@terdon could be considered a figurative for the science

@Mitch I know. I think it is absolutely horrible. But is it any different to what happened with hopefully or momentarily?

@terdon Good point. and 'hopefully' is very much accepted as a sentence modifier now. But there's something special about 'literally'. Having it be an intensifier seems like a classic case of misinterpreted cargo-cult use. Someone heard someone else use 'literally' literally, but they didn't know what 'literally' meant and interpreted it as 'really'. But the canonical meaning of 'literally' is 'verbatim' or 'truthfully despite seeming hyperbole'.

wait...that's not my point, but not what I don't think.

Heh. Point is you are being a prescriptivist curmudgeon when it comes to literally. A crime I am also very much guilty of.

it's both an auto-antonym and autologous

Nevertheless, if that's the way it goes, our grandchildren will simply use it to mean figuratively. And, presumably, some other word will be co-opted to mean literally.

@terdon we're all prescriptivists at some point otherwise we couldn't communicate.

@terdon there's the literal treadmill!

@Mitch So is cleave.

@Mitch True. The problem comes when we're in the middle of a transitional period such as this.

yeah. unfortunate. Makes you not want to use 'cleave'. just separate or join.

I can't find any more style guides that mention 'literally' yet. just the NYT's one

Other languages should show this 'figurative' use of a word that literally means 'non-figurative'.

Hmm. Is very much guilty of OK for you? On second reading it seems strange.

I mean that's my expectation

@terdon My feeling is that its hyperbolic use will either fade as a fad or will remain mostly in cases where the hyperbole is clear.

@terdon seems OK

I'm OK with a lot of intensifiers on seemingly ultimate things (whatever the word is for things that can't be 'moreso')

like 'more unique'. Sometimes it's OK. You're emphasizing the degree of how far away anything else is.

@Mitch It's a mistake to call it "figurative literal". It's hyperbole.

Like 'really pregnant'. means 'ready to pop'

hyperbolic literal is what you should call it, and think of it as.

so to speak.

Example here

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 not if the literal meaning of literal is literal. It doesn't mean hypoerbole when used figuratively, it means 'really'. What comes after is already recognized as hyperbole

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no one says that

@Mitch exactly

nobody says "literally" when they mean "figuratively"

literally nobody says that.

it is hyperbole.

sure it's used in almost always a hyperbolic context. but it doesn't itself, in those contexts signify 'hyperbolically'

I never said it -means- figurative, just that it is used figuratively

You've misunderstood literally everything I've said.

but if you're opposed to "He literally exploded", which is hyperbole, why aren't you opposed to "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse"?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Because there's no claim to being literally so hungry made.

@terdon but that's literally what the sentence claims

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ? it's about the use of 'literally' not the use of hyperbole, or figures of any kind. Especially since the word 'literally' is intended to mark things as non-figurative.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but since it isn't claiming to do so literally, it isn't really relevant to the discussion.

He literally exploded is stating that someone actually blew up.

Either way, a claim is made, and the claim is hyperbolic

@terdon but the whole sentence is hyperbole

not-X doesn't mean the diametric opposite of X. there's a big range of things in between and off to the side.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but the hyperbole isn't the problem. It the claim that this isn't, in fact, hyperbole but a literal description, that bugs us.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but that doesn't mean that 'literally' is being used as 'hyperbolic' there

There are more examples here about why it's pointless, futile, literally wrong, etc, to argue about hyperbolic literal

@terdon Right, and to be computery about it, that's what gets stuck in our craw, that a term that is being used to state that something should be taken at face value, that term could be used to take something -not- at face value, and so you don't know which one to take.

@Mitch Nobody says "he hyperbolicaly exploded" either. The hyperbole is intensified by adding literally.

Entirely against Grice's maxims.

(not that Grice's maxims are 'correct', but just appropriate for certain kinds of communication)

> Very was originally used to indicate that something was true or real, as in the phrase ‘he was a veri prophett’ in William Tyndale’s Bible of 1526. This meaning, though less fashionable now, is still used, and its semantic root is apparent in words like verity, veracity, and verify. Only later did people start using the word as an intensifier.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nobody says "he soothingly exploded" either. The problem is about the specific use of the word literally. If your example doesn't use that word, it isn't really relevant.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's all my point was. It sounded like you were saying that 'literally' - 'hyperbolically' and I was saying that it is meant only as an intensifier. Which is just not necessary in practice because an existing hyperbole is pretty recognizable and doesn't need intensifying.

like exploding after eating

except for that one guy in that movie

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yep. That's a great counter example, and that is indeed what I think is happening with literally. But since we're of an age to have learned the word to mean A, it is very strange for us that it is now used to mean -A.

