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From today's AWAD mailing: [octopus (OK-tuh-pus) noun, plural octopuses or octopiOctopi?! And, where is the listing of octopodes? Perhaps Anu's alter ego (Jackie) could quiz him on this one for us. 
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Yes, I liked today's word as well.
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Q: How many would there be if there were two jazzoctopuses?
A: One too many.
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In reply to:
Q: How many would there be if there were two jazzoctopuses?
A: One too many.
Two?? = hexadecimalopus! Or hexadecimal opus, which means, um, work in base sixteen?
Shoot me, quick!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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I would shoot you quickly if only I could decide which of my many hands to use to pull the trigger.
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Q: How many would there be if there were two jazzoctopuses?
A: One too many.At least you didn't say two too many.
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Is octopus the onliest word's got three plurals?
Or
Is opera the other onliest word's got its own plural when it's already a plural?
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Sheep too
And I thought it was only the New Zealanders who brought "sheep" into every conversation.
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In reply to:
Sheep too
And I thought it was only the New Zealanders who brought "sheep" into every conversation.
Et ewe, Anna? I am sick and tired of people ramming sheep jokes down my throat at aevery opportunity, and I won't put tup with it any more - I refuse to have a baa of it. It's shear rudeness, wether you think so or not.
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Annastrophic wrote:
And I thought it was only the New Zealanders who brought "sheep" into every conversation
Ah well, New Zealand is a great place to live. 40 million sheep can't be wrong, can they? Trouble is, you get fleeced by everyone and have the wool pulled over your eyes at every opportunity. Along with bad puns. But it's all a bit of a dag ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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And I thought it was only the New Zealanders who brought "sheep" into every conversation.That's only because the Welsh don't talk about it.  mav, we're waiting!
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Is opera the other onliest word's got its own plural when it's already a plural?
Nope, trust me to note that fish is its own plural, but talking about fishes ain't restricted to kids.
One from a pool of FishesonBikes
P.S. Nice to meet you Faldage.
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Can the word HAIR be classified as it's own plural. You say HAIRS in some circumstances (eg. there were two hairs in my soup) and HAIR in others (he has a full head of hair).
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In reply to:
Is opera the other onliest word's got its own plural when it's already a plural?
Although I wouldn't have expressed the question in quite those words, I understood Faldage to be making a distinction between "got its own plural" and "is its own plural", i.e. that opera (works) is the plural of opus (a work), but opera is also used in the singular sense of a musical drama, for which the plural is, presumably, operas, as in "I have seen three operas this year." Interestingly enough, although explicit in their listing of the two senses of opera, the online dictionaries were strangely silent on the plural of "an opera". It appears that a Latin plural has become an Italian singular??
Agenda is a word that is a plural (of agendum), but is often pluralized itself to agendas. The latter smacks of misuse of Latin to me, but some dictionaries seem to have accepted it. dictionary.com tries to justify it like this: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=agendas
(I even found the repugnant "agendums"!)
Doubtless there are other similar -um/-a/-as examples.
And humble apologies, Faldage, if I have misrepresented you.
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In reply to:
Can the word HAIR be classified as it's own plural. You say HAIRS in some circumstances (eg. there were two hairs in my soup) and HAIR in others (he has a full head of hair).
Not really. English, thank goodness, doesn't bother with noun genders much, but the difference between countable nouns and uncountable nouns (aka mass nouns) is crucial. For example pig is countable (1 pig, 2 pigs), pork is uncountable (and so has no plural). Some nouns can be either depending on the exact meaning, e.g. paper (the substance) is uncountable, but paper (= document) is countable (She threw the papers into the air in despair). Similarly hair can mean an (uncountable) collection or mass (I ran my fingers through his hair absentmindedly) or a (countable) item (He found two blond hairs floating in the soup).
Bingley
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So whaddaya wanna do tonight?
And would sheep be an infinitely regressive plural?
