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Post by Verbivore on Feb 1, 2018 9:56:41 GMT
Well, at least this year it does.
As I'm between permanent addresses, I'm staying with a seriously subliterate (and dyslexic) friend. One of his odd expressions is "I'm used OF it", which I've never previously encountered, and another is the now quite common "bored of it". He also pronounces ask as arks (also fairly common).
Among the disadvantages of illiteracy is the entering into contracts. My friend recently signed up for a new $40,000 car, but could make no sense of the warranty conditions. Now, after a few experiences (of the "lemon" variety), he realises that he should have sought help understanding what he was signing – before the fact. Now he's saddled with a huge financial burden and a dealership that's playing it by the word of the contract, much to their advantage and my friend's inconvenience.
Another friend, who is somewhat "developmentally delayed" (yep, that's the official euphemism!), recently contracted a nasty STI because he has no understanding of "safer sex". He only understands (and then not always fully) what he hears and sees (pictorially). He can't help his lack of literacy, but it certainly makes me thankful for mine.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 2, 2018 17:09:02 GMT
Of corse, we “know” that it should be “I’m used to it” and “I’m bored with it” (although bored of it is commonly used) but exactly why is that that so? If one starts from square one, they all just seem to be more or less random prepositions.
Also, in the last sentence, Vv, to what precisely are you referring when you say “mine”? Are you referring back to your friend’s “lack of literacy”? A case for a gentle rephrasing, perhap? Or are you becoming unjustifiably modest? I have been awaiting a long time to challenge your sentence construction! I hope you can soon return to a permanent home and your usual, careful syntax.
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 3, 2018 22:13:37 GMT
Of corse, we “know” that it should be “I’m used to it” and “I’m bored with it” (although bored of it is commonly used) but exactly why is that that so? If one starts from square one, they all just seem to be more or less random prepositions. Also, in the last sentence, Vv, to what precisely are you referring when you say “mine”? Are you referring back to your friend’s “lack of literacy”? A case for a gentle rephrasing, perhap? Or are you becoming unjustifiably modest? I have been awaiting a long time to challenge your sentence construction! I hope you can soon return to a permanent home and your usual, careful syntax. LJH: Yes, you got me!Let's try this better construction: He can't help his shortcomings of literacy, but it certainly makes me thankful for my own literacy.
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 5, 2018 14:25:10 GMT
Has anybody here tried DuckDuckGo as his or her search engine? A friend recommended it to me today as an alternative to Google, because it claims not to track one's Web-site history nor to pass the details on to those bothersome advertisers (nor to anyone else).
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 5, 2018 23:32:59 GMT
Has anybody here tried DuckDuckGo as his or her search engine? A friend recommended it to me today as an alternative to Google, because it claims not to track one's Web-site history nor to pass the details on to those bothersome advertisers (nor to anyone else). Twod, I have been using DuckDuckGo exclusively for websearch since it was launched a few years ago. I believe it does what it says (or, more accurately, doesn't do what it claims not to). Since switching from Google to DDG I've experienced zero spam generated from sites I visit from a DDG search. I also use a (paid for) VPN service – currently Tunnel Bear but shall soon switch to ProtonVPN. I've been migrating to ProtonMail's (military-grade-encrypted) email service over the past year and have found it to be excellent. ProtonMail costs me about $5/month; their VPN costs a similar amount (though I think there's a free version). Tunnel Bear has a free service, which is suitable for small-use web-surfers; I use the lowest paid (not lowest-paid) level for about $5/month. I highly recommend DDG, a VPN (paid for is preferred; the freebies can be very slow), and ProtonMail. I long ago lost faith in Google – it generates too much spam. (Unfortunately, my workplace uses Gmail, but I never use that for personal correspondence, so can live with it for work purposes; also, my identity on the work Gmail is masked by a pseudonym and my workplace's having own domain name).
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 6, 2018 13:52:16 GMT
Thanks, Verbivore. I've started using DDG as my default search-engine today and, as you said it would, it works just as well as Google but without the annoying advertisements. Now the CIA and MI5 won't know my innermost secrets ... if I had any.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 15, 2018 17:41:17 GMT
Someone has to say something.
Without Googling the answer, do you know the longest word that can be produced using only the top row of letter keys on an English style typewiter?
Bookkeeper has three consecutive double letters. Subbookkeeper has four but is there really such a word or was it invented to produce such an oddity?
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 15, 2018 19:30:31 GMT
LJH, I won't google the answer. May I DDG it instead?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 15, 2018 23:38:03 GMT
Twoddle:
I guess you can DDG but I have no idea what that means. Private message? The fifth letter is W if that confirms your answer. Ten letters altogether.
LJH
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 19, 2018 10:47:27 GMT
For no particular reason, it occurred to me today that quite a few colours are also people's names. These immediately come to mind: Surnames: Black, White, Gray, Green, Blue, Pink, Brown, Rose Given names: Violet, Rose, Red (nickname), Blue (nickname for a redhead – my younger brother has always been known as Blue for that reason). Can anyone expand this short list? Come on – there's nothing much else happening here.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 19, 2018 23:11:47 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Feb 20, 2018 7:27:21 GMT
Thanks for those, LJH. I was wondering how much of the spectrum might be covered, and certainly hadn't encountered Orange, Yellow, Bronze or Crimson as people's names.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Feb 21, 2018 17:13:09 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on Feb 21, 2018 23:57:59 GMT
I love the way these discussions set me thinking. Not so much "what names of colours are used as names of people?", but "what colour names are actually, directly, the names of colours?".
For example I'd take olive and tangerine to be merely a sort of metaphor, naming the thing which has the relevant colour. Having said that, have you ever seen a peach that is “peach” coloured, or a lemon that is "lemon yellow"?
Of pure colour names, I can think of red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, grey and white. Intermediate hues like orange and turquoise have names denoting the colour of things and I think scarlet and crimson do the same.
A paltry list, really!
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Post by Twoddle on Feb 22, 2018 11:30:40 GMT
Before the introduction of oranges to the homes of the wealthier citizens of England in the early 1500s, the colour orange didn't exist, or rather it existed but was deemed to be a shade of red. Hence the robin is still known as "redbreast" although its breast is actually orange, and I assume that the same goes for "red-heads", whose hair is orange, not red. There are also the names of ancient kings and warriors called "Red Beard" and the like, whose beards were almost certainly orange. I'm trying to think of other examples!
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