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2:07 PM
@Cerberus sounds painful, I'll be careful!
 
The Taliban has reached the Turkmenistan border. Just days after reaching the Tajikistan border. The Russian army has already sent some troops to Tajikistan to help out.
 
@Cerberus Except 1) it's not a false premise (an epithet in American English is primarily a negative one and it's only an erudite usage to have no negative connotation on it. and ..
 
Maybe Afghanistan should be proclaimed the territory of the United Nations, and all countries should chip in, creating a United Nations army that would be stationed in Afghanistan permanently.
 
2) Assume it is false premised...isn't that when you'd -want- to answer it to correct (or explain why you think it is) the premise? Why would you close a question because of ignorance? That seems petty.
@MattE.Эллен It sounds French so it's probably some kind of weirdo bowel massage.
@CowperKettle Maybe we should all just leave Afghanistan alone. I mean no one outside of North Korea thinks their government is doing well by the people, but no one is invading them to 'fix' it.
 
@CowperKettle Haven't we more or less been trying just that for the past two decades, except under NATO?
 
2:21 PM
maybe that's not the best...how about Sudan?
 
@Mitch There is so much wrong with this I can't even...
@Mitch Maybe.
 
or some other African country which I know nothing about?
 
But I just can't bring myself to reopen it.
I wouldn't have voted to close it, though, so I realise I'm being inconsistent.
 
@Cerberus can you just even with me? I don't undrestand.
 
@Mitch I am sorry for the people of North Korea. It's a pity there is no possibility to invade it and arrest all the bandits who rule it.
 
2:23 PM
@Cerberus those aren't complete opposites, there's room in between
 
I'm sitting there.
 
@CowperKettle Bandits? Holy shit, why didn't you all invade the US when those charlatans were in the last four years???!!!!
haha
thpse guys were idiots
@Cerberus But anyway, 'epithet' -only- menas to you a call-name like 'the conqueror' like in 'WIlliam the conqueror'?
 
@CowperKettle Invasions rarely work.
 
In AmE the primary meaning of epithet is any bigoted label.
 
Maybe we should create an AI that will decide which country should be invaded to have its rulers arrested.
 
2:26 PM
@Cerberus Except for the Mongols... those guys were really good at it.
I'm not sure about the Vikings. They made a good name for themselves, but in the end they were just glorified pirates.
 
@Mitch Strictly, yes, though also e.g. rose-fingered dawn; more loosely, any nickname or fixed, adjectival or appositional description.
 
@CowperKettle I don't see any problems with that.
 
@Mitch I don't agree with your use of 'primary'.
 
The Mongols could not tell denouement from duodenum, but one thing they sure could was invade
 
@Cerberus oh yeah sure.
 
2:27 PM
@Mitch Not really, how long did their empire last? And how well did it perform?
 
@Cerberus Even for US English?
 
Yes.
 
@Cerberus They ruled Russia for 200 years
 
I am aware that many people who would not normally know the word will use it mainly in a negative way in America.
But let's not give their usage the epithet of primary!
 
And Moscow grew strong as a center of power thanks to the Mongols. Moscow participated in a Mongol punitive operation against Tver
 
2:29 PM
@Cerberus Well, there our opinions differ considerably.
 
@CowperKettle Only some part, and I would say those were successor states!
@Mitch Fun!
How Mongol were e.g. the Golden Horde really?
 
@Cerberus It became one of the dynasties of China, ruled Russia for, like, a few years. One recent empire of India was named after them. Probably some other stuff.
 
> The prince of Moscow, Ivan Kalita, a long time rival of the princes of Tver, hastened to take advantage of the uprising in order to assert his supremacy. Ivan allied with the Golden Horde and volunteered to help restore the power of the Mongols over Tver.
@Cerberus Yes, the Golden Horde part ruled Russia
The Tver Uprising of 1327 (Russian: Тверское восстание) was the first major uprising against the Golden Horde by the people of Vladimir. It was brutally suppressed by the joint efforts of the Golden Horde, Muscovy and Suzdal. At the time, Muscovy and Vladimir were involved in a rivalry for dominance, and Vladimir's total defeat effectively ended the quarter-century struggle for power. The Golden Horde later became an enemy of Muscovy, and Russia did not become free of Mongol influence until the Great stand on the Ugra river in 1480, more than a century later. == Background == In the early 13th...
 
