Why ever decided to make Comic Sans a default type face anywhere?

Microsoft figured it'd be more familial.

Also @cerberus Actually English does, or did, depending on how you view it, have feminine variations for all three of these words, which are baxster, directrix and doctress.

You might want to consider exemplifying more modern jobs, like firefighter.

@Tonepoet All right, but none of those are current.

Baxster is especially obsolete. I recollect reading that the -ster suffix was feminine at first but eventually neutered in one of the older Webster's dictionaries, although I can't recollect which one because the only website that allowed searching for suffixes was A.R.T.F.L. Project's. =\

[ SmokeDetector ] Few unique characters in answer, repeating characters in answer: A word/phrase which refers to the smell of nature? by user187553 on english.stackexchange.com …

-ster is still feminine in Dutch, like in the word bakster, which is for a woman.

But you wouldn't normally us it to indicate the profession.

So it'd be more of a casual word than a professional one?

It would mean "a woman who bakes", so not specifically one who bakes for a living.

Whereas a bakker usually (though not necessarily) means someone who bakes for a living.

That would be bakess if she’s an accomplished mistress in her art, and bakette if she’s just a junior dilettante.

Is a barrister a female barrier?

This just in: Mr Hammer marries Miss Hamster.

@snailplane The O.E.D. isn't the O.D.D., which I probably couldn't read assuming it even does exist, which is why I asked Cerberus who's familiar with dutch.

@tchrist First, I'm starring this for the first good use of the word mistress I've seen in a long time. Second, so why don't we have the surname Bakess then?

@Tonepoet Because baking is Germanic not French.

French is Celtic.

Because -ette and -ess are French suffixes, and bake is a Germanic verb.

I can't tell a lie @tchrist , that sentence is difficult for me to parse correctly, even knowing the context, because of the way it looks.

Why?

Which sentence?

The earlier one. The first indelible impression is that the french do not bake. XD

I had Lorin sitting on one arm so I was typing with one hand.

Is Lorin a kid, a wife or a pet?

Lorin is a boy's name, so if he were a wife, this would be troubling.

He's a kitty.

We don't have many productive suffixes in English left that were originally Germanic, like -ish and -less. More of them are Romantic, like most of the rest.

Are we talking about lovey suffixes or epic suffixes? =P

So, Stephen Fry versus Homer then? Very well.

But you'll have to ask the dog about epic suffixes.

@tchrist Is that true or is it a joke?

@Tonepoet His is the first citation for that word in the OED.

@tchrist Do they still cite in chronological order?

Yes.

Oh wait, I didn't catch that it was a homophone in question. XD

What's a word for being overly critical? Such that, if you were to direct that attitude toward anything, you would find lots of faults and ignore its good points?

Word/phrase/idiom rather...

@snailplane There are other things to consider about the context too though. Particularly the conversational progression, and perhaps the relative inconvenience of consulting the O.E.D. for information it's not guaranteed to have.

@snailplane Perhaps but I wouldn't worry too much about it. These sorts of real time textual conversations are somewhat difficult to track sometimes. Sometimes, I can't even keep track of my own thoughts, let alone somebody else's.

Is this sentence correct? "But isn't there any approach to check how many my current SIM's credit is?"

@Shafizadeh Use "much" rather than "many" in this case, because credit is not a count noun in this context.

+ one not too safe for work

The king sent messengers
throughout his kingdom, promising a large sum
of money to anyone who would answer these
three questions.

Is it correct to use "promising" instead of "promised" in the above sentence.

@Tarun Yes.

@tchrist Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch.

@MετάEd Could you please explain "why".

@Tarun learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/quick-grammar/…

@Tarun "Promising" is a present participle. It tells the reader that the promises were simultaneous with the sending.

@Tarun Cerb seems to be saying the same thing.

@MετάEd Thanks. Could you also people confirm that we are using "would" here because the sentence is in indirect speech.

> The King promises money to anyone who will answer these questions.

> The King promised money to anyone who would...

Because the main clause (sent) is in the past tense, will changes into would (would can be the past tense of will, among other things).

Most constructive comment of the day:

@MετάEd Look man, he's trying.

@Mitch I'm not being ironic. I laughed out loud.

He means it in the best possible way.

@MετάEd yeah, it's pretty funny

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive body detected, offensive title detected: Can "fucked up" be used as a synonym for "fucked"? by Diogo on english.stackexchange.com …

I have been thinkerizing about the English languageze and grammarology, and more specificisticaly about the word "simplistic." Does it seemify to you to be an unnecessaristically complexical terminology for an otherwise simple word?

@htoip Well what would you proposterise as a simpler word to expressitate the same thought?

@htoip You had me at 'I'

@Cerberus probably 'simple'

Simplistic = pertaining to simplism, "presenting something as simpler than it really is".

The mere word "simple" does not express that.

Simplistic = over-simple.

Simplism = over-simplifying.

Ah, thanks, Cerberus. I usually hear it meaning merely "simple."

Ah, I would be inclined to call that wrong!

@Cerberus well, not wrong, just too simple.

Hah!

Touché.

@htoip 'simplistic' is more than 'simple'

@Arrowfar what's the temp there in the evening?

