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Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉

@Black_Kettle

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Wanderer, wayfarer, pilgrim. Journalist and copy editor. Linguistics nerd. Frequently over-caffeinated

Harrogate, England
Joined April 2009
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@jamesjyu A big no to this. If "writers" need AI to write stories, they are not writers
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
@revpaulwhite I would advise her to turn down the job. Any company that thinks that is appropriate would not be worth working for
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
10 months
@keewa He's reused an old Twitter Blue icon design from Twitter 1.0
@elonmusk
Elon Musk
10 months
Like this but X
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@medievalhistory @MiddleearthMixr “For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
30 days
The Old English word for 'not' was 'ne'. This went directly before the verb and it was sometimes even glued to the front of the verb stem - 'ellided' in linguistic. terms. This created an unusual class of negative verbs in the language - for example /1
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
11 months
The German word 'Arbeit', work, descends from Porto-Germanic *arbaidiz, which meant hardship or suffering. Going a couple of thousand years further back in time, the ancestor of arbaidiz was Porto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos, which mean orphan or slave. 'Orphan' has the same root…
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@aragon1500 @marionumber4 Only if they know and trust you. It's a powerful way to communicate if you're non verbal I suppose. A lot of animals have mutual grooming rituals as a way to strengthen social bonds
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@fasc1nate Cattiness intensifies
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
If you've ever studied German, you will (probably) know that the usual intensifier in that language is 'sehr', very. "Sie sind sehr glücklich" = they are very happy. Of course, 'sehr' resembles the old-fashioned English intensifier 'sore' (he was sore afraid). A common sense [1]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
4 years
The late great Christopher Lee is trending ... for no apparent reason. I'm okay with that
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@MKBHD Deepfake technology only brings bad things into the world (well, alright, plus a few mildly amusing memes): there should be hard legal limits on its use for the good of society
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 years
@JRehling Yes, I noticed that little spin. The idea that the epitome of 20th Century fascism was somehow left wing is just so laughable. An "alternative fact" if ever there was one
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 months
@ask_aubry I imagine this dude would have more success finding a girlfriend if he learned some basic body language. It's pretty clear that someone with headphones clamped to her ears does not want be approached, at least at that point in time. Common sense is underrated
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@Rainmaker1973 You can tell by h the pleased expression on her face when she hops up on the bike at the end: she's having a great time, not just doing a job
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
22 days
@madelineanele Sadly, only one of her children is still with us - Frieda Hughes, a fine poet in her own right, and a painter too
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
The Proto-Indo-European language was probably spoken north of the Black and Caspian Seas around 3,000BC. Linguists have reconstructed it via deduction and comparison of its many daughter languages. Curiously, the language appears to have had two separate words for [1]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
@NiallHarbison Running is one of the great joys in the lives of dogs. It must be so liberating for her to regain that ability
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@daxdives The restaurants and takeaways that serve this kind of food are almost all staffed by Chinese people
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 month
@yooneedmorejodi @ja_cynic Even so, did his wife really need to that rude and inconsiderate to his mother
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
18 days
@dieworkwear @StephanieLahey Cats are shamelessly picky eaters and would go hungry than eat something that doesn't meet their specifications
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
30 days
@bbubblegumcandy Yes, that's right. Old English ǣfre and nǣfre (ne + ǣfre)
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
29 days
@loki_n_krisdt Yes, climbing and sitting on you means she feels safe and also suggests that she's looking for attention
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
The first word of Old English epic poem 'Beowulf' is, famously, 'hwæt' (what). This may be most debated word in the whole work: what does 'what' mean in that sentence, that context. Conventional wisdom has been that it is a standalone interjection, meaning something like [1]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 years
@mk_ultros @_SJPeace_ I hadn't heard that story before - really horrifying. America has some pretty deep problems
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
One for the Indo-Europeanists out there: the reconstructed face of a Yamnaya man, based on a skeleton uncovered on the steppes of Southern Russia from c3000BCE- i.e. the Bronze Age. As his remains were found in a kurgan (burial mound) he would most likely have been a chieftain...
