Odd question at this point but how do you say 'GNU'? I was watching a >Lunduke video where he was bitching about Ubuntu's apparent attempt to
push Rust and was reading from a Ubuntu VP's statement. The first
encounter with GNU he definitely said G-N-U but later times it still
sounded like he was saying the letters. At one point he said F-A-Q but
later said 'fak'.
Is that a Lunduke thing? I've always said it as in 'if you knew what the
gnu knew' with sort of a tongue flip on the G, same as with GNOME
although sometimes I almost drop the G completely.
As far as the video, he did have a point. Apparently they want to rewrite
ls and other tools that have worked well for decades with Rust, while >admitting some of the fringe uses may break. The VP also told the
developers to stop using Python and use Rust, sternly worded memo to
follow.
On Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:06:56 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
It's even worse. Consider KILO-gram vs. kil-OM-eter. In the interests
of consistency, I've changed my pronounciation to KILO-meter. It nicely
separates the "kilo" prefix from the unit. Besides, kil-OG-ram just
sounds too weird.
It fits into the millimeter, centimeter, decimeter pattern. I avoid it by saying 'klicks'.
On 03/03/2026 06:54, rbowman wrote:
Odd question at this point but how do you say 'GNU'? I was watching a
Lunduke video where he was bitching about Ubuntu's apparent attempt to
push Rust and was reading from a Ubuntu VP's statement. The first
encounter with GNU he definitely said G-N-U but later times it still
sounded like he was saying the letters. At one point he said F-A-Q but
later said 'fak'.
Is that a Lunduke thing? I've always said it as in 'if you knew what
the gnu knew'’ with sort of a tongue flip on the G, same as with GNOME
although sometimes I almost drop the G completely.
As far as the video, he did have a point. Apparently they want to
rewrite ls and other tools that have worked well for decades with
Rust, while admitting some of the fringe uses may break. The VP also
told the developers to stop using Python and use Rust, sternly worded
memo to follow.
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
On 4 Mar 2026 02:56:40 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I suppose the real question is how it became pah ram iter.
At least according to the all-knowing net it isn't one of those UK vs
US shifts of the emphasized syllable.
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'm no professional linguist, but
it seems to me that there's a pattern for words with a rising tone in
the first syllable to have the stress on the second (e.g. as-SUME) and I i-MAG-ine it has something to do with that; then again, the pattern is already broken in my first sentence. Would love to know if there's a
formal description of this...
On Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:06:56 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'm no professional linguist,
but it seems to me that there's a pattern for words with a rising
tone in the first syllable to have the stress on the second (e.g.
as-SUME) and I i-MAG-ine it has something to do with that; then
again, the pattern is already broken in my first sentence. Would
love to know if there's a formal description of this...
It's even worse. Consider KILO-gram vs. kil-OM-eter. In the
interests of consistency, I've changed my pronounciation to KILO-
meter. It nicely separates the "kilo" prefix from the unit. Besides,
kil-OG-ram just sounds too weird.
Indeed. Very curious if the linguists/philologists have made a study of
this at some point.
On 2026-03-04 20:26, Jason H wrote:
On 03/03/2026 06:54, rbowman wrote:
Odd question at this point but how do you say 'GNU'? I was watching a
Lunduke video where he was bitching about Ubuntu's apparent attempt
to push Rust and was reading from a Ubuntu VP's statement. The first
encounter with GNU he definitely said G-N-U but later times it still
sounded like he was saying the letters. At one point he said F-A-Q
but later said 'fak'.
Is that a Lunduke thing? I've always said it as in 'if you knew what
the gnu knew'’ with sort of a tongue flip on the G, same as with
GNOME although sometimes I almost drop the G completely.
As far as the video, he did have a point. Apparently they want to
rewrite ls and other tools that have worked well for decades with
Rust, while admitting some of the fringe uses may break. The VP also
told the developers to stop using Python and use Rust, sternly worded
memo to follow.
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
I never had to pronounce it :-)
On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 20:57:49 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-04 20:26, Jason H wrote:
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
I never had to pronounce it :-)
Other than Stallman few people ever had. It falls in the category of those words that, despite knowing their meaning, you do not use in conversation
to avoid sounding like a moron. 'segue' comes to mind...
On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 20:57:49 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-04 20:26, Jason H wrote:
On 03/03/2026 06:54, rbowman wrote:
Odd question at this point but how do you say 'GNU'? I was watching a
Lunduke video where he was bitching about Ubuntu's apparent attempt to >>>> push Rust and was reading from a Ubuntu VP's statement. The first
encounter with GNU he definitely said G-N-U but later times it still
sounded like he was saying the letters. At one point he said F-A-Q but >>>> later said 'fak'.
Is that a Lunduke thing? I've always said it as in 'if you knew what
the gnu knew'’ with sort of a tongue flip on the G, same as with GNOME >>>> although sometimes I almost drop the G completely.
As far as the video, he did have a point. Apparently they want to
rewrite ls and other tools that have worked well for decades with
Rust, while admitting some of the fringe uses may break. The VP also
told the developers to stop using Python and use Rust, sternly worded
memo to follow.
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
I never had to pronounce it :-)
Other than Stallman few people ever had. It falls in the category of those words that, despite knowing their meaning, you do not use in conversation
to avoid sounding like a moron. 'segue' comes to mind...
On 04/03/2026 19:57, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-04 20:26, Jason H wrote:Curiously, neither have I.
On 03/03/2026 06:54, rbowman wrote:
Odd question at this point but how do you say 'GNU'? I was watching
a Lunduke video where he was bitching about Ubuntu's apparent
attempt to push Rust and was reading from a Ubuntu VP's statement.
The first encounter with GNU he definitely said G-N-U but later
times it still sounded like he was saying the letters. At one point
he said F-A-Q but later said 'fak'.
Is that a Lunduke thing? I've always said it as in 'if you knew what
the gnu knew'’ with sort of a tongue flip on the G, same as with
GNOME although sometimes I almost drop the G completely.
As far as the video, he did have a point. Apparently they want to
rewrite ls and other tools that have worked well for decades with
Rust, while admitting some of the fringe uses may break. The VP also
told the developers to stop using Python and use Rust, sternly
worded memo to follow.
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
I never had to pronounce it :-)
On 2026-03-04 23:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 04/03/2026 19:57, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I never had to pronounce it :-)Curiously, neither have I.
:-)
On a pinch, I would say G-N-U. Both in English or Spanish.
On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 22:16:58 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Same with dayter versus darter (data), UK tends toward Dayter, but I
wouldn't go apeshit in either case
Ain't no 'r' in data. Many US regional accents tend to throw r away
rather than adding it. There was a kid in grade school who said 'warshington; and the teachers could figure out where he got it from.
The teachers also had a thing about crick (creek) but that was an uphill battle in that part of the world.
On 05/03/2026 02:41, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2026 20:57:49 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-04 20:26, Jason H wrote:
I've pronounced it as Guh-noo for as long as I can remember.
I never had to pronounce it :-)
Other than Stallman few people ever had. It falls in the category of those >> words that, despite knowing their meaning, you do not use in conversation
to avoid sounding like a moron. 'segue' comes to mind...
Indeed. comes from the italian and music I believe.
Another one is copacetic. What a stupid pretentious word.
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Then there are the people who say "preventative" rather than the
perfectly adequate "preventive".
"'Orientate' is an example of the trend toward polysyllabificationizing."
-- Anon.
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A when
they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
On 2026-03-05 19:11, Phil wrote:
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
Intrregal reminds me of another one 'interm', as in "he is the interm president".
weather: tempacher, temcher
Accredidation
The rinver in Paris, 'sign.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 16:30:13 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 06/03/26 16:14, lar3ryca wrote:
The rinver in Paris, 'sign.
How would you like to be Going in Seine with me Lost in the sewers of
Paris with you ...
You meam it doesn't rhyme with 'deine'?
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be
able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has influenced them to change their pronunciation.
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
It's the law of conservation of 'r'. For everyone who drops an 'r'
(British of course), one is added to a word somewhere else.
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
You prefer ?homo genius? do you? I remember that used to raise titters
in a certain maths class ...
So, is it ?dill-emma? or ?die-lemma??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
What's wrong with homogenous?
Den 06.03.2026 kl. 05.38 skrev Peter Moylan:
[...]
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
What's wrong with homogenous?
I think that he wants "homogeneous", but dictionary.com has both spelling.
On 06/03/26 17:23, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 16:30:13 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 06/03/26 16:14, lar3ryca wrote:
The rinver in Paris, 'sign.
How would you like to be Going in Seine with me Lost in the sewers of
Paris with you ...
You meam it doesn't rhyme with 'deine'?
I imagine it does, in German. But English prefers to copy the French pronunciation.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 01:11:44 +0000, Phil wrote:
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
You prefer ?homo genius? do you? I remember that used to raise titters
in a certain maths class ...
So, is it ?dill-emma? or ?die-lemma??
Le 06/03/2026 07:17, Bertel Lund Hansen a crit :
Den 06.03.2026 kl. 05.38 skrev Peter Moylan:
[...]
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal' >>>> and 'disect'.
What's wrong with homogenous?
I think that he wants "homogeneous", but dictionary.com has both
spelling.
'Homogenous' is more recent, less frequent, and could be a corruption of 'homogeneous':
<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=homogenous%2Chomogeneous&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false>
On the other hand, if you pick a peck of pukka people, you'll find they routinely skip syllables in some words. Comf'table, temp'rily (Jack
Hawkins' pronunciation), int'rest, med'cine, rest'rant....
Is this any different? It may be. Omission works only if people agree to accept it.
As for 'nucular', is it a corruption of 'nuclear' or 'avuncular'? Some people's ts are very like ds. Uncle Adam could easily be Uncle Atom.
I think I'll lie down now.
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous'
300 years ago you'd have been complaining that people said
"homogeneous" instead of "homegeneal".
On Thu, 5 Mar 2026 21:00:34 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A when they
say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
I can't explain it but in the '50s it was a common pronunciation by politicians and other talking heads. If Eisenhower said 'nucular' who was
a little kid to question it?
GW Bush was criticized for it but he's about my age so we grew up in the
same era I have to censor myself to say 'nuclear' or even 'nucleus'.
In the '50s it wasn't a common word. It was 'atomic bomb' not 'nuclear
bomb', 'atomic cannon' not 'nuclear cannon'.
On Thu, 5 Mar 2026 08:36:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Indeed. comes from the italian and music I believe. Another one is
copacetic. What a stupid pretentious word.
That took me down a cultural rabbit hole. According to some on a reddit,
it was used in the '90s Disney cartoon series 'Goof Troop', leading to a surge in usage in Gen whatever.
I had a friend who used it and I thought it was 1950's military slang.
He'd been a Marine in that brief interlude between Korea and Vietnam when
the US wasn't shooting up the world.
'Sarnt' was one I had to ask another friend about. That was 2000s military slang when for some reason a pseudo-southern accent was popular.
Den 05.03.2026 kl. 22.00 skrev Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not I, but such changes happen also in other languages.
In Danish the pronunciation of "materialer" often becomes "martrialer". "Evaluation" is "vurdering" in Danish, but it is pronounced as "vudering".
Den 06.03.2026 kl. 01.03 skrev Peter Moylan:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be
able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has
influenced them to change their pronunciation.
Dubbya had that pronunciation. I have read that even some professors in nuclear physics also use it.
Some people's ts are very like ds. Uncle Adam could easily be Uncle Atom.
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> posted:
On 06/03/26 17:23, rbowman wrote:Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 16:30:13 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 06/03/26 16:14, lar3ryca wrote:
The rinver in Paris, 'sign.
How would you like to be Going in Seine with me Lost in the
sewers of Paris with you ...
You meam it doesn't rhyme with 'deine'?
I imagine it does, in German. But English prefers to copy the
French pronunciation.
pronunciation.
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there
will be a vowel change.
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' however :-)
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' however :-)
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there >>> will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
Are you taking "diphthong" as a synonym of "digraph"?
way, and I was explicitly talking about pronunciation, as was Peter, so I don't see what is the relevance of your point. I only see one diphthong in the sentence you wrote (in "Enseignant"). If PTD were still among us
he could tell us what "diphthong" means to experts in linguistics.
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel'
however :-)
Ha
Lazy speech is endemicCan anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be
able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has
influenced them to change their pronunciation.
Dubbya had that pronunciation. I have read that even some professors
in nuclear physics also use it.
Den 06.03.2026 kl. 12.23 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Lazy speech is endemicCan anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be >>>> able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has >>>> influenced them to change their pronunciation.
Dubbya had that pronunciation. I have read that even some professors
in nuclear physics also use it.
It seems to me that "nucular" is at least as difficult as "nuclear".
On 06/03/2026 08:57, Hibou wrote:
The difference with 'nucular' is that a nucule is, separately, a thing:
1. (rare) A section of a compound fruit; a nutlet; a small nut.
2. The oogonium of a charophyte
I think I'll lie down now.
On 2026-03-05 15:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
It's the law of conservation of 'r'. For everyone who drops an 'r'
(British of course), one is added to a word somewhere else.
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
There's more: athalete and filum come immediately to mind.
Then there's the folks that say 'Frasier' when they are speaking of 'Fraser'.
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
No... I hear it all the time, too.
On the other hand, if you pick a peck of pukka people,
you'll find they routinely skip syllables in some words. Comf'table, temp'rily (Jack
Hawkins' pronunciation), int'rest, med'cine, rest'rant....
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 10:00:06 +0000, Phil wrote:
I do, despite the titters. I still think of the seventh planet as 'your anus' too, rather than 'urinous', which doesn't seem much less titterogenic.
Twitters aside I don't think I've ever hear 'urinous'. Or urinium. 'Aluminium' is bad enough.
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be pronounced?
In article <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com>,
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
-- Richard
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there
will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman’ sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly’ has them...
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' however :-)
Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
In article <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com>,
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should
e.g. Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc.
be pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
Do they not? How odd, I didn't know that.
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
Sn!pe wrote:
Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
In article <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com>, Sn!pe
<snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be
pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
Do they not? How odd, I didn't know that.
In the USA it's spelt aluminum
On 07/03/26 08:56, Blueshirt wrote:
Sn!pe wrote:
Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
In article <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com>, Sn!pe
<snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be
pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
Do they not? How odd, I didn't know that.
In the USA it's spelt aluminum
There was a time, though, when it was spelt alumium. It took a while for
the spelling and pronunciation to settle down.
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 21:32:55 -0000 (UTC)
richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
This got me curious enough to look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology
Surprisingly (compared to the usual path of US-vs.-Commonwealth
variances,) "aluminum" actually came first and was coined by a British chemist, while "aluminium" was coined by another Brit who thought that
the former didn't sound classy enough; Americans ended up with the
original spelling mainly because Noah Webster didn't include the latter
in his dictionary. "Aluminum" also happens to be the genitive plural in Latin, FWIW.
On 2026-03-06, Phil <phil@anonymous.invalid> wrote:
On 05/03/2026 21:00, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Not me. It's one of my pet peeves, along with 'homogenous', 'intregal'
and 'disect'.
Especially during the month of FEB-yoo-ary.
On 07/03/26 08:56, Blueshirt wrote:
Sn!pe wrote:
Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
In article <1rrkjfl.izsear126lhe1N%snipeco.2@gmail.com>, Sn!pe
<snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
If Aluminium should be pronounced "Aloominum", how should e.g.
Helium; Sodium; Potassium; Uranium; Plutonium; etc. be
pronounced?
But they don't spell it "aluminium".
Do they not? How odd, I didn't know that.
In the USA it's spelt aluminum
There was a time, though, when it was spelt alumium. It took a while for
the spelling and pronunciation to settle down.
2. The oogonium of a charophyte
... (and still insist on sulphur, even though that one is lost) ...
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there
will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman ? sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' however :-)
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be
able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has >influenced them to change their pronunciation.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 10:00:06 +0000, Phil wrote:
I do, despite the titters. I still think of the seventh planet as 'your
anus' too, rather than 'urinous', which doesn't seem much less
titterogenic.
Twitters aside I don't think I've ever hear 'urinous'. Or urinium. >'Aluminium' is bad enough.
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' >however :-)
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to
rhyme with ?colder??
On Thu, 5 Mar 2026 21:00:34 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A when they
say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
I can't explain it but in the '50s it was a common pronunciation by politicians and other talking heads. If Eisenhower said 'nucular' who was
a little kid to question it?
GW Bush was criticized for it but he's about my age so we grew up in the same era I have to censor myself to say 'nuclear' or even 'nucleus'.
In the '50s it wasn't a common word. It was 'atomic bomb' not 'nuclear bomb', 'atomic cannon' not 'nuclear cannon'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon
I grew up near one of the arsenals where it was manufactured and they love to set up the barrel during the open houses so you could look down the
bore. That and the parachute tower were the two big attractions.
Today strapping a kid into a harness and kicking him off a 35' tower might get Child Protective Services on the premises. Helmets? Protective Gear?
Are you shitting me?
Dubbya had that pronunciation.
On 07/03/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
Oi'll do the same thing.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 12.22 skrev Carlos E.R.:
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in’ a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of air.
One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she
likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your tongue
in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a Spanish-
speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman ? sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
Are you taking "diphthong" as a synonym of "digraph"? I didn't mean it that way, and I was explicitly talking about pronunciation, as was Peter, so I don't see what is the relevance of your point. I only see one diphthong in the sentence you wrote (in "Enseignant"). If PTD were still among us
he could tell us what "diphthong" means to experts in linguistics.
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel' however :-)
Ha. You should try getting a Spanish speaker to say it.
Den 06.03.2026 kl. 12.23 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Lazy speech is endemicCan anybody explain ?Nucular??
That is a real puzzle. I have heard "nucular" from peple who used to be >>>> able to pronounce "nuclear". Something -- perhaps the news media -- has >>>> influenced them to change their pronunciation.
Dubbya had that pronunciation. I have read that even some professors
in nuclear physics also use it.
It seems to me that "nucular" is at least as difficult as "nuclear".
On 2026-03-06, Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
On the other hand, if you pick a peck of pukka people,
:-)
you'll find they
routinely skip syllables in some words. Comf'table, temp'rily (Jack
Hawkins' pronunciation), int'rest, med'cine, rest'rant....
A lot of this seems to be a British thing. They seem to be the
ones who go to the lib'ry to look up contemp'ry lit'ry works.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 06.52 skrev Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to
rhyme with ?colder??
’’’’’ https://www.dictionary.com/browse/solder
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
On 07/03/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US,
sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
Oi'll do the same thing.
On 2026-03-07 05:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US,
sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
No, this is not an USA/UK think, but rather English vs Spanish. English
has vowels that a Spanish ear does not distinguish. To us it is a sound
that is in between two vowels, our ears do not distinguish it.
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'. Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem, I will have to ask the next time I visit
the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the English sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And our
throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
<athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there >>>> will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
Are you taking "diphthong" as a synonym of "digraph"? I didn't mean it that >> way, and I was explicitly talking about pronunciation, as was Peter, so I
don't see what is the relevance of your point. I only see one diphthong in >> the sentence you wrote (in "Enseignant"). If PTD were still among us
he could tell us what "diphthong" means to experts in linguistics.
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel'
however :-)
Ha. You should try getting a Spanish speaker to say it.
My Danish ex-wife could not say "ashtray", instead saying "atchray";
and likewise "thashed" instead of "thatched".
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?d
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?d
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
My Danish ex-wife could not say "ashtray", instead saying "atchray";
and likewise "thashed" instead of "thatched".
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?dDanish= German with a seasick accent
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in’ a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of
air. One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as
she likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so
much a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move
your tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish- speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
No, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
babies.
No, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
babies.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.20 skrev Sn!pe:
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?d
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
You spelled it correctly. It is a Danish shibboleth, but I find it a bit stupid to expose foreighners to that sort of thing.
The phrase contains two ?-sounds which are seldom in other languages
plus the Danish r-sound which is quite weak.
Three versions of the pronunciation - all om them standard.
