English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

12:12 AM

Donnchadh (Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈt̪ɔn̪ˠɔ.xəɣ]) is a masculine given name common to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages. It is composed of the elements donn, meaning "brown" or "dark" from Donn a Gaelic God; and chadh, meaning "chief" or "noble". The name is also written as Donnchad, Donncha, Donnacha, Donnchadha and Dúnchad. Modern versions include (in Ireland) Donnacha, Donagh, Donough, Donogh and (in Scotland) Duncan. The Irish surnames Donough, McDonagh, McDonough, O'Donoghue and Dunphy among others are derived from the given name (In Gaelic: Mac – son of, Ó – of the family of...

Ah, so that's what chad means.

jlliagre

@CowperKettle Doncha know?

CowperKettle

"Why Donnchad Do Me Right" youtube.com/watch?v=GXGXfRlapd8

CowperKettle

12:48 AM

The Great Simplification | Film on Energy, Environment, and Our Future | FULL MOVIE

►

alphabet

1:17 AM

@jlliagre I won't both with WhenTaken because I'm bad at it^H^H^H^H it's boring.

I was trying to figure out if there's a right way to put strikethroughs in chat. Presumably this is somehow possible.

Still a problem for a surprising number of people.

CowperKettle

Verb of the day: to tat

> As a child, DeBakey learned to play the saxophone and was taught by his mother to sew, crochet, knit and tat.

Ryder is not Rude.

1:58 AM

@alphabet thanks for the info

> low- and middle-income countries account for 95% of HIV infections.

19 out of 20 people 🤯

CowperKettle

In 2023, the incidence of HIV in Sverdlovsk Oblast was 64 new cases per 100 000, totaling to 2730 new cases (per 4.22 mn people).

For comparison, in the US the annual incidence rate is 11 new cases per year per 100 000 people

Ryder is not Rude.

People are still having sex.

alphabet

@RyderisnotRude. The $40k number is pretty much made-up; it's the list price of the medication in pill form used as a treatment for drug-resistant HIV. Gilead hasn't said what it'll charge for the injection used as PrEP, but as with most drugs the cost will be much lower in developing countries.

Ryder is not Rude.

Okay 👌

CowperKettle

By the end of 2023, Sverdlovsk Oblast had more than 61 000 people living with HIV, which is three times the average Russian level.

Ryder is not Rude.

2:12 AM

in This Is Fine, 51 mins ago, by User1865345

For proper context: HIV drug could be made for just $40 a year for every patient

alphabet

The price of something is determined by how much people are willing to pay for it, not by the cost of the ingredients used to make it.

CowperKettle

Thus, about 1.45% of the population of my region are known to have HIV.

That's more than one in a hundred.

I must be passing people with HIV every day in the street.

alphabet

You can get the same level of protection for $30/month without insurance here, if you're willing to take a pill every day instead of getting a twice-yearly injection.

CowperKettle

A typical large green bus (natural gas-fed) in Yekaterinburg has a capacity of 111 passengers, thus I regularly ride a bus with at least one HIV-infected person in it.

alphabet

Huh. Here it's 0.3%; I'm surprised that there's such a big gap.

CowperKettle

2:18 AM

I'm preparing for an elective surgery, a removal of a wart in my nostril, scheduled for 19 September, and an HIV test is one of the obligatory results I must present on the morning of 19 September when I arrive at the Surgery Building.

ВИЧ - 6 месяцев

Which means "HIV test result - valid for 6 months"

alphabet

Anyway: I'm always surprised when people are shocked that for-profit drug companies act like for-profit companies. It's like saying "For Burger King, actually feeding people has never been the point. It's always about profit and nothing else." Well yeah, duh, if they're a for-profit company that's how they'll operate.

CowperKettle

There are free-of-charge HIV testing stations that sometimes pop up in the street, after there was a national scandal several years ago when the region was almost declared an HIV epidemic area

Ryder is not Rude.

Well, it is not a surprise that the corporations are trading the planet for profit.

alphabet

That's how capitalism works. The problem isn't that large companies are "greedy," as if they have personality traits, it's that this sort of outcome is the inevitable result of the economic system they operate in.

CowperKettle

Feudalism was not much better

Ryder is not Rude.

2:26 AM

A system they have monopolized.

The internet has in most ways made that monopoly stronger.

re: Microsoft and google

And, of course, the government mirrors the economy.

That is the government becomes a for-profit corporation.

