English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

12:00 AM

From "Light breaks where no sun shines"

Alraxite

What does NNS stand for?

Robusto

@Alraxite Pineapple.

Or north-by-north-south.

medica

-1

A: How to write correctly in cursive some letters

This might not be the right website, but I will answer to your question.

Robusto

Or non-native speaker.

Alraxite

Hmm. All sound equally likely.

Cerberus

12:01 AM

@tchrist Why? What's troublesome about it? Am I overlooking something?

58 secs ago, by Robusto

Or non-native speaker.

This.

Alraxite

Yes. OK.

tchrist

@Cerberus Microsoft Word flags every possible use of nor unpaired with neither as an error — and people believe it!!

Alraxite

FTR = For the record?

Robusto

Why is Twitter informing me just now that the U.S. beat Ghana?

tchrist

Yes.

Robusto

12:03 AM

@tchrist The insidious hand of Word, dumbing down the populace.

medica

is that on topic? I highly doubt it.

Robusto

There are no topics in chat. This is The Incomprehensible Room.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh, I didn't even consider that.

medica

I think I should leave this website. I got an answer to all my questions and the people welcome me with downvotes. – Archa 2 mins ago

Cerberus

Aww.

> Beams of uncharged particles—the energy in them so great it could vaporize a car in seconds—will pour into the chamber, adding tremendous heat. In this way, the circulating hydrogen will become ionized, and achieve temperatures exceeding two hundred million degrees Celsius—more than ten times as hot as the sun at its blazing core.

No natural phenomenon on Earth will be hotter.

What do you think this describes?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:09 AM

@tchrist I'm not finding a definition of nor that makes that sentence work. Can you elaborate?

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Heh.

Alraxite

That sentence sounds OK to me.

Though I can't find the sentence in my OED2 v4.0.

Robusto

@Cerberus Fusion power.

tchrist

> 3. With omission of neither.

a. With preceding or following negative.

A. 1400–50 Alexander 46 ― Þer preued neuer nane his prik for passing of witt, Plato nor Piktagaras.
1484 Caxton Fables of Æsop v. xii, ― Certaynly I nor none other canne give the Jugement.
A. 1586 Sidney Arcadia (1613) 41 ― She concealed her sorrow, nor cause of her sorrow, from no body.
1791 Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest x, ― Your father nor nobody else has ever sent after you.

b. Without other negative expressed.

A. 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VIII 144 ― [He] would sende them no woorde of his affaires,··for he ought their…

Cerberus

@Robusto Ding! And which project?

tchrist

12:11 AM

The any following is an NPI.

Robusto

@Cerberus I don't know the name of the project.

Cerberus

@tchrist No abbreviations in this chat room, please.

@Robusto ITER.

Robusto

@Cerberus Before @tchrist gets to it, I will note that this must be an ITERative process.

@Cerberus When I was in my twenties they said fusion power was 30 years away. Decades later they are saying fusion power is 30 years away.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I'm on OED.com and can't find that entry.

Cerberus

@Robusto Let's hope so.

tchrist

12:14 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's from OED2. Check sense 3 currently.

Dec 19 '13 at 22:16, by Cerberus

NP

Cerberus

@Robusto Now they're saying a mere experiment is 6 years away.

> No one knows ITER’s true cost, which may be incalculable, but estimates have been rising steadily, and a conservative figure rests at twenty billion dollars—a sum that makes ITER the most expensive scientific instrument on Earth.

tchrist

Apr 17 '13 at 20:24, by Cerberus

NP

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/128228

> 3.

a. Following a word or phrase which is negated with not, never, etc.

tchrist

Apr 17 '13 at 20:23, by Cerberus

@JohanLarsson YW NP KTXBAI.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> b. Following not, never, etc., and followed by another negative. Now nonstandard.

Cerberus

12:15 AM

@tchrist As you can clearly see, all of those were ironic.

Robusto

@Cerberus If it led to the production of clean, sustainable and safe nuclear power, it would be worth all of that and more. But I don't believe it will.

tchrist

Oct 21 '13 at 11:14, by Cerberus

I think I once used that in a plug-in for NP++.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oh, it's 2a

tchrist

@Cerberus No, not quite all.

