English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

00:00

Sadly, not for Rusian roads with their potholes and stuff

Dannyu NDos

00:14

@Mitch It wasn't abuse of the laws, but rather breakage of them.

HippoSawrUs

@Mitch I may have pretended to watch that with my husband before. Seems familiar. I'll give it a real try.

Since COVID, I just don't care if TV characters die.

I mean, if it's their time, it's their time. I'm not a director.

And documentaries, 'Yeah, that happened.'

But the 1943 Bengal Starvation was horrific.

How is 800,000 to 3,800,000 an estimate?

GIve or take 3 million

What is the name for that kind of estimate?

Anybody on the brink of starvation at the onset of war, will be rescued or die probably.

@Mitch Except there were 12.

CowperKettle

One of my relatives died of starvation during the Civil War

HippoSawrUs

12 moon landings

@CowperKettle Many did

CowperKettle

Another was beaten up half-dead by two Poles simply for the fact that he was a Jew. He continued to have a weak health afterwards.

HippoSawrUs

@CowperKettle Oh, your Civil War. My bad.

CowperKettle

00:30

HippoSawrUs

What years for that war?

CowperKettle

The Cold War? Or the Civil War?

Cerberus

@Mitch But there could have been 18th-century neighbourhoods everywhere.

CowperKettle

> [Janus] also has a temple at Rome with double doors, which they call the gates of war; for it always stands open in time of war, but is closed when peace has come. The latter was a difficult matter, and it rarely happened, since the realm was always engaged in some war

HippoSawrUs

@CowperKettle The Civil War

CowperKettle

00:39

@HippoSawrUs 1918-1922

HippoSawrUs

@Robusto I had a roommate from Florida and she was just like that, raking the sand like some monk during the day and taking morphine from the patients' pumps at night.

Predictable like the calm before a storm. Like pirate mentality; IDK.

Sometimes you just have to move away from people.

alphabet

01:02

@Mitch Nothing's stopping him from declaring martial law again, and if this time he succeeds in arresting legislators or preventing them from voting to overturn it, it will work.

I read that some legislators are currently living inside the National Assembly building in case he tries that.

Mitch

@HippoSawrUs tastes vary so no refunds on my recommendation

@alphabet OK so the system -might- work. Or might not.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle We just read that this evening, my pupil and I.

In the Aeneid.

HippoSawrUs

01:25

@Mitch I often binge watch a season in 2 or 3 days; I have no idea what I've already watched, regularly.

I need a whole summer of reruns to retain shows except Disney and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Who knew?

We find these things out later

Robusto

03:00

John McWhorter weighs in on this question:

133

A: Is "guy" gender-neutral?

"You guys" is a familiar, all-inclusive way of addressing a group of men or women directly. That said, there are some important distinctions you must understand. "You guys" is more likely to be said in women => women or men => men or women => men or mixed-group => mixed-group contexts. It is less...

I quoted him at the end of my 14-year-old answer. His newsletter is "subscriber only," so I can't include it here.

tchrist

03:18

@Robusto You need to separate your quoted paragraphs with single lines starting with >. We don't have the required paragraph styling here that would allow you to skip that.

Cerberus

Annoying, huh.

Robusto

@tchrist Done.

tchrist

@Robusto Thanks. I wasn't sure if you were using Windows and it showed differently there.

Robusto

@tchrist I am using Windows, but I'm sure it's pretty much the same as Mac.

For that, anyway.

tchrist

> White House weighs preemptive pardons for potential Trump targets: Biden’s team is worried the Trump administration will go after such figures as Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci.

@Robusto Yeah, I think it's how markdown works. Otherwise it would be hard NOT to be able to have two lines in a row without a separate blank line.

Robusto

03:26

@tchrist They changed the behavior in the last year or so, if I remember correctly. I'm used to the old way still.

Cerberus

@tchrist I wonder why they didn't make it work with a beginning and ending character.

tchrist

There's something they changed, but it's tricky to explain. It used to be that three lines in a row with > prefixes would not run together.

Cerberus

`> blah
blah
<

tchrist

> something

> another thing

> but not this

So you could put the blank line there and it would treat them as if they TOO started with >. Then they changed it.