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@mischiefanimals Cheesecake by name, cheesecake by nature
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
11 months
...Meanwhile, both French 'travailler' and Spanish 'trabajar' derive from Latin *tripāliāre, to torture or torment. Draw your own conclusions 💀
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 months
@cal50 @StephanieLahey Yep. Similarly with landline vs mobile (cell) phones. When you rang the former, you were calling a place, when you ring the latter you are calling a person. Perhaps it's a subtle distinction but it's still significant
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
30 days
...Iċ hæbbe miċel hūs = I have a big house Iċ næbbe miċel hūs = I don't have a big house Iċ wille cempa weorþan = I want to be a soldier Iċ nylle cempa weorþan = I don't wanna be a soldier (mama) /2
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 months
@AutisticCallum_ Being honest in response to that answer is always a big mistake, ha ha
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
30 days
These negative verbs even had past tenses: Ġiestrandæġ wæs iċ sēoc = I was ill yesterday Ġiestrandæġ næs iċ sēoc = I was not ill yesterday /3
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 months
Have you ever wondered why 'withstand' means the exact opposite of 'stand with'? It's because, rather weirdly, 'with' used to mean 'against'. In Old English, the word for 'with' in the modern sense was 'mid', just like German 'mit'
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
9 months
@TheCatluminati Aka the 'social roll'
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 years
@mikegalsworthy @OliverDowden @SadiqKhan Yes. Drug prohibition fuels crime - it's a lucrative gift to organised crime - while legalisation reduces it
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 years
In Gaelic, to ask 'what is your name?', you say "dè an t-ainm a th' ort?" - what is the name that is on you? I quite like the suggestion of impermanence, the possibility that an entirely different name might end up on you at some point in the future 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@bryanblears @jamesjyu We'll see if readers actually do desert them. I remain optimistic they will be able to tell the difference
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
Funerary statue of a little girl from Bordeaux, early 2nd Century AD. One of the earliest surviving depictions of a cat as a family pet rather than just a mouser or street/ farm cat 🐈 /1
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
Question for Americans: does ‘y’all’ sound natural to you? Do you use it in everyday speech? If so, where are you from? I associate it with the southern states but I don’t know how correct that perception is
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@Morbidful I don’t see how this story is remotely morbid or spooky. Oscar was using his sensitive feline nose to console patients close to the end of their lives. Good for him
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 months
@alittleleader It’s good to read on Wikipedia that even as long ago as the 1950s the decision to send her up was criticised as cruel. Even the Russians themselves eventually honoured the sacrifice she hadn’t chosen to make with statues, plaques and memorials
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@momac_ Buckminster Fuller
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 years
@ladbible Everyone responding to this story with variations of "phwoarr! hot teacher! where was she when I was 13? eh? eh? I can't believe his Dad reported it what a nonce" etc etc: you do realise you're endorsing the sexual abuse of children? You might want to think carefully about that
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@asymmetric63 @MKBHD We've already banned murder and robbery, friend. Yes, legal prohibitions don't stop people doing those things but it does mean they come with penalties. We can't just roll over and be defeatist about these things
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@RFuchs19 @wars Fwiw, the photo was apparently taken in January. The term 'aerial bombing' probably isn't to be taken too literally - a V2 bombing is still a bombing
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
Well done Brexit voters part 42
@Femi_Sorry
Femi
3 years
With exports to the EU now down 68%, I'd like to remind you all of something.
