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12:01 AM
> Aural Hysterias by A. Nelfa Bettick.
> A year ago, the lexicographic grandees at Oxford Languages dutifully stuck out their arms and chose “vax” as the 2021 Word of the Year.

But this year, the venerable publisher behind the Oxford English Dictionary has — like the rest of us, apparently — gone full goblin mode.
> “Goblin mode” — a slang term referring to “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations” — has been named Oxford’s 2022 Word of the Year.
> The inclusion of “goblin mode” drew some consternation, as the Not Very Online went scrambling to Google. But for some, it was the clear winner — or at least the lesser of three evils.
More aural hysterias from the Betticks.
 
12:20 AM
> But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
I haven't yet understood goblin bee, and now this "goblin mode".
 
12:31 AM
In British English, the thinking man's crumpet or thinking woman's crumpet is a humorous term for a person who is popular with the opposite sex because of their intelligence and their physical attractiveness.The expression is derived from the slang use of the term "crumpet" to refer to a woman who is regarded as an object of sexual desire. == Usage == The first person to be called "the thinking man's crumpet" was Joan Bakewell, by humourist Frank Muir, following her appearances in highbrow television discussion programmes such as BBC2's Late Night Line-Up. Bakewell is still synonymous with the...
 
12:44 AM
I feel that I'll have to blacklist the phrase "ChatGPT" on Twitter for a couple months. Way too many tweets. If after two months the singularity has already happened, I'll just read up on the events by asking ChatGPT to sum them up for me.
 
1:06 AM
Chicken tikka masala is a dish consisting of roasted marinated chicken chunks (chicken tikka) in a spiced sauce. The sauce is usually creamy and orange-coloured. The dish was popularised by cooks from South Asia living in Great Britain and is offered at restaurants around the world. == Composition == Chicken tikka masala is composed of chicken tikka, boneless chunks of chicken marinated in spices and yogurt that are roasted in an oven, served in a creamy sauce. A tomato and coriander sauce is common, but no recipe for chicken tikka masala is standard; a survey found that of 48 different recipes...
Never heard of it.
> According to a 2012 survey of 2,000 people in Britain, it was the country's second-most popular foreign dish to cook
O_o
 
@CowperKettle Oh chicken, sweet chicken in the morning
 
@forest I don't know this song ))
I've just had too many peanuts.
80 grams..
 
@CowperKettle It's one of the lines from Lolita, but with chicken. :P
 
I did not read Lolita, although I've read all the rest of his works.
I thought that Lolita must be too dirty. Commercial.
 
It's actually not dirty at all.
 
1:13 AM
Yes, it must be a good book.
 
It's not a forbidden love story, but a story about crime and corruption and obsession and fall.
 
His other books are brilliant, it seemed to me. I haven't read them for a long time. But he has unique style in Russian, and in English too. I listened to the English version of his autobiographical book.
 
Have you read Speak Memory?
 
Yes, I listened to it in English.
And I must have previously read it in Russian.
 
Some of the memento mori in it will stick with me forever.
 
1:17 AM
My memory is too bad. I retain only the general impression.
I only remember some poems, because I repeat them hundreds of times.
I've read Master and Margarita five times, and I could not recount it even under torture.
But at least I've memorized "In Scotland's realm, where trees are few.." perfectly.
 
When it comes to poems, I'm more of a Lovecraft fan. :P
 
I seem to have read one of his poems.
I'll try to recall
No.
@forest Which poem do you like of his?
 
Nemesis is one of my favorites.
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knoweldge, or lustre, or name.
 
Nice!
Inside Out (2015 film) is Vice-Versa in French ))
> From Latin ablative absolute vice versā (“the position having been reversed”), from feminine third declension noun vicis (“arrangement, order, position, etc.”) + feminine ablative singular of perfect passive participle versus, from vertō (“I turn, I reverse”).
Oh. Too complex.
In Slavic languages, ablative merged into genitive
> I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
Impended for a breath on wings of doom,
And through the air fell like a falling sky.
Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures".
That's why I recalled this poem ))
> Smith was one of "the big three of Weird Tales, with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft"
 
1:43 AM
Unrelated, but why do you end some lines with ))?
 
It's a smile
 
@CowperKettle Yes. Smith was a purpler proser than Lovecraft.
 
I've never seen that emoticon.
 
12
Q: What do ")" or multiple ")))" mean in an internet conversation?

fedorquiI sometimes see Russian people add some ) to the end of sentences, and sometimes even many of them: )))). I recently read: In Russian: ))))))) is a loud laugh So I wonder: what does it mean when it is just one of them )? And is it a loud laugh when it comes with multiple of them?

