English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

12:00 AM

@Mitch I see.

Mitch

12:19 AM

@tchrist And then the meta question was deleted by Community, and the user elasticcgirl doesn't exist anymore

Feeds

2:10 AM

1

Q: A person who disowns all the credit

I am writing a testimonial. I am looking out for a word, preferably a noun, that means "the quality of disowning all the credits after success." Alternatively, I am okay with adjectives too. Words like humility and modesty do ring in my mind, but I am not sure if there is a more appropriate word.

single-word-requests

Robusto

2:45 AM

@Mitch Oh, those. Yeah, I lived in Acton, out west, so they never set up right outside my house. They'd be over at the high school athletic field or something.

Feels weird that I've been gone from there now over two years. And I don't miss it a bit. Not a teeny little bit.

SmokeDetector

4:02 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Is the expression "to float someone's boat" possible outside of "Whatever floats your boat"? by Green d on english.SE

Feeds

5:35 AM

0

Q: One word for phrase "Comes into effect on"

I am looking for a word that conveniently describe the phrase "comes into effect on". I am a programmer, and I want to name my Property with this one word. This property will store value of date on which certain policies will come into effect. I thought of using Activation Date, Start Date - but...

single-word-requests

SmokeDetector

6:13 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: Is there a more polite idiom for "comparing whose penis is larger"? by austin mike on english.SE

CowperKettle

Word of the day: perjured

> Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,
How dare you think your lady would go on so?

Educ

8:06 AM

@Mitch for speak with Mrs X

RegDwigнt

10:43 AM

My word of the day is beer.

> (uncountable) An alcoholic drink fermented from starch material commonly barley malt, often with hops or some other substance to impart a bitter flavor.

> “ […] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people
that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […] ”

SmokeDetector

10:58 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in body: Live stream online by Liveonlinesports on english.SE

Kiro

11:10 AM

"The present discussion will be on a highly general level" or "The present discussion will be of a highly general level", or perhaps something else, what?

Also, misread "my lord of the day is beer" at first.

Matt E. Эллен

@Kiro what is a "highly general level"?

Kiro

@MattE.Эллен Things are discussed without being specific. We could discuss cars on a general level (most have 4 wheels, breaks, a driving wheel), but if we talk about different Toyotas then we are no longer discussing on a general level.

Matt E. Эллен

so "The present discussion will be very general". I find the collocation of highly and general weird, but that could just be me. "...of a very general nature" also seems ok. Both your options work if you approve of "highly general"

Kiro

11:40 AM

Sounds good, thanks for the advice.

Mitch

12:33 PM

@Robusto If I were 6 years old having one across the street would be a continuous dream. As a not 6 year old, I think it would be a dream for about an hour. Fortunately or not, I've never lived in a place where it would be possible.i

@Robusto Did you grow up around here? I know what you mean about missing, especially if where you are now is great (and there's no family to go back to). I really miss where I grew up, and I really like visiting, but for very short periods of time. And to live there again... sigh ... I can only diplomatically say that I've experienced it already and there are other places to go now. Undiplomatically, what a bunch of effing idiots.

@MattE.Эллен It's a platykurtic distribution with thin tails.

Also, at least in the US, 'highly general' is fine for 'very general'. It may sound a little fuzzy, and 'very' might be a better choice, but 'highly' works.

@Educ Yes. "I have spoken with Mrs. X..." is right. You can also say "I spoke with Mrs. X..." which is just as right, means mostly the same thing (I'm having trouble describing the nuanced difference).

@KannE Kindergartners in Spain are pretty good at Spanish. Except for the lisp.

Robusto

12:49 PM

@Mitch I grew up in the northern Chicago suburbs, and lived on the North Side in Chicago till my mid-30s. I go back now and then but everything is different, more intense, less redolent of whatever charm it used to have.

@RegDwigнt "Uncountable"? Then I guess the old ad slogan "The beer to have when you're having more than one" just screwed the pooch. Me, I'll have a couple more beers, please.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch how about "broadly general"?