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 years
@LexyNeedham @ellle_em I have never trusted HR departments. Perhaps unfairly
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
I've heard people in the past confidently proclaiming that English is a "Latin-based language". It's an understandable misunderstanding because so much of our lexicon has indeed been imported wholesale from post-classical Latin: about one third. This obscures the fact that [1]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@NiallHarbison Clearly she wanted to live, and you all helped make that possible
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
11 months
@Aubie_13 I do, but I am very much a nerd
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
....both fire and water. For fire there was *h₁n̥gʷnis (ancestor of Latin 'ignis') and *péh₂wr̥ (> English 'fire') and for water, *h₂ékʷeh (>Latin aqua) and *wódr̥ (> English 'water'). Perhaps these words reflected different dialects but there is an interesting theory [2]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...Footnote: 'Very' did replace an Old English - but it wasn't sore. It was swīþe: se ierþling wæs swīþe cræftiġa mann = the farmer was a very crafty person
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...that they referred to different aspects of fire and water: *h₁n̥gʷnis to fire as something active and alive, *péh₂wr̥ to fire when it is under control (eg campfire flames). Similarly, *h₂ékʷeh may have meant water when it is free flowing and fast (as in a river) [3]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 years
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
9 months
@michaelmiraflor @Mq2Oco Maybe send that screenshot to Apple/ Tim Cook. They seem to be interested in real world examples of these features saving lives
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...But no! It was a revelation to me to discover that German 'sehr' is in fact cognate with (related to) English 'sore' in its usual medical sense and originally meant much the same thing. At some point German speakers began to use the word to intensify negative adjectives [3]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 months
My top tip for studying historical languages: don't treat the process as a passive reading exercise: write in it, think in it, speak it - nothing will make the grammar & vocabulary stick in your mind more quickly. Tweet in Latin, write email in Ancient Greek - confuse people! :D
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 month
Excellent free translation. ISTI MIRANT STELLA is, literally, they wonder at the star. But hmmm 🤔Shouldn't it be STELLAM, accusative? Latinists please advise
@EllenFWalker
Ellen Walker MA (RCA)
1 month
Love how the Bayeux Tapestry is mostly an intricate political drama about succession and invasion except for that one scene where the characters are like "BLOODY HELL A COMET" and it's never mentioned again
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...while *wódr̥ referred to water just as a substance (eg the contents of the water bag carried by the horse-riding animal herders who spoke the language) [4]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
30 days
@gybeom8008 'Ne' survives in fossilised form in a few modern words - eg 'nought', from nāwiht (not a thing), and willy-nilly, from iċ wylle iċ nylle (I want I don't want)
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@roxasstrifehart @oldenoughtosay It’s not just a few owners being irresponsible though: that kind of shift would change the entirety of British cat culture
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@gandolf_s :/ People who casually return animals to shelters for trivial reasons don’t deserve to have them in the first place
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...with the sense of 'to the extent of injury' - and clearly the same happened in English. While the metaphor eventually became old-fashioned over here, in German the negative connotations were eventually lost and 'sehr' (originally 'sēr') was extended to all adjectives [4]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@AMAZlNGNATURE If panda find baskets of leaves that entertaining maybe she should have just them keep it
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 years
Could the secret to happiness be being (!) Richard E Grant?
@RichardEGrant
Richard E. Grant
5 years
Happily being in the garden, like ‘the proverbial pig in shite’ 😂😂😂😂
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
@azforeman You heard there first: the Romans invented language ;)
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
@ohtumblroh Bizarrely, it seems 'guy' in this sense comes, via 19th American English, from the earlier Brit sense of effigy of Guy Fawkes, which could also meant 'grotesquely dressed person'
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
@kneadtobe @lancaster_johng @PulpKetchup Native Americans too, as you say. Men from the Mohawk people had a particular reputation for high rise construction work apparently. The hands that built America as someone once sang
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
4 months
@CartoonsHateHer My diagnosis would be gay man in denial
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
In Old English, the usual word for 🐦 was a 'fugol'. This survives in New English as 'fowl', making it one of multiple words that shifted from a general to a specific meaning in Middle English (see also, for example, meat, hound and deer). By contrast, modern 'bird' comes from…
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
@katiedimartin Not a universal male characteristic: that's war veteran with PTSD/ CIA agent behaviour
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
9 days
A few etymologies: Woman > Old English wifmann, 'woman person' or 'wife person' Femme > Latin femina, woman Mujer > Latin mulier, married woman Frau > Old High German frouwa, lady Kvinne/ kvinna/ kvinda > Old Norse kván, wife (cognate with English 'queen') Kona > Old Norse…
@theanglishtimes
The Anglish Times
9 days
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...Not something I would have anticipated, but languages will do their own thing [5]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 months
The word 'cancer' is just the ordinary Latin word for crab 🦀 Yes, the pinchy seaside crustaceans. The name is related to 'carcer', Latin for prison, because both involved enclosures, whether walls or shells. So how did this unpleasant illness acquire such an odd name? [1]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@ruskin147 ...Maybe that's something we could all do with remembering sometimes
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
10 months
@creativemachine @keewa Apparently so 🤷🏻‍♂️The original asset was an alternative icon for early, pre-Elon Twitter Blue subscribers
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 months
...assumption might then be that 'sore' was the older Germanic term and that 'very' (obviously from French 'verai', true) had simply replaced the English word during the hundreds of years in which we had a French-speaking aristocracy, as so many other French imports did [2]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@ruskin147 Now, even though she'll still be scared the next time you take her, she'll remember that home, garden and dinner are waiting for her at the end of all the stressful stuff
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 years
@RoundSqrCupola @CHSommers The "shame" and "guilt" of being white! This is original sin culturally appropriated from Catholicism!
