English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2021-07-30 (page 2 of 2)

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8:32 PM

@Mitch But Japan also uses a script based on Chinese, at least partially?

Japan really has nowhere else to look to.

But of course Indo-China has always been under Chinese influence as well.

> there exist several points which may suggest some relation between [China and Japan], such as the basic similarities in the age at commencement of ablation, the prevalence of extraction of under incisors from the Late Jomon period in western Japan and the existence of the same type of ablation in the peoples of nearly the same period in China.
Especially, as the abrupt increase of extraction of the upper lateral incisors in the people of the Yayoi period, such as Doigahama, who show morphological resemblances with the neolithic people of northern China, may suggest the influence of Chine…

There is horrible self-mutilation, and there is even more horrible.

heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/…

@Cerberus Japanese writing (kanji) is based on Chinese characters. And certain sounds in the onyomi readings of the kanji are based on Chinese from a long time ago. But there the resemblance ends. The kunyomi readings are based on the Japanese spoken language. For example, 木 has moku in the kunyomi and ki in the onyomi. The hiragana and katakana syllabaries, on the other hand, are entirely of Japanese origin, and are phonetic.

Fun fact: I did not arrive at this article through our discussion, but based on a news article.

@Robusto Right, but it suggests ancient and strong Chinese influence on Japanese culture, doesn't it?

@Cerberus To some extent, but you have to understand that the Japanese are the original importers of concepts which are then adapted to their own culture almost immediately.

Yeah.

In other words, they take what they want and use it for their own purposes.

It gets confusing because there are two systems of numbering, which are used for different things. The familiar ichi (one) is an onyomi while hitori (one) is a kunyomi.

8:42 PM

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East Asia is pretty crazy.

That's a fair assessment.

> 2020 update:

Earliest examples of tooth ablation are now said to have come from northern Laos (Upper Palaeolithic – 13,740 ± 80BP), Tam Hang site where lateral (I2) incisors were extracted ritually from early adolescent individuals

I hate that notion.

Ritual disfigurement always creeps me out.

And me.

Any kind of purposeful disfigurement.

Yeah. I don't even have any tattoos.

8:52 PM

@Robusto duh

I mean, what you like when you're 20 is not likely to be something you like 10 or 20 or 40 years later.

On top of that, tattoos tend to spread and go out of focus as you age. As if you needed any further reminders of how old you are.

@Robusto "Even".

@Cerberus I stand by what I said. I don't even have the minimum disfigurement.

Unless you count haircuts.

9:14 PM

@Robusto I think tattoos are pretty horrible, so no "even" for me!

> According to our manner of fighting, we must first call out by name someone from the enemy ranks, and then attack in single combat. But they (the Mongols) took no notice at all of such conventions; they rushed forward all together in a mass, grappling with any individuals they could catch and killing them.

The invasion of Japan by Mongol China is pretty interesting.

> Kagetaka made a final failed sortie with 36 men, 30 of whom died in battle, before committing suicide with his family.[15] According to the Japanese, the Mongols then held down the women and stabbed them through their palms with knives, stripped them naked, and tied their corpses to the sides of their ships.

@Robusto Never tell your wife that.

@tchrist We didn't meet until I was in my late 20s. And didn't get together till I was 30.

> In July 2021, following multiple large public events in a Barnstable County, Massachusetts, town, 469 COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled to the town during July 3–17; 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients. Cycle threshold values were similar among specimens from patients who were fully vaccinated and those who were not.

CDC reference.

@Cerberus What do you think about 74% of infections occurring in fully vaccinated persons?

Answer: We'll just have to wait until everyone is fully vaccinated for that to hit 100%.

Clearly the problem lies in Massachusetts having so many people fully vaccinated. That would never happen in Alabama.

9:30 PM

@tchrist Clearly.

What that suggests to me is that almost everyone who was there was fully vaccinated.

Just over 70%.

In Holland, of those in hospital, the very large majority are not fully vaccinated.

@tchrist No, a much larger percentage.

That's a rather different metric.

Yes.

> The invading force was drawn from a number of sources, including criminals with commuted death sentences and even those mourning the loss of their parents, a serious affair in China.

@Robusto Any idea what they mean here, with this 'serious affair'?

> Vaccination coverage is higher than average in Massachusetts, with nearly 70 percent of residents fully vaccinated.

No, not a much larger percentage.

9:32 PM

Was it a crime to (excessively) mourn one's parents?

This was P-town following the Fourth.

@tchrist No, of the people partaking in the events.

It's mostly but not solely younger gay guys.

@Cerberus In China? No, not really.

OK.

9:33 PM

In Japan, reverence for the parents is colossal.

And there's a lot of fraternization in hot summer nights in Provincetown. And days.

So you may be right.

@Cerberus I suspect it just means that it was an elaborate and solemn undertaking.

If 70% of a group are vaccinated, and 74% of those infected are fully vaccinated, that would suggests the fully vaccinated are more likely to be infected.

@Robusto But why draw soldiers from mourners, specifically?

It's really hard to communicate all this to the public. Vaccinated people remain overwhelmingly protected from serious illness or death. But now they can be spreaders again.

Mentioned together with criminals?

9:35 PM

@Cerberus I have no idea. Not enough information.

Nor I.

It's just a strange clause.

Perhaps the Mongols had some crazy rule.

The weird thing is that the rate of infection in Massachusetts was really low back around the Fourth. But still it happened.

> Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, noted that the new CDC guidance on indoor masking for vaccinated people applies to communities with substantial transmission, and Provincetown on July 3 had low levels of virus.

So it wouldn't have helped.

