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1:00 PM
My wife and I's?
Not really.
It's a dupe though, innit?
 
2
Q: Unions' Assassins' Guild or Union's Assassins' Guild?

930913Is it Unions' Assassins' Guild or Union's Assassins' Guild? If my English serves me, I think both are right but have slightly different meanings. Can someone shed some light?

 
It kind of is everything and nothing.
 
2
Q: Plural possessive with separate posessions

JimWhen we refer to a house that belongs to a family, we say "family's house". Pluralizing family gives us "families". Referring to the houses of several families, we say "families' houses". Forming the plural possessive in such a case is rather simple. I encountered a more complex use of this rece...

2
Q: Proper use of possessives

James HillIf I wanted to talk about treasure owned by multiple explorers, how would I write it? The explorers' treasure. OR The explorer's treasure. Is the plural form of explorer considered irregular?

 
Damn it.
shuts off brain
 
Yeah.
The thing is, the answer boils down to you write what you mean.
 
1:05 PM
Hey, @Vitaly, how would you describe my appearance?
 
Language boils down to that.
As cute as a tarantula?
 
If you mean [one of my buddies]' car, then you write that. If you mean one of [my buddy's cars], you write that.
 
I dog had smell face
 
I had no smell face.
 
@RegDwightѬſ道 It hurts my brain, therefore it should just be rephrased.
My dog has no nose.
 
1:06 PM
how does it smell?
 
I do!
 
Awful.
 
And I smell!
 
Damn it, @Cerb!
 
lol, good tween Cerb :D
 
1:06 PM
Shower time.
 
Later.
 
Whom are you going to show what?
 
Lator!
The shower.
Whom else?
 
Ah. Schauer. Not Schouer.
 
1:07 PM
I don't know what Schouer is.
 
something that shows
 
The opposite of grower.
 
Lies.
Bai!
 
Well, TIL.
 
1:15 PM
Seriously?
Look at me, getting to teach Kit things.
 
Me too. It's not a well known use of the words
1
Q: Possessive form of "one of [a list]"?

jtbandescommented: @MattЭллен Good find; however, the answer to that question is of a completely different form. I'm looking to select the (colloquially) correct sentence of a similar form to the ones I suggested.

 
I first encountered it on some TV show somewhere ten years ago.
 
but I'm not looking for exact duplicates of the answer you want!
 
It is my son's first extended day at school today. He's starting class right now.
 
excitement!
 
1:18 PM
I'm kind of sad that I can't be there.
 
it's for the best.
 
He's got a new Spider-man lunchbox.
 
ace :)
 
We packed his lunch together last night.
 
what's he got?
 
1:20 PM
Lunch?
 
well observed
 
did you snap that on your commute?
 
Snap? I had some white paint left...
 
good work!
I like the font
 
1:24 PM
PB&J, granola bar, yogurt, juice box, cheezits.
 
My husband just called to tell me it went fine.
Same as last time: "OK, bye, Daddy!"
 
Got in line and started telling his new teacher about what he had for breakfast.
Also made friends with a new kid.
 
awwww, sweet
 
1:26 PM
@KitFox Uh, for what purpose? If I had to recognize you, I'd probably memorize that your nasal root roughly resembles an upside-down trapezoid because I don't see that often, but the most useful cues would be the haircut and height
 
@Vitaly So I know what your mental representation of my appearance approximates. I'm just curious. checks nasal root
 
apparently people look at the left of the nose, then the eyebrows when trying to recognise someone. I can't remember where I heard that, so I don't know if it was a reputable source
 
Oh, I thought you were asking about the pictures you've posted
 
I was assuming they were correlated.
 
Well, since you are talking about approximations:
 
1:34 PM
Hmm.
 
Just with a different texture. It is perfectly valid to approximate humans as spheres, right?
 
I'd have thought you would have thought of me as more angular than that.
@Vitaly They make better cylinders.
 
or cubes
 
Not Danny de Vito.
 
I knew you'd mention cylinders.
 
1:35 PM
Naturally.
This is one of the reasons I like you, @Vitaly. We don't have to spend time coming to conclusions.
Also, this. ^
 
very cubey
 
@KitFox I take issue with that.
The font is all wrong.
If you gonna make fun of Christians, at least use the right tools.
 
