Posts by Lyndon Hood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Well if we're going to be like that I'm a big fan of 'obfuscatory'. It's word that is what it means. Kind of the semantic equivalent of onomatopoeia.
And guess which spelling I just had to look up.
-
I had assumed it was pronounced the same as "cwm"
So that would be "pooned"?
-
I'd only ever seen gams for legs in the plural - "nice gams". Something you might expect Jimmy Stewart or Humphrey Bogart to say at some point in the film.
Teh Internets tells me gam is/was a collective noun for whales and whalers (presumably for people too rustic to use 'pod'). I'm guessing the former was the earlier. this guy is bemused by such issues.
Out whaling, I imagine anything would look like a thigh after a while.
Strike me as an old english word or summat, with the whales. Whereas the legs might credibly be though to come (internets again) from italian 'gamba' for, well, legs.
But looking for connects is always fun, so keep it up.
-
"stolen"
On the pwned thing, I think it's an interesting case to illustrate that the written language isn't a mirror of the spoken one but something independent (if strongly connected).It's fun to see words starting as written without any particular reference to how or whether it might be spoken - hence the confusion.
I saw someone recently on (non-Total) Fark complaining about a kid who, on leaving a room, said "BRB" (bee arr bee) by way of indicating his intention to return immediately.
And then there's when you pronounce the word much the same but spell it funny as an in-group thing...
I'm suddenly reminded of something I read in Bill Bryson's Made in America. By the time of the pilgrim fathers (and Shakespeare), all those verbs ending in -eth would have been pronounced -s like we do it now. Bit of almost irrelevant info there, but it shows this kind of thing isn't a new problem.
-
The legal commentator also said that 'stealing' - theft - is when you take something from somebody without the colour of right with a view to depriving them of it.
The thing about information being, you can sneak it off someone and they still have it.
Actually, if you were looking for helpful information, that guy was just frustrating.
Whether the court would consider a 'leaked' email not to be 'stolen' for the purposes of the order - and what you would have to reveal in order to prove one or the other - is something I wouldn't want to tangle with if it was me.
-
Just incidentally, sorry if this constitutes feeding, but I note Insolent Prick's speculation (assertion? prediction? - I'm guessing he ain't read it) about the nature and genisis of the book appears identical to the comment he left on kiwiblog.
I'm sure that's a symptom of something.
That said, the lack of impact the comment made there is an interesting starting point in comparing the two forums.
-
Nicky Wagner was tring to table leaked documents in Parliament yesterday. Documents that could no doubt have been Official Information Act'ed, but still.
Hilarity.
-
If I might briefly quote myself:
Deborah Coddington's vocal indignation (on Friday) at Matt Nippert's performance-art response (on Wednesday) to her article is perhaps understandable but rather misses the point. In fact, given that Nippert's piece was really a personalised demonstration of how (basically) accurate statistics can be used to cast some wildly unfair aspersions, the fact that Coddington was offended rather proves his point.
-
Snap!
-
Coddington will be defending on National Radio this afternoon. I can't picture Jim Mora being especially savage...