Robusto

03:54

Here's another part of McWhorter's newsletter:

> Another reason is that English is, in general, somewhat pronoun starved. Other languages almost always have a richer array. In Hebrew, for example, the plural pronoun for “you” comes in both a masculine and a feminine form. Old English had “thou” for singular “you” and “ye” for plural “you” and even special words meaning just “we two” and “you two” (“wit” and “git”).
Now we’re down to just “I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “we” and “they” as subjects. It’s amazing that we make do with such a spare set. If an option for a plural “you” arises, it is natural for people to take it up.

Cerberus

04:09

And some people try to oust he and she.

tchrist

@Cerberus That's because mentioning sex is no longer politically correct.

Cerberus

Luckily, most people do not care for that kind of stuff.

I think it will blow over.

tchrist

We should be so lucky.

Cerberus

We shall be.

SmokeDetector

04:34

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title (192): SITUS SLOT GACOR DI SLOT ONLINE SERVER THAILAND GAMPANG MENANG PASTI GACOR DI 2024-2025‭ by KAYES‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

05:00

@Cerberus You're teaching Latin?

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Yes.

CowperKettle

Wow! Great.

Cerberus

Oh, yeah?

CowperKettle

05:21

@Cerberus Yes

sane quidem

8

A: How do you say "yes" and "no" in Classical Latin?

The question has already been answered, but I cannot write this long stuff in a comment. In the book: "Grammaire latine complète, mise au nombre des livres classiques par le Conseil Royal de l'Instruction Publique" by Émile Lefranc. "In lieu of repeating the question, it's possible to: -to exp...

Cerberus

05:49

@CowperKettle Did you learn Latin in school?

@CowperKettle Very good.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus No, of course not; there were only English and German classes, and I was allocated to study English,

Those who studied German considered themselves unlucky

On 270 mg Venlafaxine I'm feeling somewhat better, but still a kind of 'anxiety' that makes it hard to fix my bike, so I've been fixing it for an hour already, and barely did anything.

It's like thinking through molasses.

I went again to the state-funded psychotherapist, and she said that maybe I should stay for inpatient treatment, and said that trifluoperazine might "improve my thinking". Thanks but no thanks. In Russia, they love using antipsychotics for everything like it's some all-purpose potion.

I think that if I had hallucinations, I would think thrice before using antipsychotics, due to their side effects.

> You know they make the blenders loud so you can't hear the fruit screaming.

CowperKettle

07:24

In Germany they have a sausage made out of other sausages. It's the wurst of the wurst.

GratefulDisciple

11:08

@Robusto I can relate. I also abandoned pipe organ due to financial reason and subsequently (when I'm married) to focus on what the family needs, i.e. IT career. But like you, music is still a big part of what gives me joy in life. Civic / church orchestra (or civic chamber) is a good place for amateurs; that's the only viable path for me.

I'm saddened by the loss of interest in pipe organ in the only remaining venue (the church), at least in US/Canada. Even in most orchestra seasons it's rare that they include pieces with pipe organ; those pipe organs in concert hall probably rotting away. Maybe I should move to Netherlands! @Cerberus Wish you the best on your piano journey; yes that's the most versatile instrument today.

GratefulDisciple

12:10

@Robusto In Indonesian language we have these pronouns (see the Google AI Overview, which is scaringly accurate, now even with links for citation).

@Cerberus Indonesian pronouns are sexless (so we don't have gender pronoun problem at all) and differs in degrees of formality. All pronouns that the AI Overview cite are in use today.

What's unique (that I don't find in English) is the inclusive vs. exclusive first-person plural "kita" vs. "kami". I wonder whether other European languages have them.

tchrist

Clusivity

In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we". Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee, while exclusive "we" specifically excludes the addressee; in other words, two (or more) words that both translate to "we", one meaning "you and I, and possibly someone else", the other meaning "me and some other person or persons, but not you". While imagining that this sort of distinction could be made in other persons (particularly the second) is straightforward, in...

GratefulDisciple

@tchrist Wow, there's a linguistic term for it already (on second thought, not that surprising).

GratefulDisciple

12:28

I can testify to the correctness of the Notes under the Malay entry (having lived in Jakarta). One evidence is in the lyrics of this song where "kita" is exclusive (referring to only the boy and the girl reminiscing about their high school romantic memories).

But if the singer addresses the song to the boy (which actually the lyric suggests by the pronoun "kau" (singular you) in the first line), then "kita" becomes inclusive.

(BTW, the automated Google English translation misses a lot of nuance and at times plainly wrong, which is not surprising)

Long live human translator!

alphabet

13:43

@Cerberus I don't think anyone's proposed that.