’’’’’ https://forvo.com/search/r%C3%B8dgr%C3%B8d/
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.41 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?dDanish= German with a seasick accent
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
No.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.01 skrev Carlos E.R.:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in’ a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of
air. One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as
she likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so
much a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move
your tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish- speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
No, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
babies.
To the best of my knowledge my daughter has never practised the sound.
It doesn't exist in Danish and she has not learnt Spanish or another language with the rr-sound. The same goes for my grandson.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.01 skrev Carlos E.R.:
No, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
babies.
I should have answered differemtly, so here goes.
It's not genetic in the sense that (almost?) anyone can learn it with
enough practise, but some people do not need to practise.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.41 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?dDanish= German with a seasick accent
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
No.
On 2026-03-07, Bertel Lund Hansen <rundtosset@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.41 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?dDanish= German with a seasick accent
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
No.
No, that is Swedish!
In UK English there are tow words spelled, but not pronounced the same
Router.
1. From the French route, meaning path or road, and applied to
networking equipment that decide where to send packets of
data. Pronounce 'rooter', to rhyme with root.
2. From Latin rout meaning something that causes a rout, pronounced
'rowter' which is a wood working milling tool that turns solid wood
into sawdust and shavings
Or a cataclysmic defeat or what a pig does looking for roots.
US 'English' does not distinguish the two
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
In UK English there are tow words spelled, but not pronounced the same
Router.
1. From the French route, meaning path or road, and applied to
networking equipment that decide where to send packets of
data. Pronounce 'rooter', to rhyme with root.
2. From Latin rout meaning something that causes a rout, pronounced
'rowter' which is a wood working milling tool that turns solid wood
into sawdust and shavings
Or a cataclysmic defeat or what a pig does looking for roots.
US 'English' does not distinguish the two
I recall a long-ago conversation with an American colleague about the pronunciation of ?router?, in which he proposed that since it was an American-made router, it should be pronounced the American way, even by British English speakers.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 14.46 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
No. Your comparison is just so way off that it's not funny.
This is funny:
’’’’’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykj3Kpm3O0g
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
In UK English there are tow words spelled, but not pronounced the same
Router.
1. From the French route, meaning path or road, and applied to
networking equipment that decide where to send packets of
data. Pronounce 'rooter', to rhyme with root.
2. From Latin rout meaning something that causes a rout, pronounced
'rowter' which is a wood working milling tool that turns solid wood
into sawdust and shavings
Or a cataclysmic defeat or what a pig does looking for roots.
US 'English' does not distinguish the two
I recall a long-ago conversation with an American colleague about the pronunciation of ?router?, in which he proposed that since it was an American-made router, it should be pronounced the American way, even by British English speakers.
On 2026-03-07 05:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
No, this is not an USA/UK think, but rather English vs Spanish. English
has vowels that a Spanish ear does not distinguish. To us it is a sound
that is in between two vowels, our ears do not distinguish it.
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'.
Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem,
the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the English sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And our
throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
<athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
On 06/03/2026 11:47, Peter Moylan wrote:
Imitate, rather than copy. There is no diphthong in the French
pronunciation.
I take your point. Whenever a French word is adopted into English, there >>>> will be a vowel change.
Enseignant grandmaman sucer les ?ufs?
The written language certainly has them...
Are you taking "diphthong" as a synonym of "digraph"? I didn't mean it that >> way, and I was explicitly talking about pronunciation, as was Peter, so I
don't see what is the relevance of your point. I only see one diphthong in >> the sentence you wrote (in "Enseignant"). If PTD were still among us
he could tell us what "diphthong" means to experts in linguistics.
And I would contend that 'oui' is certainly a shifting vowel sound
lui, ennui...Louis
I do remember the total inability of a French au pair to say 'squirrel'
however :-)
Ha. You should try getting a Spanish speaker to say it.
My Danish ex-wife could not say "ashtray", instead saying "atchray";
and likewise "thashed" instead of "thatched".
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?d
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'. Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem, I will have to ask the next time I visit
the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the English sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And our
throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second ACan anybody explain ?Nucular??
when they say "realator".
I disagree.’ My router (row-ter directs signals to my computers
when connected.
In the past when I was much younger my routes (roots) on my motorcycle
trips were carefully chosen. Even younger I lived on farms in the countryside and mail was directed to route (rout) #Whatever.
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to
rhyme with ?colder??
I had amnesia once -- or twice.
On 2026-03-07 10:49, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I disagree.? My router (row-ter directs signals to my computers
when connected.
In the past when I was much younger my routes (roots) on my motorcycle
trips were carefully chosen. Even younger I lived on farms in the
countryside and mail was directed to route (rout) #Whatever.
In Canada, we have what is known as 'Rural routes', and the second word
is pronounced like 'root'.
The first word is often mangled to sound like 'rule'.
In addressing snail mail, it is almost always abbreviated to 'RR', so it >might be 'RR3', for example.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> posted:
On 2026-03-07 05:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, >>> sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
No, this is not an USA/UK think, but rather English vs Spanish. English
has vowels that a Spanish ear does not distinguish. To us it is a sound
that is in between two vowels, our ears do not distinguish it.
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'.
Well, I'm not sure I said quite as plainly as that, but you're right that
I implied it.
Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem,
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my wife, mostly in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without making it sound like "an esquirrel".
I will have to ask the next time I visit
the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the English
sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And our
throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
On 07/03/2026 11:22, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-07 05:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, >>> sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
No, this is not an USA/UK think, but rather English vs Spanish.
English has vowels that a Spanish ear does not distinguish. To us it
is a sound that is in between two vowels, our ears do not distinguish it.
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'. Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem, I will have to ask the next time I
visit the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the
English sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And
our throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
Well its all a matter of careful listening and mimicking
isn't that pronounced 'hor - hay' ?
And rr more ry ?
On 2026-03-07 18:00, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> posted:
On 2026-03-07 05:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the
US,
sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
I come very close to making two syllables out of it, oy el.
No, this is not an USA/UK think, but rather English vs Spanish. English
has vowels that a Spanish ear does not distinguish. To us it is a sound
that is in between two vowels, our ears do not distinguish it.
athel said that Spanish speakers can't say 'squirrel'.
Well, I'm not sure I said quite as plainly as that, but you're right that
I implied it.
Being Spanish I
don't know what is the problem,
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my wife,
mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without making it
sound like "an esquirrel".
Ah, you mean the first 's' letter without an 'es'. Yes, I understand
that one. I can. My relatives in Canada noticed me doing it correctly
and told me; many Spaniards can't. True.
Like in the word Spain.
I will have to ask the next time I visit
the other side of the pond what it is about :-D
But it has to be related to our ears being educated to hear the English
sounds in Spanish. We do not distinguish the extra sounds. And our
throats can not make those extra sounds.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D'Oliveiro:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
There was a funny article about odd ways of mispronouncing (the treaty
of) Maastricht. Mass trick and mistreat were amongst the lot.
My Danish ex-wife could not say "ashtray", instead saying "atchray";
and likewise "thashed" instead of "thatched".
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 11:02:32 +0000, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
What's wanted is a bit of Hwyl. Like the Welsh Rugby team in
Ireland last night. (probably early a.m. for you)
Welsh has all the consonants all other known languages dropped. I
read a pronunciation guide once and promptly forgot it.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
On 2026-03-06 23:52, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to
rhyme with ?colder??
In Canada, it's usually 'sodder' with the first vowel as in 'hot'.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
In UK English there are tow words spelled, but not pronounced the same
Router.
1. From the French route, meaning path or road, and applied to
networking equipment that decide where to send packets of
data. Pronounce 'rooter', to rhyme with root.
2. From Latin rout meaning something that causes a rout, pronounced
'rowter' which is a wood working milling tool that turns solid wood
into sawdust and shavings
Or a cataclysmic defeat or what a pig does looking for roots.
US 'English' does not distinguish the two
I recall a long-ago conversation with an American colleague about the pronunciation of ?router?, in which he proposed that since it was an American-made router, it should be pronounced the American way, even by British English speakers.
No, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
babies.
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
As I've mentioned here once, I'm pretty sure I've heard Bush jr.
talk about New Killer weapons.
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 21:49:36 +0100, guido wugi wrote:
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
As I've mentioned here once, I'm pretty sure I've heard Bush jr.
talk about New Killer weapons.
Ah! ?New Killer weapons? actually seems like a good excuse for
saying it that way!
Not so good when you?re trying to promote ?New Killer power?, though
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:44:16 +0000, Phil wrote:
And whilst I stick to aluminium (and still insist on sulphur, even
though that one is lost), I have to acknowledge that even over here we
have alumina and not aluminia.
I tend to write 'sulphur' although I'm not sure why. The spelling must
have been common in the '50s. I also use 'phantasy' on alternate Tuesdays. Again, consistency' 'Fantom of the Opera' doesn't get it.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 14.46 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
No. Your comparison is just so way off that it's not funny.
This is funny:
’’’’’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykj3Kpm3O0g
On 2026-03-07 10:49, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I disagree.’ My router (row-ter directs signals to my computers when
connected.
In the past when I was much younger my routes (roots) on my motorcycle
trips were carefully chosen. Even younger I lived on farms in the
countryside and mail was directed to route (rout) #Whatever.
In Canada, we have what is known as 'Rural routes', and the second word
is pronounced like 'root'.
The first word is often mangled to’ sound like 'rule'.
In addressing snail mail, it is almost always abbreviated to 'RR', so it might be 'RR3', for example.
I tend to write 'sulphur' although I'm not sure why. The spelling must
have been common in the '50s. I also use 'phantasy' on alternate Tuesdays. >Again, consistency' 'Fantom of the Opera' doesn't get it.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, >sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
On Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:35:34 -0500, Tony Cooper wrote:
We (in the US) have, or had, RR addresses, but we'd say "rowt" and not
"root". Google says there are still RR## addresses, but I've never
noticed one.
Maybe in your part of the US :)
On 7 Mar 2026 04:32:05 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, >sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
As in "you-awl"?
On 08/03/26 10:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 21:49:36 +0100, guido wugi wrote:
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
As I've mentioned here once, I'm pretty sure I've heard Bush jr.
talk about New Killer weapons.
Ah! ?New Killer weapons? actually seems like a good excuse for
saying it that way!
Not so good when you?re trying to promote ?New Killer power?, though
There was recent news about OpenAI teaming up with Trump to produce
killer robots. As an engineer, I was pleased to hear about an open
letter from 200 engineers at OpenAI and Google saying that they refused
to do it.
There was another way they could have saved their consciences. Design
the robots, but put a rule in the software to say they can't kill anyone except Trump or Hegseth.
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 11:02:32 +0000, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
What's wanted is a bit of Hwyl. Like the Welsh Rugby team in Ireland
last night. (probably early a.m. for you)
Welsh has all the consonants all other known languages dropped. I read a pronunciation guide once and promptly forgot it.
On 3/7/2026 10:12 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 14.46 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
No. Your comparison is just so way off that it's not funny.
This is funny:
’’’’’’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykj3Kpm3O0g
Try this:
https://satwcomic.com/language-barrier
pt
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.20 skrev Sn!pe:
To be fair, I can neither say nor spell in danish the phrase "r?dgr?d
med fl?de p" which means "red pudding with cream on".
You spelled it correctly. It is a Danish shibboleth, but I find it a bit stupid to expose foreighners to that sort of thing.
The phrase contains two ?-sounds which are seldom in other languages
plus the Danish r-sound which is quite weak.
Three versions of the pronunciation - all om them standard.
’’’’’ https://forvo.com/search/r%C3%B8dgr%C3%B8d/
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to rhyme
with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'. A soul-dering iron sounds perverse.
On 3/6/2026 11:26 PM, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:44:16 +0000, Phil wrote:
And whilst I stick to aluminium (and still insist on sulphur, even
though that one is lost), I have to acknowledge that even over here we
have alumina and not aluminia.
I tend to write 'sulphur' although I'm not sure why. The spelling must
have been common in the '50s. I also use 'phantasy' on alternate
Tuesdays.
Again, consistency' 'Fantom of the Opera' doesn't get it.
Google Ngram shows 'sulfur' appearing around 1880, peaking in 1980, and
the tailing off. 'Sulphur' predates 1800, and peaks around 1920, then
falls off, now being about half as common as 'sulfur'.
On 3/7/2026 7:12 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
On 3/7/2026 10:12 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 14.46 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
No. Your comparison is just so way off that it's not funny.
This is funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykj3Kpm3O0g
Try this:
https://satwcomic.com/language-barrier
This one is more on-point:
https://satwcomic.com/language-lesson
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 16:12:44 -0800, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Maybe California, Oregon and Washington though can join a trade deal
being orchestrated by Canada to offset the American stress on their
mutual economies.
It would join Japan, Australian and some other reasonable nations, they
should think about South American nations as well.
Ecotopia? Cascadia? Northwest Territorial Imperative? Most of those
schemes, left and right, leave out southern California as beyond repair.
Give it to Atzlan.
On 2026-03-07, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
On 08/03/26 10:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 21:49:36 +0100, guido wugi wrote:
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
As I've mentioned here once, I'm pretty sure I've heard Bush jr.
talk about New Killer weapons.
Ah! ?New Killer weapons? actually seems like a good excuse for
saying it that way!
Not so good when you?re trying to promote ?New Killer power?, though
There was recent news about OpenAI teaming up with Trump to produce
killer robots. As an engineer, I was pleased to hear about an open
letter from 200 engineers at OpenAI and Google saying that they refused
to do it.
There was another way they could have saved their consciences. Design
the robots, but put a rule in the software to say they can't kill anyone
except Trump or Hegseth.
They should go whole hog and implement Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
On 08/03/26 10:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to rhyme
with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'.’ A soul-dering iron sounds
perverse.
A sodding iron sounds even more perverse. And very painful.
We are not breaking up states but allying for trade with a more
sensible set of nations, than the present USA under the Orange bully
who only loves Tariffs.
While "fosforus" sits right down near the zero line.
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my wife, mostly in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without making it sound like "an esquirrel".
’’’And you know that if you want to stop the LBGTQ+ people from being
born the answer is simply that Heterosexuals need to stop having sex.
After all we all come from that activity.
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:It's sole, not soul.
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to rhyme
with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'. A soul-dering iron sounds perverse.
On 08/03/26 10:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to rhyme
with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'.’ A soul-dering iron sounds
perverse.
A sodding iron sounds even more perverse. And very painful.
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 03:01:57 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
On 7 Mar 2026 04:32:05 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the US, >>> sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
As in "you-awl"?
No as in "I put a kwaut uv awl in da cah."
To the best of my knowledge my daughter has never practised the sound.
It doesn't exist in Danish and she has not learnt Spanish or another
language with the rr-sound. The same goes for my grandson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY
No way can I get that purring sound out of 'Messer' and other words with
'r'. It might be a stylistic affectation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeQG5rv592Q
Whole different style but you don't hear a rolling 'r' in 'er', 'trgt'
and other words that are in the 1931 movie version.
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of air.
One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she
likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much a
question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your tongue
in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish-speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, and
dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay attention.
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my wife,
mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without making it
sound like "an esquirrel".
I like that. I'd make that English if I could.
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
The letter 'r' is a problem for anyone learning a foreign language. It
seems to be different in each language.
There was another way they could have saved their consciences. Design
the robots, but put a rule in the software to say they can't kill anyone except Trump or Hegseth.
On 3/7/26 19:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 08/03/26 10:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to rhyme >>>> with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'. A soul-dering iron sounds
perverse.
A sodding iron sounds even more perverse. And very painful.
But in the USA, at least among the folks I used to talk to, it was a Sod-ering iron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY
No way can I get that purring sound out of 'Messer' and other words
with 'r'. It might be a stylistic affectation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeQG5rv592Q
Whole different style but you don't hear a rolling 'r' in 'er', 'trgt'
and other words that are in the 1931 movie version.
What's your point?
That I can't make the rolling r sound from the first clip.
Between the 1931 film and the 1960s song they seemed to be toned down, even more so
with groups like Rammstein.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, and
dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay attention.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 06:22:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Out of interest, how may quarts in a US gallon?
Four. Before Canada went off the deep end with metric I always thought I
was getting a bargain when I bought their 5 quart gasoline.
On 08/03/26 02:10, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
In UK English there are tow words spelled, but not pronounced the same
Router.
1. From the French route, meaning path or road, and applied to
networking equipment that decide where to send packets of
data. Pronounce 'rooter', to rhyme with root.
2. From Latin rout meaning something that causes a rout, pronounced
'rowter' which is a wood working milling tool that turns solid wood
into sawdust and shavings
Or a cataclysmic defeat or what a pig does looking for roots.
US 'English' does not distinguish the two
I recall a long-ago conversation with an American colleague about the
pronunciation of ?router?, in which he proposed that since it was an
American-made router, it should be pronounced the American way, even by
British English speakers.
By that reasoning, most routers should be pronounced the Chinese way.
On 08/03/26 16:43, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’ But in the USA, at least among the folks I used to talk to, it was a
Sod-ering iron.
That's even worse. I don't want any hot metal sodding my ring.
On 08/03/26 10:07, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 21:49:36 +0100, guido wugi wrote:
Op 5/03/2026 om 22:00 schreef Lawrence D'Oliveiro:
Can anybody explain "Nucular"?
As I've mentioned here once, I'm pretty sure I've heard Bush jr.
talk about New Killer weapons.
Ah! "New Killer weapons" actually seems like a good excuse for
saying it that way!
Not so good when you're trying to promote "New Killer power", though
There was recent news about OpenAI teaming up with Trump to produce
killer robots. As an engineer, I was pleased to hear about an open
letter from 200 engineers at OpenAI and Google saying that they refused
to do it.
There was another way they could have saved their consciences. Design
the robots, but put a rule in the software to say they can't kill anyone except Trump or Hegseth.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 06:22:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/03/2026 04:37, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 03:01:57 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
On 7 Mar 2026 04:32:05 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:49:26 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I remember my inability to say "oil" in a way that a Briton would
understand. Took me years.
I don't know how the Brits say it but 'awl' shows up in parts of the >>>>> US,
sometimes with a hint of a wandering 'r'.
As in "you-awl"?
No as in "I put a kwaut uv awl in da cah."
Out of interest, how may quarts in a US gallon?
Four. Before Canada went off the deep end with metric I always thought I
was getting a bargain when I bought their 5 quart gasoline.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.40 skrev rbowman:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in’ a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of air. >>> One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she
likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much a
question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your tongue >>> in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish-speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, and
dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay attention.
Where did you grow up? When I went to school some of my classmates
couldn't pronounce the th-sound. My guess is that few Danes, if any,
have that problem today.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 07:39:14 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.40 skrev rbowman:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of
air.
One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she
likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much a >>>> question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your
tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish-speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, and
dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay attention.
Where did you grow up? When I went to school some of my classmates
couldn't pronounce the th-sound. My guess is that few Danes, if any,
have that problem today.
Upstate NY.
Den 08.03.2026 kl. 07.02 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my
wife, mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without
making it
sound like "an esquirrel".
I like that. I'd make that English if I could.
A small esquire?
- The British Imperial fluid ounce is equal to 28.413 millilitres,
while the US Customary fluid ounce is 29.573 ml.
- The British Imperial pint is 568.261 ml (20 fluid ounces), while the
US Customary pint is 473.176 ml (16 fl oz).
They should go whole hog and implement Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.53 skrev Peter Moylan:
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
The letter 'r' is a problem for anyone learning a foreign language. It
seems to be different in each language.
I use a Danish r in both English and German. It has not been pointed out
to me as an error.
Le 08/03/2026 07:16, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 08/03/26 16:43, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’ But in the USA, at least among the folks I used to talk to, it
was a
Sod-ering iron.
That's even worse. I don't want any hot metal sodding my ring.
It's a right sod when the sodding soddering iron won't sodder.
(Leaves one in a state of flux.)
