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Thread: xkcd
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2018-04-15, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
Re: xkcd
1980: Turkish Delight.
I'm American, and I've only had Turkish Delight once. It was in high school, and we were rehearsing for a play based on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I had pretty much the same reaction as Randall.
I always assumed that the Turkish Delight in the books had magic that made it taste better in addition to mind control.
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2018-04-15, 06:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
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- Bristol, UK
Re: xkcd
I have not very often had turkish delight, it can be pretty variable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_delight
This on the other hand, smothered in chocolate (British chocolate, not USAian salt chocolate) is almost certainly not authentic, but it used to be quite nice once upon a time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fry%27s_Turkish_DelightThe end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2018-05-04, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2017
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- Home, as is the law.
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Re: xkcd
Yeah the interactive comics are the best.
https://xkcd.com new comics up
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2018-05-04, 11:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: xkcd
So for May 4, 2018, I really would like to see some linguistics arguments about the wrongness or okayness
Spoiler: I guess we spoiler XKCD spoilersof acronym meaning changing over time.
I've been persuaded that words can change meaning (though I don't like the idea), but the idea of acronyms changing meaning irks me extra.
Spoiler: minor spoiler for mouseover text
Tantalizing Meat Info was very funny.
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2018-05-04, 12:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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- France
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Re: xkcd
This is why I never use acronyms in conversations.
And people who actually say those out loud are the worst.Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2018-05-04, 02:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: xkcd
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2018-05-04, 04:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: xkcd
I've been persuaded that words can change meaning (though I don't like the idea), but the idea of acronyms changing meaning irks me extra.Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2018-05-04, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: xkcd
I actually tend to pronounce "SQL" as "squirrel". Just because it's funnier that way.
And, yes, the "H" is for "Humble", and "Honest" is wrong. I mean, really, what is "IMNSHO" supposed to mean? "In My Not So Honest Opinion"? I've been in Internet arguments where it was pretty clear that the other party was a troll trying to make the position that they claimed to hold look bad, but trolls don't generally advertise the fact.
I usually write "IMAO", myself. I do not feign humility about my obviously-correct opinions.
Oh, and I had to google "SMDH", which I had never previously encountered.Last edited by John Campbell; 2018-05-04 at 05:03 PM.
Play your character, not your alignment.
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2018-05-04, 05:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2009
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Re: xkcd
It's a process known as reetymoligization. There are a few examples, like the name of the hawk in Latin -- accipiter. Originally, it was something like "acupter" made up of aku (=fast) and pter (=wing), but it was reetymologized and made similar to the verb "accipio", to grab, and ended up meaning "the grabber" (accipiter).
Here something similar is happening, with the components of the acronym being changed because they look like something else that also makes sense and is more familiar to the writer/speaker.
The English example I can think of is "outrage". Some think that it's made up of "out+rage", which is, the rage pouring out, while it actually is a French loanword "outrage" coming from Latin "ultraticum", an adjective from "ultra" = beyond, meaning "something beyond your right".Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2018-05-04, 08:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2018-05-04, 08:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: xkcd
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2018-05-04, 09:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2012
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- Next to the Mandolinist
Re: xkcd
And that's before you get into all the technology and stuff, like CDs, CPU, RAM, DOS, DVD, HDMI, HD, HTTP, www, PC, JPEG, LAN, MIDI, MP3, PNG, ROM, TIFF, GIF, URL, VPN, ....
Wow, ever since computers were invented, we really ran off with all that acronym use.Favorite sports:
Fencing
Football (Soccer)
Figure Skating
(and basically everything else that starts with 'f')ALSO! Come roleplay FFRPG in the Nexus!Nexus Characters.
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2018-05-04, 09:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2007
Re: xkcd
Oh, and the answer to, "How many spaces after a period?" is, "Who cares? HTML collapses whitespace."
Play your character, not your alignment.
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2018-05-04, 09:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2017
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- Home, as is the law.
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Re: xkcd
I say? Linebreak.
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2018-05-05, 03:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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- France
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Re: xkcd
Oh, acronyms for nouns (such as GPS, LASER, IBM or what have you) are fine, it's acronyms for part (or Heaven forbids the whole) of the sentence I have beef with.
