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Martha
Martha
1:21 AM
@Robusto In TOBG, well, let's just say they started with jewel-toned solid polyester satin and went downhill from there. And the costumers for The Tudors apparently don't believe in underwear.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Wow, you can tell polyester from whatever onscreen?
 
Martha
Martha
Certain kinds, yes.
But that fabric would be wrong even if it were 100% silk.
 
JPmiaou
JPmiaou
@Martha The Tudors does use underwear -- as outerwear. No self-respecting 16th century Englishman would've gone out in public in just his shirt. Ever.
 
Martha
Martha
I've seen pictures of whoever plays Henry VIII in a leather vest but no shirt.
 
JPmiaou
JPmiaou
Shakespeare in Love, on the other hand, is absolutely perfect. Lovely story, lots of layers, good ending, excellent acting, and some glorious costumes.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:26 AM
@JPmiaou — /nod
Perfect on so many levels. It was Tom Stoppard messing with Shakespeare the way Shakespeare messed with plots and dialogue and the whole thing.
@Martha: I take it TOBG was an Eeeek! moment for you then?
I'll take my answer offline, as I am off.
 
Martha
Martha
@Robusto Oh, I wouldn't go that far. I just have no interest in subjecting myself to it. (I also don't like movies where I know the ending is bad. I'll watch snippets of Anne of the Thousand Days, but I get depressed if I try to watch it all the way through.)
 
 
3 hours later…
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:03 AM
Greetings!
(Please bear with me, I've had a little too much...)
Recently I was looking for something, an expression, and the first website Google gave was EL&U! So I suppose were are getting famous. Sort of.
 
Billare
Billare
Awesome.
What were you looking for?
Also, @Cerberus, do you know the answer to the question on quotation marks I posted?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:22 AM
Hi.
Oh I haven't seen that question yet, lemme see...
I'm afraid intuition is the first thing that goes. Oh and memory. Let me consult Fowler.
 
Billare
Billare
Awesome.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
4:47 AM
Added answer. In short: I don't know; Fowler doesn't mention such a distinction; it is probably not very current.
 
Billare
Billare
Yeah, I just added a comment @ the question.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Seen and replied to.
I should go to bed. Bye!
 
Billare
Billare
Ciao.
And thanks.
 
 
2 hours later…
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
7:17 AM
Good Morning everyone.
For those in the applicable TZ I ean.
I mean
I've read the exchanges above about period dramas and I thought I'd add my 2cts.
I'd like to second Martha's down-vote about the series "The Tudors".
And "The other Boleyn Girl" as well actually.
However my critics go much further than the underwear.
"The Tudors" are just written in a commercial way with very little concern for historical matters. The underlying historical facts are all mixed up. Some characters are a "merge" of various historical characters and above all, ages differences are not respected. The look of Henry the 8th is light years away from the look we've all seen in Holbein's paintings. In one word I could describe it as the NCIS/CSI series for period dramas.
Here is an excerpt of my preferred list.
Charles Dickens - 1838 - Oliver Twist (BBC 2007)
Charles Dickens - 1852 - Bleak House (BBC 1985)
Charles Dickens - 1852 - Bleak House (BBC 2005)
Charles Dickens - 1855 - Little Dorrit (BBC 2008)
Emily Brontë - 1847 - Wuthering Heights
Evelyn Waugh - 1945 - Brideshead Revisited (ITV 1981)
George Eliot - 1861 - Silas Marner (BBC 1985)
George Eliot - 1874 - Middlemarch (BBC 1994)
Henry Fielding - 1749 - Tom Jones a Foundling (BBC 1997)
Jane Austen - 1811 - Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee 1995) (BBC 2008)
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
7:47 AM
You can leave me a message at alain.pannetier@gmail.com if you need more detail.
While I'm here, I've got a question...
I used to see a link to add a bounty to questions. At that time I wasn't submitting questions to the forum. Now that I do, I can't seem to find this link any more. Can someone kindly point me in the right direction ?
 
 
3 hours later…
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
10:34 AM
Good Morning again
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Ahoi.
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
I have one more question.