Fish is the plural of a single species, e.g., three lake trout is three fish, fishes is used when the individual are of different species, e.g., a lake trout, a muskie and a rainbow trout would be three fishes. Naw, that doesn't taste right (thanks, xara, I like that phrase). Fishes is more generic. Lake trout, muskie and rainbow trout are three fishes
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Not just opera and agenda, but what about the current corruption: media used as a singular (and then, even worse, ofttimes developing a 'regular' plural: medias).
And what about the word people, which is, in general, a non-countable (yet plural) word, and can itself be pluralised: "the peoples of southern India tend to share a fondness for coconut milk as a cooking medium."
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Welcome, Faldage! Sorry belated--been an unwilling prisoner in the land of no connectivity again. Okay--if you've read much of this Board in older threads, you already know my mind wanders to the gutter pretty easily, so I have to ask: you said: So whaddaya wanna do tonight?
And would sheep be an infinitely regressive plural?Does the first statement lead into (ooh, Baaa-ad, Jackie!) the second?  Also--speaking of gutter: revealing yet more of my ignorance--I just found out from an article that that statement from an old post about lying in the gutter but looking up at the stars is on Oscar Wilde's statue.  Also--I am convinced that three different kinds of fish are still fish. -------------------------------------------------------- shanks, you put: "the peoples of southern India tend to share a fondness for coconut milk as a cooking medium."Have the media been informed of this?
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Be warned that I am a Fool and as such I am not required to explain my cryptic remarks, but since I am new here I will say that the whaddaya wanna comment and the infinitely regressive comment were not meant to be linked in any way.
I stand by my distinction between the plurals fish and fishes.
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I stand by my distinction between the plurals fish and fishes.
I can't confirm or deny, but this does make some sense if you compare it with "people" and "peoples".
But then . . . does "mooses" mean a group of different types of moose?
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Moose, the beast, is both plural and singular. Mousse, the foamy stuff you put in your hair, is also plural and singular. Perhaps it is just a matter of what sounds better since mousse is a relatively new invention.
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In reply to:
Moose, the beast, is both plural and singular. Mousse, the foamy stuff you put in your hair, is also plural and singular. Perhaps it is just a matter of what sounds better since mousse is a relatively new invention.
Not sure that I agree with your reasoning or choice of words there, bel. I think mousse is an example of an uncountable mass of substance that Bingley referred to. I would say 1 moose, 2 moose, but never 1 mousse, 2 mousse. On the other hand, I might say "I had two different mousses to choose from this morning" which is probably a lazy abbreviation for "two different kinds of mousse". Same applies to a lot of uncountable mass nouns - try substituting honey, jam, oil, wheat, sand,.. for mousse (in the sentence, bel, not your hair!)
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In reply to:
I might say "I had two different mousses to choose from this morning" which is probably a lazy abbreviation for "two different kinds of mousse". Same applies to a lot of uncountable mass nouns - try substituting honey, jam, oil, wheat, sand,.. for mousse (in the sentence, bel, not your hair!)
Don't put yourself down Marty, it's not a lazy abbreviation at all. It's just the way English works. Uncountable nouns, if their meaning allows it, can be made countable nouns with the meaning "different kinds of".
Beer of course could be substituted in the sentence and in your hair.
Bingley
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>Beer of course could be substituted in the sentence and in your hair.<
Waste of good beer!
(Of course, if you have any bad beer, do what you like with it...)
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the difference between countable nouns and uncountable nouns
So far so good, but I still don't see where fish and sheep fit in here. If I am not mistaken, you would rather say "fish were plentiful in the sea" than "..was..".
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you would rather say "fish were plentiful in the sea" than "..was..".
I think you could say both, wsieb.
"fish was plentiful in the area" treats "fish" as a general commodity.
Conversely - I don't know why - but "sheep was plentiful in the area" doesn't work at all.
Is it significant that you can say "I eat fish" but you wouldn't generally say "I eat sheep" ?