Robusto

Example of the missing charm in Chicago: There used to be a steam-table deli on Clark Street north of Fullerton where you could get a great, filling comfort-food lunch for about three or four bucks. It was simply called "Frances' Food Shop." Now it's a doughnut shop.

Cerberus

Hello.

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен That sounds weird to me for some reason. Like a pleonasm.

Cerberus

So you suffer from the doughnut problem as well?

And how about the Nutella problem?

Matt E. Эллен

12:56 PM

@Robusto interesting.

Robusto

Yes.

Mitch

@Robusto That's not like the Boston suburbs (if you squint a lot). Maybe more ponds and trees and hills in the Northeast, but still mostly green?

Robusto

@Mitch Yes, very much greener.

Mitch

@Robusto It's very general in its generality, not specifically general

Robusto

@Cerberus I don't have a Nutella problem. I can quite whenever I want to.

Mitch

12:57 PM

like not being very good at mediocrity

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, I tell myself the same thing.

But I meant the Nutella shops that plague many cities.

Robusto

Or "energetically apathetic"?

Cerberus

They're similar to the stupid doughnut shops: they sell unwholesome food like doughnuts, wafers, pancakes etc. to tourists.

Robusto

@Cerberus I see no such shops here. All have been subsumed under the banners of Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks.

Cerberus

Hmm.

You should be glad!

Mitch

12:58 PM

@Robusto I know what you mean in a general sense but really? You favor a deli over donuts? are you mad?

Cerberus

We do have the Starbucks plague, but it's not as bad.

We have hundreds of these.

Robusto

@Mitch It was great to roll in there in late fall, cold and hungry, have the cooking vapors fog your glasses, and fill up on turkey with mashed potatoes and dressing. Mmmboy.

Mitch

What I think is funny is the same thing but with music. Like the music I listened to between the ages of 16 and 18 is all great, so filled with feeling, and just all around excellent, but before that time is just embarrassing music and after that time I just don't get what people like about it.

Cerberus

They're not owned or operated by Nutella or anything; they just use the brand to attract tourists, which seems to work, for reasons beyond my comprehension.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes. In some ways Amsterdam always struck me as the city that could have been an airport retail concourse.

Mitch

1:01 PM

In fact there's this one album by this one group that I just love to death and I want played at my funeral and at the wake and at the mausoleum and at the cross country memorial exhibition and at the launching of my ashes into the sun.

Cerberus

Absolutely, some parts of the inner city.

Robusto

@Mitch Well, much of what I listened to between 16 and 18 I simply cannot hear anymore.

Mitch

and there's an album by the same group that came immediately before and after which 'sound' almost identical, but I only found out about them 20 years later, and they're both meh.

Cerberus

But we now have a general ban on new shops that mainly cater for tourists, and it's applied very strictly.

Robusto

@Mitch Which album is that?

Mitch

1:02 PM

@Cerberus with a sign like that they can't be totally evil.

@Cerberus Effing liars. It is not some meretricious trinket to entice the urchins. It is food of the gods!

Cerberus

@Mitch But they are!

@Mitch Nutella is OK per se, but it's somehow a tourist trap...

Mitch

@Robusto A lot of what came before 16 I have to turn off because of nausea. The stuff that was good before 16 I have to turn off because I don't want to hear it again for the literally thousandth time

Cerberus

The local television station counted 191 souvenir, ticket, Nutella, and cheese tourist shops in this part of the inner city.

Mitch

@Robusto haha. you can't get me like that. No names

Cerberus

They didn't count all the many 'restaurants' that are also tourist shops, such as grill rooms, most snackbars, Starbucks, Coffee Company, etc. etc.

Robusto

1:07 PM

@Mitch It was Neil Diamond, wasn't it? Admit it! You're a closet "Sweet Caroline" fan!

Mitch

@Cerberus I mean I like cheese as much as the next person (if that next person is a cheese lover), but a 1) tourist, 2) cheese, and 3) shop?

that seems like overdoing it.

