@Mitch The things you mentioned are what tourists from most countries do here unfortunately. But the Brits seem the loudest, the drunkest, the rudest. And, yes, they are probably the largest number of all except Dutch.

It is possibly because a certain kind of Briton chooses to visit Amsterdam. It's usually stag parties and such.

@Mitch Well, American tourists can be annoying for some of the reasons you mention, but that type of annoying is silly rather than making the local population's lives miserable.

By 6, you forgot the word not? Americans are known for not getting or using subtle irony?

Is there a Latin grammar rule for replacing "which" with "that" @Cerberus?

@skillpatrol WHUT?

@EddieKal It was because of this:

@skillpatrol Hmm I'm not sure what you mean.

Can you give an example?

@Cerberus well, it can be used as a conjunction, right? As well as a WH question word.

Shall we have matters linguistical and philological then? :)

In any event, I've struck out my previous cuteness.

@skillpatrol Which can be an interrogative or a relative pronoun; that can be conjunction or relative pronoun.

So you can replace one with the other when they are used relatively.

I see the overlap now, thanks.

OK!

@skillpatrol I'm am so dreadfully confused, because I'm quite sure that the Romans couldn't even have pronounced that or which without mangling them terriblely.

Note that which is mostly used in non-defining relative clauses (adding extra information), whereas that is only used in defining relative clauses (that define or restrict what the noun/antecedent is referring to).

Excellent, thank you.

The other standard WH interrogatives don't have this function, correct?

What can be used as a relative pronoun with included antecedent, and as an interrogative pronoun.

Who can be used as interrogative and relative.

@Cerberus Well, you can't replace "The person who is coming called" with "the person which is coming called" only "the person that is coming called", but you could replace "the person whom I'd like to meet" with "the person that I'd like to meet" or with "the person which I'd like to meet", but best as "the person I'd like to meet".

Granted, which is a bit more complicated.

And the other words also have some complications.

Something of the nature of words that this happens. :)

Truly.

Have you seen my WH post?

@skillpatrol Why did you call? The reason why I called was ....

@skillpatrol Probably.

Thank you for your time.

@skillpatrol So you don't provide context about these five question words in your question.

But my guess is they are things journalists should be asking people or themselves.

Right.

Those five words can be asked in any situation, before you know anything: who did it? What happened? Where did it happen? Why was it done?

But you cannot use which without already having a group of items to choose from.

Which person did it? → You already have a list of people in mind to choose from.

Yes.

But I don't think this distinction is extremely important or meaningful.

You can ask plenty of important questions using which. When you say, which person should be the next president?, that is a pretty open question, with a huge variety of items to choose from.

But important enough for "which" to not be a "WH" word.

Though which is often used with more specific words, like which senators should be reëlected?.

Then it is less open.

@skillpatrol I wouldn't place too much importance in this list of five words.

It's pretty meh.

Yet, children are drilled to memorize them.

and their impact on intonation

@Cerberus I think if I told other Americans about that, they'd try much harder.

@Cerberus You could make a similar case for 'Who did it?' You're assuming exactly one person did it. With 'which' you're assuming more than one, -but that's all-

Perhaps, teachers get bored of constantly being asked "why" and give them a list to of other WH words to think about...

@skillpatrol Oh, I had not heard of that.

@Mitch Nahh they're probably not evil.

@Mitch Well, who could be several people?

@Cerberus They want to be the best at whatever they do

@Cerberus You're assuming it's a person?

All I'm saying is that 'which' having some assumptions about it doesn't really distinguish it from the other question words. It's not really assuming anything referential.

maybe it is.

I don't know

I mean in some sense 'the' is referential. You've discussed some particular man when you use 'the man'.

@Cerberus Hm..yeah, I forgot about that general characteristic. Did I mention in my list smiling too much? I think it's the same thing. Basically acting like a simpleton.

@Mitch I agree it is weak.

I was just explaining what I think those people mean.

Oh

@Cerberus you haven't heard about their impact on intonation?

medscape.com/viewarticle/942963

Only 2% of ICU beds remain free in California

THIS is what you get when you lock a question against comments because people only post answer as comments:

See how much better that is as an answer?

@RegDwigнt It is just as you said: Why Americans are numb to the staggering coronavirus death toll.

@skillpatrol No? What intonation?

@Færd AKA punishing journalism.

@tchrist Why are you quoting G&S? "Pirates of Penzance", if I'm not mistaken.

I don't even know where Penzance is.

Wikipedia tells me it's in Cornwall.

> Penzance is the base of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance. At the time the libretto was written, 1879, Penzance had become popular as a peaceful resort town, so the idea of it being overrun by pirates was amusing to contemporaries.

Hum. Victorian humor.

@Mitch I don't think there are that many levels in the US system. But AFAIK higher courts also aren't obliged to accept a case, though I don't know the rules, of course.

@Færd Ironically the US has among the best protection of fundamental rights in the world, as codified in the Bill of Rights. Many countries do much worse. Quite frustrating for would-be tyrants and dictators.