On 08/03/26 13:31, Cryptoengineer wrote:I suspect you were thinking of this one:
On 3/7/2026 7:12 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
On 3/7/2026 10:12 AM, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 14.46 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Danes have less sense of humour than Germans...Danish= German with a seasick accent
No.
No. Your comparison is just so way off that it's not funny.
This is funny:
’’’’’’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykj3Kpm3O0g
Try this:
https://satwcomic.com/language-barrier
This one is more on-point:
https://satwcomic.com/language-lesson
Funny, but not what I expected. I thought you were going to point us to
the FUNEX language lesson.
(Sorry, no URL. I can't find it on the web.
Den 08.03.2026 kl. 08.39 skrev rbowman:
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, and >>>> dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay attention.
To the best of my knowledge there are American dialects where that is >standard - Bronx?
On 2026-03-07 15:35, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-07 18:00, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> posted:
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my
wife, mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without
making it
sound like "an esquirrel".
Ah, you mean the first 's' letter without an 'es'. Yes, I understand
that one. I can. My relatives in Canada noticed me doing it correctly
and told me; many Spaniards can't. True.
Like in the word Spain.
I remember a line in a sitcom called "Home Improvement". Tim's wife was
(I think) taking Spanish lessons, and she was saying something about her husband, calling him "mi bozo". The instructor corrected her, saying
it's "mi esposo". She answer something to the effect that no, he was definitely a bozo.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2026 22:44:16 +0000, Phil wrote:
And whilst I stick to aluminium (and still insist on sulphur, even
though that one is lost), I have to acknowledge that even over here we
have alumina and not aluminia.
I tend to write 'sulphur' although I'm not sure why. The spelling must
have been common in the '50s. I also use 'phantasy' on alternate Tuesdays. Again, consistency' 'Fantom of the Opera' doesn't get it.
Den 08.03.2026 kl. 00.22 skrev Peter Moylan:
There was another way they could have saved their consciences. Design
the robots, but put a rule in the software to say they can't kill anyone
except Trump or Hegseth.
You haven't seen "Westworld"?
In article <JQ4rR.5$gK72.1@fx47.iad>,
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
They should go whole hog and implement Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
The impossibility of this - long recognised, I think - is that the
laws have to be (as Asimov puts it) "built most deeply into a robot's positronic brain", while concepts like "human" and "injure" are only
ever likely to appear at the highest levels of an artificial
intelligence.
On 08/03/2026 05:39, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’And you know that if you want to stop the LBGTQ+ people from being
born the answer is simply that Heterosexuals need to stop having sex.
After all we all come from that activity.
The LBGT/radical feminism. propaganda is so strong that most young
people are scared or ashamed of heterosexual sex.
While "fosforus" sits right down near the zero line.
On 2026-03-07, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 11:02:32 +0000, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
What's wanted is a bit of Hwyl. Like the Welsh Rugby team in Ireland
last night. (probably early a.m. for you)
Welsh has all the consonants all other known languages dropped. I read a
pronunciation guide once and promptly forgot it.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 11:42:00 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/03/2026 07:39, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 07:39:14 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.40 skrev rbowman:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of >>>>> air.
One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she >>>>> likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much >>>>> a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your >>>>> tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a
Spanish-speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem,
and dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay
attention.
Where did you grow up? When I went to school some of my classmates
couldn't pronounce the th-sound. My guess is that few Danes, if any,
have that problem today.
Upstate NY.
Ah. Ok. Isn't that Bronx speak?
The really noticeable 'da' was Bronx 60 years ago. Today the Bronx is 8% white so you'd better speak ebonics or Spanish.
I don't have the phonetics vocabulary but if I'm paying attention to 'th' the tip of my tongue touches the bottom of my upper teeth, otherwise it's the gum above the teeth and the 'h' gets less attention. If I actually say dese and dose it's another sound entirely.
In article <JQ4rR.5$gK72.1@fx47.iad>,
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
They should go whole hog and implement Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
The impossibility of this - long recognised, I think - is that the
laws have to be (as Asimov puts it) "built most deeply into a robot's positronic brain", while concepts like "human" and "injure" are only
ever likely to appear at the highest levels of an artificial
intelligence.
I don't know any ebonics speakers, but none of the Spanish speakers I've known
have any difficulty with /?/ (unvoiced th) in English, even though they don't,
in most cases, use it when they speak Spanish, as /?/ is only used in a part of Spain (though admittedly an important part, Madrid and further north). Voiced
th, /?/, occurs more widely, and likewise produces no problems in English. Few
French or German speakers can manage /?/ or /?/.
I don't know any ebonics speakers,
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 13:57:58 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 13.01 skrev Carlos E.R.:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in’ a course of one year, weeklyNo, I don't think it is genetic. It is a learned ability when we are
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of
air. One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as
she likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so
much a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move
your tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a >>> Spanish- speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
babies.
To the best of my knowledge my daughter has never practised the sound.
It doesn't exist in Danish and she has not learnt Spanish or another language with the rr-sound. The same goes for my grandson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY
No way can I get that purring sound out of 'Messer' and other words with 'r'. It might be a stylistic affectation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeQG5rv592Q
Whole different style but you don't hear a rolling 'r' in 'er', 'trgt'
and other words that are in the 1931 movie version.
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise, accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
Every once in a while, I'd overhear her on the phone with a friend
or relative, thought, and she'd break into what now call Ebonics*.
The first time I heard that, I thought someone else was using her
phone.
She had one person who called her that must have been Jamacian,
because she'd switch to pure Jamacian English.
On 08/03/2026 06:45, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.53 skrev Peter Moylan:
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
The letter 'r' is a problem for anyone learning a foreign language. It
seems to be different in each language.
I use a Danish r in both English and German. It has not been pointed out to
me as an error.
It is a component of some British dialects. Mostly Northern English and Scottish
English is a mongrel derived from Celtic, Romance and Germanic languages. And then heavily re buggered in the USA by immigrants..
On 07/03/26 23:20, Sn!pe wrote:
My Danish ex-wife could not say "ashtray", instead saying "atchray";
and likewise "thashed" instead of "thatched".
A pity you can't introduce her to an Irish tatcher.
On 08/03/26 16:30, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We are not breaking up states but allying for trade with a more
sensible set of nations, than the present USA under the Orange bully
who only loves Tariffs.
I remember hearing recently that Trump had ony 50 days to get his new
tafiffs approved by Congress. Is the bill making any progress through Congress?
On Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:35:34 -0500, Tony Cooper wrote:
We (in the US) have, or had, RR addresses, but we'd say "rowt" and not
"root". Google says there are still RR## addresses, but I've never
noticed one.
Maybe in your part of the US :)
On 2026-03-08, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 08/03/2026 05:39, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’And you know that if you want to stop the LBGTQ+ people from being
born the answer is simply that Heterosexuals need to stop having sex.
After all we all come from that activity.
The LBGT/radical feminism. propaganda is so strong that most young
people are scared or ashamed of heterosexual sex.
On 08/03/26 16:43, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/7/26 19:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 08/03/26 10:40, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 05:52:06 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
By the way, is it true that USians do *not* pronounce ?solder? to
rhyme
with ?colder??
Only if you pronounce 'colder' as 'codder'.’ A soul-dering iron sounds >>>> perverse.
A sodding iron sounds even more perverse. And very painful.
’’’’ But in the USA, at least among the folks I used to talk to, it was a
Sod-ering iron.
That's even worse. I don't want any hot metal sodding my ring.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 14:19:48 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
While "fosforus" sits right down near the zero line.
How about fenix?
On 08/03/2026 03:35, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 08/03/26 13:31, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I suspect you were thinking of this one:This one is more on-point:
https://satwcomic.com/language-lesson
Funny, but not what I expected. I thought you were going to point
us to the FUNEX language lesson.
(Sorry, no URL. I can't find it on the web.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-mX9T2qyIQ>
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
Every once in a while, I'd overhear her on the phone with a friend
or relative, thought, and she'd break into what now call Ebonics*.
The first time I heard that, I thought someone else was using her
phone.
She had one person who called her that must have been Jamacian,
because she'd switch to pure Jamacian English.
This is so common, the linguists have a term for it: it?s called ?code-switching?.
In article <10ojmjv$2ashr$1@dont-email.me>,
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
- The British Imperial fluid ounce is equal to 28.413 millilitres,
while the US Customary fluid ounce is 29.573 ml.
- The British Imperial pint is 568.261 ml (20 fluid ounces), while the
US Customary pint is 473.176 ml (16 fl oz).
Which means that a pint isn't a pound even in America, let alone the
world around. Until you get to about 97C anyway.
So, how many pints in a quart?
Ah,
"A pint in the United Kingdom is bigger than a pint in the United
States. The UK pint is 20 fluid ounces, while the US pint fills up 16
fl oz. However, this translation is not that simple, as fluid ounces
do not equal one another across the Atlantic. Here is the breakdown
of volume between the two countries:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass
matters.
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 08:49:42 -0800, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Even younger I lived on farms in the countryside and mail was directed
to route (rout) #Whatever. I use "whatever" because I was very young
and do not recall the numbers assigned but something like Rural Route
#2.
I remember RFD (Rural Free Delivery) in that context.
Now I love chips(crisps in some environs) especially potato with
moderate salt but I love strawberries as well and i can afford
neither. Trump has made everything cost more, food or its
approximations. Now he is working on gasoline and other petroleum
products as he murders Iranians.
Den 08.03.2026 kl. 07.02 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my wife,
mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without making it >>> sound like "an esquirrel".
I like that. I'd make that English if I could.
A small esquire?
On 09/03/26 09:02, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Now I love chips(crisps in some environs) especially potato with
moderate salt but I love strawberries as well and i can afford
neither.’ Trump has made everything cost more, food or its
approximations.’ Now he is working on gasoline and other petroleum
products as he murders Iranians.
Trump thought he could force regime change in Iran by assassinating the
top man. This works only for a dictatorship. Just because the USA is currently a dictatorship, he assumed that other countries are like that
too.
The latest guesses by the Iran-watchers say that the new leader of Iran
will be more of a hard-liner than the old one, so Trump has achieved the opposite of what he intended.
His mistake in this case was to have incompetent advisers. What he needs
to do is go through the list of all Cabinet members, and fire all the yes-men. He won't do it, though.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 16:42:38 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
bliss - Pam Bondi or JFK Jr. should be the next to be moved up to
higher
salaries and less interference with their departments.
Even on the right there is muttering about 'hey Pam, are you ever going to prosecute anybody for anything?'.
RFK Jr. JFK Jr is one of the good Kennedys.
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 09:20:57 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 09/03/26 04:27, Steve Hayes wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 14:19:48 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
While "fosforus" sits right down near the zero line.
How about fenix?
No, thanks. I've been exposed to too many operating systems already.
They make pretty good flashlights, though.
On 09/03/26 09:02, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Now I love chips(crisps in some environs) especially potato with
moderate salt but I love strawberries as well and i can afford
neither. Trump has made everything cost more, food or its
approximations. Now he is working on gasoline and other petroleum
products as he murders Iranians.
Trump thought he could force regime change in Iran by assassinating the
top man. This works only for a dictatorship. Just because the USA is currently a dictatorship, he assumed that other countries are like that too.
The latest guesses by the Iran-watchers say that the new leader of Iran
will be more of a hard-liner than the old one, so Trump has achieved the opposite of what he intended.
His mistake in this case was to have incompetent advisers.
What he needs
to do is go through the list of all Cabinet members, and fire all the yes-men. He won't do it, though.
For me, and many of the people I've been around, "rowt" and "root" are interchangeable. Certainly many of us would say we get our kicks on
Root Sixty-six, but the rowt back to the interstate is important, too.
[ Trump ]
His mistake in this case was to have incompetent advisers. What he needs
to do is go through the list of all Cabinet members, and fire all the >yes-men. He won't do it, though.
On Saturday, rbowman yelped out that:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:35:34 -0500, Tony Cooper wrote:
We (in the US) have, or had, RR addresses, but we'd say "rowt" and not
"root".’ Google says there are still RR## addresses, but I've never
noticed one.
Maybe in your part of the US :)
And 30-odd years ago I had RR address and a 15 minute commute to a high
tech company job.
For me, and many of the people I've been around, "rowt" and "root" are interchangeable.’ Certainly many of us would say we get our kicks on
Root Sixty-six, but the rowt back to the interstate is important, too.
The tools are indeed rowters, whether in the shop or the wiring closet. However, that's a lousy spelling of that pronunciation ... row has the
wrong O sound.’ But so does boat, and I can't think of an example of the right sound that doesn't get spelled "ou" ... shout out if you can think
of one.’ Oh, maybe "now" and "crown", but not "crow".’ For you IPAers, that's aU a?’ and ow, for ASCII-IPA (AUE/Kirschenbaum style), official,
and "traditional American".’ (The Merriam-Webster column doesn't paste correctly in this noosereeder.)
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> posted:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 11:42:00 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/03/2026 07:39, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 07:39:14 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.40 skrev rbowman:
I have learnt a bit of Spanish in a course of one year, weekly
sessions. I can't make the rr-sound unless I produce a hurricane of >>>>>>> air.
One of my daughters (or both?) can make that sound as quiet as she >>>>>>> likes, and so can her eldest son. So I don't think that it's so much >>>>>>> a question of previous language as the genetic abality to move your >>>>>>> tongue in different ways. But of course, if I had been born in a >>>>>>> Spanish-speaking country I would have learnt through practise.
As a kid I had problems with 'th'. I'm still closer to 'dese, dem, >>>>>> and dose' than some, or Keit rather than Kieth unless I pay
attention.
Where did you grow up? When I went to school some of my classmates
couldn't pronounce the th-sound. My guess is that few Danes, if any, >>>>> have that problem today.
Upstate NY.
Ah. Ok. Isn't that Bronx speak?
The really noticeable 'da' was Bronx 60 years ago. Today the Bronx is 8%
white so you'd better speak ebonics or Spanish.
I don't know any ebonics speakers, but none of the Spanish speakers I've known
have any difficulty with /?/ (unvoiced th) in English, even though they don't,
in most cases, use it when they speak Spanish, as /?/ is only used in a part of Spain (though admittedly an important part, Madrid and further north). Voiced
th, /?/, occurs more widely, and likewise produces no problems in English.
French or German speakers can manage /?/ or /?/.
I don't have the phonetics vocabulary but if I'm paying attention to 'th'
the tip of my tongue touches the bottom of my upper teeth, otherwise it's
the gum above the teeth and the 'h' gets less attention. If I actually say >> dese and dose it's another sound entirely.
On 09/03/26 07:46, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
Every once in a while, I'd overhear her on the phone with a friend
or relative, thought, and she'd break into what now call Ebonics*.
The first time I heard that, I thought someone else was using her
phone.
She had one person who called her that must have been Jamacian,
because she'd switch to pure Jamacian English.
This is so common, the linguists have a term for it: it?s called
?code-switching?.
My second son was code-switching at the age of 4. He switched between
French and English, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, depending on
who he was facing at the time.
I did it in a more subtle way. My francophone ex-wife, whose English was >excellent, claimed that she could not understand me when I was speaking
with my siblings. Apparently I slipped back into the English of
Victoria, although I've lived in New South Wales for most of my life. I
was not aware that I was changing my language, and anyway most people
can't hear any difference in the speech of those two (adjacent) states.
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 20:46:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass >>matters.
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew
a bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or
perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from >somewhere in the US.
I have always understood that "code switching" was switching from
one (often) regional accent to another.
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:16:14 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 20:46:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the early >>>> 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The Story >>>Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass matters.
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew a
bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or
perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from
somewhere in the US.
Kevin Costner. He took a lot of crap for his accent in 'Robin Hood'.
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English. By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from.
[...] Kevin Costner. He took a lot of crap for his accent in 'Robin Hood'. I've mixed feelings about that. The pseudo-Norse accents in 'The Vikings' were a little much. Otoh Ken Loach prides himself on local color which meant 'The Navigators' was strictly subtitles for me. 'Train Spotting' was too but I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with a completely unintelligible Glasgow accent.
I saw 'Sexy Beast' in a theater and as I left I heard several couples wishing it had had subtitles.
I don't know if it had typical Australian accents but I had no problem with the 'Mystery Road' films except for one character that I thought was Molly until I saw it spelled on a missing persons poster. However the first 'Mad Max' supposedly was dubbed for the US release.
The actor most famous for not losing his native accent was Tony
Curtis who brought his Bronx accent into every role.
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
On 2026-03-08 13:51, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
[...] I don't know any ebonics speakers, but none of the Spanish speakers I've known have any difficulty with /?/ (unvoiced th) in English, even though they don't, in most cases, use it when they speak Spanish, as /?/ is only used in a part of Spain (though admittedly an important part, Madrid and further north). Voiced th, /?/, occurs more widely, and likewise produces no problems in English.
Which one gives us "Barthelona"?
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I've been exposed to too many operating systems already.
On 09/03/26 15:49, Tony Cooper wrote:
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English.’ By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from.
Most people, even non-linguists, can tell they're from America.
Ar an t-ocht£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh The Natural Philosopher:
> On 08/03/2026 06:45, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.53 skrev Peter Moylan:
> >
> >>> Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
> >>> Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
> >>
> >> The letter 'r' is a problem for anyone learning a foreign language. It
> >> seems to be different in each language.
> >
> > I use a Danish r in both English and German. It has not been pointed out to
> > me as an error.
>
> It is a component of some British dialects. Mostly Northern English and Scottish
Uvular trill for <r> does not arise in the pronunciation of any native community of English spekers. Bertel has not clarified, but his <r> is likely uvular. The relevant Scottish dialects (I?m not aware of any Northern England dialects with this feature) have an alveolar trill, the <rr> of spanish.
I have always understood that "code switching" was switching from one
(often) regional accent to another. My example above, and someone who reverts to the regional accent when returning to the area after living somewhere where that accent was suppressed.
Switch from French to English, though, would not be "code-switching"
to me. If so, there are thousands of code-switchers here in Orlando
who speak either English or Puerto Rican Spanish depending on who they
are facing.
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 06:24:24 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
Twa corbies?
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:31:57 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
I have always understood that "code switching" was switching from
one (often) regional accent to another.
It?s more styles of language. Like moving between something perceived
as being ?higher-class?, versus something more ?informal?.
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 19:51:54 GMT, athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:
I don't know any ebonics speakers,
Using "knew" as meaning someone who was in my company quite a bit...
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the early
60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
Every once in a while, I'd overhear her on the phone with a friend or relative, thought, and she'd break into what now call Ebonics*. The
first time I heard that, I thought someone else was using her phone.
She had one person who called her that must have been Jamacian,
because she'd switch to pure Jamacian English.
In the office she was rather formal and reserved, but a completely
different persona when on the phone with a friend or relative.
Being National Woman's Month, which has followed Black History Month
in the US, makes me remember her as being someone who would have been
an executive at the company if not for her color and gender.
*A term that was not coined until 1973. We might have used AAVE in
the early 60s, but I don't remember that term used by the general
public in those days. It sounds ugly today, but I suppose we referred
to as "Colored English". "Black" and "African American" didn't begin
to generally replace "Colored" until the mid-60s, but "African
American" did exist as a term.
The actor who come to my mind for failed attempts at an accent in
movies is Dick Van Dyke in "Marry Poppins". The actor most famous for
not losing his native accent was Tony Curtis who brought his Bronx
accent into every role.
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though,
isn?t there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language,
whereas lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language
(think Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
On 2026-03-08 13:51, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know any ebonics speakers, but none of the Spanish speakers I've known
have any difficulty with /?/ (unvoiced th) in English, even though they don't,
in most cases, use it when they speak Spanish, as /?/ is only used in a part
of Spain (though admittedly an important part, Madrid and further north). Voiced
th, /?/, occurs more widely, and likewise produces no problems in English.
Which one gives us "Barthelona"?
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Have you been to (or had dealings with) Atlantic Canada? How did you find the accent there, if so?
I've only been to New Brunswick, including Grand Manan, and Nova Scotia. It was a long time ago but I don't remember any strong accents. I've also been around the Gaspe Peninsula, but that's Quebec.