Cerberus

@Robusto It may be a small step in an iterative process...

tchrist

12:16 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They must have moved it up.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> Now Sc. and rare.

Robusto

@Cerberus 30 years after I'm dead they'll be saying it's a mere 30 years away.

Cerberus

@tchrist The only person who cared understood.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So I half-qualify.

Cerberus

@Robusto Hmm if you want to increase your chances of that being true...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:17 AM

@tchrist I must agree with the rare part. I don't recall ever coming across it. If I had, I'd probably consider it an error.

tchrist

Too much pulp fiction and youtube comments, eh? :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't read the comments on youtube. But I do chat on ELU.

Robusto

@Cerberus It's like the old joke about the cobbler. A customer is cleaning out his attic and comes upon a ticket for some shoes he left with the cobbler 20 years earlier. He can't even remember the shoes, but he's dying to see what he used to wear. So he goes to the shop, which is still open, and gives the ticket to the now white-haired cobbler. The man looks at the ticket, scratches his head, and says, "They'll be ready on Thursday."

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would not have!

Robusto

> Save me from those therrble prongs!

skullpatrol

12:20 AM

:D

Cerberus

@Robusto Hah, so...then the cobblers gives him an arbitrary pair of shoes? Or...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I would honestly wonder what the person who wrote it meant. Even now that I know that it's "legal", I'd still wonder if the writer meant it in that legal way, or made a mistake.

Robusto

@Cerberus Science hasn't delved into the question that deeply.

tchrist

@Robusto Thongs ain’t that they useta be.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Did you see the question about a sentence starting with nor when there was no negation in the sentence before it?

Robusto

12:22 AM

@tchrist Nor prongs.

Cerberus

Did you also not recognise that usage? Because I did.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I must not have? but starting a sentence with nor is different than sticking one in at random.

And I still have to wonder at the author's intent.

Robusto

> Nor is there singing school but studying / Monuments of its own magnificence

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but the similarity is that there is no previous negation.

And that most people wouldn't recognise it.

Robusto

I think nor has often been used in the same way as neither, but in an unpaired exclusion.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:23 AM

@Cerberus but the difference is that the nor in the middle of tchrist's sentence negates what came before it.

tchrist

@Cerberus It isn’t at random. It is there because there is a negative elsewhere in the sentence.

Robusto

But some of those sentences contain no other negative.

Cerberus

19

Q: What is this "Nor"?

And I saw Tityos, son of glorious Gaea, lying on the ground. Over nine roods he stretched, and two vultures sat, one on either side, and tore his liver, plunging their beaks into his bowels, nor could he beat them off with his hands. — The Odyssey This nor is not like not . . . either. ...

Robusto

> Pageant nor plume distinguish Alcon’s bier.

tchrist

> 2. a. As correlative to a preceding neither, nother, or nouther. (For examples see these words.)

b. Introducing both alternatives. Chiefly poet.

1576 Gascoigne Steele Gl. (Arb.) 59 ― How many pore (which nede nor brake nor bit) Might therwith al··be fedde.
1591 Shaks. Two Gent. v. iv. 80 ― Who by Repentance is not satisfied, Is nor of heauen, nor earth.
1615 Day Festivals xii. 338 ― Nor Papists with their Miracles, nor Puritans with their Presbytery, shall ever put life into it againe.
1654–66 Earl Orrery Parthen. (1676) 9 ― Nor my weakness, nor my tongue··shall ever confess you have an…

Cerberus

12:25 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That is true.

tchrist

That's the old "Or X or Y" formula negated.

Sense 3a has another negative; sense 3b does not.

Alraxite

OH I see. Didn't read the sentence properly.

Cerberus

@tchrist I see no other negatives.

tchrist

> 3b. Without other negative expressed.