I keep seeing people quoting the OED. All I have is a hardback volume of the OED (at home) and the entries I find on line are much terser than what you guys come up with. Are you all subscribers ?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Some people are. I am not.
Quite a few folks here have free access via their universities.
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
Hum, that makes more sense.
295 quids per year is quite expensive. May be they also have an electronic version.
I have a huge collection of dictionaries but of course, they're sitting on a shelf and browsing through them is quite slow.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
BTW, I realize that I am too late to the party, but I just wanted to point out that I'm no fan of "The Other Boleyn Girl", either.
And I just can't force myself to watch "The Tudors".
"Shakespeare in love", yes, that was a fine movie.
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
10:40 AM
I found some nice ones on Google books recently following my participation in EL&S.
About period dramas, I guess the targeted audience is quite different. If I would put it in a provocative way I'd say taht some talk to your reptilian brain, the others to your cortex.
Going back to dictionaries, do you know whether the OED has an electronic version, i.e. you purchase a DVD or sth and it's at hand
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Yeah well, it's just that Natalie Portman can easily talk to both, so they kind of wasted her in TOBG.
@AlainPannetier That's my understanding. I don't think they toss physical copies around at all.
...actually, I just looked on their site, and they do.
Oh well, I have enough dead tree laying around.
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
The problem is that I'm frequently on foreign assignments and, although I understand I can't take my library with me, technology offers so many alternatives now. I mean if private Bradley Manning can reuse a cd of Lady Gaga, why can't I carry on filling up my Hard Drive.
I'll have a look.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
I've seen this page this morning early.
But unless I'm even dumber than I think, I cannot find a reference to a CD/DVD copy. I found some on amazon though.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
10:54 AM
Wow, that's much better. If you look on amazon, you can see they don't propose the electronic version. You can purchase the leather bound version though for "only" 6000 bucks.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
A bargain.
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
Thx a lot. Would you also have an idea why I can't start a bounty on some questions.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Which one(s)?
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
Here I cansee the linK.
And here I can't.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
The second question is too young (12 hours right now).
"A bounty can be started on a question two days after the question was asked."
49
A: How does the bounty system work?

A. RexSources: the official FAQ and blog. See also the official privileges page for bounties. What is a bounty? A bounty is a special reputation award given to answers. This feature was designed to motivate answerers, and make questions get the answers they deserve. As a bounty starter, the boun...

 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
11:02 AM
Thanks. I guess I overlooked that when I read the FAQs last month. Sorry.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
No prob. Nobody can remember all the details.
 
Artic
Artic
Hi.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Ahoi.
 
Artic
Artic
Does anybody use the phrase "to have a bad hair day"?
 
Alain Pannetier
Alain Pannetier
Hello. @RegDwight, a few clicks further down the link you gave me, I found that page and it explicitly says "The full content of the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition), on the CD-ROM plus the three Additions volumes and 7,000 new words and meanings"
Thks for all, TTYL.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
11:10 AM
@Artic I would say so.
I have a few bad-hair-day-related Dilbert stickers right here.
 
Artic
Artic
@RegDwight What did you mean by "bad-hair-day-related"
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Though when I search Google Images for "bad hair day Dilbert sticker", I get this:
@Artic Well, the stickers literally say "bad hair day". And they show Dilbert or Dogbert or someone else with their hair messed-up.
 
Artic
Artic
@RegDwight This comrades have really bad hair day.
@RegDwight This phrase mean - bad luck for the day or something like this. But I'm not sure anyone use it. I don wana look weird when I say this.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
11:38 AM
@Artic People use it all the time.
It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with luck.
Xblast time here, so sorry if I'm not extremely responsive.
 
Robusto
Robusto
12:30 PM
Just going on the record here that I still can't abide Jane Austen.
@RegDwight — Demonstrating just how far they put a boot up someone's ass, I suppose?
In other news, it's good to see Yoichi Oishi back on the board. I wondered how he was faring in the wake of the quake/tsunami/meltdown.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Mar 17 at 20:06, by RegDwight
I sure hope everything is fine with him and his loved ones.
@Robusto I'm not sure what they need the window for, they should be able to get their boots just as high without any support.
That's pretty much their whole job.
 
Robusto
Robusto
12:45 PM
I always wonder what kind of kids see that sort of thing and think: "That's what I want to be when I grow up!"
*Und alle singen:*

*Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!*
*SA marschiert mit ruhig, festem Schritt.*
Stupid asterisks.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Harr. Do feel free to leave the SA out of this.)))
 
