The Reading Room

@verbose It's only one question, and we already have an established practice on individual books vs series, so I don't think it needs much discussion.

verbose

@Randal'Thor It's three questions

Rand al'Thor

Do we want little-women as the series tag, or better to use little-women-series for clarity?

@verbose I meant only one that needs retagging, but that may depend on this ^

verbose

7:07 AM

the latter

and that's why I said three

Rand al'Thor

OK then :-) I can use mod tools to retag and synonymise without bumping the questions, but we may need to rewrite the tag wiki afterwards.

You up for doing that? I never read more than the first one (and can't remember if I even finished that), so I don't know much about the series.

verbose

I retagged them and can rewrite the tag wikis

I read all four of them when I was a little-boy and thumbed through them recently to answer that little-men question

Sorry I guess I bumped all the questions. Oh well

Rand al'Thor

No matter.

I had already upvoted the little-men answer but didn't remember it was yours.

CowperKettle

@verbose From the book 1493

verbose

@Randal'Thor Okay here's what I have.

> For questions about any or all the books in the series by American novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888): Little Women (1868); its second volume published as Good Wives (1869) in the UK but not titled separately in the US; Little Men (1871); and Jo's Boys (1886). Use in conjunction with [louisa-may-alcott].

Rand al'Thor

7:18 AM

thumbsup

verbose

@Randal'Thor well "recently" meaning four years ago as opposed to four decades ago.

Honestly, I had forgotten about that question too until the community user bumped the Little Women theology question

and I saw the tags were off

and so went looking for all other Alcott questions

@CowperKettle Ah. I have that book (also 1491) but it's just in my tsundoku pile and I'ven't read it yet

Rand al'Thor

Are we calling @bobble the community user now?

That makes sense, in a way. She bumps stuff a lot. But I don't think the community user could write such good answers.

verbose

@Randal'Thor I didn't think there were any edits? I just assumed it was bumped because the question has been upvoted and the answer has no upvotes

Rand al'Thor

I think a Community bump would show in the revision history, and there's only a bobble bump there.

verbose

Oh okay

I'm misremembering

Clearly, since it had no answers until about an hour ago.

It's a good answer

also, people should learn to use em dashes — instead of double hyphens -- when they need an em dash. And en dashes – for series instead of a single hyphen - . Dash it all. - – —.

The community user bumped question I was thinking of was this one.

@Randal'Thor Can you synonymise now? Also, when I say "thumbed through" that was metaphorical, since I literally scrolled through them on Gutenberg. I don't have copies of them.

Rand al'Thor

7:31 AM

I'm often too lazy to use en or em dashes (in relatively casual writing like emails or SE) since they're not on my keyboard but the hyphen is.

Fortunately, in writing mathematical papers I have LaTeX, which renders -- as and en dash and --- as an em dash.

verbose

@Randal'Thor but all you need to do is hold down the option key while typing the hyphen to generate the en dash and shift-option to generate the em dash

I mean, it doesn't take that much more effort to hold down one or two additional keys while typing the hyphen anyway

and one might argue that it's less effort than actually typing two or three characters

Rand al'Thor

@verbose Done. And your avatar demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to "thumb" through something on a screen.

@verbose I don't have an option key. Is that a Mac thing?

verbose

@Randal'Thor yep, it's what you'd call "alt" in Windows world I guess. I don't think there's an equivalent on Linux or other unices though

Rand al'Thor

Alt-hyphen and shift-alt-hyphen don't do anything for me.

verbose

wow it's apparently quite complicated on Windows. Hold down alt and type 0150 for en dash, 0151 for em dash. Life is too short

I mean, you could create keyboard shortcuts?

CowperKettle

7:39 AM

Tsundoku

Tsundoku (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang. It combines elements of tsunde-oku (積んでおく, to pile things up ready for later and leave) and dokusho (読書, reading books). As currently written, the word combines the characters for "pile up" (積) and the character for "read" (読). There are suggestions to include the word in the English language and in dictionaries like the Collins...

Word of the day: tsundoku

3

I never came across this word before

verbose

@Randal'Thor Or if you have a keyboard with a numeric keypad (i.e., a standard rather than laptop keyboard) in theory control-minus and alt-control-minus allegedly work, but I have no way to verify this

@CowperKettle you've never met our dear @Tsundoku?

