And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, — Jamal

Nice, javi. And I know the drive he means. I did it last year. It's the burren coast where you're between the ocean and the rocky landscape he describes.

So, yes he was referring to The Troubles... — javi2541997

:up:

Honestly, I gave up long ago following every mad thing he says. The stupider and more offensive the better for him it seems. But, yes, judging on domestic policy, he probably would be a nightmare. On foreign policy, it's more polarised: he could be far better than Biden or he could do something absolutely crazy and start a world war.

I don’t like Biden, but Trump is still worse — Mikie

OK, well, I suppose I'm not going to continue to argue over which is better, shit or puke. But anyhow, your position is understandable from a practical point of view.

We had a similar disagreement the last time. Hopefully, you've realised by now that arguing with a crazy person is a waste of time. I know I have. :flower:

I said "at gunpoint" as a hypothetical to make a point. As things stand, were I American, I would vote for neither. If that's your definition of insanity, then, yes, I am insane.

And I don't think that Trump will ever top the level of opportunism, cynicism, and moral emptiness of Biden, who paid for Israel to do what it is doing and refused to support a ceasefire so he could help counteract his image as a weak president, and only now, realising the deep unpopularity of this war among important sectors of his potential voters, is loudly criticising the Israeli response as "over the top". You gave them 17 Billion to do it, Joe. You don't get to walk away with clean hands now, mate. Own it.

If I had to, at gunpoint, vote, I would choose the guy who probably would have done the same thing but actually didn't over the guy who actually did. That would be Trump.

It's a hard choice - between a narcissist con man and a supporter and facilitator of genocide and ethnic cleansing. I think I prefer the nut-job myself, but it's your call, America. — unenlightened

:up:

You've convinced me. It's Jack Melon I really like. Always have. Never even heard of Bob Dope.

Muchísimas gracias chicos. — javi2541997

:cheer:

Fuck Bob Hope though. — Hanover

I'm not letting you, or @Jamal, away with this.

Why I like Bob Hope

I like Bob Hope because he has a big chin. Who wouldn’t like that? I like Bob Hope because, well, look at that cheeky smile! After all, he entertained the troops. I like Bob Hope because his relation to vegetative matter was always pure and innocent.

Bob Hope smells of trees and waterfalls.

Did you know that Bob Hope retained the majority of his hair follicles until middle age? That’s hard to criticize. I like Bob Hope’s taste. Nothing tastes like Bob Hope. Don’t knock it until you try it! I mean, have you ever sat through a full Bob Hope movie? Ha! I knew it!

Many people confuse Bob Hope with Jack Melon and even Gary Lewis. This is possibly the reason for irrational animosity towards Bob Hope. After all, he entertained the troops! Did Mr. Melon step up to such plates? Walter Mathews? Ha!

Bob Hope’s chin is two standard deviations larger than the average man’s chin. What’s not to like? Bob Hope never had sex with anything apart from a human being. Bob Hope was almost certainly a human being. I was once within touching distance of Bob Hope’s shoe. I was too young to appreciate it. I have many faults.

Some people dislike Bob Hope for purely subjective reasons. A division of Bob Hope into his respective elements could eliminate such problems. There is no logical reason not to like Bob Hope. Did you know he entertained the troops?!

I hope you will change your mind about Bob Hope. I once met someone who touched Bob Hope’s hat. He told me it was a religious experience. That man is now a priest. Bob Hope’s chin is just… I never said Bob Hope was God. Or Jesus. Or the Buddha. Or the best combination of all of the above! …The man ENTERTAINED THE TROOPS! ...SING IT!

There are many people who are incapable of appreciation. Such people should not be entertained. A chin that big is a sight to behold. I don’t know anything about Bob Hope. But really… Are you saying you don’t like Bob Hope??? :brow:

*

I like @javi2541997 too.

I think people think of me as the Bob Hope of the forum. Which is great, as everyone loves Bob.

Instead of listening to the OP's attempts to clarify, you all keep focusing on the Ubermensch bit and taking the mickey. I'm closing this.

Why is this not in the lounge? — Banno

Because I just now saw it.

This discussion was merged into Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)

if I had the steely self-restraint of a @Michael or @ssu I might frequent the pol threads more often. It's not from lack of interest but I usually can't last more than a few days before exhaustion sets in. Should we push them off the front page? I don't think so. But some of us should probably accept on certain issues engaging with them is just emotionally destructive.

English is more Arabic even than Spanish. — Lionino

Where is your evidence for this? And was the mechanism by which the language mixing occurred?

The case for the Arabic influence on Spanish is set out in the following wiki article. (There is no dedicated page for its influence on English.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_the_Spanish_language

In fact, in the small section devoted to the subject on this page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_Arabic_on_other_languages

There is this:

"Like other European languages, English contains many words derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish. "

Which suggests Spanish was not only more influenced by Arabic than English but was a major conduit for the influence of Arabic on English.