A. 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VIII 144 ― [He] would sende them no woorde of his affaires,··for he ought their master, nor yet them suche service.
1594 Marlowe & Nashe Dido v. ii, ― Though thou nor he will pity me a whit.
1621 Lady M. Wroth Urania 532 ― The most ignorant proud woman liuing, caring for, nor respecting any but her selfe and hers.
1649 Lovelace Poems 64 ― Yet Servants knowing Minikin nor Base, Are still allow’d to fiddle with the Case.
C. 1750 Shenstone Elegy iii. 6 ― Pageant nor plume distinguish Alcon’s bier.

@Cerberus any

Cerberus

Most of those sentence don't have any. Besides, any is not negative.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:27 AM

@Cerberus I have no problem with the blah blah nor could he blah example in that question. It's perfectly comprehensible to me. I would never write that way. But I still find tchrist's example incomprehensible. It just doesn't sit well with me that the "nor" in the sentence negates the preceding expect.

Cerberus

OK.

tchrist

2

A: "None" and "Any"

Oh, boy; get ready to be amazed. There is a vast amount of research on Negatives like none, and Negative Polarity Items like any. Usually on both together, since NPIs require some negative context to be grammatical. In particular, none is a negative pronoun (for comparison, no is a negative adj...

I told you that any was an NPI. QED.

Alraxite

I probably inserted a don't subconsciously...

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But, apart from comprehensible, would you have marked the blah blah sentence as incorrect?

Alraxite

@tchrist What's NPI?

tchrist

12:28 AM

RTFA

@Alraxite VFS

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No. I might mark it as archaic.

tchrist

1 min ago, by tchrist

2

A: "None" and "Any"

Oh, boy; get ready to be amazed. There is a vast amount of research on Negatives like none, and Negative Polarity Items like any. Usually on both together, since NPIs require some negative context to be grammatical. In particular, none is a negative pronoun (for comparison, no is a negative adj...

Cerberus

@tchrist You can make up abbreviations all you like, but any is normally not negative. It often accompanies and suggests negation, but it is not negation itself.

tchrist

1 min ago, by tchrist

2

A: "None" and "Any"

Oh, boy; get ready to be amazed. There is a vast amount of research on Negatives like none, and Negative Polarity Items like any. Usually on both together, since NPIs require some negative context to be grammatical. In particular, none is a negative pronoun (for comparison, no is a negative adj...

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah OK. I have the same feeling with Tchrist's sentence.

tchrist

12:29 AM

I am NOT making these up.

And any most certainly is one.

Cerberus

I hope you're not assuming I would recognise Lawler's abbreviations, nor even accept his terminology.

> Is there any more tea in the pot? v. Is there no more tea in the pot?

No is a negation. Any is not a negation; it merely suggests or accompanies negation.

> Any soldier to enter this room shall be shot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes. suggests or accompanies.

Cerberus

That is also why a certain expression with any more is considered informal or improper, but I can't remember which one it was again, as I don't normally use it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Right.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Thus "I expect [nor require] any response" has two "negative" things in it. Because "I expect any response" isn't really used.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly.

Cerberus

12:35 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, so...

Robusto

The negative of any is nany. Or should be.

Cerberus

If you change that sentence into I expect nor require a response, it still works.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> The most ignorant proud woman liuing, caring for, nor respecting any but her selfe and hers.

That's under 3b

does the any act as NPI there?

tchrist

Yes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So should it be under 3a then?

tchrist

12:38 AM

Because there is an implicit "neither" or "nor" before the list of verbs.

Maybe. FIIK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It seems to me to match the structure of your original example.

Cerberus

I'm not sure what everyone's points were again, but it's shower time!

tchrist

Yes.

Dirty boy.

Robusto

Magno conatu magnas nugas!

skullpatrol

Do they still teach Latin in high school?

Cerberus

12:41 AM

WTF

@skullpatrol Yes, of course, in most countries.

