Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 3]

[marshalla]

Vipers said:

Bearing in mind the way Chinese, Japanese, and those Middle eastern countries write, which seem to be quite big icons if you get me, do they have crosswords, just thinking that as I am standing here doing the daily paper crossword, where single letters fit in small squares.

China and Japan - not really. The glyphs they use represent concepts & sounds rather than letters so crosswords are very difficult to produce, that's one of the reasons why Japan ended up with Sudoku instead. Some language schools do use a form of crossword to teach the glyphs.

[Jonboy_t]

Why, on the list of ingredients for some things, do they list 'aqua' instead of 'water'? Or is aqua not actually water?!

[marshalla]

Jonboy_t said:

Why, on the list of ingredients for some things, do they list 'aqua' instead of 'water'? Or is aqua not actually water?!

You've been reading shampoo bottles! (or similar). It's water, and it's a way of disguising that most of what you're paying for is water. It works on a lot of women, but not so much on men. It's the "science bit"

[Cliftonite]

Jonboy_t said:

Why, on the list of ingredients for some things, do they list 'aqua' instead of 'water'? Or is aqua not actually water?!

Presumably so that punters do not know that most of what they have purchased, possibly at some significant expense, could instead have been obtained from a tap for free.

78% of the current populace do not know that aqua = water.

83% of statistics are made up

[Shaolin]

Aqua sounds so much more gentle and "healing". Why does the whole cosmetic and health food bks business assume everyone is ill and need to be healed?

[Dr Jekyll]

Why not just say dihydrogen monoxide?

[Vipers]

marshalla said:

Vipers said:

Bearing in mind the way Chinese, Japanese, and those Middle eastern countries write, which seem to be quite big icons if you get me, do they have crosswords, just thinking that as I am standing here doing the daily paper crossword, where single letters fit in small squares.

China and Japan - not really. The glyphs they use represent concepts & sounds rather than letters so crosswords are very difficult to produce, that's one of the reasons why Japan ended up with Sudoku instead. Some language schools do use a form of crossword to teach the glyphs.

Thank you, makes sense.

[mybrainhurts]

Captivated washers on bolts. Just to prevent loss or another purpose that I can't see?

[Hugo a Gogo]

men who shave parts of their bodies other than the head/face/neck area; where do you 'draw the line'? where do you stop shaving? do people do the whole lot, fingers, toes, arms?

[Moonhawk]

marshalla said:

Jonboy_t said:

Why, on the list of ingredients for some things, do they list 'aqua' instead of 'water'? Or is aqua not actually water?!

You've been reading shampoo bottles! (or similar). It's water, and it's a way of disguising that most of what you're paying for is water. It works on a lot of women, but not so much on men. It's the "science bit"

I always thought it was just marketing bks - but I just read something that suggests they are required by law to use the latin names for the ingredients so that they are universally recognisable.

Aqua is latin for water, parfum is latin for perfume etc.

[marshalla]

Moonhawk said:

I always thought it was just marketing bks - but I just read something that suggests they are required by law to use the latin names for the ingredients so that they are universally recognisable.

Aqua is latin for water, parfum is latin for perfume etc.

Aqua is latin.
Parfum is french.

The names come from an industry body defined database : https://www.essentialwholesale.com/library/inci-na...
(There may well be law involved, but I can guarantee there was a lot of industry lobbying to get the "right" law on labelling to help with marketing)

[steveo3002]

is sign language differant for each country or could a deaf english person sign to a french person and chat

[marshalla]

steveo3002 said:

is sign language differant for each country or could a deaf english person sign to a french person and chat

Even within countries there are variations. There is no single common sign language.

[Einion Yrth]

Vipers said:

marshalla said:

Vipers said:

Bearing in mind the way Chinese, Japanese, and those Middle eastern countries write, which seem to be quite big icons if you get me, do they have crosswords, just thinking that as I am standing here doing the daily paper crossword, where single letters fit in small squares.

China and Japan - not really. The glyphs they use represent concepts & sounds rather than letters so crosswords are very difficult to produce, that's one of the reasons why Japan ended up with Sudoku instead. Some language schools do use a form of crossword to teach the glyphs.

Thank you, makes sense.

It's not entirely true though. Chinese is written entirely with ideograms certainly, so crosswords really wouldn't work there (although conceivably "cross-phrases" might); Japanese however, in addition to using ideograms "borrowed" from the Chinese also uses two syllabaries to represent grammatical markers and to transliterate foreign words. Since these syllabaries, represent sounds in an analogous but not identical way to an alphabet and since it is possible, if uncommon, to represent the language without the Kanji (the ideograms) then cross-words would be possible in Japanese.

I don't think they have them, though.

[Jonboy_t]

What will our 'era' be known as? Like Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian etc?

We've already had the Elizabethans, so what will the historians call us?

[rohrl]

Jonboy_t said:

What will our 'era' be known as? Like Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian etc?

We've already had the Elizabethans, so what will the historians call us?

Other eras have been named after the monarch's family name, like Tudor, so perhaps the Windsor?

[Shaolin]

steveo3002 said:

is sign language differant for each country or could a deaf english person sign to a french person and chat

Deaf people have a native language, the language they read and write in. Sign language overlays this with some signs that may be transferable, but that's coincidence. Signs are part of the sign language, not the whole means of communication, "mouthed" words or even spelled out words are also important and they belong to the native language.

That said I'll guess that two deaf people with no other language overlap could get by better than two non-deaf people in the same situation, though still not very far.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Why do people or things have a "meteoric rise?" Surely it should be a meteoric fall, as in one minute your career was up in the stars, and then it plummeted.

Meteors don't rise.

[iambeowulf]

Journalistic sensationalism.

Every story they write has to sound interesting but not cliched. Ironically that's the result.

[marshalla]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Why do people or things have a "meteoric rise?" Surely it should be a meteoric fall, as in one minute your career was up in the stars, and then it plummeted.

Meteors don't rise.

But they do move pretty fast.