Not profit for the people, but people looking for only profit.

CowperKettle

2:45 AM

Stationary bandit theory

Theory of the Stationary Bandit — theory of the origin of the state, developed by American scholars Martin C. McGuire and Mancur Olson. == Basic Principles == In this theory, the State is equated with a "stationary bandit" ("stationary bandit") who decides to settle in a specific territory, to unilaterally control it and to generate income from the population (carry out robberies) in the long term. This distinguishes him from "roving bandits" or "itinerant bandits" ("roving bandits"), whose aim is to extract maximum benefit in the short term. The robberies carried out by the "stationary bandit...

Ryder is not Rude.

💯✅

Money is not everything, it is the only thing.

Cerberus

tchrist

@CowperKettle Probably. On a full bus, where you are one of the 111 and we're not counting the driver, there's an 80% chance that at least one of those 110 has it.

p = .79944700698225376680

Because that's 1 – 0.9855 ** 110.

It doesn't take many 80% days to hit the target.

CowperKettle

Ah!

tchrist

And yes, I was using "probably" in the highly technical sense related to probabilities. :)

I was childishly intrigued by the meaningless coincidence that it came to almost exactly 20% that there wasn't at least one.

CowperKettle

2:57 AM

Stationary Bandit vs. Stationery Pundit

A famous court case.

tchrist

One of them is getting away with something. The other's going nowhere.

Ryder is not Rude.

Where did you get the .9855?

tchrist

100% – 1.45%, of course.

Ryder is not Rude.

So why do many digits.

tchrist

Pardon me?

Ryder is not Rude.

3:00 AM

On p.

tchrist

Would you like three significant digits, I imagine?

Or four?

I'm sure you can truncate as needed.

Because I ran it through bc -l and that's the default precision.

Ryder is not Rude.

Six looks reasonable.

tchrist

If you don't set the scale.

Cerberus

@alphabet I agree; I think one reason people think such things is because they are somehow swayed by big companies' marketing.

tchrist

mac(tchrist)% (echo scale=1000; echo '1 - 0.9855 ^ 110') | bc -l | pbcopy
.7994470069822537667997731797800206745276873599580559812421246263501\
44273751623066513240619306549924154145006543008040503995618571135278\
19060349195404217659451755269258493269592202088182870387976090217348\
41980297719652079214578250295345516379829760762912631078670078402883\
11617523944965355855817389979631612209039232182815976768214893782667\
71400696083748588288047089682360315466749041969763848458087850123998\
663320890045724809169769287109375

Ryder is not Rude.

3:09 AM

Neat.

Cerberus

@alphabet It is especially crazy when you think about how this €40,000 is entirely caused by the existence of patents.

It created uncountable monopolies.

It is such an inefficient way to promote research and development.

tchrist

I don't think Cantor would agree with that use of uncountable. :)

Ryder is not Rude.

LoL

Cerberus

Who is he?

Ryder is not Rude.

A mathematician.

Cerberus

3:15 AM

Why isn't he named Contor?

Ryder is not Rude.

No idea.

tchrist

Singer.

Ryder is not Rude.

He died of mental illnesses anyway.

tchrist

OF course he did.

Ryder is not Rude.

Thinking too much about infinity.

tchrist

3:20 AM

> At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go

Ryder is not Rude.

@Cerberus The father of set theory.

> The essence of Mathematics lies in its freedom.

Cerberus

Good to know.

Ryder is not Rude.

The foundations of set theory are introduced in middle school nowadays.

alphabet

3:55 AM

@Cerberus Just put us raccoons in charge and everything will work out.

Cerberus

Perhaps in an electric charge.

alphabet

Specifically, I think we should be put in charge of municipal sanitation departments, given our relevant expertise.

tchrist

4:15 AM

@CowperKettle Their daughter, Demetria Mills, faced even greater marriage barriers still!

Gay ones.

Ryder is not Rude.

That would make a gay interracial marriage next to impossible.

alphabet

@RyderisnotRude. I'd assume that the percentage of people who approve of gay interracial marriage is identical to the percentage of people who approve of gay marriage at all.

Ryder is not Rude.

Perhaps. It depends on a lot of specific situation details.

tchrist

Cousins.

Ryder is not Rude.

^that is required by some Islamic laws.

alphabet

4:29 AM

@RyderisnotRude. What is?

Ryder is not Rude.

