English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

M.A.R.

00:41

@Lambie If you think some votes weren't reversed you can use the 'custom' flag option (flag for moderator attention' on one of your posts and ask a mod to investigate. They can't see votes but the systems shows them abnormal voting activity (like a sockpuppet voting almost only the master account). It probably has to be a substantial number of votes to be detected though, two or three downvotes won't cut it I think

CowperKettle

02:33

Word of the day: jejune

> Sonja (Diane Keaton): "That is incredibly jejune".
Boris (Woody Allen): That's jejune? You have the temerity to say that I'm talking to you out of jejunosity? I am one of the most june people in all of the Russias!"

Love and Death - Jejune

►

CowperKettle

02:48

I used to think Long John Sliver's stump was a legend, but turns out it was just a leg end.

@Lambie When you are active on any forum or website, sooner or later you'll get haters. Luckily, unlike in real life, there's usually no need to make anything about it ))

CowperKettle

05:12

+6° C

CowperKettle

06:26

Word of the day: to catfish (To create and operate a fake online profile to deceive (someone).)

CowperKettle

08:26

Three 15-yo kids face several years in jail for their plans to build an FSB building in Minecraft and blow it up team29.org/story/kanskogoe-delo

A 2020 study found that winter workers in Antarctica started to develop a new accent. This is a result of people being isolated and in regular contact with only each other for several months

> In 2017, when Harrington got word of a new cohort about to spend four months isolated on the coldest continent for the British Antarctic Survey, he saw an opportunity to map the first step in that phenomenon.

M.A.R.

08:42

@CowperKettle just a few months!

@CowperKettle heh, so that's what jejunum means

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Yes, because ancient physicians always found it empty on autopsy

> “If they ever really decided to colonize another planet, like Mars, we’d be right in there wanting to study that,” he says. “They would develop a Martian accent. Can you imagine that?”

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle thank you for today's tidbit. I will ring tomorrow for more

@CowperKettle I bet it'd sound southern

Now I want a cowboy space opera in a dusty Martian setting

The Mattdamonian

CowperKettle

09:04

I don't understand the interest in the British Royal Family. To me, they are as interesting as comic book heroes. That is, I try to avoid anything related to them. They differ only in one aspect - comic book heroes earn their living by the sale of comic books, so to speak, while the British Royal Family just sits on the necks of the commoners.

I've been getting a lot of news about some prince in the newsfeed and felt sorry I'm not skilled enough to just filter them out.

CowperKettle

09:43

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ( (listen)), also often known simply as Saint Vincent, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean. Its 369 km2 (142 sq mi) territory consists of the main island of Saint Vincent and the northern two-thirds of the Grenadines, a chain of 32 smaller islands. Some of the Grenadines are inhabited — Bequia, Mustique, Union Island, Canouan, Petit Saint Vincent, Palm Island...

I have never come across a forum user from some tropical island.

Probably they are so happy there that they just don't open the internet forums at all.

CowperKettle

10:42

> "We're a bully that smacks around smaller neighbors. If you join a club for giving bullies bloody noses, things will get really bad for you. Just don't join the club, and it'll just be the normal bullying for you, not the really, really bad stuff. Promise & cross my heart."

CowperKettle

11:06

Word of the hour: philosophopause - the state in which a scientist usually enters with advanced age

Bohemian relativist

12:12

can a person publish a lot during positionlessness?

I doubt

Cerberus

13:58

@CowperKettle Russia is terribly afraid of NATO's encroaching upon what she sees as her sphere of influence.

But Europe has absolutely no intention of allowing Ukraine to join NATO.

I should think Putin knows this, so it's probably theatre.

user2236

it appears that the use of sanitizer on everything to kill the virus; turned out to be a 1 in 10,000 "theatre"

According to the latest CDC report:

Cerberus

Oh, really?

user2236

> Findings of these studies suggest that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection via the fomite transmission route is low, and generally less than 1 in 10,000, which means that each contact with a contaminated surface has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of causing an infection

CowperKettle

14:15

I have bought maybe a couple of dozen bottles of sanitizers since the beginning of covid.

I also think that the risk must be very low. Good that studies support this.

Cerberus

@user2236 I think we already knew the chance was comparatively low, but that doesn't mean cleaning doesn't still help prevent many cases?

2

Every day you go to the supermarket, you may touch 100 surfaces.

Some of which are touched by 1000 others on the same day, like buttons and handles.

Is there any reason not to clean hands/surfaces except the effort required?

user2236

Good questions, sir.

I can't find the three references given to the quote above.

A. M. Wilson, M. H. Weir, S. F. Bloomfield, E. A. Scott and K. A. Reynold, “Modeling COVID-19 infection risks for a single hand-to-fomite scenario and potential risk reductions offered by surface disinfection,” American Journal of Infection Control, vol. Article In Press, pp. 1-3, 2020.
A. P. Harvey, E. R. Fuhrmeister, M. E. Cantrell, A. K. Pitol, S. J. M, J. E. Powers, M. L. Nadimpalli, T. R. Julian and A. J. Pickering, “Longitudinal monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on high-touch surfaces in a community setting,” Environmental Science & Technology Letters, pp. 168-175, 2020.

"Article in Press" and " Environmental ... Letters"

For the sake of full disclosure, shouldn't they provide direct links to these studies?

here

user2236

14:57

Aha, I found the supporting information

> This article references 63 other publications.

:-/

CowperKettle

23

Q: Humorous story in which future archaeologists find a motel room and they believe to have found a great tomb similar to that of Tutankhamun

I read it in Reader's Digest in the seventies. Archaeologists interpreted everyday objects as the TV set and the toilet seat to be sacred and precious.

