English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

00:43

@FaheemMitha I was also amazed that Indian armies, skilled in combat and having guns and metallurgy and the knowledge of the land, lost to the British.

Probably due to the local political schisms

M.A.R.

01:04

@CowperKettle I doubt they were remotely as well equipped as the British, but I suppose they could have easily overwhelmed the British army with sheer numbers if they weren't fighting among themselves

Robusto

01:17

@M.A.R. In fact, a good proportion of the Indians were employed as paid soldiers (sepoys) by the British Raj. But when they revolted in 1857, slaughtering their overlords when they could, the British beat them back brutally.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to British power in that region...

CowperKettle

02:02

Yes, a dark page in history.

SmokeDetector

02:20

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (35): is letter “y” derived from “ij”?‭ by Goesta Schlegel‭ on english.SE

Vikas

@ConGovDeIn I had a dream that from now on I will need to pay 100 USD instead of 15 USD every year for a streaming app subscription that I use.

tchrist

02:39

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/… All the towns spelled with an ij ending now have a "y". Danbury, Rye, bay, etc. Odd that County is spelled with a y ending. — Goesta Schlegel 19 mins ago

tchrist

03:37

Sutor, ne ultra crepidam

Sutor, ne ultra crepidam is a Latin expression meaning literally "Shoemaker, not beyond the shoe", used to warn individuals not to pass judgment beyond their expertise. The expression led to the term ultracrepidarianism, which is the giving of opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge. Its origin is set down in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia [XXXV, 85 (Loeb IX, 323–325)] where he records that a shoemaker (sutor) had approached the painter Apelles of Kos to point out a defect in the artist's rendition of a sandal (crepida from Greek krepis), which Apelles duly corrected...

2

A: What is the origin of the phrase "la ti dah"?

Dictionary discussions of 'la-di-da' J.E. Lighter, Random House Dictionary of American Slang (1997) has this entry for la-di-da: la-di-da adj. {shortening of earlier Br[itish] E[nglish] lardy-dardy, perh[aps] imit[ative] of affected speech} affected; pretentious; precious in expression or manner...

CowperKettle

03:55

@tchrist Interesting.

> A cobbler should stick to his last.

I never knew of this meaning of last

> "Zapatero, a tus zapatos"

CowperKettle

05:07

NASAMS

NASAMS (National/Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System) is a distributed and networked medium to long range surface-to-air missile defense system developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and Raytheon. NASAMS was the first application of a surface-launched AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile). NASAMS 2 is an upgraded version of the system capable of using Link 16, which has been operational since 2007. NASAMS 3 is the latest upgrade deployed in 2019; it adds capability to fire AIM-9 and IRIS-T SLS short-range missiles and AMRAAM-ER extended range missiles...

Suddenly Russian Wikipedia readers became very interested in the NASAMS air defense system. I can't understand why exactly.

From an average of 500 vews/day to 10 000 views/day. A mystery.

Vikas

05:53

Temperature is just 37 degree C but feeling like a furnace.

CowperKettle

06:17

@Vikas Wow.

Here, it's +13 C

Tomorrow it reach as high as +9 C

Vikas

06:55

@CowperKettle Not wow really. I went outside for 1 hour and I sweat a lot. Had to drink lot of water.

Also I woke early today hoping for a cool morning. But I was really surprised as soon as I opened the door. I could feel humidity and hot weather already.

Faheem Mitha

07:14

@Mitch Curious. That's what I remember it costing in NC's Triangle, around 15 years ago now. But perhaps I misremember.

CowperKettle

@Vikas Do you have an air conditioner in your room?

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Well, at the battle of Plassey, the East India Company bribed the commander of the armed forces of Nawab of Bengal (Jafar?) to stand aside and do nothing. So the East India Company won.

That's the well known traditions of British fair play right there.

@CowperKettle Having said that, I think the British were really good at killing, with all the local practice they got.

@Robusto India under the British was mostly run by Indians. The British were too few in number to keep control by themselves. And the 1857 revolt failed in part because the British kept control of some of their Indian troops. Though I don't know (or forget) the details.

CowperKettle

07:55

> In the Punjab, the Sikh princes crucially helped the British by providing both soldiers and support.[k][8][11] The large princely states, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana, did not join the rebellion, serving the British, in the Governor-General Lord Canning's words, as "breakwaters in a storm."

