@lila Oh, NOW I recognize it (the anime character with the leek helped a lot XD). I think this was a time when I boycotted all pop music radio stations because I was just so fed up with the music and moderators having this forced happy, energetic and young attitude despite being twice my age.

Leekspin!

@Sarov Okay, I'm honestly a little surprised that the author of that post was so determined to not answer my questions about vet care that they deleted the entire post...

@AllisonC Weird, taking the link points to a different question rather than a 404... was it marked as dup then deleted, or something?

@Sarov You're paying to advertise, not paying for an answer, so to speak

@JourneymanGeek Hm. I guess that makes sense. Otherwise you could just never apply the actual bounty.

Yup

@Sarov Yep, it was marked as a dup. At a certain rep level you can still see the deleted question with the link, and the poster never did answer a single clarification question... I feel bad for that cat, with that kind of attitude it probably does need vet care.

@AllisonC Nah, negligence itself doesn't imply there is a problem, just that there could be. The cat's probably fine.

Just because the smoke detector is broken, doesn't mean the house is on fire.

@Sarov negligence means a small problem could become a big problem

and if the house is on fire, you just find out from the smoke

@Sarov Lack of vet care combined with a red flag for a need for vet attention is a problem, though, and letting it continue because "the cat's naughty" instead of "the cat is sick and needs attention" can make the problem worse

Exactly; if the smoke detector's broken, but there's smoke coming into the room, that doesn't mean the house isn't on fire. You need to investigate.

Sure. I'm not saying the OP's approach is correct. I'm just saying, from an objective standpoint, the cat isn't necessarily actually in trouble.

True, but they aren't necessarily not in trouble, either, and the stubborn refusal of the owner to investigate raises concerns. Sure, you could be just hanging out in the dining room while some food gets a little too seared and it's nothing. Or you could be that dog in the "This is fine" meme.

@Sarov but if OP's reaction to reasonable questions is ... ignoring them...

@JourneymanGeek Then?

Well - OP hasn't asked himself the same questions, or his vet

The cat could be incontinent (which could be something as bad as kidney failure or a UTI) or just poorly trained

@JourneymanGeek Not necessarily. It's possible OP just didn't bother to reply. Especially since the question was marked as dup. Could've just read the dup question then left it at that.

I guess

That's basically how dups are supposed to work, so.

@Sarov the comments left by the OP don't really suggest that, though.

Particularly (after I flagged it as a dup) "the link you gave is one of the ones I reviewed. Not only this is not sudden (she has been doing that forever) and it is not everywhere - just on specific spots (i.e. - clothes laying on the ground, preferably my children's BTW)"

@AllisonC Hm. I don't remember what they were, so can't comment.

The one above was after I asked if there had been a vet visit and urinalysis, and what cleaning had been done. Clearly not an answer to that question. I asked again, and SerenaT asked about changes to the environment, and there was no further response after that.

Their replies were quick until I repeated the vet question, then nothing, then deletion.

That's why it's raising red flags about the cat's health

I see.

hi

hello

medllo

Ciao

Higher.

@Elmy Haha okay :D and also, "moderators"? Did you mean "adults"?

@Elmy And I also had this phase of boycotting all pop music, but 2006 was 3-4 years before this phase for me :D

@Sarov Faster

@JourneymanGeek Purpler.

Kinda weird how people will say "Greener" but not "Purpler" or "Oranger" or something.

lol

blacker!

whiter!

What excuse me? Please tell me more tell me more, I completely do not get the reference :D

Pinker!

I've heard blacker but not whiter.

greener means hi?

oooh okay okay I see I see thanks!

I hear people say both "greener" and "more green". But only ever "more purple", never "purpler".

oooh ok ok

I have written a - supposedly short - comment in text editor for the answer to the question I placed bouncy on. Now I finished and copied the comment to place it under the answer: "Too long by 1674 characters" yikes! :(

@lila Ah, that was a false friend. In German it's "Radio Moderator", in English the correct word seems to be "host"

oh ok makes sense

@Sarov isn't that about the number of syllables in a word? Only words with one syllable are intensified by -er, every word with 2 or more syllables with more x

hot - hotter, intense - more intense. Intenser just sounds ... weird

@Elmy Hmm. It might be. Never really thought about before.