On 9/03/2026 9:54 a.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Ar an t-ocht£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh The Natural Philosopher:
> On 08/03/2026 06:45, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> > Den 07.03.2026 kl. 23.53 skrev Peter Moylan:
> >
> >>> Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
> >>> Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
> >>
> >> The letter 'r' is a problem for anyone learning a foreign language. It
> >> seems to be different in each language.
> >
> > I use a Danish r in both English and German. It has not been pointed out to
> > me as an error.
>
> It is a component of some British dialects. Mostly Northern English and Scottish
Uvular trill for <r> does not arise in the pronunciation of any native community of English spekers. Bertel has not clarified, but his <r> is likely
uvular. The relevant Scottish dialects (I?m not aware of any Northern England
dialects with this feature) have an alveolar trill, the <rr> of spanish.
There is, or was, a uvular pronunciation of /r/ in the North of England, but most often a fricative, only occasionally a trill:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumbrian_burr
On 3/8/26 09:23, Charlie Gibbs wrote:That is an uniquely blinkered USA perspective.
On 2026-03-08, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 08/03/2026 05:39, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’ ’’’And you know that if you want to stop the LBGTQ+ people from being >>>> born the answer is simply that Heterosexuals need to stop having sex.
After all we all come from that activity.
The LBGT/radical feminism. propaganda is so strong that most young
people are scared or ashamed of heterosexual sex.
’’’’Snip
’’’’I wonder what the hell you are talking about.’ Young people are
more likely afraid of getting married and having children because of the fiscal aspects of getting a job, a home and raising children.’ It is so expensive these days due to Republican approved activities such as
the financial institutions buying up homes and rental properties, the replacement of workers with machines, the failure of the Congress to
tax the most wealthy at reasonable rates, and of course the damned
Tariffs.
’’’’FDR saved the USA from going further toward Right Wing
Fascism but susequent presidents have done the contrary and
Right Wing or Left Wing, Fascism is to be avoided as it is not
good for women or children, the air we breath and the water
we drink to say little of food and psuedo-food called snacks
by that industry.
’’’’Now I love chips(crisps in some environs) especially potato
with moderate salt but I love strawberries as well and i can afford
neither.’ Trump has made everything cost more, food or its
approximations.’ Now he is working on gasoline and other petroleum
products as he murders Iranians.
’’’’bliss
Trump thought he could force regime change in Iran by assassinating the
top man. This works only for a dictatorship. Just because the USA is currently a dictatorship, he assumed that other countries are like that
too.
The latest guesses by the Iran-watchers say that the new leader of Iran
will be more of a hard-liner than the old one, so Trump has achieved the opposite of what he intended.
His mistake in this case was to have incompetent advisers. What he needs
to do is go through the list of all Cabinet members, and fire all the yes-men. He won't do it, though.
He invents the Shield of America
to give Kristi Noam another place to make a hideous mess.
’’’’bliss - Talking about the dead? "Country Joe" has passed at 84... <https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/8/2372269/-Iconic-anti-war-protest-singer-Country-Joe-McDonald-dies-at-84>
On 09/03/26 04:27, Steve Hayes wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 14:19:48 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
While "fosforus" sits right down near the zero line.
How about fenix?
No, thanks. I've been exposed to too many operating systems already.
On 08/03/2026 19:51, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know any ebonics speakers, but none of the Spanish speakers
I've known
have any difficulty with /?/ (unvoiced th) in English, even though
they don't,
in most cases, use it when they speak Spanish, as /?/ is only used in
a part
of Spain (though admittedly an important part, Madrid and further
north). Voiced
th, /?/, occurs more widely, and likewise produces no problems in
English. Few
French or German speakers can manage /?/ or /?/.
Yes, a word that seems to cause particular problems for quite a few
German speakers is 'clothes'.
I don't know if it was just a Bollywood thing but a lot of the dialog switched from Hindi to English midstream.
I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with aAll Glasgow accents are unintelligible.
completely unintelligible Glasgow accent.
On 09/03/2026 00:58, rbowman wrote:
I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with a
completely unintelligible Glasgow accent.
All Glasgow accents are unintelligible.
'Trainspotting; was a bit too real for me. I used to know people like that.
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 06:24:24 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
Le 09/03/2026 05:42, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 09/03/26 15:49, Tony Cooper wrote:
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English.’ By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from.
Most people, even non-linguists, can tell they're from America.
Other people have accents; one never does oneself.
IMHO, languages and dialects often have distinctive 'musics'. One can
tell that someone is speaking AmE or BrE by this musicality, even if one can't distinguish the words.
Language or dialect? Some say a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. This makes BrE and AmE separate languages. More often it's a
political thing. Does one want to emphasise commonality or difference?
To Nationalists, Scots is a language. To me, it's a dialect.
"Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie! ..." Burns.
"The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling ..." - Welsh.
Aye, that's English, right enough.
Bertel Lund Hansen was thinking very hard :
Den 08.03.2026 kl. 07.02 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Most Spanish speakers that I know (and I know lots, including my
wife, mostly
in Chile and Spain) have difficulty saying "a squirrel" without
making it
sound like "an esquirrel".
I like that. I'd make that English if I could.
A small esquire?
Too small to bring you your armor.
-d
Ar an naoi£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh The Natural Philosopher:
> On 09/03/2026 00:58, rbowman wrote:
> > I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with a
> > completely unintelligible Glasgow accent.
>
> All Glasgow accents are unintelligible.
>
> 'Trainspotting; was a bit too real for me. I used to know people like that.
Any of them still alive?
Transpotting was set in Edinburgh. I can't comment on
whether Miller's accent was specifically Glaswegian.
Ar an naoi£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh The Natural Philosopher:
> On 09/03/2026 00:58, rbowman wrote:
> > I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with a
> > completely unintelligible Glasgow accent.
>
> All Glasgow accents are unintelligible.
>
> 'Trainspotting; was a bit too real for me. I used to know people like that.
Any of them still alive?
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Have you been to (or had dealings with) Atlantic Canada? How did you
find the accent there, if so?
I've only been to New Brunswick, including Grand Manan, and Nova Scotia.
It was a long time ago but I don't remember any strong accents. I've also been around the Gaspe Peninsula, but that's Quebec.
I can usually handle accents but I had real problems with north
Georgia white speech, mostly with older people.
Apparently I slipped back into the English of Victoria, although I've
lived in New South Wales for most of my life. I was not aware that I
was changing my language, and anyway most people can't hear any
difference in the speech of those two (adjacent) states.
On 09/03/2026 00:24, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’bliss - Talking about the dead? "Country Joe" has passed at 84...
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/8/2372269/-Iconic-anti-war-protest-singer-Country-Joe-McDonald-dies-at-84>
One hit wonder, but it was a good one hit.
Saw him live ion Loindon back in the day
Young people are more likely afraid of getting married and having
children because of the fiscal aspects of getting a job, a home and
raising children.
Ar an naoi£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh rbowman:
> [...] Kevin Costner. He took a lot of crap for his accent in 'Robin Hood'.
> I've mixed feelings about that. The pseudo-Norse accents in 'The Vikings'
> were a little much. Otoh Ken Loach prides himself on local color which meant
> 'The Navigators' was strictly subtitles for me. 'Train Spotting' was too but
> I later read one of the actors was a Brit who came up with a completely
> unintelligible Glasgow accent.
You mean Jonny Lee Miller, who is English. Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British (as well as Scottish), especially during the Empire, but that is waning: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2024/05/22/after-britain-the-collapse-of-british-identity-in-scotland/
Transpotting was set in Edinburgh. I can?t comment on whether Miller?s accent was specifically Glaswegian.
Have you been to (or had dealings with) Atlantic Canada? How did you find the accent there, if so?
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:16:14 +0200, Steve Hayes
<hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 20:46:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DOliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass
matters.
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew
a bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or
perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from
somewhere in the US.
That's too generalized, Steve. The "Chicago Accent" is mostly heard
spoken by blue collar and working class Chicagoans from the South Side
of Chicago. Residents of, say, Bridgeport where the Daley family is
from.
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English. By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from. They might be able to determine where the person is not from, though.
I have heard this described as "broadcaster voice".
On 2026-03-08 22:49, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:16:14 +0200, Steve Hayes
<hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 20:46:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass
matters.
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew
a bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or
perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from
somewhere in the US.
That's too generalized, Steve. The "Chicago Accent" is mostly heard
spoken by blue collar and working class Chicagoans from the South Side
of Chicago. Residents of, say, Bridgeport where the Daley family is
from.
There is only one thing that makes me think that someone is speaking
with a Chicago accent. It's the speaking of words like 'hot' 'dot' as
'hat' and 'dat' where the 'a' pronunciation is something between the 'o'
and 'a' in those words.
Would this be a characteristic of the Bridgeport folks' accent?
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English. By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from. They might be able to
determine where the person is not from, though.
I have heard this described as "broadcaster voice".
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 09:20:57 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
I've been exposed to too many operating systems already.
Like my poem, OS/2, OS/2
Like a guitar in the night
You are all my horizon, OS/2, OS/2
That?s how you are, OS/2
(Apologies to Juan Carlos Calder¢n) <https://www.letras.com/mocedades/26487/english.html>
Other people have accents; one never does oneself.
On 09/03/26 17:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though,
isn?t there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language,
whereas lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language
(think Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
All of the people of those islands were Celts, prior to the arrival of
the Norse and Angles and Saxons. In Britain, though, the Celtic
languages split into two familes, the Goidelic languages (Irish,
Scottish Gaelic, Manx) and the Brittonic languages (Welsh, Cornish,
Breton). (Plus some now-extinct languages.) The Highland Scots spoke
Gaelic; the English and Lowland Scots spoke Brittonic languages -- which subsequently died out, except in Wales and Bretagne, because of
migrations from elsewhere.
The Picts of Scotland probably also spoke a Celtic language, but we
don't know much about their language.
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> posted:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:42:40 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
A friend of ours in Bellingham says "Warshington".
What I can't understand is where some people get the second A
when they say "realator".
Can anybody explain ?Nucular??
Thinking of the title of this thread, do we all remember Flanders and Swann?
I'm a g-nu, I'm a g-nu
The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo
I'm a g-nu, how d'you do?
You really ought to k-now W-ho's W-ho!
I'm a g-nu, spelled G-N-U
I'm g-not a camel or a kangaroo
So let me introduce
I'm g-neither man or moose
Oh g-no g-no g-no, I'm a g-nu!"
On Mon, 09 Mar 26 09:45:02 UTC, Charles Hope wrote:
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
I didn't realize the poem was anonymous; I thought it was Burns. That
leads to the question of where did I run into it. Steeleye Span? The 'hawk and hound' part also raises a tickle. Some obscurity in Thoreau?
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 13:52:28 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/03/2026 23:42, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
He invents the Shield of America to give Kristi Noam another place to
make a hideous mess.
He must fancy her. I wouldn't bed someone who would blow my head off if
I didnt agree with her.
It adds spice. I preferred my women to be slightly insane.
I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you!
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 14:04:45 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
But then in the days of the Empire, many Indian phrases were lifted
wholesale from India and glued into English.
When curry replaces mince and tatties you've been pwned.
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:25 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you!
That, too, is, or was, a GNU project
<https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/>.
On Mon, 09 Mar 26 09:45:02 UTC, Charles Hope wrote:
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 06:24:24 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t >>>> there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
I didn't realize the poem was anonymous; I thought it was Burns. That
leads to the question of where did I run into it. Steeleye Span? The 'hawk and hound' part also raises a tickle. Some obscurity in Thoreau?
And down the internet rabbit hole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsp8cQyWecg
I've read 'Hurt Hawks' many times but had never heard Jeffers read it. It resonates with me.
... banishing thoughts of Richard Stallman from my mind ...
Oh well, yanked back to focuse on the world of that nasal voice and
poor judgement in one corpulent package.
On 2026-03-09, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 26 09:45:02 UTC, Charles Hope wrote:
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
I didn't realize the poem was anonymous; I thought it was Burns. That
leads to the question of where did I run into it. Steeleye Span? The 'hawk >> and hound' part also raises a tickle. Some obscurity in Thoreau?
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a
song called "The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of
"The Twa Corbies".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ravens
On 9/03/2026 11:17 p.m., Peter Moylan wrote:
On 09/03/26 17:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as
British (as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though,
isn?t there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic
language, whereas lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their
Scottish language (think Robbie Burns) has the same common
origins as English.
All of the people of those islands were Celts, prior to the arrival
of the Norse and Angles and Saxons. In Britain, though, the Celtic
languages split into two familes, the Goidelic languages (Irish,
Scottish Gaelic, Manx) and the Brittonic languages (Welsh,
Cornish, Breton). (Plus some now-extinct languages.) The Highland
Scots spoke Gaelic; the English and Lowland Scots spoke Brittonic
languages -- which subsequently died out, except in Wales and
Bretagne, because of migrations from elsewhere.
The Picts of Scotland probably also spoke a Celtic language, but
we don't know much about their language.
My understanding is that Scots Gaelic is the result of a migration
from Ireland, about the same time as the Anglo-Saxons were arriving
in England. That's why it's quite closely related to Irish. The Goidelic/Brittonic split seems to me a very natural result if early
Celtic speakers settled both Ireland and Great Britain, and then went
their separate (linguistic) ways for some time. But apparently
there's still argument among Celtic specialists as to whether the
split took place there, or earlier on the Continent, and just where
Gaulish fits in.
One of those Murphy's Law posters which lists its many corollaries
included: "Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself." Having
spent some time with a woman like that, I came to realize that the
situation is self-correcting: they drive you crazy and then
everything is balanced.
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 10:02:10 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
My second son was code-switching at the age of 4. He switched between >>French and English, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, depending on
who he was facing at the time.
I have always understood that "code switching" was switching from one
(often) regional accent to another. My example above, and someone who >reverts to the regional accent when returning to the area after living >somewhere where that accent was suppressed.
Switch from French to English, though, would not be "code-switching"
to me. If so, there are thousands of code-switchers here in Orlando
who speak either English or Puerto Rican Spanish depending on who they
are facing.
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons lived >1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless it's a few >university professors; our language is English, which is, if anything, >Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon (mead-swilling
thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever were 'Anglo-Saxon'
genes, in Britain at least as far up as the Central Belt, after 1,000
years of migration and interbreeding they are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:16:14 +0200, Steve Hayes
<hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
On Sun, 8 Mar 2026 20:46:18 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DOliveiro >><ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass >>>matters.
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew
a bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or >>perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from >>somewhere in the US.
That's too generalized, Steve. The "Chicago Accent" is mostly heard
spoken by blue collar and working class Chicagoans from the South Side
of Chicago. Residents of, say, Bridgeport where the Daley family is
from.
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English. By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from. They might be able to >determine where the person is not from, though.
I have heard this described as "broadcaster voice".
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 01:16:14 +0200, Steve Hayes
<hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
I assumed Tony meant "accentless" as perceived in Chicago. I once knew
a bloke from Chicago, and I assume he spoke with a Chcago accent, or >>perhaps with what some might call "Mid-Western", but I don't think I'd
be able to identify it if I heard it today, other than as coming from >>somewhere in the US.
That's too generalized, Steve. The "Chicago Accent" is mostly heard
spoken by blue collar and working class Chicagoans from the South Side
of Chicago. Residents of, say, Bridgeport where the Daley family is
from.
Most people in Chicago (and I lived there several years) speak
accentless English. By that, I mean even a linguist would have
trouble determining where the person was from. They might be able to >determine where the person is not from, though.
I have heard this described as "broadcaster voice".
On Tue, 10 Mar 2026 02:00:30 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
... banishing thoughts of Richard Stallman from my mind ...
In a thread with this subject line?
Oh well, yanked back to [focus] on the world of that nasal voice and
poor judgement in one corpulent package.
Prophets are often not nice people to meet personally.
He has sounded the alarm on two notable occasions: once about software patents, the other about cloud computing. And history has proven him
right both times. You don?t have to like him to admit that.
On 10/03/26 10:07, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-03-09, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 26 09:45:02 UTC, Charles Hope wrote:
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
I didn't realize the poem was anonymous; I thought it was Burns. That
leads to the question of where did I run into it. Steeleye Span? The
'hawk and hound' part also raises a tickle. Some obscurity in Thoreau?
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song called "The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ravens
God grant every gentleman
Fine hawks fine hounds
And such a leman
I think that song is the only place I've ever encountered the word "leman".
One of the rules that all of the house-sharers respected was "Never
sleep with someone you're living with".
Den 10.03.2026 kl. 06.37 skrev Peter Moylan:
One of the rules that all of the house-sharers respected was "Never
sleep with someone you're living with".
How does your wife feel about that?
On 10/03/26 10:07, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
God grant every gentleman
Fine hawks fine hounds
And such a leman
I think that song is the only place I've ever encountered the word "leman".
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Crikey. She already looked middle aged as a teenager.Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song called
"The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
I didn't remember that one. When i was 12 or so I thought Mary was pretty hot.
What happened to the Picts?
Ar an naoi£ l de m” M rta, scr”obh Lawrence D?Oliveiro:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:25 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you!
That, too, is, or was, a GNU project <https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/>.
I was very close to replying to Athel (upthread) commenting that I was glad to
read his post, banishing thoughts of Richard Stallman from my mind, but I was uncertain as to whether Athel knows who Stallman is.
Oh well, yanked back to
focuse on the world of that nasal voice and poor judgement in one corpulent package.
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
Puff the magic dragon
Took lots of LSD' ?
Den 10.03.2026 kl. 11.32 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
Puff the magic dragon
Took lots of LSD' ?
They hated it when people tried to read drug abuse into the song.
Hibou wrote:
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
What happened to the Picts?
Le 10/03/2026 07:37, Steve Hayes a crit :
Hibou wrote:
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
What happened to the Picts?
I think they've shovelled off this mortal coil.
(With apologies.)
What happened to the Picts?
On Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:32:47 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea Puff the magic
dragon Took lots of LSD' ?
At the time everyone I knew thought it was a cute but sad song about a little boy and his dragon friend.
Then the politicians told us it was
really about drugs. This led us to the belief that politicians have their head far up their asses. I have had little reason to revise that opinion.
Le 10/03/2026 07:37, Steve Hayes a crit :
Hibou wrote:
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
What happened to the Picts?
I think they've shovelled off this mortal coil.
(With apologies.)
On 10/03/2026 05:34, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song called >>> "The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
I didn't remember that one. When i was 12 or so I thought Mary was pretty
hot.
Crikey. She already looked middle aged as a teenager.
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
Puff the magic dragon
Took lots of LSD' ?
On Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:43:18 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 10.03.2026 kl. 11.32 skrev The Natural Philosopher:
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea Puff the magic
dragon Took lots of LSD' ?
They hated it when people tried to read drug abuse into the song.
Speaking personally the drug abusers were rather surprised about that interpretation.
We were also surprised when Lawrence Welk featured a rendition of
'One Toke Over The Line' on his show, calling it a modern spiritual.
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song called
"The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
I didn't remember that one. When i was 12 or so I thought Mary was pretty hot.
On 10/03/2026 07:37, Steve Hayes wrote:
What happened to the Picts?
That is a question no one has an answer to.
Suggestions that they now comprise the natives of Glasgow are
credibly deniable.
On 10/03/2026 05:34, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:Crikey. She already looked middle aged as a teenager.
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song called >>> "The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
I didn't remember that one. When i was 12 or so I thought Mary was pretty
hot.
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
Puff the magic dragon
Took lots of LSD' ?
On 10/03/26 21:32, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 10/03/2026 05:34, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:07:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:Crikey. She already looked middle aged as a teenager.
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song
called
"The Three Ravens".’ It could be a predecessor of "The Twa Corbies".
I didn't remember that one. When i was 12 or so I thought Mary was
pretty
hot.
Didn't they do 'Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
Puff the magic dragon
Took lots of LSD' ?
That would explain why he had an imaginary human friend.