Well, there isn't anything I feel like doing about that.
 
I know. That's what hurts most.
 
Poor owl elephant.
 
1:37 PM
not the bullets?
owlephant?
2
 
Somebody really needs to put you in a boa.
 
Seriously, this is the first demotivational poster that can't figure out how to do it.
 
Whoa.
 
yeah! that's what I thought
 
1:39 PM
I think it should be "owlphant" though. Easier to say.
 
Just don't post pictures of owlturds.
 
Owl pellets, you mean?
The least nasty scat in all the world?
I once got a whole vole skeleton out of a dissected owl pellet.
I was very pleased.
 
Oh.
 
1:40 PM
skillful indeed
 
Oh, that sounds weird, doesn't it?
 
only if I think about why
 
@Vitaly So how am I textured? Green velvet?
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 barf
 
1:43 PM
@MrShinyandNew安宇 Aahhh!
hides in sack
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hugh
 
it looks like it would be slimy and non-aerodynamic
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 This is just not right.
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 that's an abomination
 
I've never gotten so many replies all at once :)
 
1:45 PM
Actually, ^that's Abomination.
 
He's a gamma-irradiated monster, like the Hulk.
 
How most very abominable.
 
did it used to be an armadillo?
 
You can tell he was exposed to gamma rays because he's green.
@MattЭллен No, a KGB agent.
 
1:47 PM
oh!
 
But then he turned into an FSB agent. This is the result.
 
Oh, those gamma rays! So versatile
 
Well, not really. Big, green, strong.
Not much else.
 
Weren't there other people turned into different kinds of supers by gamma rays?
 
Let's see. There's also Dr. Samson.
Green hair, big, strong.
 
1:49 PM
she hulk
 
Big, green, strong.
 
What about Sandman
 
The Leader probably was. Big, green, smart.
 
peas
small, green, tasty
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 I don't think that was gamma.
Let me look.
 
1:51 PM
I think it was in the spiderman film
 
@KitFox It was a nuclear testing site. So it would have been gamma rays if they'd known any physics.
 
Oh, right. In the Spiderman movies, yes, that was gamma radiation.
In one of the series, it's one of Dr. Octavius's experiments. It might have been gamma radiation even then though.
Anyway. Big, wears a green shirt, strong.
 
Octavius was exposed to radiation too
also wears green
 
Hahaha. That's great.
> What Banner doesn't know, though, is that his trusted colleague Igor Starsky... is a filthy, filthy Commie spy!
 
1:59 PM
> Steve is injected with "super-soldier" serum until he transforms into a muscled god-at which point the genetically perfect, blond-haired, blue-eyed superman is ready to battle everything the evil Nazis represent.
 
"Zombie Robot Hitler"? No, no, no, they've got it all confused.
I didn't know @Reg was in Die Hard.
> Even James Bond movies usually spend the first sequence showing you how good he is at killing people and how he always gets a free woman to sleep with afterward, for the two audience members unfamiliar with how James Bond works.
This makes me feel really gross inside.
 
There are dating sites for everyone these days!
 
Reminds me of Futurama.
 
Even aspiring prostitutes who don't want to deal in cash, but prefer jewels and other non-liquid assets
 
Hey, might as well just drop the pretense I guess.
 
2:14 PM
> Bender: I'm telling you, Fry, they've got a chat room for everybody... and here it is!
 
I think in particular it's the beautiful girls and successful men that's disturbing to me.
 
Where hideous girls meet total losers.
 
Where 18-year-old just-graduated-from-high-school children can meet rich, ugly old men who want to take advantage of them.
 
Now now. Who's taking advantage of whom there.
 
Right. Right. What was I thinking?
 
2:17 PM
yes, where is the dating site for successful boys and beautiful old women?
 
Cougar.com.
 
gah! don't go there!
 
clicks Damn it.
 
I'm still waiting for OS X Cougar.
 
at least, not while you're at work
 
2:25 PM
There are cougar dating sites
The males are called "cubs"
 
Jez
hello everyone. It's a nice day in did.
 
'Ello.
 
Number 11 reminds me of our dear little piss-flaps troll.
Hello, @Jez.
And @MrShiny, you are a bad, bad man for distracting me from work.
 