Robusto
Robusto
Hmm ... so those lines didn't get filtered in Deutschland?
I thought the music and lyrics were banned.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto What do you mean? I see "*** ***** ****! *** ***** **** ***********! SA ********* *** *****, ****** *******."
@Robusto But to answer your question, I doubt anyone wants to become George W. Bush, either. It's just that one day you wake up and realize that you are George W. Bush.
Kind of like Gregor Samsa.
 
Robusto
Robusto
So W. is a cockroach?
Or at least "some huge, monstrous vermin"?
Don't worry, he's scuttled back under the molding.
@RegDwight: So how were the Scots in kilts?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
1:05 PM
@Robusto Oh, not bad at all.
I mean, there was some very authentic stuff, which we liked a lot, and some pop-re-hash-bordering-on-caricature stuff, which we, um, liked somewhat less, but yeah, we realize that they have to pay their bills, too, and overall, they did find a good balance.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwight — Did you lay into anyone with a broadsword this time? Pictures!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
What the... I wake up to find this kind of language.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Yep, we're back to swordplay, @Cerberus.
I hope you brought yours this time instead of leaving it in your other pants.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto Nah, we left our swords (and cameras) at home.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:21 PM
Heh. So I see.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwight — Oh, it was that kind of party.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Geschlossene Gesellschaft. Keine Fotos!
 
Robusto
Robusto
Das ist aber Schade.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The combination of swords and cameras would point to a different genre probably.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Well, there were some people who tried taking pictures, but I think they got beheaded or something. I mean, it was pretty dark, and then those flashes would flash up, it kind of sucked huge balls.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:22 PM
So, absent pictorial evidence all we have is your notoriously unreliable word to go on.
In witness whereof:
56 secs ago, by RegDwight
Well, there were some people who tried taking pictures, but I think they got beheaded or something. I mean, it was pretty dark, and then those flashes would flash up, it kind of sucked huge balls.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Wow now that it is in your quote, I suddenly believe it.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto That, and you must discount for the fact that I have some musical education, and my wife is a professional dancer, so our criticism is kind of like Bach going over Händel's stuff and complaining, "OMG, how could he go with a Fis there? Obviously, it must be a Ges!"
I don't think there were too many people there who realized that X wasn't perfect, Y sucked, and Z was excellent beyond belief.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So what was this performance exactly? Scottish folk music?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
50+ Scottish bagpipers and 30+ drummers, some Scottish dancers, some Irish dancers, some excellent singers, and a band (complete with an electric bass and a digital piano).
Plus some fireworks to round it up.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwight — See, Bach never bothered complaining. He just rewrote the pieces to suit his own tastes.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:29 PM
Wow that sounds pretty serious. Was it in a concert hall?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Yup.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The 50+ bagpipers alone must have been impressive. Not that I know anything about the instrument or the genre.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Well, they did deliver on their Gänsehaut garantiert promise.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Goose skin?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Yeah.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:31 PM
Does that influence the timbre of the bags?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Huh wha?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oh, Goose bumps?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Yeah, I thought you were talking about the literal translation.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I was! I had no idea German used the same expression (we don't in Dutch).
In fact we say kippenvel, chicken skin.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Interesting. In English we say "goosebumps" or "goose flesh" but not "goose skin".
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
1:33 PM
@Cerberus Whoa, chicken skin is so different from goose skin.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Rob: Exactly! That is why it only dawned on me when I transferred goose skin to goose bumps.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto In Russian, it's something like "ants".
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Reg: Is it? To be honest I haven't much experience with either bird organ... or do you mean they have different connotations in German?
 
Robusto
Robusto
Russians can't afford geese, I guess.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Aww.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:36 PM
Also, Gans is a mild insult in German — Steig ab, du Gans! — when one is too timid to use Idiot.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Cerberus What? Who? Sorry, I'm trying to read "The Language Instinct" @Kosmonaut recommended.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Kippenvel could mean you're cold, you have a tingling sensation from excitement, you are scared to death, you are utterly moved by beauty or sadness...
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto Every animal is an insult in German.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Steig ab, du Affe!
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Gans, Kuh, Sau, Ziege...
@Robusto Absolutely.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:37 PM
The language instinct? Let me see...
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Feb 18 at 21:22, by Kosmonaut
www.amazon.com The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
Steven Pinker
Perennial (HarperCollins)

In The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker, well-known for his revolutionary theory of how children acquire language, lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, how it evolved. With wit, education, and deft use of everyday examples of humor and wordplay, Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution like web spinning in spiders or sonar in bats.
 