ConGovDeIn

@Vikas Not my type of dream.

Didn’t you get anything else? Something like, a dream of family or loved ones? Of childhood? I must say the internet has hijacked even your dreams.

Sorry for the pings.

CowperKettle

08:33

"Those matter have already been extensively discussed", @ConGovDeIn - you mean the wars in India? Yes, it's true.

ConGovDeIn

08:44

@CowperKettle Ummm... I mean the mistakes, betrayals, patriotism, cunningness, ruthlessness and divide and rule.

Who took part in rebellion, was it a revolt or a revolution?

All these things have rotten.

I shall not take part in any conversation of what I said. I apologise.

Vikas

@CowperKettle Yes

That is why it bothers me when I go outside. So I tend to keep temperature above 25 degree C.

CowperKettle

@Vikas Looks cool!

Vikas

Yeah wiring is messed up though.

Because it wasn't planned earlier.

@ConGovDeIn I do sometimes but most of them are not pleasing. Rarely I have really exquisite dreams. Like dream about past friends, childhood and nature. And I keep thinking about them whole day.

CowperKettle

I don't remember my dreams in most cases. If I take vitamin B6 + Zinc + Mg, then I do recall dreams, and they are vivid. I don't know whether they become vivid on this combination, or whether this is simply from remembering them.

Vikas

Last time I had a really good dream was like - I was at my old village where I spent childhood. Away from city. I also like to take photos sometimes. So then I noticed a very beautiful flower and I got mesmerized by it. I kept planning to take a photo of it. I was confused whether to take photo or keep staring. The dream ended without taking photo but it was worth it. I kept thinking about it next 2-3 days. There was something great about the flower and that location and maybe sunlight.

I wish I should have written that dream that day. I remember only 30-40% of that dream now. If I had written, I would have saved most of the things about it.

Actually I don't get dreams about politics and current war at all. I don't know why even though I often read about them.

But on the other hand, I very often do get dreams about an imaginary war because I play war games XD. Every time dream ends just before someone tries to shoot me.

@CowperKettle You mean these vitamins help to recall past dreams?

CowperKettle

09:52

@Vikas Yes, and the dreams seem to become vivid

At least that's so for me

I bought a pack of tablets with a high content of B6 and Mg (B6-Mg Forte, they are called here), and concurrently I was taking Zinc

And I was amazed at the vivid dreams I had.

With contrived plotlines

@Vikas Vitamin B6 helps people recall their dreams

Vikas

Interesting.

So it's like a Data Recovery software for humans.

CowperKettle

The article is dated 2018, and in the years that passed, I guess some additional research has been made

CowperKettle

10:15

Alas, no. Only 2 studies in the whole PubMed for "vitamin B6 dreams"

CowperKettle

12:18

Is there any international rule stipulating the need to inform a country that you intend to supply anti-missile systems to a neighboring country?

Cerberus

All there is is treaties.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Showing the good sense that typically characterizes Indian behavior.

Robusto

12:34

@FaheemMitha Yes. The Indians have never really been one people. And the interesting thing is that in the 18th century, the British and their Indians fought the French and their Indians for control of the subcontinent.

That's one of the contributing factors to the 1857 debacle.

And, of course, religion played a part as well.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me. Similar things happened in North America. Apparently it's really hard to figure out who your enemy is. Hint: for the last few hundred years, it's been Northern Europeans.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Well, not for the last 70+ years it hasn't. You're on your own now. ;)

Faheem Mitha

Tangentially, it's worth noting that Indians, by and large, don't like each other very much, and don't want to talk to other strange Indians. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. But if you start trashing the British in public, at least in India, everyone will happily join in.

@Robusto Well, we're still worried about being blown up, and being drowned by rising seas. Just to take two examples.

I'm actually a few hundred meters away from the Indian Ocean, and I'm wondering how long it will stay where it is.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Those things are not solely due to Northern Europe.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto The nuclear weapons thing is. It was created by Europeans and their technology. And the CO2 in the air is mostly an offshoot of modern industrial capitalism, which is also a European thing.

Robusto

12:39

@FaheemMitha Long enough for you to die of other causes, most likely. Unless there are serious geological events that intervene.

Mar 17, 2011 at 23:51, by Robusto

Oh, by the way, this whole thing in Japan reminds me of a great quote from Will Durant:
"Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice."