@Robusto "Guy" isn't the only word like that; a lot of male nouns with female counterparts are sometimes gender-neutral, especially when plural ("actor" and "director," for instance).

Robusto

14:08

@alphabet A father recent development.

@GratefulDisciple The flip side of the coin is this: At the time of my life when I was in the orchestra I was seriously professional, playing at a very high level. Which means there was nothing I couldn't play, and play well, and play as someone else expected me to play. When I stopped that, I figured I would just play in amateur settings, but I quickly found that other "amateurs" couldn't play near my level. And it was hard to descend those rungs of the ladder and feel good about it.

#travle #723 +0
🟩✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

#travle_usa #537 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅
https://travle.earth/usa

tchrist

14:24

@Cerberus The crux is that all feminine references are ultimately considered pejorative in the fullness of time. The euphemism treadmill is as eternal as Fortuna's wheel. The people who were traditionally dressed in pink and called girls were boys. ... Right until the mid-15th century, all children were referred to as girls, boys were called "knave girls" and girls were called "gay girls". The word "boy" originally meant "servant".

Hence the over-reaction to desex everything and everyone. You aren't allowed to use girlwords anymore.

This is also what lies behind the annoying trend of using family surnames for girls' forenames. Parents want their daughters to be treated better and figure not giving them girls' names will help in this.

Robusto

@tchrist In some parts of the South, e.g., Georgia and South Carolina, they used surnames as given names for girls as well as boys. I had a gf from Georgia whose name was Mary Allen, and she had a female cousin whose first name was George.

tchrist

The other day I heard a girl Charles.

Not Charlotte.

CowperKettle

@Robusto So, a girl could have a given name of "Johnson"?

Robusto

@CowperKettle I suppose.

CowperKettle

A Boy Named Sue

"A Boy Named Sue" is a song written by Shel Silverstein and made famous by Johnny Cash. Cash recorded the song live in concert on February 24, 1969, at California's San Quentin State Prison for his At San Quentin album. Cash also performed the song (with comical variations on the original performance) in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden. The live San Quentin version of the song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his only top ten single there, spending three weeks at No. 2 in 1969, held out of the top spot by "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones. The track also...

tchrist

14:38

Johnsdaughter would have been less dishonest. Ask the Icelandics.

Robusto

Except it would be Johnsdotter.

tchrist

For them, yes.

I don't know what John is in Old Norse. :/

> The suffix "-dóttir" is added to the father's name to create a girl's surname. For example, if a girl's father's name is Magnus, her surname would be Magnusdóttir.

Big girl, that one. :)

> Some women may choose to use their mother's name as a social statement or for style reasons. For example, the novelist Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir's name means "Minerva's daughter".

Robusto

They did the surname-as-given-name thing in the Boston area as well, but only for boys. Cf. McGeorge Bundy et al.

@tchrist Matronymic vs patronymic.

CowperKettle

I've been listening to Les Miserables, and I'm finding the love scenes of Maurice and Cosette a bit syrupy and melodramatic. But I like the book. And when the author diverges to discuss some political or social topic, he really pulls no punches, he repeats and repeats and repeats his thought with different similes etc.

tchrist

How arch!

Robusto

14:45

@CowperKettle Hugo was like that.

CowperKettle

Dostoyevsky was much more "modern" in this regard.

Although they lived at the same time.

Robusto

Mar 28, 2020 at 16:55, by RegDwigнt

> So I was like twelve and I made the mistake of reading Dostoyevski. Way too early. Too young. And that spoiled Dostoyevski for me, and I've never read anything of his ever again.
And my dad had been warning me. He warned me alright.
Look, he said. He took a piece of paper and a pencil and drew a straight line. Look. This is how Pushkin writes.
Eugene Onegin, Dame Pique, the Bronze Horseman. Look. This is how he writes. A straight line.

CowperKettle

I've listened to an English-language biography of Dostoyevsky, and will probably re-listen to it, because it's superb. Titled "The Sinner and the Saint"

Robusto

Mar 28, 2020 at 16:55, by RegDwigнt

> And I looked, and I nodded, and I knew. I knew all the titles. I had read all the books. A straight line.
He drew a squiggly line atop the straight line. Crossing it back and forth. A sinus wave. This is Tolstoy, he said. This is Tolstoy's writing.
And I nodded and I knew.