Cerberus

@Mitch Most cheese shops are tourist shops.

Alas.

Last I checked, you hated cheese! Or you didn't! It was already confusing then.

Robusto

@Cerberus Worse, they're cheesy tourist shops.

Cerberus

Quite!

Mitch

@Robusto That's either too way before or too way after. Red Sox games. So I get it, but I don't get it.

Cerberus

1:08 PM

They will have English names.

And I don't know about the quality of their cheese...

They'll probably only sell like 5 different kinds.

Robusto

Wow, it's exactly an hour later than I thought. How did that happen? Gotta move on, folks. That bike isn't going to ride itself.

Laterz and ta-taa!

Cerberus

Bye!

Mitch

Also when people feel like they have to add after 'Sweet Caroline.. ba ba bum... so good so good' I want to pull out my intestines, stomp on them with cleats and then feed them to the pigs (I think they would appreciate them)

@Cerberus You shouldn't believe anything I say.

Cerberus

Then I probably should?

Mitch

For the record, cheese is pretty good.

Cerberus

1:11 PM

Don't recurse me!

Mitch

For the record, I like both cats and dogs, I'd say equally, but in different ways

For the record, N*la (out of respect you can't say the whole word out loud) is pretty good but only once in a while and not in any appreciable quantity. Too sticky.

For the record, I kinda only blame the English a little bit. I mean they at least weren't Nazis. (which is a bit like saying I wish for the days of George W Bush who of course was awful)

I mean the British seem so well intentioned.

@Cerberus Don't people have cheese shops (or grocery stores back home? Are all these tourists Indian or Chinese where cheese is exotic?

It's not like Niederlandisch cheese is some kind of special thing. It's flavored slightly varying shades of yellow.

Some light yellow. Some darker yellow to the point of being very light orange.

@Robusto nice

@Cerberus And that's stretching the variety. #'s 3, 4, and 5 and 'large', 'larger', and 'slightly larger'

Cerberus

Sorry, I have to run! Work.

RegDwigнt

For the record, some English were Nazis. Also some cats as well.

For the record, who the fuck is Nic*la?

1997 - Ricola Commercial

►

Mitch

1:31 PM

@RegDwigнt And if those cats are reading this, I am their friend.

If they're not reading this, what a bunch of effing Nazi English cats!

They're horrible

clipping their nails in public

Matt E. Эллен

1:56 PM

I heard Trump say that English Nazi Cats are good people

Keep these mind

2:11 PM

If I write 'under- or outperformance' instead of 'underperformance or outperformance', what is this called? Is it allowed in BrE? Should there be a hyphen?

tchrist

It's called a suspended hyphen.

What is "outperformance"?

You mean that something outperformed something else, that it overperformed it?

Keep these mind

@tchrist Jargon for overperformance.

tchrist

outperformance is weird. I don't know why.

Keep these mind

@tchrist Thanks. That helps a lot. :)

@tchrist "(of an investment) be more profitable than"

tchrist

@Keepthesemind I think that post-dates me.

Færd

2:19 PM

@Keepthesemind Is overperformance an established term?

tchrist

The OED can find no earlier citation for outperformance that 1977, which was long after I learned English.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

I graduated from high school in 1981, at which point my mind became a dead fossil preserved in stone alone.

Færd

@tchrist There is an aphorism that goes, "what you learn in childhood is etching on stone, and what you learn in old age is scribbling on water".

I don't like the "let's give up then" tone of it, but it has a grain of truth.

tchrist

This is perhaps especially true if we extend "childhood" to biological adolescence.

Færd

Yes.

I replaced adulthood with old age. That's a more accurate translation.

tchrist

The things I learned by age 20 are forever with me. The rest, not so much.

Færd

2:35 PM

You know, I started learning English seriously when I was past my eatly twenties.

tchrist

And now in my dotage it can be hard to remember yesterday's lessons.