 
@tchrist I'd argue that Lovecraft's work was not purple prose. He chose every word carefully, and each word fits better than any more generic synonym.
@CowperKettle Interesting!
 
1:44 AM
> Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million-colored sun
Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizons infinite.
 
Nice quote.
> By 14 he had already written a short adventure novel called The Black Diamonds which was lost for years until published in 2002.
 
2:03 AM
 
Dec 7, 2021 at 8:59, by Vikas
What does )) mean? Smile emoji?
It's been one year 😅
 
It's an annual tradition.
Ask-about-a-Russian-smilie-day
 
@CowperKettle It's the opening of his poem “The Hashish-Eater”.
 
Reminds me when I actively joined this room.
 
@Vikas Do you know whether Renu is a male or female name?
 
2:07 AM
Oh! This long poem is mentioned in his Wiki article
 
Yes, it's really quite long.
 
@Robusto Heard it for female only.
 
> There are wormholes in everything,
That's how the light gets in.
(Albert Einstein)
 
Quite cmmon name.
 
@Vikas Thanks.
 
2:09 AM
She became star overnight and now people troll here and make memes 😂
Actually ignore
Her spelling is different
 
@Vikas Is it common to a locality? Northern India, perhaps?
 
But I'm sure about Renu.
 
> “Renu, meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday. All is forgiven! Love, Papa.” Renu is such a common name in India that when the father went to the Hotel Montana the next day at noon there were 800 young women named Renu waiting for their fathers
> (Hemingway)
 
@Robusto I think it should be common in north. There was a girl named same in our neighborhood. Now I hear it but don't know anyone named same.
 
Thanks.
@CowperKettle I didn't read that one.
 
2:13 AM
@Robusto In the original story, its "Paco" and "Spain" )))
"The Capital of the World" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The story takes place in Madrid and follows Paco, a young waiter apprentice, and his desire to become a matador. == Summary == The story opens in a hotel called the Pension Luarca in Calle San Jeronimo. The main source of residency in the cheap hotel is a group of second-rate bullfighters, who, for the most part, were all great at some point, but some obstacle or circumstance has ended their careers with no likely hope in sight. Of the bullfighter residents in the hotel there is one banderillero, two picadors, and three matadors....
 
One can 'prentice to become a waiter?
@CowperKettle Paco is just Frank in English. It's the little nickname for Francis(co).
> En España se usa muy frecuentemente el hipocorístico Paco; aparentemente Francisco recibe el seudónimo de Paco, porque a San Francisco de Asís se le conocía con el acrónimo de Pa(ter) Co(munitatis) ("Padre de la comunidad"), cuando fundó la orden de los Franciscanos; una explicación semejante ha recibido el hipocorístico del nombre José, Pepe, que provendría del acrónimo de P(ater) P(utativus).
 
@CowperKettle Brat.
3
 
> Fuera de Paco, el nombre Francisco posee otros muchos hipocorísticos menos comunes como Pancho, Pacho, Curro, Fran, Frasco o Frasquito, Chico, Quico, etc. Es posible que ya en el siglo x existiese en el Condado de Aragón el nombre Francio (pronunciado "Francho"), similar al caso de Sancho, cuya forma más primitiva fue "Sancio".
> In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as Pater Comunitatis (father of the community) when he founded the Franciscan order, and "Paco" is a short form of Pater Comunitatis. In Portuguese, people named Francisco are commonly nicknamed "Chico"[2] (shíco). This is also a less-common nickname for Francisco in Spanish.
That's why Pope Francis is Papa Paco.
Now we just need a Pope Papageno or Pope Papagayo.
You would hardly think José were long enough to need a nickname, but Pepe it is.
hipocorístico = nickname
> A hypocorism is a nickname that shows affection or closeness. If your dog's name is Buster but you tend to call him "Sweetiecakes," you're using a hypocorism.
A hypocorism ( hy-POK-ər-iz-əm or HY-pə-KORR-iz-əm; from Ancient Greek: ὑποκόρισμα (hypokorisma), from ὑποκορίζεσθαι (hypokorizesthai), 'to call by pet names', sometimes also hypocoristic) or pet name is a name used to show affection for a person or object. It may be a diminutive form of a person's name, such as Izzy for Isabel or Bob for Robert, or it may be unrelated. In linguistics, the term can be used more specifically to refer to the morphological process by which the standard form of the word is transformed into a form denoting affection, or to words resulting from this process. In English...
A pet name is not when you call your friend Fido. :)
> Etymology: < Greek ὑποκόρισμα, -κορισμός pet-name, < ὑποκορίζεσθαι to play the child, use terms of endearment, < ὑπό in sense ‘somewhat, slightly’ + κόρος, κόρη child, boy, girl.
> 1850 Notes & Queries 1st Ser. I. 242/1 ‘Polly’ is one of those ‘hypocorisms’ or pet-names with which our language abounds.
> Polly is a given name, most often feminine, which originated as a variant of Molly (a diminutive of Mary).[1] Polly may also be a short form of names such as Polina, Polona, Paula or Paulina.
 
