English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Spork

13:01

@RegDwigнt I'm here to contest the closure of my question. I bring (boring) facts to do so

RegDwigнt

Oh, it's closed.

I didn't know that.

Spork

@RegDwigнt it's a source for wikitionary, it's not a random google result

Robusto

@Spork You buried the lede.

Lead paragraph

A lead, or lede, paragraph in literature is the opening paragraph of an article, essay, news story or book chapter. Often called the lead, it usually occurs together with the headline or title. It precedes the main body of the article, and it gives the reader the main idea of the story. In both spellings, the word rhymes with the word need. == Spelling == In the journalism industry's news style, particularly in the United States, the term is often spelled "lede", to differentiate it from the metal lead (pronounced led), which was used in hot metal typesetting. This spelling may be found in online...

Spork

I don't know what that means, so I may end up learning something today

RegDwigнt

@Spork in my capacity as a former Wiktionary bureaucrat, I have to point out that "source for wiktionary" and "random google result" are on pretty much every synonym list ever. And certainly on Lee's Complete List.

So anyways. Is there a meta question about this yet?

Robusto

13:03

@Spork In journalese it means you introduced the real subject of your story far along in the telling of it.

Spork

@RegDwigнt that makes full sense ;) but the 'authority' of wiki* was brought forth by @Robusto, not me.

@Robusto I learned something today. So you're saying the title is a little too late to introduce the main topic, then?

Robusto

@Spork What does the title have to do with it? I'm talking about the lede. I'm talking about you coming into this chat with your agenda. Apparently you assume everything you've ever said is germane to this chat discussion.

Spork

I think it's mostly that the former title was too difficult. I reworded it. The upvoted wrong answer is still wrong, so no big deal for the answerers.

RegDwigнt

Depends on the title, really. And the context. Just like with everything else in language.

See, that is one title that was five centuries too early to introduce its topic.

Robusto

1. You enter chat
2. You rail about lists of oxymorons
3. Back and forth
4. You say what you're really here to talk about is the closing of your question

That is burying the lede.

Spork

13:06

@Robusto well, as I introduced the topic in the title, the lede seems to have gotten a shallow grave

ohhh, I thought you meant in the question itself

Robusto

@Spork There is no "title" in this chatroom for what you are talking about.

RegDwigнt

To his defense, absolutely any agenda or lack thereof is germane to this room because see room description.

Mitch

ooh nice extension of metaphor.

my agenda is that there is no agenda

RegDwigнt

But I do endorse moving this to a meta question, because there it can have a happier home.

Robusto

Or not.

Spork

13:08

I mean I honestly don't care if the question is open or not, the reason I'm here is because there was discussion about my question that could not be done through question comments. This is a result of it being closed, but I'm not here to open it necessarily.

Robusto

[can't type today]

Mitch

Also that you must not force an agenda

RegDwigнt

@Robusto That's the beauty of meta. Momma always said, it is like a box of chocolates.

Robusto

@Spork And all I did was post my opinion about the qualification of "pretty ugly" as an oxymoron, and include a little history of how your term was used humorously. Then suddenly you start casting me as a poster boy for prescriptivism.

Mitch

also that 'because most/all lists include an item makes it so' is not descriptivism, it's everybody being wrong. lists are not languages

Spork

13:09

@Robusto you're confusing people

not all low-rep users are the same

Mitch

@RegDwigнt fattening

RegDwigнt

I demand all poster boys be replaced with pinup girls.

Robusto

@Spork That makes two of us.

RegDwigнt

And I demand it now.

Who are "people" and what is "confusing"?

Robusto

@Spork Now I really have no idea what your point is.

RegDwigнt

13:10

Welcome to the Incomprehensible Room.

Matt E. Эллен

I'll meet you half way and replace poster boys with pinup kittens

Spork

people -> me and ben hocking, confusing -> mixing them up

RegDwigнt

I really think we should put the sign back up.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt and favorite son with black sheep

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен How about kitten videos? Would that help?

Matt E. Эллен

13:11

yes

RegDwigнt

@Spork nah don't pay attention to me, I'm writing my usual Ulysses.

Also, you sure that Merriam-Webster are aware of your definition of "people"?

Robusto

room topic changed to English Language & Usage: The Incomprehensible Room [everyone-talks-at-once]

Spork

@Robusto I never accused you of anything but petty/nonconstructive comments

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Ha!! You like puppies instead of kittens! Admit it! I've caught you in your nefarious lie of a world view!!