'literally' = 'totally' = 'really' = ' holy crap'

@terdon Except that's not what it means or how it's used.

Oh shit. 'really' is not really real.

it has the same problem.

shit

It still has the meaning of "verbatim"

The hyperbolic use is limited to certain kinds of sentences

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not when used in cases like he ate so much literally exploded.

@terdon yes, fine, it has multiple meanings. But it still has its original meanings.

That is not understood as a case of a human being distributing themselves over a large area.

@Mitch It's worse with literally. Literally doesn't only mean real. It means "non-figuratively".

'After he ate the grenade he literally exploded'

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Sure. And as I said to @Mitch, this is normal and one of the ways that language changes. I still dislike it though.

'After he ate the Baked Alaska, he literally exploded, because Mt McKinley'

Language Log discussed the four stages of the use of the word and how they follow a sensible pattern of change in usage over time

@terdon But just because language changes, doesn't mean that all changes are useful/good/practical/etc etc. It's just an observation (descriptive) that language changes, that's all.

> The first … means “in a literal manner; word for word”: the passage was translated literally. The second … means “in a literal way”: some people interpret the Bible literally.

> The third … could be defined “actually” or “really” and is used to add emphasis. It seems to be of literary origin. […] The purpose of the adverb in [these] instances is to add emphasis to the following word or phrase, which is intended in a literal sense. The [fourth,] hyperbolic use comes from placing the same intensifier in front of some figurative word or phrase which cannot be taken literally.

actually that quote is from M-W I think

@Mitch Of course not. Although I'd argue that attempting to define them as either good or bad is the wrong approach. Change is change, there's no better or worse, really. But yes, I agree that I personally find some changes "bad" and would probably convince myself I have valid and rational reasons. I'd still be wrong.

> the emphasizing sense has been the commonest meaning of literally for a century or more

And had I been born after the change, I'm sure I'd have found it good. As I have with all the changes that occurred before my time since those are the language as I know it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 WHAT!? Really?

@terdon emphasizing, not hyperbolic

Ah.

OK so meaning, well, literally.

well. not literally literally

People make style ... errors all the time.

@terdon I think that good /bad are avoided only because they hurt people's feelings. They are still accurate assessments

@Mitch Is the misuse of the apostrophe in the non-possesive it's a good or bad change?

It introduces ambiguity where there was none. It introduces an ugly contraction instead of the infinitely better it is and breaks the general rule that apostrophe + s makes a possessive.

Grammarians were railing against it when it was first introduced. Using all sorts of (valid) arguments about "good" or "bad". They were still wrong in attempting to apply a value to change.

@terdon I didn't know about that history.

Language Log has dated intensifying-literal-for-figurative-speech to the 1760s

@terdon Apostrophes are almost always used in contractions, and pronouns are almost never rendered possessive with the apostrophe s convention or pluralized with just an s, so making "it's" strictly a contraction follows an odd sort of logic where the mark is freed up for a purpose it couldn't normally have.

@terdon maybe because you can't ascribe good/bad in that case doesn't mean it's not useful elsewhere.

@Tonepoet I wonder, though, how useful it is to distinguish between it's and its in writing. We don't distinguish it in speech and it's not usually a problem.

@terdon And I recollect reading an answer regarding one of the objections (I forgot which one). Arguing that it's shouldn't exist because 'tis exists as a contraction vaguely misses the point of the apostrophe in contractions, which is to represent elision.

@Tonepoet Sure, but when it was first introduced, prescriptivist grammarians were railing against it as a deformation of the language. There was a great Q&A here about that. Let me see if I can find it.

Hmm. This is one part of the story and it answers your point about pronouns:

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I want a cross linguistic analysis. There's nothing special about English here. All modern European languages have the 'literal' + adv word

Ah, there we go:

> Some, very improperly, use it's instead of 'tis, for the contraction of it is: and hence many profess to omit the apostrophe in the possessive case it's, lest it should be confounded with a word, that ought never to occur.

