Carol the Dabbler

Hey, Artie -- nice to see you!

According to Cabin Pressure's Wikipedia page: So ... not s problem!

You mean they're basically unrelated animals that just happen to look similar? I'm pretty sure they're closely related, but let's find out. OK, I've had a look around, and this (from the Encyclopaedia Britannica site) is pretty typical: So basically, a tortoise is a type of turtle, meaning that "turtle" is the generic term, and can therefore be used for any such creature. Unless, of course, there's a wise guy around.

I'm not denying that there's a difference. But a swallow gets around by flying (and a bit of walking), while a penguin gets around by swimming (and a bit of walking) -- yet we call both of them birds. Language is based on tradition, and unless you're a specialist, terminology is rarely precise.

I wouldn't call either of those wrong -- simply that the same word in some dialects may cover more territory (or less) than in others. (Besides, it's not a swede, it's a rutabaga!!!)

I just reread a couple of pages in Nimoy's book I Am Spock (his sequel to I Am Not Spock). He's talking about the on-set awkwardness due to him (the official second banana) getting far more fan mail than Shatner (the official Star). Gene Roddenberry happened to ask noted SF author Isaac Asimov if he had any suggestions. Considering the later popularity of K/S "slash fiction," I'd say that worked even better than hoped!

Unlike a few decades ago (during what I suppose could be called the post-British-colonial period) when British English was the de facto international standard, recent world usage (due I suppose to Hollywood influence) seems to have swung to American English. So yeah, I guess that makes sense. That, plus American spelling tends to be a bit simpler.

I'm sure you're losing sleep over that! English speakers seem to be becoming more familiar with other versions than used to be the case, and some seem to be using words and spellings from various dialects, as the spirit moves them. I do a bit of that myself, sometimes preferring the British double-L version of words like cancelling. So I'd say that you don't really need to worry about the grammar police. I doubt that most people are paying them any attention. There seems to be a lot of that going around! My guess is that it comes from people posting from their phones, where it's a bit more work to capitalize.

There's really no point in my quitting. I'm not going to pay them, and so far my hot-linked photos are more or less still visible. Good question! Maybe they're counting on me not wanting to go through the hassle of moving my photos to another hosting site. They've continued sending me those emails saying that I need to either pay up or stop hot linking immediately. Maybe they'll eventually set an actual deadline, and if I don't pay they'll pull my plug. But last time I checked, Artemis's photos were still more or less visible, and she's never paid them a cent. So I doubt they'll bother to cut me off. Whatever. Of course if they piss off enough of their members, they may go out of business, and when their servers go down, everybody's plug will be pulled.

Hey, GodNort -- good to see you back! Yes, Una Stubbs' death was quite a loss. There's an RIP thread in the BBC Sherlock / Cast and Crew section [here]. Congratulations on finding another of your list items. Of the two remaining canonical stories, Moffat and Gatiss have specifically stated that they don't see how The Yellow Face could be adapted for a modern-day setting. A straight retelling might seem antiquated, it's true, but the sort of loose adaptation they've been doing for Sherlock should be quite possible. And of course it could have been done as a period piece. Anyhow, I wish you continued good luck. And do feel free to explore other ideas here as well.

As I understand it, the problem with nicotine is that it's a terribly addictive psychoactive drug. So yeah, nicotine-free is an improvement. But it's not the nicotine that makes you cough and eventually kills you, it's the "tar" whatever that may be. I suspect that *any* smoke, if inhaled frequently over many years, could cause lung cancer, emphysema, cardiovascular problems, etc. As I said somewhere around here just recently, it's appalling to see the number of actors who have died from lung cancer and emphysema, some of them ridiculously young. There's no excuse, in this day and age, for actual smoking to be considered a normal part of an actor's job.

Also, I'm not sure that BBCode is ever saved as such. As I recall, at least some codes (e.g., links) have always been translated into HTML and saved in that form.

If a film character is supposed to be boozing it up, don't they actually give them tea or something? Seems like they could also supply fake cigarettes. But I suppose fake cigarettes would be far more expensive than real ones, unlike tea vs booze. Come to think of it, maybe expense is the major reason for not using real booze, and not impairing the actor's performance is just a nice bonus. Yeah, call me a cynic!

Goodness knows I've posted a few lulus myself due to not keeping an eye on my spell checker! I hadn't heard that -- wonder why that would be? Well, I assume that bots are created by tech- savvy individuals, and engineers do have a reputation for being poor spellers and such -- that could be one reason. Also, anyone who creates a bot can be assumed to be anti-social, and might therefore not give a damn about "proper" usage. Oh, and I'm willing to be that most bot makers, like stereotypical hackers in general, are teenage boys. So OK, I'm willing to believe that it could be true. In any case, the average bot presumably posts far more than the average non-bot poster.

I really prefer to have both, but if they put only one or the other, I prefer numbers. That's because I often want to know how long a chapter is, and by checking the chapter numbers I can be sure I'm not accidentally putting two chapters together.