Jez
no-one got that little in-joke? :-)
 
It was in did hard to get.
 
2:31 PM
@KitFox Well, I have that goatee, so I am in evil mode.
 
Not sure why that question is still open.
 
> Following the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, most orphaned or abandoned children were placed with relatives or in foster homes. This was the killing blow to the American orphanage system, which had been in decline since we stopped encouraging unmarried mothers to give up their whore-babies in the '60s.
 
Don't worry, if the GOP gets its way, you'll be taking that up again soon.
 
proofreading?
0
Q: Is this sentence well formed?

Pascal QyyI want a well formed sentence in english GB and US (two sentences if necessary…) from this french sentence: Cette page n'existe pas dans cette langue. Voici son contenu original : Here is what Google Translate give to me: This page does not exist in that language. Here is his original c...

 
Wow, Google Translate actually cannot be stopped. I thought it'd just leave my "экшуалли" message alone, but no. It returns "ekshualli yu ken taips Institute kirilliks Heer Long ez ez IT STILL Institute of Inglish".
 
Jez
2:42 PM
How's this for a commit message?
> Remove sourcecode scurf.
 
I like the RANDOM Capitalization
 
@Jez did you put some scurf on your source code?
 
@MattЭллен yeah. If that ain't proofreading, nothing is.
 
Jez
in other language sites, translations to that language are OK. time to change ELU rules!!
 
Go ahead and change them.
As long as they are not changed, they are still in place.
 
2:44 PM
@Jez it is proofreading. i.e. "are there any mistakes?" which is off topic
 
Jez
i suppose.
 
The dirty little secret is that we don't really have a topic to be on.
2
unless "dupe" is a topic.
 
I am but one man, being chased by a killer robot, my vote is barely a fifth of what is needed to close the question
 
@MattЭллен Can't you just unplug the robot from the USB?
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 he's just a souvenir model of the one chasing me
so, I can, but it won't help
 
2:46 PM
@Jez We had that discussion before, Jez. Translations are OK to that language from English. You cannot ask for a translation from Mongolian to German on GLU.
So, for ELU that would mean that we allow translations from English into English. And we already do that.
 
What about Amazonian to English? OT?
 
@RegDwightѬſ道 That sounds like proofreading, which is also off topic.
 
@MrShinyandNew安宇 I was thinking more like SWRs.
 
Jez
@RegDwight The conclusion that some of us came to is that $anyLanguage -> $siteLanguage is OK as long as you summarize reasonably the meaning of the original phrase, verbosely.
 
@Jez and that is on-topic here.
We had such a question just three days ago.
17
Q: expression "saving on the parrot's chocolate is futile"

20141In Catalan there is an expression that can be translated as "saving by not giving chocolate to the parrot is futile", conveying the meaning that when a household wants to save money, there are ways by which not much saving is going to be made. As an example, if you stop giving little bits of choc...

Yoichi-san had a couple of these as well.
 
Jez
2:50 PM
ic
 
8
Q: Are there English sayings that correspond to Japanese old saying, ‘There is no wild pig larger than the mountain from where he emerges’?

Yoichi OishiIn connection with my question about the usage of ‘No detail is too small’ I posted today, I’m curious to know whether you have axioms to correspond to my favorite Japanese old saying, ‘There is no wild pig larger than the mountain (from where he emerges).’ Wild pigs are perceived as violent, r...

 
@RegDwightѬſ道 which are almost off topic :D
 
Jez
SWR?
 
If you describe the phrase you are looking for in English, and then ask for a shorter/idiomatic way to say that, that's a . After you do that, you can still mention the exact equivalent in another language, but the key is that the question must still work with that bit removed.
 
2:55 PM
What are "hand-picked"' links? The ones you visited once?
 
user19161
@MattЭллен Old women can be quite attractive. I have met some of these.
 
user19161
@Gigili The ones you picked by hand, or those you chose carefully.
 
Picked by hand?
 
used your hand to pick
 
user19161
@Gigili Meaning chosen carefully. QED.
 
2:58 PM
What else I can use?
 
some automated system
chance
feet
eyelids
 
Nose?
 
Jez
@WillHunting depends how old.
 
if you can grasp things with your nose!
 
user19161
2:59 PM
@Jez Maybe you can try those too!
 

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