@Mitch Send a nicely worded email to Language Log, maybe they'll oblige

And here's the one I was looking for:

@Tonepoet Ah yes, that's the one I was looking for as well.

the apostrophe question is mostly irrelevant to the 'literal' problem.

> "The sentence ' "Literal" has a non-literal meaning' is literally unresolvable"

Note the extra quote

irresolvable

insoluable

irresonant

obstruent

Gonna have an irresolution...

You should see a doctor about that

@Mitch It's still interesting though.

@Mitch It is, but it is an example of a change that (I think) most "educated" people would have objected to at the time. You could make a very valid case for its being a "bad" change. And that's why I used it to illustrate my claim that "good" and "bad" are not really relevant adjectives when discussing language evolution.

Closed as primarily opinion based, if you prefer.

@Tonepoet no doubt. and there's some of the same prescriptive/descriptive. Just most of the issues aren't in the same semantic-drift area. Also it is more about orthography which is only quasi-linguistic. Interesting sure but a whole other set of issues.

The non-literal literally doesn't have any of the 'zombie rule' problems that other prescriptivist problems have.

@terdon if we want to slip into that conversation... sure one can always come up with less judgmental or less elitist vocabulary than good/bad/incorrect/wrong/dumb, but they might end up being weasel words attached to the same feeling.

@Mitch I am not sure if I should agree with that statement. What do you mean by "zombie rule problems"?

uncommon, non-standard, dialectal, unofficial, not in the style guide, etc etc

@Tonepoet made up rules for language patterns that never existed or were only suggestions, are continuously debunked, but then somehow keep coming back like zombies

like ending a sentence with a preposition (phrasal verbs provide many instances where a preposition comes at the end, splitting infinitives is entirely OK but somehow the New Yorker has an autocorrect that ruins the legibility of a sentence)

@Mitch It kinda does: "This is what it meant in my day so this is what it should mean today".

@terdon Most zombie rules were actually never alive to begin with (those two I mentioned)

I know. But this is still a knee-jerk reaction to change. And, I stress, I share it. I absolutely hate this use of literally. But I know I will have to accept it.

that's what I mean when I say the 'literally used nonliterally' phenomenon is not a zombie rule.

@terdon Here's my point of view:

@Mitch The preposition thing has some validity. When so-called prepositions are "deferred" or left "dangling" it usually seems to be as a result of some form of ellipsis or an adverbial use. It's usually just as awkward to end a declarative statement with a noun/preposition combination as it is to end a sentence with a conjunction.

If you're saying "I have published a couple books" but in reality, you are in the process of writing a screen play and have three very long articles, then you're exaggerating.

But if you have published exactly 2 books, then you're being literal.

These are two ways of communicating, one to give a vague impression, one to pass on data.

@Tonepoet Look up zombie rule.

@Mitch I have, but I wanted to know what you meant by it is all. I get the point.

To continue, those two variants (and the continuum between) can be described using terms like literal figurative etc. Language can only be described using language.

Will I be correct if I say the "rhetoric" that politicians use is similar to weasel words?

@Tonepoet Good for you

To continue, wait... is that it?

@englishstudent I'd prefer "so-called" to scare quotes.

@englishstudent It might be correct, but I'd disagree as a matter of what is what. Political rhetoric often uses weasel words, in order to claim plausible deniability, or to be able to say "I wasn't totally wrong because there was doubt"

@Tonepoet what about "scare quotes"?

@Mitch It seems like English Student is trying to suggest that rhetoric isn't literally the right word for it. =P

@Tonepoet tonepoet I don't understand what you mean. You mean I should use a scare quote there somewhere?

@Mitch ok thanks!

@Tonepoet I see what you did there.

@terdon Oh that's good: I was hoping somebody would notice that.

@englishstudent Wow, what interesting questions. I usually listen to music only in the car, on the radio. And I flip among many stations (mostly classic rock) but pop/R&B/hp-hop or news when others are there (depending on the audience). Sometimes I'll listen to records I had when I was younger on youtube.

@englishstudent Would you give us the exact sentence you originally wanted to write?

@Tonepoet there's a literal and a figurative meaning to 'rhetoric'

@Mitch Is that really the case? I know people try to render the word rhetoric ineffective through the use of grammatical diminutives, but that's more of a function of the diminutive than the word rhetoric itself.

Are you literally using rhetoric rhetorically?

@Tonepoet That's funny. = )

@Mitch You had records on youtube when you were younger?