- As "lamb was plentiful in the area" sounds OK.
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you wouldn't generally say "I eat sheep" ....because you can say "I eat mutton" - and also: "mutton was plentiful.." Certainly the commodity aspect is more relevant here than the "uncountable" property.- But, Bingley, is this linguistics or something else ?
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If the plural of mouse is mice,
Is the plural of spouse spice?
wow
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>..because you can say "I eat mutton"
No, I cannot say that :) I like Lambrusco with some meat dishes, but will not partake of Mutton Rothschild.
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wow
You asked
If the plural of mouse is mice,
Is the plural of spouse spice?
According to Walt Kelly it was.
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In reply to:
you wouldn't generally say "I eat sheep" ..
But you might say, as did Handel, "we like sheep".
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Is the plural of spouse spice?
>According to Walt Kelly it was.
Was it him who said that "life is a variety of spice"?
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Excuse my ignorance but a) who was Handel and b) why did he like sheep 
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bel, you'll have to forgive them for flocking and going astray...
this from Handel's Messiah: "all we like sheep who have gone astray"
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La belle belMarduk asked, sheepishly, In reply to:
Excuse my ignorance but a) who was Handel and b) why did he like sheep
Handel was a German composer who lived in London for much of his life, inflicting an awful lot of (in my opinion) relatively mediocre music on the unsuspecting populace. This was in the late eighteenth century, and he would have gone down big (again in my opinion) with the punks had it been late last century.
He wrote a well-known piece of music called "The Messiah", another bunch called "Fireworks Music" (I may have the title slightly wrong), and he apparently spoke English with a similar accent to Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes.
All of this clearly explains why he liked sheep.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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This was in the late eighteenth century, and he would have gone down big (again in my opinion) with the punks had it been late last century. There were punks at the end of the 19th Century?
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This really follows the "plurals" thread...
Some years ago I became aware of words used as a plural OF an existing plural. The only one I recall is a KINE of cattle - defined as (more or less) "A collective noun for multiple HERDS of cattle".
Furthermore, "Kine" also ties in with another plural/collective noun pertinent to this discussion - "MOB" - the Australian word for FLOCK (of sheep). Specifically, there's a uniquely(?) Australian (Northern Territory in particular - THE outback!!) phrase, "Big mobs". This is typically used as the laconic reply to a question (such as, "Did you catch any fish?) that would be more correctly answered, "Yes, many". The way I see it, KINE = BIG MOBS.
I'm sure there are others - what does one say for more than one SWARM of bees for instance?
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In reply to:
you wouldn't generally say "I eat sheep" ..
..because you can say "I eat mutton" - and also: "mutton was plentiful.."
Certainly the commodity aspect is more relevant here than the "uncountable" property.- But, Bingley, is this linguistics or something else?
Now, class , you remember what I was saying about some words being both countable and uncountable depending on the meaning? For example Beer (meaning the beverage or shampoo (according to taste -- can't stand the stuff myself, even the smell of it makes me feel ill)) and Beer/Beers (meaning types thereof). If we are referring to the animal (fish, chicken, rabbit, etc.) the word is countable, if we are referring to the meat we get from the animal the word is uncountable. So we can say "Fish is expensive" meaning the meat, or "Fish are expensive" meaning the cyclists given away as prizes at funfairs. As a separate issue, in some words the singular and plural forms are the same. So we "Six sheep were grazing in the field", or "Six fish were cycling by".
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The words in Handel's Messiah are taken from the Bible and tell the story of the prophecy, birth, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. The sheep reference is from Isaiah 53:6 http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Isa/Isa053.html#topHandel's dates were 1685 to 1759, so early to mid eighteenth century rather than late eighteenth century. For more information see http://www.intr.net/bleissa/handel/home.html Bingley
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In reply to:
? For example Beer (meaning the beverage or shampoo (according to taste -- can't stand the stuff myself, even the smell of it makes me feel ill
This is at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer! Is your reaction specific to beer, or, like mine, to all alcohol?
