Zompist Bboard Again

I don't get it. Maybe it's just a British thing. Here, one of the great shibboleths of class in language is traditionally distinguishing adverbs from adjectives: using adjectives adverbially something we're taught from a young age to avoid. So my instinctive reaction is "ugh, even the BBC don'...

Though African unificationism in general wouldn't surprise me. There's in many countries not a great deal of actual identification with African 'nations' per se, so supernational organisations may find it easier to gain allegiances. I wouldn't be surprised if at least Uemoa, if not Ecowas as a whole...

And it's been on the BBC for a while and it keeps catching me: Top tips for making your family swim awesome. I don't get it. Maybe it's just a British thing. Here, one of the great shibboleths of class in language is traditionally distinguishing adverbs from adjectives: using adjectives adverbially...

The problem with relying on the developing counties growing is that because they're poor, they make up only a small percentage of world GDP. So even if that small percentage grows, it's still only a small percentage relative to the world. At the moment, Africa's combined GDP is around $2 trillion. B...

Foot Heads Arms Body (unknown (apocryphal?) via Rhetorica) Giant wind farm dropped by developer (unknown via me) "Anyone in the UK who went to bed with Root and Carberry together, might wake up with them back together again soon. But they can do it both ways from here." (Test Match Specia...

Before you get to extrapolating out minutiae like GWP and such, you really ought to read Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist . His argument on the energy floor is, no pun intended, flawed. Yes, there's a floor price for energy, but it needn't be a percentage of GDP. The argument works by s...

or none of them, but you'd probably be kicked out That's for the afterparty. The invite says "Classy Casual (plaid apparel encouraged)". *rolls eyes* I know it's not good to stereotype, but literally 50% of the gay weddings I've been to have had some sort of dress code encouraging plaid. ...

Not lost, just unavailable for now. :( Other projects are in the way, but parsing the old board data will happen later on... No, the original thread was lost, because it was in ephemera at least seven years ago. These are in the replacement thread in NOTA. [but I think the original was only briefly...

I thought I'd take the opportunity to revive some of our 7 years of past confusing headlines for the new board (I'd forgotten, unfortunately, that the original thread had been lost, but never mind). These are just a selection of my own favourites... Queen makes historic Ireland trip (Beeb, via Radiu...

Well sure, but we're talking about science fiction. Magic is essential to science fiction! The reason we call the whole genre speculative fiction is that we speculate some what-if and then see what follows from it. Sure, you can write space fantasy... I'm not going to fact-check Star Wars. (Though ...

I think they could have made humans seem a little less...exceptional, which is a complaint I have against a lot of sci-fi--why should we be so special?). Well, every intelligent species is likely to be special somehow. And it's hard to a human writer writing about human characters for a human audie...

That is indeed unfortunate. As in "will get people murdered" unfortunate... Two things amused me recently. I've just seen a line on Variety about a company in bankruptcy looking to sell off its films: It has signaled that it is open to entertaining offers for “City of Lies,” a crime thrill...

I think they could have made humans seem a little less...exceptional, which is a complaint I have against a lot of sci-fi--why should we be so special?). Well, every intelligent species is likely to be special somehow. And it's hard to a human writer writing about human characters for a human audie...

On colonization-- introducing FTL isn't so much disagreeing with me as adding a magic element. :) Well sure, but we're talking about science fiction. Magic is essential to science fiction! The reason we call the whole genre speculative fiction is that we speculate some what-if and then see what fol...

Thanks for the feedback. The inspiration for this is that FTL travel is a common technology in SF, but is impossible in real physics. So I thought I'd lean into the impossibility, and make FTL travel only possible by an inexplicable "psychic power", and all the other technology be complet...

Ah, a chance to trot out some of my pet peeves. These can be divided into "futures that move too fast" and "futures that move too slowly." An example of the first: pretty much any sf involving AI. To sf writers, it seems that fully sentient AI is only a decade away, and always h...

Oh, an alternative way of looking at changes like ter > tcher... sulcalisation!

Rhotic vowels are typically sulcalised - indeed, /3/ is typically sulcalised even in non-rhotic dialects. And what effect does sulcalisation often have on neighbouring consonants? Affrication!

That's not unexpected palatalization so much as syncope then retraction before /r/ , like in <tree> [tʃʰɹiː], <straight> [stʃɹeɪ̯ʔ]~[ʃtʃɹeɪ̯ʔ], or <dry> [dʒɹɑɪ̯]. If I dropped the first schwa in <tarantula> I'd produce something like [ˈtʃʰɹæ̃ʔtʃɫ̩ə]. EDIT: That pronunciation of <sister> is unusual,...

Hard to give advice with nothing to comment on - any advice I gave would wind up just being my own version of how I predicted the next 80 years to go. I suppose one thing I could suggest would be general: have a sense of your intentions. What is this setting for? Is it just pure prediction, or is ai...

But the Dothraki aren't exactly villains or heroes. Their attitudes to women are awful, but it many ways their society is shown in the books to be better for Danaerys than Westerosi culture or the cities of Essos. Wow, that's a new one. "Sure, these people may be genocidal gang-rapists, but th...