@terdon when he was younger, he was on youtube

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Or maybe this happened when he was younger on youtube and not when he was younger in real life.

Man, for someone who so espouses an absence of ambiguity, Mitch sure is writing ambiguous stuff :P

@Tonepoet I don't have it now. I will let you know though. I just wanted to know if they were similar enough. And Mitch's "plausible deniability" comment is pretty good too.

@terdon literally

word

@englishstudent I don't know if I said that. Literally.

@Mitch Cool.

Maybe diminutive wasn't the right word...

@terdon Speaking of fruit flies like a banana... Mahlzeit!

@Tonepoet It's the right word for nothing like that context.

rhetoricule

@Mitch What? I always thought they were more partial to arrows!

Or is that time flies? I forget.

rhetoriculum

@Mitch Yes, that's quite the problem. Maybe I should make a S.W.R. for an antonym of intensifier. The thesaurus isn't much of a help.

ameliorate, mollify, mitgate. start there

@Mitch So I mostly listen to audio of the songs, even if there is a video.

@Mitch Thank you. I suppose mitigator is probably the best word, even if my spelling checker hates it for some reason

@englishstudent Individual songs might have a video on youtube, but albums usually just have some static artwork like the album cover

It's not quite as precise though.

@Tonepoet some perfectly naturally creatable words, following word formation rules and sounding OK, are listed in dictionaries.

like creatable.

or is it creatible.

no not that

@Tonepoet it doesn't sound right to me (the connotations)

you just want weakened, or not strong.

mitigate means 'a bad thing held back'

pretty close to 'ameliorate'

'ameliorator' just sounds wrong even though it seems a legal construction (and is not underlined as a misspelling by Chrome)

@Tonepoet Are you on mobile or on PC? I mean spell checker where?

@englishstudent I'm using Google Chrome on Ubuntu for the P.C.

ok cool.

Spell checker also sounds like a checker for enchantment caused by a magic spell.

That reminds me I haven't played any games in a while.

@englishstudent I suppose you haven't tried Wesnoth yet, or have you?

@Tonepoet Oh that, yeah I remember you told me it is good. But you are right I haven't. = )

I will check it out soon xD

@englishstudent Well it'd make a great deal of sense if that were the case considering that magic and grammar are somewhat related. XP

@Mitch S.E. really needs to add voting against comments, or at least remove voting for them if they don't want to do that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hello Mr Aruba. Nice to see you again. Recently I watched a drama series and they went to Aruba for honeymoon in it. It's Hindsight (2015) from VH1, lol.

@Tonepoet They also need to consider removing downvotes altogether, lol.

@Tonepoet You really put full stops for your abbreviations, lol.

@JasonBourne Of course I do. You won't find a post of my own that lacks them, and I only exercise editorial restraint on the matter because I'd probably be overruled.

@Tonepoet Not many people in chat these days eh?

@JasonBourne The practice is being increasingly neglected even offline.

@Tonepoet The practice of chatting or using periods?

Oh!

@JasonBourne I meant periods.

@Tonepoet I am kind of in a talkative mood these days.

@JasonBourne Hmm, that's good I suppose.

@Tonepoet But nobody is talking in this chat, except you and me, lol.

Hmm, they'll chat eventually I suppose, provided that I haven't driven off intellectual discussion. =P

I guess they are all busy, unlike me, lol.

> Natural gas is odorized so you find out if there's a leak. A lot of other gas smells - for example hydrogen sulfide smells of rotten eggs.

What do you think about the sentence in italics? Shouldn't it be A lot of other gases smell?

Yes, I think so too. Either that or a lot of other kinds of gas.

Hmm. Thanks.

@JasonBourne It's funny that you refer to me as "Mr Aruba" as if my choice of vacation destination is some kind of defining characteristic more important than my choice of country of residence or my cult Lego hobby.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hello! Your ping summoned me. Anyway, I was really disappointed because after Season 1 of Hindsight, there was a change of management at VH1 and they decided to scrap Season 2, so I am left without a good ending.

That's always a risk whenever you start reading/watching a series that isn't finished yet

The ratings were good but somehow the company didn't want it anymore.

The script has already been written and I can even imagine where it might go.

Let's hope some other company picks it up real soon.

I remember you liked to watch Game of Thrones.

yeah I still watch it.

sadly, it will be complete before the book series it's based on is complete.

the books may never be finished.

