The Worst Twitter Conversation in History (This Week)?

oh, he actually puts ice in his whiskey, doesn’t he? yeah, you man of the world, you.

I most prefer Lagavulin, but generally drink Laphroiag because people who hate it keep buying it.

One of the regular Courts Martial centres is at a place called Kinloss. That’s in the heart of distillery country. You can have a nice walk through amazing countryside and see quite a few.

What amazed me was how small they are. Some of the most famous names operate out of premises about the size of a regular house.

The hotel we use pretty much has every decent Scotch available. The irony is I can’t stand the stuff. It’s like winning Willie Wonka’s golden ticket but then saying “Actually, I don’t care much for chocolate”

@Orion
I like Lagavulin, too. I mostly drink Oban, because its relatively cheap here and still quite good. But I’m really looking to get a bottle of that Smokehead for special occasions. Have you ever tried it? If not, I highly recommend it.

@Alan
That’s a pity. I remember watching a documentary about Islay (I think) where they introduced a guy who had reopened a small distillery that had stood empty for decades, only to discover a 40 year old barrel of Scotch in the cellar, which, of course, he proceeded to bottle and sell for thousands of bucks. They asked him if he had ever tried it himself. He made a face as if he had seen God and said: “Yes. I took a sip once.”

@ Bernardo

Islay is the one that no one can pronounce right, yeah?

Scotch sounds interesting. To hear enthusiasts talk it seems like liquid geology. But I just don’t like the taste. Weirdly, I don’t mind American whiskies.

Really? I thought it’s like island.

I get that not everybody likes that earthen taste of Scotch. I myself don’t like Bourbon very much, although I suspect that’s simply because I never had a really good one.

@guest:
The “scotch” and the “smoking” is how we know that he’s just so alpha!
My guess is that he’s drinking apple juice.

I like to sometimes listen to the manuresphere asshats while misandering extra hard by playing video games. Their nonsensical opinions do amuse me but I really don’t need to see their faces.

@ Bernardo

You’re quite correct. Some research on Gaelic YouTube has it as ‘Eye-lah’

The Lost German Slave Girl: The Extraordinary True Story of Sally Miller and Her Fight for Freedom in Old New Orleans

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-German-Slave-Girl-Extraordinary/dp/080214229X

This book looks like an interesting read about who is white. I haven’t read it but I’ve read about the woman at the center of this amazing story.

Vucodlak:

That was a very enjoyable rant, but this:

They are walking, talking mad-libs of hate

has just become the name of my new punk metal band!

“Find out what surprises await Milla Jovovich in Raccoon City”

Hmm, never trust a TV continuity announcer.

(Actually quite enjoyable in a different way)

Having recently finished reading “The Count of Monte-Cristo” I’d like to point out that the author of said work, and also “The Three Musketeers”, is widely believed to have been at least one-eighth, more probably one quarter, Afro-Caribbean. His paternal grandmother is known to have been a descendant of slaves, though born a free woman. Unfortunately, as she lived prior to the Revolution, a lot of information about her has been lost. 🙁

i somehow am not thankful for the protocols of the elders of Zion. Or the pogroms, or the whole of World War Two. Those are the things that came to my head when I saw that smug “thank a white person” hash tag. She might have been sleepy during history class.

@Monzach

Alexandre Dumas:

His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

Born in Saint-Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre was of mixed race, the son of a white French nobleman and an enslaved mother of African descent.

Probably around 1/4 maybe?

Nequam | January 18, 2016 at 5:46 am
Aside on the grammar stuff: anyone else here read Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s The Deluxe Transitive Vampire? That’s a very fun and informative grammary. (Her books on punctuation and style are pretty good as well.)

I have not, but I will certainly give it a look-see!

I can also reccomend “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” by Lynne Truss. It’s a really fun book to read about punctuation and it taught me my favorite punctuation joke of all time (right before “Let’s eat grandpa!” vs “Let’s eat, grandpa!”).

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air.

“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife book and tosses it over its shoulder. “I’m a panda.” it says at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

The confusion that can be caused by a misplaced comma is considered such a risk in legal documents, that at bar school we’re specifically taught never to use them.

There’s a comma in the wrong place in the US confusion that allows for slavery in certain circumstances. I’ll leave where it is as an excercise for the reader.

@Alan Robertshaw
I’m prone to taking things literally. Because of this habit, I must point out that British lawyers certainly must use commas.

Perhaps they use them sparingly, but they use them.

The blameless series comma (Oxford comma)? Pick up tofu, organic peanut butter, and tequila from the store.

The innocent commas that set off a date? January 2, 2008, was an important day.

The virtuous commas that set off an apositive? My guiding light, Katie, inspires me to speak my mind.