RegDwigнt

I want to accuse @Rob of petty comments, too.

yesterday, by Robusto

Petty cash is the money that Tom Petty makes for performing. Duh.

Accusation complete.

Robusto

13:12

@Spork Hahaha, and that is your defense? That you belittled me? My, you do know how to win people to a point of view, don't you?

Spork

I belittled you?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch I don't know what you're talking about

RegDwigнt

Okay now can everyone just calm down and talk about Merkel again. Please.

She was cruel to a refugee girl.

Faheem Mitha

31

Q: How to prevent quick outdation of questions?

If we were to make a SE on Hardware Recommendations, most of the questions which would end up here will get outdated very quickly. It's possible to also encounter questions such as: Gaming Computer Configuration under $1000? MacBook Pro graphics card suggestion? I think we should find a way t...

technology

Spork

I never want to win people to a point of view, I want to learn from theirs. I had expected to learn something from those who see 'pretty ugly' as definitely not-an-oxymoron, not convince the interwebs.

Mitch

13:14

@MattE.Эллен don't twist my words. You claimed that... searches for evidence

Faheem Mitha

I'm fairly sure outdation isn't a word (and, of course, it is an Indian writing).

Mitch

also authorities dispatched prophylactically

Faheem Mitha

What would be a suitable replacement? Outdating?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch (quickly edits away the evidence)

tchrist

Merkin always heightens the tone of the conversation.

Mitch

13:14

Don't give the stormtroopers a hard time, they're just doing their job.

Robusto

@Spork I'm sure there are many lists of definitions for that word that you could find on the web.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Is the alternative going to the prom with your sister or cousin?

tchrist

@FaheemMitha And?

RegDwigнt

So anyway. In the spirit of actually providing an on-topic comment for once: I am one of those who see 'pretty ugly' as definitely not-an-oxymoron. That said, I can't promise you can expect to learn anything from me. Other than that 'pretty ugly' as definitely not-an-oxymoron, that is.

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist So, what is a suitable replacement?

Outdating?

Mitch

13:16

TIL that Reg thinks that... of forget it.

tchrist

@Mitch That is allowed only with your cousin-sister alone, not also with her sister-cousin.

Spork

I expected english.SE to be more enlightening than 'the web', as the other *.SE sites are. But hey, maybe your insinuation that the rest of the web contains more useful information is true.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha expiration?

Robusto

@Spork Again, you're shifting your focus. Which is it? You want to learn, you want to argue for a point of view, you want to find balm for the wounds we inflicted on you, you want to show that pretty ugly is found in some lists? What?

Mitch

de-in-halation?

Faheem Mitha

13:16

/me wonders if there is an English Language and Usage where people actually discuss English Language and Usage...

tchrist

@FaheemMitha ”How to prevent questions from quickly becoming outdated?”

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Sounds good. Thank you.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha ha ha, for once, we actually are.

Faheem Mitha

Do you want me to credit you? I'll add a comment.

RegDwigнt

@Spork nah, you've only talked to like ten people here by now. And like a hundred on the Internet. That's not a representative enough sample to jump to conclusions.

Spork

13:17

@Robusto why would you argue for a point if not to learn?

Mitch

To win!

tchrist

@Spork Sheer bloody mindedness.

Robusto

@Spork Wut?

RegDwigнt

@Spork have you ever seen a politician?

Their whole job description is "argue for points to not learn".

It's a very vast group of people, too!

Spork

@RegDwigнt it actually is :) I just may be incorrect in my conclusion, but luckily that conclusion is crowd-sourced, and there will be enough other users for english.SE to reach a fair conclusion in that respect

Robusto

13:19

You overestimate the abilities of crowd-sourcing.

Spork

@RegDwigнt hahah, touché

Faheem Mitha

In "pretty ugly", pretty is used as a modifier. Meaning "very", approximately.

Spork

thank you @FaheemMitha

tchrist

@Spork Oft evil will shall evil mar.

Spork

that was funny

Faheem Mitha

13:19

Having said that, it's a combination I would hesitate to use.

tchrist

@FaheemMitha Technically, it’s an intensifier.

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist I stand corrected. Thank you.

RegDwigнt

@Spork I'm just saying, when I first came here, it took me three days to see that ELU was superior to things I had seen before, but it's been taking me five years to try and understand how or why, and I'm still stuck at the "try" part.