Robusto
Robusto
But probably not: Steig ab, du Adler!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Reading the Wiki article as we speak.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Cerberus Yeah, the meanings are many, no matter what metaphor in which language we're talking about.
@Robusto Now that you mention it... you could manage to make it sound insulting.
By which I mean, you could manage to make it sound insulting.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So Pinker disagrees with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Categorically so? That would seem strange.
I mean, how can thinking not be influenced by language?
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:40 PM
@RegDwight — Lech' mich am Arsch, du Adler!
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Cerberus What does Michael Dorn have to do with anything?
 
Robusto
Robusto
See, I did it!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Reg: Well he is highly relevant to the case.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
@Robusto Who is Lech?
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Walesa (Polish: ) (, or ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland 1990–95. Wałęsa was an electrician by trade, with no higher education. Soon after beginning work at the Gdańsk (then, "Lenin") Shipyards, he became a trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the Polish communist government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and ar...
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Hehe.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:41 PM
Forgot the apostrophe
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
The apostrophe doesn't help.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I remember the first time I found that piece in my Mozart collection. I couldn't believe it.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
At all.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Is it lecken? I don't remember.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Mar 10 at 20:49, by RegDwight
That reminds me of KV231, somehow.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:42 PM
Lecken I think.
Leck mir den Arsch, I'd say?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Leck mich am Arsch.
 
Robusto
Robusto
It really sucks when I can't remember how to spell a German word.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
The Mozart one is Leck mich im Arsch.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber
Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber (English: Lick my ass right well and clean) is a canon for three voices in B-flat major, K. 233/382d, long thought to have been composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during 1782 in Vienna. Authenticity In 1988, Wolfgang Plath, an editor of the Bärenreiter Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (NMA), presented evidence that the composer of this piece, as well as K. 234/382c, was in fact Wenzel Trnka (1739–1791). That Mozart might not be the author of K. 229, K. 230, K. 231, K. 233, K. 234 was already mentioned in the NMA in 1974. Th...
In fact I seem to remember there being more than one piece...
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
That is a different one.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:43 PM
Right.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Leck mich im Arsch
Leck mich im Arsch (literally "Lick me in the arse") is a canon in B-flat major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 231 (K. 382c), with lyrics in German. It was one of a set of at least six canons probably written in Vienna in 1782. Sung by six voices as a three-part round, it is thought to be a party piece for his friends. English translation A literal translation of the song's title and lyrics into English would be "Lick me in the ". A more idiomatic translation would be "Kiss my arse", or even "Get stuffed". Publication and modern discovery Mozart died in 1791 and his wi...
He had a few more, but I forgot the titles.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
When the CD was playing, I was like, huh? They couldn't be singing that?
And now there are encyclopaedia articles. Mozart must be laughing in his grave.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
I dunno, he's probably weeping as nobody has actually done what he kept asking for.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Ah, what? Burn it?
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
No. Lick it.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:46 PM
Heh. You don't know that.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
I do.
I know everything, and then some.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Even using the concept of "knowing" like that shows that you don't know knowing!
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
See? I knew you would say that.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oh. I thought you'd say "I know".
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
See? You didn't know what I was gonna say.
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:48 PM
@RegDwight: Hey, speaking of insults involving asses: I heard someone in a bar near Frankfurt tell someone else something that sounded like: "Say that again and I'll hit you in the head so hard you'll hear your teeth playing the piano in your ass!" I can't remember the exact German. Is that a common expression, or did he make that up on the spot?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Lovely.
 
RegDwight
RegDwight
Hold on a sec, Besprechung.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
From the Wiki article on the Pinker book:
> Each of these thinkers argue for sociobiology, the concept that human behavior and thought are best explained in terms of evolution of genes and memes.
Is this still controversial?
I thought it was mainstream already.
(If anyone should want a bridge problem: I have 18 HCP with 5 clubs and 3 spades (not much else), I open 1C, mate bids 1S: what am I to bid? Do I jump? I can't seem to get to a decent contract the right way.)
 
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