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Another curious headline
June 14, 2017, 04:52
GeoffAnother curious headline
Canadian Arctic climate change study cancelled due to climate change
June 14, 2017, 06:24
<Proofreader>Trump caled the mayor of a vanishing island in Chesapeake Bay after a CNN story. He told the mayor that the island had been there for thousands of years and he predicted it would be there or hundreds of more years. This despite warnings that the island will vanish very soon. It has already lost 70% if its land mass.
June 14, 2017, 13:35
sattvaOne of the headlines above is bizarre, and the other one, crazy. You get to decide which is which!
June 15, 2017, 19:50
KallehDon't you wonder, in 50 years, what people are going to say about this time period on earth?
June 15, 2017, 20:39
BobHalePeople? In fifty years? I admire your optimism.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
June 29, 2017, 12:17
GeoffHere's why those bloated station wagons (estate cars to you Brits) look the was they do! This headline from ABC News: Pregnant SUV driver arrested
So, those Ess Ewe Vees are pregnant? Ya suppose collisions are actually copulations?
July 01, 2017, 15:03
GeoffFrom Reuters: Prolonged breastfeeding ups risk of severe dental caries
Damn, that sucks.
July 02, 2017, 18:19
<Proofreader>quote:
Prolonged breastfeeding ups risk of severe dental caries
And Louis Armstrong lips.
July 06, 2017, 10:59
GeoffOne of Yahoo's spam headlines states, "Itching this part of your body is a sign of Alzheimer's"
It seems to me that saying "itching" instead of "scratching" is a sign that Alzheimer's won't matter to you.
July 08, 2017, 08:08
BobHaleA sub headline...
Am I the only one who finds this a slightly odd thing to say.
In an article about a man assaulting his father with a golf club and causing serious injuries, including a punctured lung the sub headline read
"Michael Sargent was found hiding in a coal shed where the golf club - believed to be a three wood - was found."
It's the focus on which club that seems out of place.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
July 08, 2017, 11:57
<Proofreader>It does seem to diminish the seriousness of the event. And is the writer sug that a putter or a iron would be more appropriate?
July 08, 2017, 19:27
KallehBob, you are not the only one to find that odd. It's downright weird that they wrote that.
quote:
"Itching this part of your body is a sign of Alzheimer's"
Now I'm dying to know what part of the body!
September 02, 2017, 04:55
GeoffFound in some business journal:
Human-like creatures may have roamed Crete nearly 6 mn years ago Now they're in Washington, DC
September 02, 2017, 11:35
<Proofreader>quote:
"Itching this part of your body is
How does one "itch their bofy"? I assume an itch is involuntary and can't be deliberately instituted.
- even by such patients.
September 02, 2017, 12:18
goofyI suspect that
itch to mean "scratch" is some sort of dialectal usage,
some examplesSeptember 02, 2017, 21:35
KallehSpeaking of itch and scratch, when Ken and I were in Carbondale, we went to this excellent local brewery called
Scratch. Guess what their wireless password was? I know; you'd all get it: itch.
Shu cracked up!
September 06, 2017, 13:36
<Proofreader>The imprecision re
itch/scratch made me consider the term
flash flood. Today local talking heads warned that heavy rain here could produce flash floods. Flloded ares is a distinct possibility but I associate the term more with arid deserts where iy's dry ne minute and inundated with swift-moving water the next. In my entire life here I have only seen low-lying areas fill because water won't run off but never anything "flash." Chalk it up to hyperbole?
September 06, 2017, 17:29
BobHaleI was sitting near the window in a small bar in Lanzhou about two months ago. The evening was dull and overcast but not raining.
Then it was raining - hard enough that we couldn't see the cars parked outside.
Thirty minutes later it wasn't raining.
We left to walk back to the hotel and what should have taken about ten minutes took about an hour because many of the streets were under several feet of water. All of the subways were completely impassible.
That was in thirty minutes.
A month later I was in Yangshuo. It had been raining a little all day but there was no sign of flooding when I went to bed. When I got up the entire town, an area of about 3o square km was under between one and three metres of water. The new underground section of the shopping mall was filled with water.
Flash flood? No hyperbole necessary.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
September 06, 2017, 19:09
<Proofreader> are classic examples of "flash" floods. Most city flooding isn't of this incredibly rapid scenario. It is much more gradual, allowing people to escape (athough mot easily at times).
September 06, 2017, 19:13
KallehSo a flash flood starts and stops quickly, leaving a lot of water? I've wondered about the term "flash flood," too.
Speaking of which, hurricane season has really been going wild in the U.S. and Caribbean recently.