Robusto

The point is, however many lists include "pretty ugly" as an oxymoron, pretty does not mean beautiful in the expression, and so it is merely a modifier that has no antithetical relation to ugly.

Spork

the etymology for pretty is actually [ugh] interesting

tchrist

13:20

@Robusto Yes, those lists are wrong.

Faheem Mitha

@Spork Do tell.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt Because the and bothers you? :)

Robusto

@tchrist Careful, @Spork is going to accuse you of being a prescriptivist.

Faheem Mitha

I use "pretty" in that sense a fair amount, but it is a somewhat weird usage, admittedly.

Spork

@Robusto and no definition of oxymoron actually requires for the meaning of the lemmas within the sentence to be the ones actually opposite

Mitch

13:21

@Robusto Congrats (early) on getting a silver for the dog-love question. Which @MattE.Эллен is now a known member

Faheem Mitha

Though probably no weirder than much of English.

RegDwigнt

Apr 16 '11 at 22:10, by RegDwight

That's a reference only @Vitaly will fully appreciate. There's a Russian children's verse that goes, "A and B sat on the chimney top. A fell down, B disappeared, who's left?"

Robusto

@Mitch Cómo?

Spork

I've also never in my life accused anyone of being prescriptivist.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch it's not that I don't love dogs. I like kittens more than puppies

Mitch

13:22

22

A: Is 'I f*cked the dog' an actual idiom and are there alternatives

"Fuck the dog" (or its milder variant, "screw the pooch") comes from an old joke. There are various versions, but a drunk man ends up shooting the wife and screwing the pooch (instead of the other way around). Reddit It is certainly not about idleness, but epic failure to get a sequence r...

Matt E. Эллен

kittens are demonstrably cuter

Mitch

@Spork How dare you!

@MattE.Эллен Oh

Robusto

@Mitch Silver? How so?

RegDwigнt

@Robusto it's the same people that call eye rhymes rhymes. Parental advisory.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Then, with all due respect, why did you choose pinup puppies rather than pinup kittens as is traditional? Are you some kind of dog-lover?

RegDwigнt

13:23

@Spork okay, serious question now. How is such a definition of an oxymoron useful at all?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch alliteration

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Well played

Robusto

@Spork Yes. And so if you remove the qualification for an oxymoron to have antithetical terms, then all two-word terms are potential oxymora.

Spork

@RegDwigнt it is useful as it seems to be the definition actually employed by people

Mitch

@RegDwigнt They used to be rhymes. In another age and universe.

RegDwigнt

13:25

@Spork I don't know that they are employing it. If the words involved don't have to be opposites, then that definition matches all combinations of all words in all languages.

Robusto

My point exactly.

Mitch

@Spork the definition is to use the two words canonical meanings in isolation?

Spork

@RegDwigнt I agree it isn't logically sound or amazing, but language is used by people, and the experience of contradiction in our brain is what makes it an oxymoron, which is what all the lists reflect.

RegDwigнt

When everything is an oxymoron, nothing is. Just like when everyone is beautiful, no one is.

Robusto

@Spork Ok, now you're just dieseling.

RegDwigнt

13:26

@Spork yes I know, there are similar definitions of things like "word" or "sentence" that I find equally useless because, well, they are.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt Those would be the folks who couldn’t pull out the rime of a word if an albatross hung around their neck.

Spork

And for the record, I initially felt like 'pretty ugly' is NOT an oxymoron, hence I was taken aback by @BenHocking 's comment to the 'certainly possible' question. I decided I wanted to find out if it is an oxymoron, so I made a question on english.SE. Seemed appropriate.

Mitch

@Robusto also, i expect that you'l get a silver for your answer because it's multicollider fodder

Robusto

Been that for days, so far no silver.

RegDwigнt

I've still not checked the question. But I doubt it's anywhere as sparkling as this discussion.

tchrist

13:27

Oxysoft: What happens when sophomores and oxymorons collide, dully.

RegDwigнt

Sep 12 '12 at 14:01, by ЯegDwight

When higs collide, like you and I, no shadows block the Sun.

Spork

@RegDwigнt it isn't, anymore.. I had to dumb it down.

RegDwigнt

Evolution at work.

Spork

the fitness function of this sub-site is definitely an intersting one. Post an answer with a singular source that contradicts your answer -> get upvoted.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt You’ll’ve not learned your lesson from Through a Glass Darkly then.

