TIL: Today I Learned

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"Star Wars audition" is a non-gerund.
"Chantix is best chance of smoking cessation"
"Champions League is Chelsea's best chance of success"
"All Six Pillars of Success provide unique and important contributions in accommodating the desired success. Although each contribution is individually vital, it is really the combined effect that adds up to the best chance of generating the wisdom necessary" -> "Six pillars are best chance of generating necessary wisdom"
"Risk is your only chance of really living"
"Trade union registers are our only chance to have a national level representative sample"
"Christ is your only chance at Salvation"
"Space is our only chance of survival"
"This New York City Hospital May be his Only Chance for Survival"
But I feared [this relationship] would be my one and only chance to have a child"
via metonymy-> "he would by my one and only chance to have a child"
"A heart transplant was his only chance of survival"

All of these examples use substantives (a mix of concrete and abstract nouns) absent verbal/gerund constructions. Now, you might say, "there is an implied verb/gerund in each of these!" But there are also implied gerunds in MW's constructions: "[Staying on] Earth is our only chance at survival" and "[Studying from] the notebook is my best chance at passing the test"
 
Owen Glyndwr said:
All of these examples use substantives (a mix of concrete and abstract nouns)
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Since I said "physical object," could we stay focused on the ones that are physical objects?

Owen Glyndwr said:
"Star Wars audition" is a non-gerund.
"Chantix is best chance of smoking cessation"
"Champions League is Chelsea's best chance of success"
"All Six Pillars of Success provide unique and important contributions in accommodating the desired success. Although each contribution is individually vital, it is really the combined effect that adds up to the best chance of generating the wisdom necessary" -> "Six pillars are best chance of generating necessary wisdom"
"Risk is your only chance of really living"
"Trade union registers are our only chance to have a national level representative sample"
"Christ is your only chance at Salvation"
"Space is our only chance of survival"
"This New York City Hospital May be his Only Chance for Survival"
But I feared [this relationship] would be my one and only chance to have a child"
via metonymy-> "he would by my one and only chance to have a child"
"A heart transplant was his only chance of survival"
Click to expand...

It is the nature of a chance to arise. It is the nature of a physical object to just sit there continuing to be the physical object that it was. When those provide you your chance, say "provide" not "is."

Space is a special case, I think.
 
I'll stop. You're right. This has grown past the TIL thread topic.
 
Gori the Grey said:
Since I said "physical object," could we stay focused on the ones that are physical objects?



It is the nature of a chance to arise. It is the nature of a physical object to just sit there continuing to be the physical object that it was. When those provide you your chance, say "provide" not "is."

Space is a special case, I think.
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You're creating an distinction that, I think, has no basis in reality. Christ (at least to a Christian) is a physical object. Chantix is a physical object, a heart is a physical object (as in "his heart was my only chance to survive"), a hospital is a physical object.

To be honest I don't really see the difference between "Champions League is Chelsea's only chance" and "Earth is our only chance". There is nothing about Champions League qua a noun that effects a change, it is, rather, the winning of the Champions League that brings the success. In the same way, as you say, there is nothing about the Earth that brings about the salvation, but rather in the preservation of Earth. And on that same note, it is not in Christ qua a person which provides salvation, but rather you believing in Christ. So I would say that, while on the one hand you are correct that the chance is an opportunity provided by a change of state, the discounting of the three examples MW provided - Earth, notebook, flamethrower - is actually not valid, because the three nouns exist as metonymy for the a larger change of state, just as do all the other examples which have been provided. It is not the audition, but the gaining a part through a successful audition that bestows the fame; it is not the hospital qua a hospital, but visiting the hospital and receiving treatment that survival is accomplished, it is not the flamethrower, but the using the flamethrower to keep the zombies at bay, etc.

Actually, on that note, even within the bounds of your distinction, Mouthwash's statement works. Mouthwash is saying that it is in the preservation of Earth that humanity's last chance of survival rests. Therefore, the very state of Earth being constitutes survival - [the very fact of] Earth is humanity's last chance. A change in the state of Earth, or an event which constitutes the same, represents the end of that chance.
 
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Moderator Action: Yes. Please start a language thread rather than derail the TIL thread. Thanks. :)
 
Lemon Merchant said:
Moderator Action: Yes. Please start a language thread rather than derail the TIL thread. Thanks. :)
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I was waiting for you or Arakhor to split off the discussion, but now that the deed is done, can you please at least merge the Earth-chance discussion with the language thread?
 
Benford's law

Benford's law, also called Newcomb-Benford's law and first-digit law, is an observation about the frequency distribution of leading digits in many real-life sets of numerical data. The law states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading significant digit is likely to be small.[1] For example, in sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the most significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears as the most significant digit less than 5% of the time. By contrast, if the digits were distributed uniformly, they would each occur about 11.1% of the time.[2] Benford's law also makes predictions about the distribution of second digits, third digits, digit combinations, and so on.
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EOGwYfu.png
 
And that is why Sonic is so awesome.
 
"Mr. Needlemouse".
Maybe it sounded less stupid in the original Japanese, but Japanese game devs can be pretty bad with names. Sonic was a pretty good one.
 
It's yet another instance of decorative English.
 
GoodSarmatian said:
"Mr. Needlemouse".
Maybe it sounded less stupid in the original Japanese, but Japanese game devs can be pretty bad with names. Sonic was a pretty good one.
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I imagine it's mostly down to translation. It's like if a German company designed the Tootsie Pop commercial, and wikipedia reported the characters Mr. Fox, Mr. Turtle, and Mr. Owl in that commercial as originally being named: "Mr. Thick Hair", "Mr. Shield Lizard", and "Mr. Hoot Hoot"
 
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Yes. But what's that mouse doing with a needle?

Could be very dangerous, both to the mouse and casual bystanders.
 
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