I don't know that it's necessarily better to have more words — Baden

E.g. There are (supposedly) 645 distinct meanings of the word "run". Would English be a better language if we had a separate word for all of them? I doubt it.

To a degree it depends on how you measure things. If you include all possible combinations in agglutinative languages where words are made up of multiple affixes specifying case, tense, person, possession, plurality, etc then you can claim massive numbers of distinct words. English is on the analytic side of the spectrum here, meaning the number of affixes is relatively limited, so we tend to need to use relatively more words to describe things (and thus have less individual combinatory words). Chinese is super analytic with hardly any prefixes or affixes at all. I think Vietnamese has literally none, so you won't find that at the top of any vocabulary list.

I don't know that it's necessarily better to have more words, but before anyone gets into an argument about it, try to compare like with like at least.

Thanks for the vids. :up:

but that's because all other language is gibberish to me — Hanover

:lol:

What is impressive is that as Netanyahu's Likud party had as it's party platform "River to the Sea" and also the platform "No two state solution ever", hence all the later part would have worked just fine if you would change the Palestinians and the Jews, like the "Jewhaul", to "Arabhaul". Of course the part:

5:55
As my friend, Dr. Phil says, "How's that working for you?"

The answer would be: it's working quite well!

Yes, Hamas and Likud share quite a lot together — ssu

:up:

And when you call them out for it, they always seem to cut and run...case in point: — Merkwurdichliebe

It was 12 midnight and I had an important meeting the next morning. Should I spend more time trying to convince someone on here that a comedian was wrong about some of the basic history of my country when they just don't want to believe that? I mean this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale is all anyone would need, but then I'd just be inviting more off-topic conversation. Maher's statement that Ireland had the whole island to themselves before the plantation period (per Schopes most charitable analysis of what he was saying) is 100% wrong. Not 99%, not 80%, but 100%. They didn't. Look at the map (e.g. "Land held by English King"). His related statement that the start of this foreign intervention in Ireland was Britain coming and taking the tip (N. Ireland) of Ireland is also factually wrong. 100% (e.g. The Pale was on the east coast not in the North). The two things are wrong. Nothing to do with lack of detail, misphrasing. They're just completely wrong. Anyone who made those claims in an exam on the history of Ireland would fail on those points, but someone doesn't want to believe that it's possible Maher (or more likely his writers) are just doing comedy and actual facts don't matter to them. That person wants to take it seriously. I don't know why but there's little point responding further to them.

(Even the first plantations weren't in Ulster but in the midlands. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland . )

Maybe you can send me a link to the study or studies. As @Hanover said, it's more likely just cultural stuff that's being seen there. At least that would be my base presumption until evidence was offered otherwise.

Yes, Britain "controlled" Ireland, but they "settled" Northern Ireland much earlier than Ireland's independence movement, which depending on how we are looking at the history, is why the conflict is a thing in the first place. But yeah, maybe the exact wording doesn't quite fit that narrative, but it is true that Ireland wanted all of it under the Republic of Ireland, including Ulster County, and Britain said no, we retain that. — schopenhauer1

No, that's not how it happened either and Ulster is not a "County" and you have no clue what you're talking about but if you would like to know something, you can read this. We are off topic.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland

Good night.

I have work to do. I'll come back to this tomorrow.

Yes, I heard you say that, but you didn't provide your reason for your disagreement... I have yet to see what was wrong there. — schopenhauer1

It's not disagreement. He just got it totally wrong. The whole island of Ireland was fully under the control of Britain and then we fought a war of independence in which we negotiated away N. Ireland at which point the Free State, now the Republic came into being. It was not a case of Ireland being free (having the whole island to ourselves) and then Britain came and took N. Ireland (our tip) away when it became a colonial power. As I said, he just made that up. The fact that you took it seriously without doing even two minutes research on it, is a major weakness that I guess extends to your understanding of Israle/Palestine. Get your facts from books or other reliable sources, not second rate comedians. Also, don't double down when someone points out you're wrong as if Maher is some sort of a reliable source.

Have we not being addressing the topic for 155 pages? But please just spell out the new and incisive contribution Maher has made here and of course we can debate it.

The bit about Ireland is completely and utterly wrong, but whatever, it's light entertainment, so I don't expect him to know anything about that or bother finding out. It's not the point of the show. Ditto with the Middle East and the context there. He might get something right or not randomly. But most people, I presume, watch his show just to relax and have a laugh not to fact check it. Which is fine.

American audiences on mainstream TV are odd and seem to laugh when they think they're supposed to, regardless of content. I remember watching a Letterman episode where the actor who plays Kramer in Seinfeld came on to apologise for calling members of his audience the N word. The audience at the show couldn't get around the fact they were not watching comedy and thought they were supposed to laugh and kept doing so until they were literally told to stop. Odd.

