lord of the rings - Clear some doubts and questions about the Witch-king of Angmar

Arnor split into the three separate kingdoms of Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur in TA 861. The Witch King founded Angmar around 1300, and picked off the three kingdoms one by one. By 1356 he had all but subjugated Rhudaur, which had few Dunedain and was nearest to Angmar. In 1409 'a great host' issued from Angmar and destroyed Cardolan. In 1974 the Witch King himself led another attack in which Arthedain was destroyed. It's also worth noting that the expeditionary force which smashed the Witch King's army was fairly 'small' by Gondor's standards.

So, there weren't that many Dunedain in the North, and they were disunited. The Witch King could call on subtantial numbers of orcs and hillmen. He may also have had support from the orcs of the Misty Mountains; the distance from Angmar to Mount Gundabad is not great.

(Sources are LOTR appendices A & B.)

EDIT (In response to M. A. Golding's comment)

Regarding the last sentence, there is evidence that the Orcs of the Misty Mountains existed long before the Witch King appeared in Angmar in The Disaster of the Gladden Fields (Unfinished Tales).

The Orcs of the Mountains were stiffened and commanded by grim
servants of Barad-Dur.

This to me seems reminiscent of Ugluk leading a band that included mountain orcs in the Two Towers (The Uruk Hai). In addition, the Tale of Years contains the following entry for TA1300:

... Orcs increase in the Misty Mountains and attack the dwarves. The
Nazgul reappear.

Here, 'increase' is crucial, because it shows that the orcs were present in the mountains before the Nazgul reappeared.

We can be sure that the Orcs of the Misty Mountains existed before Angmar was founded, and the suggestion that they may have supported the Witch King stands. He may have exerted more control over them than Sauron later did in the War of the Ring, given that Carn Dum was closer to their strongholds than Barad-Dur. However, I can find no mention of Mount Gundabad that predates the War of the Dwarves and Orcs (TA2793-99; see LotR III, appendix A). It does appear that Angmar extended further south than Gundabad on the east side of the mountains.

... when therefore they [the Eotheod] heard of the overthrow of the
Witch-king, they sought more room in the North, and drove away the
remnants of the people of Angmar on the east side of the Mountains.

LotR III, appendix A, The House of Eorl.

The location of the land to which the Eotheod moved is given in Cirion and Eorl part (ii), The Ride of Eorl (Unfinished Tales).

The new land of the Eotheod lay north of Mirkwood, between the Misty
Mountains westward and the Forest River eastward.

However, the status of Mount Gundabad during the time of the North Kingdom, and its relation to Angmar, appear to be unknown.

Equivalences between Australian English and American English

I think the question should really be what are the Equivalences between Australian English and British English?

Because Australian English is derived from British English and has far more in common with it than it does with US English.
In fact, apart from colloquialisms and a few differences in common phrases Australian and British English are very close indeed.

How did the Paladins catch Jumpers before the discovery of electricity?

The 3rd book: Jumper: Griffin's Story, reviewed here, released just before the film, incorporates more of the film's elements, most notably the Paladins (who weren't in the first 2 books).

This reveals that some Paladins can sense Jumpers if they're nearby when they jump.
In medieval times when towns, villages and populations were a lot smaller and without modern technology, this ability would have been crucial.

Why did Bruno's parents assume he was killed so quickly?

In the movie Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), the young protagonist Bruno befriends a Jewish prisoner, Shmuel, at a concentration camp near his home. At the end of the movie, Bruno sneaks away from home, breaks in to the camp in order to help Shmuel find his father, and subsequently is taken to a gas chamber to be executed, as he is mistaken for an actual prisoner.

His parents quickly discover he is missing, track him to the camp, and Bruno's father sees an empty barracks, indicating a gassing has taken place. However, they spend very little time searching the camp, and his mother breaks down in tears outside the fence without even seeing the empty barracks.

Why do they assume he has been killed so quickly, without a more extensive search of the area? Is this a case of the viewer knowing Bruno has been killed and they will find evidence eventually?

word choice - Tense of "lie"/"lay" in a clause

No, there is no tense clash. Finding is a gerund here (a verb turned into a noun by adding -ing), and nouns fit with any tense.

You are also correct in supposing that the past tense of lie is lay, though (as FumbleFingers notes below) lie could actually be what you want to use; the present tense would signify that your prevailing personal interests have not changed since then.

Also, I might say finding a job/employment instead of a career, since finding or pursuing a career implies that you are searching out what you want to do; from the context it looks like you mean you found it necessary to take up a job just to make money, not to pursue as a career goal:

However, while in secondary school, I abandoned my higher scientific aspirations because I became more focused on finding a job rather than finding where my personal interests truly lay.

What word means "the sights, things, and activities that are special" in a place?