Only a minority of schools per country, though, probably except Italy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skullpatrol in Ontario, Canada, yes, they do, but not at every high school.

tchrist

Instruction in Latin

Philosophical aims Although Latin was once the universal academic language in Europe, academics no longer use it for writing papers or daily discourse. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church, as part of the Vatican II reforms in the 1960s, modernized its religious liturgies (such as the Tridentine Mass) to allow less use of Latin and more use of vernacular languages. Nonetheless, the study of Latin has remained an academic staple into the 21st century. Most of the Latin courses currently offered in secondary schools and universities are geared toward translating historical texts into mo...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> since 1994, the number of Ontario schools offering Latin has fallen to 60 from 159

that was in 2010

Cerberus

That's a very small number.

Alraxite

Has anyone here attempted a clean install of Win 8.1 on a Win 8 OEM machine?

tchrist

12:48 AM

> More recent data suggest a slight leveling off at grades nine through twelve, with a total enrollment of 188,833 students in 1994, representing some 1.6 percent of the total enrolled population. New growth areas include middle-school Latin, with more than 25,349 enrolled in grades seven and eight, and 4,265 elementary students of Latin.

> Latin is also taught at the junior college level, but with no regularity. Here also, courses in classical civilization, history, and mythology are far more common than the actual study of the languages themselves. It is also worth noting that Latin retained its special status in countries such as England and Germany far longer than it did in the United States. But recent curricular reforms in these countries have put Latin at risk there as well.

Alraxite

OK. That's a no then.

tchrist

@Alraxite Too many four-letter words for my virgin ears.

skullpatrol

Thanks @tchrist for the info

tchrist

@skullpatrol From here.

Cerberus

@Alraxite I have not.

Could the stupid UEFI or secure boot thingy mess things up?

Alraxite

12:52 AM

No, not here I believe.

tchrist

> The placement services also show an increasing call for Latin teachers who can teach one other language, most commonly Spanish. Since Spanish is closely related to Latin it represents a natural alliance that has had great success in pilot programs combining the two languages. Further, as Latin continues to expand at the elementary and middle school levels, the field will be increasingly called upon to devise further curricula and materials suitable for these levels.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Frankly I'm skeptical of the notion that learning latin magically enhances your SAT scores over learning some other language, as some articles I just read have claimed.

I wonder if the studies that supposedly showed that controlled for the fact that typically, only the better students would even attempt latin.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 rem acu tetigisti

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I didn't take Latin.

skullpatrol

Good point @Mr.ShinyandNew

tchrist

12:55 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist ah.

skullpatrol

I think it's required at all the private schools

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Studying a second language should be mandatory. Sadly, here in Ontario French is mandatory only from grades 4-9. It should be 1-12

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hm.

skullpatrol

But language study is so memory intensive?

tchrist

1:00 AM

Now you’ve drifted into politics.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skullpatrol So is lots of schooling.

@tchrist Well, it's politics that says French is mandatory. I'd be happy with any second language.

tchrist

I presume that in Québec the instruction of English as a second language is therefore also compulsory in grades 1–12?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I'm not sure what their rules are.

tchrist

Because if it’s not, they can [insert visual expletive].

forums.canadiancontent.net/quebec/…

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist It's less important for them. Economic and social pressures practically guarantee that any (urban) Quebecois will be at least partially bilingual, if not fluent, by adulthood.

tchrist

1:03 AM

> Right now in the province of Quebec, everyone is required to learn English either as a language of instruction or as a second language

Hm.

Cerberus

@tchrist Good.

@Alraxite How do you mean "here"?

tchrist

My high school offered only four non-English languages.

I believe they have somewhat improved since then, through various distance-learning options.

Cerberus

Why so few!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist that's three more than mine did.

Cerberus

And how many of those were compulsory?

We had Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Latin compulsory, but there were also Russian and Chinese classes.

tchrist

1:05 AM

I don’t know how that worked, since it was never an issue for me.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus We had ... wait for it... French!

tchrist

I doubt any were.

Cerberus

But you Russian or Chinese were not on your diploma, no state exams.

skullpatrol

Chinese?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Aww! Oh, well, it is a language, I guess.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:06 AM

@Cerberus And mandatory, for grade 9.

tchrist

English was mandatory every year, for all the good it didn't do.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

After that, all the dumb kids dropped it.

