Things you should know by now, but only just discovered

Haakon7 wrote:

Primarily due to avian genitalia horror, this thread is pure gold.

Fixed that for you.

I'm so angry I don't have a banana in the house right now. I almost went to the grocery just to buy one.

If you go into Google and type in a word followed by "pronunciation", turns out a lot of dictionaries now have online sound files that pronounce the word so you can hear it.

For example, "yggdrasil pronunciation" returns this.

I was just looking for the printed version out of the dictionary, but this is pure gold.

momgamer wrote:

For example, "yggdrasil pronunciation" returns this.

Serious question - how should that be pronounced? It's one of those words I've only ever read (and maybe heard in Too Human, for my sins). I've always mentally pronounced it "YAGG-dra-sill", and it's only just now that I realised how absurd a pronunciation that is.

I've pronounced it YIG - DRAY - ZIL

Actually, it's more IG-drah-sill.

Click on the red link, and someone will read it for you. That was the point of my post!

That link is correct for the English pronunciation. "IG-druh-sill" (schwa in the middle there). "IG-drah-seel" (ah as in father in the middle there, and a shorter duration "ee" sound instead of the "ih" sound) would probably be more correct.

Hypatian wrote:

That link is correct for the English pronunciation. "IG-druh-sill" (schwa in the middle there). "IG-drah-seel" (ah as in father in the middle there, and a shorter duration "ee" sound instead of the "ih" sound) would probably be more correct.

That's just about how you'd pronounce it in Norwegian.

I'll go with you on that. My only knowledge of Norwegian is what dishes to avoid at Christmas Dinner.

I don't know if you should trust Hyetal when it comes to Norwegian matters. He barely counts as Norwegian. Ask him when the last time he's pillaged a village was. You'll be shocked by his answer.

momgamer wrote:

I'll go with you on that. My only knowledge of Norwegian is what dishes to avoid at Christmas Dinner. ;)

Fun fact. Every year around Christmas time (i.e. most of December) one of the lines in the cafeteria at my very Norwegian college would serve lutefisk. That smell just kills your appetite.

Did none of you watch Captain America?

momgamer wrote:

I'll go with you on that. My only knowledge of Norwegian is what dishes to avoid at Christmas Dinner. ;)

I hear that, some of us are too weird. Though my house sees this every year for a main course.

It's my favorite thing about Christmas.

Alright, Wembley, you know what?

Screw you.

Yeah, lutefisk is one of those things to avoid. Julekaka is okay, but makes the most awesome toast the next morning so I prefer to save it for that.

Take ALL the lefsa, though.

Hyetal wrote:

Alright, Wembley, you know what?

Screw you.

Better. But I'd hardly call this a proper berserker rage.

Wembley wrote:
Hyetal wrote:

Alright, Wembley, you know what?

Screw you.

Better. But I'd hardly call this a proper berserker rage. ;-)

It's so awesome that I can envision Wembley's avatar saying these things.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I also found out some info on commas and periods inside of quotes recently. I always learned it the American way, which is keep the periods and commas inside the quote regardless of logic. I guess internationally, logic is used. The reason for it is this:

GrammarTips wrote:

And just why, you may ask, do they belong there? Well, it seems to be the result of historical accident. When type was handset, a period or comma outside of quotation marks at the end of a sentence tended to get knocked out of position, so the printers tucked the little devils inside the quotation marks to keep them safe and out of trouble. But apparently only American printers were more attached to convenience than logic, since British printers continued to risk the misalignment of their periods and commas.

I can't remember if I learned about it on GWJ or not.

That makes me kind of mad. I always thought it was stupid. Now that I know there was a dumb reason for it, I hate it even more.

Well punctuation is there to provide clarity so you are free to adopt whichever rules you think best aids the meaning and readability of your work. Unless you're writing to a specific style guide is doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent and you don't depart to wildly from standard conventions.

With regards the one-space or two after a period, my understanding is that it is bit of an artefact due to the switch from handset typing the the use of typewriters. Typically with handset type you'd leave a larger space after the period at the end of sentence than you would between words, say 0.8em after the period rather than the 0.5em used between words. This aids reading clarity as sentences are delineated a bit more clearly. With the arrival of the typewriter, which can only print spaces of one size, people started using double spaces to emulate the previous type setting conventions. But by the time we get to current desktop publishing and word processors they tend to handle any spacing differences for you which means that you only need a single space, then the computer will respace as per the font's requirements. Plus with modern printing there is a general trend to tighter text with less spacing.
Not unsurprisingly there is an entire wikipedia article about the history of this stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

...isn't a pound 454g, not 456g? (Though I am amused at the idea of being somewhere with no weight measuring devices, but precise volume measuring devices and an unlimited supply of both water and something to hold it. :grin:)

I feel like this guy's got a thing about hangers... He also says to put your necklace through the base of a hanger, clearly that's a bendy straw.

Edited to replace "hangar" with "hanger". I'd like to see someone put their necklace through a hangar though...

Schrensky wrote:

I feel like this guy's got a thing about hangers...

Yeah, he's got a real hang up about them.

Spoiler:

I'll show myself out.

If you're in a bad mood, re-read this thread.
After every post, press here.

I was in tears before I finished the 1st page.

Awesome Hobbes2099. I too am laughing.

Edwin wrote:

Soup can trick.

That guy is super Canadian.

I could have figured that out if I ever tried to eat soup... it's just like shotgunning beer.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Soup can trick.

That guy is souper Canadian.

FTFY

Now I don't want to eat Campbell's tomato soup. That looked revolting!

spider_j wrote:

Now I don't want to eat Campbell's tomato soup. That looked revolting!

Really? To me it just looked room temperature.

I could have sworn that stuff was on the floor until he moved the camera.