Wordwizard

This is the second time this week someone has recommended this film to me.
Close, multiple occurrences of something that's never crossed my field before is usually my clue to pursue, my prompt to -- uh, pay attention.

tony h wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:04 pmLike traditional geuze beers the fermentation wasn't very predictable . . .

. . . as in, for example, the betelgeuze variety, made from crushed insects.

Anyone who listens, or listened, to The Who will recognize the phrase from the song "5:15", on the album "Quadrophenia": . . . Dreadfully sorry Apple Scrumping . Born in the war Birthday punching. . . . [But why should I care?] Credits to: Peter Townshend Also, there's a bar/restaurant in Fort Colli...

trolley wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 4:55 pm. . . perhaps you should just look it up.

Geez, trolley, don't tell him to look it up! He'll just get a virus or something!

Stevenloan, go there if you must: I hope you're well protected. That's the last I'm going to say on the matter.

If I were asking this question, I would shorten it to "Can you dog-paddle?"

Not touching that other one . . .

The mention of the Royal Society's 1969 contributions (a very good year, incidentally) reminded me of something. I'm halfway through the final tome in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, nearing the end of an amazing journey through late-17th century and early-18th century Europe (mostly), driven by ac...

It occurred to me that "living off the grid" means the opposite of what the words generally indicate, as mentioned above (i.e., existence owing to the support of something else). Conversely, living "off the grid" means surviving without any assistance or support from societal systems like electrical...

Are you identifying a difference between "living off" and "living off of"? Yes. Absolutely, tony h. Everything I said was meant to apply to the phrase "living off of". Sorry for the mistake. Now that you mention it, tony h, "living off" and "living off of" can be used interchangeably, and will only...

I like it: when it's chilly, I wear my chullo.
The ear-flaps, though, are what distinguish this hat from other knitted headwear. I have lots of knitted hats, but if I need the one with ear-flaps (my chullo) none of the others will do.

And what about amowous? And powous? And my favorite dinosaur, Stegasowous?

Hi azz, Sentence A is by far the most grammatically correct, in my opinion. I would switch things up a little, though: "They gave prizes to twenty Colombian and Brazilian authors." See, you don't want to separate your verb(?) and subject(?)/object(?) from each other by too many words. It sounds bett...

. . . we do hear "off of" this side of The Pond, but it is severely frowned upon. There is a negative connotation to making a living "off of" something, as opposed to living by one's honest efforts (toiling, teaching, writing, throwing a ball, whatever). To live "off of" something means to be a par...

I'd call those "ear flaps". Ear muffs are something else, in my neck of the tundra. Never called it a Laplander hat, but yeah -- it's definitely what you see when you look up the name. Come to think of it, I've never really called that kind of hat anything, 'cept maybe "the hat my friend made when s...

Dang, gdwd, you beat me to the punch! (. . . which is not too hard to do, since I show up so rarely.) Would I be completely wrong to call this thing an urn? A samovar? Does a samovar HAVE to contain only hot tea? To me, "dispenser" applies to other stuff: cup dispenser, tic-tac dispenser, pez dispen...

Oh my god, Erik. I thought we had it bad, but . . . well, we still have it very bad.
Your coverage is excellent, although I'll have to read it a few more times to get all the nuance.
And like Bob, I plan to invite people with Brexit questions to look at your post. Many thanks for the summary!