Must be a nice book

Mitch

15:51

@M.A.R. Is that like a Japanese sword? Or a bathrobe? Or that girl from the water bender from the northern tribe?

@Xanne The hard part is getting them on the spider.

@Cerberus Armenia is next

Cerberus

@user2236 No they give no quantitative conclusions?

@Mitch Next for what?

Armenia is an ally of Russia.

And it's in Asia.

Rajorshi Koyal

Can anyone help me out with this.

0

Q: What does India not being a member to this community mean?

What does India not being a party to the protocol mean in the context of legal documents pertaining to refugee protection. A slightly detailed insight to this is most welcome. https://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html

immigration indian-citizens refugees

CowperKettle

16:09

> On Twitter, the backlash against the use of “jab” has been furious. “Free speech is an important value, but we must ban the importation of the British term ‘jab’ to describe vaccination,” journalist Matthew Yglesias twitted.

wsj.com/articles/…

Rajorshi Koyal

How are you @CowperKettle

Not that active on fb it seems

CowperKettle

17:41

@RajorshiKoyal Fine, thank you! I hope you're well!

user2236

@Cerberus TL;DR

Cerberus

@user2236 Good conclusion.

To all Americans: I heard that Amercians get their salaries paid weekly or every two weeks. Is this really true?

tchrist

19:27

@Cerberus Those living on hourly wages tend to be paid every week or two, but people who are not paid hourly, that is, those with actual salaries, are paid monthly.

And temporary workers may even be paid daily, depending on the job.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm interesting.

This American woman said being paid monthly was a big surprise to her when she moved to the Netherlands.

She had great trouble budgeting until she got used to it.

tchrist

Weird.

Cerberus

Perhaps it is a regional thing?

tchrist

No.

It's weird that she wasn't used to it. Perhaps she was paid by the hour.

A salary job means you don't get overtime here.

Because you are paid to do a job, not to put in an hour.

So if you're a professional, or in management.

Then you get paid monthly.

Difference between a career and a job.

Cerberus

19:54

@tchrist Nah, I don't believe so.

It was about salary.

She did something in international criminal law.

In a much more recent video, she mentions that she is now for the first time going to also file taxes other than salary (from her Youtube income).

tchrist

Sure sounds white-collar to me.

Cerberus

Most definitely.

She's far from poor either.

tchrist

It's been almost 40 years since I wasn't paid monthly.

I have no idea how the other side lives any longer. :)

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle yeah and honestly seeing these people shed "crocodile tears" (as the Persian saying goes) is insane

@user2236 eh, by that same logic, bike helmets and probably half of all safety measures are redundant

@user2236 noob stats

Cerberus

🇳🇱🤯🇺🇸PART 2: Culture SHOCK as an American in The Netherlands - Jovie's Home

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This is where she explains it.

M.A.R.

20:10

@Cerberus aha, so weekly pays are an American thing only for the most part?

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I have no idea.

M.A.R.

Here it's monthly as well and I thought Europe was weekly pay

Cerberus

All I know is that weekly wages are rare here, sounds a bit like old-fashioned factory workers.

M.A.R.

Yeah I have the impression monthly is, more dignified? But I can't explain why

@Mitch makes Avatar credits noises from mouth

I actually wanted to edit your profile pic with socks and sandals and a katana but I was too lazy

So you should picture that joke in your head and laugh.

You're welcome

Cerberus

20:26

@M.A.R. Weekly payments make it so that one's employer does part of the budgeting: one cannot spend one's monthly income all in the first week.

I believe the employers of labourers were afraid the latter would spend half or all of their salaries on their first Saturday night in a pub.

M.A.R.

20:57

@Cerberus so essentially monthly means the system puts enough trust in you to plan your budget properly?

That might be one way to look at it. The other way would be the system doesn't give a damn. Hmm

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I suppose so.

I think it's one factor why factory workers used to be paid weekly, and probably on Mondays.

Mitch

@Cerberus Was it allowed to send in an entry to Eurovision? If so, potential NATO -and- EU member.

Cerberus

@Mitch You mean like Turkey, Israel, and Australia?

Oh, and like Russia?

tchrist

3

4

Cerberus

Cat on keyboard again?

Mitch

21:12

@Cerberus exactamundo

It's how Europe will eat the world

wait

I think that didn't go so well for some countries the last time they tried it.

maybe the EU will be different

Or maybe they'll like China's version much better

@Cerberus YES! YOU GET IT NOW!

Cerberus

I suppose Russia was once a potential member of NATO.

Mitch

21:54

@Cerberus Idealistically, what a great idea to promote peace.

I mean realistically that is just ludicrous. Mostly because of Putin.

Cerberus

The idea was that Russia could joint the West after its transition to democracy.

The problem was that, in the age of neoliberalism, the West let Russian society be destroyed by encouraging free reign for big money.

Xanne

22:39

The West!

Such an easily subverted country.

Cerberus

Yeah, its political structure collapsed.

Xanne

Now China, China said yes to the reign of big money, but to hell with that democracy stuff.

Cerberus

So there was a huge vacuum of power.

China never did what Russia did.

It kept control of its own system, and only very, very gradually introduced more capitalism.

I think it was very unfortunate that the Iron Curtain should have fallen in the heydays of neoliberalism.

The shock reforms did so much damage.

The same applies to a lesser degree to the other formerly communist countries.

They are still recovering from that.

Even Eastern Germany.

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