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Post by Verbivore on Jul 20, 2021 20:35:13 GMT
That damn like …
For an unknown reason I awoke this morning with Lonnie Donegan's 1960 hit song My Old Man's a Dustman running through my head (or "runnin' frough me 'ead"?) and I got stuck on a line of the lyrics.
When I found the song on a website, to my horror I discovered in the third line of one verse a gratuitous like:
The tiger looked like miserable … .
And here was I thinking that gratuitous likes were a 21st century social media phenomenon.
I learn something every day (even when I'd rather not) – but I suppose that means I'm still alive.
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Post by Dave Miller on Jul 21, 2021 3:40:32 GMT
I pulled up six versions of the lyrics. Three had the tiger looking “like miserable” and three had “quite miserable”. I suspect that someone, somewhere has used “like” (wrongly) and has been copied. At least in its modern misuse, “like” is always preceded and followed by a slight pause: he looked … like … miserable. No such pause appears in the recording, so I reckon we can relax, Vv
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 21, 2021 5:14:48 GMT
I pulled up six versions of the lyrics. Three had the tiger looking “like miserable” and three had “quite miserable”. I suspect that someone, somewhere has used “like” (wrongly) and has been copied. At least in its modern misuse, “like” is always preceded and followed by a slight pause: he looked … like … miserable. No such pause appears in the recording, so I reckon we can relax, Vv Dave: Thank you for putting my mind at rest on this life-critical matter – that view makes sense! I can now forget Lonnie Donegan for another 61 years. That Ohrwurm / earworm finally departed at about noon; I'd awoken with it at 05:40 and even my regular morning rhythm didn't banish it until a visitor arrived to distract me with chatter. In the 'stranger than fiction' category … (If you're queasy at the mention of dentures, stop reading now.)Can dental prostheses act as a conducting aerial for some bizarre radio station? OMG I'm radioactive! In the early–mid '90s I lived solo on a 1200 acre rural property, almost 80 km from the nearest radio station / transmitter (as far as I was aware) where even AM broadcasts could be very scratchy with static. My only music machine was a car radio powered by the single-solar-panel-and-car-battery household supply. I rarely used the radio, and there were no neighbours within kilometres. Yet throughout the day, and more strongly at night, I could hear a commercial radio station (never my choice!) softly chortling away, yabbering inanities and playing execrable 'music'. It drove me to questioning my sanity! I, who liked my domestic quiet in that forest, was compelled to play my own radio loudly enough to drown out my 'dental' reception. (At least I had a few tolerable CDs.) Eventually I learned that the radio station my dentures were 'receiving' was located in the far west of my continent, about 3,000 km away, while I live(d) in the far east. It was a modestly powered AM transmitter pointed 180–270 degrees away from me, but an explanation given was that cloud cover and ionospheric disturbances can distribute radio waves to unexpected quarters. But that didn't explain how dentures can be receiving aerials.Once my dental metal was removed (temporarily then eventually permanently) I received no more 'transmissions'. No longer radioactive – YAY!
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 21, 2021 9:27:42 GMT
I've heard personal accounts of people "hearing" a hiss from shooting stars as they descend through the atmosphere, the most probable explanation being that the meteor's heat ionises the air through which it passes, emitting a white-noise radio signal that's picked up by the person's dentures or metallic fillings.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 21, 2021 14:19:19 GMT
I have been listening to two recordings of Lonnie Donegan singing “My Old Man’s a Dustman”. Neither recording is very clear but I think in both of them Lonnie Donegan himself sings quite miserable.
I used to visit somebody who lived close to the radio transmission masts at Droitwich in Worcestershire in the English Midlands. He was insistent that in some atmospheric conditions he could pick up longwave radio transmissions on the washing machine in his kitchen. It was said that the cylindrical shape of the drum in the washing machine somehow facilitated this. I have never been very sure whether to believe him or not but I suppose if one can receive radio transmissions on dentures anything might be possible.
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Post by jjg1 on Jul 22, 2021 20:18:43 GMT
I was a fairly frequent poster on here a number of years ago - maybe ten? - before life, death, and work got in the way. I popped back in, briefly, about five years ago.
I’m hoping I’ll be commenting more frequently from now on. It’s a pleasure to read the comments on this site; there’s no animosity, and everyone is unfailingly polite.
In my own day-to-day exchanges, I’m always fairly confident in my written English (but that’s maybe a case of the one-eyed man being King, in the land of the blind) but I realise that I’m in different company here! When I do make mistakes please be gentle with me!
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 22, 2021 21:24:27 GMT
I was a fairly frequent poster on here a number of years ago - maybe ten? - before life, death, and work got in the way. I popped back in, briefly, about five years ago. I’m hoping I’ll be commenting more frequently from now on. It’s a pleasure to read the comments on this site; there’s no animosity, and everyone is unfailingly polite. In my own day-to-day exchanges, I’m always fairly confident in my written English (but that’s maybe a case of the one-eyed man being King, in the land of the blind) but I realise that I’m in different company here! When I do make mistakes please be gentle with me! jjg1: I remember your handle from way back. You registered 12 years ago almost to this day, and your most recent previous post was on 9 Aug 2016. Welcome in your return! It's not unusual for life, death, and work (love your Oxford comma!) to get in the way of our plans and pursuits, but it's gratifying when we can get past those interruptions. And yes, we'll likely be gentle with you; it's only idiots that we give a hard time to, and we see very few of those here. Even the spammers seem to have died of COVID: AFAIK only two spam posts over the past many months, compared to daily annoyances before this damned plague (though I'd gladly trade COVID for a spam plague). I look forward to your future contributions. :-)
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Post by jjg1 on Jul 22, 2021 22:03:53 GMT
Thanks Vv. It’s strangely comforting to see that some familiar contributors, including yourself, are still active here. The Oxford Comma was actually something I got from here; one of your contributors, whose name escapes me, would refer to it as the Holy Oxford Comma. I think the same contributor was constantly in search of ‘true synonyms’ but my memory is a bit hazy.
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Post by jjg1 on Jul 22, 2021 22:10:57 GMT
Tone!
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 23, 2021 0:48:21 GMT
jjg1: You may well be right that it was Tone; it certainly was he who sought the True Synonym.
Since then Tone has died; he was one of our most frequent contributors over many years. There are few of us longtime regulars left, and we're all approaching death – though none too immediately I hope. :-)
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Post by jjg1 on Jul 23, 2021 10:02:59 GMT
I’m sorry to hear that, Vv.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 23, 2021 13:45:37 GMT
Welcome back jjg1. I don’t know what else to say at the moment so, again, welcome back.
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Post by jjg1 on Jul 23, 2021 15:14:13 GMT
Thanks, LJH.
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 25, 2021 9:19:26 GMT
I certainly remember you, jjg1. Welcome back! I hope you stick with us and contribute here for many years to come.
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 26, 2021 21:45:28 GMT
I took my car to the garage for a service today, and I was lent a courtesy car for the day. It was what they call a "mild hybrid", i.e. a petrol-driven car that saves fuel by shutting off the engine whenever the car stops at traffic lights, queues etc., and restarts immediately the driver touches the accelerator. Perhaps younger drivers would appreciate such an energy-saving device but I found it hugely unnerving and stressful, probably because the engines of some of the old bangers I drove in my earlier years used to die in a similar way but then had to be coaxed uncertainly back to life using the ignition key and judicious pumping of the accelerator while the traffic built up behind me, and my subconscious mind wasn't convinced that today's loan car would behave any differently.
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