2:36 AM
@tchrist Ah! I never knew that
 
Polly would also be a nickname for Papa Papagayo, since it's a parrot.
 
@CowperKettle That's why I mentioned it. It doesn't so obviously follow from a longer name like Rob from Robert.
 
> Polly is a feminine name of Latin origin that means "star of the sea."
 
@CowperKettle I'm aware of the pun. Both senses intended. ))
 
2:38 AM
> Origin: From a proper name. Etymon: proper name Polly.
Etymology: < the female forename Polly (compare Poll (see Poll n.3), Molly (see molly n.1)), after Poll n.3
In the following quot. Jonson refers to two informants, Robert Pooly (or Poley , Poole ) and a certain Parrot ; there may be a pun intended, hence implying earlier currency of the word (compare quot. 1600 at Poll n.3):
1616 B. Jonson Epigrammes ci, in Wks. I. 800 And we will haue no Pooly', or Parrot by.
 
@Robusto This movie is wildly popular.
Brother (Russian: Брат, translit. Brat) is a 1997 Russian neo-noir crime drama film written and directed by Aleksei Balabanov. The film stars Sergei Bodrov Jr. as Danila Bagrov, a young ex-conscript who becomes embroiled with the Saint Petersburg mob through his criminal older brother. It appeared in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.After its release on VHS in June 1997, Brother unexpectedly became one of the most commercially successful Russian films of the 1990s and quickly rose to cult film status throughout Russia. Due to the film's popularity and fan demand, a...
> Brother unexpectedly became one of the most commercially successful Russian films of the 1990s and quickly rose to cult film status throughout Russia.
I chatted with a Serbian woman in the early 00s, and she told that Brat is one of the best films ever
And Brat 2
In Dostoyevsky's books, there were phony avaricious Poles. In Brat 2, there are phony avaricious Americans.
And one simple Russian who believes in Truth.
And a lot of Russians spoiled by European (Dostoyevsky) and American (Brat) ideology.
Only in Dostoevsky, non-violence is preached, while in Brat, our hero walks with a shotgun.
 
Well, yeah.
All the cool innocents in movies use shotguns.
 
But I liked Brat, the first movie of 1997. And there's great rock music there.
And in Brat 2, this song is good.
The title of the song is the Russian translation of the tltle El coronel no tiene quien le escriba
No One Writes to the Colonel (Spanish: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba) is a novella written by the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It also gives its name to a short story collection. García Márquez considered it his best book, saying that he had to write One Hundred Years of Solitude so that people would read No One Writes to the Colonel. == Plot summary == The novel, written between 1956 and 1957 while living in Paris in the Hotel des Trois Colleges and first published in 1961, is the story of an impoverished retired colonel, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who still hopes...
That's a good novel by Marquez.
When Navalny flew to Moscow to be arrested, he and his wife replayed a scene from Brat 2
> "Bring some vodochka (hypochoristic for Vodka) to us, boy, we're flying home"
So it's a popular film.
 
3:11 AM
@CowperKettle do you remember your vague impressions of it?
Friends of mine thought it was great stuff but all I thought of it was 1) there's a lot of Jesus stuff and 2) the rest must be thinly veiled autobiography.
I'd still recommend though
@tchrist Say what you will about 'goblin mode' (ie it's dumb), but it sure beats the next in line ('metaverse') which is simply an advertisement.
 
3:29 AM
@Mitch Orkish.
 
@CowperKettle That's my hometown he's walking through.
 
 
1 hour later…
4:38 AM
@CowperKettle There's no good emoji for shaking your fist at the sky.
You think every word was uttered on purpose and no more and no less then what it means. And then you find out people just make stuff up.
 
4:56 AM
@Robusto Chicago?
@Mitch I liked it very much
 
@CowperKettle Do let me know, I have heard of it but don't know much about it.
 
 
4 hours later…
8:45 AM
 
9:19 AM
I wonder if ChatGPT can explain grammar, like where better to use Present Perfect, definite article, etc.
 
9:31 AM
In the Netherlands, Santa carries presents on a horse that jumps roof to roof
 
9:59 AM
@CowperKettle ChatGPT just answered this to me: On the other hand, there are rational numbers that are irrational. It apologized when I told it that was bullshit :-)
 
 
3 hours later…
1:02 PM
> Russia is investigating blasts at sites hundreds of miles from the Ukraine border
Only to blame Ukraine tomorrow.
 