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
On 11/03/26 20:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the
garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
’ And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
I didn't know that euphemism.
’’’ see a man about a dog
’’’ shake hands with the unemployed
’’’ drain the snake
and many more that have slipped my mind for the moment.
On 11/03/2026 10:41, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 11/03/26 20:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the
garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
’ And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
I didn't know that euphemism.
It wasn't a euphemism. He went to actually talk to the horses,
The ones I hear here are
’’’ see a man about a dog
’’’ shake hands with the unemployed
’’’ drain the snake
and many more that have slipped my mind for the moment.
Point Percy at the porcelain?
On 11/03/26 20:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the
garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
’ And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
I didn't know that euphemism. The ones I hear here are
’’’ see a man about a dog
’’’ shake hands with the unemployed
’’’ drain the snake
and many more that have slipped my mind for the moment.
On 11/03/2026 10:41, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 11/03/26 20:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the
garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
’ And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
I didn't know that euphemism.
It wasn't a euphemism. He went to actually talk to the horses,
The ones I hear here are
’’’ see a man about a dog
’’’ shake hands with the unemployed
’’’ drain the snake
and many more that have slipped my mind for the moment.
Point Percy at the porcelain?
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/03/2026 10:41, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 11/03/26 20:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Reminds me of an apocryphal trip tale. Man goes down the bottom of the >> garden, suitably fortified, to 'talk to the horses'...
? And comes back shaking....'what happened?' they asked.
'They answered back'...
I didn't know that euphemism.
It wasn't a euphemism. He went to actually talk to the horses,
The ones I hear here are
? ? ? see a man about a dog
? ? ? shake hands with the unemployed
? ? ? drain the snake
and many more that have slipped my mind for the moment.
Point Percy at the porcelain?
At least two generations ago: "Pump ship".
"Siphon the python."
On Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:32:32 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
My secretary, when I was working for a company in Chicago in the
early 60s, was an African American woman who spoke clear, precise,
accentless, grammatically errorless English when working.
When I hear the word ?accentless?, I reach for my ... copy of ?The
Story Of English?. At any rate, something heavy and hardbound. Mass
matters.
Every once in a while, I'd overhear her on the phone with a friend
or relative, thought, and she'd break into what now call Ebonics*.
The first time I heard that, I thought someone else was using her
phone.
She had one person who called her that must have been Jamacian,
because she'd switch to pure Jamacian English.
This is so common, the linguists have a term for it: it?s called ?code-switching?.
In article <1rrtm6n.o4qfp17r06qjN%snipeco.2@gmail.com>,
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
"Siphon the python."
A rather comprehensive list can be obtained from the Barry McKenzie
comic strips, where most likely many of them originated.
-- Richard
In article <1rrtm6n.o4qfp17r06qjN%snipeco.2@gmail.com>,
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
"Siphon the python."
A rather comprehensive list can be obtained from the Barry McKenzie
comic strips, where most likely many of them originated.
...
100 years from now, historians will poke through the floatsam
and jetsam of Usenet, to find...this.
The thread started with somebody complaining that ASCII did not
provide for the decorative marks some non-English languages from
Europe put on top of some letters.
On 09/03/26 09:02, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Now I love chips(crisps in some environs) especially potato with
moderate salt but I love strawberries as well and i can afford
neither. Trump has made everything cost more, food or its
approximations. Now he is working on gasoline and other petroleum
products as he murders Iranians.
Trump thought he could force regime change in Iran by assassinating the
top man. This works only for a dictatorship. Just because the USA is currently a dictatorship, he assumed that other countries are like that too.
The latest guesses by the Iran-watchers say that the new leader of Iran
will be more of a hard-liner than the old one, so Trump has achieved the opposite of what he intended.
His mistake in this case was to have incompetent advisers. What he needs
to do is go through the list of all Cabinet members, and fire all the yes-men. He won't do it, though.
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless it's a few university professors; our language is English, which is, if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon (mead-swilling
thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever were 'Anglo-Saxon'
genes, in Britain at least as far up as the Central Belt, after 1,000
years of migration and interbreeding they are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless it's a few university professors; our language is English, which is, if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon (mead-swilling
thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever were 'Anglo-Saxon'
genes, in Britain at least as far up as the Central Belt, after 1,000
years of migration and interbreeding they are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
On Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:28:23 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 10/03/26 10:07, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-03-09, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 26 09:45:02 UTC, Charles Hope wrote:
On 09/03/2026 08:08, rbowman wrote:
Twa corbies?
sat upon a wa?
I didn't realize the poem was anonymous; I thought it was Burns. That
leads to the question of where did I run into it. Steeleye Span? The
'hawk and hound' part also raises a tickle. Some obscurity in Thoreau?
Peter, Paul and Mary, on their live album "In Concert", do a song
called "The Three Ravens". It could be a predecessor of "The Twa
Corbies".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ravens
God grant every gentleman Fine hawks fine hounds And such a leman
I think that song is the only place I've ever encountered the word
"leman".
I've seen it enough to know the meaning.
On 2026-03-09 08:37, Hibou wrote:
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t
there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons
lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless it's
a few university professors; our language is English, which is, if
anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon
(mead-swilling thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever were
'Anglo-Saxon' genes, in Britain at least as far up as the Central
Belt, after 1,000 years of migration and interbreeding they are pretty
mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
Do you have a source for this photo? Magazine or something?
On Sat, 7 Mar 2026 12:22:32 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Similarly, English speaking people have problems saying "Jorge" in
Spanish, or the double "rr". :-D
Hor-gay? Note that my exposure is mostly to Mexican Spanish which is not Castilian Spanish.
I have problems with 'r' in both Spanish and German. I used to listen to a Mexican radio station. The announcer was exaggerating but he could get
about 5 seconds out of the 'r' in radio. That can be a problem with
'pero' and 'perro'.
On 08/03/26 22:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
So, how many pints in a quart?
Ah,
"A pint in the United Kingdom is bigger than a pint in the United
States. The UK pint is 20 fluid ounces, while the US pint fills up 16
fl oz. However, this translation is not that simple, as fluid ounces
do not equal one another across the Atlantic. Here is the breakdown
of volume between the two countries:
When I was living in California, my wife was waiting one day to pick up
our son from his Oakland school. Another kid ran up and said "Quick. How
many fluid ounces in a pint?" "Twenty", she said. "Thanks", said the
kid, and ran off, presumably to get a late assignment handed in.
Then she realised that she'd given the Australian answer, but it was too
late to tell him.
On 16/03/2026 12:54 a.m., Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-09 08:37, Hibou wrote:
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British
(as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t >>>> there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons
lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless
it's a few university professors; our language is English, which is,
if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon
(mead-swilling thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever
were 'Anglo-Saxon' genes, in Britain at least as far up as the
Central Belt, after 1,000 years of migration and interbreeding they
are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
Do you have a source for this photo? Magazine or something?
The caption says it's based on a paper:
"The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene
pool" with a multitude of authors, which appeared in Nature volume 610, pages 112?119 (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2#content
'Nodding donkeys' would be appropriate for Trump's men too,
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon.
On 2026-03-09 00:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 08/03/26 22:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
So, how many pints in a quart?
Ah,
"A pint in the United Kingdom is bigger than a pint in the United
States. The UK pint is 20 fluid ounces, while the US pint fills up 16
fl oz. However, this translation is not that simple, as fluid ounces
do not equal one another across the Atlantic. Here is the breakdown
of volume between the two countries:
When I was living in California, my wife was waiting one day to pick up
our son from his Oakland school. Another kid ran up and said "Quick. How
many fluid ounces in a pint?" "Twenty", she said. "Thanks", said the
kid, and ran off, presumably to get a late assignment handed in.
Then she realised that she'd given the Australian answer, but it was too
late to tell him.
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there not
using the International System of Measures (or Units).
And we wen metric because our own system of measures was a mess,
different from one region to another (and Spain is much smaller than the USA). A city could have its own system. I realized this when I saw a
small English - Spanish dictionary probably from my grandfather that had
a big section on units. He had to deal with them as an engineer
emigrated to Spain sometime in the Early XX.
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:09:32 +0100, J. J. Lodder wrote:
'Nodding donkeys' would be appropriate for Trump's men too,
There was a P G Wodehouse story where the Big Boss was followed around
by a gaggle of Yes-Men and Nodders.
Every time the Big Boss made a pronouncement, the Yes-Men got to say
"Yes". The Nodders were a lower rank; all they could do was Nod.
Career advancement for the Nodders was to someday be promoted to a
Yes-Man.
On 2026-03-15 21:34, Ross Clark wrote:
On 16/03/2026 12:54 a.m., Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-09 08:37, Hibou wrote:The caption says it's based on a paper:
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't
think they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The
Anglo-Saxons lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any
more, unless it's a few university professors; our language is
English, which is, if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no
longer Anglo-Saxon (mead-swilling thanes, warriors, and peasants),
and if there ever were 'Anglo-Saxon' genes, in Britain at least as
far up as the Central Belt, after 1,000 years of migration and
interbreeding they are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
Do you have a source for this photo? Magazine or something?
"The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English
gene pool" with a multitude of authors, which appeared in Nature
volume 610, pages 112?119 (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2#content
Thanks. Although I hopped for a simpler read :-)
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 07:37:00 +0000, Hibou wrote:
Le 09/03/2026 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a crit :
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language
(think Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't
think they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon.
On the contrary, there are still lots of Anglo-Saxons around, with distinctive elements to their culture.
One of those odd elements is their attitude to sex and violence.
They think nothing of portraying horrific violence on movies and TV,
yet they get squeamish over the least little sexually-related thing
-- witness the furore over the infamous Janet Jackson ?wardrobe
malfunction? incident.
There are many non-Anglo-Saxon cultures who find this sort of thing completely backward.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
On 2026-03-15 21:34, Ross Clark wrote:
On 16/03/2026 12:54 a.m., Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-09 08:37, Hibou wrote:The caption says it's based on a paper:
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't
think they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The
Anglo-Saxons lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any
more, unless it's a few university professors; our language is
English, which is, if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no
longer Anglo-Saxon (mead-swilling thanes, warriors, and peasants),
and if there ever were 'Anglo-Saxon' genes, in Britain at least as
far up as the Central Belt, after 1,000 years of migration and
interbreeding they are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
Do you have a source for this photo? Magazine or something?
"The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English
gene pool" with a multitude of authors, which appeared in Nature
volume 610, pages 112?119 (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2#content
Thanks. Although I hopped for a simpler read :-)
A reasonable starting assumption is that every modern population is a
mixture of multiple sources (most of which were mixtures themselves).
Even in settled societies, people move around. Good thing too, limiting
your gene pool is a good way to amplify hereditary diseases.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:29:22 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
You're talking about the USA, obviously, since that form of
hypocrisy is less common in other countries that were settled from
England. (Look at the gun ownsership statistics in those
countries, for a start, or the census results on religion.) But the
USA has been settled from so many different migration sources that
any original Anglo-Saxon component must be well diluted by now.
Yes and no. If by Anglo-Saxon you mean former residents of the
Britain, they lost their majority status by the early 19th century.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-and- nationalities-in-the-united-states.html
However, the WASPs had control well beyond their numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
On 15/03/26 23:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word order
at Celtic languages.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:29:22 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
You're talking about the USA, obviously, since that form of hypocrisy is
less common in other countries that were settled from England. (Look at
the gun ownsership statistics in those countries, for a start, or the
census results on religion.) But the USA has been settled from so many
different migration sources that any original Anglo-Saxon component must
be well diluted by now.
Yes and no. If by Anglo-Saxon you mean former residents of the Britain,
they lost their majority status by the early 19th century.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-and- nationalities-in-the-united-states.html
However, the WASPs had control well beyond their numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
Even the Puritans had a lasting influence on the mores. Personally, as a descendant of German Catholics, I would have let Britain sort out its own problems in WWI, not the faux neutrality of the WASP, Woodrow 'He Kept Us
Out of War' Wilson, that vanished with the winter snow. I believe that
would have avoided WWII.
Le 16/03/2026 01:11, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 15/03/26 23:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word
order at Celtic languages.
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons,
I love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often
differs. Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which
is SOV.
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word order
at Celtic languages.
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons, I
love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often
differs.
Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which is SOV.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:07:07 +0000, Hibou wrote:
Le 16/03/2026 01:11, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 15/03/26 23:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word
order at Celtic languages.
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons,
I love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often
differs. Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which
is SOV.
Is anastrophe used as a rhetorical device, at all? (My guess is yes.)
Does any language use Yoda word order? ;)
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:07:07 +0000, Hibou wrote:
Le 16/03/2026 01:11, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 15/03/26 23:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word
order at Celtic languages.
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons,
I love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often
differs. Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which
is SOV.
Is anastrophe used as a rhetorical device, at all? (My guess is yes.) [...]
Den 16.03.2026 kl. 08.07 skrev Hibou:
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons, I
love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often differs.
Your example doesn't illustrate that.
Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which is SOV.
The French order is SA ("vin rouge") where the English is AS ("red
wine"). Ren Coscinny and Albert Uderzo uses this in "Astrix chez les Bretons" to simulate that English is spoken though all the words are
French.
’’’’’ "La magique potion" in stead of the normal "La potion magique"
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:07:07 +0000, Hibou wrote:
Le 16/03/2026 01:11, Peter Moylan a crit :
On 15/03/26 23:07, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We speak descendants of all the influences of many proto Indo
European languages.
We have Germanic words, but the order is Celtic or French.
French, perhaps, but is not the word order Celtic. Is VSO the word
order at Celtic languages.
French in that both they and we mostly use SVO (j'adore les rognons,
I love kidneys), but the position of adjectives and pronouns often
differs. Je le lui ai donn (I gave it to him), for example, which
is SOV.
Is anastrophe used as a rhetorical device, at all? (My guess is yes.)
Does any language use Yoda word order? ;)
On 2026-03-15 21:34, Ross Clark wrote:
On 16/03/2026 12:54 a.m., Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-09 08:37, Hibou wrote:
Le 09/03/2026 ? 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a ?crit :
On Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:16:34 +0000, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
Scotland is part of Britain and Scots tended to identify as British >>>>> (as well as Scottish) ...
There is a difference between highland and lowland Scots though, isn?t >>>> there: highland Scots are Celts, and have a Celtic language, whereas >>>> lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons
lived 1,000 years ago. No-one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more, unless
it's a few university professors; our language is English, which is,
if anything, Anglo-Norman. Our culture is no longer Anglo-Saxon
(mead-swilling thanes, warriors, and peasants), and if there ever
were 'Anglo-Saxon' genes, in Britain at least as far up as the
Central Belt, after 1,000 years of migration and interbreeding they
are pretty mixed up.
<https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69lA3MDZiPM/hq720.jpg>
Do you have a source for this photo? Magazine or something?
The caption says it's based on a paper:
"The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool" with a multitude of authors, which appeared in Nature volume 610, pages 112?119 (2022).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2#content
Thanks. Although I hopped for a simpler read :-)
On Mon, 9 Mar 2026 07:37:00 +0000, Hibou wrote:
Le 09/03/2026 ? 06:24, Lawrence D?Oliveiro a ?crit :
lowland Scots are Anglo-Saxons, and their Scottish language (think
Robbie Burns) has the same common origins as English.
I deg to biffer, or beg to differ about Lowland Scots. I don't think
they or any other modern people are Anglo-Saxon.
On the contrary, there are still lots of Anglo-Saxons around, with distinctive elements to their culture.
One of those odd elements is their attitude to sex and violence. They
think nothing of portraying horrific violence on movies and TV, yet
they get squeamish over the least little sexually-related thing --
witness the furore over the infamous Janet Jackson ?wardrobe
malfunction? incident.
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there not
using the International System of Measures (or Units).
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Even in settled societies, people move around.
Does any language use Yoda word order? ?
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently >religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to
the British when America's revolution made it useful
to find a substitute place to send those criminals.
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by
more accurate clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros
the Indian Ocean had been a bit problematic before they
knew where they were, east-west.
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there not
using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different standards.
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
One of those odd elements is their attitude to sex and violence.
They think nothing of portraying horrific violence on movies and
TV, yet they get squeamish over the least little sexually-related
thing -- witness the furore over the infamous Janet Jackson
?wardrobe malfunction? incident.
An American furore?
Nobody in the rest of the world was interested.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to
the British when America's revolution made it useful
to find a substitute place to send those criminals.
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by
more accurate clocks -- finding Australia after sailing across
the Indian Ocean had been a bit problematic before they
knew where they were, east-west.
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite using metric units.
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
And from the teeming shores the wretched refuse came,
swarming like moths toward the yellow porch light of freedom.
-- National Lampoon
On 2026-03-16 15:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
Haw, haw. Catching at straws, are we? :-D
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe
’’’’in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than >>>>> most so we cling to our own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of
Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British when
America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place to send
those criminals.
of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurateSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean had
been a bit problematic before they knew where they were, east-west.
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Cavaliers_(historical)
The US Civil War stemmed in part from the different reasons for
colonization. It wasn't the northern religious fanatics that imported Africans.
True, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners
of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of leadership and
their families.
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned useful
skills in the USA
The Gene Pool was improved by the these imports of human beings.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
True, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners >>>> of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of leadership and
their families.
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned useful
skills in the USA
I guess all Floridians look alike to you.
It was Gov Ron DeSantis that said that Black people benefitted from
some of the skills they learned in slavery.
To help you differentiate them in the future, Marco Rubio is the one
in the shoes three sizes to big, and Ron DeSantis is the one with
lifts in his boots to make him look taller.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
The Gene Pool was improved by the these imports of human beings.
"Eugenic" notions of gene-pool quality as rbowman seems to espouse have precious little to do with genetic diversity or long-term population advantages and much more to do with lending the weight of pseudo-
scientific authority to old established prejudices.
If you just pretend that "criminal" or other "undesirable" traits are hereditary, it gets real easy to tar a whole *group* you don't like
with that brush, just by claiming they had some Very Assuredly Real
defect of ancestry back in the mists of time, and your own bigotry is therefore rendered Logical And Objectively Correct. Amazing how that
works!
In article <10p7bo2$1fpqo$4@dont-email.me>, ldo@nz.invalid says...
One of those odd elements is their attitude to sex and violence.
They think nothing of portraying horrific violence on movies and
TV, yet they get squeamish over the least little sexually-related
thing -- witness the furore over the infamous Janet Jackson
?wardrobe malfunction? incident.
An American furore?
Nobody in the rest of the world was interested.
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
On 3/16/26 13:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe >>>>>> ’’’’inActually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than >>>>>> most so we cling to our own system of measurements in many respects >>>>>
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently >>>>> religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so >>>>> poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of
Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British when >>>> America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place to send >>>> those criminals.
of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of
leadership and their families.
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned
useful skills in the USA
but they sent us blacksmiths, woodworkers, musicians, priests and
learned people in
the Koran, other skills and rice farmers.
The Gene Pool was improved by the these imports of human beings.
The plantation owners wasted these folks on manual labor in the fields.
The weath of the nation was built by the African American slaves and subsequently by freedmen. Under slavery and under the Black Codes also
called "Jim Crow" a fascistic regime was imposed on African descended
people.
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due to the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments. It
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurateSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean had
been a bit problematic before they knew where they were, east-west.
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
still is not
easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous challenges then and now.
On 2026-03-16 19:22, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there >>>>>> not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I
applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
We learn from mistakes.
<https://elperiodicodelaenergia.com/las-renovables-comienzan-a-controlar-la-tension-de-la-red-electrica-espanola-casi-un-ano-despues-del-apagon>
*Renewables begin to regulate voltage on the Spanish electricity grid
almost a year after the blackout*
More than 100 generation units have now met the technical requirements
for dynamic voltage control, and more than 50 facilities are
effectively providing this service
Sandra Acosta 13 March 2026
Almost a year after the blackout that put the Spanish electricity
system on high alert and highlighted the need to strengthen the grid?s stability mechanisms, renewable energy sources are beginning to play a
direct role in controlling the system?s voltage. The process began in
July 2025 with the approval of the new Operating Procedure 7.4
(O.P. 7.4), a regulatory reform aimed at strengthening the electricity system?s capacity to maintain voltage within appropriate operating
ranges. However, it was not until October that the door began to open
for power stations to participate effectively in this service,
following several months of regulatory and technical adjustments
necessary to adapt the facilities to the system operator?s new
requirements.