I watched Hindsight for two reasons.

First, Laura Ramsey is starring in it.

Second, the story is about time travelling back to the past to fix wrong things.

I watched the 10 episodes in about a week.

Sadly the termites decided to come to my house again this year. I just killed 20 of them.

And now I am sweating from that vigorous activity of looking for them.

So how are your kids now? They must be HUGE.

Hello @sumelic!

@JasonBourne Ah, hello!

I don't know the difference between tortoise and turtle.

And the difference between alligator and crocodile.

But they all look the same!

@JasonBourne they're 9 and 7 now

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I think same as Kit's kids. Haven't seen her here for a long time. I guess she's busy.

@JasonBourne yeah, her kids are born the same years as mine, very close in age.

Is that you?

That's them with the chef of the Buccaneer restaurant in Aruba, feeding the fish at their aquarium

I'm behind the camera, taking the picture

Oh, I remembered you had no hair.

@tchrist If I had a bit of time, I'd attempt an answer for your PoS Q on here - but I'm pretty strapped. I could give you some thoughts on chat if you're interested in some thoughts, though ... (and maybe give an answer a bit later, when I have some time)

@AraucariaMan Not completely sure about it being a verb rather than an adjective in running water like it is in running (the) bulls transitively. I guess some middle voice thing. But it passes the predicate test. :)

@JasonBourne yup

life's simpler that way

I'm probably going to bounty it, but the folks best suited to answering it aren't really rep-motivated.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I tried shaving myself twice but didn't really like it.

Was it more like refried beans or twice-baked potatoes?

to each his/her own I guess

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ugh, I really hate the his/her construction, lol.

to each each's own

Just stick to his, lol.

I think that the people who say his is sexist are the real sexists, because when one doesn't care about sex anymore, using his is just a linguistic convention and not a form of discrimination.

@JasonBourne heh. I'm not taking the bait.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh I vaguely remember you and Cerb talking about this 9000 years ago, lol.

his position is opposite mine and he values tradition more than progress

I value aesthetics in form. His/her looks and sounds very ugly.

I think I have never even used the / and the : and the ; in my essays. I only use the . and the , and the ? and the !

@tchrist Ah, well in running the bulls I kinda suppose that the bulls is the object of running, which is the head of the VP. In running water the verb is a modifier of the noun bulls ... That's what I reckon, anyhow.

@JasonBourne yeah I would normally use their

anyway, time to head out. ttyl

See you in your dreams!

@tchrist But in relation to your larger question, there are grammarians such as Bas Aarts who've been studying intersective gradience. They point out that words in one PoS category shade into others in terms of having similar syntactic properties. ...

... However, he tentatively (as I remember) decides that words may edge towards another category, but then if they become more like one category than the other they either split (so there are two words) or otherwise pop out the other side ...

...into another category.

@tchrist There are many grammarians such as Pullum, who would say that words are either one category or another. An element can't be lead and gold at the same time. However, there are problematic examples. Some of these just don't fit easily into a PoS category. No big shakes there. You can just say that some words have their own PoS categories--or that the categorisation is very difficult but that that doesn't mean that they are members of more than one category. It'sjust difficult to decide..

@tchrist (almost finished ...) However, as Pulum often notes, the truth about language is raely pure and never simple. This is one example in which it (probably) isn't pure.

@tchrist A straightforward test for verbhood is understood to be taking direct objects. Very few grammarians (who belive in PoS) debate this. However, another seemingly failsafe test for nounhood is being the head o a phrase that takes determiners. So one construction which Fs this all up is this one here.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's an interesting thought, and it might have more merit than you credit it. Most people just live wherever their fortunes place them, but vacations are deliberately chosen visitations. It's not unimaginable that somebody would rather live where they vacation than where they actually live, and although it is not guaranteed, it may even be likely.

@JasonBourne I think the TV ads are crazy where the guy lathers up his face and head and with one swipe of the razor a completely clean swath of hairlessness is tracked over the scalp or chin

what strange magical razors these ads have.

@tchrist Huddleston and Pullum put this down to the language being in transition. However, this really means that this construction doesn't easily fit their model of the language. Nonetheless, they recognise this whilst trying to excuse it (you don't write grammar without an explanation/description in the same way you don't write a dictionary without an attempt at a meaning). What is happening there is that H/P are acknowledgeing that the facts of the language don't easily fit their model ...e

there's no way that could work with out slicing off the top few layers of epidermis

@AraucariaMan that's one way to explain phenomena that are non-deterministic for a given set of data

another way is that they don't have enough data to answer exactly.

or it could just be that it can really be two different things at the same time.