 
1 hour later…
2:29 PM
@CowperKettle Yup.
Mar 28, 2013 at 1:32, by Robusto
Chicago has the best architecture in North America. Period.
Mar 11, 2011 at 19:24, by Robusto
Sometimes I miss Chicago so much.
Mar 11, 2011 at 19:24, by Robusto
Except in winter.
Mar 11, 2011 at 19:24, by Robusto
And summer.
Wordle 534 5/6

⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
 
2:49 PM
#Worldle #318 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Flagged again.
🌎 Dec 5, 2022 🌍
🔥 96 | Avg. Guesses: 5.42
🟧🟧🟩 = 3

#globle
 
@CowperKettle here's another one...
 
Daily Quordle 315
4️⃣7️⃣
5️⃣3️⃣
quordle.com

My best score ever, 19.
@jlliagre ^
 
@CowperKettle Wha? Dostoyevsky is considered 'Western' as opposed to 'Slavic'?
 
3:08 PM
Daily Octordle #315
🕚3️⃣
🔟🕛
9️⃣5️⃣
4️⃣8️⃣
Score: 62
 
4:00 PM
@Mitch No, what I meant is that in Dostoyevsky's works and his magazine which he published, some European ideas were spoiling educated Russians. And in today's propaganda, the bugbear is the USA.
Fingerprints as Predictors of Schizophrenia: A Deep Learning Study - interesting, but not applicable in real life, with an accuracy of 70%. One needs it to be 99.9% for use in clinical diagnostics, because the prevalence is low.
But still curious, provided that fingerprints stay unchanged after early childhood. Hence, somehow the risk of schizophrenia is in significant part determined a decade or two before onset.
 
Wordle 534 X/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
I wasn't...
 
@jlliagre Yeah, that was a tough one. The first letter you tried in that slot was no doubt the very commonest one, and then the second was way more common than the one you didn't get to. Not a great puzzle today.
 
#Worldle #318 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
Capitaled
🌎 Dec 5, 2022 🌍
🔥 2 | Avg. Guesses: 6.71
⬜⬜🟧🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥
🟥🟩 = 10

#globle
I've been circling around for a while...
 
 
1 hour later…
5:25 PM
Word of the day: to luff up - to reposition a ship so that it faces the wind with its bow
Luff up to port - to put the bow against the wind by making a left turn (I guess), since port is the left side
> From Old French lof. Collins English Dictionary states that this word is ultimately derived from Middle Dutch loef.
Luff - The vertical edge of a sail that is closest to the direction of the wind.
 
5:53 PM
@CowperKettle In nautical terms, a left turn is a turn to port. To turn the other way is to turn to starboard.
Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are mirror images of each other. One asymmetric feature is where access to a boat, ship, or aircraft is at the side, it is usually only on the port side (hence the name). == Side == Port and starboard unambiguously refer to the left and right side of the vessel, not the observer. That is, the port side of the vessel always refers to the same portion of the vessel...
 
Yes, I know))
Starboard is named so because the steering was done by a man who held a steering oar in his right hand
 
No, because the steering oar was on that side of the ship.
 
Yes, and because of that too.
 
Same difference, I guess.
 
Word of the minute: mirepoix, or Creole Trinity
 
5:57 PM
There is a possibly spurious etymology for the adjective posh, which was supposed to be for steamers going to and from India. When they crossed the equator the expensive seats would be on the port side, so they were shaded during the afternoon, and on the starboard side coming home, when they would be on the east side.
Hence, "Port Outward Starboard Home" ... P.O.S.H.
But alas, it's probably not true.
 
> by 1914 (1903 as push), a word of uncertain origin, but there is no evidence for the common derivation from an acronym of port outward, starboard home, supposedly the shipboard accommodations of wealthy British traveling to India on the P & O Lines (to keep their cabins out of the sun); as per OED, see objections outlined in G. Chowdharay-Best in Mariner's Mirror, January 1971; also see here. The acronym story dates from 1955.
More likely it is from slang posh "a dandy" (1890), from thieves' slang meaning "money" (1830), originally "coin of small value, halfpenny," possibly from Romany po
@CowperKettle lulz
That was one weird film.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:41 PM
> North Korea Instructs Parents To Name Their Kids 'Bomb' Or 'Gun' To Encourage Patriotic Feeling
LOL
 
8:00 PM
@Vikas Source?
 
@Vikas OK. Thank you.
 
Wordle 534 5/6

⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A hard one.
 
So the US Congress crushed an attempted rail strike. Among other things they were striking for paid sick days. They don't get any. Apparently now they will get one paid sick day a year.
I wasn't aware such a large group of people don't get any paid sick days. It's terrible.
 
 
2 hours later…
10:10 PM
@FaheemMitha Shows what America thinks of railroads. And working folks in general.
 

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