… But first, let’s shoot fireballs at it!

I remember that, I thought it was poetic. I also remember the pearl clutching outrage.

Though a few visits ago at my local zoo two of the orangutans were beating the shit out of a seagull for fun, with naught outrage.

So there’s probably a double standard built-in.

a rare bombing of American citizens by U.S. civilian authorities

rare.

Actually snorted.

Though today we get:

Find out what these big four names were convicted of!

That’s like having google make a pizza with everything in my fridge then they complain that I also keep the dog’s food in there.

I’ve only had Sal’s a couple of times and it’s always been oily trash… They’re not getting another chance.

… A sunny disposition?

How amazing computer games look now.

I mean, I’m impressed now, on behalf of ten year old me I suppose.

“42”

“The answer to life the universe and everything is 42!?”

“Yes, I checked it quite thoroughly.”

…

“But what was the actual question?”

Alternatively, garbage in, garbage out.

OMG that’s even an absolute scale!

“Somebody shit in my pants.”

It’s correct, as much as any English is correct, but not typically spoken naturally like that.

The press (newspapers) has an idiosyncratic grammar, probably born of maximising space in a newspaper column. Headlines are often grammatical nightmares, body copy less so.

One could think of it as a form of semantic compression.

300 big boys!

The loot!

The loot!

The loot is on fire!

TIL by implication that “in the wild” is different to “in a sanctuary”.

There’s been takahē on Tiri Tiri Mātangi island for years (since at least the 90’s) but that’s a predator free island sanctuary.

Super news!

I too am an etymology geek, I had to look up “aptronym” (I already knew there was a word for it, but couldn’t remember it) but already knew “patronym”. I can occasionally work out the approximate Latin roots of words and take a stab at what to search for.

Regarding names’ positions moving around… that’s just people. People name their children all sorts of stupid things that eventually become normal.

I could fuck less.

Yup, incredibly variable.

It also tends to trigger debates about whether pictures of said animals count. Which is a good discussion rather than siblings fighting about how ugly the other one is.

There’ll be elections, just like in North Korea and Russia. Totally legit, proper elections with no fraud at all, honest.

Jackson is a patronymic last name: Jack’s son.

Smith is an aptronymic last name: a smith.

So yeah, bang on.