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verbose
verbose
00:16
@Tsundoku Oh! So you just reused the lines about singing from his first limerick when he wrote the one about me. I feel less special now. šŸ˜¢
 
3 hours later…
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
02:47
@Tsundoku Did Mr Dowse use the rod when his students needed water?
 
3 hours later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
05:59
0
Q: How do these lines in Shakespeare's Sonnet 151 mean what they're supposed to?

seawitchHow do these lines in Shakespeare's Sonnet 151 mean what they're supposed to? Here's the sonnet: Love is too young to know what conscience is, Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove: For, thou betraying ...

meaning poetry william-shakespeare
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
06:33
user image
 
2 hours later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
08:06
@Randal'Thor Cold water with which to douse us ...
 
2 hours later…
verbose
verbose
09:37
@CowperKettle Theodore Roethke, "Double Feature". What a great poem.
 
1 hour later…
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
10:54
@Bookworm What a great pair of answers. Go go HNQ gadget.
 
4 hours later…
bobble
bobble
15:10
@Bookworm @verbose is there a reason you've used code blocks instead of quote formatting for some of the quotes here, in your answer? I'm very tempted to convert to quote formatting for accessibility, but if there's some good reason that it should be code I will leave it.
Bookworm
Bookworm
15:22
0
Q: Is there a term for when two people fight instead of their respective armies fighting, in order to settle a war?

S FlynnI am wondering if there is a term or expression for when two warring parties send their best warriors to battle each other (to decide a war) instead of an actual war between their armies. Thanks for any input!

poetry
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Literary agent Jonny Geller on Twitter: "Books that are moved to the bookshelf before reading will never be read. Keep them by the bed, on tables, on the floor, but never slip them on the shelf with the others looking beautifully symmetrical and colour coded."
One of the responses: "the first sentence is true. I have a mini bookcase next to my bed for my inbox and Tsundoku needs. The piles were getting messy. However the last clause, re colour coding, is pure crazypants, right up there with hoarding thumbs in the freezer."
bobble
bobble
(Markdown doesn't work in multi-line chat messages)
73
Q: Markdown in chat fails for multi-line messages

sbiWe've come to rename Markdown to Letdown in the C++ chat room because it lets you down so often. I've now just found a pattern. It seems markdown fails for multi-line messages. That is, this Letdown can't cope with multi-line comments. Let's see code? fails to display code marked as code, while...

bug status-bydesign markdown chat
> It is basically assumed that if you have something that is multi-line, you're either pasting a block of text and submitting it, or you're posting a block of code and the whole thing is going to be fixed-font/code.
multi-line quotes and multi-line code blocks appear to be the only exceptions
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Yes, but ... shelving books by colour?? Isn't that like racism for books?
2
bobble
bobble
books in my house are shelved a) by who bought them (sister is hoarding a bunch of Riodan novels), b) by series, c) by author if no series, and mostly d) wherever there was space when someone finished them last
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Rule d becomes more important as space becomes rare.
bobble
bobble
15:35
we're at the point where most bookshelves are double-lined, with a back layer of less-often read books
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Mine have been double-lined for at least two decades, and sometimes triple-lined. Of course, there are other books on top of those that are standing. I posted pictures of my Shakespeare-and-friends shelves last year...
Oh, and there are people who shelve books by size:
May 7 '20 at 20:52, by Tsundoku
How do you arrange your book shelves: Coronavirus: Library books rearranged in size order by cleaner (BBC News, 24 April 2020).
Bookworm
Bookworm
16:14
0
Q: Are there different formats of haikus?

Joe KerrThis is similar to This question but not exactly the same. I have seen haikus in the following formats: The traditional / which is in five-seven-five / and is most common But I have also read that some American writers / encourage using formats / such as three-five-three Also seen / two-three...

poetry haiku
 
1 hour later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
17:31
0
Q: Does Mueiel Barbery's title "The Elegance of The Hedgehog" reflect knowledge of Archilochus' aphorism?

Stanley DormanDoes Mueiel Barbery's title The Elegance of The Hedgehog reflect knowledge of Archilochus' aphorism? Is there information or proof that Barbery had Archilocus' aphorism in mind?

title mueiel-barbery the-elegance-of-the-hedgehog
 
2 hours later…
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
19:58
@Bookworm If you're not Japanese, as many as you want actually.
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
20:53
> My poems disappoint Mr. Bose.
He thinks them as bad as my prose.
But I think, "What gives?
As long as he lives,
I can keep increasing the dose."
verbose
verbose
21:35
@bobble I couldnā€™t manage to get the quotes formatted properly within the list. If you know how to manage that, please toss me a clue and Iā€™ll happily reformat
bobble
bobble
Would you be okay with quotes that weren't indented with the list? I can make them show up properly, but the quote formatting (the fancy side-line) will be non-indented
The ">" for quote formatting plays nicely when it's on the edge, but putting spaces before it to indent makes it angry
verbose
verbose
@bobble I know from this meta answer that thereā€™s a way to do it but canā€™t figure it out
14
A: What are some good (legal) resources for finding the text of books?

Rand al'ThorSites which cover many books Project Gutenberg. An excellent resource containing thousands of texts in electronic versions with easily copy-pastable text. They also care about legality: Our ebooks may be freely used in the United States because most are not protected by U.S. copyright law, usua...

I intended to work on it today but feel free to edit for now
bobble
bobble
ah. maybe I was doing something wrong? I'll try to fix your answer up
haha did it!
verbose
verbose
@Tsundoku haha
@bobble Yippee! What was the trick? I couldnā€™t figure it out last night
bobble
bobble
use a new ">" for each line, and each ">" is indented
verbose
verbose
21:43
ah. Thanks!
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Mr. Dowse didn't teach poetry composition. I'll never learn it, I think.
No limericks about Markdown yet?
bobble
bobble
> For a quick warning I'm brisk:
Using asterisks is a risk
For sometimes they'll bold
Things they weren't told
And away your pride they will whisk
I'm bad at poetry ><
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Join the club ;-)
 
2 hours later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
23:46
@Bookworm The question about Shakespeare's sonnet 151 went HNQ 10 hours ago. Both Gareth Rees's and verbose's answers have 11 upvotes at the moment.

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