Mitch

@Keepthesemind re: what others say about this - I agree with them, it's complicated. underperform means perform less well than others. outperform means to perform better. but under- and out- sound really weird to contrast next to each other. over- would be the right comparison but overperform sounds weird, almost like it's bad, like an engine that is going to burn out. so I'd suggest underpeform vs outperform, rather than under- vs outperform

Færd

@tchrist Dotage is a hoax that the youth play on the poor old. Don't believe it.

tchrist

Hyrax

Hyraxes (from the Greek ὕραξ, hýrax, "shrewmouse"), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between 30 and 70 cm (12 and 28 in) long and weigh between 2 and 5 kg (4.4 and 11 lb). They are superficially similar to pikas or rodents (especially marmots), but are more closely related to elephants and manatees. Four extant species are recognised; the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), the yellow-spotted rock hyrax (Heterohyrax brucei), the western tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis...

Mitch

@Færd I prefer to say 'preserved in amber', that way millions of years later its DNA can be extracted, revivified, and the velociraptors can then come to eat your face off while you sleep.

@Færd Dotage is gaslighting yourself

Keep these mind

2:38 PM

@Mitch Thanks. Interesting take. I'm only a bit hesitant because of the words being rather lengthy.

If you include 'ance'.

Færd

@tchrist That's a brutal stunt to play on anyone.

tchrist

@Mitch Little less frightening than a rabid ostrich’s tearing talons, nor less feathered.

Færd

@Mitch I don't know. It reminds me of creepy insects.

Mitch

@Keepthesemind oh. yes. add -ance

tchrist

@Færd They say an elephant never forgets.

Færd

2:41 PM

> DNA evidence supports this hypothesis, and the small modern hyraxes share numerous features with elephants, such as toenails, excellent hearing, sensitive pads on their feet, small tusks, good memory, higher brain functions compared to other similar mammals, and the shape of some of their bones.

Keep these mind

@Mitch 'Tail- or headwind' or 'Tailwind or headwind'?

Færd

@tchrist My grandpa must be a hardy elephant then.

He remembers so many of our shared adventures from my childhoods up to my teens, of which I recall none.

Mitch

Dogs Meets Owner After Long Time ★ TRY NOT TO CRY (HD) [Funny Pets]

►

tchrist

@Færd Isn't that peculiar?

Mitch

@Færd toenails? That's the thing that connects them the most?

Færd

2:44 PM

@tchrist I guess it is.

Mitch

@Keepthesemind tailwind or headwind. sometimes you don't want to optimize

Færd

I tell myself "you're getting better as you get older".

But generally I have a very week memory.

Keep these mind

@Mitch Got it. Thanks.

tchrist

My mother recounts tales of camping trips we took that I can barely pull up a glimmer of from when I was 7 to 13.

Færd

@Mitch Elephants are the only species that my footophobia doesn't apply to.

I'm stumped you never noticed their toes.

tchrist

2:46 PM

Because the elephant has the foot of a sauropod.

Faheem Mitha

Hi @Færd.

Færd

@tchrist Maybe you tend to cherish the time you spend with your flesh and blood more.

@FaheemMitha Hi Faheem!

Or just with your children.

Faheem Mitha

I was just watching a TV show called "Madame Secretary", which is basically a fantasy show. But I suppose looking to US television for versmilitude is like expecting it from Donald Trump.

Færd

Those are happier memories for parents and grandparents than for their children.

Faheem Mitha

Still quite entertaining, as long as you don't confuse it with reality.

Though if this is the kind of thing Americans are regularly exposed to, they could become very confused about their government.

Færd

2:50 PM

@FaheemMitha At least watch reality TV for that!

Faheem Mitha

@Færd You mean like Paris Hilton?

Færd

Perhaps.

If you're looking for "verisimilitude".

Faheem Mitha

@Færd Yes, I see I got the spelling for that one wrong. English. Sigh.

Mitch

@Færd Stumped? That's exactly what they are.

Of course I've noticed them, but I'm surprised that the first connection that the biologists list between hyraxes and elephants is toenails.

