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this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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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
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- 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
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Languages do borrow words from other languages, but this is not the phenomenon we see that OP is referencing. They are not talking about Japanese words borrowed from English. They mean entire choruses or strings of lyrics which are just put forth rendered in English (think "Let's Fighting Love." etc. Myriad examples of JPOP in particular doing this can be found in seconds.) Yes, I know you can point out a number of American songs which do this. You're very smart, but if you actually look at the numbers, non-anglosphere artists do this much more with English than the other way round.
In addition, the borrowing of words or the use of phrases from other languages by speakers of said languages does not change the place of a language in the family tree of languages. Japanese is not related to Chinese, despite more than 40% of its vocabulary being borrowed from Chinese.
English is firmly a Germanic language when examined from any real linguistic standpoint and not just what some idiot said on Tumblr 15 years ago when they realized English has some borrowed French vocabulary (which... spoiler alert: so do all of the other Germanic languages). I also find it interesting that the same pseudo-intellectuals who insist this would never insist that French, Italian or Spanish were not truly Romance languages, despite the massive borrowings into these languages of Germanic vocabulary through Gothic and Frankish which occurred in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Look at the most basic and familiar registers of a language as far as vocabulary goes, look at grammar and syntax, phonology, etc. when classifying a language. The existence of borrowed vocbulary doesn't change this any more than wearing a kimono or drinking green tea would make me "part Japanese."
To answer the question: it is used as a virtue signal because English is the prestige languge of global capitalism right now. This is the same reason why self-hating anglophones think of it what they do: global capitalism treats it as a default setting (at least the most sterile, corporate-approved registers of the language, anyway.) Instead of a rich linguistic heritage, they see it the same way a fish sees water or we see the air.