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 months
@feederofcats A rare design flaw in the cat blueprint: 8 months old is far too young for a feline to be having kittens. Kittens should not have kittens - and especially not outside
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
11 months
*Proto-Indo-European... macOS autocorrect really does not like the 'proto-' prefix 😑
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
...'Listen! We have heard of the spear Danes in days gone by, of the glory of the great kings' but more along the lines of "How we have heard of the spear Danes in days gone by, of the glory of the great kings" Sorry, Seamus
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@yoda @JackHarbon @YourProtagonist Yes, it's an especially cheesy line
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@_B___S I guess it must be the low temperature 🧊 Cats don't like any food below room temperature - and if it can be warmed up a little, so much the better
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
3 years
@katrosenfield In general, I have very little patience with complaints about cultural appropriation. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, historically illiterate: cultures have always taken things from other cultures. Throughout history
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
10 months
@ruskin147 "But Sophie, what big ears you have!" "The better to hear you with, my dear..."
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
2 years
@BidgeSquidgy @EoinAnCailleach @querywhether @CraigoBuzz @Intarblawyer It’s sexism towards both parents, not just the mother. The message this kind of behaviour sends to Dads is: you can’t be trusted/ you don’t care about your kids/ you’re not really a parent in a meaningful way
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
TIL that that the Armenian language shares with its geographical neighbour Farsi a trait rare amongst other Indo-European languages: the absence of grammatical gender
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@Culture_Crit The Luftwaffe
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
14 days
@NiallHarbison Not in pain anymore and free to enjoy his senior years
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@historyinmemes I remember this photo of young Ernest in a hospital bed attracting some 'isn't he cute?' commentary here on Twitter a couple of years ago
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@IonaItalia @blobbynfriends It depends what you mean by 'odd' here. This cartoon certainly reflects reality, in that there are plenty of women out there who will say such things. Not all women of course, but enough for men to tread cautiously
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
4 years
@matthaig1 It used to be commonly understood by journos that you didn't report on the specifics of a suicide because of contagion risks. If that's now been throw out the window for clicks modern media really is in serious decay
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
1 year
@_B___S Play with your animals: they'll love you for it
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
6 months
@NiallHarbison I suspect animals live in the moment to a much greater degree than we humans, so perhaps he does not. Even if he still does, it may slip from his memory soon, once he grows used to being comfortable
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
24 days
@seanjetravers Ha :) My first thought on seeing the trailer was "have they just revealed the twist?!" But that can't be it: there must be something more
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
8 months
...'listen!', 'lo!', or as Seamus Heaney rendered it, 'so!' But this still seems odd for a word that, really, just means 'what'. If it is an interjection, it's hard not to wonder if it is actually an abbreviation of some longer phrase like "hwæt stǣres sċeal iċ singan?" [2]
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
7 months
@RevDaniel A commendably charitable and patient response. Clearly *she cares that you're gay or she would not be making homophobic remarks of that nature
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@Black_Kettle
Cameron ⌨️ ☕️🍉
5 months
Iconic moment (and yes, it means what you think it means)
Tweet media one
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