Marrying your cousin.

alphabet

@RyderisnotRude. Certainly Islamic law doesn't forbid cousin marriage, but I don't think it mandates it.

Ryder is not Rude.

That depends on how fanatical you are, I guess.

alphabet

Do you mean fanatical?

Our friends the Salafis at IslamQA have this to say:

> when Allah mentioned for us the relatives to whom marriage is forbidden, we then come to know that there is no objection for the remainder of the family relations [including cousins].

> However, a different question may be asked, namely: "Is it better or preferable for a Muslim to marry someone he is not related to rather than a relative?"

> The answer to this question varies from case to case, and perhaps it may be preferable to marry people who are non-relations, for example if one aspires to form new social ties or bonds, and regards the existence of a marriage relationship with a different family as constructive in widening the circle of social bonds.

Excellent life advice!

It cites Surah An-Nisa 4:23, which helpfully specifies the precise limits:

Cerberus

Religion is so incredibly primitive.

alphabet

4:35 AM

> ˹Also˺ forbidden to you for marriage are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal and maternal aunts, your brother’s daughters, your sister’s daughters, your foster-mothers, your foster-sisters, your mothers-in-law, your stepdaughters under your guardianship if you have consummated marriage with their mothers—but if you have not, then you can marry them—

> nor the wives of your own sons, nor two sisters together at the same time—except what was done previously. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Cerberus

Wait, you can't marry your son's wife?

At least you can marry your daughter's husband.

Ryder is not Rude.

TIL, thnx.

Cerberus

And your nephew.

alphabet

This doesn't say who a woman can marry--I assume you just see if the marriage is valid from the man's perspective.

Ryder is not Rude.

"two sisters together" :-/

alphabet

4:41 AM

At the same time. It's fine if you marry one sister and leave her for the other.

Ryder is not Rude.

That's how hemophilia almost wiped out the royal family, right?

alphabet

You mean cousin marriage?

Ryder is not Rude.

Yup.

alphabet

At least according to Wikipedia, it was seemingly entirely from non-cousin marriages.

Ryder is not Rude.

I see.

Another myth busted.

Cerberus

5:10 AM

@alphabet I think women are not creatures with a will and full intelligence: they are not spoken to by Allah?

SmokeDetector

6:06 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (93): Usage of the Present Perfect Continuous ✏️‭ by Stepp‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

6:44 AM

> In the Standard Model, there exists the possibility that the underlying state of our universe – known as the "vacuum" – is long-lived, but not completely stable. In this scenario, the universe as we know it could effectively be destroyed by collapsing into a more stable vacuum state.[45][46][47][48][49]

CowperKettle

7:15 AM

What Is Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome and How Does it Relate to ADHD?

►

Bullshit or not?

SmokeDetector

9:12 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-latin answer (50): Is "cacheability" a word (technical word)?‭ by Solmaz Ghasemi‭ on english.SE

M.A.R.

@RyderisnotRude. it already doesn't? I mean, we dunno the chemical processes behind a great many 'living' things but it's always assumed it will. The only other alternative seems to be belief in the supernatural.

@Xanne isn't it a bit too early to say that? DNA seems to be one important constant in this theory of everything, but just the one. It's an engineering problem, yes, but only until better equipment reveals new secrets

If DNA is the hard drive, figuring out what the processing unit is is not mere details. It's obviously more than just ribosomes and cytoskeleton.

But this is speculative, not much reason to dwell too much on it

@CowperKettle seems sorta legit. But just another bunch of signs called a syndrome together, until they figure out the principles behind it

Vikas

9:27 AM

@CowperKettle 18 carat or not.

CowperKettle

9:40 AM

@M.A.R. I have trouble staying in focus and planning my activities, but I've got no idea whether I have ADHD. The definitions are so hazy that you can cram up just anything there.

Vikas

@CowperKettle I am able to focus better currently. So I'm utilizing that focus as much as I can. It can expire any time.

CowperKettle

@Vikas Yes. It's a perishable product.

CowperKettle

10:19 AM

> The study’s findings revealed that PTSD is moderately heritable, with genetic factors accounting for approximately 35% of the risk in women and 29% in men. This means that while both sexes inherit some genetic susceptibility to PTSD, the genetic contribution is stronger in women. psypost.org/…

I wonder how true these figures are.

M.A.R.

11:25 AM

@CowperKettle ADHD requires nine criteria met when you were a kid. If you have trouble focusing now, it could be some form of anxiety, but you need proper workup, not internet doctors

M.A.R.