India's rights protections are barely at the level of a joke.

They are often treated as a joke, including by the Indian Supreme Court. Which these days is itself something of a joke. It seems intent on turning itself into a laughing stock by behaving by the govt's lapdog. (Assuming there is anyone left to laugh.) At least some other countries still have judicial independence.

As the govt's lapdog, not by the govt's lapdog. Sorry.

@Cerberus Falling intonation describes how the voice falls on the final stressed syllable of a phrase or a group of words. A falling intonation is very common in wh-questions.

@tchrist Oh. Sorry I cramped your style.

AOC (Alexandria Orcasio Cortez) got her Covid-19 vaccination today, under legislation that prioritizes legislators on the grounds of Continuity in Government. Surely Continuity is greatly to be desired. Thus, priorities.

@FaheemMitha I assume your SC has retained a bit of independence? As, for example, they decriminalized gay sex to the dismay of the BJP government?

If you really want to laugh, you should hear about our judiciary.

.

Differences between German and English in the use of the definite article:

> Sie glaubt an das Leben nach dem Tod.

> She believes in life after death.

German and English are similar in that regard, compared to, say, French, but they still have their important differences.

@Færd Possibly. But the RSS doesn't really care about homosexuality.

If they cared it wouldn't happen.

@Færd Do tell. Andras in U&L chat and myself have a little Hungary-India competition going to see who has the worse govt. We could have one too.

@Xanne It's all about Who Matters.

@Færd To be clear, the recent actions of the SC make it clear that at least the section that makes decision on matters relating to govt laws etc. is most definitely not independent.

In more detail, the way the system is currently set up is that the Chief Justice of India (a rotating post) makes decisions about which judges hear which cases. This post is called, I think, the Master of the Roster.

So, the way it works for the RSS is that they make sure they own the CJI and enough SC judges hat the CJI can send any "sensitive" cases (read, any case where the RSS govt has committed a crime, and wants to get away with it), to that "approved" list of judges.

It's a nice little system they have going, though I don't know all the details.

Ah, I see. Though independence is properly put to test when real tension arises, like, if the results of an election were too close and the Court had to decide.

You could say some of the judges on the US Supreme Court are handpicked by Trump to act as his puppets (or as the Republican Party's puppets), but they didn't do exactly that. They were bound by the system that's still functioning to a degree.

@Færd That hasn't happened yet. It might never happen, because I don't think India has an insane USA-like system like the electoral college. Though I 'm not saying their system is good, either.

@FaheemMitha Umm, so there's this one guy who appoints and removes the heads of the military, state media, and judiciary (among other things) at will, and answers to absolutely nobody. Need I continue? :)

I mostly slept my way through Civics class, though I don't suppose I missed much. SO my knowledge of Indian civics remains very sketchy. Though I suppose I could improve it.

@Færd Perhaps. But I still think India could give him spirited competition.

I'm not familiar with Hungary either. But they seem to be heading in the direction of a dictatorship. Possibly faster than India.

@Robusto I think it's a new phonmenon, as I didn't immediately recognise the name, but the picture reminded me of how all my friends with children have talked about it.

@FaheemMitha People around the world are getting dissatisfied with what we've been calling democracy for the past ~4 decades.

@Færd Apparently they think they can do better.

Perhaps it's just widespread brain damage. Or something in the water.

Oh, never mind. I think I misunderstood your comment.

Maybe. My point is that democracy has been hollowed during the Neo-liberal era to the point that all important decisions are outsourced to business.

So either people take back some control over who the economy works for, or we're going to see radical left and right lunatics rise and surf the waves of anger and dissatisfaction.

Perhaps more on the right.

It's not really democracy if all you have a say in is the icing on the cake.

See this, for example: Millennials own less than 5% of all U.S. wealth

@Færd That's true, certainly. It's certainly true in India. But replace "business" by "big business".

I'm sure something of that sort is true for Iran too.

@Færd Personally I don't get the lunatic thing. Why does anyone think people like Modi or Trump are going to make things better? Particularly Modi, who had quite an extensive and terrifying track record before winning the 2014 election. Though I wasn't paying attention at the time.

Because they find ways to channel people's dissatisfaction to rule them and pick their pockets at the same time? Like, by blaming Muslims in India and immigrants in Europe for the faults of democracy, rather than addressing the real causes.

It's not a secret that he's a member of the RSS. Since age 8, I believe. There are pictures of him as a child at RSS meetings. And people should know what the RSS stands for. Among another things, they murdered the person whose image appears on the paper currency of independent India. The assassin then gave a nice speech about his actions that you can read online. It was considered very eloquent.

@Færd Sure, but it's reasonable to consider who is doing the talking. It's like someone trying to persuade you to come into a dark alley because he has something to show you.

You expect too much of people.

We're not that smart.

I have to run.