Alraxite

@Cerberus Installing Linux can have issues.

tchrist

The other options were Spanish, French, German, and Latin.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 For?

Alraxite

1:06 AM

I haven't tried, so I don't know much yet.

Cerberus

Oh.

tchrist

And not Minnesotan, Texan, Hollywood, and New Yorker. I guess because Minnesotan isn’t really a foreign language in Wisconsin.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

There were, say, 4 classes worth of gr 9s that had french. Maybe 2 classes of gr 10, maybe 1. gr 11-gr 13: 1 class. (They have since eliminated grade 13 and shuffled things around)

@Cerberus I dunno. keyboarding, maybe.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 There's a lot of room in there for barely knowing English. Are you saying by comparison with non-Quebecois Canadians tend -not- to know French (or any non-English language)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

gym.

tchrist

1:08 AM

gym, the nudity class

skullpatrol

Body language :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch I'd say the plurality of Canadians only speak English. Lots are bilingual, but that's because they grow up in Francophone areas.

tchrist

Group showers like so many Nazi gas chambers.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I mean, only for grade 9, not up to grade 9 or something?

tchrist

And nearly equally dreaded.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:09 AM

@Cerberus French is compulsory grades 4-9. Some school boards offer it grades 1-3 but they aren't required to.

Cerberus

@tchrist We never ever showered at the gymnasium.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah OK. I was just wondering about the "for".

tchrist

@Cerberus That’s disgusting. I’m sorry, but chess is a game not a sport.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I never did either. I was a bit of a slacker at gym so I never really sweated much.

tchrist

Showering was compulsory.

Cerberus

@tchrist Chess?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:10 AM

@Cerberus oh. For the grade niners, yes, it was mandatory. For the rest of the high school, it wasn't. That's what I meant.

tchrist

@Cerberus Whatever it was that you were doing without breaking a sweat.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha, and they didn't force you?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 High school starts at grade 9?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Nope. in my entire grade 9 year I never saw anyone use the showers.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh, we were often sweating.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:11 AM

@Cerberus yes.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah OK. Same here. No idea what would have come out of the shower heads.

tchrist

They simply would not permit you to leave the gym unshowered. Period.

Except on a stretcher.

I guess they thought it was a bonding experience, the whole group-shower thing.

Cerberus

Ugh.

I'm not sure, but I later found out that kids showered after football.

tchrist

Weird.

Cerberus

Of course I didn't play football but hockey, where there is no showering.

So it may be a class thing?

tchrist

1:14 AM

Oh Lord, hockey needs showering!

Cerberus

I don't really know about other kinds of schools.

tchrist

Next you'll tell me you wore street clothes in gym.

Cerberus

We did not.

But we did go home in our sweaty clothes after hockey matches or training.

But we also drank beer in the club house after a match. In our sweaty clothes.

skullpatrol

Soccer?

Cerberus

I stopped playing hockey when I turned 18, so I don't know whether adults changed more often.

tchrist

1:16 AM

@Cerberus So so so illegal. It makes circle jerks sound like patty cake.

Cerberus

@skullpatrol No, hockey.

@tchrist Illegal?

tchrist

Yes, with all staff not just sacked but imprisoned.

And kids probably sent to reform school.

Cerberus

There was no staff. Except the volunteers, who were parents or members.

skullpatrol

@Cerb ice hockey?

Cerberus

No, field hockey.

tchrist

1:18 AM

What the hell is field hockey?

Cerberus

Ice hockey is not played outside America, I think?

tchrist

Lacrosse?

Cerberus

Serious?

tchrist

Booze at a high school sporting event by the children is something that causes more scandal than sex, believe me.

Cerberus

Hockey

Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick. In many areas, one sport (typically field hockey or ice hockey) is generally referred to simply as hockey. Etymology The first recorded use of the word "hockey" is found in the text of a royal proclamation issued by Edward III of England in 1363 banning certain types of sports and games. The word hockey itself is of unknown origin, although it is likely a derivative of hoquet, a Middle French word for a shepherd's stave. The curve...

tchrist

1:19 AM

Never heard of hockey that weren’t on the ice.