CowperKettle

@Robusto Haha, the same, I hated Dostoyevsky in school. He was so gloomy

Robusto

14:48

Mar 28, 2020 at 16:56, by RegDwigнt

> And then he took the pencil once again and carefully, slowly, painstakingly drew a sinus wave along the sinus wave. A squiggly line hugging the squiggly line. A line going back and forth across the line going back and forth across the straight line.
This, he said, this here is Dostoyevski. This is what Dostoyevski does.

Mar 28, 2020 at 16:56, by RegDwigнt

> He writes round and about and about and around. All around the around. Branches off the branches, dances around the dance, beats around the beating of the bush. Or whatever similes you prefer.
This is Dostoyevski, my father said. When you grow up, you'll understand. When you grow up, you'll be ready. You're not ready yet.
My father was right.
So basically I'm still waiting to grow up.

CowperKettle

I read a Russian biography of Dostoyevsky, and that made me like him again, because he had so many things to go through.

It's good that he was not 'canceled' during Soviet times, and published etc.

Robusto

#WhenTaken #283 (06.12.2024)

I scored 798/1000🏅

1️⃣📍234 km - 🗓️12 yrs - 🥈171/200
2️⃣📍635 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇179/200
3️⃣📍1.1K km - 🗓️62 yrs - 🥉69/200
4️⃣📍1.0 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇198/200
5️⃣📍129 km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥇181/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,266 4/6

🟨⬛🟨🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Wow, you must be really good. Yes, I can imagine that to be hard, playing with others that have much lower skills / standards. But I heard professional orchestra commitment is quite demanding, so I would understand that you couldn't do that anymore.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple I used to practice three to five hours a day, including full rehearsals and section rehearsals. Also giving and getting lessons. It was exhausting.

GratefulDisciple

Yes, it is. I remember in college I need to practice a minimum 2 hours a day to barely take advantage of the studio lesson from my pipe organ professor, or waste the opportunity away.

I'm still not sure now that I start practicing piano again, whether I want to take lessons or not. Too much commitment for the time I don't have ...

Art is a demanding mistress ...

Robusto

15:05

@GratefulDisciple And I practiced every damn day, Christmas, whatever.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto You're better than I was. I had to divide time between music and my computer science majors.

Robusto

It's easier to be better on the flute. Organ is lots harder. Hell, piano is lots harder.

I still have a problem with sight-reading. As a flutist I read one line on one staff. I find that when sight-reading on the piano I have to force myself to take in both staves.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Is that so? I know that violin is very hard. The trouble with piano is dealing with (mostly) not well-regulated and not well-voiced piano which makes it a lot harder to make good sound, which is one reason I went to organ, whose keys are basically on/off although you really have to control the milliseconds you press on each note.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple Yeah. The way my teacher, Dick Graef of the CSO, said it is this: some instruments are easier to play than others at the outset, but all instruments are very difficult to play at a high level.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto I guess I had the benefit starting piano young, so reading both staves is not an issue for me. If you haven't done so, I highly recommend taking theory and aural training to quickly recognize chords so that when you see a pattern of notes you see them as a unit. That helps a lot with sight reading and also memorization.

Like in Italian concerto, there are clear chordal patterns, scale runs, and cadences.

Robusto

15:12

@GratefulDisciple Absolutely. And I do that. But to do it fast on a cold read I find difficult.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto It does take practice. There are plenty of exercise books accompanying ABRSM / RCM exams for example. And now there are online subscription too.

Nice talking to you. gotta do some IT work.

Robusto

If I look at a single line on a treble clef when I'm not at the piano I find myself reverting to flute fingerings! It's still automatic after all these years.

jlliagre

> Romanian Court Annuls Presidential Election Results and Orders a New Vote

Robusto

Connections
Puzzle #544
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

tchrist

shoe size = height minus five feet

jlliagre

15:23

#WhenTaken #283 (06.12.2024)

I scored 788/1000🏅

1️⃣📍237 km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥇177/200
2️⃣📍253 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇189/200
3️⃣📍6.0 km - 🗓️50 yrs - 🥉100/200
4️⃣📍1.8K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥈152/200
5️⃣📍129 km - 🗓️13 yrs - 🥈170/200

https://whentaken.com

tchrist

@jlliagre nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/05/arts/design/…

jlliagre

@tchrist Thanks, nice!

tchrist

Everyone is impressed with how good of a job they've done, and so fast.

jlliagre

@tchrist Mixed feelings for Macron though.

tchrist

@jlliagre Yes.

@jlliagre What's going to happen in France now? Is it doomed to a new government run by or at least filled with hardcore ultra-far-right elements, plunging it down that same terrible path that we see taken by so many other Western nations of late?