@Randal'Thor True enough. And speaking of orangutans, I saw a documentary recently where they break open logs of wood to eat the termites within. The block of flats I live in has a termite problem, but the HOA turned down my suggestion to acquire a few orangutans and we're getting the exterminators out instead. Sigh.

Rand al'Thor

They hired Daleks? I'd prefer the termites.

verbose

This is what I'm saying

Gallifreyan

8:04 AM

@Randal'Thor That's slightly concerning

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the second season of Staged, so a second Good Omens would likely be able to survive on Sheen-Tennant chemistry alone

Rand al'Thor

It seems to be the sort of story that would be hard to sequelise without it feeling forced.

"The great prophesied apocalypse is about to happen and we saved the world! Oh, and then five years down the line there's another great apocalypse that nobody knew was prophesied."

Unless they do a sort of prequel thing, the chronicles of Aziraphale and Crowley through the centuries.

Gallifreyan

8:22 AM

@Randal'Thor Honestly, I'd watch the heck out of that

@Randal'Thor There was another Agnes Nutter book after all....

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Mm, that leaves the door open to potential sequels. But either the stakes would be lower or it would feel forced: I don't think another apocalypse should realistically be on the cards.

Season 1: it's the apocalypse!
Season 2: Gabriel gets kicked out of Heaven for being too proud, and Aziraphale and Crowley must teach him how to live on earth. Meanwhile, a teenaged Adam is going through superpowered puberty.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor I'd love to see the Gabriel bit

But it seems to me Adam already went through something like puberty during the original series

And didn't he give up his supernatural powers?

Rand al'Thor

I think he just pretended to have given them up, because he made a bush disappear at the end.

How old was he then, eleven? Bit young for puberty, I thought.

I suppose there's the metaphorical pubescence of "learning how to cope with the new things you can do" (in this case, superpowers), but I was thinking more of a potential sequel involving him developing an interest in girls.

Gallifreyan

Oh dear, not another teenage drama with powers

Rand al'Thor

It's a cynical and pessimistic idea of what Season 2 might be.

An Aziraphale and Crowley prequel series would be much better.

Gallifreyan

8:35 AM

I was hoping that genre outlived itself back in the early 2010s

Actually, there's a film called "Brightburn" which explores exactly that

In a dark twist on "superpowered alien baby falling down on Earth and being adopted by unsuspecting parents"

Rand al'Thor

8:52 AM

@Gallifreyan Also, I wasn't thinking of a full romance drama, more like playing it for laughs. Like Artemis Fowl in book 5 when he's analysing his own pubescent urges and bemoaning that they distract him from his heists.

CowperKettle

11:36 AM

The c. 1785 essay "Paederasty (Offences Against One's Self)" by Bentham argued for the liberalisation of laws prohibiting homosexual sex. The essay was first published in 1978.

Probably proofreading took too long.

Gareth McCaughan

1:49 PM

I too can't see how one would make a genuinely good second season of Good Omens. Also, alas, it necessarily wouldn't be based on something by Pratchett+Gaiman. ... Except that I see that that Sun article quotes Gaiman as saying that he and PTerry had planned a sequel that never got written, which focused on "where the angels actually came from". So maybe it could indeed be a "sort of prequel thing" and have input from both the original creators.

Bookworm

0

Q: Meaning of an opening apostrophe at the beginning of a stanza

My question is about poetry and the opening apostrophe at the beginning of a stanza. See below for an example: 'His floating robe around him folding, Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle; With dread beheld, with gloom beholding The rites that sanctify the pile. But when the anthem shakes the...

Bookworm

2:15 PM

0

Q: What were the influences taken from William Wordsworth to write poetry on materialism in the later ages?

I was asked a question by my professor while presenting my paper the paper referenced a poem "The Sparrow's Nest" where "Sparrow's dwelling" and "bright blue eggs were used. So, the question asked was can William Wordsworth be considered as a predecessor of the later materialism seen in the later...

poetry history-of-literature william-wordsworth

bobble

2:33 PM

@Randal'Thor hopefully I don't bump too much!

Bookworm

4:17 PM

0

Q: In which ages was materialism used by poets? Give examples

I have asked a question few minutes ago. This is another question that I was unable to find anything about.

poetry

Tsundoku

6:48 PM

Jan 21 '20 at 18:29, by IkWeetHetOokNiet

Gosh, if I choose a new pseudonym again, I think I'll go for Tsundoku.

