English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

12:51 AM

@Bohemianrelativist will amazon deliver there? There are a lot of rice cookers for under $25.

I'm sure they sell -some- kind of rice there (but maybe not your favorite)

homw about cooking your own noodles? Do you have access to a microwave over?

Xanne

Central and Eastern Europe have lots of rice cookers. They are really getting with it over there.

While we are doing appliances, I just ran across this item in an old box:

A Russian marine clock, 1992.

tchrist

5:24 AM

> Los Angeles County announced Thursday it will revive an indoor mask mandate applying to everyone regardless of vaccination status in response to rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations linked to the highly transmissible delta variant. The order to take effect late Saturday night in the county of 10 million people marks the most dramatic reversal of the country’s reopening this summer as experts fear a new wave of the virus.

CowperKettle

7:33 AM

CowperKettle

11:52 AM

@Xanne The hand version of this clock, komandirskiye chasy (Commander's Watch), was somewhat of a status symbol in the USSR.

CowperKettle

12:10 PM

Командирские

«Командирские» — марка военных часов, выпускающихся на Чистопольском часовом заводе с 1965 года. == История == В 1965 году Министерство обороны СССР заказало Чистопольскому часовому заводу (ЧЧЗ) производство наградных часов. К ним были предъявлены повышенные требования, такие как водозащита и противоударный механизм. Так как часы не предназначались для свободной продажи, то на них надпись «Сделано в СССР» была заменена на «Заказ МО СССР». В 1967 году на базе часов «Командирские» была начата новая серия «Амфибия», имевшая водозащиту 200 метров. Со слов очевидцев, часы «Амфибия» выдерживали давление...

The first decade after being put into production, since 1967 to the 1970s, these watches were only given to the military, and it was almost impossible to buy them in a store.

They were sold for about a monthly salary on the black market.

But in the late 1980s foreign watches came flooding in.

I recall many classmates wearing electronic watches with the light option. You pressed the button, and a tiny light illuminated the screen.

Forbes has conducted a poll among 2400 Russian medical doctors, and 19.6% of them said they would caution against vaccination, mainly because they do not believe in the Russian vaccines thebell.io/…

Every. Fifth. Doctor.

No wonder 40% of common folk don't want to get vaccinated.

Mitch

12:42 PM

@CowperKettle That phrasing '...costs a months salary' or some other time range is very interesting. I've only ever heard it used for prices in the Soviet Union (or I suppose Warsaw Pact countries or Cuba (but not China)). It's not like it couldn't be applied in non-communist economies but I never ever ever hear of it outside of communist-associated economy. In fact it would sound more at home in capitalism.

Is that still a common way of speaking in Russian about the cost of expensive objects or are you just using it because the watch was Soviet era?

CowperKettle

@Mitch I think it was more common in the Soviet era, because the range of salaries was not very wide. These days, it is extremely wide.

A month's salary was 100 to 200 rubles, I guess.

A professor or a coal miner might earn 400 rubles and live like a rich man. That is, buy actual meat at the market. Because you could not buy good meat in a store. And prices at the market were sky-high.

Yet another man in a Russian covid hospital jumped from the window to kill himself tvk6.ru/publications/news/60147

They say the conditions in the hospitals are very poor. Lack of oxygen, lack of drugs, lack of personnel. Yesterday a man in a different town killed himself. His hospital neighbors said he was suffering from a lack of oxygen.

Bohemian relativist

1:27 PM

there are not many people liking to provide food for others persistently freely. That's why there are so many hungry people. Facebook keeps advertising these hungry people asking others to donate money. Actually money cannot be eaten. What they should raise are food-making volunteers.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch what about "an engagement ring should cost 1/2/3 month's salary"?

Bohemian relativist

there are also not many physiologists liking to provide medical treatment freely. That's why there are people constantly posting raising money for expensive medical treatment on Facebook. Money cannot treat sick people. What should be raised are physiologists who can volunteer to provide needed medical treatments.

tchrist

1:43 PM

@MattE.Эллен Probably pay not salary.

Salary is for management and other overeducated professionals who get paid just for being alive, not for working. Pay is for workers remunerated transactionally based on the hours they've punched into a time clock somewhere.

Or maybe it's just the college educated who use big long fancy words like salary. :)

user178758

With a salary comes a contract, no?

Bohemian relativist

I feel solving hunger is the most difficult thing in this world because it is a persistent issue and making food is very boring and it's not easy to find really delicious food.

tchrist

@user178758 Probably.

Late Victorians apparently spiked "months salary".

Bohemian relativist

I also feel medicine is boring because it is more a labor than intellectual issue.

tchrist

If you start at 1900 instead of 1800, you don't have to represent their spike and get a bit more detail.

Mitch

1:49 PM

@MattE.Эллен That sounds vaguely familiar but also the excpetion proving the rule I feel like that's the only time - very peculiar to the engagement-ring-industrial complex. Also outdated and Soviet era sounding.

Matt E. Эллен

at least in medical instrument design and manufacture, it's mostly paper work

@tchrist yeah, could be

@Mitch very true

Mitch

like Victorians expecting that an engagement ring is like a deposit on ownership of females.