Mitch

13:29

@Robusto two days, and two away

Matt E. Эллен

I think that if you say that "pretty ugly" is an oxymoron then you have to say "open container" is, too.

and things just start to get silly

RegDwigнt

Yeah I think by now there are like 20k people with the privilege to vote. But the only people who can tell English from english are in this room not voting.

Also, did your question get on the MultiCollider by any chance?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I'm not laughing.

RegDwigнt

That would explain any amount of silliness you can imagine, and beyond.

Spork

Is multicollider the term you use for the abomination that is the "Hot questions" section?

Matt E. Эллен

13:31

@Mitch not even a forced, hollow laugh of desolation?

Mitch

Jaw pinned shut from surgery after disturbing deli equipment accident. laughing with eyes

Robusto

0

A: Colloquial meaning of 'exponential decrease'

The fall in the number of fish in the lake has been snowballing.

Wut? How is that an answer to anything?

tchrist

> Roll roll roll a troll,
gently down the the hill:
Merrily merrily merrily merrily,
Here comes another shill.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist I keep hearing about that glass darkly thing. I've still not checked out what it even is.

The closest I ever came to checking out Glass Darkly was this:

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

►

Which is to say, not too very close at all.

Mitch

@Spork Yes. or at least I learned that descriptively following other people usage. I like 'hot question list' better now that I've heard it for the first time.

@Robusto snowballs are obviously exponential. duh

RegDwigнt

13:33

@Robusto it is an answer to the question "Has the fall in the number of fish in the lake been snowballing?" Also, to "Who is Putin?"

tchrist

Seeing life through a glass darkly is more tenebrous than la vie en rose.

Mitch

Unless you have a lot of roses.

RegDwigнt

Mar 13 '13 at 1:03, by RegDwighт

Sub umbra alarum tuarum Iehova.

Mitch

semper ubi sub ubi

Robusto

Mixed metaphors are the Swiss Army Knife of ELU answers, snowballing like dragonfire in the bowling alley of Life.

RegDwigнt

13:34

What's Kirstie Alley to do with this?

Mitch

Thats not a metaphor, that's a metabarf

RegDwigнt

So. Thor, Vör, and Metaphor walk into a bar.

tchrist

> Bright autumn fish
Build mighty snow castles
Of captured snowballs.

Pandya

in ELL's Cabin, 7 mins ago, by Pandya

Free vs Open : exact meaning

in ELL's Cabin, 2 mins ago, by Pandya

Freedom vs Openness

tchrist

@RegDwigнt I hate it when he spakes that way.

@Pandya Cheap shots are always easily had at an open bar.

Comparing apples and avarice.

RegDwigнt

13:39

James Cameron's Avarice was epic.

tchrist

Everyone needs a Varys on his side.

Getting dotty.

Pandya

I think I should stay @ chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/22937/ells-cabin

tchrist

Thanks for all the fisheses.

Pandya

@RegDwigнt btw, English directory suggestion for that? (EN->EN)

ok

Matt E. Эллен

ok

Mitch

13:46

ok?

Matt E. Эллен

sure

Mitch

How can you be so sure? puppy lover.

Matt E. Эллен

if you say so, kitten objectifier

RegDwigнt

ok

→ 7 messages moved to ELL's Cabin

Matt E. Эллен

ok

RegDwigнt

14:04

It's not right. But it's ok.

Matt E. Эллен

the theme tune to all SWRs

RegDwigнt

To all of them, you say?

Matt E. Эллен

ALL OF THEM

RegDwigнt

Well rats. There goes my hope of distinguishing them by name or tune.

And just so you know, I'm not paid enough to distinguish them by smell.

Matt E. Эллен

perhaps if you were paid less...

RegDwigнt

14:13

... we'd enter the realm of imaginary numbers.

Alas, my boss is determined to not let you enter it.

Matt E. Эллен

I imagine all sorts of numbers

RegDwigнt

His name is Gandalf. He is determined a lot.

Matt E. Эллен

Bob Gandalf

RegDwigнt

> Statisticians have computed that the MH17 crash claimed a bigger share of the Dutch population than 9/11 did in the US.

Well no shit Sherlock. You needed "statisticians" to "compute" that for you?

And then it goes on for four friggin paragraphs explaining the math.

Jesus Christ.

This humanity is lost. Propose another.