Keltest, I am afraid I have only ever talked about "plongée sous-marine". ^^Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2018-05-05, 12:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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2018-05-05, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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- France
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Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2018-05-05, 10:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: xkcd
I so, and whoever put that in HTML deserves to be slapped.
TWO spaces after a period to end a sentence. TWO. And I will write that way until the end of time, regardless of how common the mistaken single space becomes.
Also, as a general comment to the world, STOP using apostrophes to pluralize, that's not how it works.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-05-05, 10:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: xkcd
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2018-05-05, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2015
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- On the tip of my tongue
Re: xkcd
something something "two spaces is an artifact of the dinosaur typewriter era" something something "4 out of 5 typesetters agree" something something
(I double-space out of habit, but since most stuff I write is online, it's impossible for anyone else to ever notice. It helps when I'm editing my own writing, though.)
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2018-05-05, 11:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: xkcd
In my opinion, a little more space after a sentence ending period (as opposed to an abbreviation ending period) helps to cement the finality of the sentence. This works in a similar manner to the difference between a new line and a tab, a double new line, and a double new line and a tab when separating paragraphs; some documents need very good separation while others can get away with very little.
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2018-05-05, 11:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: xkcd
When I'm typing I use two spaces after each sentence out of habit. When I am hand-writing, my spacing is not consistent enough to be able to tell the difference between one and two spaces.
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2018-05-06, 01:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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2018-05-06, 07:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
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Re: xkcd
Wait, wait, wait. It's not "To Be Horny"?
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2018-05-06, 09:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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- Germany
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Re: xkcd
I feel like there are so many acronyms around it's impossible to keep track with all of them. For example, does smh really mean "so many hamsters" or was it originally "see my hat" or something ridiculous. I'm sure there are some more obscure ones out there and then possibly contradictory ones, especially in different languages. But then, I'm so much out of the loop I hardly know any in German but I'm sure they exist.
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2018-05-06, 10:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: xkcd
The big problem is that when HTML is used as input, it totally destroys what the user types. The complete destruction of all formatting, paragraphing, etc. makes it useless. But since it's in the standard, it's what everyone uses -- and it wrecks everything.
Remember, the original reason that typesetters put two space blocks at the end of the sentence was that the space blocks were small, and they wanted to make sure that the end of the sentence was recognized. Not that putting two spaces is the right thing, but that they wanted to be slightly bigger than the space between words.
Move to monospaced typewriters -- spaces are no longer small, but the "hit space twice at the end of a sentence" came along, probably because someone influential said, "this is what typesetters do, so this is what typewriters ought to do", and the same "this makes sense to me, so it must be true" viewpoint of Aristotle came back into being as the T-truth.Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2018-05-06, 12:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: xkcd
If you really want to get technical, typesetters use between sentences a space that's wider than that between words, but not twice as wide, so using one or two full-width spaces are both equally wrong.
The text editor I've used for decades has, in recent versions, switched the default for re-justifying text blocks to two spaces between sentences. The problem is that it can't tell the difference between an end-of-sentence period and one used within a sentence (e.g., in an abbreviation such as "Dr."), nor does it always recognize unusual sentence-ending punctuation, so its heuristics fail and it reformats it wrong (even if you're of the two-spaces-between-sentences persuasion) probably half the time. It's really annoying, but not quite as annoying as digging the setting out of the poorly-documented config files to switch it back, so mostly I just grumble about it.
HTML/CSS can be set to not collapse whitespace, but note that doing so by default has implications for text portability between displays.Play your character, not your alignment.
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2018-05-06, 02:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: xkcd
As I said, HTML was not designed as a typesetting language. It was designed to produce readable text where the person creating the web page cannot know what size the window the user will view it on will be or what font they'll be using. As such, removing any user-input formatting is necessary, because otherwise parts of the text might disappear or otherwise have issues on a display that isn't the same size as the formatting was intended for.
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2018-05-07, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: xkcd
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-05-07, 12:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2015
- Location
- Dallas-ish
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Re: xkcd
As someone who’s currently learning how to drive, I find today’s comic extremely relatable.
Vitruvian Stickman avatar by linklele.
I have an extended signature now. God knows why.