English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

21:03

The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin (Latin præputium or prepucium), is one of several relics attributed to Jesus, a product of the circumcision of Jesus. At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess Jesus's foreskin, sometimes at the same time. Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it. == History and rival claims == All Jewish boys are required by Jewish law to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth; the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, still celebrated by many churches around the world, accordingly falls on January 1. Luke 2...

Most of the Holy Prepuces were destroyed during the French Revolution.

O_O

Maybe it was the whole meaning of the Revolution.

Mitch

@alphabet Got it. If they had all the phonemes for all varieties of English, it'd be a big ol mess, one giant splotch.

In other news, I hear some tromping of feet all over my roof, and the sun is just at the right angle that it throws onto the wall of my neighbor's house the shadow of who is running around up there.

One very chunky squirrel.

If I weren't lazy I'd be out there with a bag of tennis balls practicing my aim.

makes note to buy a bag of tennis balls

We have a translucent birdfeeder with suction cups that we put on a window so we can see the birds up close. The birds of all different species stand in line on a railing nearby and take turns.

And then a squirrel comes. Makes an acrobatic leap right to the top, and then climbs inside (it's a very open birdfeeder.

I'm thinking of putting something slippery on the roof of the feeder.

Filming it.

Posting to youtube.

Making millions in hits.

Being visited by the SPCA.

Spending my last years in a padded room giggling.

alphabet

21:25

@Mitch I think they make anti-squirrel devices. But I don't really get the squirrel-hatred, they're my favorite friendly tree rats

tchrist

@alphabet They chase all the birds away and eat all the

Mitch

@alphabet They abuse the power of their likability.

Also, terrible conversationalists.

But they're no match for the excrescence that is chipmunks.

tchrist

Those ones are still up at the chipabbey.

Mitch

OK Here is some more awful animal news: These monkeys are 3,000 years into their own 'Stone Age'

tchrist

:map ^M PERIOD, STOP, AND FULL STOP, YA SCHTOOPS OLE GIT, SO NOW YA KEN STOP YER GAWKING AT MY NEKKID UNFINISHED EOL LIKE IT’S HARVESTING THE HOLY PREPUCE IN THE MARGINALIA!

Thus spake the chipabbot.

CowperKettle

21:38

Everybody must get stoned. Monkeys are no exception.

tchrist

It's the bonobos' stoner age I'm worried about.

Not to be confused with the bono-bus used for the auto-bus.

CowperKettle

tchrist

Iranian godmen take the Homini-bus outta here.

@CowperKettle And lo, he lifts!

@Mitch They've got some of that from like 30 or 50 kilaños ago way down deep in South América that seem to predate Men.

Little stone shards created by stone-age primates of unknown lineage.

I don't think the Elves used them, although perhaps the Hobbits may have.

Orcs are predators of Men.

Ware the sea, O Man, ware the sea.

Darién Gap

The Darién Gap (UK: , US: , Spanish: Tapón del Darién [taˈpon del daˈɾjen], lit. 'Darién plug') is a geographic region in the Isthmus of Darien or Isthmus of Panama connecting the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama's Darién Province and the northern portion of Colombia's Chocó Department. The "gap" is in the Pan-American Highway, of which 106 km (66 mi) between Yaviza, Panama, and Turbo, Colombia, was not built. Road-building through this area is expensive and detrimental to the environment. Political consensus...

@Mitch news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-tools-monkeys-2237820

> Experts are reevaluating prehistoric Pleistocene-era sites in Brazil previously believed to have been home to ancient humans. It turns out, the 50,000-year-old stone tools discovered in excavations are probably the work of capuchin monkeys, not early humans.

Mitch

@tchrist Or, and hear me out, squirrels.

Five-fingered hands.

Every digit opposable.

High-strung demeanor.

Can practically fly.

tchrist

Marmots the size of giant ground sloths?

Mitch

21:53

Terror-woodchucks.

tchrist

Paenemarmotae.

Mitch

OK maybe not wood-chucks. They would be slow and kill you by sitting on you.

Terror-ferret?

CowperKettle

AI art

Mitch

There's no escape.

From terror-ferrets or AI art.

The similarities are shocking.

tchrist

People who think woodchucks and other marmots can't climb a tree are stupid. Same with prairie pups; why I've seen ’em myself! What part of Sciuridae don't these people understand?

Paenemarmota

Paenemarmota is an extinct genus of ground squirrel from North America. Fossils are known from the Blancan and Hemphillian age from localities in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico. At around the size of a beaver, Paenemarmota is the largest known member of the squirrel family. == Description == Paenemarmota is the largest known ground squirrel and is nearly twice as large as the largest living marmots. Weight estimates for P. barbouri are around 9.5 kg (21 lb) on the basis of femur dimensions, or up to 16 kg (35 lb) kg on the basis of lengths of premolars. On the basis of lengths of...

Mitch

21:58

All those prairie dog warrens out in Kansas and Nebraska... you've never seen any trees around them.

Because the prairie dogs ate them whole.

tchrist

No, for that they brought in their beaverly cousins.

@Robusto It's hot and bright here, with roaring winds and a red flag warning. Tomorrow we lose 50 degrees and gain a few inches of snow.

CowperKettle

We'll be having +12°C

tchrist

We were half again that warm today. Are.

