I think I may have triggered this question from you, Habib, because it came after I used the phrase in an answer.
I do in fact have a rule of thumb answer. It’s based on Laura Hale’s observation of how many followers and views typically get you Top Writer.
(If only it were that transparent, of course.)
I may misremember, but I think she said it was at least 300, and my own rule of thumb has been 500.
Yes, yes, I have 650.
I am not 45.
OK, I *am* 45, but I don’t particularly care to act it. I act either 60, or 20, depending on circumstances. And I suspect it was ever thus.
I mean, do 45 year olds draw this?
Dimitra in the lab by Nick Nicholas on Gallery of Awesomery
Or write this?
They do, OTOH, write this:
Alas I’m forty by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile
But then again, I was thinking that when I was 20, too.
From Mary C. Gignilliat
Apocalypse Now
Because it makes no sense at all that I’ve never seen it.
The horror… the horror…
https://www.quora.com/Chopins-pr…
From Michael Masiello
Nick, I propose this as your next homework assignment. You can find six minutes, right? Resist this — I dare you. It’s a stupor mundi any which way one looks at it, but in Ivan Moravec’s hands it’s touched by something superhuman. What do you think, Curtis — good pick?
And then you might try this one on for size:
As a guide to contributors, this is what I already know in music, and what I’d like to know more of. The latter is in boldface.
Classical Music.
From Michael Masiello
The devotional poetry of George Herbert.
Going with me to a deckchair in Broome, in two weeks’ time.
Because nothing says fun in the sun like 17th century poetry about God.
Hey. That’s MY version of fun!
Stuff I already know:
Stuff I want to know more about in boldface
You mean, there’s a story there?
(Checks Frisk.)
Hm. Looks like there’s a story there.
gastēr “belly” is likely derived from *grastēr, “something that does graō”. Graō in turn is a really, really obscure word for “gnaw, eat”, that shows up once in Callimachus, and that also turns up in Ancient Cypriot, which was an archaic dialect. So, gastēr is “eater”. This verb graō is apparently cognate with Old Indic grásate “eat, devour”.
There is an equivalent word to gastēr in Old Indic: grastar-. It’s an astronomical term, referring to eclipses; the moon, I guess, is described as devouring the sun.
So, if you ever see this Halloween costume:
—the Vedas had the same idea.
I saw a marginal note in Frisk that threw me btw.
Gastēr has not survived in Modern Greek. The related verb engastroō ‘to make something be in a belly’ is alive and well as gastrono, the colloquial word for ‘impregnate’.
But a millenium after Greeks decided to take the r out of *grastēr, they decided to put an r back into the same spot. Language change is random like that. Gastra, a word meaning “a belly-shaped container, a container with a swelling in the middle”, went to *grastra > ɣlastra. Which is the modern word for a flowerpot.
Or by extension, a model paid to look decorative on a TV show.
I don’t know whether that extends further, to maternity wear models.
You know how people put A2A at the top of their answers, because they like the asker, but are ambivalent about the question?
Sofia, if we ever meet up for coffee in Oakleigh (you’re a Greek in Melbourne, you probably live inside an Eaton Mall patisserie), I will be asking you: WHY YOU ASK ME IF CONFEDERATION!
Greece is already in a confederation, and has been in one since 1981. That hasn’t worked out wonderfully lately; and that was an identity that Greeks actually invested in. To a heart-breaking extent.
What Serdar said. The rapprochement Greeks and Turks have had since ’99 has been a wonderful thing. I’m deeply grateful for it. But you know, we have a saying in Greek.
And knowing how things work in our part of the world, there is probably an identical saying in Turkish.
Μακριά μακριά κι αγαπημένοι. Distant, distant, and [therefore] loving each other.
Greeks ruled by Erntoghan?! Turks ruled by Çipras?!
That would end the rapprochement pretty quickly.
(… although, then again: Turks ruled by Erdoğan?! Greeks ruled by Τσίπρας?!)