Matt E. Эллен

I propose a humanity where old people stop liking photos of cats

and this makes them more creative

RegDwigнt

14:23

I dunno. Liking photos of cats does seem to be more creative than old people's pastimes from yesteryear. Like, for example, being dead all of the time.

Matt E. Эллен

don't get me wrong, I don't think old people need to stop liking photos of cats, as humanity is now. Right now photos of cats are the life blood of our culture

but a new humanity, where cat photos were only appealing to younger folk, that's the way of the future

RegDwigнt

Matt E. Эллен

ankh more cat

RegDwigнt

Civilizations using cats for life blood have gone extinct before. When will we learn? WHEN?

Matt E. Эллен

I just don't know. I'm a software developer, Jim, not a futurist, damnit

RegDwigнt

14:28

Futur ist, Futur war, Futur wird immer gewesen sein.

Matt E. Эллен

Haute Future

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен whereas puppies are for old people, to pull them out of burning buildings.

right at the moment of tenderness and flavor.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch I cannot speculate on the future of puppies. Who knows if they have a place in the cat world order

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Futurkampf

@MattE.Эллен as playthings, to prevent from going through doorways. or snacks

RegDwigнt

14:43

Doorway is such a retarded word.

So is it a way or is there a door? Make your mind up, English.

I think doorway should be put on the list of all oxymorons.

Matt E. Эллен

I think night owl should. Time and animals are opposites

RegDwigнt

Meanwhile Germany sets another world record. Just like that:

> 218000 — never before had more German catholics left the church in a single year.

Matt E. Эллен

is this because the pope believes in climate change?

RegDwigнt

No, it's because the German states believes in church tax.

Seriously.

Matt E. Эллен

why would that encourage people to leave?

they're taxing the church not the goers?

or is it the other way around?

RegDwigнt

14:52

@MattE.Эллен I have no idea. I do not know that there's a reason. Could be a simple axiom of life.

Matt E. Эллен

ah

RegDwigнt

If the pope (or Mohammed) says, "fuck with condom bad, fuck three year old without condom good", people are like "oh yeah, right on, you're the man". If the pope (or Mohammed) says "keep money bad, give money good", people are like "fuck you pope (or Mohammed)".

It is a mystery of life that can only succumb to Sir Richard Attenborough.

Alas, he takes his time uploading the research to YouTube.

Matt E. Эллен

yeah. I guess if the church wasn't really doing anything for them, why pay for it?

RegDwigнt

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (born 20 November 1959) is a German prelate of the Catholic Church and theologian. He was a vicar and an auxiliary bishop in Münster before becoming the Bishop of Limburg in January 2008. On 23 October 2013, he was suspended by the Vatican from the exercise of his episcopal office. The reasons have not been specified, but are believed related to the controversies on his expenses which earned him the nicknames "gold-plated bishop" and "bishop of bling" in the world press, and also to his having settled a perjury case for €20,000. On 26 March 2014, Pope Francis accepted...

Well they've been doing something for someone. You must give them that.

> In October 2013 the German press called for Tebartz-van Elst to resign after the building costs of the Limburg bishop's residence topped €31 million. The bishop's private apartment included a "$20,000 bathtub, $500,000 of built-in closets, and a $35,000 conference table."

> When the building complex opened on 29 June 2013, the diocese announced that the final "all-in"-costs would be €9,850,000. It changed that number just one day later, after an internal audit committee complained that the number was totally unrealistic.

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt yeah. that's a nice deal if you can get it

RegDwigнt

15:00

> With liability for damage to neighboring buildings included, the estimated cost was eventually updated to €40 million.

Matt E. Эллен

only €40 million? have two!

skill patrol

Hi all :-)

Matt E. Эллен

Hi

RegDwigнt

@MattE.Эллен right on, and now imagine getting two for each of the 218000 would-be catholics. I say, good thing they left!

Now a true Christian can expect to get 2.1, or even 2.3!

Cerberus

@BenHocking Good about about pretty ugly.

RegDwigнt

15:11

And thus it happened that Cerberus conversed in indecipherable fragments.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Curious. Was the building constructed around the cable, or was the cable drilled through the building?

RegDwigнt

That is the best thing about Russia: you will never know. There are no witnesses. And your best working theory is that both the building and the powerline, start to finish, were put in place simultaneously.

Or maybe they used the powerline to transport the building there. Drill a hole in it, hang it on the wire, and with a gentle push it will travel the 1352 verst to its designated destination.

The Germans and the Chinese do that with trains, so why not with buildings.