Færd

@FaheemMitha I just meant looking to fantasy shows to seek truth could barely lead to more than imaginary success. I didn't notice the typo.

Mitch

2:55 PM

I haven't had much occasion to see hyrax toenails

They're pretty private about that

as should we all

at least the clippings

@FaheemMitha isn't all fiction a fantasy?

Except for 'The Expanse'. The most realistic fiction ever

Faheem Mitha

It's still amusing how wildly inaccurate the portrayal of a US administration is, as depicted in the show.

@Mitch Like everything, it's relative.

Færd

@Mitch Biologists have their fetishes.

Faheem Mitha

"Madame Secretary" is so wildly at variance with reality it could almost be a comedy show, though it clearly takes itself quite seriously.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha It's all imagined behind the scenes stuff. I'm guessing you have a good pubic demonstration of the similar situations around you?

But of course that show is a bit silly

Faheem Mitha

It's side-splitting to watch people depicting senior US officials worrying about morality and people's lives. We don't know what goes on in there, but it's a safe bet that isn't it.

@Mitch I don't follow the second sentence.

@Mitch Have you watched it, then?

Mitch

2:59 PM

@FaheemMitha what is reality then? How is it wrong?

Faheem Mitha

I guess I have a bit of a thing for Tea Leoni - that's part of why I've been watching it.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha so you don't really know either

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Um, US administrations are run by murdering psychos. Regardless what party it is.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha You're saying Americans don't know much about what really goes on behind closed doors in American government. Could you say your compatriots are better informed about such things about your government?

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch No, one can tell the kind of people by their public actions. Of course, what goes on behind the scene isn't clear. Though people have written books about it and so forth. For example, quite a lot was written about Nixon's "private" activities.

@Mitch Similar remarks apply to our domestic psychos. Though in general they don't bother to pretend much, so in that respect, there is more transparency.

If I'm making myself clear.

Mitch

3:02 PM

@FaheemMitha Yes. It's silly. The main character has to oversee the assassination of some drug lord but her daughter calls her at a bad time to complain about her boyfriend. haha. life.

Faheem Mitha

US pols are gigantic hypocrites. The Indian variety don't try very hard to obfuscate the monsters they are.

@Mitch Well, even Secretaries of State have families. I didn't have so much of a problem with that part. It was more how the admin officials are portrayed as thinking and acting.

Especially since there are (at least) 3 women SoCs to compare and contrast with.

All of them fairly nasty pieces of work. And maybe a fourth from further back.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha It's vague but I have an idea. I'm just annoyed by calling Americans idiots when everybody else is just as much or moreso. The americans are just writing more unreliable fiction about it.

Faheem Mitha

Hmm, I was thinking of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeane_Kirkpatrick, but no.

@Mitch I don't think I called Americans idiots. Or not specially. If they are idiots then so is everyone else.

I think Indians have a more grounded and instinctive distrust for politicians, which I think is healthier. But obviously, that's a matter of opinion.

Distrusting the govt has a variety of effects, not all of them good.

@Færd I'm guessing you don't watch a lot of US TV.

Mitch

Not entirely unrelatedly, I was made more understanding of your openly negative ... opinions... about the British Empire, because frankly I'd never heard anyone really express themselves so negatively, and I'd expect people to be even more negative. I just never hear that.

@FaheemMitha You should watch 'Veep'. Supposedly more realistic. But it's also hilarious, whatever the reality.

Færd

@FaheemMitha Nah. Or any TV.

Faheem Mitha

3:13 PM

@Mitch You surprise me. There is quite a lot of stuff from Indians at least, on the net. Often in very strong language.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I hang out here.

Faheem Mitha

There is also that Indian politician who spoke out publicly. Tharoor. And I can tell you there are plenty of people who feel that way. In India and elsewhere.

Mitch

And friends form grad school never mentioned anything.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I might check it out. I'm sort of a JLD fan too, so...

Mitch

@FaheemMitha What did they say?