And when dealing with politicians, ones default assumption should be to (a) assume they are lying to you and (b) consider what consequences will ensue if they are proved to have lied. I find (b) particularly useful, myself. It's become one of my yardsticks.

Talk to you later!

@Færd Take care.

It's dismayingly common for there to be no consequences for lying. And if there are no consequences, consider the possibility that the person you are communicating with is lying to you. It's actually very liberating.

59% of Moscow citizens don't want to get a vaccine vtimes.io/2020/12/21/…

@tchrist: Our covid rate is the lowest it's been in six weeks. I hope the trend continues.

Hey people! I need a small help.

Can somebody let me know if there's any grammar error (or punctuation error) in this sentence:

"From personal experience I can recommend Notepad 3. It's a simple notepad clone with more features, while developer-oriented still resembles a lot the very simple look and feel of the real notepad."

@Færd Dutch: zij gelooft in leven na de dood.

@Mitch I think I'd heard it in a learner's forum. Sometimes ESL go crazy with finding weird quirks in a language or a dialect, as if every native speaker only talks in metaphors and riddles.

@Cerberus Why thank you, I did good :)

I'm glad.

Were the questions as expected?

Or was it...a physical exam?

@Cerberus Yep, pretty routine

@Cerberus It was actually not the main physiology exam, but the "lab course", without a lab. They had to make videos of them doing the stuff we're supposed to do, combined with the theory

And it was online of course.

Hmm.

And they were pretty interesting, ranging from the Babinski sign @Rob linked an article about a while ago to RBC count procedures

P.S. some ECG interpretation

In other news, I watched Tenet.

Certainly enjoyable, and very Nolan. If they call it part Memento, part Inception and part Interstellar, it certainly is more than the sum of its parts.

Sure it's not a philosophical journey with an agent of chaos as tour guide but the reviews were like Nolan has botched it up, and he certainly hasn't.

One flaw I definitely agree with was how loud it was. But that's always been inseparable from Nolan's style, it's just more noticeable once you definitely know what to expect.

And it certainly didn't have any of the 'Nolan ray', as YouTube movie reviewers came to call it. The first quarter of the movie didn't try to hammer down how important the movie is, unlike Inception, or Man of Steel

@Cerberus So one 'concept' noun has an article and the other doesn't? So it's probably not about the meaning of the noun, but rather its case or something?

I also wonder if that's possible in the German version too.

Looks like it's mostly either the definite or the indefinite article (or some other determiner). It can't go bare.

@M.A.R. No spoilers... I found the non-voice sound to be loud and voice to be too quiet...we kept turning the volume up because we couldn't hear what people were saying but we still couldn't hear because of all the background noise also being louder.

@M.A.R. Nothing about importance, but it seemed like even throughout all the activity, they never stopped 'explaining' stuff. Not explaining the plot and who knew what when, but just ... explaining the stuff.

@M.A.R. @Færd First, Shabe Yalda Mobarak!

Second, is Yalda a thing that people make a big deal out of?

I can't tell. It seems like no, but then someone said yes.

Also covid messes up everything.

@Mitch Exposition? Some of that happens, sure, I think it's inevitable if you have some non-mainstream science incorporated into your plot and movie.

@Mitch yes, but only because there are so few things people make a big deal out of.

There will be a surge in cases, but not a big one, because of Yalda, since it happened to be in the middle of the weird ass lockdown measures.

But, of course, like almost everything else about our culture that's not an import, it's slowly slowly, but surely, being forgotten

That might be the reason for the 'no' you received.

The religious figures have subtly and sometimes not subtly denounced cultural norms, beliefs, and holidays that don't have anything to do with religion per se. Anything that a person can do that doesn't involve blind fanatic rage might soften them and they don't want that.

Religion itself has greatly weakened since the revolution. In the chaos early after the revolution, some of the Ayatollahs recommended that the clerics stay away from power, because, and I kid you not, they said our government might mismanage things and people would then blame the failures on Islamic ideology. Nobody has ever been more right about something, and I can attest to that as just a second-generation kid after the revolution.

So, everything that doesn't involve scrolling mindlessly on Instagram is slowly, but surely, fading away.

Some homogeneity that I'm not sure I like. Sure, more women rights are great, and whatever else this ploughing and purging of cultures brings about that's good. But, I mean, look at Japan.

And because of the monopoly over things people should like that the clerics enforce, trying to preserve anything will come off as trying to preserve everything. An odd everchanging mesh of culture that has religious, traditional, historical, and linguistic aspects to it, some parts contradicting the others! If you want to preserve the Persian language, you have to be preserving religious norms and beliefs with it as well, or you'll be censored.

sigh Whatever. Gonna be reading Dune now. BBL

"Ploughing and purging of cultures"

James Joyce, The Holy Office

@M.A.R. Oh. That sounds like a thing then. I only know Iranians in the US and I guess it's not (or not much of) a thing here.

@M.A.R. Ferdowsi is still a big deal. But I don't know anything about the rest.