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Post by Verbivore on May 1, 2020 0:48:42 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on May 1, 2020 7:41:46 GMT
I read the other day of an earthquake in Italy affecting people who “were living 30 km above the epicentre and slightly north”.
A case where putting “epicentre” when you mean “centre” really does give silly results.
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Post by Verbivore on May 3, 2020 0:24:21 GMT
Nothing to do with language (except that it's well spoken), but appropriate to the moment. A bedtime story: The Great Realisation
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Post by Dave Miller on May 3, 2020 9:26:50 GMT
Nothing to do with language (except that it's well spoken), but appropriate to the moment. A bedtime story: The Great RealisationAnd, in these days when even major TV programmes are being done by "broadcast from home on my iPhone", it's good to see such excellent lighting.
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Post by Verbivore on May 5, 2020 2:22:34 GMT
A couple of items from the latest Macquarie Dictionary blog:
Impact
The shift from the phrasal verb to impact on meaning 'to have a strong effect on' to a transitive verb impact as in 'This impacts me badly' can seem odd, even irritating, to those who have not grown up with it. [Include Vv here!] It has great currency and it not likely to go away. We suppose it has the appeal of simplicity. You can use it in the active (misfortune impacted him badly) or the passive (he was badly impacted by misfortune) without finding a stray particle on your hands that forces you to rethink the sentence. It has the same meaning as 'affect' but, at least initially, it did have more clout. It has perhaps been overused now so that it is no longer striking, but, for the reasons given above, it is still useful.
and this very topical one:
Proper (and not-so-proper) ways to talk about toilet paper
There are new words being born every day, mostly to do with COVID-19 and the many changes this is bringing to our daily lives and to the planet in general. But closer to home (in a lot of countries), we've already got quite a few words for that in-demand product selling out in supermarkets across Australia – toilet paper.
Let's start properly. The usual alternative to toilet paper is toilet tissue, which makes it sound much softer. And of course lavatory paper, loo paper and dunny paper.
As an aside, dunny has been immortalised in a number of slang phrases. To be all alone like a country dunny is to be completely alone or isolated. Someone who is brainless couldn't train a choko vine to grow up a dunny wall, and something useless is described as being as useful as a glass door on a dunny. If your luck is out you can exclaim If it were raining palaces I'd be hit on the head by the dunny door. Finally, if someone's luck is in, and you wish that it would change for the worse, you may cry I hope your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down.
But back to loo paper. After that, I'm afraid it gets a little more base.
The term bum fodder is slang from the 1880s in England that is occasionally still heard today. There's a tendency to refer to the paper itself as 'tickets' in many phrases, such as poo ticket (for a square of toilet paper), pack of poo tickets (for a roll of toilet paper) and shit tickets, which is self-explanatory.
There's also dunny documents, which is an odd combination of slang and officiousness. Date roll and crap wrap are a couple of others to round out the list.
In the process of researching this charming topic, we came across bog roll, TP, toot paper (thanks Kath & Kim), and other terms. What's your preferred term?
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Post by Twoddle on May 5, 2020 9:39:08 GMT
Macquarie's "old" definition of the verb "impact" gained my attention, because in my personal vocabulary "impact" doesn't mean even "to have a strong effect"; it means to physically collide with something. Similarly with the noun, "impact": it's a physical collision. It irks me every time I hear a reporter or newsreader refer to the impact of something when he or she really means the "effect". As to the total impossibility of "negative impacts", it's best if I remain silent lest less savoury parts of my vocabulary are brought into play.
I dare say the numerous Covid epicentres are impacting negatively all over the place.
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Post by Verbivore on May 5, 2020 10:06:35 GMT
[...] I dare say the numerous Covid epicentres are impacting negatively all over the place. … going forward.
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Post by Twoddle on May 5, 2020 21:14:02 GMT
[...] I dare say the numerous Covid epicentres are impacting negatively all over the place. … going forward. But not any time soon. Aaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!
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Post by Dave Miller on May 5, 2020 22:17:18 GMT
>. Introverts unite! (Separately, in your own homes.) <
How very prescient, Twod!
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Post by Verbivore on May 6, 2020 0:58:04 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on May 6, 2020 9:12:27 GMT
“Woman cuts hole in face mask as it 'makes it easier to breathe'”
I read somewhere: Think of how stupid the average person is and then realise that half the population is more stupid than that.
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Post by Twoddle on May 6, 2020 9:25:02 GMT
You really couldn't make it up, could you?
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Post by Twoddle on May 6, 2020 9:27:08 GMT
“Woman cuts hole in face mask as it 'makes it easier to breathe'” I read somewhere: Think of how stupid the average person is and then realise that half the population is more stupid than that. I've long believed that there should be a minimum IQ requirement for voting. That woman is permitted a say in the running of her country!
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Post by Twoddle on May 6, 2020 9:29:27 GMT
>. Introverts unite! (Separately, in your own homes.) < How very prescient, Twod! It's not often I'm described as prescient, Dave! It must be the sinistrality.
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Post by Verbivore on May 6, 2020 10:00:09 GMT
I read somewhere: Think of how stupid the average person is and then realise that half the population is more stupid than that. It's disheartening, isn't it, LJH. It's enough to drive one to yet another Cup Of Tea moment. The question is: who is the average person? Does the dumb dame in that clip represent average? If so, then what hope for Homo sapiens? Are "thick as a brick", "thick as two planks", or "dumb as dogsh*t" the new Normals? ///// Am I forgiven an involuntary shudder? PS: I do have to try hard – and frequently fail – to repress a native arrogance. I've recognised its existence, and owned it, since age 15 when the school principal told me, in front of a summoned Mater, that I was an intellectual snob and an introvert. Headmaster held me back a moment after he'd dismissed Mater from our conference. Taking a firm grasp of my shoulder (he was a large man, well over 2 m; I was nearing 1.6), he proceeded to reassure me in a firm stage whisper: "But never mind; we introverts win in the end." Er, huh?
I thought that rather strange at the time, but came to own its truth. I've learned to live with it as long as I remember to temper it, keep it on a leash (not unlike one's management of that other companion, Black Dog). But tempered or not, I can't avoid despairing when acts like that "breathable" mask appear. (Of course it's clickbait to some degree: perhaps typical of its media genre, which is far from my styles and preferences. But in its own black-humour way passingly funny.)
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