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Post by Little Jack Horner on Aug 11, 2022 7:50:26 GMT
O.K. I give up. I have waited 11 days for someone to start this thread with something interesting. No success. In the absence of anything more interesting, will somebody care to explain why an insect which distributes pollen it’s called a pollinator rather than a pollenator?
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Post by Dave Miller on Aug 12, 2022 5:42:08 GMT
It does seem odd, doesn’t it.
I’m guessing that it’s just “habit”, from the way the word has been written in the past - much as (in British English) we write honour with a ‘u’, but honorific without.
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Post by Twoddle on Aug 18, 2022 8:39:39 GMT
The WHO (not the pop group) has requested ideas for renaming monkey pox. Suggestions submitted so far but unlikely to be adopted include Poxy McPoxface and Trump 22.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Aug 19, 2022 0:32:12 GMT
Monkeypox seems all right to me. It has no negative associations with any human population nor with any country or region in the world. The causal virus was first identified in captive monkeys so I see no problem – unless one feels monkeys might be offended, but I think they are not nearly so sensitive as humans. The two recognized distinct types formerly described as the Congo Basin clade and the West African clade have already been redesignated clade I and clade II respectively. Do we really need an expensive committee to invent a new name?
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Post by Dave Miller on Aug 19, 2022 7:07:49 GMT
I’m guessing the problem comes when a person catches the disease and is then referred to as having monkey pox. Association by name. When chanting “ooh-ooh-ooh”, gesturing with curved arms dangling, or throwing a banana are now regarded (at football matches) as sufficiently overt demonstrations of racist insult to give rise to prosecution, the use of “monkey” has become fraught.
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Post by Verbivore on Aug 22, 2022 21:50:13 GMT
Boo! (as in 'surprise!', not a negative cheer).
I have moved into my new abode and am in full repair-and-decorate mode. My furniture and things arrive in another month's time; meanwhile I'm camping with minimal clutter – far easier to do the renovations that way.
My internet was connected yesterday afternoon (finally! – after much drama and gross incompetence on behalf of AU's National Broadband Network), so now I can participate once more in my virtual life.
Once settled (likely after another 25 litres of paint) I plan to make acquaintance with the local Indigenous people and their organisations so that I might become more familiar with Wiradjuri customs and language.
But the painting and renovations come first: I can't live in other people's filth.
With luck, I'll again have something relevant to contribute here.
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Post by Dave Miller on Aug 23, 2022 6:56:58 GMT
Welcome back, Vv! It has been strange (and bodingly quiet) without you. I admire your strength - mental and physical - in taking on such a move, with all it will mean in extra work. I do hope that, once everything is suitably painted and sorted, and all the local connections are made, you find that you enjoy your new world. Do keep us entertained here!
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Aug 23, 2022 21:41:27 GMT
Good to have you back, Vv. I had begun to fear that we had lost you and your interesting postings. The idea of having to cope with 25 litres of paint is appalling and I sympathise with you.
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Post by Verbivore on Aug 23, 2022 23:20:16 GMT
Good to have you back, Vv. I had begun to fear that we had lost you and your interesting postings. The idea of having to cope with 25 litres of paint is appalling and I sympathise with you. Thanks, LJH :-) I actually like paint and painting – been doing it since age 10 and did, a few lives ago, have my own decorating business. The part I dislike is ladder work – I get vertigo above the fourth rung.
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Post by Twoddle on Aug 24, 2022 10:27:44 GMT
Glad to see you back, Verbivore. It's just as well that you enjoy decorating, by the sound of it. Decorating and house-repairs in general are bêtes noires of mine, and I avoid them if at all possible. I've owner-occupied seven houses in my time and I managed to move from the previous six before I was forced to undertake serious redecoration, but I've been in my current abode for twenty years and am hoping to remain here until they take me out in a box, so at some point the Contessa and I will have to bite the bullet and do some painting. The notion fills me with dread!
You mentioned vertigo. I suspect that it was Hitchcock's film of the same name that caused the word to be widely misunderstood and misused, because vertigo is the sensation of spinning and of the ground falling away from beneath oneself - I've experienced it a couple of times when I've had an inner-ear infection. The fear of heights, which I also experience (increasingly so as I get older) is acrophobia, and definitely affects me above the fourth rung of a ladder and makes clearing moss from the valley gutter of my house very problematic. I tell myself that it's an entirely rational fear, but that doesn't explain the slight urge to walk over the edge of a cliff rather than to move smartly away from it. Very strange!