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There were punks at the end of the 19th Century?
Nope. But there were at the end of last century ...
Bingley tells us that I had the wrong party of the right century, however. Sorry, I haven't studied music formally for, um, many years, and I was relying on my lamentably fallible memory. But I do know which century is which!
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This is at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer!
So do I, after too much of it. See my post on the different terms for chundering ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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But I do know which century is which!Wow - I knew Wellington was a hip and happening place, but this is amazing! Here in lil' ol' Hastings we is still in the 20th Century, least ways for another 25 days.
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There were punks at the end of the 19th Century?
Nope. But there were at the end of last century ...
'Scuse me--the last century was the nineteenth!!!!!!!
Grumble...almost as bad as Antartica...mumble...grouse...
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'Scuse me--the last century was the nineteenth!!!!!!!
Purzackerly! My chronologically corrupted compatriot Capital Kiwi is gettin' ahead of hisself, as how city slickers are wont to do.
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--the last century was the nineteenthI agree with this truth that will not last much longer - but the dispute about it will probably last well into the next century
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You are all nitpicking about something which has to be (and has been) settled by fiat, given the variables involved. I'm glad you aren't as pernickity about language ... what a place this would be if that were the case!
Thinking about cataclysms and their social consequences, has anyone read "The Great Wave" by David Hackett Fischer? (I know, I know, it's an economics book, but it's very readable and explains a lot of what is happening in the world in terms which even a paid-up member of the Cynic Circle like me can wear!)
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In reply to:
which has to be (and has been) settled by fiat
Issued (or driven) by whom, pray tell?
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by whom, pray tell?The new president of the United States, who else ?
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settled by fiat, given the variables involved.
Yeah, whose fiat? And, there aren't any "variables", other than time zone differences which will only be of significance in this matter from 12-31-00 to 01-01-01. (Hey! I never realized till just now that the first day of the 21st century will be written like that! Cool!)
There was not a year zero, C.K.
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>12-31-00 to 01-01-01
Unusually, we will agree on 01-01-01 (but not on 31-12-00)!
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There was not a year zero, C.K.[rant] Unfortunately, there was not a year 1 either. Or 2, or.... Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Short) literally invented the year 1, around the year 500! And he got it wrong, because the internal evidence from the New Testament (Herod Antipas and the slaying of the children), coupled with political records (death of Herod) show that Jesus, if born in the reign of Herod, must have been born by 4 'BC'. The notion, therefore, that there 'was no year zero' yet there was a year one, is inconsistent. Stephen Jay Gould has written a wonderful book about the millennium (title escapes me right now, and in any case, it might be different in the States), in which he points out that claiming the millennium for 1 January 2001 is no more logical or precise than celebrating it on 1 Jan 2000 (as I did). Pedants, in the 1800/1801 and 1900/1901 New Years', managed to dominate the press and government (having no wish to pander to the needs of hoi polloi) and generally won the argument in favour of year 1 in both cases (though 1900 v. 1901 was a close run thing). I believe that vox populi in the case of 'the millennium' has certainly proven vox dei and the new millennium began on the first of January 2000. Arthur C Clarke to the contrary, I am more than happy with that state of affairs. [/rant] Of course, even this New Year, I hope to party like it's 1999...
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You are " a paid-up member of the Cynic Circle"?
They have a branch of the White Dog Gym in NZ?
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And was it only our local "custom" to announce any events to happen at the end of the year 1999 as of "New Year's Eve 2000?" I was looking forward then to see what the phrase this year would be and - guess, what - it is "New Year's Eve 2000", too!
I might be making a terrible mistake here: we call NYE a "Sylwester" as Dec 31 is Sylwester's Name Day. Thus, it was actually "Sylwester 2000" last time and again, this year. Do you by chance celebrate "New Year's Eve NN" BEFORE the year NN?