Is that a better time to get work done?

Solar panels everywhere... underneath them is all cool shade, above them, they're making energy.

There, go and execute.

I'm done for the day.

pass the cucumber sandwiches

@Arrowfar that sounds terrible. except for the slight breeze.

but to get the breeze you have to go stand out in the sun, whic...oh, you said evening.

But the penguins in Antarctica are complaining now too.

@Arrowfar do people usually take a siesta?

an afternoon break after lunch?

@Arrowfar I've lived in a few states, but currently living in New England. I grew up in the south. But I don't identify as 'southern' or 'northern', just American (but I do have the best of memories of the neighborhood where I grew up).

You know all those biographies of great men, that tell their great accomplishments and great decisions or discoveries made, their regrets at how they dealt with the great men who were their adversaries?

And they have half a chapter at the beginning, naming the place they grew up, and maybe a quick anecdote about an incident in their twenties.

What a load of crap. That doesn't tell you what that person really is. Half the book should be about their childhood friends, adults they may have admired, the time when they stole their best friend's brother's bicycle and broke the head light, and then later returned it without anyone knowing and then the next day the brother got in a bicycle accident and got a concussion.

And who he couldn't stand as a kid, and that time he put a glass bottle underneath a parked car's tire and walked away but didn't realize someone was in the car and they saw and knocked on your car window and told your mom.

And that time you and your friend cheated on a multiple choice exam together and you got an A- and he got a B. And your best friend when you were 9 whose dad died and you don't remember there being a funeral or you didn't go but you haven't seen him in years, in fact don't remember seeing him after then at all except maybe in the hallway at school.

Because that's what's still in your head when you're about to give the order for your regiment to charge, or you just signed the contract after long negotiations to join the labor unions

well, not consciously, just when people read biographies they're looking for justification, and when the 'great man' says 'It was justified because of the implications for the war effort', that's really just a weak afterthought, and the real justification was that time that kid was talking to this girl you really liked (but had never talked to) and you were so terribly mad you threw your favorite snowglobe (that your grandmother gave you) out your window and it smashed so you threw it away.

That's a super long way of saying I'm pretty sure Napoleon was picked on as a kid.

So are matrices being referred to more and more commonly as mators?

And what about tomatrices?

Heyyyy

Evening

In America if someone says today is the 28th of July will he get looked at as a foreigner or something? (I know the usual way is July 28th)

@ktm5124 Captious? Fault-finder? Quick to criticize? Fussy? Overcritical? An anal/superficial/etc critic?

@Færd In America I think either one is fine.

Thanks.

@Færd as @MετάEd says both are idiomatic, maybe the first one a tiny bit more common. 28 July sounds foreign though (no American would say that)

@Mitch True, but might write it on a document.

@Faerd Thanks! I think fault-finder is the best choice.

Nit-picker?

@Cerberus That's also good, but I think fault-finding is better for my purposes.

An example context would be, the fault-finding attitude that people have taken toward the Democratic party after the latest email hack.

Ah OK.

It's not exactly nit-picking because they're actually raising some important issues. But if they were to take that same fault-finding attitude towards Trump, they would find a lot more to be afraid of.

@MετάEd hm... yes. well... maybe. Actually to me even writig that would seem outre-mer too

@ktm5124 pot calling the kettle a pot, and not very good one either!

'projecting' is the psychobabble term for it.

takes one to know one

Democracy is problematic.

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

But what is better?

@Cerberus It's really annoying when other people don't vote the way you want them to.

Yes, why don't they?

But that's not the only problem.

@Cerberus most of the alternatives tend to eventually piss off people enough to change things.

@Cerberus what're the other problems?

I just had a perverse thought...then I checked.. and yes, you can flag your own chat message.

That just seems a little weird.

when you could just tell yourself not to do it again.

or maybe its for old messages you can't edit/delete yourself

@MετάEd really? 'mators'? did you read that or hear it?

@Mitch I was joking, after reading the recent active question about "senatrix".

Oh. haha.

@Mitch Exactly.

That's another question I feel the bestest answer is 'because English just doesn't do it that way'

@Mitch Competition for favour and attention lead to excessive marketing and distraction from real issues.

@Mitch This.

@Cerberus and democracy allows more freedom of trade which tends to make things at least tolerable for most people, and the (I say cynically)illusion of being able to change things by talking or voting.

Good move, John Locke!

@Cerberus oh. They thought of everything already!

@Cerberus I mean, an extra razor edge in my razor, that's probably better right?

@Mitch Democracy is not necessarily related to trade?

@Mitch Much better.

@Cerberus No, but I think they are correlated. strict trade controls are easier to enforce in a non-democratic situation.

@Cerberus add another just to be sure. people will eat it up.

well, use more of the disposable ones.

now, new flavors of cheetos, people will totally eat that up.

@Mitch Mm I think in practice we have lots of governments that are both trade-liberal and democratic, but why are trade controls easier to enforce in a non-democracy?

@MετάEd I'm just thinking superficially, in a non-democracy, there is lesser redress against wrongs by the government (and the government might suppress a particular local trade for its own self-interest.)

Razor?