Kevin's Watch

Totally correct, V. That is, unless the books were an Arabic or Hebrew translation of Le Guide Culinaire...

TheFallen wrote:Totally correct, V. That is, unless the books were an Arabic or Hebrew translation of Le Guide Culinaire...

Heh...I actually re-read the thing a couple time to make sure he wasn't trying to sneak in some tricky thing like that. peter is sly, even if he goes for false-self-deprecation quite often.

Uh, what did I miss?

--A

Vraith! Tell me honestly - did it even make you think for a minute!

[edit; Caught once again by the 'Demon of the next page of postings' - when will I ever learn!

re the self depreciating thing - trust me, in the world of 7-11 counter assistant staff I am regarded as a positive intellectual giant and bestride this [somewhat... limited, shall I say] world like a Collosus! Thus do I have the odd experience of knowing what it is like to be simultaneously a king amonst fools and a fool amongst kings

The next one I promise will not so easily be tossed aside

peter wrote:Vraith! Tell me honestly - did it even make you think for a minute!

Well...maybe not a WHOLE minute...but a good portion of one. Though maybe it's not quite fair. I mean...one knows that there HAS to be a trick, so the automatic answer [20] MUST be wrong. So one leans back in ones desk chair to ponder, and raises ones eyes to the GIANT BOOKSHELF ABOVE ONES DESK and says OH!...DUH!!.

And surely this was not what the normally most perspicacious Av 'missed'? An off day perhaps......? Try this one.

You throw away the outside then cook the inside then eat the outside and throw away the inside. What are you eating

Answer;

Spoiler

A corn on the cob

There is no reference to 'Humpty Dumpty' being an egg in the nursury rhyme at all and it is unclear where the assumption came from.

Vraith wrote: So one leans back in ones desk chair to ponder, and raises ones eyes to the GIANT BOOKSHELF ABOVE ONES DESK and says OH!...DUH!!.

Really, I'm still not getting it.

--A

[I didn't get this Av, so if you missed it too then it would make me feel a whole lot better. Alas the reverse is less likely to apply ]

Books on a shelf have their front covers to the right hand side of the body of the book. Similarly [or oppositly] the back cover is to the left of the books body. Hence our worm, in eating from the front cover of volume one to the rear cover of volume ten, effectively misses out on the 'bodies' of these two volumes. Hence the final tally in inches is 8 x 2 = 16 inches [not the twenty that one immediately assumes to be the case].

peter wrote:, effectively misses out on the 'bodies' of these two volumes. Hence the final tally in inches is 8 x 2 = 16 inches [not the twenty that one immediately assumes to be the case].

Yea, the poor thing missed Hors d'oeuvre and desert...way to ruin a meal.

Hahaha, thanks guys. I totally missed it.

--A

[Peter lick's his finger and paints an virtual vertical dash on an imaginary blackboard [how can there not be a name for a vertical stroke that is not a 1]].

Yes V. Escoffier would not have been impressed, him being the one who first introduced the idea of 'courses' into meals .

The Pope is walking down Oxord Street when he spots a nice looking restaurant and, feeling peckish, decides to go in for a spot of lunch. Ordering a steak, the waiter asks how he would like it cooked and he answers "Rare."
"One bloody steak!" the waiter calls to the kitchen, and the pope says "Hang on a bit - you can't speak like that in front of me. Don't you know who I am!" The waiter is placating in his reply "No Sir, you don't understand - a bloody steak means a rare steak in the culinary world."
"Oh, I see says the Pope" and goes on to enjoy his meal.
The following week he's walking down Oxford street with the Archbishop of Cantebury and offers to buy him lunch in the same restaurant. Thinking to show off his savy restaurant manner, when the waiter comes to the table he says "Two bloody steaks please" and the Archbishop leans across and says "Yeah - and plenty of f***ing chips!".

The last words of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin [famous gourmand, food-writer and barrister, died Paris 1826]

"I feel the end approaching. Quick - bring me my dessert, coffe and liqueur!"

Respect!

peter wrote:[Peter lick's his finger and paints an virtual vertical dash on an imaginary blackboard [how can there not be a name for a vertical stroke that is not a 1]].

There are many, most of them slang-ish, though, none applicable broadly.

In IPA, though I don't know what they CALL it, it STANDS FOR a particular "click" sound in speech.

Do you mean the sort of verbal 'click' that some sub-saharan african languages use [do I remember that being called a 'glottal stop' or something] V.

(Also, a few examples of words I can use for that 'virtical dash' might come in handy - it sounds so clumsy! ).

peter wrote:Do you mean the sort of verbal 'click' that some sub-saharan african languages use [do I remember that being called a 'glottal stop' or something] V.

(Also, a few examples of words I can use for that 'virtical dash' might come in handy - it sounds so clumsy! ).

Heh...like I said, the ones I've heard aren't "official" names AFAIK...

My uncle who does code stuff [well...did before he retired] calls it a pipe.
Sometimes IPA people call it that, too, but I don't think that's the "real" term.
[a single one is a dental click, a double is alveolar click, and yea, it's mostly...perhaps only...African languages. Not a glottal stop...that's something completely different. the alveolar click is the sound most folk make when they're "clicking" at a horse. the dental click is made with the tongue in the same place as for the "T" sound...except instead of flicking the tip forward it flicks/pulls back/down, you're kinda inhaling/sucking in to make it...kinda the clicking sound folk make meaning "tut, tut" or "tsk tsk"
I've heard it called a "polon" or a "poley."
It's USED a lot in math...but I don't know what they CALL it...maybe Hashi will pop in...actually it's used more than one way in math, so might not have a single name.

In computing, this: | is a pipe.

In isiXhosa, probably the 2nd most well know "click" language, three letters are used to indicate the basic clicks: c for dental clicks, x for lateral clicks, and q for post-alveolar clicks.

Here's a table of the IPA pronunciation if anybody is interested: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language#Consonants

In the most well know, the Khoisan languages, clicks are indicated with punctuation marks and diacritical symbols.

SA's motto, ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke is in the now extinct ǀXam language. Click the link to hear what it sounds like.

--A

Man Av! There is nothing in the make up of my vocal chords that is ever going to get me to learn how to say that! It's beautiful!

Means "Strength Through Diversity."

If you want to hear the clicks in isiXhosa, this is Miriam Makeba performing the "click song" more properly known as Qongqothwane.

--A

I find it [at times] almost impossible to differentiate between the 'click' of the lady vocalist and the very similar 'click' of a background percussion instrument [what we may have called a 'cowbell' at scool in music classes]. How such as sound can be integrated into speech so 'seamlessly' is a mystery to my western ear. Can non indigenous speakers learn this vocal manouver Av? Also, would be interested to hear clear examples of the dental, lateral and post-alveolar clicks if you know where such can be found.

[Nb I assume there was background percussion instrument going on and that it was not all the lady's singing?]

During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days. (W.C. Fields)