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Well, here's hoping. But apparently the ice in the Arctic regions is melting at an alarming rate, much faster than anticipated.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Actually, it was created by the United States and their technology (including input from some Europeans). But you and Pakistan have your own bombs now. You can't blame the Chinese for all wars just because they invented gunpowder.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Civil war is much more likely here.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Yes. It is truly alarming.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I'm counting the United States as Europe. I realise you'll disagree with that.

Robusto

12:41

@FaheemMitha So you are blaming the parent for the child, or vice versa?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I think of the USA as transplanted Europeans. I believe a term that is used is European settler society.

So, I don't really differentiate between them and Europe proper, geographically speaking.

But of course, that's just me.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Yet Asians are one of the fastest-growing minorities here. I, for one, am of European descent, but I married an Asian and so did my son. What does that make us?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto By "you" I suppose you mean the Indian state, which I don't personally identify with. I don't have any nuclear bombs stacked away, personally.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha What does it say on your passport?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto The dominant culture as a whole is European. I realise a lot of people living there are from other places and cultures.

@Robusto I'm an Indian citizen, if that's what you are asking. Not a good thing to be. Is that relevant?

Robusto

12:46

@FaheemMitha Well, you can't entirely escape some kind of collective responsibility, such as you are assigning to others.

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Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I think people have an unfortunate tendency to identify with the State they live in. It's unfortunate because they then feel the need to support the crimes of that State. Or if not support, at least tacitly "buy into".

Robusto

That is a very general statement.

Faheem Mitha

In any case, States like India of relatively recent vintage, and again, are a European model.

Robusto

India isn't one country or one people. That is maybe part (or all) of the problem.

The other problem is that India, like other countries, is peopled by human beings.

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Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, but it's often true. For example, to be a good Indian, you're supposed to vilify and hate Pakistan. Call them terrorists and so on. This has been true for many years. It's not a recent phenomenon.

Similarly, as a "good" American, you are supposed to vilify and hate the State's enemies. Whether they are Russia or Iraq or Iran or Cuba. Even if you know nothing about those places or those cultures.

Robusto

12:55

@FaheemMitha I am so much more complicated than that.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha Average ticket price at movie theaters in the United States from 2009 to 2021

Robusto

@Mitch I remember when 50 cents was a lot to pay for a ticket. And my grandparents went to nickelodeons for five cents.

Mitch

@FaheemMitha For many arguments, that is very fair.

@Robusto Hell when I was a kid, they used to -pay- me to go to the movies

Robusto

@Mitch That was your parents, and they just wanted you out of the house.

tchrist

What preposition would you most normally use to rewrite a sentence beginning with “My understanding is that....” so that it begins with “<PREPOSITION> my understanding,...” instead?

- By
- In
- To
- For
- Per
- From
- With
- As per
- Within
- Following
- Vis-à-vis
- Pursuant to
- According to
- To the best of
- In keeping with
- With respect to

Mitch

13:03

We should vote on this.

tchrist

Ranked choice?

Robusto

@tchrist Some of those are fine, some are not.

It would be easier to discard the ones that don't work.

The only ones I would discard outright are to and for and with. But it is really a matter of taste.

tchrist

Our preferences here seem to have shifted with time.

Robusto

@tchrist As do all preferences.

You can't step in the same liver twice.

tchrist

Do To my understanding and From my understanding mean opposite things?

The "To" version used to be much more popular than it is today.

To be honest, I don't understand its application.

Robusto

13:09

Nope. I think to is a form of or similar to with respect to.

tchrist

@Robusto That's insightful.

@Robusto The To one always confuses me. I wonder if it's a pineapple spore.

0

Q: The differences between the word "contradictory" and "ambivalent"?

Correct me if wrong, I think both of the words are adjectives describing having two opposite characteristics at the same time. To my understanding, while ambivalent is more of a psychological term or status, both contradictory and ambivalent can describe one's emotion, but only contradictory can ...