The reform of the operating procedure responds to the new context of
the Spanish electricity system, marked by the growing penetration of renewable generation and by episodes of sudden voltage fluctuations
detected during 2025. The new framework seeks to expand the number of facilities capable of providing reactive power and meeting the grid?s stability needs, enabling technologies such as wind and solar power to
begin performing functions that had traditionally fallen to
conventional synchronous power stations.
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more
stubborn than most so we cling to our own system of
measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or
sufficiently religiously intolerant that they were shunned in
Europe, or people so poor that even America looked
attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British
when America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place
to send those criminals.
prisoners of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurate
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean
had been a bit problematic before they knew where they were,
east-west.
Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
find that problematic...
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due
to the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments.
It still is not easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous
challenges then and now.
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there
astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position
awareness?
On 3/16/26 14:48, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
True, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners >>>>> of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of leadership and
their families.
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned useful
skills in the USA
I guess all Floridians look alike to you.
Not really but I am on the other side of the nation from Florida and
without a good connection and a camera aimed in the right direction
no one is very visible.
Thanks for the correction Mr. Cooper. Ron DeSantis is obviously different
It was Gov Ron DeSantis that said that Black people benefitted from
some of the skills they learned in slavery.
To help you differentiate them in the future, Marco Rubio is the one
in the shoes three sizes to big, and Ron DeSantis is the one with
lifts in his boots to make him look taller.
from Marco Rubio now Secretary of State and quite as slippery. Those big >shoes won't help that much.
According to data released yesterday by Red Elctrica, the roll-out
of the new scheme is beginning to take shape. More than 100
generation units have already met the technical requirements for
dynamic voltage control, and more than 50 facilities are now
effectively providing this service within the electricity system.
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreign
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
On 17/03/26 11:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreign
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can[not] be ended.
I saw a cartoon this morning where Trump turned up at the Oscars. An assistant whispered to the MC "He's here to get his peace prize".
A problem with the route from Europe to Australia is that the ships
had to run across the bottom of Australia. Too far north and you'll
hit the coast. Too far south and you're in really dangerous seas:
shipwreck territory.
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many
decades now, although few people realise who close we've been
pushing to the edge of instability.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:15:34 -0700, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
Thanks for the correction Mr. Cooper. Ron DeSantis is obviously different
from Marco Rubio now Secretary of State and quite as slippery. Those big
shoes won't help that much.
The two are quite different. Gov DeSantis has been intent on creating
the "Free State of Florida" by removing all freedoms from Florida
citizens that are not in alignment with his personal goals and
ambition.
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreign
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
On 17/03/26 07:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
According to data released yesterday by Red Elctrica, the roll-out
of the new scheme is beginning to take shape. More than 100
generation units have already met the technical requirements for
dynamic voltage control, and more than 50 facilities are now
effectively providing this service within the electricity system.
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many decades
now, although few people realise who close we've been pushing to the
edge of instability. Many of us are old enough to remember rolling
blackouts, where a fault in one region quickly pushed neighbouring
regions into trouble, until an entire country could be blacked out. Now,
the widespread adoption of renewables is forcing us to take a closer
look at system design, and putting a bigger emphasis on system stability.
The problem started in the second half of the last century, when
advances in areas like electronics made the study of power systems and generators an unpopular option. I was an EE student in the 1960s, and I
know that I dropped the power electives as soon as I had a choice. The
effect was worse in the USA, where many universities simply dropped the teaching of power systems. Before long there was a huge shortage of electrical engineering graduates who had majored in power systems.
System design suffered because of that.
The US finally (partly) solved the shortage by importing a lot of
engineers from India, where power systems was still a respected area of study. That was possible back then, when there weren't the same barriers
to migration.
Something I noticed towards the end of my career was a gradual growth in
the number of "light current" engineers who understood power systems,
and a similar growth in the number of power systems engineers who
understand things like embedded computers and electronics. Often the
solution to technological problems lies in getting the right people
talking to one another.
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA. "American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
On 17/03/26 07:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
According to data released yesterday by Red Elctrica, the roll-out
of the new scheme is beginning to take shape. More than 100
generation units have already met the technical requirements for
dynamic voltage control, and more than 50 facilities are now
effectively providing this service within the electricity system.
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many decades
now, although few people realise who close we've been pushing to the
edge of instability. Many of us are old enough to remember rolling
blackouts, where a fault in one region quickly pushed neighbouring
regions into trouble, until an entire country could be blacked out. Now,
the widespread adoption of renewables is forcing us to take a closer
look at system design, and putting a bigger emphasis on system stability.
The problem started in the second half of the last century, when
advances in areas like electronics made the study of power systems and generators an unpopular option. I was an EE student in the 1960s, and I
know that I dropped the power electives as soon as I had a choice. The
effect was worse in the USA, where many universities simply dropped the teaching of power systems. Before long there was a huge shortage of electrical engineering graduates who had majored in power systems.
System design suffered because of that.
The US finally (partly) solved the shortage by importing a lot of
engineers from India, where power systems was still a respected area of study. That was possible back then, when there weren't the same barriers
to migration.
Something I noticed towards the end of my career was a gradual growth in
the number of "light current" engineers who understood power systems,
and a similar growth in the number of power systems engineers who
understand things like embedded computers and electronics. Often the
solution to technological problems lies in getting the right people
talking to one another.
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA. "American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/16/26 13:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due to >> the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments. ItSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
still is not
easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous challenges then and now.
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
On 17/03/26 00:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more
stubborn than most so we cling to our own system of
measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or
sufficiently religiously intolerant that they were shunned in
Europe, or people so poor that even America looked
attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British
when America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place
to send those criminals.
prisoners of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurate
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean
had been a bit problematic before they knew where they were,
east-west.
Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii)’ I
’find that problematic...
As rbowman siad, it's hard to miss the Americas, unless you go so far
south that you;re in danger of hitting Antarctica. Finding land is easy. Finding the right bit of land is maybe a bit harder.
A problem with the route from Europe to Australia is that the ships had
to run across the bottom of Australia. Too far north and you'll hit the coast. Too far south and you're in really dangerous seas: shipwreck territory.
This sounds like a north/south navigation problem, but it's also an
east/west problem. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged
your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
In Spain there were two university careers studying electronics: Telecommunications engineering, and Industrial engineering, both with
several branches. Telecoms did not study much power electronics at
my time.
I do not know if it is possible to calculate the position of a land
without a chronometer (or a radio), somehow.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:18:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I see the future of America to be brown people by and large.
I like the idea because I am so pale it hurts.
We have similar visions. I see the future of America as another failed
third world country.
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/16/26 13:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners >>>> of war to America.
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe >>>>>>> ’’’’inActually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than >>>>>>> most so we cling to our own system of measurements in many respects >>>>>>
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently >>>>>> religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so >>>>>> poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of
Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British when >>>>> America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place to send >>>>> those criminals.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of
leadership and their families.
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned
useful skills in the USA
but they sent us blacksmiths, woodworkers, musicians, priests and
learned people in
the Koran, other skills and rice farmers.
The Gene Pool was improved by the these imports of human beings.
The plantation owners wasted these folks on manual labor in the fields. >> The weath of the nation was built by the African American slaves and
subsequently by freedmen. Under slavery and under the Black Codes also
called "Jim Crow" a fascistic regime was imposed on African descended
people.
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due to >> the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments. It
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurateSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean had >>>>> been a bit problematic before they knew where they were, east-west.
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
still is not
easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous challenges then and now.
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned useful
skills in the USA but they sent us blacksmiths, woodworkers, musicians,
priests and learned people in the Koran, other skills and rice farmers.
It must have been a considerable brain drain. Those skills seem to be in short supply in west Africa today. That includes Liberia, the ACS's
attempt to jump start Wakanda by shipping those highly skilled Africans
back to where the came from.
Had Lincoln lived he might have offset his disastrous policies by sending
all the former slaves back where they would be free to work out their
destiny free of white oppression.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:43:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
The second Civil War following on the Revolutionary war was allabout
the fear of the slave owners that they would be deprived of their free
labor.
Nothing more and nothing less.
It wasn't exactly free labor. You had to buy the slave in the first place
and then provide room, board, clothing, and rudimentary health care even during the idle periods when the cotton was picked and the tobacco was in
the drying sheds.
The northern mill owners had a better idea. Pay the workers slave wages,
let them take care of their own survival, and in slack times fire them.
There are always more where they came from. That model hasn't changed
much.
The republic of Texas was founded to maintain African Americanslavery
written into the Constitution. That is why they separated from Mexico
because African American slavery was outlawed in Mexico, Davy Crockett,
Sam Houston and all the rest died to maintain slavery so "Remember the
Alamo!"
When the Americanos were permitted to settle in Mexico they agreed not to rock the boat.
I know they regretted gaining admittance to the Union and joining
the Confederacy when June 19, 1865 came around and the formerly enslaved
learned that they were now free.
I file Juneteenth right next to Kwanza as revisionary bullshit.
On 16/03/26 23:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent
a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than most so we
cling to our
own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
It was those religious extremists who brought the sexual repression. I'm
not sure who brought the excessive violence. Maybe that was just a
Holywoood invention.
I was shcoked. Not by the breast -- I already knew she had two of them
-- but by the ugly ornament attached by a hole through the nipple. I've always been put off by people who mutilate their bodies.
’’’’Actually all parts of the American Colonies were involved in
slavery of the
African Americans.’ But it was discouraged earlier in the North-East
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe
’’’’in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn than >>>>> most so we cling to our own system of measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently
religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so
poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of
Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British when
America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place to send
those criminals.
of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurateSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean had
been a bit problematic before they knew where they were, east-west.
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
Nonsense they also sent along rivals to claimants of leadership and
their families. Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans
learned useful skills in the USA but they sent us blacksmiths,
woodworkers, musicians, priests and learned people in the Koran,
other skills and rice farmers. The Gene Pool was improved by the
these imports of human beings. The plantation owners wasted these
folks on manual labor in the fields. The weath of the nation was
built by the African American slaves and subsequently by freedmen.
Under slavery and under the Black Codes also called "Jim Crow" a
fascistic regime was imposed on African descended people.
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
The Gene Pool was improved by the these imports of human beings.
"Eugenic" notions of gene-pool quality as rbowman seems to espouse have precious little to do with genetic diversity or long-term population advantages and much more to do with lending the weight of pseudo-
scientific authority to old established prejudices.
If you just pretend that "criminal" or other "undesirable" traits are hereditary, it gets real easy to tar a whole *group* you don't like
with that brush, just by claiming they had some Very Assuredly Real
defect of ancestry back in the mists of time, and your own bigotry is therefore rendered Logical And Objectively Correct. Amazing how that
works!
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
’’’’Some but not enough until the English invented the very reliable chronographs to
measure time on board ship.’ There are I believe more than one PBS
science and technology in History show that references this.’ A very
large’ prize had been offered
by the UK authorities for such a device.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:32:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Rubio in Florida wants to pretend that the Africans learned useful
skills in the USA but they sent us blacksmiths, woodworkers, musicians,
priests and learned people in the Koran, other skills and rice farmers.
It must have been a considerable brain drain. Those skills seem to be in short supply in west Africa today. That includes Liberia, the ACS's
attempt to jump start Wakanda by shipping those highly skilled Africans
back to where the came from.
Had Lincoln lived he might have offset his disastrous policies by sending
all the former slaves back where they would be free to work out their
destiny free of white oppression.
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA. "American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
I was shcoked. Not by the breast -- I already knew she had two of them
-- but by the ugly ornament attached by a hole through the nipple. I've always been put off by people who mutilate their bodies.
Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged
your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 02:49:11 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not know if it is possible to calculate the position of a land
without a chronometer (or a radio), somehow.
There is theoretically a way involving observations of the Moon. It?s
quite complicated, especially if you?re trying to do it without modern calculating devices.
When John Harrison offered up his chronometers to be considered for
the prize under the Longitude Act, the astronomers on the judging
panel were clearly biased against mechanical devices: they kept trying
to prove the lunar observation method, even after repeated failures to
do it properly.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 23:11:33 +0000, Nuno Silva wrote:
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
Latitude was easy, longitude difficult without an accurate chronometer.
On 16/03/2026 20:40, rbowman wrote:Europe
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
????We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and
an????in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more stubborn th
enmost so we cling to our own system of measurements in many respects >>>>Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or sufficiently >>>> religiously intolerant that they were shunned in Europe, or people so >>>> poor that even America looked attractive...In short the dregs of
Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British wh
America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place to send >>> those criminals.True, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and prisoners
of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurateSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean had
been a bit problematic before they knew where they were, east-west.
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
Its equally hard to miss Australia sailing south east.
Just follow the correct line of latitude from e.g. Cape Town
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
On 2026-03-17 09:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
war is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
And put us into a death trap. And be furious if we don't accept being
killed and destroyed.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:09:32 +0100, J. J. Lodder wrote:
'Nodding donkeys' would be appropriate for Trump's men too,
There was a P G Wodehouse story where the Big Boss was followed around
by a gaggle of Yes-Men and Nodders.
Every time the Big Boss made a pronouncement, the Yes-Men got to say
"Yes". The Nodders were a lower rank; all they could do was Nod.
Career advancement for the Nodders was to someday be promoted to a
Yes-Man.
Thanks, looked it up.
The story title is 'The Nodder',
and it describes a whole hierarcy of toadyism,
On 17/03/2026 00:10, Peter Moylan wrote:
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA. "American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the electrical world.
That was precisely my point.
Standardisation of units is no cure for random stupidity and incompetence.
On 2026-03-17 00:11, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/16/26 13:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due to >> the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments. ItSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I >>>> find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
still is not
easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous challenges then and now.
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
The North-South position you can determine by looking at the position (height) of the Sun at local noon (you need to know the date and have
some tables). But to know the East-West position, you need to look at
what hour is the local noon. The stars give similar information. So you
need an accurate clock that keeps the correct time for months.
I do not know if it is possible to calculate the position of a land
without a chronometer (or a radio), somehow.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:10:26 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many
decades now, although few people realise who close we've been
pushing to the edge of instability.
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to broaden the
peak at the top of the curve where the system is supposed to sit, to
form a little valley up there to make it more resistant to shocks. But
there will always be a limit to how much abuse it can take, and if you
get pushed beyond that, then down the mountainside it falls.
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA. "American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
On 16/03/2026 23:11, Nuno Silva wrote:
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
The sextant allowed easy calculation of latitude, because that is a
direct function of the height of the midday sun. Plus knowing the day of
the year.
But you need accurate time - of midday or sunrise etc - to tell longitude. Which is why, in general ships arrived at the correct latitude of their destination and then sailed until they got there.
To help you differentiate them in the future, Marco Rubio is the one
in the shoes three sizes to big, and Ron DeSantis is the one with
lifts in his boots to make him look taller.
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
On 17/03/2026 11:58, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-17 09:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
war is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
And put us into a death trap. And be furious if we don't accept being
killed and destroyed.
Well there is no doubt that European NATO is way more competent than the
USA when it comes to anything beyond massive air assault,’ I think we
should Do a Deal. A Billion dollars for every ship-day spent on station
and $50million for every European life lost.
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17 00:11, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/16/26 13:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
But in those days sailing in any open direction was problematic due to >>>> the small ships and the lack of later navigational instruments. ItSince Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I >>>>>> find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west. >>>>>
still is not
easy as the Oceans and seas present enormous challenges then and now.
I'm a bit rusty in my knowledge of these topics (and it probably was
never that much knowledge to begin with), but weren't there astronomical >>> tools that allowed at least some degree of position awareness?
The North-South position you can determine by looking at the position
(height) of the Sun at local noon (you need to know the date and have
some tables). But to know the East-West position, you need to look at
what hour is the local noon. The stars give similar information. So you
need an accurate clock that keeps the correct time for months.
I do not know if it is possible to calculate the position of a land
without a chronometer (or a radio), somehow.
Of course it is possible, by astronomical observation.
That is why the English and others set up observatories
in strategic locations. (such as Cape Town, Jamaica, etc.)
In harbour near an observatory captains could take the time signals
in order to know how far theur chronometer(s) had drifted, [1]
Jan
[1] The noon gun at Cape Town is still being fired daily.
It is the last surviving one of its kind,
and also the oldest surviving and still functional guns.
On 17/03/26 00:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:13, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 12:55:40 +0000, The Natural PhilosopherTrue, After that the African nations SOLD their criminals and
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 15/03/2026 22:27, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
We USAians are a stubborn lot, and since England and Europe in
general sent a lot of criminals here we likely are more
stubborn than most so we cling to our own system of
measurements in many respects
Actually that was Australia. We *sent* the criminals there.
America was colonised by people fleeing from justice, or
sufficiently religiously intolerant that they were shunned in
Europe, or people so poor that even America looked
attractive...In short the dregs of Europe.
As I remember reading, Australia became interesting to the British
when America's revolution made it useful to find a substitute place
to send those criminals.
prisoners of war to America.
Further degrading the gene pool :-)
Locating where they were at sea was much improved by more accurate
clocks -- finding Australia after sailing acros the Indian Ocean
had been a bit problematic before they knew where they were,
east-west.
Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
find that problematic...
As rbowman siad, it's hard to miss the Americas, unless you go so far
south that you;re in danger of hitting Antarctica. Finding land is easy. >Finding the right bit of land is maybe a bit harder.
A problem with the route from Europe to Australia is that the ships had
to run across the bottom of Australia. Too far north and you'll hit the >coast. Too far south and you're in really dangerous seas: shipwreck >territory.
This sounds like a north/south navigation problem, but it's also an
east/west problem. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged
your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
"Eugenic" notions of gene-pool quality as rbowman seems to espouse
have precious little to do with genetic diversity or long-term
population advantages and much more to do with lending the weight
of pseudo- scientific authority to old established prejudices.
If you just pretend that "criminal" or other "undesirable" traits
are hereditary, it gets real easy to tar a whole *group* you don't
like with that brush, just by claiming they had some Very Assuredly
Real defect of ancestry back in the mists of time, and your own
bigotry is therefore rendered Logical And Objectively Correct.
Amazing how that works!
How quaint.
The gene pool speaks
On 16/03/2026 09:03, Ross Clark wrote:
Does any language use Yoda word order? ?
German IIRC
Rich Ulrich <rich.ulrich@comcast.net> wrote or quoted:
I've seen an essay/article that argued American violence is largely
attributable to the slavery experience. And it affected both races.
Maybe think twice about whether you really need to post that to
"comp.os.linux.misc" (under the subject "GNU").
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:50:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
It's difficult to quote Trump because he often says one thing in a
speech but then - later in the speech - he says the same thing but
with slightly different wording.
What I hear him saying was, in effect, "We don't need help, but other countries are not willing to help us now that we need help."
It's the same thing as his statement that we're at war but it's not a
war.
On 2026-03-17 13:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/03/2026 11:58, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-17 09:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
war is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
And put us into a death trap. And be furious if we don't accept being
killed and destroyed.
Well there is no doubt that European NATO is way more competent than
the USA when it comes to anything beyond massive air assault,’ I think
we should Do a Deal. A Billion dollars for every ship-day spent on
station and $50million for every European life lost.
How much for each ship lost?
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:51:39 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
"Eugenic" notions of gene-pool quality as rbowman seems to espouse
have precious little to do with genetic diversity or long-term
population advantages and much more to do with lending the weight
of pseudo- scientific authority to old established prejudices.
If you just pretend that "criminal" or other "undesirable" traits
are hereditary, it gets real easy to tar a whole *group* you don't
like with that brush, just by claiming they had some Very Assuredly
Real defect of ancestry back in the mists of time, and your own
bigotry is therefore rendered Logical And Objectively Correct.
