Zompist Bboard Again

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 6:47 pm I'm trying to guess what a certain part of Antarctica would be like during part of the year based on two or three specific processes, and that's already pretty speculative.

Say more please? (Speaking as someone whose PhD is in that general area.)

True enough, but the continents had very different positions then and that would have undoubtedly impacted climate in various ways. Not quite, the continents were by-and-large in their current positions , with some exceptions, but of course the sea level was much higher (no land ice) so there was a...

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 9:47 am (Speaking of improbable pronunciations, my grandmother's neighbours were called Whitehead, pronounced, I kid you not, [viteat])

Suddenly, Pratchett‘s ‘Mr Teatime, pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh’ sounds a lot more plausible…

hwhatting wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2026 8:08 am the unbearable summer heat

I remember transiting through Dubai Airport in 2024 around the end of July. I have a photo of the in-flight display reporting the air temperature as 34°C at 1am. (And, when I had to go outside for a transfer, it was.)

Emily wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2026 2:04 pm it doesn't happen all the time (so it's not in my sca rules)

I can’t resist noting that Brassica supports sporadic sound changes…

hwhatting wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2026 1:35 am

jal wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2026 3:24 pm

hwhatting wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2026 1:49 ammost of my books are far away in Germany anyway.

Off-topic, but you're no longer in Germany?

Yes, since last year I'm posted to Dubai for my job.

Wow! How has that been?

alice wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2026 2:50 pm Learning not to panic is also useful.

And, to re-emphasise this point, it really is something that has to be learnt. (At least for people with minds like ours.)

Unfortunately my fight or flight response has been stuck on all week, which means I have gotten PTSD and will have another permanent problem. Echoing the others that what you have is not PTSD. It’s certainly a pretty nasty experience to go through, by all means; and it’s perfectly normal for that t...

To me "plaster" is very marked and is not a word that is in my vocabulary with that meaning. I watch quite a bit of British TV yet the word still sticks out as being very foreign to me in this usage. What would you call a bandage then, as opposed to a bandaid/plaster? Do you just not dist...

I don't think I have ever seen a capitalized numeral in English, except, of course, as part of a proper name such as The Jackson Five . Keep in mind that, unlike German, common nouns are not capitalized in English. This is correct -- the only times you would capitalize a number in English are as pa...

In conworld and/or SF setting, how would you render dialogue where characters talk about something where the most common word or term for it in real-life English is a genericized trademark? A story set in a different world than ours almost certainly won't contain the Kleenex company. A story set in...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Oct 10, 2026 9:38 am I do have to say, though, that "the traditions of the Zulu" in particular makes me think of some antiquated, Orientalistic view of things, as if "the Zulu" were some supposedly exotic, primitive group.

Indeed.

How, if at all, can you form the possessive of a group whose plural name is the same as the singular? Would you write about "the Zulu's traditions"? Or would you spell it in some different way? Or would you try to avoid the whole question by always rephrasing it as something like "th...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2026 9:00 am Ich glaube, dass Moose-tache "six" nur vertippt habe.

xxx est français, non allemand.

The fact that they are even trying suggests that they have good reason to expect that it will pass. Don’t underestimate the ability of humans to expend staggering amounts of time and effort in hopeless causes. Exactly. If you've ever seen an interview at a parliamentary election where the candidate...

A good exemplar would be Le Guin, who can bend time so easily as to look effortless. One paragraph details the nitty gritty of a singular action, and the next spans six months of its repercussions, perhaps among a whole group of characters, and then you're right back in media res for the next parag...

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2026 10:03 am The fact that they are even trying suggests that they have good reason to expect that it will pass.

Don’t underestimate the ability of humans to expend staggering amounts of time and effort in hopeless causes.

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2026 8:27 am But sometimes it's a good idea to follow style conventions.

You can choose which style convention you follow, you know…

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2026 8:20 am

"I should say 'sorry'," I replied.

does the punctuation sequence '," make sense?

American-style punctuation never has made sense to me in the first place. I always place the comma outside the quotation marks when it’s not part of the spoken clause.

I’m not North American, but I think for me the idiomatic term would be a café.