links I'd provided can be updated.
I was intending to post a comment about foreign words imported into English in my long reply to jcranmer's point about same but the post ended up too long to do so. As I mentioned, I'm thinking of posting an addendum. Some points are likely to be controversial but I intend to explain why.
"The other thing that ruins English spelling is a proclivity to borrow foreign words with foreign pronunciation and foreign spellings (even if it's not written in Latin script!),"
You're right, I can't agree more. A pet peeve of mine is the lackadaisical way English imports words and how little attention native speakers give to their correct pronunciation. For people who aren't good spellers and who don't memorize words at first glance, spelling them can be daunting given that their pronunciation often differs wildly from their spelling. I recall as kid trying to check the spelling of précis in the dictionary and going half-mad with frustration, every attempt at looking up various variations on 'praysis' failed.
Similarly, we often import words into English more out of fashion than of necessity. A quintessential example is tsunami, whilst marginally shorter than its English equivalent, it provides no descriptive meaning as do the English words, and almost no Anglophone speaker pronounces the word correctly nor even bothers do so. Instead, we get mishmashes that sound like 'sooonami', which, no doubt, not only sound terrible to Japanese speakers but also the bastardized sound pays no respect to the Japanese language. It seems very few know or bother to note that the transliterated spelling is actually very close to the original pronunciation. Given that the arrangement of its first three letters is a rather uncommon occurrence in English then one has to wonder why it doesn't automatically ring bells and alert English speakers that they need to pay careful attention to its pronunciation. Tsu, ツ - katakana, つ - hiragana, ought to be pronounced as it's written—like the sound of a hissing snake, but despite its English spelling being a good facsimile for the Japanese, one never seems to hear any pronunciation that's even close. No doubt, it takes more effort for English speakers to pronounce the unfamiliar sound but very few try—even well-spoken BBC announcers slur the word.
The question remains why we English speakers bothered to steal the word and import it into English in the first instance, especially given that we've made such a hash of using it.
Unfortunately, the bastardization of tsunami's pronunciation is yet another instance of the arrogance Anglophone speakers have in respect of English and their disregard for other languages (given, pro rata, the numbers who know English as a second language versus English speakers who've learned foreign languages). Amongst, English speakers it's a common assumption that the world only revolves around English and that everyone should speak the language to communicate with them.
Whilst English is essentially the current lingua franca many around the globe are aware of the old racist adage "if the natives don't understand then just shout a little louder", and rightly they resent such arrogance. We ought to be very cognisant of their opinion but we're often blind to the fact.
dredmorbius provides us with a good list of imported words but unlike tsunami there were no English equivalents so incorporating them into the language was just commonsense. Even here, we again see the irreverence English speakers have for some of these words. It makes sense to import the Urdu/Persian word khaki into English as it's easier than saying dust-coloured or yellowish-brown but it really grates one's sensibility to hear it being pronounced kaaake. Pronouncing Jodhpurs I reckon is more subtle and ignoring the 'h' or not trying to pronounce jodh correctly is perhaps acceptable but I'd like to hear from someone familiar with its correct pronunciation. (BTW the word conjures up bad memories, I had to wear those ugly things as a kid and hated them).
Whilst dredmorbius's list uses non-Latin scripts, the time-honoured tradition of importing words from languages that use Latin scripts continues to make sense if suitable English words don't exist or if existing phrases are long, for instance, blitzkrieg and zeitgeist. are good examples of modern imports. Whether English ought to honour the capitalized noun format for imported words that are capitalized by default on grounds of authenticity is moot (but I'd reckon it'd only have a snowball's chance). Personally, I'd agree with Mark Twain on this who thought it would be a sensible idea if English adopted the practice as a general rule for all nouns as it would help avoid confusion. But then, I'm only pipe-dreaming.
If you think I'm overly pedantic about these issues then you're likely correct, but again I'd stress I've come to these opinions because I've found languages difficult. Errors in one's texts whether they be spelling mistakes or grammatical errors detract readers' attention away from the text and lessen the impact of one's message. Excellent fluency gives one freedom of expression, without it, then it pays to be cautious.
I'll finish by saying again I'm of the opinion that the default keepers of English—those who have true fluency and excellent mastery of the language—often ignore these issues simply because they are fluent, as fluency gives them the ability to bend and manipulate the language at will (it's like riding a bike, once one knows how one never thinks about how it's done ever again, it's thus understandable why the mechanics of English receive so little attention these days).
Unfortunately, this situation leaves the rest of us to wallow around in the complexites of English without decent guidance, and I reckon this is bad. English has already fragmented noticeably in my lifetime, it's becoming more disorderly over time. Many factors have led to its increased entropy—globalization, internationalization, the Internet and because teachers have ceased to exercise its rules in a pedantic fashion as they once did—just to mention a few. Thus, I'm now of the opinion that without some ongoing method of keeping its structure coherent that in a century or two hence or perhaps even sooner it seems likely English will spilt into almost unrecognizable dialects and cease to be a dominant world language.
It'd be nice if I were to be wrong.
BTW, you'll note the mixture of US and British spellings here. Normally I'd harmonize to one or other before posting but this time I've left the text as written.
Words like 'manga' or 'anime' come from Japanese (written in kanji) or Greek words like onomatopoeia (Greek is a different alphabet from Latin) are ones that come to mind.
I realize my question was asking for examples of loanwords, but my intention was to ask for loanwords that also adapt the "foreign pronunciation and foreign spelling".
I am well aware that English borrowed plenty of words originating from non-Latin scripts, however based on your phrasing I thought you are saying something more than that is going on.
When a word is borrowed from a non-Latin script into English what else could happen other than adapting/borrowing the foreign pronunciation+spelling into English as well?
The one case I'm aware of in Europe where debit vs. credit makes a real difference is car rental companies.
They will only accept credit cards, not debit cards. Unless you also agree to pay for their shady and useless insurance (useless because typically the broker already offers better and cheaper insurance, so in this case you double pay).
Apparently this quote has been attributed to an Uncle Zeke :) [0]
[0]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/02/23/judgment/