@Cerberus Well that's moving the goal posts... Were the Byzantines -truly- Roman? It's not like they were born in Rome, or even remotely Italic.
 
@Mitch Alas!
@Mitch I would not really call them Roman.
Only to some extent.
 
2:32 PM
@Cerberus And yet it was called the Roman Empire, n'est-ce pas?
 
Even though I think they continued to call themselves Roman for a very long time.
Right.
 
Golden Horde with its capital city, Sarai
 
Hmm I had not heard of Sarai.
 
Sarai was destroyed by Russia in 1556 only.
 
Not a day too early.
 
2:34 PM
Donc, l'etat 'Mongol', c'est la chose mongolienne, de quelconque parentage
 
Instead of it, we built a city that would be named Stalingrad in the 1940s
 
Now Volvograd, right?
 
That's curious.
@Cerberus Yes
 
@CowperKettle In the same spot?
 
I actually didn't know that was on the location of the old GD capital.
 
2:34 PM
So, Hitler almost managed to take Sarai, so to speak.
@Cerberus Me neither! I just read it in Wikipedia
 
@Cerberus Right across the river from Saabgorod
 
Interesting.
@Mitch Fancy!
 
@Cerberus Engineered for safety
 
Or is Saab a fancy brand?
I'm not into cars.
I think it is now owned by the Chinese?
Geely?
 
@Cerberus The Russian Wikipedia says it's 60 km from the modern Volgograd
Which is very close.
 
2:36 PM
I don't know. I saw a movie (fiction) where part of the plot hinged on the rivalry of the two main characters based on their differing preference over Scandinavian car brands.
 
Oh, the car department was sold to General Motors.
 
@CowperKettle or -was-.
 
It must be Volvo that is owned by Geely, then?
@CowperKettle Hmm I would not call that the same location/city, then.
Close though it be by Russian standards.
 
@Cerberus it's not like a morning walk.
 
Oh, haha, only now do I see I misspelled the name of the city.
 
2:38 PM
hm... maybe if you're on a horse though
 
Of course it's Volgo-.
 
I was trying to drag that out as long as I could with out saying it explicitly
 
Probably it was a good place because the two rivers come rather close there, the Volga and the Don. And you can travel a long way.
 
But... when I invade Russia...
 
Of course it is on the Volga.
 
2:39 PM
and plans are currenlty in place as we speak and at the beginning of execution..
I will now choose to rename a city of my choice...
 
Better be careful with what you say here.
 
at my whim as it were...
to be Volvograd
 
I was envious of the warm climate of Volgograd. But a local said to me that the climate was hateful in winters, with blizzard winds blowing from the steppes
 
And they will all be pained bubble-gum pink.
 
Why not Putinograd?
 
2:40 PM
For safety reasons
 
@CowperKettle The Germans would agree.
 
@Cerberus ah...thanks for reminding me... and the river will be renamed Volvo
 
Good.
 
@CowperKettle Isn't that... everywhere there?
@Cerberus What about epithet : 1 b: a disparaging or abusive word or phrase? MW is primarily American.
 
2:46 PM
@Mitch perhaps I won't avoid it then...
 
My local library has discontinued use of OED so now I'm lost!
 
@Mitch That is hardly primary. Let alone exclusive, as the asker thought.
@Mitch I can send you the OED in a format supported by Golden Dictionary, if you want.
Probably the second edition, not the third.
Golden Dictionary, brought to my attention many years ago by Vitaly, is a programme that can show you results from many dictionary files at once.
 
@Cerberus I agree with the OP... Whenever I see epithet used for general call-names it always seems weird to me. But that is only half the point. Even if someone asks a question with (what you think are) false premises, that is the time you -shouldn't close, you should answer and explain how they are wrong... that's the point of teaching.
 
> it always seems weird to me
Then I would say, change that.
 
It is very annoying to be presented with the confidence in being wrong, sure.
 
2:49 PM
@Mitch No, we have no strong winds here thanks to the woods and hills
 
@Mitch Yes, I agree in principle.
 
@Cerberus In US English 'epithet' is normally used as short for 'racial' epithet. We don't go arond all day discussing what year of wine the sea doesn't really look like.
 
A nurse in a Kaliningrad outpatient clinic was making false vaccination certificates by simply disposing of the vaccine in the sink. She charged RUB 3000 for each certificate. She has been arrested. zona.media/news/2021/07/07/lite
 
@Mitch You know I do not care for "normally" and "majority" and such things when it comes to language.
@CowperKettle Yeah, that sucks.
 