Amazing how that works!
How quaint.
The gene pool speaks
Sure does! (as the legally-blind left eye I got from my maternal grand- father can attest.) It's just funny how the list of supposedly "hered-
itary" behavioral defects claimed about Group B by Group A lines up so
neatly with the things Group A was already saying about Group B when
Gregor Mendel was still toddling around a farmhouse in Silesia. Mighty convenient, that.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:13:15 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Of course you do, you cute little reactionary.
Oops, outed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:18:14 +0100, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
Den 17.03.2026 kl. 00.03 skrev Peter Moylan:
I was shcoked. Not by the breast -- I already knew she had two of them
-- but by the ugly ornament attached by a hole through the nipple. I've
always been put off by people who mutilate their bodies.
So have I. As a child I read some books by explorers of foreign
cultures,
and I remember a picture of some people who had holed their ears and
then inserted larger and larger discs in the hole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_plate
Ears are one thing but in what universe is a lip plate a good idea?
Den 17.03.2026 kl. 00.03 skrev Peter Moylan:
I was shcoked. Not by the breast -- I already knew she had two of them
-- but by the ugly ornament attached by a hole through the nipple. I've
always been put off by people who mutilate their bodies.
So have I. As a child I read some books by explorers of foreign
cultures, and I remember a picture of some people who had holed their
ears and then inserted larger and larger discs in the hole.
Your Dark Enlightenment fellows want to return to those thrilling
days of yesteryear when Kings ruled and City States were the largest political entitities. No thank you.
So have I. As a child I read some books by explorers of foreign
cultures, and I remember a picture of some people who had holed
their ears and then inserted larger and larger discs in the hole.
Ditto for the lower lip.
On 3/17/26 11:48, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 22:13:15 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Of course you do, you cute little reactionary.
Oops, outed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
I go along with Churchill's opinion of Democracy which is that
it is only better than all the other systems tried in the history of
mankind. Your Dark Enlightenment fellows want to return to those
thrilling days of yesteryear when Kings ruled and City States were
the largest political entitities.
No thank you.
So have I. As a child I read some books by explorers of foreign
cultures,
and I remember a picture of some people who had holed their ears and
then inserted larger and larger discs in the hole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_plate
Ears are one thing but in what universe is a lip plate a good idea?
’’’’Well ears are two things for most people but how about the people
who put more and more brass rings around the neck to lengthen it and incidentally weaken it so that without the brass rings the head got floppy.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:21:47 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
This sounds like a north/south navigation problem, but it's also an
east/west problem. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged
your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
The check on north-south, by the sun, is only at noon each day, yes?
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA.
"American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
That is not surprising.
'The Electricians' messed up the already existing coherent unit system
to begin with. (so we are stuck with the mess that became the SI)
On 2026-03-17 13:24, J. J. Lodder wrote:
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
PS The question of units of measurement is a non-issue. Electrical
engineers have been working in metric for many years, even in the USA.
"American units" might be hanging on in many areas, but not in the
electrical world.
That is not surprising.
'The Electricians' messed up the already existing coherent unit system
to begin with. (so we are stuck with the mess that became the SI)
Mess? Why? :-?
On 2026-03-17 16:43, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:21:47 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
This sounds like a north/south navigation problem, but it's also an
east/west problem. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged >>> your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
The check on north-south, by the sun, is only at noon each day, yes?
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
In one Jules Verne novel, they measure the height of the sun at another >time, because it was cloudy, but they took two measures at both sides of
the noon, in order to estimate the height of the sun at the exact noon.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:35:23 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
So have I. As a child I read some books by explorers of foreign
cultures, and I remember a picture of some people who had holed
their ears and then inserted larger and larger discs in the hole.
Ditto for the lower lip.
Whereas in Our Modern Age, we have...um, people tanning their nuts and smashing themselves in the face with hammers.
Fashion is fundamentally insane.
Or they crashed into the West coast of Australia when turning North
again too late,
Unfortunately, in order for democracy to work it needs a minimum
level of intelligence, along with a sense of social responsibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_plate
Ears are one thing but in what universe is a lip plate a good idea?
On 16/03/2026 20:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its equally hard to miss Australia sailing south east.Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
Just follow the correct line of latitude from e.g. Cape Town
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:50:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 17/03/2026 00:00, Tony Cooper wrote:
Secretary Rubio has a history of opposing US involvement in foreignMeanwhile TACO has reverse weaselled from 'we don't need Europe- the war
wars and is now pursuing that goal by aiding and abetting our Dear
Leader in starting foreign wars that can be ended.
is won' to
'we need NATO to sort out the mess we have made'
My latest impression is that he is still saying both "We've won"
and "Now you'd better help."
Well, he's provoked the drone crews on one side of the Strait of
Hormuz, his destroyers are nowhere around where they are needed for
escorts, and his minesweepers are 4000 miles and at least 2
refuelings away.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:21:47 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
A problem with the route from Europe to Australia is that the ships
had to run across the bottom of Australia. Too far north and you'll
hit the coast. Too far south and you're in really dangerous seas:
shipwreck territory.
To be explicit -- hitting the west coast of Australia was NOT
desirable,
so they aimed at the bottom. I forget what I read, but I think that unfavorable winds made it tough to beat the way south. Currents,
too?
When Australia established prisons, they were on the west coast. No
one was expected to try to escape from prison, into the wastelands
that surrounded them. I was impressed by "The Fatal Shore" by Robert
Hughes. (He may have overstated the brutality of those prisons.)
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:10:26 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many
decades now, although few people realise who close we've been
pushing to the edge of instability.
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to broaden the
peak at the top of the curve where the system is supposed to sit, to
form a little valley up there to make it more resistant to shocks.
But there will always be a limit to how much abuse it can take, and
if you get pushed beyond that, then down the mountainside it falls.
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is
inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to
broaden the peak at the top of the curve where the system is
supposed to sit, to form a little valley up there to make it more
resistant to shocks. But there will always be a limit to how much
abuse it can take, and if you get pushed beyond that, then down the
mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus
torque angle.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against
its own interests.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:25:58 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is
inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to
broaden the peak at the top of the curve where the system is
supposed to sit, to form a little valley up there to make it more
resistant to shocks. But there will always be a limit to how much
abuse it can take, and if you get pushed beyond that, then down the
mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus
torque angle.
No. Think of the landscape as a multidimensional space involving the
total operational state of the various components of the electricity generation and distribution system, and the height as the desirability
of that state. Gravity represents how the system tends to move to a
new state from any given position.
The highest point is where everything is functioning as it should.
Move too far from that, and you find yourself on a slope where it
becomes very hard to move back up rather than down.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:24:34 +0100, J. J. Lodder wrote:
Or they crashed into the West coast of Australia when turning North
again too late,
Old sailors? tip?: if there?s land under your keel instead of sea, then
maybe you should back up a bit before turning ...
?That I just made up
On 2026-03-17 16:43, Rich Ulrich wrote:
The check on north-south, by the sun, is only at noon each day, yes?
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:37:49 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17 16:43, Rich Ulrich wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:21:47 +1100, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:
This sounds like a north/south navigation problem, but it's also an
east/west problem. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, you need to know
when to expect to see land. If you don't see it, you've either misjudged >>>> your longitude or you're wandering into the Roaring Forties.
The check on north-south, by the sun, is only at noon each day, yes?
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon. >>
In one Jules Verne novel, they measure the height of the sun at another
time, because it was cloudy, but they took two measures at both sides of
the noon, in order to estimate the height of the sun at the exact noon.
Clever! Thanks.
How fast the sun was rising or falling was probably tabled up, too.
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
On 2026-03-17, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:[...]
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
Oh no, here come the daylight saving time arguments again...
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:[...]
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon. >>Oh no, here come the daylight saving time arguments again...
I'm really looking forward to when our clocks change to BST on the 29th.
I detest long dark evenings, and early bright dawns are nearly as bad.
I'd rather that the working day began at sunrise so that we all rose
with the lark as the animal kingdom does. Who wants the tyranny of
the clock?
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:18:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I see the future of America to be brown people by and large.
I like the idea because I am so pale it hurts.
We have similar visions. I see the future of America as another failed
third world country.
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
It is been ages since I see that type of symbols on footnotes!
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left.
But then you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe
On 18/03/26 06:03, rbowman wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_plate
Ears are one thing but in what universe is a lip plate a good idea?
It saves having to wash the crockery.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left. But then
you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:[...]
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
Oh no, here come the daylight saving time arguments again...
I'm really looking forward to when our clocks change to BST on the 29th.
I detest long dark evenings, and early bright dawns are nearly as bad.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:25:58 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is
inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more
redundancy to broaden the peak at the top of the curve where
the system is supposed to sit, to form a little valley up there
to make it more resistant to shocks. But there will always be a
limit to how much abuse it can take, and if you get pushed
beyond that, then down the mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus
torque angle.
No. Think of the landscape as a multidimensional space involving
the total operational state of the various components of the
electricity generation and distribution system, and the height as
the desirability of that state. Gravity represents how the system
tends to move to a new state from any given position.
The highest point is where everything is functioning as it should.
Move too far from that, and you find yourself on a slope where it
becomes very hard to move back up rather than down.
Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to
this?
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish
collapse.
We also have modern barbarian sympathizers who still put holes in
their ears or other suitable protrusions and put larger and larger
things in those holes not earrings or ear studs which I happen to
use but not to the extent of some of my prior close acquaintances
who had multiple holes with multiple studs in their shell-like ears.
But I see people on the bus frequently with holes in their ears
filled with stainess steel tubes of an inch inner diameter.’ I
don't understand this form of body modification but apparently it
expresses something I do not feel.
’’’The only thing I object to is changing the time which clocks should
do of themselves. And if they could do that they could do it gradually
day by day.
I don't
understand this form of body modification but apparently it expresses something
I do not feel.
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to this?
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish collapse.
I can't comment on the Spanish case because I don't know enough about
it. What I do know is this: if anyone tells you there's a simple answer,
he's talking through his arse.
On 17 Mar 2026 01:25:28 GMT, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:18:27 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I see the future of America to be brown people by and large.
I like the idea because I am so pale it hurts.
We have similar visions. I see the future of America as another failed
third world country.
The USA is the First World.
If it fails, the Frist World fails. Don't
try to shift blame to the Third World. The First World must own its
own failures.
Worse in times like we have imposed on Iran, military leaders can
issue their own orders as they see fit.’ They have a large Revolutionary Islamic force and a large army.’ No wonder they are aiming at the
other nations which host the American forces
On 18/03/26 14:44, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left. But then
you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
Two. If you want Trump-style regime change, you have to shoot Vance
before shooting Trump.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
On 18/03/2026 06:16, Peter Moylan wrote:
I can't comment on the Spanish case because I don't know enough about
it. What I do know is this: if anyone tells you there's a simple answer,
he's talking through his arse.
No, its very clear. Although the chain of events was complex enough
for all those involved to say what you just said, in essence the
answer is simple.
Like a car with no dampers on a bumpy road, what finally breaks is
complex, but the root cause is bumps + no dampers.
Electricity demand is bumpy. And intermittent renewable generation is
also bumpy.
In a normal grid there is damping due to the inertial energy storage
of rotating steam and gas turbines, or even water turbines.
In a renewable grid fed by inverters, there is none whatsoever. That's
why they are adding batteries at huge expense. Worse, the inverters
wont just refuse to supply more power, if the system frequency falls
below a given limit they will trip out making the problem even worse.
All the 'complexity' arguments are smoke and mirrors by renewable
advocates who are desperately trying to hide the fact that
intermittent renewable energy is totally unfit to run a reliable
secure grid.
And those who have been proposing it are incompetent greedy little shits
On 18/03/2026 03:17, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’’The only thing I object to is changing the time which clocks
should do of themselves. And if they could do that they could do it
gradually day by day.
I object to changing the clocks instead of changing the working hours.
Or school hours
On 2026-03-17, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17 16:43, Rich Ulrich wrote:
The check on north-south, by the sun, is only at noon each day, yes?
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
Oh no, here come the daylight saving time arguments again...
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids was
*fossil* fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
It seems renewables in .es are now being fitted with the capacity to do
what non-renewables failed to do on 2025-04-28.
It sounds to me you're saying it needs what the Spanish grid already had
in place, in order to cope with what happened, and then you ignore that
what failed in that was*fossil fuel plants*, not renewables.
On 3/17/26 18:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
’’’’Oh it does. They have decided to be informed thru right wing rags
(news papers) and online sites where Republicans are praised and
Democratic Party members demonized, and i mean literally demonized.
On 18/03/2026 01:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:Not really. Adolf Hitler was a perfect example.
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American
development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the
wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those
countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class
vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against itsThere are racist parties - mainly on the Left - and there are anti mass immigration parties - mainly on the right,
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
On 18/03/2026 10:26, Nuno Silva wrote:
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids wasA fossil plant that is not online, because renewables have driven it
*fossil*’ fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have
prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
off, cannot do anything at all
Green cope.
On 2026-03-18 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 01:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:Not really. Adolf Hitler was a perfect example.
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American
development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the >>> wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those
countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class
vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against itsThere are racist parties - mainly on the Left - and there are anti
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
mass immigration parties - mainly on the right,
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of the
world.
On 2026-03-18 11:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 10:26, Nuno Silva wrote:
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids wasA fossil plant that is not online, because renewables have driven it
*fossil*’ fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have
prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
off, cannot do anything at all
Green cope.
No. Several plants were paid to run regulation, and failed or neglected
to do so.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:25:58 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to this?
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is
inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to
broaden the peak at the top of the curve where the system is
supposed to sit, to form a little valley up there to make it more
resistant to shocks. But there will always be a limit to how much
abuse it can take, and if you get pushed beyond that, then down the
mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus
torque angle.
No. Think of the landscape as a multidimensional space involving the
total operational state of the various components of the electricity
generation and distribution system, and the height as the desirability
of that state. Gravity represents how the system tends to move to a
new state from any given position.
The highest point is where everything is functioning as it should.
Move too far from that, and you find yourself on a slope where it
becomes very hard to move back up rather than down.
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish collapse.
Inverters are normally designed so that they follow the grid frequency.
But they can be designed to enforce a frequency and phase, ie, to
provide inertia (actually more inertia than iron). This is being done
now, I posted an article about this two days ago.
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against its
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:25:58 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is
inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to
broaden the peak at the top of the curve where the system is
supposed to sit, to form a little valley up there to make it more
resistant to shocks. But there will always be a limit to how much
abuse it can take, and if you get pushed beyond that, then down the
mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus
torque angle.
No. Think of the landscape as a multidimensional space involving the
total operational state of the various components of the electricity generation and distribution system, and the height as the desirability
of that state. Gravity represents how the system tends to move to a
new state from any given position.
The highest point is where everything is functioning as it should.
Move too far from that, and you find yourself on a slope where it
becomes very hard to move back up rather than down.
Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to this?
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish collapse.
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:10:26 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many
decades now, although few people realise who close we've been
pushing to the edge of instability.
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is inherently unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to broaden the
peak at the top of the curve where the system is supposed to sit, to
form a little valley up there to make it more resistant to shocks.
But there will always be a limit to how much abuse it can take, and
if you get pushed beyond that, then down the mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus torque
angle. You would never voluntarily run a generator at the top of that
curve, because that is the point of instability. You always have to keep
the generated power safely below the theoretical maximum.
The problem with a power system is that all the generators and loads are interconnected through the network, so of course they interact. You
cannot assess the stability margin of a generator by looking only at
that generator. Luckily, simulation software exists to model large
networks, but it takes multiple runs of those simulations to figure out
where the vulnerable points in the network are, and a well-educated
person is needed to understand the results.
On 2026-03-18 10:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 01:13, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 18/03/26 06:37, John Ames wrote:Not really. Adolf Hitler was a perfect example.
Every working-class pro-authoritarian seems *immensely* convinced
that toppling democracy will end up with them, personally, at the
top of the heap. They never seem to consider the possibility that
they're actually one of the Useful Idiots, to be put to work under
the lash or disposed of at the first convenient opportunity.
"Working-class pro-authoritarian" seems to be a peculiarly American
development. In most countries authoritarians are found mostly among the >> wealthy right-wingers. The working class votes mostly left-wing,
preferring a socialist rather than a wealth-dominated society. In those
countries someone like Trump or Biden would not get the working-class
vote.
It has always seemed to me that the US working class votes against itsThere are racist parties - mainly on the Left - and there are anti mass immigration parties - mainly on the right,
own interests.
The world might be changing, though, because of the rise is support for
the racist anti-immigration parties in a number of Western democracies.
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of the world.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:24:34 +0100, J. J. Lodder wrote:
Or they crashed into the West coast of Australia when turning North
again too late,
Old sailors' tip?: if there's land under your keel instead of sea, then
maybe you should back up a bit before turning ...
?That I just made up
On 17/03/26 19:47, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 20:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its equally hard to miss Australia sailing south east.Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I
find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
Just follow the correct line of latitude from e.g. Cape Town
If you sail south east from almost anywhere in east Africa, you will
miss Australia
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there
not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
On 2026-03-18 11:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 10:26, Nuno Silva wrote:
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids wasA fossil plant that is not online, because renewables have driven it
*fossil* fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have
prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
off, cannot do anything at all
Green cope.
No. Several plants were paid to run regulation, and failed or neglected
to do so.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:57:28 +0100
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of the world. >>This guy is pretty obvious with his right-wing views. I suggest you drop
the xposts or use your KF.
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:What I said was "Its equally hard to miss Australia sailing south east."...
On 17/03/26 19:47, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 20:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:19:57 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its equally hard to miss Australia sailing south east.Since Australia the same size as the USA (excluding Alaska/Hawaii) I >>>>> find that problematic...
True, but it's really, really hard to miss the Americas sailing west.
Just follow the correct line of latitude from e.g. Cape Town
If you sail south east from almost anywhere in east Africa, you will
miss Australia
But you may get quite cold,
Jan
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-18 11:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 10:26, Nuno Silva wrote:
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids wasA fossil plant that is not online, because renewables have driven it
*fossil* fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have
prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
off, cannot do anything at all
Green cope.
No. Several plants were paid to run regulation, and failed or neglected
to do so.
Why bother talking to him at all?
He is just airing his hobby horses,
Jan
On 18/03/26 14:44, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left. But then
you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
Two. If you want Trump-style regime change, you have to shoot Vance
before shooting Trump.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
On 18/03/2026 12:24, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:57:28 +0100
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of the world.This guy is pretty obvious with his right-wing views. I suggest you drop the xposts or use your KF.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
My views reflect my life experience. They are not culled from any peer group.
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a shameless
bid to attract the Islamic vote
The Right oppose immigration, not any particular race. If anything they simply don't want to be flooded with hordes of unproductive people.
It is fashionable for the left to call this racist.
But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of Robert
Mugabe or Idi Amin.
Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
On 2026-03-18, Sn!pe <snipeco.2@gmail.com> wrote:As you probably know, Saskatchewan is always UTC-6, defined as Central Standard time. As a result, we (well, I) look forward to the rest of the country and the USA doing away with the time changes.
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-17, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:[...]
You might use another time, but you have to know exactly how much off-noon.
Oh no, here come the daylight saving time arguments again...
I'm really looking forward to when our clocks change to BST on the 29th.
I detest long dark evenings, and early bright dawns are nearly as bad.
My wife is a morning person; the change to daylight saving time
depresses her because all of a sudden the mornings are dark.
This also creates concern over children who find themselves
going to school in the dark.
My beef with daylight time is astronomical: the very definition
of noon (i.e. mid-day) is when the sun is at its highest point
in the sky - which is no longer true when the clocks jump ahead
an hour. Fields which need a stable clock - e.g. aviation -
use UTC, but then I have to remember that our time zone offset
changes from -8 hours to -7.