At least I can vaguely remember that rule from my english lessons

Yup, looks like you're (mostly) right - grammarly.com/blog/comparative-and-superlative-adjectives

@lila Pftahaha. Yeah comments are not well-designed for essays.

can someone explain to me how "handsome" is one syllabe to become "handsomer"??? (last rule on the linked page)

oooh he is not just handsome, he is gorgeous :3 :3 :3

@Elmy I'm pretty sure that's a typo in the article.

That caught me up, too.

@lila Also, sexist. Maybe it's not a 'he'! :P

It can be applied to a woman. It's just not as commonly used.

> (of a woman) striking and imposing in good looks rather than conventionally pretty.

@AllisonC ...I knew the blanket trick but I've never heard it called a purrito' before.

@Sarov it's one of those cutesy internet names that shows up a lot (and fits well). :)

Though mine usually aren't purring when I purrito them...

Hi please help me, I need opinion of all of you. Please look at this Q&A; do you think this bounty should go to Flater or Megha? My initial choice was Flater, then question author came and acc*pted Megha's answer as most helpful.

I'd lean towards Flater; from the OP's explanation, I think they didn't quite do the best execution of the solution, but I do find it the preferable answer

@AllisonC Flater (1) : Megha (0) Big thanks for the first vote, waiting for more people to vote.

@Elmy It is because (warning, my porcelain-throne-sitting-level reasoning and philosophy is coming up) if you are genuinely and truly amazed by how handsome he is, then the excitement causes you to say the word "handsome" in one quick syllable the language rules take account of this and thus it is considered one syllable.

@lila Irrespective of the answers themselves, I will note that accepted just means it was the most useful for the OP. Personally I consider a checkmark to be equal to 1 vote.

@lila lol. BTW I prefer Meghas answer

@Sarov Haha okay :C maybe it is because it is my second language, in my native language it would be ridiculous to use the Polish version of "handsome" to a woman, so ridiculous that there is even a joke about it :D

@lila It's definitely... unusual. I've never encountered it IRL and read it only once. But it is a thing.

Flaters answer still poses the risk that the older cat will inhale the food as quickly as possible and chase the others off. Meghas answer considers this possibility and explains a possible solution

@Sarov Okay thanks; however, I already took this fact into account and by default the real implicit score began with 1:1 (with OP's implicit vote towards Megha and my vote towards Flater), but to make it simple in the chat I am just keeping track of the chat's exclusive votes and started with 0:0.

@Elmy Okay thanks; Megha (2) : Flater (1).

@Sarov I am just interested, I assume the remark about OP's acc*pting the answer is not equal with your own opinion? Please tell me, what would be your opinion, or you want to pass and not vote?

Still reading.

Oh okay cool, thanks! :3

Out of curiosity, why did you vote Flater?

Hello everyone :)

Morning.

@Nai54 hi

@lila Flater

@Sarov Because it made the most sense to me, for many reason; for example, little detail why it resonates better with me is because how Flater first writes general solution and then anecdotal experience; Megha does the reverse. What is more, I have had this little guilt trip because of this and I want to show Flater that "hey, I am not that bad"? And also, Flater took the risk of answering old question (it was recently bumped...

@lila Actually, disregard my above message Megha deserves it -- there both good but Megha has less rep

@Sarov ...by unregistered user whose answer was deleted as non-answer. At the time of Megha's answer, the question was already 4 years old; for Flater however, the question was almost 8 years old.

@Nai54 Okay thanks; Megha (2) : Flater (2).

@Nai54 Okay thanks #2; Megha (3) : Flater (1).

@Sarov And answering old questions is admirable because the answer won't get nearly as much exposure (no chance of HNQ); it shows the right spirit.

@lila but it's your bounty - your choice, don't base it off of what others think - if someone wanted a different person rewarded, they should bounty the answer themself! ;)

However, both Megha and Flater answered the question once it was extremely old.

Imo, Megha's answer made sense since it provided info PeterJ's didn't.

Whereas Flater's answer didn't (seem to me to) provide anything new.

I agree with Sarov

@Nai54 Seconding this, though. I can answer if you ask which answer I think is better. I cannot and refuse to answer if you ask which one you should bounty.