@Kat

They don’t need to use them for dates when they can do 2 January 2008. 😛

@ kat

Oh we certainly use them in everyday writing, and they do slip into legal docs, although it’s considered sloppy.

But the list thing is one example. Do you have that mutatis mutandis thing? We have weird rules about interpreting lists. Often we’ll essentially use a schedule for stuff like that. Were also fond of brackets. You do see huge, multi clause sentences, but they’re very much frowned upon.

Even the famous panda example would be written as something like “pandas eat two main types of food. Pandas eat shoots. Pandas also eat leaves. Pandas do not necessarily eat both at the same time, although they can do.”

But lengthy, but avoids confusion.

The Katie example may use brackets (that’s a common way of identifying subjects) or split the sentence. “Katie is my guiding light. She inspires me to speak my mind” sometimes you’d even put “She (Katie) inspires…” In that second sentence.

We aim for clarity rather than elegance. The example they always use at bar school is a letter from sir Humphrey in yes prime minister. (Although ironically they go on to say how elegantly written it is!)

@ pandapool

Yeah, that’s how we do dates, so we don’t need commas. The US system causes all sorts of confusion here. We now obviously know what you mean by 9/11 but generally to us that’s ninth of November

Our own home grown terrorists were kind enough to go for seventh of July to make things simple.

@Alan Robertshaw

Even the famous panda example would be written as something like “pandas eat two main types of food. Pandas eat shoots. Pandas also eat leaves. Pandas do not necessarily eat both at the same time, although they can do.”

I spot a comma… ;-D

Dates are so confusing. 9/11 would normally mean the 9th of November here too. If I read a date in an English language text, I need to figure out if it’s a British or American source, or if it’s from some other country I need to google how they do dates. Can’t everybody just agree on one standard and stick to it, like we did with the metric system? 😉

@Alan Robertshaw
Thanks! That’s interesting information. I’ve known some lawyers well enough to talk to them about their work, but none of them mentioned that rule. Perhaps US lawyers don’t follow that rule, which actually does seem to be a sensible one.

@dhag85
I have problems with use-by dates on foreign foods. I’m never sure if the originating country’s system is used or the US system. But if a number is greater than 12, then I know that it refers to the day, not the month. Therefore the other number that’s not “2017” or some such must be the month.

@dhag85:

Can’t everybody just agree on one standard and stick to it, like we did with the metric system? 😉

We have.

It has been internationally agreed that the date format YYYYMMDD is the correct and universally accepted way of writing a date; therefore today is 20160119. This can be separated out using hyphens or spaces or other punctuation to taste, but that order of numbers is specified by international standard 8601. If you add a time to it then put it on the right of the date in 24 hour format, starting with hours, then minutes, then seconds. For example the time that I’m writing this sentence could be written 2017-01-19 09:08.

The more troubling aspect is that no state out there appears to be willing to enforce the international standard that they actually signed up to. (ISO 8601 dates from freakin’ 1988.) This is just slack. No wonder we can’t meet Kyoto if we’re trailing on a thing as simple as date format.

I’m in favour of reeducation gulags, but that’s probably just me. /s

@ anisky

Ha yeah. Can we pretend I actually used the proper semi colon? 🙂

@ anisky

Come to think of it, I should have used “sometimes” instead of “can”.

As it stands, there’s an implication that pandas have permission to eat both but some pandas refuse to do so!

Daft as it sounds, this is the sort of thing we have to worry about when drafting.

@EJ (The Other One)

I’m in favour of reeducation gulags, but that’s probably just me.

You’re not alone. I’m all for it. Finally, some sober, sensible advice on WHTM!

And don’t get me started on the “expire by” dates! There is no consistency in terms of font, size, placement on the package, or wording. Also, have you ever tried to read pale-yellow numbers on a jar of coconut butter? A store clerk explained to me recently that the use of “expire by” dates is voluntary. Outrageous! I’d love to take it up with my do-nothing Congress!

Better yet, I’ll send the CEOs of all the food companies, along with all the Republicans, to reeducation gulags.

@Kat,

they’re voluntary because they have nothing to do with food safety. I’m pretty sure the FDA *does* publish health guidelines for food storage which you can look up online. If not them, various researchers have.

The expiration dates put on by manufacturers are there to make sure you don’t complain if the food is a little dryer or soggier than you’d like, and to get you to throw out perfectly good food and buy more.

@ Kat & Orion

A while back someone found a store of WW1 “Bully Beef” (a form of tinned meat used by troops). It was found to be perfectly safe to eat. Well, from a storage point of view; they used lead based solder on the tins at the time; but that’s a different issue.

@Orion

I’m pretty sure the FDA *does* publish health guidelines for food storage which you can look up online. If not them, various researchers have.

But if you don’t know when it’s been packaged, then you don’t know how long it will keep. That’s why I rely on those use-by dates. At least I have some sense of the time involved.

