this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
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In a language where the inflection changes the word, how does something like sarcasm work? Is it conveyed in a totally different manner? Is there more reliance on other nonverbal cues?
Examples from my mother:
When I refuse to eat because I'm mad:
哇,練神仙啊!亦好啊,慳返啲食嘅。(Omg, are you trying to become an immortal being? Great, we can save a lot of money!)
When I told my mom I wanna to 睇橋 (to view a bridge; euphemism for me wanting to jump off a bridge):
使唔使開車載你去啊?(Do you want me to drive you there?)
Always said with a positive happy voice... like when you grow up with someone you understand when it's sarcasm, the creepy happy voice as if she's thinking: omg this annoying child, finally I'll get some sweet relief
Also she jokes about:
謂,你咁唔識珍惜生命,不如帶你返中國換個個細路出來啦。🤗 (Hey, since you don't really wanna live, why dont I take you back to home to China and find someone else to take your place?) (She means find a lookalike and let them steal my identity, and she'll pretend to have them as their child)
(Edit: for context, I'm the actual biological child of my parents, so... yea... even blood relationships doesn't matter anymore for a culture so obsessed with blood relations.)
So yea, just normal family. Totally normal.
Sarcasm is easily detectible. It's hard to explain, but if you spend enough time around people, you'll hear it.
Canto?
Yea
I'm from Guangzhou, currently residing in the US and naturalized
Oh lol it’s just you said mandarin but your example seemed more canto so I had some momentary confusion
I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin xD
The comment I replied to said
I don't have a lot of interactions with Mandarin speakers outside of having been through 2nd grade in China
So Cantonese is all I know regarding to irl use of sarcasm in a tonal language.