@Cerberus After one mod got sacked by SE, there was an election to replace him. At least two 30k+ rep users (including the site's top user) got suspended during the election. Several candidates were targeted by one or more users, leading to fights all over SFF meta and main meta. Another 20k user threatened to delete his account if a particular candidate won, and did so. One of the incumbent mods also deleted his account unexpectedly due to the election results.
@Cerberus The public answer to that (second) question is here.
@Cerberus Britain will always be part of Europe, whether or not it remains in the EU. Until they drag the island off the seabed and tow it over to nestle its head in the nether regions of the US.
@tchrist Are you saying the Americans are more classically educated than the British?!
Looks like I have a couple three layers of awareness here on you. I'm trying to decide whether to take the time to unwoollenize thine eyes just right now.
But you've take what I've said at least two ways wrong.
I admit that I was being deliberately ambiguous in playful fashion.
@MattE.Эллен I was going to say "public school" in general, but that's too easy to misinterpret by those who don't know the terminology of the British school system.
Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries or bananas, pieces of meringue, and cream, which is traditionally served at Eton College's annual cricket match against the pupils of Harrow School. The dish has been known by this name since the 19th century. According to Recipes from the Dairy (1995) by Robin Weir, who spoke to Eton College's librarian, Eton mess was served in the 1930s in the school's "sock shop" (tuck shop), and was originally made with either strawberries or bananas mixed with ice-cream or cream. Meringue was a later addition, and may have been...
@Randal'Thor Clearly more people need to read Wodehouse.
@MattE.Эллен Ah, I see. Never heard of it.
Sounds indigestible. Like the common run of English dessert. I lived in the UK for a few years, and concluded that English people have cast-iron stomachs.
@tchrist How nice that us humans have language to communicate with.
> In ancient Rome a collegium was a club or society, a group of people living together under a common set of rules (con- = "together" + leg- = "law" or lego = "I choose" or "I read").
@FaheemMitha At Eton and Winchester (and probably other places too), college means school. At Oxford and Cambridge, college means part of a university (a strange sort of institution, with unclear status and loads of money). Colleges can also be sort of mini-universities, and I believe the word has still other meanings in the US.
I kind of wish I'd gone to a English public school. It couldn't have been worse than the school I'd gone to. And I could go around speaking with one of those wacky English accents.
> Old French collége (= Provençal college , Spanish colegio , Italian collegio ), < Latin collēgium colleagueship, partnership, hence a body of colleagues, a fraternity, < collēga colleague n. (Compare convivium, judicium.) The early by-form collegie, -ÿ, appears to have been formed directly from the Latin: compare similar forms of privilege, sacrilege.
@FaheemMitha They use a combination of instruments. Corporeal research, in which they trace back the earliest forms of a word, to see what came before it and what words were in use at the time. Phonological laws. Comparison with other languages. Etc.
@FaheemMitha I'm a mathematician, which actually means I tend not to be too disappointed by their lack of maths knowledge, since from my point of view, almost everyone knows almost nothing about maths ;-)