11:37 AM

It's just the definition I suppose. There's no 'adult-only' ADHD as far as I'm concerned

CowperKettle

12:42 PM

@M.A.R. Proper workup.. I'm sure it exists somewhere. I'm not sure anywhere close.

CowperKettle

1:13 PM

Robusto

#travle #640 +1
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟧✅
https://travle.earth

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. I started marking my school homework diary with special dots in order to force myself to do homework, back when I was 14. Probably because of issues with concentration. But that must be too late for ADHD to emerge. So yes, probably some ADHD-esque condition but not ADHD proper.

Sonex Aircraft SubSonex

The SubSonex is an experimental, single-seat, amateur-built jet aircraft from Sonex Aircraft's "Hornet's Nest" development division. == Design and development == The JSX-1 is a single place, single engine jet aircraft similar in design to an Onex, with a Waiex style Y tail, fixed main landing gear and a retractable nosewheel. Introduced at AirVenture 2009, it is powered by a Czech-built PBS TJ100 turbojet engine mounted above the aft fuselage, with the exhaust exiting between the Y-tail. It achieved first engine test runs in December 2009. The engine produces 1100 N (240 lb) of thrust. Originally...

Conrado

#travle #640 +0
🟩✅✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

These are closer to my stomping grounds than the one with the glacier (whose name I have already forgotten)

Robusto

1:30 PM

Wordle 1,183 3/6

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟨⬛🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

@Conrado Spoiler

Conrado

Wordle 1,183 5/6

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

9 mins ago, by Conrado

These are closer to my stomping grounds than the one with the glacier (whose name I have already forgotten)

Robusto

Daily Octordle #964
7️⃣3️⃣
6️⃣🕚
5️⃣🕛
🔟8️⃣
Score: 62

Conrado

I am often surprised at how provincial I am.

@Robusto Shouldn't you be playing Septurtle still?

Robusto

@Conrado Never heard of it.

Conrado

> "There isn't any," said the March Hare.

I meant, because it isn't October yet.

Bad joke, sorry.

Robusto

1:44 PM

Daily Sequence Octordle #964
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 67

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Sep. 14, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2120

@Conrado Why did you quote your own line two minutes later?

Conrado

@Robusto I meant to link it to my surprise at my provincialism. I know my own back yard, but not the rest of the world, you know. But after I had quoted, I lost a second typing the next line, and your Octordle got in between.

Robusto

@Conrado But it is right next to your game score.

Conrado

Well, I thought it was a little below. I was talking about the geography game, not the wordle game. And not about the octordle game. Meanwhile, you had already moved on.

It all happened so fast, as the snail said when the police asked him for a description of the turtle who had assaulted him.

Robusto

@Conrado Which was exactly what I saw.

Conrado

2:01 PM

In short, it had no deeper meaning, and I apologize for interrupting the flow.

Robusto

No worries.

Conrado

Thanks

Ryder is not Rude.

@M.A.R. thanks for the reply. I found that I was misremembering the central dogma of molecular biology.

Robusto

2:21 PM

@RyderisnotRude. Skully?

Ryder is not Rude.

Yes sir :-)

How's the new power meter working on your bike pal @Robusto

Robusto

Just fine.

Ryder is not Rude.

Cool.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein's life advice in a letter to his son Eduard on 5 February 1930.

I guess he wasn't the type of person who gets stuck on one theorem for 7 years like Andrew Wiles.

But today we now know that to learn to ride a bike do not use the training wheels approach.

Robusto

2:50 PM

@RyderisnotRude. Tru dat.

Mitch

@Cerberus a (good) case could be made that it is a great achievement too.

Just because it is not rational is beside the point.

And by rational I mean according to rules of logic and probability, -and- agreement on sensations.

Some leeway is given for trusting authority

Some.

@RyderisnotRude. what is the correct memory of that central dogma (of molecular biology)?

@Conrado and when they stopped the turtle and asked him about the snails car with an 'S' he replied 'Yeah but did you see that S car go?

I can hear your groan all the way here!

Robusto

3:07 PM

@Mitch That was a chorus of groans from your house to the last extent of the Internet.

Mitch

I, sadly, cannot take credit.

Someone told a group of us that one freshman year.

So nerdy.

Ryder is not Rude.

3:20 PM

> genetic information flows only in one direction, from DNA, to RNA, to protein, or RNA directly to protein.