Robusto

15:40

@tchrist I think all of us felt a loss, similar to that of a loved one, when it burned back in 2019.

tchrist

@Robusto I did not think it could return.

Robusto

Nor did I.

> Partly it’s in reaction to the quality of sound, the audible change from outside to in, and the way the cathedral has its own resonance. One of Notre-Dame’s organists, Olivier Latry compares it to an organ pipe: The building is a volume, with certain peculiarities, he told me. D Major sounds wonderful in Notre-Dame, he said.

I would have liked to hear Messiaen's Chant de Paix in that church.

Daily Octordle #1047
9️⃣🔟
8️⃣🕚
🕐7️⃣
6️⃣🕛
Score: 76

Ouch.

tchrist

@Robusto And where does D major NOT sound wonderful? After all, it is the brightest of all keys, at least until equal temperament.

Robusto

@tchrist Its dominant is equally bright, to my ear.

Daily Sequence Octordle #1047
5️⃣6️⃣
8️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
⓮⓯
Score: 81Daily Sequence Octordle #1047
5️⃣6️⃣
8️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
⓮⓯
Score: 81

jlliagre

@tchrist I don't think it's possible (yet). No majority for any party or coalition is foreseeable. There is a deadlock because whoever is chosen as Prime minister is doomed. Maybe a "non politic" PM/government that would only propose consensual measures might survive until the next législatives.

Robusto

15:55

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Dec. 6, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2350

Whoa, brain cramp. That Chant de Paix was Jean Langlais, not Messiaen. D'oh!

jlliagre

Wordle 1,266 4/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

Similar to me.

Chant de Paix

►

jlliagre

16:59

Connections
Puzzle #544
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟦🟦🟪
🟪🟦🟦🟦
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Robusto

The Real Reasons Why Russia Keeps Living Under Dictatorships

►

@CowperKettle ^ I'd be interested in your reaction to this.

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #1047
6️⃣8️⃣
3️⃣5️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕛
Score: 60

jlliagre

17:21

Daily Sequence Octordle #1047
6️⃣8️⃣
🔟🕛
🕐⓮
⓯🟥
Score: 94

Robusto

17:49

> Two Mafia hit-men are walking deep into a forest in the middle of the night.
One of them says: "I gotta admit I'm scared out here."
The other replies: "You're scared... I gotta walk back alone!"

Mitch

Here's the mnemonic:
_Chant de Paix_ par Jean Langlais
_Paix de Chant_ par Messiaen

GratefulDisciple

18:06

@Robusto Great news indeed. Here's an article about the clean up effort that had to be done for the 8,000 pipe organ, including cleaning the five keyboards, "winch down" the pipes, some 32 feet long, and replace internal leather components. The organ will be played this Saturday!

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple Yeah, it takes a big organ to have the 32' pipes. The ones you feel, not hear. You are suddenly aware that your body is vibrating on pitch!

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Exactly, but I have yet to experience it. Glad the organ seems okay and used the opportunity for "deep cleaning", just like I had my teeth cleaned yesterday.

Robusto

Yes.

GratefulDisciple

This article contains the times and how to watch in person or from a TV channel in France. Still looking for how to watch online from Canada/US, maybe this one ? Here's more details from the Church's official website.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple I had an organist friend who had a Macintosh stereo with JBL S8-R speakers. He would play recordings of the world's best organs and the pedal tones would do that particular body massage. My reaction: "Damn, it's on pitch!"

I think the Radio City Music Hall had/has 64' pipes, but I don't remember exactly.

@GratefulDisciple Yes. An instrument like that in a setting like that must be rescued.

GratefulDisciple

18:17

@Robusto Half-stop 64' pipe would be physically 32'.

Robusto

Exactly.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Hehehe...

Seems only the grand organ is finished, the choir organ is under reconstruction, not sure whether it is because of the fire.

@Robusto Wow, the power of years of training. BTW, I think doing scales, arpeggios, and some etudes will really help for you to get piano "default" fingering. I regularly perform scales & arpeggios in the key of the pieces I'm practicing, like F major for Italian Concerto or C Major for Mozart's Sonata Facile.

GratefulDisciple

18:37

More on the organ's restoration (pictures here). It took 6 months to tune "to the specific acoustic environment" of the Cathedral. Miraculously only one pipe was water damaged.