3

Q: Answering "I don't have a criminal background"

There is this request for information in a form, given as a (negative) statement rather than a question, but requiring a response of 'Yes' or 'No': I don't have a criminal background (Y / N) To my understanding, if someone does not have a criminal background, they should pick YES. Yes, I don't ...

word-choice grammaticality meaning-in-context

2

Q: "Catch one's breath" vs "One's breath caught"

I was looking into the usage of 'to catch one's breath'. To my understanding, it's used to denote a pause between an intake of breath and the release. However, I was told that the idiom is more commonly rendered as 'one's breath caught in one's throat' and this got me thinking about who's doing t...

phrases idioms usage phrase-usage

1

Q: Interruption Comma "yet then somehow"?

Here are the examples: He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way yet expect different results. He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way then somehow expect different results. These can be combined for effect: He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way yet then some...

commas adverb-position

Robusto

@tchrist Possibly. But I can see it coming from Boswell or Pope as easily.

tchrist

@Robusto Yes, it feels quite old and formal to me.

> According to the rules of commas, to my understanding, both "then" and "somehow" are interruptions and can safely be omitted, but It seems to me that they are separate interruptions.

We have a lot of these.

I did find some instances of its use in old Congressional records.

But Sven also used it, and he's in his 70s IIRC.

No, he cites it.

> This to my understanding implies, that the robbery or sacriledge committed by our first Parents for which the Sonne of God did humble and ingage himselfe to make satisfaction, was their proud or haughty attempt to be equal with God, at lest in knowledge of good and evill. And yet, as was said before, the collapsed Angels had doubtlesse sinned more presumptuously, before they tempted our first Parents to the like sinne.

See, smells very old. :)

Robusto

Yes. Early-Modern-English-ish.

M.A.R.

13:26

@CowperKettle there was generally a lot of ink spillage back then.

tchrist

The British seem to have taught only Early Modern English to their Empire's farflung subjects in the Indies and scattered desert sands.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Obviously, I didn't mean you personally. That would clearly be absurd.

Cerberus

@tchrist I think I'd use To my knowledge or As I understand it.

I don't feel that understanding is needed here.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch I must be remembering incorrectly. Obviously, I haven't saved any ticket stubs.

@tchrist Apparently some archaic English does survive in some, possibly mangled form, here in India.

Cerberus

Faheem Mitha

13:39

@Robusto India isn't really a country. It's basically a small continent. Somewhat comparable to Western Europe. Which was smooshed together by force, and with little thought of the conseqences.

Robusto

@Cerberus So ... it's British-y. No wonder it sounds odd to my ear. It had a redolence of Boswell or Pope, as I said earlier.

@FaheemMitha Yes. My point exactly.

Faheem Mitha

A collaborative effort between the British and the India elites they handed India over to. Which is commonly called democracy. For some reason.

Cerberus

@Robusto I never knew that.

Both phrases would seem unremarkable to me.

Robusto

Yet I could fathom any of them, without confusion.

Faheem Mitha

Incidentally, I only recently discovered that the (newish) Indian state invaded, occupied and annexed Hyderabad by force. Which was, probably not coincidentally, ruled by a Muslim. The Nizam. A nasty business, by all accounts.

(The "by force" bit is probably redundant, above.)

Cerberus

13:42

Robusto

@FaheemMitha It is an intensifier, so it didn't trouble me.

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tchrist

14:07

@Cerberus I think I could only generate to the best of my knowledge, but I can't explain why.

@Cerberus But your As I understand it is what sounds best to me.

Cerberus

@tchrist OK I'm glad, then.

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tchrist

@FaheemMitha Hence the subcont's seven storied sovereign states.

At least I think there are still seven. I haven't asked China lately.

From here. "The team produced three new geological models: a plate model, a province model, and an orogeny model."

I forget what they're calling the apparent lost continent of which New Zealand alone remains above sea level today.

CowperKettle

14:23

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

tchrist

@CowperKettle I'm guessing that's an Italian don not a Spanish don.

Zealandia

Zealandia (pronounced ), also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, a continental fragment (or microcontinent), and a continent. The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia. A 2021 study suggests Zealandia is 1 billion years old, about twice as old as geologists previously thought.By approximately 23 million...

"Tasmantis" is a bit cute.

CowperKettle

@tchrist In the book, it's Spanish

> ’Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?
Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,
Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?

tchrist

@CowperKettle Oh ok. I certainly know of more Spanish ones, but I haven't really studied Italy much.

CowperKettle

> Were there not also Russians, English, many?
The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,
And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,
Who kill’d himself for love (with wine) last year.

tchrist

@CowperKettle Funny how that "ngstr" isn't at all so much of a mouthful as one might imagine it would be.