Mitch

@RyderisnotRude. How does ATP<->ADP fit in then? Or the Krebs cycle?

Ryder is not Rude.

@M.A.R.^ I'll leave it to the expert to answer that, pal @Mitch

tchrist

3:41 PM

> “Too many impaired feathers spells disaster for a bird.”

I bet the agreement there confuses the effles.

I bet there were expecting: “To many, impaired feathers spell disaster for birds.”

Is it true that you can discern someone’s manual orientation by observing which hand they hold their cell phone with?

I'm not asking for discriminatory reasons. I just question the validity of an assumption I saw that asserted that most right-handed people hold their phones in their left hands so they can use their right hands for inputting things.

Ryder is not Rude.

For hunt-and-peck typers, yes.

tchrist

You don't use both thumbs?

Ryder is not Rude.

Nope.

I don't even scroll with my thumb.

tchrist

3:58 PM

Holy cow, I've suddenly realized that I use the thumb from whichever hand I use for typing that key on a QWERTY keyboard!!

Ryder is not Rude.

Are you right-handed.

tchrist

I wonder whether that's because I’m a touch typist not a hunt and pecker.

Seldom.

I hold the phone in both hands symmetrically when typing.

M.A.R.

@Mitch DNA molecules make up the 3-billion-base-pair HDD. The ribosomes and RNAs are the CPUs. The cytoskeleton is the motherboard. ATP provided by glycolysis and the Krebs cycle is the power source. Most other organelles are the RAM.

tchrist

So that I can type with both thumbs.

M.A.R.

I dunno I feel like I'm strecthing the analogy too thin

alphabet

4:02 PM

Huh. I'm right-handed and I usually hold my phone in my right hand, using my thumb to type, scroll, etc., without using my left hand at all.

tchrist

I just never realized that I was unconsciously using the thumb from whichever hand types that on a qwerty keyboard.

Nor that (some?) other people did not do this.

M.A.R.

My thumbs are too fat, I can't use them properly on a phone

Ryder is not Rude.

Are you just as fluent on other types of keyboards than qwerty.

tchrist

If I'm using the phone one-handed, then it doesn't matter what hand I use. It depends.

@RyderisnotRude. I'm a keyboardist.

I play the piano.

M.A.R.

But I make do with autocorrect and one thumb

tchrist

4:05 PM

Should one hand be otherwise occupied, it never bothers me to use the phone in the other hand.

Ryder is not Rude.

@tchrist Right, I forgot.

alphabet

I could never hold my phone and type simultaneously with my non-dominant hand.

tchrist

If unoccupied I guess it mostly depends which hand grabbed the phone, like from a pocket or a table top. Which is hardly a set thing. I just use whichever is...handy. I don't switch batters in the middle of a session.

Or inning.

@M.A.R. Seriously? Then do you have the Buddha nature? :)

MetaEd

Wordle 1,183 3/6

⬛⬛🟨🟨⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

tchrist

Remember T9?

T9 (predictive text)

T9 is a predictive text technology for mobile phones (specifically those that contain a 3×4 numeric keypad), originally developed by Tegic Communications, now part of Nuance Communications. T9 stands for Text on 9 keys. T9 was used on phones from Verizon, NEC, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Siemens, Sony Mobile, Sanyo, SAGEM and others, as well as PDAs such as Avigo during the late 1990s. The main competing technologies include iTap created by Motorola, SureType created by RIM, Eatoni's LetterWise and WordWise, and Intelab's Tauto. It still is used on niche products as Punkt mp-02. T9 is available...

Robusto

5:05 PM

@tchrist I hate when my fingernails get long enough to where they strike the piano keys. I'm constantly trimming them down to the quick, especially on the striking sides of my thumbs.

tchrist

yeah

SmokeDetector

5:51 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in title, potentially bad keyword in body, potentially bad keyword in title (100): Phonepe wrong transaction refund money‭ by Rinku Rajput‭ on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Potentially bad keyword in answer, blacklisted user (73): Phonepe wrong transaction refund money‭ by Rinku Rajput‭ on english.SE

Cerberus

6:57 PM

@tchrist I still use it in my dialler application.

It is good when you have a very small lexicon.

tchrist

Interesting observation.

Cerberus

So I press a few big buttons, and the person I want will always be in the top few results.

I type more 'letters' when I get too many results.

tchrist

Autocomplete is always best when there aren't infinite sets.

Cerberus

Exactly.