Rand al'Thor

After getting this answered, I'll be able to figure out the airspeed velocity of an unladen elephant :-) — Rand al'Thor ♦ 7 mins ago

^ another joke which @verbose might not get

Mithical

What... is your favorite color?

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor An African or an Indian elephant?

bobble

@Randal'Thor is that question character-analysis?

Tsundoku

That reminds me there is a book about the environmental history of China entitled The Retreat of the Elephants.

Rand al'Thor

6:56 PM

@bobble I don't think it could be answered by analysing characters to figure out if they're likely to be African or Asian.

Plot twist: they're actually European elephants under the command of Hannibal (not the cannibal).

bobble

Babar's Kingdom

Created by Jean de Brunhoff between 1931 and 1937, Babar's Kingdom, also known in French as Le pays des Éléphants (Elephant Land), is a fictional country supposedly in West Africa consisting of elephants and other animals, which are usually bipedal and civilized. As its name implies, it is ruled by its first civilized citizen, Babar himself. The political regime is an elective monarchy, as described in the book The Story of Babar, which explains his election as king after the previous king dies from eating a bad mushroom. The court consists of King Babar, Queen Celeste, Royal Princes and Princesses...

is this enough evidence?

> a fictional country supposedly in West Africa consisting of elephants and other animals, which are usually bipedal and civilized.

Tsundoku

@bobble What if they migrated there from Europe? :-P Because they didn't like the Alps?

Rand al'Thor

@bobble By itself as a Wikipedia quote, no. If you can figure out where that information comes from, yes.

bobble

I don't have a way to verify their claim the county is meant to be in Africa. Oh well. I have a certain Unanswered in my sights anyhow

(our lowest-voted, in fact. spent my break between practice tests this morning gathering some links)

Bookworm

1

Q: Is Babar an African or Asian elephant?

As a child I remember enjoying the Babar picture books about the eponymous elephant and his escapades. Now, many years later, it occurs to me to wonder what kind of elephants Babar and his people were: African elephants or Asian elephants. The Wikipedia page mentions Africa a few times, but also ...

french-literature setting jean-de-brunhoff babar-the-elephant

Rand al'Thor

7:15 PM

@bobble The one that already has a self-answer with no votes?

bobble

Yeah. That answer isn't complete, and I don't feel much like editing it for them so I was planning to submit my own.

Tsundoku

8:23 PM

@verbose That is actually what I used to do when I still used Windows. I also had the codes for œ and ß memorised.

95

Q: How to type special characters in Linux?

In windows there is possibility to type from keyboard special signs by holding alt key and typing a few numbers, that depends on with sign you want to use. Does it work with linux in the same way?

linux keyboard unicode

Tsundoku

9:29 PM

Lather, rinse, repeat:

May 10 at 21:12, by Tsundoku

I have created tag wiki excerpts for the new tags, except mariem-mint-derwich and elene-dariani (for which we need to do research to answer this question).

bobble

9:40 PM

summons @verbose to the dashes here: literature.stackexchange.com/q/12262/11259

Tsundoku

If he doesn't come, all our hopes are dashed.

Rand al'Thor

comes dashing in at the prospect of another punfest

Tsundoku

Still don't know what to think of being the word of the day.

@Bookworm I hereby apostrophise our newest HNQ.

bobble

@Bookworm this is beginning to be on the HNQ

darn

you beat me

Tsundoku

@bobble You missed the beat.

I hope you aren't feeling downbeat about it.

bobble

9:55 PM

In contrast, I'm enjoying this shiny new badge

Tsundoku

Congratulations!

bobble

okay, can anyone else see me having this badge?

I can't find it anywhere in my profile now and it says my latest badge is Revival

Willing to blame caching

Tsundoku

Not yet.

It's not yet listed under Recent badges.

I promise I won't badger you about it.

Not a rolling stone.

bobble

There it is, showed up now

Tsundoku

10:10 PM

Yes, now it's visible.

Copy editor is a badge that has been awarded only four times.

Rand al'Thor

10:25 PM

Congrats @bobble!

bobble

Next badge is Archaeologist. Only our darling doku has that one so far

Rand al'Thor

And you're closer to it than me, apparently.

bobble

controversial post

Tsundoku

11:32 PM

@bobble I don't really like the asking-for-advice part, so I have left a comment about how the question might be improved. Interpretation questions are always to some extent subjective, but I think the series of questions at the end can be edited to make the post more acceptable.

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