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Post by Trevor on Apr 4, 2023 13:55:55 GMT
Well it's reach April the fourth, so I'll kick off the monthly thread for the fourth time in a row.
Hello, everyone.
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Post by Twoddle on Apr 5, 2023 7:32:14 GMT
Well done, Trevor. It's good of you to be so forthcoming.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 6, 2023 20:39:02 GMT
What can I say? We are nearly a week into April and nobody has said anything more exciting than playing around with fourth 4th et cetera. I have nothing to say either apart from a slight complaint that no one reacted to my comment at the end of March drawing attention to the fact that an Israeli newspaper should have been comparing the size of an asteroid to a platypus. I thought it was worth an exclamation mark nothing else. ☹️
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Post by Dave on Apr 9, 2023 17:11:41 GMT
What can I say? We are nearly a week into April and nobody has said anything more exciting than playing around with fourth 4th et cetera. I have nothing to say either apart from a slight complaint that no one reacted to my comment at the end of March drawing attention to the fact that an Israeli newspaper should have been comparing the size of an asteroid to a platypus. I thought it was worth an exclamation mark nothing else. ☹️ |
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 12, 2023 14:37:26 GMT
Nobody seems to have very much to say so perhaps folk might like to listen to this YouTube blog. It might trigger some thoughts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4VAEmZBqK0
Unusually, it is worth reading the comments as well.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 12, 2023 19:21:10 GMT
Since posting the above item, I have enjoyed a number of other blogs written by Dr Lindsey. They are well worth searching for on YouTube. According to Wikipedia, Dr Lindsey has a BA in Linguistics from UCL and an MA and PhD from the University of California Los Angeles. I have just been enjoying a discussion about deaccenting in English, which I found fascinating. It had never previously occurred to me that it was possible to analyse this — and I have been correctly using his “rules” for more than 80 years.
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Post by Trevor on Apr 13, 2023 10:31:16 GMT
Since posting the above item, I have enjoyed a number of other blogs written by Dr Lindsey. They are well worth searching for on YouTube. According to Wikipedia, Dr Lindsey has a BA in Linguistics from UCL and an MA and PhD from the University of California Los Angeles. I have just been enjoying a discussion about deaccenting in English, which I found fascinating. It had never previously occurred to me that it was possible to analyse this — and I have been correctly using his “rules” for more than 80 years. Dr Lindsay's work got referenced here last month as well. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it to enjoy and ponder. Like you I discovered many things that I'd not knowingly been aware of before, yet instinctively do. |
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 16, 2023 6:55:32 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 18, 2023 10:21:47 GMT
We’ve previously touched on the topic of comparative measuring units.
Here be some more; these were included in three episodes of Impossible Engineering.)
the height of eight double-decker buses (35 metres)
as heavy as sixteen space shuttles (1,200 tonnes)
enough to fill more than 78 dump trucks (600,000 litres)
enough to fill 7,500 bathtubs (300,000 litres)
the equivalent of more than 28 Chinook helicopters (300 tonnes)
more than three times as heavy as the world’s largest passenger jet (1,800 tonnes)
a weight equivalent to 100 African elephants (not further defined)
equivalent weight of more than 350 family cars (600 tonnes)
the length of five Titanics (not further defined)
enough cable to stretch from London to Amsterdam (400 km)
higher than two Eiffel Towers and the Statue of Liberty combined (750 metres)
taller than the Rockefeller Center in New York (269 metres)
five times longer than the Panama Canal (400 km)
enough space to cover over 330 tennis courts (not further defined)
equivalent weight of one-and-a-half grand pianos (1,500 pounds)
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Post by Twoddle on Apr 18, 2023 10:43:56 GMT
There's one that's in common use in the UK: " ... times the area of Wales". Why Wales?
The lack of mathematical knowledge in journalists peeves me. They seem to think that "Three times the size of ... " is the same as "Three times bigger than ... ". It isn't: "Three times bigger than ... " is "Four times the size of ...".
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 18, 2023 10:56:44 GMT
There's one that's in common use in the UK: " ... times the area of Wales". Why Wales? The lack of mathematical knowledge in journalists peeves me. They seem to think that "Three times the size of ... " is the same as "Three times bigger than ... ". It isn't: "Three times bigger than ... " is "Four times the size of …". And, Twod, what about those who confuse percentages with orders of magnitude? A hundred per cent larger is twice as large, not 100 times. I see this solecism frequently enough to be annoyed by it. |
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 18, 2023 18:24:23 GMT
There's one that's in common use in the UK: " ... times the area of Wales". Why Wales? The lack of mathematical knowledge in journalists peeves me. They seem to think that "Three times the size of ... " is the same as "Three times bigger than ... ". It isn't: "Three times bigger than ... " is "Four times the size of …". And, Twod, what about those who confuse percentages with orders of magnitude? A hundred per cent larger is twice as large, not 100 times. I see this solecism frequently enough to be annoyed by it. This problem comes up regularly when journalists talk of someone drink-driving. “Three times over the limit” is nearly always used instead of “at three times the limit”. I always want to ask “what would constitute one time over the limit?”. |
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 20, 2023 21:48:16 GMT
How's this for a euphemistic statement from the Chief Twit after his latest SpaceX Starship exploded:
"As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.”
The fellow might indeed be a major twit, but I must admire his sense of humour in this instance.
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 21, 2023 1:54:21 GMT
A delightful traditional Maltese savoury pastry is the pastizz (plural pastizzi). Why, then does an Aussie manufacturer (with a Maltese name – Borg) label packages of the treat as pastizzis? Arrrgh!  |
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 21, 2023 9:13:26 GMT
And the Russians are at it, too.
They last night accidentally bombed their own city, near to the border with Ukraine, an incident they described as "an abnormal descent of aviation ammunition".
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