The Off Topic Topic

[garbon]

Liam Neeson admitted that back in the day he wanted to kill a black man after his friend was raped by someone black. Oh that was after he asked the color of the person who attacked her.

[Admiral Yi]

WaPo has more subscribers than the NYT.  From NYT book review.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Axe2aVKwU

So I'm watching this clip about "German life hacks," presented by what sounds to me like a Pom chick.

I get to the point where she mentions the breathtaking cigarette lighter bottle open trick and the miracle invention of bottle recycling refunds.

Do Brits really not have these things, or is this broad a little dense?

[mongers]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4Axe2aVKwU

So I'm watching this clip about "German life hacks," presented by what sounds to me like a Pom chick.

I get to the point where she mentions the breathtaking cigarette lighter bottle open trick and the miracle invention of bottle recycling refunds.

Do Brits really not have these things, or is this broad a little dense?

Can't answer on the first, but we had those schemes into the 70s, last ones died out in the late 80s (Scotland iron brew?) . The notion has been 'rediscovered' and is being championed by the govt. et al.

[Syt]

WTF, Scandinavia?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/kaffeost

Like Swedish lovers canoodling in a hot tub overlooking the frozen lakes of northern Scandinavia, kaffeost, or "coffee cheese," bobs luxuriously in its hot coffee bath.

The dried cheese, called juustoleipä (sometimes leipäjuusto or just juusto), absorbs the steaming brew, softening without melting, like a rich, moist cheese sponge. Though it may be an unlikely pairing to some palates, among the Sami people of Lapland and other regions around northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia, sharing a mug of kaffeost is a welcome and welcoming ritual.

Juustoleipä translates to "cheese bread," which not only refers to its dry and sturdy texture, but also its culinary use as a sort of bread-like vehicle for jam, syrup, and, of course, coffee. To make the cheese, milk—once reindeer milk, now often goat or cow milk—gets curdled, baked, and dried into thin rounds. This process not only allows for the cheese to be preserved for up to a year, but invites special preparations when it is ready to be consumed, one of which is kaffeost.

A traditional cup of kaffeost begins with a cube of cheese placed at the bottom of a wooden mug carved out of a birch burl (a bulbous tree growth). After pouring the boiling coffee inside, drinkers can spoon the softened chunks out as they sip, or enjoy the little cheesy dregs left at the bottom of the wide-mouthed mug. Regardless of how you enjoy it, don't let it sit too long. Cold brew and curds is an unequivocally less-alluring experience.

[Threviel]

That's the Sami, they also drink coffee with butter in it and also with salt. Sometimes all three together. I have never seen it and never done it.

[Tamas]

Liam Neeson admitted that back in the day he wanted to kill a black man after his friend was raped by someone black. Oh that was after he asked the color of the person who attacked her.

I guess never seeing him in any movie after coming out as a horrible racist person won't be a big loss. He had one good revenge action movie and that has been reason enough to have him deliver them on a conveyor belt since.

[Maladict]

That's the Sami, they also drink coffee with butter in it and also with salt. Sometimes all three together. I have never seen it and never done it.

I have some friends on a keto diet who drink butter coffee. It's revolting.

[celedhring]

I'm writing a dialogue for a script, and I'm struggling a bit with the whole "it" being used for pets. I know that people use "he" or "she" for pets they have a close relationship with (name, etc...) But I have this crazy cat lady character and I wonder if she would use "she" or "he" when talking about the cats in the neighborhood to other people? What feels more natural?

[Syt]

I'm writing a dialogue for a script, and I'm struggling a bit with the whole "it" being used for pets. I know that people use "he" or "she" for pets they have a close relationship with (name, etc...) But I have this crazy cat lady character and I wonder if she would use "she" or "he" when talking about the cats in the neighborhood to other people? What feels more natural?

Crazy cat lady? Up the crazy. Make sure her cats all have ridiculous names, and that she insists to always refer to them with full names, no pronouns. Problem solved.

[Grey Fox]

WaPo has more subscribers than the NYT.  From NYT book review.

Does the WaPo has a lot of local news? NYT's cool subscription but there is a lot of local news in those pages.

[Duque de Bragança]

Proper French pronunciation. 

Where?

English "ick" never sounds like French "ique".

No long vowels anymore in French, except for a (patte vs pâte). The latter is disappearing though.
So I meant [kli:k] vs [klik]. The former (cleek) does not exist anymore, if it ever existed, despite French etymological spelling (î) or writen conventions to distinguish passé simple from imparfait du subjonctif (fit vs fît).
As a matter of fact, the 1990 spelling reform removed a lot of those unnecessary ^.

http://shtooka.net/listen/fra/clique

Sounds like eek rather than ick to me

Not an i: (long i) to my ears, though this is  well articulated, as it should be, though this is a stressed vowel which may explain it. As far as French stresses words, not that much admittedly.

Long vowels
Latin s before a consonant ultimately was absorbed into the preceding vowel, producing a long vowel (indicated in Modern French spelling with a circumflex accent). For the most part, these long vowels are no longer pronounced distinctively long in Modern French (although long ê is still distinguished in Quebec French). In most cases, the formerly long vowel is pronounced identically to the formerly short vowel (e.g. mur "wall" and mûr "mature" are pronounced the same), but some pairs are distinguished by their quality (e.g. o /ɔ/ vs. ô /o/).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_French#Stressed_vowels

[a:] still exists in some dialects and is in theory the standard, learned at school for people over 25 or 30 I would day.
The rest of the quote is spot on.

According to wiktionary, dialects vary of course.

eek
enPR: ēk, IPA(key): /iːk/
ick
IPA(key): /ɪk/

Aperture (or quality?) being different in English besides, not in French, so I based the difference on vowel length.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciation. French has a somewhat easier vowel pronunciation system. 

[derspiess]

I'm writing a dialogue for a script, and I'm struggling a bit with the whole "it" being used for pets. I know that people use "he" or "she" for pets they have a close relationship with (name, etc...) But I have this crazy cat lady character and I wonder if she would use "she" or "he" when talking about the cats in the neighborhood to other people? What feels more natural?

Crazy cat lady? Up the crazy. Make sure her cats all have ridiculous names, and that she insists to always refer to them with full names, no pronouns. Problem solved.

Probably the safest bet.  In a few years, cat misgendering will probably be a hate crime

[Eddie Teach]

Who can tell?

[Barrister]

I'm writing a dialogue for a script, and I'm struggling a bit with the whole "it" being used for pets. I know that people use "he" or "she" for pets they have a close relationship with (name, etc...) But I have this crazy cat lady character and I wonder if she would use "she" or "he" when talking about the cats in the neighborhood to other people? What feels more natural?

You know what, it's not "official" but cats are often assumed to be female for some reason, and dogs to be male.  My wife will still sometimes call my male cat "she" or "her" from time to time.