--
I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
On 3/18/26 09:16, lar3ryca wrote:
--
I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
’’’’French fries are cooked in oil, beef tallow or lard but mostly
in Belgium.’ You can call the oleagenous substance grease but
Greece is just another nation and it is famous for olive oil which
is not suitable for French Frying.
’’’’bliss
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:Actually I have him in my filters. But other people keep quoting him.
On 18/03/2026 12:24, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:57:28 +0100
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of the world.This guy is pretty obvious with his right-wing views. I suggest you drop >>> the xposts or use your KF.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
My views reflect my life experience. They are not culled from any peer
group.
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a shameless
bid to attract the Islamic vote
We see the same thing in France with the far-left party La France Insoumise.
The Right oppose immigration, not any particular race. If anything they
simply don't want to be flooded with hordes of unproductive people.
It is fashionable for the left to call this racist.
But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of Robert
Mugabe or Idi Amin.
Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
On 17/03/2026 22:55, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I don't
understand this form of body modification but apparently it expresses
something
I do not feel.
It is just that in an era of relative wealth and ease, and mass media, people are treated like consumers of commodities.
Body art is a crude way to make themselves slightly unique. But if
everybody does it, you might as well not do it at all, and therefore
stand out from the crowd.
On 2026-03-18 00:15, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
My beef with daylight time is astronomical: the very definition
of noon (i.e. mid-day) is when the sun is at its highest point
in the sky - which is no longer true when the clocks jump ahead
an hour. Fields which need a stable clock - e.g. aviation -
use UTC, but then I have to remember that our time zone offset
changes from -8 hours to -7.
As you probably know, Saskatchewan is always UTC-6, defined as Central Standard time. As a result, we (well, I) look forward to the rest of the country and the USA doing away with the time changes.
You mentioned local noon. When we lived in the farm (40km east of
Regina) I noticed that when I looked south at noon, the sun was not
lined up with the north/south road we were on. Turns out local (true)
noon, is close to an hour after the CST noon.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
On 3/18/26 08:05, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I have him in my filters. But other people keep quoting
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
On 18/03/2026 12:24, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:57:28 +0100
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in myThis guy is pretty obvious with his right-wing views. I suggest
corner of the world.
you drop the xposts or use your KF.
him.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up. My views reflect
my life experience. They are not culled from any peer group. In
the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a
shameless bid to attract the Islamic vote
We see the same thing in France with the far-left party La France
Insoumise.
The Right oppose immigration, not any particular race. If
anything they simply don't want to be flooded with hordes of
unproductive people.
Immigrants are among the most productive, entrepreneurial and
law-abiding people in the USA. Likely they would do the same in
other nations. Of course some are criminals but in the USA born in
the USA citizens are the most criminal. Some of the USA Citizens are
of course more law-abiding.
It is fashionable for the left to call this racist.
Because it is directed at specific groups just as Trump tried to
import only white South Africans claiming that they were
discriminated against by the South African Government.
immigrants are from Central or South America or Mexico and Trump and
the Republicans say they are stealing American jobs. Actually Mexican
labor is vital to farms and construction in the USA. The ICE raids
have frighten 70% of the workers away from the fields which does not
help the cost of food. Trump thinks Asylum Seekers are running from
mental hospitals not from the gangs and brutal right wing groups in
the nations. Recently he has revoked Temporary Protected Status from
Haitians (black folks) and Afghanistanis given refuge because they
worked with the US Military in our recent 20 year Afganistan
adventure.
But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of
Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin.
"Black Lives Matter" is counter White Racism and is due to the
murder of numerous African Americans by Law Enforcement Officers not
just in certain cities but all over the USA. Use of deadly force,
whether firearms which killed an ER Nurse in her bed or the knee on
the throat should not be without punishment. Mugabe and Idi Amin are
the heroes Trump longs to emulate. Crazy as hell with no regard for
the consequences of their actions
Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
As to Iran and its demented Sharia Law (actually tribal law), he
wants demented Christian Law (white racist tribal laws) in the USA as
he is carrying out Project 2025. Or Russia: Trump envies Putin and
wants to be more like him. He continues to avoid the facts of the
matter of the Russian-Ukrainian War which started before the recent incursion. The Ukraine traded the nuclear bombs it had in the
Soviet Republic of Ukraine for national Sovereignty and Security
Guarntees which Putin violated when he put his ill concieved plan
into motion, trying to emulate the actions of Hitler's Generals who
did Blitzkrieg on Poland. But it started with the invasion of the
Crimean peninsula in 2014 then a vote under Russian Army occupation
to join the Russian Federation. Why no one did anything about that
earlier I do not know but the USA was still preoccupied with
Afganistan.
We currently have government of the Worst in the USA with very poor
choices of the people he has put in charge of the Government
department seemingly to put those departments out of business. He
believes what Putin tells him over what American Intelligence briefs
him on. Soon under his Aegis, American Intelligence will become a
term of derision.
I did not vote for Trump ever nor would I ever except perhaps on
threat of death. But I am old so I might just chose death over
Trump.
bliss - Tomahawk missiles for the Ukraine would have solved a lot of problems.
On 2026-03-18, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
Any 20-year-old who isn't a liberal has no heart.
Any 40-year-old who isn't a conservative has no brain.
-- Winston Churchill
Any 60-year-old who isn't a moderate has no soul.
-- me
On 18/03/2026 18:02, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-03-18, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
Any 20-year-old who isn't a liberal has no heart.
Any 40-year-old who isn't a conservative has no brain.
-- Winston Churchill
Any 60-year-old who isn't a moderate has no soul.
-- me
Sadly people like you call moderates 'far right'
On 18/03/2026 12:24, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:57:28 +0100
Mmm? I have not seen any racist party on the left in my corner of theThis guy is pretty obvious with his right-wing views. I suggest you drop
world.
the xposts or use your KF.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
My views reflect my life experience. They are not culled from any peer group.
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a shameless
bid to attract the Islamic vote
The Right oppose immigration, not any particular race. If anything they simply don't want to be flooded with hordes of unproductive people.
It is fashionable for the left to call this racist.
But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of Robert
Mugabe or Idi Amin.
Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
On 2026-03-18 14:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a
shameless bid to attract the Islamic vote
This is not racism.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 09:31:34 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 03:17, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
’’’The only thing I object to is changing the time which clocks
’’’should
do of themselves. And if they could do that they could do it gradually
day by day.
I object to changing the clocks instead of changing the working hours.
Or school hours
Don't you have some sort of double daylight saving thing?
On 2026-03-18, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
Any 20-year-old who isn't a liberal has no heart.
Any 40-year-old who isn't a conservative has no brain.
-- Winston Churchill
Any 60-year-old who isn't a moderate has no soul.
-- me
Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-18 11:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 10:26, Nuno Silva wrote:
Again, I remind that what led to the collapse of these grids wasA fossil plant that is not online, because renewables have driven it
*fossil* fuel plants failing to act as expected. That ought to have
prevented the failure initiated by Iberdrola.
off, cannot do anything at all
Green cope.
No. Several plants were paid to run regulation, and failed or neglected
to do so.
Why bother talking to him at all?
He is just airing his hobby horses,
On 3/17/26 22:30, Peter Moylan wrote:
On 18/03/26 14:44, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left. But then
you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
Two. If you want Trump-style regime change, you have to shoot Vance
before shooting Trump.
’’’’’’’ And if you do it before the Democrats control the Congress then you will have to kill Mike Johnson Speaker of the House.’ Rubio comes after
him but he might be just ok.
’’’’Not that I advocate killing anyone, no never, even with a proper
trial.
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
On 17/03/26 11:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:10:26 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote:
Stability of the electricity grid has been a problem for many
decades now, although few people realise who close we've been
pushing to the edge of instability.
It seems to me the whole electrical power supply system is inherently
unstable. All you can do is build in more redundancy to broaden the
peak at the top of the curve where the system is supposed to sit, to
form a little valley up there to make it more resistant to shocks.
But there will always be a limit to how much abuse it can take, and
if you get pushed beyond that, then down the mountainside it falls.
I assume that the "curve" you mean is the graph of power versus torque
angle. You would never voluntarily run a generator at the top of that
curve, because that is the point of instability. You always have to keep
the generated power safely below the theoretical maximum.
The problem with a power system is that all the generators and loads are
interconnected through the network, so of course they interact. You
cannot assess the stability margin of a generator by looking only at
that generator. Luckily, simulation software exists to model large
networks, but it takes multiple runs of those simulations to figure out
where the vulnerable points in the network are, and a well-educated
person is needed to understand the results.
Australia is puny by comparison to the Europe-wide power network.
It is configured and planned on a day to day basis.
They hold a conference and auction each day to plan the next day,
on an hour to hour basis.
Those who need power say how much, those who have it put in bids,
until the plan is complete.
Curiosity: the spot price may go negative for certain hours.
Those who like the game can play too:
some supliers offer contracts with metering by the hour,
(which can also go negative, on rare occasions)
Jan
Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there >>>>>> not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I
applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
But not France, or anything further away in Europe,
where they managed their things better.
EDF had the loss of the interconnector with Spain stabilised
in half a minute,
On 18/03/2026 18:25, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-18 14:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a
shameless bid to attract the Islamic vote
This is not racism.
Then I don't know what is
On 3/18/26 09:16, lar3ryca wrote:
--
I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
’’’’French fries are cooked in oil, beef tallow or lard but mostly
in Belgium.’ You can call the oleagenous substance grease but
Greece is just another nation and it is famous for olive oil which
is not suitable for French Frying.
On 2026-03-18 14:03, J. J. Lodder wrote:
Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/03/2026 13:37, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-16 13:53, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Well spain managed to crash their entire electricity grid despite
On 15/03/2026 21:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Gosh. It is amazing to us in Spain that there are people out there >>>>>> not using the International System of Measures (or Units).
America is big enough and isolated enough to cope with different
standards.
Mars Climate Orbiter.
using metric units.
And that's got nothing to do with different units AFAIK, although do I
applaud you refraining from the far-right bullshit this time...
Although I'd like to remark the inaccuracy of "*their* entire
electricity grid". The lack of engagement of fossil fuel plants which
would have prevented the blackout ultimately also crashed REN, not just
REE.
But not France, or anything further away in Europe,
where they managed their things better.
EDF had the loss of the interconnector with Spain stabilised
in half a minute,
The France-Spain interconnection is comparatively low capacity.
My beef with daylight time is astronomical: the very definition
of noon (i.e. mid-day) is when the sun is at its highest point
in the sky - which is no longer true when the clocks jump ahead
an hour.
[...] But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin.
Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
On 18/03/26 13:06, Sn!pe wrote:[...]
Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to
this?
Yes and no. There's no short answer, so I'll confine myself to just a
few comments.
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish
collapse.
I can't comment on the Spanish case because I don't know enough about
it. What I do know is this: if anyone tells you there's a simple answer,
he's talking through his arse.
When a power system collapses, it's a snowball process. Some adverse
event, for example a lightning strike, causes a circuit breaker to open, taking one transmission line out of service. That causes a
redistribution of current and power flows. If it so happens that this overloads one line, another circuit breaker opens. That again
redistributes the currents ... I think you can see why I called it a snowball.
To solve that, you build excess capacity into the system. Analysis of
likely failure modes, usually via simulation, can tell you where extra transmission lines are needed, or extra VAR compensators (see below) or whatever. But bad luck can also play a part. If that lightning strike
had hit one hour earlier, it wouldn't have hit a time of peak demand,
and the system would have recovered.
Let's talk about frequency stability. If you start up a synchronous generator, connected to nothing, it will produce a sinusoidal voltage
that depends on its speed, and of course the speed depends on the (non-electrical) machine that's driving it.
If you now connect two such machines (and do it carefully enough so that
the combination doesn't go unstable), they will spontaneously settle on
a compromise frequency, with the machine with the biggest prime mover
being the most influential. Add more machines, and soon you'll have so
much inertia in the system that the mutually agreed frequency remains constant despite any disturbances. Of course a sufficiently large
disturbance can still bring the system down; but the bigger the overall
power system, the more it is resistant to disturbances.
Now, in what might seem a digression, let's look at VAR compensation.
The power flows in the system are actually complex numbers, in the usual formulation, having both a real and a reactive part. The reactive power
might not seem to be doing anything, but in fact the reactive power
balance can have a major influence on stability. You can improve
stability by injecting reactive power in the right place(s). This is
done with what are called VAR compensators.
The traditional VAR compensator, also known as a synchronous condenser,
is a rotating machine. In fact, it's just a generator that is not
producing or consuming any real power. (Apart from the inevitable
losses.) These days, however, we know how to do the same job with a non-rotating electronic device. Which is better? They're both doing the
same job, so the answer is that they're as good as each other. OK, the rotating version is contributing somewhat to frequency stability, but
it's outvoted by all the other machines in the system. The choice
between them is purely a matter of cost.
The big issue is DC vs AC. The rotating generators are all AC devices Renewable sources like solar panels produce DC. To connect to the
network, they must use inverters. Those inverters just synchronise to
the existing AC network, but they don't contribute to its inertia. If I
had my druthers, I would run a high-voltage DC network in parallel with
the existing AC network, and cross-connect them only at a limited number
of locations. The designers have not chosen to go that way.
Once you're producing more DC than AC power, the AC subsystem doesn't
have the same frequency stability as before. That's a solvable problem, though. The designers just have to think it through a little harder.
Australia is puny by comparison to the Europe-wide power network. It
is configured and planned on a day to day basis. They hold a
conference and auction each day to plan the next day, on an hour to
hour basis. Those who need power say how much, those who have it put
in bids, until the plan is complete. Curiosity: the spot price may go negative for certain hours.
On 3/18/26 08:05, athel.cb@gmail.com wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> posted:
Actually I have him in my filters. But other people keep quoting
him.
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
My views reflect my life experience. They are not culled from any peer
group.
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a shameless >>> bid to attract the Islamic vote
We see the same thing in France with the far-left party La France
Insoumise.
The Right oppose immigration, not any particular race. If anything they
simply don't want to be flooded with hordes of unproductive people.
Immigrants are among the most productive, entrepreneurial and
law-abiding
people in the USA.
But real racism is 'Black lives matter'
On 2026-03-18, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 18/03/2026 18:02, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-03-18, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I started life as a socialist. Then I grew up.
Any 20-year-old who isn't a liberal has no heart.
Any 40-year-old who isn't a conservative has no brain.
-- Winston Churchill
Any 60-year-old who isn't a moderate has no soul.
-- me
Sadly people like you call moderates 'far right'
I have no idea where you got that from. Do I really come across
as a left-wing radical?
Ar an t-ocht£ l dag de m” M rta, scr”obh The Natural Philosopher:
> [...] But real racism is 'Black lives matter' or the communism of Robert
> Mugabe or Idi Amin.
>
> Or what goes on in Iran. Or Russia
The Islamic Republic of Iran cares about Shia Islam. Iranians don?t much like Arabs, mostly for reasons that would, ceteris paribus, be termed racist in a Western European or North American context, but the Islamic Republic of Iran suppports Hezbollah and the Houthis because those profess Shia Islam, despite that Lebanon and Yemen are Arab countries.
I am fully confident that if a community of Bosniaks, a community of the Central African Republic, or a community of Filipinos credibly professed Shia Islam, that the Islamic Republic of Iran would do what it could to aid them and
that it would be unlikely to have a quarrel with them.
If the US were to credibly embrace Shia Islam as a state religion, I am confident the current war would come to a quick end. I am aware that there are
multiple systemic and cultural barriers within the US to this happening.
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 21:02:40 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/17/26 20:44, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 19:46:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Authoritarianism might be the only viable option left.
But then you're up against that old problem: how do you ensure that a
benevolent dictatorship remains benevolent?
With a dictator you only have one person to shoot.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe
Dictators have supporters so you never end up with only one to
shoot. Why do you think the aristocrats head rolled during the F
iirc they started eating their own when they ran out of aristocrats. If
you look at the centuries of history the modern liberal democracy
experiment is a brief whim. Don't even mention Athens. They had a well designed voter ID scheme.
Our B.C. premier (and wannabe dictator), David Eby, unilaterally
declared that we are now on permanent daylight time.
Sn!pe wrote:[...]
Is the concept of inertia due to rotating machinery relevant to this?
I read somewhere that the increasing proportion of non-rotating
generating equipment (e.g. solar) was a factor in the Spanish collapse.
Yes, but the direct cause was that some of the plants with inertia that
were being paid to regulate, did not, either by failure or by neglect.
Inverters are normally designed so that they follow the grid frequency.
But they can be designed to enforce a frequency and phase, ie, to
provide inertia (actually more inertia than iron). This is being done
now, I posted an article about this two days ago.
Message-ID: <fm6m8mxm7p.ln2@Telcontar.valinor>
On 2026-03-18 17:40, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/18/26 09:16, lar3ryca wrote:
-- I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
????French fries are cooked in oil, beef tallow or lard but mostly
in Belgium.? You can call the oleagenous substance grease but
Greece is just another nation and it is famous for olive oil which
is not suitable for French Frying.
In Spain we do fry them in olive oil and we love them, although we don't call
them "French". Just fried potatoes. If your budget is tight, then we use other oils.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:30:44 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 18:25, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-18 14:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a
shameless bid to attract the Islamic vote
This is not racism.
Then I don't know what is
It's interesting how the Jews appropriated 'Semitic' to the
exclusion of the other Semitic peoples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Another tangled web.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:30:44 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/03/2026 18:25, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2026-03-18 14:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
In the UK the Labour party is frighteningly anti-Semitic. In a
shameless bid to attract the Islamic vote
This is not racism.
Then I don't know what is
It's interesting how the Jews appropriated 'Semitic' to the exclusion of
the other Semitic peoples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Another tangled web.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:57:04 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
If the USA did embrace any State Religion it would not be the USAany
longer and I would not support such a change to our secular Republic.
The US embraced capitalism as the State Religion long ago. The question is
if that has staying power. 275 years isn't a long time in the history of civilizations.
Carlos E.R. suggested that ...
On 2026-03-18 17:40, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/18/26 09:16, lar3ryca wrote:
-- I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
’’’’’French fries are cooked in oil, beef tallow or lard but mostly
in Belgium.’ You can call the oleagenous substance grease but
Greece is just another nation and it is famous for olive oil which
is not suitable for French Frying.
In Spain we do fry them in olive oil and we love them, although we
don't call them "French". Just fried potatoes. If your budget is
tight, then we use other oils.
Are they fried in a skillet with a slurp of olive oil, or in a basket
that immersed in olive oil?
On 2026-03-19 01:36, Snidely wrote:
Carlos E.R. suggested that ...
On 2026-03-18 17:40, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
On 3/18/26 09:16, lar3ryca wrote:
-- I was told that french fries are not cooked in France.
The are cooked in Greece.
’’’’’French fries are cooked in oil, beef tallow or lard but mostly
in Belgium.’ You can call the oleagenous substance grease but
Greece is just another nation and it is famous for olive oil which
is not suitable for French Frying.
In Spain we do fry them in olive oil and we love them, although we
don't call them "French". Just fried potatoes. If your budget is
tight, then we use other oils.
Are they fried in a skillet with a slurp of olive oil, or in a basket
that immersed in olive oil?
A pan with 1 or 2 cm deep of oil, enough to submerge all the potatoes.
If you have many potatoes, either more oil (and a bigger pan), or do two/three rounds. Yes, you can use a special pan with a basket.
If you fill too much oil, you can make a mess in the kitchen, specially
if the oil foams. Better a bigger pan and about half full, tops.
Or, a small electric (deep) fryer. Mine takes about 2.5 litres, I think.
Of course, in this case you don't change the oil till 20 or 30 uses.
Should be a number of hours, but the instructions say "times".
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:02:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Our B.C. premier (and wannabe dictator), David Eby, unilaterally
declared that we are now on permanent daylight time.
That doesn?t sound very wise to me.
Daylight saving has a point if you are far enough from the equator for
it to make a difference. Trying to stick to one timezone offset for
the whole year in such a region will cause its own problems.
And Israel has further appropriated "anti-semitic" to mean "critical
of the government of Israel".
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