@Cerberus The Mongols had a lot of crazy habits and customs, not the least of which was putting an entire city to death—one by one, man, woman and child—in front of the widow of a prince killed in battle, as recompense for her loss.

@tchrist But perhaps the rate was much higher amongst visitors from different places who took part?

@Robusto Pretty crazy.

They also catapulted pestilent corpses into your city during sieges.

@Cerberus Yes, it's not like everyone there then is from there. I have pictures to prove it. :)

> CDC believes it needs to revamp its public communications strategy to stress the importance of vaccinations as the best way to crush the pandemic while acknowledging that breakthrough infections are more common than top health officials have previously indicated.

Hard.

9:40 PM

Yes, it is very unfortunate how the percentage of vaccinated people who can catch it and pass it on has increased substantially, to whatever unknown rate it is now.

I was tested negative last week, the first time since the beginning of the epidemic that I had any symptoms of any illness at all.

It was just food poisoning.

This Monday I got my second shot.

Now my throat might be aching slightly.

> Scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a research institute in Cambridge, Mass., involved in the genetic analysis of the outbreak highlighted that this was not a single event. At least five events sparked the outbreak, so it is not possible to blame it on one party or one bar.

“There’s no one person or spot to blame here,” said Daniel Park, group leader for viral computational genomics at the Broad Institute. “The thing that’s catching the attention in national public health is that you can have these types of events; there’s no one particular bar that did any worse than a…

I'll stay at home tomorrow and see what happens.

2

79% symptomatic includes of course everything from a mild cold to hospitalization.

Same thing appears to have happened in Janesville in mid-July. I haven't any fallout from the gigantic Christiansen reunion there in late June, though. Fortunately.

(All but the little kids were vaccinated.)

> A report of cases from mid-July in Dane County, Wis., found a similar result, showing that fully vaccinated people had similar viral loads to unvaccinated people “and may be more capable of spreading COVID than was previously known.” The Wisconsin data showed that the infection rate for unvaccinated people was twice as high as for fully vaccinated people.

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Spiky.

@Cerberus Were you tired Tuesday?

9:46 PM

No.

Nor was I after the first shot.

Good!

Some say being tired is good, shows that you're fighting the particles.

A scratchy throat can just mean you're being allergic. Or ozoned.

I often have a scratchy throat at night and in the morning, but not in the evening.

And I am never allergic nor anything else.

In the evening, it oftens means I'm coming down with a cold or even the flu.

For me it may just mean I'm far too tired.

9:48 PM

That's better than being infected.

Or perhaps once I get extra rest, my immune system chases something away. I have no idea.

> “Although most cases were not hospitalized, thus showing the vaccine works in an important way, this study is portentous for the achievement of herd immunity,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine. “If the vaccinated can become infected (and, we believe, from other studies, potentially spread covid), then herd immunity becomes more of a mirage than oasis.”

"More mirage than oasis"

@tchrist Fatigue is often accompanied by a weakening of the immune system, especially when brought on by stress.

Brought on by lack of sleep, for me, which is usually due to working too hard or not getting to bed early enough. Or both.

@tchrist Getting enough sleep is always important.

Other kinds of tiredness are perhaps not harmful.

P-town ravers don't sleep much.

I feel like this should not come as a surprise to people:

> “This report demonstrates that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is not perfect, particularly in a setting with a highly contagious variant, in a large group in close contact, even if most are vaccinated against the virus,” said Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health. “The good news here: If you’re vaccinated, refrain from large group gatherings and mask up, chances are good you’ll be okay. This is not 2020. But we’re not out of the woods.”

I know that it did not come as a surprise to our leading epidemiologists. I know because I asked one last night.

But the public? Well.

9:59 PM

@tchrist Agreed.

I'm not sure it came as a surprise to the general public.

Kamikaze (typhoon)

The kamikaze (Japanese: 神風) literally "divine wind" were two winds or storms that are said to have saved Japan from two Mongol fleets under Kublai Khan. These fleets attacked Japan in 1274 and again in 1281. Due to the growth of Zen Buddhism among Samurai at the time, these were the first events where the typhoons were described as "divine wind" as much by their timing as by their force. Since Man'yōshū, the word kamikaze has been used as a Makurakotoba of waka introducing Ise Grand Shrine. == History == The latter fleet, composed of "more than four thousand ships bearing nearly 140,000 men",...

@Robusto Is kamikaze plural? Indefinite?

10:15 PM

I don't think Japanese inflects nouns.

Right.

I believe Chinese doesn't, but not sure about Japanese.

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Stone bomb from the invasions.

10:29 PM

> [The Japanese invaded Korea in an attempt to conquer China.] After 1593, there was a truce of about four years. During that time, Ming granted Hideyoshi the title as "King of Japan" as withdrawal conditions, but Hideyoshi felt it insulted the Emperor of Japan and demanded concessions including the daughter of the Wanli emperor.

> ... the Japanese massacred civilians in captured Korean cities ...

10:43 PM

@Cerberus Mandarin has no inflections at all, not even agglutinative.

The only concession to the need to remember little arbitrary things purely for grammar's sake in Mandarin is number particles. That is if you say '4 books' you have to say '4 volumes book' or '5 sheets paper' or '3 sticks pencil'

@Mitch One wonders why that is necessary.

1 hour later…

11:55 PM

@Cerberus It's singular, but the difference is not spacious. Many plurals are implied, not explicit, unless an emphasis is required.

Okay.

So, depending on context, you could translate kamikaze as "wind" or "winds"?

@Cerberus Yeah, but I think it is most often translated as singular wind.

OK.

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