And T9 is very rough autocomplete.

tchrist

Rather.

Cerberus

7:02 PM

As each key can be 3 or 4 letters.

tchrist

Therein lies the rub.

But it's why there could be so many interesting phone numbers that mapped to memorable words.

As was of old customary in these parts.

Cerberus

'Thom' gives me too many results.

tchrist

Like you'd be told to dial 1-800-FOR-HELP or something.

Because it's fewer things to remember.

Cerberus

Oh it took me many years to understand what the letters in phone numbers meant in American adverts.

@tchrist Yes, it is quite convenient.

Provided that you have letters on the number keys.

tchrist

They just mean the letter that's written next to the number you dial, of course.

Seems curious that it was here only.

Cerberus

7:06 PM

@Cerberus It depends on how I configure the search, of course. But 8466 could also be a name containing t and later g o n.

tchrist

Why wouldn't that be the norm everywhere?

Cerberus

@tchrist I don't know, I don't remember ever seeing it here.

tchrist

Graecum est?

Cerberus

Perhaps the phones sold here didn't have letters printed?

But it still wasn't used by the time we had mobile phones and T9 on them.

tchrist

E.161

E.161 is an ITU-T Recommendation that defines the arrangement of digits, letters, and symbols on telephone keypads and rotary dials. It also defines the recommended mapping between the basic Latin alphabet and digits (e.g., "DEF" on 3). Uses for this mapping include: Multi-tap and predictive text systems. Forming phonewords from telephone numbers. Using alphabetic characters (e.g. as a mnemonic) in a personal identification number. Keypads are specified both in the common 4 × 3 and several variations, such as 6 × 2 and 2 × 5. E.161 also specifies the dimensions and characteristics of the asterisk...

TIL "phonewords"

Conrado

7:08 PM

@tchrist britishtelephones.com/dials/diallett.html

tchrist

@Conrado Well thank goodness there's a standard now. :)

Conrado

> we and the French moved the letter O to zero to reduce potential confusion.

Reduce?

Cerberus

@tchrist The word makes sense.

tchrist

@Conrado Perhaps in French it means to again-lead to something. :)

> The American passion for toll-free numbers that spelled words was copied to an extent in France, where letters appeared on push button phones supplied by France Tï¿½lï¿½com. These had the letters Q and Z on digit 0 and the same layout appeared on many mobile phones supplied by European manufacturers such as Nokia.

Mojibake much?

Maybe Q and Z they were putting on the the digit 0 because those are worth 10 points each in Scrabble.

Cerberus

But isn't the Q worth far les sin French?

I am also surprised that Q should be worth 10 in English!

tchrist

7:14 PM

Perhaps.

Cerberus

In Dutch, Z is worth far less.

tchrist

You too much German have.

Cerberus

@tchrist Our Z is very different from the German. They write S where we write Z.

And we write C or T or D where they have Z, I think.

tchrist

Cerberus

By the way, this photo is wrong! The letter IJ is not there.

tchrist

7:16 PM

So yes, French has Q=8.

Cerberus

That is still a lot.

tchrist

They really should not allow K or W at all. :)

Cerberus

But I suppose Scrabble value is quite different from letter frequency.

Conrado

> They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce. (Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad)

Cerberus

They have a lot of Q's in a text, but not many different words with Q, perhaps.

alphabet

7:17 PM

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Sep. 14, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ 💔 ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 1940

Cerberus

And different words is what matters in Scrabble.

Hey, we could do a new game.

alphabet

@Cerberus Also: to use a "Q", you almost always need to either also have a "U" or be able to find one conveniently placed on the board, which makes things rather tricky.

Cerberus

You are shown a set of scrabble tiles, and you must guess which language.

@alphabet Good point.

They could make QU one tile?

alphabet

#travle #640 +0
🟩🟩🟩✅✅
https://travle.earth

tchrist

Spanish has digraphs included as well.

Ñ: Worth 8 points
CH: Worth 5 points
LL: Worth 8 points
RR: Worth 8 points

@Cerberus yes

alphabet

7:20 PM

@Cerberus But there are some valid scrabble words that contain a "Q" without a following "U."

Cerberus

@tchrist Ahh see.

@alphabet But those are so rare that it wouldn't matter much if those were impossible?

Qokka?

tchrist

Cerberus

Oh, no, even quokka is with qu.

tchrist

Notice no K, no W.

There are anathema to Spanish orthography. No furrin wurdz allowed.

