The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XLII
- Thread starter GinandTonic
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You just might be the only person in the world who's actually studied Gaelic as a language.
Depends on which language. It could be an alternate spelling for "Mary." There is an actress named Mare Winningham. Or it might be a misspelling for "mere" (sorry, but I don't like fussing around with my keyboard for the proper French accent marks), which means "mother". It could also be Latin for "sea" (lots of place-names on the Moon have "Mare" in them and they mean "Sea of ______" - nothing at all to do with horses!).By the way, is "Mare" an actual name people give to their female children? (saw it in some tv show).
Why? Does it mean anything other than a female horse?
One of the former mods has "Siobhan" as her first name; she told us that when mentioning that hardly anyone can figure out how to pronounce it. I don't think she actually studied the language formally, though.
Oh, so you're a figment of my imagination.
As are you.
sophie
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Deponent verb my dude
Yes, I considered such a possibility. Should be it
It is from an american show, set (apparently) in Pennsylvania, but certainly if this happens in Canada, it would be possible there too ("The Mare of Easttown").
Why are paperbacks nicely uniform in size, when hardbacks are all over the place? It makes my library look messy.
*looks around at paperbacks that come in a variety of sizes*
They are most certainly not uniform in size. Trade paperbacks, mass-market paperbacks, paperbacks published decades ago, paperbacks published in different countries and/or by different publishers are all different. Sometimes the difference is only a quarter-inch, but that's sometimes enough to completely mess up trying to put all the books in a series on the same shelf, if you bought them in different editions. Star Trek paperbacks from the '70s and early '80s are taller than modern Star Trek books, for instance, and won't fit properly on the lower shelves of the bookcases I bought for paperbacks.
Printing press specs play a big part. Many presses are limited in the size of the material they can produce.
Is it me, or does this make no sense at all:
One decimal place is less accurate that two decimal places, so how could this make any sense? I just cannot imagine what they are trying to say.
The chart below shows that the estimated Licence fee evasion rate rose from 5.20% in 2010/11 to a high of 7.25% in 2019/20.[15] The annual average evasion rate in 2019/20 was 6.95%.
Reference 15:
The BBC calculates the evasion rate to two decimal places in order to show some trend in the rate of evasion. It is not currently considered possible to improve the accuracy of the calculated figure to one decimal place as the input data requires a level of estimation.
One decimal place is less accurate that two decimal places, so how could this make any sense? I just cannot imagine what they are trying to say.
The article writer: how to tell people you are mathematically illiterate without using the phrase.
They probably meant that currently it is not possible (why, I don't know) to provide all the other decimal places. It's not like the population is an infinite group, and there wouldn't be so many either.
A different (likely more grounded, but less funny...) take:
Probably the "level of estimation" is about how many do use a tv (and thus should pay the licence), but then any decimal place accuracy is suspect. In light of that, I assume the article writer just means to say "since our stats are partly make-belief anyway, it would be even more prone to error if there was only one decimal place provided", in which case I agree, but also find it miserable
I also never got if the authorities actually can enter your house, without your permission. I did pay the tv fee the three years I was there, but certainly didn't appreciate the stupid and ominous tone of the letters promising swift vengeance if one isn't and they find out.
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Okay, I had a look at this and find myself mindcroggled. It's actually illegal in the UK to watch TV without a license?
That's crazy.
Here you need a license to drive or own a gun or operate a daycare in your home. You do not need to be licensed to watch TV. And what's with separate fees for color and black and white - does anyone even use black and white TVs anymore?
The BBC is funded by the license payer in a complicated dance that allows everyone to think the BBC is biased against them. The government also makes hay over this, despite being the main arbiters of the BBC's funding stream.
Your interpretation is pretty much correct. I used to be into it, as we got telly without adverts and we could at least pretend it was "independent". It is much more obviously a mouthpiece for the government these days, and there are so many more options for watching stuff without adverts that I am not so supportive of them.
The black and white thing is historical, aimed at giving the poor a much cheaper option. The number is collapsing though:
There were 6,586 black and white TV licences in force at the end of September 2019 - a fall of 575 compared to the same time last year. In 2000 this figure stood at 212,000.
How do they know what kind of TV people have - do the TV police conduct raids? What if you don't own a TV but watch everything online? Do you also need a computer license and a phone license?
Oh, I forgot other licenses we have here - hunting and fishing. Fishing licenses can actually be used as valid ID for voting.
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