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Post by Verbivore on Aug 24, 2022 22:11:34 GMT
Thanks, Twod :-)
For me it's both acrophobia and vertigo. Half my life ago I suffered a middle-ear infection that left me 4/5 deaf in one ear and with a balance problem. So not only is there the phobia but also the sense of losing balance. Both of those keep me leery of ladders and other unsecured heights. Add chronic hypotension and you have my concern about falling of my perch (as compared with my twig). Strangely, I can happily ride pillion in an ultralight aircraft and feel fine: there I'm secured in with straps and a cage. Peering over the edge of the Empire State Building was fine, because there was a chain-wire fence taller than I. But ladder rung #5: no way!
While severe cleaning and some painting are usual practice for me on moving into new premises, this one had a particular need for both: it stank! (Think those TV / internet series on decluttering / cleaning hoarders' houses in the UK.)
The previous occupants were chain smokers (of the nastiest, cheapest, stinkiest cigarettes) who never opened the windows. To remove the pervasive ash-tray pong I've scrubbed all walls and ceilings twice: once with sugar soap and once with vinegar. Some of the tar stains proved inerasable, so they got painted over with a super-heavy-duty stain sealer (Zinsser), which then required hiding with a dense undercoat followed by three coats of top paint. I've yet to disassemble and clean the airconditioner unit, which is also full of smokers' tar.
Landlord is paying for paint and materials; I'm supplying the labour – in exchange for a month's rent.
The AU housing shortage has reached national disaster proportions and we have record (for AU) homeless. We have insufficient public ('social') housing, and since COVID we have a severe shortage of building materials and tradies. Building projects are being delayed by years because of those shortages. Had it not been for my generous friends (sheep farmers), I'd have spent four months homeless too.
Finding this house – especially without the involvement of real-estate agents (a profession I detest) – was a stroke of luck, no doubt generated by my refusal to lay down and die (just yet). The location is just what I wanted – a dying village far from the madding crowd but with good internet. Because no-one wants to live here the rent is cheap: about one-fifth of what I'd now be paying where I used to live. Here I have three close-ish neighbours in a village (more a hamlet now because there are no shops or services) with an official population of 80, most of whom live on the surrounding farms (the region is Australia's food bowl). The village, such as remains, comprises 14 houses, of which 10 are empty / abandoned, and they're scattered the length of the two-kilometre only street.
I'm yet to learn if I'm The Only Gay In The Village (at present) but there is a little history that delights me in a perverse way: The house was built (12 years ago) by a ratbag fundamentalist evangelical preacher. Reportedly there were two men living together (shacked up or merely housemates I don't know) in the village, and the preacher waged his fire-and-brimstone war against them until the men left town. Because those men were known and valued, the remaining population then ran the preacher out of the village – and now his (no longer) house is occupied by another unrepentant sinner. When the neighbour related that tale, I whooped with joy. When he – an elderly* gent – enquired of the reason for my ejaculation, I told him that I, too, was That Way Inclined and had also trained as a fundy preacher. Neighbour was most amused, and invited me in for a cuppa and a joint.
Perhaps I've found my new place.
* elderly: i.e. more elderly than I
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Post by Verbivore on Aug 24, 2022 23:05:37 GMT
Irregardless
(Ir)regardless of the acceptance by Merriam-Webster's and Collins, I shall continue to eschew use of the 'word'. According to the Oxford: "Irregardless means the same as regardless, but the negative prefix ir- merely duplicates the suffix -less, and is unnecessary. The word dates back to the 19th century, but is regarded as incorrect in standard English."
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Aug 25, 2022 0:16:41 GMT
“my refusal to lay down and die” Surely not standard Aussie, Vv?
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Post by Verbivore on Aug 25, 2022 2:19:06 GMT
“my refusal to lay down and die” Surely not standard Aussie, Vv? Probably std AU, LJH, but yes, it ought to have been lie down. Mea culpa.
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Post by Twoddle on Aug 25, 2022 9:33:14 GMT
Bob Dylan's song title, "Lay, Lady, Lay", has long irked me - is she being invited to lay the table, or was "Lady" the name of his pet chicken? - but I suppose "Lie, Lady, Lie" would have been misinterpreted.
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