palordrolap

IIRC Thatcher claimed to sleep for four hours, and she only did that because she thought it was necessary to be able to do the job properly. The job of, you know, running a country.

Sleeping for two, and then expecting a regular salaryman / career woman to get on the same level and then do that for a lifetime is an entirely new level of ludicrous.

I recently (re?)learned that “you” was the plural form and only became a formal form under the influence of French.

Basically, “you” was “ye”/“y’all”/“youse”/“yins” before any of those existed, and the others only came into existence when “you” became formal and stopped filling that niche.

And some dialects, including some very populous ones like standard British English, still don’t have a plural “you” as a result of that change of usage. The subsequent shift to being generic only cemented the problem.

“You” regains its plurality in things like “all of you”, “you all”, “you lot” (not really for the politest of company) and “you <number>” (e.g. “You four, go sit over there”) for a group of people, but on its own it’s ambiguous.

To qualify for a state pension, you have to have paid a certain amount to the tax office over the course of a lifetime. As someone whose mental state isn’t up to being employed and hasn’t been for quite a while, I’m certain to have a shortfall in that regard, so I’d probably deliberately give it to the taxman so that I might be better looked after in 20-25 years.

Lots of ifs, ands, buts and maybes have been missed out here, but in my case it might well be the best use of the money.

“sixpence ha’penny” would also be acceptable, if not preferable.

Source: My parents also remember pre-decimal money and I’ve heard plenty of tales.

One good story is how, on decimal day, a lot of prices went up to 240% of the original because shopkeepers simply changed the d to a p on their price labels. One old penny was 1/240 of a pound and a new penny was 1/100.

Don’t complain people have stopped loving you when you’re the one who built a wall around your heart.

They don’t need a third Trump term. There are other ways to keep him in the White House that don’t mean changing the Constitution, so you’re probably right about that.

If they decide to at least pretend to be legitimate and go through the motions, they’re almost certain to nominate Vance as their candidate. Trump nominated as VP would be a declaration of intent, but not proof of the same.

What happens after that comes down to the result of the next election and where loyalties lie within the Republican party.

If the Democrats somehow win next time, there’s a good chance the Republicans will declare a state of emergency to remain in power. Trump would almost certainly remain president during that emergency, and they could spin that out indefinitely.

If the Republicans win, it will come down to how many people in the Republican party are behind Vance and want rid of Trump.

I used to have one right in the middle of my bald spot. I couldn’t see it even with a clever arrangement of mirrors, but I could feel it. I think it must have been fair because it didn’t stand out even amongst the apparent lack of hair*, but the root would sometimes feel like it was digging through my scalp.

Some days I’d spend longer than I’d like to mention trying to grab it blind with tweezers. On and off for years. Often got other fine hairs, but not that one.

One day I finally got it. It didn’t look remarkable at all, at least not that I remember, but the feeling when it came out was something special.

Never been bothered by it since, so either I killed the root or set it right.

* If you get real close, it’s actually kind of fuzzy, but for most intents and purposes there’s nothing there.

Fun fact: The closest English equivalent might be “Roderick”.

But names have a funny habit of doing that. Nothing for decades, then it becomes a fashion and everyone and their pets have the same name, and then back to obscurity again. Rinse and repeat.

Facial expressions say everything.

“This is my powerful friend who I am just like and we both rule large landmasses and he will help me with my special military exercises.”

“There’s a good chance I’ll get my hands on Taiwan if I keep pretending to be friends with this clown.”

On the one hand, the PDF editing feature could be useful, but on the other, it’s a sign of yet more feature creep and I don’t know whether I’m justified in feeling concerned about it.

Well, it worked with Crimea…

Possible does not mean probable, so yes, it’s possible, but don’t hold your breath.

Same. I’m not a John Smith* but my name is generic enough that it, or something sufficiently like it, has turned up in a number of places, sometimes to my detriment.

Back when I had Facebook (and more people had accounts that would turn up on search), I’d occasionally search my name and find quite a few people with the same across the world… and then freak out a bit because my name’s mine, what are all these people doing with my name?

Regular web searches have similar results.

On the bright side(?), if someone comes looking for me, they’re way more likely to find the others first, so it might well be in my interests to never change my name, even if I got the urge to do it.

* or am I?

Oh! This must be the guy who was called out on that exact thing and it gave him serious pause before he was able to jump-start the bullsh-tting part of his brain.

Reminds me of the advice to replace “economy” with “rich people’s yacht fund” to compare and contrast when reading or hearing financial opinions, especially from politicians.

Edit: This response is not showing up where I want it to. I can’t tell whether my stupidity is preventing me from replying in the right place or this interface is suddenly acting screwy. @orioler25@lemmy.world

Perhaps I should reword one of my previous comments:

Me: The Earth is flat.

Them (You): Several paragraphs patiently explaining that it’s round.

Me: …

Sensible things look a lot like lies when you’re stood on your head.

Perhaps I should reword one of my previous comments:

Me: The Earth is flat.

Them: Several paragraphs patiently explaining that it’s round.

Me: …

Sensible things look a lot like lies when you’re stood on your head.

Apparently I’ve misunderstood the word liberal every time it’s been used across my life in the same way that people think that “epitome” is pronounced “ep-i-toam” because they’ve only ever read it.

When I looked up liberal, one of the places I looked was https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal but I did not click through to liberalism, which might have taught me a thing or two.

But please note the bit at the bottom of the link where the meaning has recently split into meaning “leftist” which is a lot closer to what I thought it meant… so apparently it hasn’t been just me getting it wrong, but a significant portion of the English-speaking world.

Me: The Earth is round.

Them: Several seemingly legitimate paragraphs, patiently explaining that it’s flat.

Me: …

Someone else brought up the term “neoliberal” and I might have gone along with that. A prefix can do a lot of heavy lifting in allowing the rest of a word to mean something else entirely, even opposing the original meaning.

What I’m gathering is that economists have redefined the original word, and what I think of as liberal, they call progressive.

If what you’re saying is true, it doesn’t explain why the greatest increase in capitalism has historically occurred under governments that were not liberal (by the dictionary definition. Or my simplistic one.)

Unless, that is, that what you’re saying is that all the pro-capitalist governments were liberal by your definition (or some redefinition to which you and certain others believe is, or should be, correct). That, I think, is a ridiculous way to go about things, and smacks of trying to steal the word or besmirch people who would otherwise use that word to describe themselves.

In short, I think you’re being disingenuous.