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Post by Dave on Nov 1, 2018 18:09:38 GMT
Well, we finished October with an apostrophised holiday--Hallowe'en--and begin this month with another: All Saints' Day. And tomorrow is All Souls' Day.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Nov 1, 2018 21:33:59 GMT
Well done, Dave ‼️
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 1, 2018 22:48:01 GMT
I managed to avoid being pestered by trick-or-treaters, perhaps because of my rural-acreage location. (That suits me, because it's not a tradition I wish to indulge in.) Although I live in an old church – formerly but no longer formally the Anglican Church of St Andrew and St John (a likely gay couple?) – there is nothing hallowed here (deconsecrated two decades ago); neither are there saints nor souls, as I don't believe in them. I can, though, make it sound church-like when I play the organ (my modern digital device, not a wheezy harmonium). However, thanks, Dave, for starting the month's thread; saved me doing so and appearing to hog the process.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Nov 3, 2018 11:52:23 GMT
We count using a decimal system, yet English has a word, dozen, for twelve of something but no word that I can think of for ten of something. Dozen, of course, come from the French douzaine but I wonder why we have adopted this and haven’t similarly borrowed a word (from anywhere) for ten things. Twelve is, in some ways, a more useful number because it divides by 2, 3, 4 and 6 and allows items to be packed in a convenient 3x4 array but is that a sufficient reason? Did we ever have a ten-word that has fallen out of use?
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 3, 2018 12:26:10 GMT
[...] Did we ever have a ten-word that has fallen out of use? Decade? (for more than time)
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Nov 3, 2018 14:12:35 GMT
Asking for a decade of eggs⁉️
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Post by Dave Miller on Nov 3, 2018 15:21:47 GMT
Asking for a decade of eggs⁉️ Well, there is another word that would do the trick less pompously. Ask for "ten eggs".
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 3, 2018 19:52:34 GMT
Increasingly here I see 10-packs of eggs; it's how producers of free-range "organic" eggs make their product appear only a little more expensive than a carton of a dozen battery eggs. The cartons are so designed as to appear almost the same size as the "dirty" dozens. They're not called decades or even tens – just cartons. (The 10-packs don't, however, allow for breaking into halves!)
I'm sure that if decade were to be re-introduced to wider use it would soon fail to seem odd – not that I'm advocating for it.
From the OED:
1. a. An assemblage, group, set, or series of ten. [Instances recorded over period 1594–1872]
1. b. (i) A set of resistors (or capacitors or inductors) connected so as to provide a resistance of any integral value between one and ten times the lowest at a single setting of a switch, etc.; a decade is usu. one of several in a box which cover successive multiples of ten in value (so decade box, etc.). [Instances recorded over period 1911–1952]
1. b. (ii) A set of ten electronic devices each used to represent a digit in the counting of pulses. So decade counter, decade system, etc. [Instances recorded over period 1948–1963]
2. a. spec. Short for ‘decade of years’; a period of ten years. [Instances recorded over period 1605–1878]
2. b. A period of ten days, substituted for the week in the French Republican calendar of 1793. [Instances recorded over period 1793–1801]
3. A division of a literary work, containing ten books or parts; as the decades of Livy. [Instances recorded over period 1475–1882]
4. Comb. †decade-day = décadi; decade-ring, a finger-ring having ten projections or knobs for counting the repetition of so many Aves. [Instances recorded over period 1798–1861]
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 3, 2018 20:51:07 GMT
Here is something that irritates me: the (mis)use of the initialism LGBT (that is forever growing into an entire alphabet – LGBTIQAPD++ is the longest version I’ve encountered to date!). From the Beeb:I’ve been asked more than once or thrice if I’m LGBTIQA…, and my sometimes tetchy answer is “No. How can I be all those things? I can’t possibly be a lesbian; I’m not bi- or transsexual; not intersex; not questioning my sexuality (and the initials go on to include A – asexual, P – pansexual, D – demisexual, then there are the plusses ++, which no-one has ever defined for me; perhaps they include satyrism as much as satire). As a catch-all term to describe a “community” of people classified by their sexuality it no doubt has its uses, but when the whole alphabet soup is used to describe one individual it becomes a nonsense.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Nov 4, 2018 19:49:02 GMT
Vv says, “ As a catch-all term to describe a “community” of people classified by their sexuality it no doubt has its uses, but when the whole alphabet soup is used to describe one individual it becomes a nonsense.”
I agree. Let’s add H for hetero and then it will be fully inclusive which is, I assume, the idea.
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 4, 2018 20:27:28 GMT
Vv says, “ As a catch-all term to describe a “community” of people classified by their sexuality it no doubt has its uses, but when the whole alphabet soup is used to describe one individual it becomes a nonsense.” I agree. Let’s add H for hetero and then it will be fully inclusive which is, I assume, the idea. LJH: I recently adopted a variant that appealed to me for its irreverence – just rearrange the initialism to get the acronym QILTBAG.
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Post by Twoddle on Nov 4, 2018 21:21:58 GMT
Vv says, “ As a catch-all term to describe a “community” of people classified by their sexuality it no doubt has its uses, but when the whole alphabet soup is used to describe one individual it becomes a nonsense.” I agree. Let’s add H for hetero and then it will be fully inclusive which is, I assume, the idea. LJH: I recently adopted a variant that appealed to me for its irreverence – just rearrange the initialism to get the acronym QILTBAG. Perhaps add a "U", for "Undecided", after the "Q"?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Nov 7, 2018 10:23:06 GMT
See here for single use, gaslighting and gammon. I have never come across either gaslight or gammon in these contexts. But, then, I have no contact with social media. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46121787
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Post by Twoddle on Nov 7, 2018 18:29:57 GMT
See here for single use, gaslighting and gammon. I have never come across either gaslight or gammon in these contexts. But, then, I have no contact with social media. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46121787I'd heard of "gammon", but only in the context of Dickens books where it means insubstantial chat.
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Post by Verbivore on Nov 8, 2018 23:16:48 GMT
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