Surprised this hasn't been posted here before. Or, at least, a search of the URL does not turn it up. It's simply called w, and it's by jan Misali, and it's one of the most fascinating short documentaries I've ever seen.

@TRiG If you want others to watch it, you might want to explain what it is about and/or what's so good about it!

@M.A.R. That toddler is due for Naptime.

@Cerberus I think the letter W plays a superhero

@M.A.R. It is similar to the Arabic sound, except that it is a bit softer in Dutch.

Prevents a nuclear bomb from being sold by rogue Russian general to Kazakh arms dealers who plan selling it to the next Al Qaeda

Where is the next Al Qaeda?

Oh I'm glad you asked that's an interesting story

involving a relative of W

No, U.

See, U ostensibly dropped out of Yale to work on Alaskan fish trawlers

But really, as a theater and Mideast studies double major, he had been recruited by MI5

Meanwhile back at the Tadhik-Afghan border...

I mean you could watch the vid to get all this

Anyway...at a submarine fender off the Tierra del Fuego....

@Cerberus It's the history of the letter w, traced from Phoenician through Greek and Etruscan into German, and then its further modern evolution in Welsh, Maori, and Japanese.

A jet ski slides up the beach in the middle of the night

Off steps a cat-suit with a crossbow

This XX

Ah glad you mentioned the Maori

A container ship is being unladen at the Wellington shipyard

No one knows what's in that one container - it doesn't appear anywhere on the manifest

Back in London, commandos are rappelling down the outside of the Gherkin with a view of the London Eye. The commandos zip past the window cleaning staff [insert witty repartee between window washers, maybe some dark humor about falling?]

And then the dog snorts and puts head on the lap of the protagonist

Credits roll

Blooper reel next to credits

And a post-credit teaser for the W prequel - 'ABC'

@Mitch the toddler's squad is ambushed, and master Skywalker, there's too many of them, what are we going to do?

The toddler grabs a light machine gun, covers his face in black paint (or maybe chocolate cake), and starts shooting

There's a helicopter around for no reason. They start shooting at it, ignoring the toddler, for no reason. The helicopter crashes after a few rounds of an old rifle hits that part where the passengers aren't. Basically for no reason.

The toddler's best friend slash black sidekick was on that chopper.

Played by Apollo Creed

Is it "X has seen its value reduced" or "X has seen its value reduce"?

@Řídící both are grammatically correct, but that sort of anthropomorphism tends to be frowned upon. Academic writing should be concise, not poetic.

So "X's value is/has been reduced", whichever tense is appropriate

What's so special about him?

@CowperKettle Sounds like fun!

@CowperKettle With that much money, couldn't she have her child treated in e.g. Germany?

@Mitch It is most problematic here around nightlife areas.

Men will pee against buildings, in corners and alleys and such.

Some women pee over a drain or something.

Many just have to hold up, or walk farther to a an actual public loo with a door, or inside a café or something.

More public loos for women are being built, though.

maps.amsterdam.nl/openbare_toiletten/?LANG=en

Look, here is a map.

Women need to use the squares or triangles.

Or bring one of those famous "peeing pipes" in their bags...

I now see not all public loos are on the map, I can think of some that aren't on there.

Could be perhaps they close after a certain hour?

@TRiG Ah, cool.

Hey hi. When you hear the word greenhouse do you immediately associate this with the place where you grow greens. I mean it's only today after decades of learning the language that I finally see the connection between those loll. Why did it take me so long.

I mean to the point that for 10 mins I had glasshouse in mind I had to check the dictionary. So yeah I speak French so it's serre, so there is no such connection.

I realize I haven't been exposed to sentences like "eat your greens" but I always thought people would say veggies to kids or what not. It seems it makes quite a difference those things I didn't learn about the language when I was a child.

Anyways, maybe it's hopeless.

Cheers.

@Robusto Rabbi? More like wannabe life coach...

@M.A.R. That's not ... bleurgh ... chocolate cake

@Cerberus I'm trying to think of areas where that might happen and all I can think of is nearby Wrigley Field (in Chicago) after a baseball game.

And maybe a really bad motel in a really bad part of town?

In other words public urination doesn't seem to be a problem in the US that is asking for a solution..

Of course maybe because Americans are so puritanical, they don't pee in public. Or at all.

Maybe that's Europe's problem. This big need to pee in public.

@Mitch Life coach, rabbi ... I don't see a difference.

@Ti-culTi-caille If by 'greens' you mean the term that seems to be only used as in the motherly advice 'Eat your greens' for green vegetables like lettuce, broccoli, spinach, or what a greengrocer sells (in addition to fruits and other non-green vegetables), then no, 'greenhouse does not invoke that kind of green.

The green in greenhouse just evokes the image of anything with green leaves, could be edibles but also any kind of flower or grass or shrub that is mostly green. ie 'greenhouse' evokes things more like flowers than it does edibles (ie -not- lettuce or other green edibles)

@Robusto a rabbi or vicar tend to have years of schooling to get to where they are. A life coach tends, in my imagination, to have less schooling.

@Ti-culTi-caille It's not hopeless, it's just that adults have a lot more on their plate to really latch on to things.

I mean in your first language there are all sorts of things that you just accept at face value.

Actually, there are all sorts of things you don't accept at face value at all and wonder why adults chose to say it that way (and the adults are the unquestioning ones.)

Like French 'beaucoup'. Really? 'a lot' is the same as 'big blow' or 'nice blow'? Were the people who started saying this sailors or something?

@Vikas You used the phrase—puppies sleeping.

@Mitch Thank you that was very insightful. I had to look up that beaucoup and yeah, not sure I can fully wrap my head around that but it seems closer to nice/big shot/slice hahaha. That's a good one. Never thought about it indeed. When you're a learner I guess you're sometimes overly sensitive to shiny stuff in the language so to speak whereas when it's your native language often you don't even ask yourself. True that. Cheers.