Bound to spend his Sylwester 2000 at work (I know, I already mentioned but still it hurts),
Lukasz
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And was it only our local "custom" to announce any events to happen at the end of the year 1999 as of "New Year's Eve 2000?"
I suspect not. New Year's Eve being (teaching grandma to suck eggs) a conventional contraction referring to the 'evening before' any event (like All Hallow's Eve), it seems to fit. I haven't seen it being used for the entire period leading up to the New Year, though, only for the day before.
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now class (to use the invaluable phraseology introduced by Bingley), this whole argument about centuries and millennia is sooo easy to resolve if you reduce it to (and think about) decades. to wit, what are the dates of the decade known as the "nineties"? 1990 to 1999, or 1991 to 2000? now, what do you think the years of the 20th century are (were) 1900 to 1999, or 1901 to 2000? QED, the lack of the year zero (0) or not (or naught) not withstanding.
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In reply to:
Unfortunately, there was not a year 1 either. Or 2, or....
Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Short) literally invented the year 1, around the year 500!
The notion, therefore, that there 'was no year zero' yet there was a year one, is inconsistent.
Your rant reminded me of a very amusing two page as for Saudi Air I saw once - a photo of a 747 and the words, "We've been flying since 1345" While I may have the exact year wrong, I was impressed that the ad made no mention of the fact that date given was A.H. rather A.D. - a nice slap in the face for infidel Western pig-dogs and their cultural imperialism.
[counterrant]
On a more serious note, I found tsuwm's "decade" argument more compelling than yours. Any epochal dating system is arbitrary. A.H. is a good example of this. There was no year zero in the A.H. system either, but there was a year one. Taking as inevitable the artifice and arbitrary retrogression implicit in the creation of a starting point for a dating system, said system must still have a "year one." The alternative strikes me as similar to mandating the removal of the last carriage from all trains - if there is no year one, then there can be no year two, etc. I am quite happy to accept vox populi, vox dei, although you are as selective in accepting that as any of us. All of us here have points on which we say "the people have spoken", and other points on which we say "the people are wrong". I don't make a fuss about the millennium, except in jest. I do believe that there was a starting point to the dating system currently in use. It matters not when that start was, it matters only that there was a start. Without an accepted starting point, however arbitrary, the system is worthless. By Gould's argument, I could assert that, like Humpty Dumpty, the millennium means exactly what I want it to mean, nothing more, nothing less. You and he(Gould, that is, not Humpty) have accepted the dating system in use, therefore when you say that it is the year 2000, you are acknowledging that almost 2000 full years have passsed since the point chosen as the start of the epoch.[/counterrant]
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In reply to:
what are the dates of the decade known as the "nineties"? 1990 to 1999, or 1991 to 2000? now, what
do you think the years of the 20th century are (were) 1900 to 1999, or 1901 to 2000?
By this reasoning this should be the 20th century we just entered and 1999 was the last year of the 19th. ¿Qué no?
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>By this reasoning this should be the 20th century we just entered and 1999 was the last year of the 19th.
ah, but the 1st 'century' *was 01 to 99, wasn't it; or, to put it another way, there was no 0th century!
(as opposed to the decade of the "naughties" ;-)
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Ok, I'm going to solve this once and for all with the (in)famous Pifflic logic that you all know and love.
Let's say that I have a fish. I take this fish and cut it into 1000 pieces. Now, I'm going to give you one piece of this fish every year. Despite the fact that the fish has become intolerably rotten by this point, after I give you the 1000th piece of fish on the 1000th year, I have to begin a new fish.
Even if we start in the middle of the fish, we're saying that I would have given that first piece of fish in the first year. Before that year, the fish was still cycling around aimlessly, serving no purpose.
This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
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>Poster: Jazzoctopus
Subject: Re: Unweaving the Millennium
Ok, I'm going to solve this once and for all with the (in)famous Pifflic logic that you all know and love.