Cerberus

@tchrist It wasn't high school, and I think only those kids who were over 16 were given booze.

But booze was also served at high-school parties.

tchrist

@Cerberus Still a fiver short of the legal age.

16 to drive and kill, 21 to drink.

The rules should of course be reversed.

Cerberus

Umm.

tchrist

To give them 5 years of practice.

Cerberus

You know very well other countries do not have your age limits.

tchrist

1:20 AM

Current situation makes for a lot more fatalities.

skullpatrol

Tragic

Cerberus

I think I joined a B team when I was only 14, and we already drank beer then, because B teams are mostly 16–17.

At any rate, I remember sometimes classrooms and club houses smelled...stuffy, but nothing egregious.

@tchrist I think you're joking here?

tchrist

@Cerberus no

Well, there was this air hockey thing, but that was just a game.

Cerberus

> Field hockey is the 3rd Most Popular Sport on Earth With 2-2.2 billion fans in Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia etc.

sporteology.com/top-10-popular-sports-world

tchrist

I would like to see the drinking age dropped to 16 where it belongs, the driving age upped to 21, and a take-no-prisoners per se DWI at 0.010% alcohol.

skullpatrol

1:26 AM

3rd :-O

tchrist

And I never drank in high school, either. So it is not a personal thing

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist There is good evidence to suggest that alcohol is extremely harmful to anyone under 25.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, yeah.

But how can you stop them?

I want to get them off the roads.

I thought it would be compromise.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist And driving is essential to so much of north america that it'd be crippling to be unable to drive alone at 17.

@tchrist yeah there is that.

Alraxite

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 or anyone above 25 for that matter.

tchrist

1:27 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I got my licence when I was 23 and a half.

Cerberus

@tchrist Alas, they have raised the official age at which children may buy alcohol to 18 here, since the first of January. Not that kids don't still drink. Mine do. Besides, they are still allowed to drink at any age, as long as they don't buy it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Alraxite well, recent studies have shown that it impairs brain function a lot, with lasting damage, for <25

tchrist

I was hardly “crippled” in any way, shape, or fashion.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist well, I lived in a small town. being able to drive meant I could get a job.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You once showed me an article, and I didn't find it terribly convincing. Not saying alcohol isn't harmful, though...I'm just not in favour of strict rules on drugs.

tchrist

1:29 AM

@Cerberus You have kids who are teenagers? My goodness, you were precocious!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I lived in a small town. Having a bicycle meant I could get a job.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm not trying to argue for prohibition, just pointing out that there is evidence that drinking is more harmful than people think it is.

Cerberus

@tchrist 18 years ago, I was 13...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I could not have biked to work. It would have taken over an hour.

tchrist

@Cerberus But 16 years ago you were 15.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I would have had to bike home, over 25km, in the dark

tchrist

1:30 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then you did not live in a small town.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I think it is the most harmful drug that is widely used, if used in excess.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

on highways with posted speed limits of 80km/h

Cerberus

@tchrist I was indeed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I did. the problem was the job was in a neighbouring large town.

Cerberus

@tchrist Big towns also have schools nearby...

tchrist

1:31 AM

@Cerberus So you could have kids half your age now easily enough.

Cerberus

Yay! But what would I gain?

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Neighboring towns might as well have been going abroad for me.

@Cerberus Child support payments.

Cerberus

Hardly enough to make up for the cost.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist exactly why not having a car was crippling to me and my friends.

Every one of my friends lived at least 10km from me

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But I always had plenty of jobs in my town.

I didn't know anybody that far away, assuming I'm doing the conversion to English correctly.

Most of my friends were walking distance, the rest biking distance. I knew no one else.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:33 AM

Most of my friends lived in rural places. places that only got proper phone lines in the last 25 years.

skullpatrol

I was a loner.

tchrist

Well, there was that. The kids on the rural routes who got bussed in.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well... it was 25 years ago now. So last 35 years.