But it will be only +16F by tomorrow night. It's about 66 now but it feels much much warmer at this elevation and brightness if you're in the sun.

CowperKettle

How much is 16 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius? 16°F = -8.89 °C.

tchrist

Sorry, if you pick metric instead of English you don't get hourly units.

@CowperKettle Yeah, like that.

So we're going from 16C to 16F. Joy!

CowperKettle

22:07

tchrist

Friday we had 80 and 90 mph winds. Started fires.

Today is also a "red flag" fire-alert days. Haven't smelt any yet.

CowperKettle

tchrist

What you do expect when you kiss frogs?

> Widespread wildfires broke out in Colorado, including in the metro area, as strong winds and low humidity raised fire concerns and prompted two consecutive days of red flag warnings.

On Friday, a downed power line sparked the Hogback fire in Jefferson County, and the wind-driven blaze climbed upslope on the west side of the hogback, near Matthew Winters Park, and topped the ridge before racing down the east side toward C-470 and south toward West Alameda Avenue.

On Thursday, the 403 fire started in Park County south of Florissant and overnight the blaze grew to more than 1,205 acres as …

CowperKettle

tchrist

Dunno yet today.

CowperKettle

22:10

"spun-glass jeans"

tchrist

ouch

CowperKettle

> In 1893, the New York Times anticipated that glass dresses would be the latest luxury fad that year, but was ultimately proven wrong as the frocks were neither comfortable nor structurally sound.

tchrist

Cinderella will have been so disappointed.

How do you say north by northwest in Metric?

That's just ⅞, right?

Oh sorry, I used eighths. Metric Zeus strike me dead.

87.500000000000000000000000000, then.

CowperKettle

Nord-Nordwest

> Nord-Ost (Russian: Норд-Ост, means "North-East" in German) is a Russian musical theatre production that was composed by Aleksei Ivaschenko and Georgii Vasilyev, based on the novel The Two Captains by Veniamin Kaverin.

In Russian naval language, German (Dutch?) words are used for direction.

research suggests that bees have emotions, dreams and even PTSD, raising complex ethical questions

> bees can demonstrate sophisticated emotions resembling optimism, frustration, playfulness and fear, traits more commonly associated with mammals. Experiments have shown bees can experience PTSD-like symptoms, recognize different human faces, process long-term memories while sleeping, and maybe even dream

jlliagre

22:29

CowperKettle

> More than 2m colonies – about 70% of commercial honey bee colonies in the US – are trucked to California’s almond groves every February and subjected to the perils of industrialized agriculture, from pesticides to disease, with billions of bees perishing every year.

Billions of bees are destroyed annually in order to grow almonds

> The California almond industry, which relies almost completely on honeybees, rakes in more than $11bn a year and is the third-most-profitable commodity in the state.

jlliagre

23:09

tchrist

@CowperKettle I truly wish I knew how to fix this. It takes like a gallon of water per almond. In the desert. Idiots.

@jlliagre I like that!

> Manjo-fango Pounènt-mistrau

Wait, that means Mangio fango, doesn't it? I eat mud?

I know the Mistral is fierce, but my word!

jlliagre

23:30

@tchrist Yes, manjo-fango: lit. 'mud-eater', the wind that dries the mud.

Grè - Aguieloun: Greek - Aquiline.

tchrist

> In the interior of North America, the Blackfoot people call these winds the "snow eater";[4] however, the more commonly used term "Chinook" originates from the name of the eponymous Chinook people, who lived near the ocean, along the lower Columbia River, where the term was first derived.[5]

The reference to "a Chinook" wind or weather system originally meant, to euro-American settlers along the Pacific Northwest coast, a warming wind from the ocean blowing into the interior regions of the Pacific Northwest of the North America.

Chinook wind

Chinook winds, or simply Chinooks, are two types of prevailing warm, generally westerly winds in western North America: Coastal Chinooks and interior Chinooks. The coastal Chinooks are persistent seasonal, wet, southwesterly winds blowing in from the ocean. The interior Chinooks are occasional warm, dry föhn winds blowing down the eastern sides of interior mountain ranges. The coastal Chinooks were the original term, used along the northwest coast, and the term in the interior of North America is later and derives from the coastal term. Along the Pacific Northwest coast, where the name is pronounced...

I don't know why they call them föhn winds; I always think of them as mistrals.

Chinooks.

We have chinooks today.

jlliagre

Föhn is warm, mistral is cold.

tchrist

Oh. I didn't know that. These are hot, yes.

The Santa Anas are hot, also.

Santa Ana winds

The Santa Ana winds (sometimes devil winds) are strong, extremely dry downslope winds that originate inland and affect coastal Southern California and northern Baja California. They originate from cool, dry high-pressure air masses in the Great Basin. Santa Ana winds are known for the hot, dry weather that they bring in autumn (often the hottest of the year), but they can also arise at other times of the year. They often bring the lowest relative humidities of the year to coastal Southern California, and "beautifully clear skies." These low humidities, combined with the warm, compressionally-heated...

jlliagre

23:48

The Labè wind is called Libeccio in Corsica. That is, Libyan. So why is a southwest wind called Lybian when Libya is to the southeast of these places? Because the wind was first named by the Greeks!

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