Let's say that I have a fish. I take this fish and cut it into 1000 pieces. Now, I'm going to give you one piece of this fish every year. Despite the fact that the fish has become intolerably rotten by this point, after I give you the 1000th piece of fish on the 1000th year, I have to begin a new fish.
Even if we start in the middle of the fish, we're saying that I would have given that first piece of fish in the first year. Before that year, the fish was still cycling around aimlessly, serving no purpose.
This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
Jazz:
This has really NOTHING to do with your post, with which I agree a hundred percent, but with Shona around, it does give a WHOLE new meaning to fin de siecle. I suspect I have misspelled that, but I don't have at hand my dictionary with foreign phrases in it.
TEd
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... wasn't supposed to be like this. What happened to the horsemen of the apolocalype, the devil's henchmen slaying everyone right left and centre? Fire, brimstone, saltpetre, blood, sickness and all that jazz? I didn't expect to get nibbled to death by ducks!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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In reply to:
You are the only person I have ever heard from who shares my physical aversion to beer! Is your reaction specific to beer, or, like mine, to all alcohol?
I started off just not liking beer, but with repeated exposure to the smell of it in pubs and bars I've found I react to the smell more and more, feeling queasier each time. I don't particularly like wine, but will drink it to be sociable, usually watering it down as I go to make one glass last the whole meal/evening. I'm quite fond of gin in very moderate quantities and like liqueurs and suchlike, but offer me the choice between a bar of chocolate and a bottle of alcohol in any form and I'll go for the chocolate every time.
Bingley
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>This year we are finishing the second fish, and next year, we will begin the 3rd fish.
So would we need to allocate a bicycle to each fish or each part of a fish. Would the nature of the bicycle change with age. Is there any significance in the colour of the bicycle?
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In reply to:
Any epochal dating system is arbitrary. A.H. is a good example of this. There was no year zero in the A.H. system either, but there was a year one. Taking as inevitable the artifice and arbitrary retrogression implicit in the creation of a starting point for a dating system, said system must still have a "year one." The alternative strikes me as similar to mandating the removal of the last carriage from all trains - if there is no year one, then there can be no year two, etc. I am quite happy to accept vox populi, vox dei, although you are as selective in accepting that as any of us. All of us here have points on which we say "the people have spoken", and other points on which we say "the people are wrong". I don't make a fuss about the millennium, except in jest. I do believe that there was a starting point to the dating system currently in use. It matters not when that start was, it matters only that there was a start.
Well, here's my
[reiterant]
If any dating system is arbitrary, and we therefore accept that we, post hoc, assign a 'start' date, then it seems obvious to me that there is no problem in decreeing a start with a zero in it. The year zero is simply the year before the year one. It isn't as if the Romans are going to complain that Julius Caesar has suddenly invaded Britian in 42BCE instead of 43BCE, or whatever. Most history books, in any case, cannot be that accurate about years going further back than 100BCE. It's a small enough change to avoid the aesthetic ugliness of ending a century a year after the the numbers themselves have ticked over.[/reiterant]
I suppose we could justify all these arguments here on the grounds that it is about using the language, but I suspect that might be a piece of sophistry...
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a WHOLE new meaning to fin de siecle. I suspect I have misspelled that..Yes, TEd - it should be fin de cycle of course. I don't know, I come back from a little swim to find that I no longer serve any purpose, other than to be cut into 1000 pieces to (somehow) help identify what year it is. It's nice to feel wanted.  Oh, did the Gregorian calendar result in a reallocation of fishy bits? Or did that just affect months?
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did the Gregorian calendar result in a reallocation of fishy bits?No, fisk - but I think the French revolutionary system tried to do this - under Bone-apart
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shanks sez: "I suppose we could justify all these arguments here on the grounds that it is about using the language, but I suspect that might be a piece of sophistry..."