September 07, 2017, 11:52
<Proofreader>My thought for the day:
Insurance premiums never go down until they cancel you.
September 07, 2017, 17:34
goofyquote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
The imprecision re itch/scratch
Does this imprecision exist?
Here are some examples of transitive "itch" from the OED:
quote:
1756 P. Browne Civil & Nat. Hist. Jamaica ii. ii. 336 The plant is..well known on account of its sharp itching hairs.
1951 R. Campbell Light on Dark Horse vi. 99 The thick super-salty water of the Mediterranean, which tires and itches the naked eye.
1951 L. MacNeice tr. Goethe Faust ii. i. 171 The dice already itch me in my pocket.
1954 S. Beckett Waiting for Godot ii. 46 Then I can keep it [sc. a hat]. Mine irked me... How shall I say?..It itched me.
1973 Welcomat (Philadelphia) 10 Oct. 4/2 The sticker that itches her most is the one that says: ‘School's Open. Drive Carefully.’
When it is used transitively with an impersonal subject it means "cause to itch" or some figurative extension.
"Itch" meaning "scratch" seems to be only used with a personal subject, as in wiktionary's examples:
quote:
2002, M D Huddleston, Missing Paige:
"What makes you suspect him?" Max asked as he itched his neck.
2002 January 4, "Cyd" (username), Itching, in alt.support.mult-sclerosis, Usenet:
I have to take both shoes and socks off! If I go bare foot I'm ok! I also get itching on my r/palm of my hand. I itch it so much that it's raw!
2003 November 21, "Jim Patterson" (username), Behavior Therapy for Itchy Clothes?, in alt.support.ocd, Usenet:
Basically I go through a half hour of trying to figure out of it is an fake OCD itch or a regular itch before I itch it (if I determine it's a "fake" itch, then I try not to itch it).
2003, Ray Emerson, The Riddle of Cthulhu:
Ulysses thumped his side and itched his back side, then slipped into his car.
2004, Philip Smucker, Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail:
But when we asked more about the famous man whose specter still commanded the heights, the guard just sneered at me, pointed his gun back toward the road with one hand, and itched his chin with the other.
I don't think that any of these could be confused with causative "itch".
Is "itch" ever used transitively with an impersonal subject to mean "scratch", where it could be confused with the causative meaning? I searched
some corpora and couldn't find anything. In fact I couldn't find it used transitively except with a personal subject where it clearly means "scratch":
quote:
As I type this with two hands, lean over to grab the phone and take a sip of tea, I'm acutely aware of the normally unthinking movements behind each action. I've just itched my eyelid. And twiddled the ring on my finger.
Ali exaggeratedly wiped away the sweat on his upper lip. " It'll be nice to cool off in the water. " She itched her head. " I'm not hot. "
September 08, 2017, 06:23
<Proofreader>I wonder if those aren't incorrect uses of the term since I couldn't find a dic or thesaurus that recognizes that usage.
Here is a typical thesaurus etry.
September 08, 2017, 08:26
goofyIt's certainly nonstandard. I'm just not sure that it is ambiguous.
September 08, 2017, 12:13
<Proofreader>You can "scratch an itch" nut it's hard to "itch a scratch."
September 09, 2017, 15:10
tinmanquote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
I wonder if those aren't incorrect uses of the term since I couldn't find a dic or thesaurus that recognizes that usage.
Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.:
3. (Informal) scratch
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
2. To scratch (an itch).
The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus:
definition 4: (informal) to scratch something that itches.
September 09, 2017, 21:30
KallehInteresting, Tinman. I've heard
itch used that way a lot, but I've thought it was used wrong.
September 13, 2017, 08:40
<Proofreader>Why we need apostrophes:
Marriott rescue ship after Irma left non-guests on the dock
Headline on news story about a ferry that left stranded people because they weren't guests at a Marriott resort destroyed by Irma.
September 13, 2017, 10:25
goofyquote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
Why we need apostrophes:
Marriott rescue ship after Irma left non-guests on the dock
Where is the apostrophe supposed to go?
September 13, 2017, 12:13
<Proofreader>I'm too late to correct the post. I just realized I should have said commas and Goofy got there ahead of me..
September 13, 2017, 14:14
goofyWhere is the comma supposed to go?
September 13, 2017, 14:54
<Proofreader>...ship, after Irma, left...