Did I read somewhere its a socio-survival technique? — Daniel Duffy

Sounds right.

Stupid and superficial. There's nothing of substance there. There's no sharp satire or ... well, anything. Of course Hamas is not taking over Tel Aviv. Is that it?

Where are the great points?

As for this:

"The Irish had the entire island to themselves,
1:14
but the British were starting an Empire,
1:16
and well, the Irish lost their tip."

It's totally made up if he means as he seems to we had the entire island and then the British took N. Ireland (our tip). That's not at all what happened.

Anyway, I guarantee you @ssu who is an intelligent commentator will not find this impressive either.

I am familiar on a daily basis with these two feelings — Daniel Duffy

:lol:

this would make the use of 'je ne ce quoi' and other French phrases more about portraying a certain image of oneself rather than whatever the object is you are talking about. — Daniel Duffy

Yes, and that becomes automatic. Relatedly, from a very young age we can "code switch" between and within a language depending on who we're talking to and I think we do that as adults too as a form of social flexibility and image generation. We sadly tend to want to be liked and fit in more than almost anything regardless of whatever narrative we paste over that.

I very much doubt he does, but to highlight how much I dislike listening to popular American mainstream comedians who I find the absolute dullest and untalented people on earth (Letterman was maybe somewhat of an exception but he's gone now), I would much rather even read a post of yours rehashing some of those "great points", so feel free to steal his material.

Don't know why you're tagging me. I'm not going to waste my time on this guy. Maher is boring, conventional, and not too sharp. The comedians I like are mostly dead, unfortunately.

OK, well could hardly be clearer (even though I originally thought I was reading satire).

@NOS4A2 The "poisoning" was done by the Democrats according to Trump as you pointed out, but the poison is the illegal immigrants. Trump is saying that the act of allowing the immigrants (poison) into America is an act of poisoning the blood of the country. If it were not the case that he meant that illegal immigrants were the "poison" then letting them in would not be an act of "poisoning" as there would be no poison. So, if you support that comment, you cannot escape the fact that you are referring to that group of humans as poison. If you contest this, and you claim Trump did not mean the immigrants were poison, you need to specify with what the Democrats are poisoning the blood of the country. What else could the poison be? And you would really have to stretch reality on that one.

Do we native English speakers use these common phrases because French better conveys the meaning, or are we just accustomed to it by this point? — Daniel Duffy

Interesting question. I think you'll find the relative frequency varies according to language community. So, they can become a marker of being a member of a certain class or group. In that case, it would be more about being accustomed to it (and reinforcing your position within a group) than actually anything to do with better conveying meaning. So, I'm not convinced that saying "It has a certain "je ne sais quoi"" conveys the relevant idea better than "it has a certain something". The difference is more in the mood or resonance, which would pertain to the interpersonal (feeling) rather than the experiential (factual) side. There is an absolute ton of research done on this type of thing in Applied Linguistics anyhow as it's a major part of the field. And if we're talking French, there's an interesting historical story to that.

Some borrowed words I think are more efficient at conveying meaning, mostly because they kind of condense an idea in English into one concept. The German word "Heimat" (the feeling of being at home) is one and the Czech word "litost" (the feeling of coming face to face with your own misery) is another. You'll note though that as we can define them we have those ideas in English, they just take longer to say. That is, it's not like we're learning a new feeling we couldn't feel before or anything like that (as linguistic determinism might suggest).

I think this article might be a useful reference point;

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism#:~:text=Linguistic%20determinism%20is%20the%20concept,categorization%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20perception.

Linguistic determinism is pretty much refuted but there's some evidence for the weaker form of that idea, linguistic relativism, i.e. that distinctions between language can influence certain cognitive processes. For example, if you have more colour distinction words (and languages vary fairly widely on this) you might be quicker at picking out different colours. The differences are not very dramatic or important though and I've never had any wow moments reading about this stuff.

Confusion about grammar? — I like sushi

Yes, you seem to be confused about tense and future reference. You don't need the former for the latter and the latter is what's important functionally. Or if you knew that, I don't know why you think tense would matter in the context you gave.

. If you lack use of tenses (like Sicilians) then you are less likely to plan ahead. — I like sushi

This would represent both a strong form of linguistic determinism for which there is no evidence and a confusion about grammar. You don't need tenses to represent the future. English, by some definitions, only has two tenses (present and past) and uses modal verbs to express the rest. Some languages, like Chinese, don't have tenses at all. Does this mean the Chinese are deficient in planning ahead. No, it doesn't, any more than if I use "I am doing it on Saturday" (present continuous tense) to represent the future or I use "I am going to do it on Saturday" (modal auxiliary) makes me less likely to be planning ahead than if I use what we call the future tense "I will do it on Saturday" (but is actually a modal, oh no!)