@Alan Robertshaw
Bully beef! Sounds tasty. And British.

Yay, best-before dates, a topic I know and love well. Here’s some stuff I learned in the logistics industry.

As well as sell-by dates (called “best before” or “use by” in places where customers like to be respected) most products also have depot-by and store-by dates. It’s part of running a good logistics pipeline, and the benefit to the customer is a pleasant side effect. As such, for a lot of goods that are sold as loose singles or in sub-packages, those dates would be printed on the shipping case and so you won’t see them.

In the industry, this is known as “code life”: something that’s approaching the end of this period is said to be “short coded”, and when it’s past it’s said to be “past code.” The art of grocery logistics involves getting goods into the depot, then into store, then into the customer’s fridge before code life expires.

Normally things will be good for a while after they’re past code. The code life is chosen bearing in mind that it’s likely to sit in the customer’s fridge for a little while before being eaten, after all.

From a logistical point of view, “spoiled goods” are usually mostly still fine: out of a hundred cans of baked beans on a pallet, ninety-nine will probably be fine even when they’re condemned as spoiled. The issue is that nobody knows which can is bad without opening them, which turns shopping into a game of Russian Roulette and leads to delicious, delicious lawsuits. Most companies would rather throw good food away than be sued for selling bad food, so they set the code life to compensate for this.

Moral of the story: even if it’s past code you can probably eat it. People throw out too much food nowadays.

TMI but one bout with explosive vomiting from food poisoning and you get pretty obsessive about not eating bad food.

_Use By_ is the really important food advice on containers and packets. Really. Important.

Milk and other dairy, meat, bread and other fresh foods really do go off in fairly short order unless you freeze, cook or otherwise treat them to prevent it.

On the other hand, Sell by or Best Before dates are about items which will not be dangerous if consumed beyond the stipulated date, but there is no guarantee of quality if you do. Leave a frozen, dried, bottled, pickled or canned item too long and it’s your own fault if it’s got freezer burn or weevils have got into the pasta, flour, raisins or packet cake mix or nuts have gone rancid or your flavoured vinegar has gone cloudy or any other calamity that can befall food stored too long or in the wrong conditions.

Though I confess that I’ve managed to eat lettuce over a year old that was in one of those unbelievably good Tupperware containers explicitly for lettuce. I’ve also discovered the use by date “too late” after eating perfectly good yogurt. I tend to look first at refrigerated items and check the use by date only if it looks or smells a bit suss.

As for the other question about dates, I read a really good explanation some time ago about how and why the US diverged from the rest of the English speaking world on dates. I’m not certain about Europe when it comes to this little corner of social history.

I may be the only person here old enough to remember this stuff, but I _do_ remember using the very old convention*. Dates were written with the DD in ordinary numerals, but the month was written in Roman numerals, and the year was once again in ordinary numerals.

Using this rule, it didn’t make any difference which order the month and day were written in because the Roman numerals distinguished the month clearly from both the day and the year. I doubt I ever wrote a date with the month first, but I’ve certainly read things with the month in Roman numerals first and it didn’t worry me at all. (Possibly legal documents prepared in the 40s or 50s when I was dealing with deceased estates in the early 70s?)

The problem only arose when everyone shifted to ordinary numerals for every element of the date. The US stuck with month first. Everyone else went with day first.

*(Probably when I was still writing with a nib pen dipped in an inkwell. I kid you not. Even fountain pens were frowned on before year 8. From year 8 onwards, 1960 in my case, ballpoints were excoriated as lazy writing and absolutely banned from school. Fountain pens were now compulsory.)

Nequam: I’ve owned a copy of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire for a decade-ish. I’ve used it for several games of Eat Poop, You Cat on various forums. (EPYC is a forum game where you have two groups of equal size–artists and writers–and a moderator. The game starts with the moderator sending a sentence via the website’s PM to the first artist, who then illustrates it (either treating it as a caption, or something someone in the picture is saying), sending the picture to the moderator. This picture is then sent to the second writer, who sends back a sentence describing or captioning it. The game continues until everyone has gone once. Then the moderator posts the entire chain to a forum thread, with attribution. It’s like a game of telephone, but with illustrations. The sample sentences from TDTV were always wonderfully evocative starting points for the game.)

Alan: I must admit, I’ve come to my own personal theory that Gaelic is actually just a prank the various non-English parts of the UK decided to play on the English. “Okay, so, we stick a bunch of ‘w’s, ‘b’s, ‘d’s and ‘n’s, run them all together with a ‘y’ at the front. Then we tell ’em it’s pronounced ‘Fred’.”

@ Freemage

Ha, yeah, I’ve got an Aunty Mebd and a cousin Siobhan so I can well believe that!