Personally, I just like arguing about inconsequential nonsense, but then I am a Fool. If y'all hurry up and get it over with types had just waited a year instead of needing your BIG CELEBRATION OF THE MILLENNIUM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE then we could have had the ONE BIG ONE with out its being watered down by fears of the hundred's digit rollover (AKA Y2K) bug.
PS
I celebrate the New Year on the new moon before the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The largest cycle I recognize is the cycle that goes from one occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period to the next occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period.
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I celebrate the New Year on the new moon before the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The largest cycle I recognize is the cycle
that goes from one occurrence of the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period to the next occurrence of
the new moon and the vernal equinox during the same evening/day period.
yes, but if, for example, if said new moon fell on dec. 21 at 1.20am, would you celebrate on the 20th or the 21st? we had our wedding on the full moon in july. however our wedding date was not on the date that the calendar called the full moon. the full moon was exact at 1. something that night, you see, so technically the full moon fell on july 16, but if we'd been married that night, it would not have been the same night that the moon was actually full. (and there is no way anyone would have agreed to waiting until 1am to hold a wedding!)
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Whoa! We'll be hearing about leylines and dancing naked around ancient stone circles soon ... I look forward to it.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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dancing naked around ancient stone circles aah. This is why dear xara's not furnished the photographs so long promised
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xara asked: yes, but if, for example, if said new moon fell on dec. 21 at 1.20am, would you celebrate on the 20th or the 21st?
For religious purposes I reckon the day to start and end at sunset. The period from sunset to sunrise is the eve and the period from sunrise to sunset is the day. In xara's example the period of celebration (eve/day) would be from sunset the 21st to sunset the 22nd. Note that while the instant of equinox/solstice and the instant of new/full moon are the same throughout the world, the instant of sunset is very local. This means that the point at which the New Year starts sweeping across the Earth would change from year to year and not be fixed by arbitrary Greenwich based lines of longitude. Moreover, it would sweep across the Earth and not jump by time zones.
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>If y'all hurry up and get it over with types had just waited a year
Celebrating is one of my hobbies. I celebrate the opening of a door, if I get chance - if you are taking the orders - mine's a large one!
I have taken the precaution of hedging my bets (a little like my attitude to religion). I celebrated the dawn of 2000 in the "Old World" and will celebrate the dawn of 2001 in the "New World" and will have wine to match! This will give me an extra five hours in the Year 2000 and I will dedicate these five hours (spread over the whole year, you understand) to fine friends and fine wine. As many of my friends are female this could be construed as wine, women and song but I wouldn't say that. As I said, hedging my bets, I will call the whole period "my Millennium celebrations"!
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"my Millennium celebrations"
if you really want to hedge, just make it your "millennium celebrations"; the next 1000 could start right now.
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In reply to Shanks: A hit, a very palpable hit! Or, since brevity is the soul of wit, "D'Oh!" Whatever my vices, one thing of which I have never been accused is being a clear thinker. I shall remain in the 20th Century, while cheerfully conceding to those more advanced souls already in the 21st. 
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friends are female...Thought that made it whine, women and so long...
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I think if you check a Latin dictionary (and do check; I can't vouch for my memory), you'll find 'opera' is a feminine singular as well as the more familiar neuter plural. Meaning much the same, IIRC.
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'opera' is a feminine singular A fine contralto, to be sure (and welcome to the board NicholasW)
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enthusiast
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In reply to:
I think if you check a Latin dictionary (and do check; I can't vouch for my memory), you'll find 'opera' is a feminine singular as well as the more familiar neuter plural. Meaning much the same, IIRC.
How right you are, Nicholas. Thanks for that.
opera, ae, f. [opus], service, pains, exertion, work, labor (opus is used mostly of the mechanical activity of work, as that of animals, slaves, and soldiers; opera supposes a free will and desire to serve).
opus, eris, n. [Sanscr. ap-as, work; whence apuas, gain; v. ops; cf. also Germ. üben]. A. In gen., work, labor (cf.: labor, ars, opera) B...
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