@tchrist or biscuits

or to be totally nonliteral, lasagna because it is always even better when you reheat it the next day

@tchrist But it's hard to argue that in There's to be no blurring of PoS categories that blurring is not a verb or is not a noun. We can only decide because of our theoretical predispositions (at the moment - because someone may notice or coe up with much more decisive evidence). (Phew, back to my work/beer!)

Mm. lasagna.

@Mitch Agreed ...

The King's English has 19 whole pages worth of text regarding the difference between shall and will. Granted, the pages in the book are small, but still.

@tchrist Oh ****. Of course that should have been There's to be no blurring PoS categories here without the "of" ...

Ciao ...

@Tonepoet It's a nice book, isn't it?

Some things are a bit outdated.

But its principles stand.

@AraucariaMan I, for one, am a bit more of a later Wittgensteinian.

Sometimes simple and hard criteria are not the the best option.

We have a list of things that we feel are typical of nouns.

And another list for verbs.

Any decision as to which of the criteria on the list are essential and which are not, is a choice.

Which is fine.

It's just that there isn't one supreme choice that invalidates all others.

Gerunds exhibit some behaviour typical of nouns, and some of verbs.

As to "a verb must be able to take an object": what if a certain word in a sentence cannot take an object in that sentence?

And what if the predicate frame of a certain verb doesn't allow any direct object at all?

@Cerberus I haven't read much of it honestly. Just the bit about americanisms and attempts to parse the shall/will distinction in it.

And what list of criteria shall we use to define "object"?

@Tonepoet But at least you will have recognised the elegance of their language!

@Cerberus "The usual protest must be made, to be treated no doubt with the usual disregard. The difficulty is that some French, Latin and other words are now also English, though the fiction that they are not is still kept up by italics and (with French words) conscientious efforts at pronunciation." – The King's English, third edition, by H.W. and F.G. Fowler.

Haha.

That's also why they are so good: wit.

Most people who wish to advise others on language lack it.

(removed)

:37263384 Well, we are quite alike. =P

Indeed.

I wonder, through, why that last line of yours failed to ping me.

Perhaps it was because it might have been a response to a deleted message?

@Cerberus I have Touhou on the mind right now, so I suppose that makes me the Flandre to your Remilia:

@Tonepoet Ahh that must be it.

@Tonepoet I'm afraid I don't know those names.

@Cerberus Remilia and Flandre Scarlet are young looking vampire sisters in the Touhou Project series of video games. Remillia is the headmistress of the scarlet devil mansion, the elder sister by five years (which is a proportionally small number given that she's 500 years old), and the more refined of the two characters sipping on the tea in that image.

What was (removed)? Bad things about me?

Out of the two of us, I would suppose I have my wits about me less often, so despite their apparent similarities, I'd liken myself to Flandere. Naturally this makes tchrist the perfectly elegant head maid Sakuya Izayoi and, well...

Ah, I see.

@JasonBourne Why yes! That's it exactly!</irony> Actually, no, really. Just corrections of typos we're too embarrassed to admit having made. >_>

Well, everyone makes spelling mistakes, except me. =)

@tone Do you know that this Wednesday is Vesak Day?

@JasonBourne Who, or what, is Vesak?

@Tonepoet It commemorates Gautama's enlightenment, lol.

I think it is the most important day in the Buddhist calendar, so I am surprised you have not heard of it.

Well, maybe different countries have different traditions even in this area.

@Tonepoet Hmm, luckily I am not attracted to these vampires.

@JasonBourne That might be because it's known by different names judging from the Wikipedia article. I think Purnima might be the more customary word around these parts. Also, I'm quite reclusive and haven't really kept track of the literal holidays.

@JasonBourne Well, they are rather childish in appearance I suppose.

@Tonepoet I thought since you enjoy anime you might know how to speak Japanese.

@JasonBourne I'm merely monolingual.

@Tonepoet I can't imagine people communicating in sign language, it must be very hard.

@JasonBourne I'm confused. I did not say anything about sign language, did I?

@Tonepoet I jump from topic to topic like a fish.