Or the "ntstr" one either, for that matter.

CowperKettle

14:29

Yes

tchrist

All Irish pub-goers are peers.

Which is much nicer than calling them uriners.

Or pissers.

Robusto

Or, as they used to say in Boston, "It's a pissah."

Maybe they still do, I dunno.

Faheem Mitha

16:06

@tchrist Sorry, I didn't follow that sentence.

Vikas

16:35

@Cerberus Delhi is 10 times smaller now.

Vikas

16:46

PM Modi with US President Joe Biden and PM Trudeau of Canada at G7 Summit in Germany

►

Hahaha. How curious Biden is to meet Modi.

And Modi didn't expect USA's president will approach to him like this lol

Cerberus

17:08

@Vikas Poor Delhi!

Cerberus

17:20

@Mitch A 2.7% yearly increase.

Probably quite a bit higher than inflation.

Vikas

17:53

@Cerberus But maybe 100+ times more crowded and polluted now.

Robusto

@Vikas वह रूस का बात से गुस्सा हो क्या , छोड़ो न क्या रखा है

Vikas

@Robusto LOL

Cerberus

@Vikas I'm sure!

Though rapidly growing cities did stink in the past.

Vikas

18:10

@Cerberus How?

Robusto

The basements of London houses in the 17th and 18th centuries were positively fecal repositories.

Vikas

Yuck

Robusto

Exactly.

Cerberus

@Vikas Probably several things: facilities to collect and remove waste were probably not growing along with the population fast enough; more people per square metre means more squalor per square metre; rapid growth might mean the government's organisation could not keep up? Etc.

Vikas

Hmm.

I've also heard public toilets in USA are very bad.

Is it true?

Robusto

18:17

It depends on where you are.

If you're in a genteel area, or a mall, they're usually quite good.

Vikas

OK?

Robusto

If they're in a no-name gas station in a rural area, probably not.

Vikas

OK. Then I guess it's normal.

> The USA in general is dirtier and junkier than many G7 countries. You see the difference the minute you cross the border from Canada. The cleanest country I’ve ever seen is actually Turkey!

Faheem Mitha

@Vikas In my experience, that's not true. They are usually reasonably clean. Though I've not travelled extensively. Of course, it depends on how high your standards are.

Vikas

I read this on Quora.

Robusto

18:23

@Vikas Anecdotal.

Vikas

@FaheemMitha I think people have posted wrong question and answers on Quora.

2

Faheem Mitha

@Vikas You don't want to believe everything you read on the internet.

@Vikas As you might be aware, bathrooms are important to Americans. They take them seriously.

Vikas

But Turkey is not even in top 20 clean countries. USA is in top 20 according to a link I just checked.

So Quora is not very reliable sometimes. Maybe people share their own experience.

@FaheemMitha Of course it does make sense. I found it hard to believe given USA is a developed country.

Faheem Mitha

@Vikas Quora isn't reliable at all. There is no reputation system, no moderation, or even a real community. Just a bunch of random people milling around.

@Vikas It's not just that. Like their forebears, the British, bathrooms are important there.

It's a cultural thing.

Vikas

@Robusto Well.

Maybe.

Faheem Mitha

18:27

Of course, I'm speaking relative to what I know. A Swiss person might not be so impressed.

Robusto

@Vikas And this would depend on where you cross the border from Canada! If you're near Detroit, possibly you'll find some dirt. But the border is thousands of kilometers long. Do you look at a Frenchman who has a mole on his face and decide that all Frenchmen have moles?

Cerberus

@Vikas Hmm in my experience, Turkey is fairly clear and neat, but nothing compared with Germany, let alone Holland.

Vikas

@Robusto Of course no. I think that poor lady on Quora shared her own experience and generalised it.

Cerberus

Although the loos may be a special things: those aren't clean here either...

Robusto

@Cerberus I have seen restrooms in bars in Germany that I would not consider squeaky clean.

Faheem Mitha

18:29

@Vikas I'm actually watching a Turkish TV show right now. It's sort of a soap opera. Quite interesting.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, we have very dirty ones here as well!

Vikas

@Cerberus Yeah most cleanest countries are in Europe.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha I think Turkish and South-America soap operas are amongst the most popular ones around the world.

