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11:07 PM
@tchrist and you've been on this site for how long?
Difference among happens like thrice a week.
Now, difference from is a rare beast.
 
No native speaker would ever naturally say “difference among”. That means they’re following some strange language acquisition path.
 
I thought difference among was a British thing.
 
Among your sister, your wife, and myself, we’ll get to the bottom of this.
 
I suppose amongst would be better.
 
Still sounds like the difference is sitting amidst them, looking around wondrously, asking itself how it got there.
 
11:11 PM
St Louis lies among Chicago, Dallas, and Denver.
 
@RegDwighт Well, good, because that is what it is actually doing.
 
@RegDwighт That’s almost just exactly what I was thinking, and with those words, even.
 
@KitFox no it is not. Because it then has no relationship whatsoever to any of them.
And what you're after is precisely the relationship.
 
fiddles with joke intensity knob
 
knob explodes with delight
 
11:12 PM
Damn it.
Social interactions on the fritz again.
No offense, @Reg.
 
If the knob told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against it?
 
Yes.
 
What now.
 
@KitFox @Reg is really Fritz? Good to know!
 
The body against the knob?
English is so not clear. Get yourself some cases, willya.
 
11:13 PM
@tchrist Well, I prefer to think of him as Russian...
@RegDwighт Does it matter which?
 
@tchrist I am Putin on the Fritz.
 
@KitFox So what’s Fritz in Kerrilick?
 
Whut?
 
Фриц.
That's quite derogatory.
 
phritz
Oh. I get it.
 
11:15 PM
Cuz?
 
@RegDwighт That's why I said no offense.
 
Cuz whachacall it. Metonymy? Pars pro toto? Fritz means German, or German fascist in particular. Kind of like the Germans use "Ivan" for "a Russian".
 
Oh. Not Jerry?
 
That reminds me. I felt a pang of guilt watching Bugs Bunny yesterday with my boys when Bugs was one-upping Bruno the Bear.
 
@tchrist There is not a single Russian named Jerry in the entire history of mankind, past, present or future.
 
11:17 PM
I feel a cat-and-mouse game coming on.
 
Jerry is short for German. I assume no one but merkins calls them Germans.
 
Ah that.
Never heard of that.
More like Kraut. Or even Jap.
Well perhaps somewhere in-between.
 
Tom & Jerry = Brit & Kraut in WWI.
 
The rest are Allemanders or Deutschers or something.
 
Newts.
 
11:18 PM
@RegDwighт jerry-rigged?
 
Every time someone mentions Newt I can't resist.
@KitFox oh is that related?
 
I can't believe they killed her off. I guess they didn't know what to do with her.
@RegDwighт I think so.
 
Well what do I know.
 
Apparently I don't know anything.
 
I see no rigging. I do see a jury being linked.
 
11:21 PM
I'm pretty sure that jerry-rigged is related to jerry-built.
Anyway, I have to get the boys to bed. bbl
 
This is the house that jerry-built.
CU
 
Haha
 
But nobody knows what jerry-built is from.
 
Join me for scotch later?
 
Jerry: Constructed unsubstantially of bad materials.
 
11:21 PM
I won't be around to greet you back.
I must go to bed soon. And work on the walrus.
 
Oh well then. Good night to you.
 
jerry-built: Built unsubstantially of bad materials; built to sell but not to last.
 
Right back at you.
 
> Etymology: Origin not ascertained. That jerry-builder and jerry-built originated in some way from the name Jerry is probable; but the statement made in a letter to the newspapers in Jan. 1884, that they commemorate the name of a building firm on the Mersey, has on investigation not been confirmed. The earliest example yet found is that of jerry-built1869.
 
Interesting. Should be in the COHA, then.
 
11:23 PM
So they don’t know.
 
1910.
> Four years elapse. Our Hero now has everything. The jerry-built home of the Early Bungalow Period stands up bravely under the Mortgage.
Very casual use right there. Must be much older.
 
They found it in 1869, so like 40 years. Is that much enough?
 
That's what I'm wondering. One generation, perhaps two. Plus some padding for when it actually came around. So yeah. Possible.
 
But almost never do they find the first time in print.
It’s just the first one they found.
 
I think we had a word a while back that was still used in scare quotes like 30 years after its first recorded usage. Don't remember what it was.
Something along the lines of going out on a limb.
 
11:26 PM
Huh. Jerrycan is actually from Germany.
> a five-gallon (usu. metal) container for petrol, water, etc., of a type first used in Germany and later adopted by the Allied forces in the war of 1939–45.
> 1943 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. War 17 Feb.–11 May 258 Mules carrying ‘jerricans’ to British troops... Jerricans are a special type of petrol container for transporting water.
Don’t put water in the gas-can, silly.
 
Yeah, in America you put gas into your water, not the other way round.
 
We don’t do fizzy water, no. Just still — which is something no one calls it here.
Stills are for something else. :)
 
Though they are pushing hard to bring fracking to Germany now.
 
Hugo needs a badge:
9
A: Origin of the term "wizard" in computing

HugoIn computing, wizards were originally expert computer users (people) who could install software or help you with your installation. Later, they were software assistants (programs) to help with initial tasks of setting something up. Human wizard A wizard used to be a power-user, a programmer or ...

It is a very well-researched answer.
 
@tchrist and Polly needs a cracker.
Mehper rules us all in gold badges, I realized.
He's hiding somewhere in the bushes on the second page, silently collecting golds.
He has an instinct for popular questions.
 
11:31 PM
Yah I hate that.
 