@Nai54 I know I know :D but I have biases, and also I really value what you have to say; in the end, I have already included my vote in this making it in fact Megha (4) : Flater (2)

@Sarov Haha okay, you refuse? If this was the Godfather asking you wouldn't refuse, so is it fair that you refuse to me? :D

Are you a godfather?

haha no, I meant Godfather from the movie

My question stands. :P

"I am going to ask them the question about bounty which they cannot refuse" is the direct quote from the movie

or something like that

Never actually seen it. Though I'm familiar with the line.

okay okay maybe I got that line a little bit wrong, but the sense is exactly the same

@Sarov no I am not

@lila You're not a godfather. So it's fair for me to refuse you!

Come back when you're a godfather.

@Sarov I'd disagree that Flater's answer was the same as Megha's. Megha suggested separation between the cats, and only mentioned feeding times as an optional aside, while Flater's emphasized scheduled feedings and removing the free-feeding option entirely.

@Sarov Hahahaha okay now you reminded me of a joke: the Godfather came to my house with two mobsters to speak with me. I don't speak Italian, so he made me an offer I couldn't understand.

@AllisonC Hmm, fair perspective to take.

@Nai54 Hey thanks for editing, this beginning with lowercase "we" was driving me insane :D

@lila ...Then why didn't you edit it...?

And now, surprise surprise, the question owner: "I feel both are well written and correct to the extent of the information given in the initial question. The answer that helped me the most was Megha's answer, but I feel that Flater's may be a more universal response and therefore more deserving of the bounty."

@Sarov Because this was the only one single thing that was improvable in my eyes, and I didn't want to bump the Q&A again for a nuisance single-character edit (Nai45 modifies a lot more than single character, but as non-native I am not able to find such nuances).

For example, I am really bad at determining whether to use "a" vs "the" vs nothing.

@lila Me too :D

@lila Well, I mean, I just took out some double spaces, fixed tills to untils, and did some basic grammar... not too much

Now, if I didn't do anything myself anymore, the automatic system itself would award full bounty to Megha's answer. And the score (including my vote, OP's green hook and OP's comment) is Megha (4) : Flater (3). And just now it struck me that there is ever better solution to my problem that I did not think about earlier, which does not need any voting or decisions, could you guess what it is? :D

@lila "a" is for when you don't care which specific potato. "Buy me a potato from the market". "the" is for when you do care which specific potato. "Get a potato from the market. Then put the potato [you bought from the market] in the pot"

@Sarov "Buy me an onion" vs "buy me the flattest onion you can find" or "buy me a potato" vs "buy me the largest potato they have"

@Sarov Oh I know I know but this is simplified case, in real sentences it is often not as clear.

@lila Like what?

@Sarov please give me a minute or more like an hour to find some examples

starts timer

@lila What is it? I'm in suspense...

@Sarov Okay for example, from Wikipedia: "Significance arithmetic is a set of approximate rules [...]" why is it "a"? If I was coming up with this, I would guess "the" because it is not just any set to use 'a', but this specific ('the') set of those rules.

@Nai54 I wanted you all to guess, but okay, the solution is not to give a @&#!, toss a coin and reward according to the result. I am kidding of course, my super genius 700 IQ solution is to reward both answers by starting a second bounty after I award the existing one :D

@lila Yes, that is smart, but you are at 1007 reputation and starting another bount would drop you under 1000 which would make you lose some privileges? (I know you're a moderator, so this might not be the case, but still)

If you were to just say "Canada is the country.", it would imply that Canada is the only country.

@Nai54 Haha thanks for appreciation; yes, I am still wondering whether it will remove the ability to edit posts without approval and I honestly do not know. However, I am not that scared of this because in some sense it would be even beneficial for me (it would mean I could get +2 for each suggestion, and that would be my preferred way to get back to 1000 rather that writing answers for which I am drained for good now).

So, "Significance arithmetic is the set of rules (sometimes called significant figure rules) for approximating the propagation of uncertainty in scientific or statistical calculations" would imply that significance arithmetic is the only such possible set, which is not necessarily true. Whereas using 'a' makes it ambiguous/correct regardless of whether or not it's the only one.

@Sarov ooh okay I see I think I see (in this case, not all of them), thanks

If you're not sure whether or not the market has a single potato or many, you should say "a potato".

But if you know for sure that the market only has one potato, 'the' would make more sense.

@Sarov Okay thanks; next example (not Wikipedia, I was writing this myself): "these constants had all been measured experimentally, with a limited precision as well" and after our talking I think it should rather be "the precision"? It was with limited precision, but I don't really know with what precision specifically, so maybe "a" is correct?

