No one else wants to bring back anomalocaris so we can get some payback?

Yup, that’s another one. I think that one is even worse because the new usage makes it a contranym. Dictionaries are starting to include the new usage of that one too. Unless you have a reason to be pretty sure the author/speaker knows the correct definition, it can be difficult to tell.

It means puzzled and/or confused.

Many authors seem to think it means amused mixed with some confusion or puzzlement or something else like that.

Some dictionaries have started to include definitions along those lines, which is correct to do if that is becoming a common usage. But that makes the word bullshit because it no longer conveys a clear meaning. Unlike some words that gain new meanings through misuse, it’s usually not clear which meaning is intended from context. Usually I can easily imagine a character’s response to something to be either of these definitions so I often can’t understand the author’s intention. I often find myself taken out of the story while I try to understand which meaning I should use. Because of this I think the word has become useless and shouldn’t be used.

Bemused

It’s used incorrectly so often that even when I suspect it’s being used correctly I can’t be sure. At this point its ambiguity makes it a bad word choice.

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“A Transport For London camera study of 7,500 cyclists at five junctions found in 2007 that, contrary to popular perception, most cyclists do not run reds: 84% of the cyclists stopped at red traffic lights.”

This surprised me. I haven’t noticed that many cyclists running reds. The tone seemed to suggest that was a good statistic for some reason. That is way too high. If 16% of cars ran red lights my life expectancy would be about three days. I’m in favor of cyclists bending or breaking rules to protect themselves but I don’t think running reds qualifies. Everyone should always stop at reds. I’m a bit of a scofflaw when it comes to some traffic laws but that’s too far.

I vote for this to become official.

What’s the opposite of eating the onion? I read your comment and scoffed, wondering who could actually believe this. The I saw the “Not” in the comm name.

Absolutely, I shouldn’t have used cheap as a synonym for bad, or vice versa, that’s my mistake.

There are a lot of very good wines at low price points, especially from underappreciated regions. A little experimentation will result in finding some great value.

The same goes for the whiskey. There are a lot of distilleries out there with great offerings far below the price of the big names everyone recognizes. Especially when you take fads into account. Many bourbons and Japanese whiskeys that used to be good buys are now ridiculously priced.

Yeah, but…are you saying you never want some shitty nachos?

I can only speak for myself but I’ve eaten at Michelin star restaurants all over the world and enjoy fine dining whenever I have the time and I love it, but sometimes I just want taco bell.

Alcohol, on the other hand; good Scotch and wine has ruined the cheap stuff for me. I can’t drink cheap, or even mediocre, whisky or wine anymore. If it’s not very high quality I’d rather just have something like a gin or vodka cocktail.

I get what you’re saying, but assuming you’re talking about medical doctors, they’re a bad example. I know three doctors well and they’re all dumber than a sack of hammers. Becoming a doctor doesn’t require much intelligence, it requires the ability to stay in school long enough (and being able to tolerate gross stuff from other people’s bodies).

What do you call someone who got all Ds in medical school? Doctor.

I had a similar situation travelling in Ireland with a friend who ordered a black and tan.

Vilnius is fucking amazing. I really enjoyed my visit to the three Baltic nations recently. I’m glad I got there before all this started kicking off.

Coincidentally, I hope, several places I’ve visited in the last 15-20 years have become sketchy to travel to for one reason or another within a year or two after my visit. Maybe I should just stay home for the good of the world.

If we can verb nouns, we can noun adjectives!

I think it started with people saying “I would like to (do something very illegal) to (some person) in Minecraft.” Thinking that saying “in Minecraft” would shield them from any repercussions because they only wanted to do it in a simulated environment. Eventually some people would just shorten it to things like “…in Minecraft” and leave the obvious part unsaid.

Seriously, I’d like to know too. I’ve always thought that you got them and then you were done. But maybe that was counting on there not being a bunch of disease vectors walking around.

But if we fixed it where would we get all our slaves undocumented workers?

Vote and volunteer in local elections. I think most people would be surprised how few resources campaigns for state legislature have. You and a few friends can make a huge difference. Volunteer for the Dem (out of necessity) primary candidate that wants to replace ftp voting with ranked choice or another similar system, and show up to meetings regardless of election cycle to give input. It wouldn’t take much to get their resources up to the level of establishment candidates.

If a few good sized states could get this the others would get jealous about them having real choice and I believe it would start a snowball effect. It has to come from state legislatures though.

If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is pure profit.

We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

Edit: tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.