@FaheemMitha JLD?

Faheem Mitha

3:14 PM

@Mitch Friends from where?

Mitch

Justice League of Dakka?

@FaheemMitha from grad school

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Mitch

oh. from Seinfeld?

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Yes, I got that. But were they from British ex-colonies?

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Yes.

No Jamaicans or Trinidadians

Faheem Mitha

3:16 PM

@Mitch I'm confused by your confusion. Doesn't she star in 'Veep'?

@Færd That's probably sensible. You're not missing much, by and large.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Yes. But it wasn't apparent that you've been seeing Veep. So I thought you must know her from previous shows

Faheem Mitha

Some TV can be good. Even US stuff. But much of it is pretty terrible, and it's all very time-consuming to watch. I find it works best taken as a narcotic.

Mitch

By saying 'I might check it out' it leads one to believe that you'd never checked it out before.

Færd

I liked The Sopranos when I watched it, but then again I was a lot more ignorant back then than I am now, so it wouldn't seem so groundbreaking to me if I watched it now for the first time.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I've never seen 'Veep', but I know she stars on it.

@Mitch That's correct. I have not. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't even watched a trailer for that show.

@Færd Ugh, gangster stuff.

Færd

3:19 PM

That's just the backdrop.

Faheem Mitha

Americans and their gangster shows. And their cop procedurals. Ugh.

Mitch

@Færd what's the foredrop?

Faheem Mitha

@Færd I'm sure that's what porn directors say too.

Færd

The Sopranos was Psychoanalysis101 for me.

Faheem Mitha

@Færd Oh?

Færd

3:21 PM

But I didn't even know Freud back then.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch My offer to refer you to reading material regarding the BE still stands...

Though I don't have a lot to offer, really. At least in terms of very accessible stuff.

Færd

So the way that Tony dealt with with his mother and with his family and the roles that his dreams played in the story, it all tied in together very nicely for me.

Faheem Mitha

And I've not read Tharoor's book, so don't know what I think about that.

I thought that show was about gangsters. Is it about Freud too?

@Mitch I think the default position about the British in India is almost entirely negative.

On the few occasions I've said nasty things about the British in public, I've got unanimous support, including from total strangers. Which is kind of unusual, because Indians tend not to talk to each other much. I mean, if they don't know each other.

A few times I've even been making comments about the British, in taxi cabs, in English, and had the taxi drivers chiming in.

I remember once making comments about Mountbatten. Nasty ones, naturally.

I mean, there is (or was), a lot of racist sucking up to the British (and white people in general) in India, but I think that is slowly decreasing over time, and India becomes more international.

The only Indian I've ever met who was positive about the British is my uncle (my mother's brother), but he's crazy. Literally. I think he's mentally ill, though he's never been diagnosed. He said the British bought culture to India, which was a good thing.

I pointed out they destroyed the country, and his response was that, well, that's how it goes. He seem to think of it as a slightly unfortunate side-effect of the culture bringing.

(Anyway, I ramble.)

Oh dear. It looks like everyone left.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Sopranos should be seen in the context of the Godfather movies. The latter established the kind of twisted morality and macho mentality. It established how people in the US think of the Italian Mafia. But 'The Sopranos' modernized that and turned the machismo on its head by having the very first episode be about the mob boss having to see a psychiatrist to understand his feelings (because he was having panic attacks). Which is a very un-macho thing to do. Very unexpected.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I see. As you can tell, I know nothing about that show. I avoid shows about gangsters.

Do actual mobsters have panic attacks, I wonder?

I suppose there is no reason why they shouldn't. They're human, like everyone else.

Mitch

3:35 PM

@FaheemMitha They were close relatives of members of the Nazi party. It was really shocking when I discovered that.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Actually, I think Mountbatten was in the Hitler Youth of something. Though I may be misremembering.