September 13, 2017, 15:59
goofySeptember 13, 2017, 22:14
KallehI had to look up crash blossom and found
this.September 19, 2017, 19:05
KallehMy brother is working in London. Here is a
sign he saw:
Gents Disabled
& Baby Change >
September 20, 2017, 04:17
goofyIf taken literally, it can't mean a place where gents are disabled and babies are changed. Such a sign would be:
Gents disabled
& babies changed
September 20, 2017, 19:33
tinmanThe sign is in all caps:
GENTS DISABLED
& BABY CHANGE
September 22, 2017, 21:11
KallehYes, sorry, I copied it wrong.
September 24, 2017, 15:50
tinmanNo, Kalleh, that remark was not meant for you. It was directed at goofy's response. He appears not to have clicked on your link.
October 03, 2017, 13:35
<Proofreader>Here'a odd phraseology:
Newlyweds born just hours apart at Taunton hospital
How did they schedule nuptials from Neonatal?
October 03, 2017, 17:08
bethree5quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
Speaking of itch and scratch, when Ken and I were in Carbondale, we went to this excellent local brewery called
Scratch. Guess what their wireless password was? I know; you'd all get it: itch.
Shu cracked up!
Sadly I could not get this link to load, Kalleh. If by any chance you meant Carbondale PA, I would gladly have driven up to meet you & Shufitz IRL at last! Our family made many a trip NW from our digs in NJ to my family in Ithaca, NY, & a few times Rte 80 was so bolluxed up that we went wandering, discovering Milford & Honesdale & Carbondale-- as well as the rural beauty of Sussex Cty NJ-- before getting back on track on Rte 81N...
October 03, 2017, 17:20
bethree5quote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
The imprecision re itch/scratch made me consider the term flash flood... In my entire life here I have only seen low-lying areas fill because water won't run off but never anything "flash." Chalk it up to hyperbole?
context is all. Around here (NJ suburb in metro-NYC area), water runs off of everything-- because everything is & continues to be overbuilt: every new house built creates more overflow runoff. So "flash floods" to us means, if you're driving to work, you're going to suddenly w/little warning lose both exteme right & left lanes, & danger of hydroplaning in middle lane; if you're at home, better make sure sump pump[s] are in working order...
October 03, 2017, 17:25
bethree5quote:
Originally posted by BobHale:
..We left to walk back to the hotel and what should have taken about ten minutes took about an hour because many of the streets were under several feet of water. All of the subways were completely impassible... When I got up the entire town, an area of about 3o square km was under between one and three metres of water. The new underground section of the shopping mall was filled with wate.
Bob, is that about overbuilding in flood areas?
October 03, 2017, 17:46
bethree5Goofy, I know you are a descriptivist not a prescriptivist, & I take your meaning from these cites that 'itch' & 'scratch' have long been interchanged in historical usage. And surely, they are roughly interchangeable. But my interest is literary as opposed to common usage: I enjoy that distinction between the [latent] titillating urge to scratch vs the [manifest] response [scratching], & I admire literary authors who exercise the precision to distinguish between the two. It's a nuance.
October 03, 2017, 17:54
bethree5quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
Interesting, Tinman. I've heard itch used that way a lot, but I've thought it was used wrong.
. But note that in these 3 cites, 'scratch' (as a synonym for 'itch') is listed as 'informal' for 2, & as the 3rd [last] synonym in the other. That's tantamount to calling it an imprecise usage.
October 04, 2017, 09:58
GeoffI'm now puzzled: Did Japanese movie maker Kon Ichikawa ever get his kawa scratched?
BTW, if you've never seen his "Tokyo Olympiad," you've missed the best sports documentary ever!
October 06, 2017, 05:58
<Proofreader>Not so much a headline as an oddity:
The head of the New Orleans agency in charge of controlling floodwaters is
Paul Rainwater.October 06, 2017, 06:31
GeoffIndianapolis TV station WTTV has a meteorologist named Brittany Rainey. Peut-etre il pleut beaucoup en Bretaigne?
October 06, 2017, 17:42
GeoffAnnnnd, speaking of funny names, one of the funders of the PBS News Hour is Consuelo Duroc-Danner. Not funny unless you speak Russian. "Duroc" means "idiot."
October 09, 2017, 05:43
<Proofreader>I just came across this:
Most people have a driver’s license or other state-issued ID for various reasons (e.g. to drive or, as above, to help get oneself a job). But for one Hawaiian lady, one ID wasn’t enough — she needed two. That’s because her name — Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele — features a 35-character surname, which was too long for the state’s drivers license to handle. As People explained, “the driver’s license, which does not include her first or middle name, has caused her travel problems, including being questioned by police at a traffic stop.” Ms. K also carried around a state ID, just in case, until the state changed the rules in late 2013, allowing for last names of up to 40 characters to appear on driver’s licenses.