Some people in my school still had "party lines"

tchrist

I had a next-door neighbor pal whose folks moved out to a rural route, one of those scene backways, and I barely saw him but at work.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

or, at least, remembered having had them.

tchrist

1:34 AM

Yes, I remember that.

Bear in mind that it was much longer ago for me though.

And my town was under 5,000 people.

One of the largest in its county.

And no bussing between towns.

Just school busses to fetch the rural kids.

We still had milk delivered.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh

well, my town was 1500 people. There wasn't much in it. Most of it was rural: farms and such.

tchrist

Mine was a resort community, so summer jobs were easy to come by.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The neighbouring city had 40,000 people and that's where all the action was. And because my parents sent me to a catholic school, that's where I went to school, so I didn't know any local kids.

@tchrist I guess some kind of summer jobs would have been locally available to me. But not the good ones I wanted.

tchrist

Eek, I would have terrified going from 1500 to 40,000.

I worked for Gary Gygax at TSR Hobbies. Kind of a kid's dream job, I suppose.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I dunno. It seems like it was more of the same to me.

@tchrist sweet!

Cerberus

1:38 AM

@tchrist No line buses at all?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes. None whatsoever.

There was utterly zero public transport in a town that small.

Why would there be? People had bikes.

Cerberus

I mean, the nearest bus stop from my parents' house is 20 minutes away on foot, but there is a bus line.

tchrist

There were other, smaller towns within a 5–10 mile radius. Some were too small to be "incorporated".

Cerberus

We had bikes. But still. Visitors don't.

tchrist

Visitors are FIBs with cars.

Why would they want to use grimy lower-class transportation?

The lower classes did not visit.

skullpatrol

1:41 AM

FIB?

tchrist

@skullpatrol Um, you should probably ask @Robusto on that one. :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

!!urban FIB

Jarvis

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 FIB Fucking Illinois Bastards – just pronounced as fib by Wisconsinites referring to people from Illinois, how they drive and act. They drive really fast at home but slower than an old lady with a walker when they’re vacationing in Wisconsin and don’t know were they’re going.

skullpatrol

Lol

tchrist

Yup, them.

Been called that for a century.

Rob grew up on the other side of the state line from me. So it was His People who were always coming up into my resort town and puking in our streets and all.

Fibs are to Wisconsin what Texans are to the world.

They would drive up over the border because our drinking age was lower than theirs.

We would drive down over the border because that way we could buy margarine that was yellow not white with little packets of red dye.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:47 AM

> On Monday, Gallup reported that Congress’s approval rating is just 16 percent.

that's worse than even Rob Ford's approval rating.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Strange. I cannot think of what they’ve done to deserve so high a rating.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh

tchrist

I wish our Head of State could just summarily sack them all, but I’m sure the feeling is mutual.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Our crack-smoking, criminal, homophobic, xenophobic, etc, good for nothing mayor's approval rating is 32%

tchrist

Marion Barry moved to Canada?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:50 AM

I'm sure Barry would be an improvement

Robusto

@tchrist Cheesehead.

tchrist

@Robusto Flatlander.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But their approval rating is way high among their all-important constituents, the lobbyists.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto I wonder. considering how little they're getting done...

Robusto

@tchrist Oh, like you're a highlander up there in Lake Geneva.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:52 AM

Those lobbyists are paying for something, right?

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 All the pork projects sail through.

tchrist

@Robusto Gives the Badgers somewhere to burrow.

Robusto

Republic, Lost

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It is the sixth book by Harvard law professor and free culture activist Lawrence Lessig. In a departure from the topics of his previous books, Republic, Lost outlines what Lessig considers to be the systemic corrupting influence of special-interest money on American politics, and only mentions copyright and other free culture topics briefly, as examples. He argued that the Congress in 2011 spent the first quarter debating debit-card fees while ignoring what he sees as more pressing issues, including health care reform or global...

A must-read.

tchrist

I wish Plato had written it.

Then people might have paid attention.

And Lessig has always been right in anything I've seen him say.

Robusto

We got over a million signatures on a petition for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Think that will happen? Not in my lifetime.

tchrist

1:55 AM

Nope.

Poor Thomas Jefferson.

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