@lila In this case I would omit a/the entirely, because 'limited precision' is being used as an adjective in this sentence, not a noun.

@Sarov Haha okay I have feeling this is going to be good joke, but I miss some reference, magnets?

@Sarov oh ok thanks

Actually I might have that wrong... Hmm. I'd have to double check the 'why' there.

I know the a/the should be omitted, but I'll have to ask an expert about the 'why' part.

@Sarov ha! gotcha! :D

@lila There's a meme that magnets are basically magic. They can do anything and no one us sure how they work.

@Sarov ask please, much appreciated

@lila I'll get back to you on it in a few hours, then.

'limited' is an adjective and 'precision' is a noun... There's probably some term I'm unfamiliar with to describe the combined phrase.

It might have to do with the fact that precision is a non-countable noun?

@Sarov Haha oh oh okay... I was already trying to imagine making potato batteries (works better with lemons, but potatoes also work) and powering an electromagnet? Or someone using a nuisance magnet to steal all the steel from the city so what's left is only enough to built one little market stall that could at most hold a single potato? It didn't make sense :D

@Sarov fine thanks!

You can't have 'a precision' because you can't have 1, 2, or 3 'precisions'.

@Sarov oh okay okay I could recall something from elementary school how you never say "a water"

Right. You, (informally) actually could say "Hand me a water" to mean "Hand me a [glass/bottle of] water" and it would be understood in context.

a pool of water is okay, but "a water" does not make sense, you could say "the water in pool"

In the pool. Pool is a countable noun. :P Yeah I'm pretty sure omission about countableness,

@Sarov haha you reminded me of something; did you know that "moisture" is just a fancy term for "water"? if you go to expensive restaurant, you do not ask for "glass of water" because it would be primitive, you should ask for glass of moisture :D

"Water is wet" "The water in the pool is wet" "Water in pools is wet"

@Sarov and you see? the pool; I am not that quick to learn :/

@lila Actually moisture is specifically water condensed onto a surface.

In "Water is wet" and "Water in pools is wet" we're talking about non-countable water.

@Sarov oh sorry maybe I did mean humidity then?

In "The water in the pool is wet", we're artificially turning the non-countable 'water' noun countable by segregating it into pools, which are countable.

> Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air.

If you can compare it (this/that), it's countable I think. "The water in this pool is warmer than the water in that pool" or more succinctly. "This water is warmer than that water".

@Sarov Okay, I actually meant "moisture" then; yes, moisture condensed onto the inner surface of the glass in giant amounts, so that the glass is filled with water, is "the glass of moisture" :D

Heh. Well, the server may look at you funny, but... :P

From what I can tell online.

There are a million exceptions (e.g. plural countables should also omit. "Children like candy" has a plural countable noun (Children) and a non-countable noun (candy) both having a/the omitted). But in general the above will get you 90% of the way there.

If you want a list of all exceptions, search for 'when to omit articles' (The term for a/the is 'article')

We kinda took over the chat, huh?

@lila If you really want to be fancy (and very likely confuse your waiter), instead of asking for "a glass of water," you can ask them for a "blue dolphin." Though you run the risk that the bartender might have one of the drinks since developed that also use that name... (traditionally, it's a joke cocktail that's actually water)

@Sarov Big huge enormous thanks for effort and time, much appreciated, I will be reading this from time to time because I feel that you clarified a few things for me.

@Sarov Oh do not worry about this, the authorities have already been notified and the prosecutor is already preparing the criminal lawsuit for this (in fact, it was me who notified the authorities; I am technically together with you in this, but I snitched on you as a crown witness so I will be getting immunity) big thanks again and it was nice knowing you, byeeeeeeee!

@AllisonC Haha cool I did not know about this! :D

I do not know whether I am dense or what, but my super 700 IQ genius level solution of rewarding both answers is actually room-temperature-IQ level because apparently I cannot place +150 bounty again; I forgot about the rule that the second time you need to place at least 2x the previous amount (at least +300 in this case). I ultimately rewarded the original +150 to Flater, thanks for all your voices though.

All your voices helped me realize that both answer are valid; the score was 3.5 for Megha and 2.5 for Flater after final consideration. If it was like 6:0 or 5:1 then I would definitely have leaned towards the result of voting. Thanks again.

@Nai54 Okay riddle solved, I am less than 1000 and instant editing still works.