Robusto

And it only takes one messy person to pollute a public restroom.

Cerberus

@Vikas Probably, and East Asia? E.g. Japan, Singapore.

Faheem Mitha

18:30

@Cerberus Is that so? I've never watched any Turkish TV before.

Cerberus

Singapore should win, what with their extremely high fines for littering.

Vikas

@Cerberus Of course. How can I forget them.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha I haven't really watched any either.

Faheem Mitha

One very noticeable thing is that the soundtrack has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Or maybe a pneumatic drill.

Robusto

I've never seen Turkish TV either. Turkish taffy, on the other hand ...

Vikas

18:32

In general higher HDI countries are more aware about environment, I suppose.

Faheem Mitha

Sometimes it sounds like a pneumatic drill.

Vikas

I never understood Opera music. So never really tried to listen it.

Cerberus

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto What about Turkish taffy?

@Vikas Soap opera, not opera. Quite different.

Cerberus

This is so funny.

Robusto

18:33

@FaheemMitha Just saying I've seen it.

Cerberus

Of course Muslims and Germans are obsessed with washing.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Of course?

Cerberus

We Dutchmen resist this superstition!

@FaheemMitha It's part of Islam, various daily washing sessions.

And Germans are just Germans.

Robusto

@Cerberus I don't pee on my hands, so ...

Vikas

@FaheemMitha Oh well.

Cerberus

18:34

@Robusto Yeah...

The real percentage is MUCH lower than 50%...

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Huh. I wasn't aware of that.

@Cerberus What is that 96% place?

Cerberus

Wudu

Wuḍūʾ (Arabic: الوضوء al-wuḍūʼ [wʊˈdˤuːʔ]) is the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. The 4 Fardh (Mandatory) acts of Wudu consists of washing the face, arms, then wiping the head and the feet with water. Wudu is an important part of ritual purity in Islam. It is governed by fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), which specifies rules concerning hygiene and defines the rituals that constitute it. It is typically performed before prayers (salah or salat). Activities that invalidate wudu include urination, defecation, flatulence, deep sleep, light...

Faheem Mitha

I think Turkey is a bit special, because it's one of the few places that far West that is still (mostly) Islamic. It's partly in Asia and partly in Europe, isn't it?

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Bosnia, also Muslim.

Albania is also Muslim, but it is colourless.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Oh. And the 94%?

Cerberus

18:36

Kosovo is also Muslim.

94% is Turkey.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Oh, I see. Interesting.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Most of Africa is farther west than Turkey.

Cerberus

Swedes are obsessed with saunas and stuff.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Well, OK. but it's separate from Eurasia.

Cerberus

Vikas

18:38

@Cerberus Automatically? And is it just about peeing?

Cerberus

@Vikas It doesn't say, so probably after any visit.

By automatically, they mean, always, without thinking.

> There are some indications that the Muslim presence within present day Argentinian territory dates back to the time of the Spanish exploration and conquest. The first mentioned Muslim settlers were the 15th century's Moorish-Morisco (Muslims of the Iberian peninsula of North African and Spanish descent) who explored the Americas with Spanish explorers, many of them settling in Argentina who were fleeing from persecution in Spain such as the Spanish Inquisition.[4]

However, in the 19th century Argentina saw the first real wave of Arabs to settle within its territory, mostly from Syria and…

I didn't know this.

M.A.R.

I can confirm we're obsessed with washing

Cerberus

Heh.

Faheem Mitha

Well, I do a lot of washing. And I'm Muslim, technically. But I think the two things are unrelated.

Vikas

@M.A.R. Yeah because of pandemic.

Faheem Mitha

18:41

@Vikas I suspect he means generally.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Could it not be a cultural tradition influenced by a Muslim (family) history?

M.A.R.

@Vikas the pandemic only introduced soap and skin irritation

Faheem Mitha

I don't know if a Turkish soap opera is reliable, but it shows Turkey as surprisingly clean and modern looking. Though I wouldn't mistake it for Western Europe or North America, probably.

@Cerberus It's possible, yes. Family influences are hard to gauge.

Cerberus

Soap operas won't be super reliable, but middle-class, urban Turks are quite modern and clean.

Even aside from their religion.

M.A.R.

I don't think Turkey is that clean. Or maybe Tabriz is not as dirty as I think. Most parts at least

Cerberus

18:43

The east will be less clean than the west...