Bohemian relativist

it's very interesting to study meteorology, cosmology, quantum physics, classical mechanics than medicine.

Mitch

so if the dude (it's always a dude) breaks off the engagement, the fiancee at least can support herself on the money from the ring.

tchrist

@Mitch No, that's just earnest money paid down in anticipation of a bountiful dowry.

Mitch

1:52 PM

@Bohemianrelativist Wasn't one of Marxist primary principles (are principles ever secondary?) that food is a basic right that should be available as a common good to everyone 'for free'?

@Bohemianrelativist Facebook is not real life.

Well, maybe it is

but only in the US

or maybe elsewhere too.

I don't know anything

user178758

Whelp, diamonds are a girl's best friend for a very good reason.

Matt E. Эллен

I wonder if facebook will go out of fashion with the newest generation, or if people adopt facebook as they get older

Mitch

@tchrist Lake Victorians apparently spike their water to combat parasites.

Matt E. Эллен

@user178758 because they're good listeners

Bohemian relativist

@Mitch but food isn't something which is automatically there for us to take, like air - it needs persistent labor to gain. I think not many people are so interested in making food because there are not many food-making volunteers.

Mitch

1:55 PM

@MattE.Эллен I thought medical instruments were made out of metal and plastic and electronics and ping speakers.

Bohemian relativist

@Mitch so those people raising money on Facebook are all fake?

Mitch

@tchrist dowries also went the way of the investment ring -and- the fedora

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch yeah, but you have to write down what it's made, and what the things it's made of are made of, and so on. Also how it got put together

tchrist

@Mitch ’Twasn’t Juvenal who first wrote of bread and circuses providing popular appeasement? You know, like providing the vulgus with a guaranteed basic minimum income plus Netflix?

Bohemian relativist

We don't need to take what World Food Program says seriously?

Mitch

1:57 PM

noawadays it's all big rocks on your hand and trilbies on your head

I just saw a youtube video on hats

so I learned about trilbies

tchrist

@Mitch Fedora is gone? Where'd she go?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен uh ...

it's already pretty much avoided by genZ'ers because duh their parents are on it.

@tchrist I know, I barely knew her.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch so they probably won't have a group they want to keep up with on there, and hopefully they won't join to keep in touch with their family...

user178758

Without Facebook there would've been no storming of the Capitol.

tchrist

@MattE.Эллен Already gone.

Bohemian relativist

2:00 PM

@MattE.Эллен Facebook is only a good place to get news feeds, but not a place to know professional peers.

Matt E. Эллен

@tchrist yay!

tchrist

@Mitch Not sure that replacing the dowry with coverture was any improvement.

user178758

Today's youth prefer to remain much more faceless for Facebook.

They're looking for ways to be untraceable.

tchrist

@Mitch Have we then no more dowagers either? Did dowagers go the way of dowries?

@user178758 They are? I don't see many of them smashing up their phones with hammers.

user178758

Now that would be extreme.

tchrist

2:15 PM

@user178758 Their phones are what damned the bloody sixth-of-January insurrectionists to falling prey to the FBI's cyberbloodhounds.

> dower: a burrow (of rabbits and the like). Compare Old French douvre, variant of douve ditch, dyke, ‘caverne que les habitants des bords de la Loire creusent dans le roc pour s'y loger.’

CowperKettle

Russia is in talks with Finland regarding the supply of medical-grade oxygen. Russia is running out of oxygen, even after requesting all military and industrial facilities to provide their reserves

Yesterday was the highest-ever covid death toll

tchrist

Are the Russians vaccines just not that effective, or just not that available?

CowperKettle

In Moscow, on June 20 the death toll reached 80/day, and the Mayor introduced QR codes for access to public facilities (caffees etc). Today it has reached 100/day, and the Mayor dropped the QR codes and loosened the restrictions.

@tchrist Thus far, only 21% of Russians have got one or more shots

tchrist

Presumably those who make the rules dropping protective measures are amongst that 21%.

user178758

Privately made firearm

A privately made firearm (also called ghost gun) is a term for a (typically) homemade firearm that lacks commercial serial numbers. The term is used mostly in the United States by gun control advocates, gun rights advocates, law enforcement, and some in the firearm industry. Because home-manufacture of firearms for personal use is not considered to fall under the federal government’s authority to regulate interstate (as opposed to intrastate) commerce, individuals making their own firearms are not subject to federal or state commercial background check regulations. Persons otherwise prohibited...

Cerberus

2:24 PM

@tchrist Hmm I wonder about the Asian drop.

Perhaps the underlying data are chaotic.

tchrist

@Cerberus There's a bit of wiggle but the trend lines are there looked at from a distance.

That chart is from this New York Times article from today.

user178758

Thanks for sharing.

Bohemian relativist

I registered a Facebook account when I was on a wasteland for possible recourse, but found it is actually a wastebook for friendship.

Cerberus

@tchrist I meant the data for Asia.

Such a sharp drop.

tchrist

From those data it looks to me like Europe saw a sudden drop at the beginning of May that was even steeper.

