The Off Topic Topic

[Admiral Yi]

Just noticed a funny thing in English.
Barring means except for. You can't eat any fruit barring apples. You can eat the apples.
Barred meanwhile means banned. Eating apples is barred. You can't eat them
Strange how it developed in two directions.

It's the same root concept.  You can't eat any fruit barring apples means apples are excluded from the statement.  Barred means banned means excluded.

[alfred russel]

Last night I was at a climbing gym with my wife and a few friends: you get to name a route if you are the first to successfully climb it. The hardest route in the gym -- something you'd have to be a fairly elite climber to climb -- was named "SPQR". I got excited--somewhere in teh city is a super good climber that is also a roman history nerd! My wife was skeptical that SPQR has anything to do with roman history and thought it might be the first letters of his kids names or something. She said it was a coincidence: any 4 letters have probably been an abbreviation at some point. 

[The Brain]

Maybe he couldn't afford a vowel?

[Sheilbh]

Last night I was at a climbing gym with my wife and a few friends: you get to name a route if you are the first to successfully climb it. The hardest route in the gym -- something you'd have to be a fairly elite climber to climb -- was named "SPQR". I got excited--somewhere in teh city is a super good climber that is also a roman history nerd! My wife was skeptical that SPQR has anything to do with roman history and thought it might be the first letters of his kids names or something. She said it was a coincidence: any 4 letters have probably been an abbreviation at some point. 

Unfortunately that kid's name is Septus Publius Quintillus Romulus

[alfred russel]

Unfortunately that kid's name is Septus Publius Quintillus Romulus

 

[Grey Fox]

Last night I was at a climbing gym with my wife and a few friends: you get to name a route if you are the first to successfully climb it. The hardest route in the gym -- something you'd have to be a fairly elite climber to climb -- was named "SPQR". I got excited--somewhere in teh city is a super good climber that is also a roman history nerd! My wife was skeptical that SPQR has anything to do with roman history and thought it might be the first letters of his kids names or something. She said it was a coincidence: any 4 letters have probably been an abbreviation at some point. 

While your wife is probably right, it doesn't matter. Perception is everything.

[ulmont]

Just noticed a funny thing in English.
Barring means except for. You can't eat any fruit barring apples. You can eat the apples.
Barred meanwhile means banned. Eating apples is barred. You can't eat them
Strange how it developed in two directions.

Those seem pretty related - in the first, the apples are barred (banned) from the scope of "fruit".  It's even clearer if you rephrase the first to "Barring apples, you can do whatever you want with any kind of fruit."

e;f,b.

[Savonarola]

Just noticed a funny thing in English.
Barring means except for. You can't eat any fruit barring apples. You can eat the apples.
Barred meanwhile means banned. Eating apples is barred. You can't eat them
Strange how it developed in two directions.

One is a preposition, one a verb.  As a noun, there are more than a dozen meanings.

If you want an example of a verb that has contradictory meanings, look up "sanction."

"Dust" and "Cleave" can be their own antonyms as well.

I think one of the weirdest thing about English is that one of the most common verbs "Can" is defective; it doesn't even have an infinitive form.  In translation you have to use the compound verb "To be able to" in a number of tenses.

[celedhring]

Looks like Spain is deploying some pretty advanced fighters in a NATO mission in Bulgaria.

[Syt]

 

[Admiral Yi]

I don't get it.

[Zanza]

The picture shows an X-Wing from Star Wars.

[Admiral Yi]

Ah

[celedhring]

That said, I wonder how effective an X-Wing would be in our world, the Star Wars universe doesn't seem to have much in the way of guided munitions, it's all about old-style dogfighting. I guess deflector shields could potentially be a gamechanger though.

Yes, I'm going down that rabbit hole

[Razgovory]

The ability to fly into space and travel to different star systems must be worth something.