M.A.R.

But my impression of Europe is it's way cleaner, except maybe in some tourist destinations

Cerberus

There is a huge difference.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Have you travelled much in Europe and Asia? I haven't.

M.A.R.

Which is also one reason I'm skeptical that some very popular tourist resorts in Turkey are "clean"

Cerberus

I would expect those cheap Turkish resorts to be similar to cheap European resorts.

Not super clean, but clean enough.

M.A.R.

18:45

@FaheemMitha I don't think either travelling or Google Street View sightseeing would allow for fair comparisons, but no, I'm unfortunately not a travelled person

Vikas

> Turkey will now be known as Türkiye at the United Nations, after the intergovernmental body agreed to a formal request for the name change from Ankara.

Cerberus

Then again, I would never in my life want to go there, of course.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Well, they didn't create the roads and buildings for the soap opera. And they look reasonably good. Of course, it's possible to film selectively.

Vikas

Didn't knew about this.

Mitch

@Cerberus not 'quite a bit higher' but yes, a little higher

Cerberus

18:46

@FaheemMitha Oh, they film very selectively.

M.A.R.

If you visit extremely different places, maybe.

Cerberus

In a Dutch soap opera, everyone will look nouveau riche.

Same for a Portuguese soap opera.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Probably so. Anyway, it's a fairly outdoorsey soap opera.

Cerberus

Yay.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus And I assume that's inaccurate.

Mitch

18:47

The average US inflation rate seems to be about 2% since 1980 and going down (but ignore the last few months

@Cerberus what do nouveaux riches look like?

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm your inflation seems to have been quite a bit higher than ours!

M.A.R.

Did someone say inflation

Amateurs:

> The inflation rate for consumer prices in Iran moved over the past 59 years between -0.4% and 49.7%. For 2019, an inflation rate of 39.9% was calculated.

Cerberus

@Mitch They wear lots of white shirts and blouses, high heels, not-quite-U suits, glittering watches, lots of make-up. And their houses have black or white modernist furniture. And lots of glass and steel.

And they always drink white wine, often with bubbles.

@M.A.R. You win.

Mitch

@Cerberus hmm...

Cerberus

M.A.R.

18:50

Vatanam, pareye tanam 😤😤😤🤜🤛✌

Cerberus

Hmm I had forgotten that the German superinflation was long before the economic crisis in the rest of the world.

Mitch

@Cerberus for some groups that is the regular way things work, nouveau or ancien

Cerberus

Not really ancien.

Mitch

but I know what you're saying. TFG = nouveau

Cerberus

What?

M.A.R.

18:52

Thick Friendly Giant?

Mitch

The Former Guy

or That F***ing Guy

Cerberus

The thing with the nouveau-rich aesthetic is that they are still afraid of their background, so they wish to avoid the taste of their poorer grandparents at all cost, so old things = bad.

M.A.R.

Nervous laughters, SUVs, middle management jobs in big corporations

Mitch

tee hee

M.A.R.

More like ohunhunhunhun

Vikas

18:56

@M.A.R. I cough like this in cold.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Exactly!

> A loaf of bread in Berlin that cost around 160 Marks at the end of 1922 cost 200,000,000,000 Marks by late 1923.[14]

By November 1923, one US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks.[16]

M.A.R.

@Vikas found the Nivea-rich

I'm a Head & Shoulders person myself

tchrist

19:12

@FaheemMitha I believe that India-the-subcontinent includes 7 different countries in it.

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist How do you figure seven?

tchrist

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, or simply the subcontinent, is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The terms Indian subcontinent and South Asia are often used interchangeably to denote the region, although the geopolitical term of South Asia frequently includes Afghanistan, which may otherwise be classified as Central Asian. Sometimes, the British Indian Ocean Territory is also included...

So that says it's made up of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Naming the whole continent India was probably as clever as naming the one containing Argentina and Alaska and everything in between America. :)

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Oh, I see what you mean. No, I meant the country India is probably better thought of as a collection of smaller countries, in some, but not all cases, corresponding to the states.

Robusto

19:28

@Mitch The average price of gasoline here is down about 20% over the last two weeks.

Robusto

20:29

> I solved today's Redactle (#82) in 71 guesses with an accuracy of 32.39%. Played at redactle.com

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