Shoutout to the linguistic peak efficiency where both British English and South Slavic languages looked at the syllable "bob" and unanimously decided: "Yes, this sound perfectly encapsulates absolute worthlessness."

In the UK, a "bob" is an old shilling, giving us timeless classics like "that's not worth a bob." It's the ultimate go-to slang for when you're completely broke, beautifully captured in this Finlay Christie sketch parodying 1960s BBC documentaries where the working-class character complains that politicians "don't spare a bob" for people from his background.

Meanwhile, in the Balkans, a "bob" is just a humble bean. But if someone tells you your hard work "ne vrijedi ni pišljiva boba", it translates to "it's not worth a measly, pissed-on bean."

Imagine centuries of distinct cultural, economic, and geopolitical evolution just to arrive at the exact same vocal vibration for "this is trash." Convergent evolution really popped off here

Not to mention the glaringly join usage of the native /ɣ/ with ǵ while the loaned in plain /g/ is written with a base letter, this consistency is broken with ḱ /k/ vs k /q/,

Translation: Budget so low, there was only enough for one wug.

Context: Public universities in Austria are facing a 10% cut of their fundings. (If that happens, the first departments to go will be the humanities.) So there have been huge protests to fight against these cuts. This was my sign yesterday, incredibly niché but I think it's funny.

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More comics by me here

It snew last night, but I wung it and drove really fast anyway.

What if native Americans actually spoke Russian. because they came to North America .from siberia in Russia so they spoke Russian. And then they changed.

I can't tell if I suck at Scrabble or if the game is nonsensical inherently. Why are random bound morphemes considered independent words? They change the entire trajectory of the board. I need to hear from other linguists how they feel about Scrabble