Cerberus

Impressive.

Even the Romans had K.

tchrist

7:22 PM

Kalends.

Cerberus

Though it was an archaic letter only used in a handful of words.

Indeed.

tchrist

Not a great deal of use.

Here in North America they print Scrabble letters with K and W.

What the hell happened to CH?

alphabet

@Cerberus I recall Quintilian recommending people avoid it.

tchrist

Woah and non-North Latin American Spanish Scrabble boards are even weirder.

Cerberus

@alphabet I think he wanted us to write K always before A!

alphabet

7:24 PM

> As for k my view is that it should not be used at all except in such words as may be indicated by the letter standing alone as an abbreviation. I mention the fact because some hold that k should be used whenever the next letter is an a, despite the existence of the letter c which maintains its force in conjunction with all the vowels.

Writing K before A is the view he's arguing against.

Cerberus

Ahh I see.

tchrist

You get three Ñ's but they only count 1!

Cerberus

Well, it seems his advice was mostly followed.

tchrist

In Spain, Mexico, and the United States you get only 1 of those but it counts 8.

alphabet

I've heard some speculate that this was because, in Quintilian's time, the pronunciation of c had shifted before some vowels to something other than /k/, meaning that k was used to unambiguously represent the /k/ sound. Quintilian is condemning this sound change ("...which maintains its force in conjunction with all the vowels") and the resulting spelling variations.

Cerberus

7:26 PM

Do they use Ñ more in Latin America, then?

@alphabet Ah, quite possibly.

tchrist

Perhaps a little. There are some weird Indian words that can start with Ñ.

Cerberus

I believe C was the standard abbreviation for Gaius.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

Confusion.

tchrist

It was.

No, it's because voicing of the velar stop was not originally phonemic in Latin.

Cerberus

7:28 PM

But Caius exists as a collateral form of Gaius as well.

tchrist

So they had no need to split kappa and gamma.

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

They eventually gave in but old habits remain forever.

Cerberus

They inherited four signs from Greeks and Etruscans, I believe. Or they made them into four.

Kappa, qoppa, gamma, C?

tchrist

Cerberus

7:30 PM

C and G are probably alternative forms of gamma that split off?

I always forget.

tchrist

> Latin included 21 different characters. The letter ⟨C⟩ was the
western form of the Greek gamma, but it was used for the sounds /ɡ/
and /k/ alike, possibly under the influence of Etruscan, which might
have lacked any voiced plosives. Later, probably during the 3rd century
BC, the letter ⟨Z⟩ – not needed to write Latin properly – was
replaced with the new letter ⟨G⟩, a ⟨C⟩ modified with a small
vertical stroke, which took its place in the alphabet. From then on,
⟨G⟩ represented the voiced plosive /ɡ/, while ⟨C⟩ was generally

Nota bene: "properly". :)

The letter ⟨Y⟩ when introduced was probably called "hy" /hyː/ as in Greek, the name upsilon not being in use yet, but this was changed to i Graeca ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing its foreign sound /y/ from /i/. ⟨Z⟩ was given its Greek name, zeta.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah this makes sense.

tchrist

> Diacritics were not regularly used, but they did occur sometimes, the most common being the apex used to mark long vowels, which had previously sometimes been written doubled. However, in place of taking an apex, the letter i was written taller: ⟨á é ꟾ ó v́⟩.

Cerberus

In Greek, I think no words begin with Y except when preceded by an H sound.

So it would be unnatural to call it Y not HY.

tchrist

Interesting.

Why isn't it Hypsilon then?

Cerberus

7:37 PM

I'm sure you can find that in texts!

Ypsilon may be a later invention?

tchrist

> Michael the Grammarian’s satire on the metropolitan of Philomelion (poem IV Mercati) can be dated to the middle of the eleventh century and allows one to prove that the letter of the Greek alphabet, hypsilon, was still pronounced by some part of the Byzantine population as a French “u” or a German “ü” by that time

’Parently so.

ref

Cerberus

Pretty cool.

And they Germans still pronounce Y the ancient Greek way.

/y/

tchrist

You still only get one Q but it's only worth 5.

jlliagre

@Cerberus Yes, that reminds me the first time I heard a German saying Ägypten.

I was surprised.

alphabet

It's always bothered me that (even college-level) Latin classes here teach you an extremely Anglicized pronunciation presented as the "reconstructed" one.

tchrist

7:45 PM