Though I don't see why it's shocking. People think the Nazis were extraordinary. They weren't.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha the work attracts actual psychopaths which have a tendency not to feel guilt about things the way usual people do. So I'm sure a lot of them don't have panic attacks. also they probably keep a gun under their pillow

@RegDwigнt They sure made a name for themselves

Faheem Mitha

The people who ran the British "Empire" were not so dissimilar in outlook to Hitler, as you can easily discover by reading stuff written by them. And in some cases, about them.

@Mitch Sounds plausible. Like senior govt officials.

Mitch

All the colonizers were pretty awful. Atrocities by the ...just list every European power with a colony. Hm...I wonder how the Russians are perceived as an occupying force

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch yes, well. I don't find it particularly helpful to say - oh yes, everyone does terrible things.

Though that often seems like a popular justification for lots of bad stuff.

Mitch

3:40 PM

@FaheemMitha I'm sure the panic attacks senior govt officials have is about whether they will get reelected, or if their affair or embezzlement will be exposed. They sleep like babies about lead contamination of a city's water supply.

Faheem Mitha

So and so did something terrible. Eh, everyone does terrible things.

@Mitch I wouldn't know, but again, it sounds plausible.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha I was just extending your comparison of British and Hitler outlooks.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Well, fair enough. Though that was triggered by everyone talking about Hitler like he was first cousin to the devil.

He was just a man. Not a very nice one.

Actually, the stuff that happened with and around him was sufficiently unusual that it might repay close unbiased examination. Which is probably not forthcoming.

Vadim Galygin

Hello! Can I name sender and recipient infos in commercial invoice as Invoice Details?

I haven't yet found any better name for it

Or maybe invoice contact details is better?

Mitch

@VadimGalygin Wow. I have no idea. Better to ask someone with knowledge of accounting, someone with experience in invoices.

Færd

3:51 PM

@Mitch And a female psychiatrist, no less.

Mitch

@VadimGalygin But if you have no other info, yes, 'invoice contact details' would be better than 'invoice details'. The latter sounds like all the money and product information.

also, you may want to say something like 'invoice sender and recipient'...but I'm not sure if sender and recipient are the words that are usually used. You may want to look online for some actual invoices in English and see how they label things there.

@Færd Sure. Historically all doctors were men, but more nowadays are women. but yes, that adds to the non-macho stuff.

Færd

I didn't like the way they concluded her part at the end of the story.

Her peers be like "Oh there's research proving psychotherapy doesn't cure criminals".

And she was like "Oh I had no idea".

She was smarter than that.

Faheem Mitha

@Færd I imagine that depends on the person.

MetaEd

4:26 PM

Mornin, campers

Mitch

@MetaEd We ain't no campers

MetaEd

4:44 PM

@Mitch That's what you say, but there's smore juice all over your face.

Feeds

5:05 PM

0

Q: What to call a book that does not get a lot of readers?

Some books do not get a lot of readers; they are not read by many. Sometimes because they are not that good, sometimes because they are not advertised enough, or perhaps for other reasons, they are kind of isolated in the world of readers. What to call such books?

single-word-requests

tchrist

5:15 PM

@Mitch Camp not lest ye be camped.

Robusto

6:23 PM

@Mitch You really know how to work a room, dontcha?

Mitch

6:46 PM

@Robusto My inner cat says that al those dogs are idiots, acting like human five-year olds like its effing christmas. Those humans don't care and would just as soon chain you to a stake in the middle of the woods as they would condescendingly pet you on the head. Don't dogs have any dignity?

When I say my inner cat, I mean my cat. He's making me write this.

For the record, I have no cat.

says my inner cat

Robusto

@Mitch No, dogs have zero dignity. And cats have poor impulse control.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch WTF mate you're replying to something I posted six years ago?

Dig that, @Rob, someone's actually reading my shit. No fair. I never signed up for this.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I sympathize, but what can I do? My hands are tied in this matter.

RegDwigнt

Oh well I suppose that gives me one more reason to start drinking heavily again.

The other two being that it's Friday, and that I've just spent several hours recording every single piece I play on the violin and then listening back to every single recording.

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