Robusto

16:04

@Cerberus Wut?

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I spell werst.

@Robusto Ugh, my typical typo.

I don't remember which noun should replace the first about.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Just pick any noun. It's like "mad libs"

Cerberus

Who is that?

I've just flashed a new ROM onto my G2.

It seems to be smoother than stock.

Robusto

I am jealous.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Mad Libs

Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game where one player prompts others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, before reading the – often comical or nonsensical – story aloud. The game is frequently played as a party game or as a pastime. The game was invented in the United States, and more than 110 million copies of Mad Libs books have been sold since the series was first published in 1958. == History == Mad Libs was invented in 1953 by Leonard Stern and Roger Price. Stern and Price co-created the game, but couldn't agree on a name for their invention. No name was chosen until...

Robusto

16:08

The worst part of having a phone contract is not being able to root the phone.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto how does that stop you?

Robusto

Well, laziness and not wanting the hassle are things that stop me.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Those don't seem related to the phone contract

In fact, wouldn't the contract simply prevent you from cancelling the service without paying a fee?

You could smash your phone, buy a different phone, and they wouldn't even notice or care.

Robusto

Don't argue with me. I am too lazy to argue back.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That's a first

Robusto

16:10

Thing is, if I fuck up the rooting then I have no recourse.

Also it's an unholy pain to reinstall all my apps, etc., etc.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, you have the exact same recourse with/without a contract.

you may be able to root without wiping.

you can't install a ROM without wiping though.

Mitch

16:24

@MattE.Эллен You pay extra tax to the government for that church if you elect to do so (or don't say no). Therefore people choose to say no. That's cash in your pocket that God won't be giving you (he's kinda cheap that way)

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch I see. interesting

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Oh. That's different. I'd totally pay for that guy to have a conference table instead of me.

@MattE.Эллен I know. messed up. it's like they're trying to drive people to godlessness. Also removal of TVs. There's a tax on TV sets. Those wacky Germans!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch yeah! what kind of nation would make you pay the government money to receive TV broadcasts...

(Hides TV license under doormat)

Mitch

wait... in England too?

In the US they just broadcast blipverts which intoxicate you to buy stuff from people you don't know. Corporate welfare via public service annonucements!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch since forever!

I don't actually have a license, because I don't have a TV, but I still get mail from the TV licensing authority every month asking me to buy a license.

I could explain to them, but it's less effort to throw away a letter

skill patrol

16:35

You don't have a TV?

You've never had one?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен You could just let the letter sit there

But then staring at it would take energy

Matt E. Эллен

@skillpatrol since 2010

Mitch

an established...establishment

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch plus I could slip on it and break my back. health and safety first

Mitch

Heroin free since ... checks watch

@MattE.Эллен IKR! especially the glossy pictures

and perfume

@MattE.Эллен do they have 'inspectors' that come around and check if you have a TV screen or not?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:43

@MattE.Эллен But you have free healthcare!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch so, you can own a TV, so long as your aerial is not plugged in to it. however, since pretty much every house has an aerial, it's difficult to prove that you don't use your TV to receive broadcasts, unless you blank off your aerial sockets. And, yes, there are inspectors that come round, but you're not obliged to let them in

Mitch

It's not the back breaking part that's so bad, it's the lines at 'broken back dance-offs' that are the worst

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 true! in fact, I'll go and break my back right now, to get my money's worth!

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Police state!

@MattE.Эллен That's funny (or not funny) because in fact, quitting smoker younger actually increases the amount of health care dollars spent on you (because you live longer, and therefore have even more expensive illnesses awaiting you that dying from smoking avoids.

Well, I've heard. I haven't experienced that yet myself.

Matt E. Эллен

maybe, but I'm not sure that works out, since the diseases that smoking causes are pretty expensive to treat (e.g. cancer) so if you live longer do you get cancer more often?

skill patrol

16:51

Woot, I smoked when I was young?

And drank and etc :P

Mitch

@skillpatrol Oh no, that's the worst! The earlier you quit, the even longer that you'll live and incur even higher health care costs. But on the bright side, you'll have that much longer to annoy the younger generations with stories of yelling at them to get off your lawn.

skill patrol

:D

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I on;y know the anecdote without any supporting references/links. So it could obviously be very misleading or remembered wrong. I think it's one of those freakonomics things that sounds cool because it is so mind bending but in the end doesn't make sense, because you're not going to take up smoking because of it.

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