Just a preview of what will ultimately happen to everyone. But boy this boy is fast.
Wow, Yoichi-san actually has 13 answers already.
 
@RegDwighт That’s grave talk.
 
@tchrist Wow, that's a great answer!
 
It takes more days to get a gold from auto-reloaded views than the Fanatic.
 
@tchrist Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio.
 
11:37 PM
That’s pathetic.
 
In the grand scheme of things.
 
Well, that was fast.
 
Here's your scotch, then.
 
@RegDwighт This is a really big deal here in Colorado.
I suggest avoiding it.
 
No shit.
 
11:41 PM
Thanks.
 
I wouldn’t think the Germans would let that sort of thing sneak into their country.
 
inhales the aroma, feels a little heady
I like how even-keeled you are, my feathery friend.
 
You misspelled evil-kneeveled.
 
You mispole evel-kneiveled.
 
A keel or carina in bird anatomy is an extension of the sternum (breastbone) which runs axially along the midline of the sternum and extends outward, perpendicular to the plane of the ribs. The keel provides an anchor to which a bird's wing muscles attach, thereby providing adequate leverage for flight. Keels do not exist on all birds; in particular, some flightless birds lack a keel structure. Historically, the presence or absence of a pronounced keel structure was used as a broad classification of birds into two classes: Carinatae (from carina, "keel"), having a pronounced keel; and ...
 
11:43 PM
Gah. Work sneaking in.
 
Haha. I will let that edit icon speak for itself. Volumes!
 
11 even.
 
Evel Knievel (; October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007), born Robert Craig Knievel, was an American daredevil, painter, entertainer, and world-famous icon. In his career he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket. The over 433 broken bones he suffered during his career earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the survivor of "most bones broken in a lifetime". Knievel was born in Butte, Montana in 1938 and raised by his grandparents. After watc...
 
My brother idolizes him.
The eldest brother.
 
Well he was quite something.
 
11:44 PM
Yes.
 
I like how the top picture in the article shows him with a frigging bike.
I don't want to begin to imagine what he pulled off with it.
 
It made me laugh.
Out loud.
We did so many "Evel Kneivel" stunts on our bikes when we were kids...
Amazing we're still alive, but that just goes to our lack of early engineering expertise.
 
The picture's from my birthyear, too.
 
We are a much more dangerous crew these days.
 
More motley.
 
11:47 PM
Some might say so.
I detest checks though.
@RegDwighт You are a babe in the woods.
 
What about balances?
 
I am three years older than you. Nyah.
 
@KitFox who wants to be born forever?
 
haha
@RegDwighт I have no clever repartee for that.
 
Then have some clever reparcoffee.
 
11:48 PM
No. Scotch. Remember?
 
Goes well with scotch.
 
This tastes so good.
 
@KitFox Remember followed by a question mark does not compute for me.
 
Did you switch hippocampi with Cerb?
 
Never change horsies mid-chat.
 
11:49 PM
No I mean it exactly not like that.
 
Oh. I didn't mean to offend.
It was a politeness prompt.
 
Remember? is a question that's not even rhetorical for me. It's below rhetorical.
Though you are right that so it is for Cerb, though for different reasons.
 
What do they call those again?
 
I don't know, okay?
I think that would be the rudeness prompt.
 
Why you lie to me?
 
11:52 PM
Why you tell me the truth?
 
I can't handle the truth.
@tchrist Phantasia rip-off?
 
I gotcher campy hippo right here for ya.
 
confused
drinks more scotch
 
Phantasia was the only Disney movie I saw as a child.
 
11:53 PM
Just as well.
 
They had like their 75th anniversary, and managed to bring a couple movies to the screens in the USSR.
Phantasia, the 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, and something else.
 
It’s always good when you can use both screens.
 
I had a nice booklet for that, um, festival.
 
Did you have outdoors?
 
Oh yeah. Big news here, proselytizing the Russkies.
 
11:54 PM
I used to draw Bambi based on it.
 
I didn't spell that right, did I?
 
Er, as in “at the outdoor”.
 
@RegDwighт Oh that makes me like you so much.
 
Anyway, the story goes that I went in, and you must know that people got like one ticket at most, to exactly one movie. And I remember vividly how I kept waiting for Bambi, and he never showed up. Instead some hippos and brooms. I hated it. It was so boring.
 
Nice music, though.
 
11:55 PM
Well. You ever see Bambi?
 
And of course fifteen years later I realized how much I'd appreciate it then.
 
You would have been crushed.
 
@KitFox no, and that's another thing I later realized.
I really got lucky.
 
I haven't seen it either.
 
101 Dalmatians are rubbish, too, from what I can tell.
 
11:56 PM
And I don't think I ever want to.
@RegDwighт Yes, but by far the safest of the three.
Fantasia just makes you want to do drugs.
 
I did see 102 Dalmatians. With Glenn Close. Now that was utter dreck.
 
Ouch.
I saw The Lion King for the first time a few weeks ago.
I remember it won all these awards. I thought it blew.
I mean, the songs were pretty awful.
Not even catchy, much less interesting.
 
Don't get me started on the Lion King.
In fact you did once.
 
I did?
 
I dunno, wasn't it you?
 
11:58 PM
(Also a politeness prompt.)
 
I clearly remember how we immediately ended up with Bambi again.
@KitFox or perhaps tchrist.
 
Oh nice. Kiss my ass.
 
Dec 17 '12 at 13:53, by RegDwighт
I also feel obliged to point out that Lion King was not good in the least.
 
Pinocchio?
 
@KitFox harhar.
@tchrist I don't know. I think not.
Ah! Twas the Snowwhite of course.
 

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