But the choir organ for everyday use is a different story, looks like it was "ravaged by water" and has to be completely rebuilt.

Looks in the matter of the reconstruction of the choir organ there is a lot of fights over jurisdiction and over tradeoff between architectural, historical, aesthetics, and the creation of extensions to make the organ more capable.

HippoSawrUs

19:30

I was today years old when…I found out what abetting meant, in a dictionary. M-W contends that it can still be a good thing.

Whereas I always considered it a word for criminals to contend with

Relevance is waning…

In all things

Cerberus

19:47

@alphabet Oh, some people feel that everyone should be talked about in sexless terms, to be sure.

And some will say, my boyfriend was going to stay home, but then I saw them with someone else in a bar.

CowperKettle

@Robusto It could be so. Sounds like the run-of-the-mill explanation, like the one provided by Richard Pipes in his "Russian Revolution" (a great book despite his vitriol against communist thinkers)

GratefulDisciple

@HippoSawrUs I'm puzzled as well. I posted this question for you

0

Q: Is there really any positive use of "abet"? If so, when and how it developed?

I have always thought "abet" implies helping toward something negative, either criminal action: Some women paid a high price, landing in prison for abetting his life as a fugitive. or negative result in general: The tenants are also suing the city of Chicago for abetting this process. (process...

think_meaning_buildß

20:26

in This Is Fine, 8 hours ago, by User1865345

Mitch

@Cerberus There's a billboard along rte 95 in Connecticut that says "Your wife is HOT. Buy her a pooll". That's pretty sexy.

Ya know, sometimes when reading a multi-page article, it's like a huge relief when you turn the page and there's a diagram filling half the page, or an image in the center with floating text. It means that you get to finish the article just that little bit faster.

It's a lot like when biking or running or walking when you come to the top of a hill and now it's literally all downhill from here.

@think_meaning_buildß The drivers in Oklahoma are much better and friendlier.

Also housing prices much much less.

think_meaning_buildß

Yeah, diagrams are pretty much coasting in terms of reading.

TIL only 2 were unanimous.

Mitch

@think_meaning_buildß Yeah it's like I was struggling, word after word after word, and then, ahhh... a diagram! Just glance oh maybe read half a caption.

@think_meaning_buildß Masschusetts has a lot of ... orange lovers. And Oklahoma a lot of the other side. But they're both quieter around the majority.

think_meaning_buildß

Was there much text explaining the diagram.

Robusto

@Mitch On the other hand, coffee tastes better in MA.

think_meaning_buildß

20:38

What if I'm a tea totaler.

Mitch

@Robusto It's the altitude.

@think_meaning_buildß Long captions are a small letdown. Let the picture speak for itself!

If you feel you will complicate the picture too much, great! Make a -second- diagram!

@think_meaning_buildß I am -shocked- that MA is not 1st in healthcare. You can't swing a dead patient there without hitting a doctor, one who is the international leading researcher in their field, and also beloved by their patients (they all survive (and happily), the dead ones are from other states).

I'm also surprised that Oklahoma is at the bottom of all those. Surely Mississippi and Alabama and Arkansas and others like that are worse off?

SmokeDetector

21:03

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer (79): Distress vs anguish‭ by lucious james‭ on english.SE

think_meaning_buildß

@Mitch yeah it could be fake news

Robusto

@Mitch This is true. But then, coffee tastes better in NM than in OK. And where I live I'm higher in altitude than the Okies. Now, it's possible to get crap coffee in NM as well (I'm looking at you, Wek's), but where our rides stop for coffee is always at someplace that knows how to brew a good cuppa.

Cerberus

21:32

@GratefulDisciple I think you confuse me with someone else, I haven't played the piano in 25+ years...

About organs: surely they are used in concert halls?

I mean, Mahler has symphonies with them.

@tchrist Hmm is that really a treadmill, or just some freak rotations?

GratefulDisciple

22:05

@Cerberus You're mentioned only for the "Maybe I should move to Netherlands!" part :-) The rest is for Robusto.

@Cerberus Some have them, yes, but I wish they are used more.

tchrist

23:08

@Cerberus fair point

@GratefulDisciple The verb wish is pretty much the last in English that wants were there: But I wish they were used more.

It always needs to be backshifted.

Like: If only they were used more would be.

It doesn't sound right to us to use are in those.

GratefulDisciple

23:39

@tchrist Yes, that's the correct grammar. I should have been more careful.

tchrist

@GratefulDisciple Hopefully it can become something unconscious.

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