@Cerberus No I don't know that. I thought you had finally come to terms with the existence of French at the expense of Latin.
Or any kind of polysemy or metaphorical use.
@CowperKettle Also Putinograd doesn't roll off the tongue very nicely.
Putinopolis?
Putinontheritz?
Putindemerde?
 
2:55 PM
@Mitch The existence of what!?
You mean vulgar Gallo-Latin?
Pah.
 
@Cerberus It is very vulgar
A question, beginning with some introduction: it is so very obvious that all the Romance languages are practically just bad uneducated Latin. I'll accept that as given.
And somewhat similarly for varieties of German, varieties of Scandinavian, all the Slavics to OCS. All the north Indian languages to Sanskrit.
But what is not obvious at all is how let's say Proto-italic, proto-Germanic, proto-Slavic, proto-Indic (OK let's leave that one out for the moment) are -incremental- offshoots of PIE.
That is if you just do minimal incremental changes in phonology, vocab, grammar, it just feel like well it's only been incremental for the past 2500 years, but before that it was more than incremental?
know what I mean?
 
3:41 PM
it's 31 degrees Celsius now. No wonder I feel so hot in the office.
according to weather forecast, the highest temperature tomorrow will be 33 degrees Celsus.
 
3:52 PM
can you analyze "heteroclinic" and "homoclinica" orbit in the context of a heteroclinic and a homoclinic orbit in a dynamical system based on etymology?
 
4:16 PM
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting (passive tilt), or it may have a...
Wow, cool
 
4:29 PM
 
4:45 PM
A man just delivered kitty litter to my flat. I took the elevator down to the porch. He was red in the face and swaying. I think he was quite drunk. And spoke in a drunken drawn-out way.
The worst thing is that he is probably both the deliverer and the driver of the car.
I can't imagine anyone driving safely in such condition.
It only occurred to me as I was riding the elevator back.
Because I'm not accustomed to delivery men being drunk. They usually are exceptionally sober.
 
@CowperKettle This is what airplanes do when they bank, which is how they turn. Ever notice how nobody on a jet liner slides to either side during a turn?
 
4:59 PM
@Cerberus: ^ I didn't know people had guns in Amsterdam, or that there was an organized crime presence.
 
 
1 hour later…
6:10 PM
over 8 pm ... still so hot
 
6:30 PM
only hot in office
because it's not ventilating
 
6:53 PM
@Robusto I also noticed this news report, a rare occurrence of crime striking a journalist
 
 
1 hour later…
8:17 PM
> 1. day of the dog
2. day of the dogs
3. days of the dog
4. days of the dogs
5. night of the wolf
 
 
1 hour later…
9:28 PM
@Mitch But see english.stackexchange.com/questions/431925/…. Epithet connotes negative to me also.
 
9:39 PM
@Xanne I've only known it in "Homeric epithets" and such. So never thought of it as negative.
Homer not being one to potty mouth.
 
@Robusto Yes, unfortunately.
It is not easy to acquire a gun here, but there are guns in any city in the world.
 
“Hummingbirds are less flesh than fairies. They are little more than bubbles fringed with irridescent feathers – air wrapped in light.” — The Hummingbird's Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings
 
Most are smuggled in from Eastern Europe.
 
@Cerberus I suppose so.
 
As to organised crime: Amsterdam the drugs capital of the continent.
 
9:47 PM
I mean, if you have organized crime, then it's Katie-bar-the-door.
 
Violence from dug-related crime has increased.
 
@Cerberus So legalization didn't solve that?
 
@Robusto It's hard drugs. Only cannabis is legal.
However, growing cannabis is mostly illegal, which is crazy and also part of the problem.
 
Sounds like half-measures just exacerbated the problem.
 
@Mitch This is one of the great paradoxes formulated by Marx, I believe: increasing quantitative change will constitute qualitative change. Something like that.
@Robusto Yes, well, it would be worse if cannabis were illegal to sell/use.
The war on drugs is causing all this.
The harder they fight the war, the worse it gets.
 
9:53 PM
Yep.
Was it Denmark that legalized everything? Norway?
 
No country has legalised everything.
 
Hmm. Portugal?
 
