(no subject)

[emmuzka]

For the lack of better way for killing time, I wrote a Finnish Wikipedia article about fan art. For an example pic, I submitted one of my own since I didn't have anything else handy and the English version of the article didn't have pictures and was overall actually really crappy. Shoo, you English people! Write a better one!

edit: Someone took the pic down already. I have nothing against people editing my texts, but maybe they should, like, tell me why?

I also edited the Finnish fan fiction article better but I was pretty half-hearted about it, since I have written a book-of-sorts about the subject and was faced the first time with the problem of not actually wanting to share my creative products for free.

And, about that English language.. I have one question for you: when the article for a word "picture" is a, does the defining word really change it? Like this:

This is a picture
This is an example picture

This is a house
This is an interesting house

And what about this?

How interesting a house

Opinions? Guidance?

Comments

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, both the top examples are right. The last is grammatically correct but you wouldn't say that way; it'd be "what an interesting house!"

The deciding factor in a/an is just the first letter of whatever word follows it immediately. Nothing else matters. It's not a matter of case or agreement at all, just pronunciation, to prevent two vowels from slurring together into a dipthong.

[anckyria.livejournal.com]

The last is grammatically correct but you wouldn't say that way; it'd be "what an interesting house!"

That would depend on the context. If it's meant to be an exclamatory statement, Cimorene's suggestion is definitely better. However, a narrative phrase such as "He wondered in passing how interesting a house his fiancée would find it" is correct, if a tad old-fashioned.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Well, my point was that it was archaic; but I was also only commenting on it as an independent sentence. That construction you mention wouldn't necessarily sound out of place in modern conversational English, though, with other adjectives such as "how good" or "how new/old" or "how reliable".

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info, especially with the last one :) I think that my Finnish is showing ;) Meaning that in Finnish language, it's a law that no adjective or any other defining word can change the difined word. So with Finnish logic, it would be

a house
a red/interesting/beautiful/exampletory house. Logical, yes?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, but an indefinite article such as "a" or "an" doesn't change the word it modifies in English. The noun always keep the same form, and so do the adjectives. You seem to be thinking of it as a gender marker to "agree" with a noun, but nouns do not have gender or case in English, and the changes in articles are not due to grammatical agreement, but merely to rules of pronunciation to make sentences easier to speak and understand. Another similar English rule is the elimination of the "o" in contractions like "don't" and "wouldn't". A similar Finnish one would be the way -ko/-kö changes according to whether the word it's attached to has front or back vowels.

The rules of English pronunciation dictate that if "a" preceded a word beginning in a vowel the sounds would almost always be slurred together. "An indefinite" would become "Aindefinite", little no trace of the short "i" sound remaining. The word would change almost past the point of comprehensibility, especially if someone was talking fast or whispering, for example.

[twindouble.livejournal.com]

Ehkä kuvasi poistettiin copyright-pelon takia?Tähdensitkö kuvatekstissä, että taiteilija itse on laittanut kuvan sivustolle? Ja sitten on vielä ne teostomaksut, vai onko se kuvasto...

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Pistin kyssäriä poistajan perään ja hän ilmoitti poistaneensa koska heidän wiki-keskustelunsa pohjalta oltiin tultu siihen päätökseen että oikeudenomistaja omista oikeuden riippumatta siitä onko työtä muunneltu tms. Minä taas olin sitä mieltä että tietyn pisteen jälkeen muunnellusta tulee itsenäinen teos, mutta oh well.

[twindouble.livejournal.com]

Kehoita heitä tutustumaan aiheesta tehtyyn akateemiseen tutkimukseen. ;-) Eikä tekijänoikeuslakikaan olisi pahempi tutustumisen kohde. Tuolla heidän tulkinnallaan esim MAD-lehti olisi laiton...

[2ndbs.livejournal.com]

Mitä se kuva esitti?

Tekijänoikeudellisesti on merkitystä sillä, onko teos muunnelma vai itsenäinen. Eli piirsinkö Aku Ankan toisella tavalla vai maalasinko taulun jossa Aku on mutta se on selvästi itsenäinen teos.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

eli Harry Potter kuva, josta ei edes tietäisi sen olevan Potteria jos ei erikseen kerroittaisi!

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

Ei tiedä jos on asunu puussa....

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Noh! Oles nyt siinä!

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

I also edited the Finnish fan fiction article better but I was pretty half-hearted about it, since I have written a book-of-sorts about the subject and was faced the first time with the problem of not actually wanting to share my creative products for free.

Okay, for some reason this really sounded weird and on a worse day might even say hypocritical, considering that the fandom world is all about sharing your creative products for free. I know you've put a lot of time and effort on your book and I know the Finnish wiki is sometimes full of crap, but still.

*friendly nudge off your high horse*

Hey, you know me, so you know this isn't a mackerel enforced bitch slap! Maybe a prelude to a philosophical debate?

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

*considers oneself slapped*

But, consider this: If you had written (an original) book, would you publish it in the net? Yes? No? Would you rather have it published commercially? How many years would you wait for it to be published commercially before you would say Fuck This and would put it up there to all the people to read?

Anyway, did I mention that I actually have written the whole original article that I was editing? Before me there was this stupid, teenie genre list that in the first time, I didn't have the heart to completely re-write. Not much left of it, now...

you know about fans, slash, fan fiction and fan art as much as I, but I havent seen *you* there sharing your work for free, have I?

[sua-lay.livejournal.com]

:P

You do have a point there, even though I guess I'm thinking through my own freakish notion of 'internet is cool but I'd still want to buy a book about stuff that interests me'.

Yes, you did mention that, and I weep for the poor ff. net addicted teen who now doesn't even have an article in wikipedia. Woe is she! *snort* But I wasn't criticizing the fact that you'd edited the thing or written it, my comment sprung forth from the wanting to share my creative products for free.

What do you mean by me not sharing my work for free? All my stuff is free to read in the web. If you mean why I'm not writing articles or stuff, it's simple; I'm a lazy bugger who just enjoys her hobby and can't be arsed. :D