I bet that one was some sort of pause.

Cerberus

2:30 PM

That's South America.

tchrist

oh

Cerberus

And it may have been sharper, but it was much shorter.

Bohemian relativist

I wonder what stochastic exactly means.

Cerberus

Look, the ratio of positive tests goes up as a higher degree of vaccination is reached.

Because restrictions are loosened.

Belgium is doing much better, though.

But it seems to be forming a sheer peak as well...

I think they did not loosen restrictions as suddenly and we did.

Did, because, just as in England several weeks before, we reinstated some restrictions.

So silly.

But Parliament had willed it.

Not to mention the Cabinet.

tchrist

Boulder County's positivity rate has gone up, hitting 2.5% now. Los Angeles County I believe is around 4%, a figure that contributed to them reimposing an indoor-mask mandate. I doubt that will do enough good.

Cerberus

2:35 PM

Still very low compared to here!

tchrist

My cats have brought me a brace of coneys for breakfast.

Cerberus

Looks like we have passed Israel. England will be next, soon.

@tchrist Are those like rabbits?

tchrist

@Cerberus Rabbits they are.

Cerberus

Alive?

tchrist

Hardly.

Cerberus

2:37 PM

I'm sure I've told this story many times before, but my parents' cat once brought in about six little rabbits in a week. Or perhaps it was the same one each time...

Each time, it seemed unharmed, so we brought it back to the woody area down the street.

tchrist

I've had weeks like that. Bloody mess.

Cerberus

No blood here!

Just fright, so far as we could tell.

Of course internal damage is harder to see.

But the little things would hop around and appear unharmed.

tchrist

> The mammalian cony is a small, guinea pig-like relative to the rabbit; it is more commonly known by the name pika (q.v.). The name cony was once applied to the rabbit and is still sometimes used in the fur business to indicate rabbit fur. The cony of the Old World and of the Bible is an unrelated mammal, the hyrax (q.v.).

It's mostly just a "country" name for a rabbit though.

Regional, rustic.

These were cottontails, not the mousehares you might know as pikas.

Small young bunnies, not big old ones.

Cerberus

I see.

CowperKettle

3:10 PM

Bohemian relativist

For technical issues, please consult scientific rooms.

Our English teacher also asked us to make presentation about our research, but doesn't know the technical detail of what everyone presents.

CowperKettle

An An-28, a small Russian plane, crash-landed in a field near Tomsk, and everybody survived. The video shows the plane lying belly-up

Looks like a miracle.

There were 19 persons aboard

Recently an An-26 made a mistake while circling for a sea-side approach to an airport in the Far East, and then disregarded the radar operator's command to keep a height of at least 800 meters.

The pilots descended to 600 meters, and crashed right in the top of a rocky hill in the fog. All died.

Should have listened to the commands, and spent some 10 more minutes for another circle.

28 deaths.

Those 200 meters would have saved them.

I read somewhere that Russian pilots are overworked, and they are charged for excessive burning of fuel.

The plane's flight engineer was also a singer and songwriter. Aged 65.

Mitch

3:56 PM

@tchrist Is that what that meant? And widow was a non-dowager? I have to watch more Downton Abbey

@tchrist OMG. Africa.

> Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends

@tchrist Fresh though?

Matt E. Эллен

Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends

►

CowperKettle

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен @Bohemianrelativist More real friends

@CowperKettle Are you back inside or are you sopping wet right at this moment?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch nice. The BrE version is a little more generous, as we call them Ladybirds

lots of countries call them god's little cow (or some type of cow), so that would be weird

CowperKettle

@Mitch It's just a photo from Twitter, but it's very typical of Russia.

I love trams

Mitch

4:12 PM

@MattE.Эллен Yes, I agree, that would be weird.

CowperKettle

Bozhya korovka = God's little cow

[k] is a diminutive suffix in Russian

Mitch

@CowperKettle and that's a lady bug/marienkäfer/lady bird?

CowperKettle

@Mitch Yes

Bog is God

Mitch

Bozhe moj

CowperKettle

Bozhya is "of God", "belonging to God"

Mitch

4:13 PM

OBM

CowperKettle

@Mitch haha

Mitch

Oh Bozhe Moj

CowperKettle

bozhiy is "of God", but with male ending

Mitch

All the Russian I know is from Tom Lehrer's song Lobachevsky

CowperKettle

bozhiy chelovek is "God's man"

Mitch

4:15 PM

but what does that mean? 'Dude'?

CowperKettle

Боже мой! Да всем насрать

►

Bozhe moy! Da vsem nasrat (Oh my God! Nobody gives a shit!)

@Mitch No, that means usually a poor beggar

Moy = "My" (masculine)

moya = "my" (feminine)

moyo = "my" (neuter)

Mitch

@CowperKettle Because that's all he's got.

CowperKettle

Bog is in nominative case. Bozhe is in vocative case, which has died out in Russian, and is retained only in some old expressions, often related to Church.

When we speak to someone who is present, we address him in vocative case. Well, used to do so, several centuries back.

In Ukrainian, the vocative case still exists.

CowperKettle

4:43 PM