I do not think there is a single country where the most popular hard drugs, ecstacy and coaine, are legal?
Many countries have decriminalised the use of those drugs, including Portugal, Holland, etc.
But selling them or possessing non-small quantities is quite illegal still.
 
> They decriminalized the possession of small amounts of addictive substances, enough that an individual would typically use in 10 day’s time. They legalized nothing. It’s still illegal to use drugs. But being a drug user is treated as a health problem, not a criminal problem.
This was only on the periphery of my awareness, since I have little interest in drugs—except as a social issue.
 
Same here.
I have never used any except alcohol.
 
9:59 PM
Marijuana will be legal here next year, and I will be the first one not to go out and buy some.
 
But I am strongly in favour of regulation, within a legal framework, and against their being illegal as now.
Haha.
America is progressing, while Holland has stagnated completely.
Well, they are planning to very cautiously experiment with the legal, licensed growing of cannabis. On a small scale.
It is taking ages and ages.
 
 
2 hours later…
11:35 PM
@Cerberus Yes, that's exactly the situation. Very much the psychology of science.
@Cerberus Soon the US will be the tourist center of recreational drug use.
But not sex work. You guys will still have that.
@Xanne Hm... it is is slowly becoming true that there are no new questions on ELU.
 
@Mitch Have fun with that!
 
It is also slowly becoming the case that I don't recognize my own face.
If you really want to know, there's not much to show.
It's not exactly sagging, but I really shouldn't be bragging.
@Cerberus Woo hoo!
Well really, it's like the 1930's in the US here again. After prohibition was repealed, every county and city in the US went through this turmoil of whether to individually keep up prohibition. So there's a scattering of 'dry' counties all over the place (no sales of liquor allowed, and different laws about when you have to close bars, and can you sell beer or wine or liquor in a grocery store (it all depends).
So at the moment, every city and county in the US is now having votes on whether to allow selling MJ or THC or whatever.
that's the metaphor
all that explanation for the metaphor.
and it's probably not very good an analogy
 
Good comparison.
Are many conservatives angry about the repeal?
 
@tchrist I only ever knew it as 'racial epithets'.
But that's neither here nor there (well... mostly there)
The point is that you shouldn't close a question because you disagree with some assumptions of the question. That's the time to give an answer that realigns the assumptions *however in this case they happen not to be wrong).
@Cerberus I don't know what conservatives think anymore.
@Cerberus There's no single 'repeal' it's just little by little decriminalization for some things formerly considered 'bad' substances.
 
11:51 PM
Right, but they must still have opinions on it?
Or are they divided on the issue, so that they remain silent?
 
Oh but I do see articles every other day about decriminalizing some hallucinogens (mushrooms, psilocybin, LSD) and being promoted as treatment for some mental health problems like depression.
 
That is good, we have such articles too.
But they are not mainstream yet, alas.
 
It sounds a little like snake water, but at least now they can have clinical trials about them and find out (which was impossible or extremely difficult while the substances were 'controlled')
@Cerberus People have opinions on whether there are UFOs or Apollo went to the moon.
 
@Mitch Don't forget the "no alcohol sales on Sunday" which Massachusetts used to enforce.
 
@Robusto But also drive thru liquor stores (where was that?)
 
11:54 PM
@Mitch New Hampshire?
 
@Robusto I thought that was fireworks?
 
New Hampshire would (will?) only sell hard liquor in state-owned stores, iirc.
 
@Mitch Apollo is the sun, so, yeah, they probably meet in the heavens.
 
@Robusto Virginia has that too. But you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores. But in MA can you buy beer in a grocery store? I have no idea.
@Cerberus So you're outing yourself as a conservative
Brave
 
@Mitch Depends on how you define "grocery store" I guess.
 
11:56 PM
They also have special shops for alcohol in Norway, I believe.
@Mitch Why brave?
 
You can't buy alcohol on Sunday morning in New Mexico, weirdly enough.
 
@Robusto Stah Mahket
@Robusto Man they are so uptight
gotta stock up the day before
 
Used to be everyone went to New Hampshire to get beer on Sunday from MA, but then MA decided no principle was being violated if MA citizens within 10 miles of NH were allowed to buy alcohol on Sunday, it was fine. Just as long as those taxes were kept in-state.
 
@Cerberus Because all the pinko commie putin lovers who mix Greek mythology with modern sci-fi
 
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