Typically, each city or region has its own special sights, cuisine, crafts, festivals, and activities. These need not necessarily be fully unique to a place, but might be things which local people will hope tourists will take note of. Is there a single word which can refer to these "sights, foods, activities" altogether?

expressions - Wish someone 'good luck' for an operation

I feel that I know what you mean by not wanting to add "luck" into the equation. It seems to me that calling luck into play would only serve to add more stress to an already stressful situation. Hoping for luck brings to my mind a feeling of more uncertainty, and questions the reliability of the surgeon and anesthesiologist. I would probably tend to want to stay as positive as possible, making a statement that is not a question as much as it is a foregone conclusion. Such as: "I will be so happy to see you in recovery after the operation" or "Things will be so much better after you're through this". Since I do not know the nature of the operation I can't give a specific answer to your question, however I do hope that you get my meaning. Best of luck to you in finding a suitable term that you're comfortable with. ☺

lord of the rings - How did Aragorn and Arwen first meet, and why did they get together?

I have recently come to learn some things about Aragorn and Arwen that trouble me. According to Tolkien Gateway's entry on Aragorn, he went to live with Elrond at Rivendell when he was only two years old, and Elrond raised him as his own son from that time on. Only when Aragorn was about 20 years old did Elrond tell Aragorn that he was not Elrond's real son, and that he was, in fact, the heir of Isildur. About a year later, when Aragorn was 21 or so, he fell in love with Elrond's daughter Arwen. Tolkien Gateway says that this happened when Arwen returned to Rivendell from Lorien, where her grandparents lived.

This bothers me because it means that Aragorn fell in love with a woman who, for as long as he could remember, and up until a year earlier, he believed to be his sister. Of course, she wasn't actually his sister, but he thought she was for most of his life.

Humans have an instinctive aversion to entering romantic relationships with people we're in close contact with early in our lives (this phenomenon is known as the Westermarck Effect, or "reverse sexual imprinting"). But Aragorn and Arwen seem to have ignored this instinct completely. Tolkien Gateway suggests, but doesn't explicitly state, that Arwen and Aragorn might not have met before Aragorn was 21, but it offers no citations for this suggestion. It seems unlikely that Arwen, who was already more than a thousand years old (I believe she was over 2,000 years old, as a matter of fact) by this time, spent 20 years straight with her grandparents in Lorien, never once visiting her father and brothers in Rivendell. She was an adult, free to come and go as she pleased, and could have gone home whenever she wanted to.

Even if they hadn't met before, they certainly knew of each other, and Aragorn believed her to be his sister for as long as he could remember. She would have heard about her new baby foster brother being brought to Rivendell, to be raised by her father Elrond as his foster son. Aragorn would have seen Arwen's brothers as his own brothers, her father as his father, and he would have heard much about his sister Arwen. Even if they had never seen each other before, they still would have regarded each other as brother and sister.

And if they had truly never met before, and even though Aragorn learned the truth a year earlier- that Elrond wasn't his father, and Elrond's children were not his siblings, Aragorn instantly becoming smitten with Arwen still seems creepy. According to Tolkien Gateway, Arwen didn't feel anything for Aragorn until a year or so after Aragorn fell in love with her, but still, it is also creepy that she fell in love with him.

It is even more bizarre that Elrond approved of their courtship, regardless of the fact that he refused to let them marry until Aragorn became King of Gondor and Arnor. After all, Elrond still regarded Aragorn as his foster son, and obviously treated Arwen as his actual daughter (which she was), so he essentially condoned a marriage between his daughter and adopted son.

It bears repeating that Aragorn's immediate reaction to meeting his stepsister (for lack of a better word) was to fall in love with her. She soon returned his affection, and fell in love with her stepbrother, even going so far as to surrender her immortality to be with him. And again, their father approved of their relationship, albeit after setting some conditions for Aragorn to meet before they could get married.

So I have to ask a few related questions to put my mind at ease, although I don't think any answer will make this relationship seem any less unnatural.

1. Is it true that Aragorn and Arwen had never met before Aragorn was 21 or so?


2. Do we know anything about how the relationship began?


3. Am I wrong in thinking that, for most of his childhood and adolescence, Aragorn believed Elrond to be his real father? Tolkien Gateway says Elrond told Aragorn the truth about his ancestry when he was around 20 years old, and that before that point, he raised Aragorn as his own son; I took this to mean that Aragorn genuinely believed he was Elrond's actual son until then. If I was wrong, the Aragorn-Arwen thing might be less disgusting.

grammar - When an adjective modifies a noun, can either "look" or "look like" be used?

I did follow your link to the Oxford English Learner's Dictionary, and I did note that the sentence that looks an interesting book; however, that is a very odd usage that, to my American ear, sounds incorrect.

Look is being used as an linking verb in that sentence meaning to appear or to seem. When used that way, look is an intransitive verb and therefore should not take an object.

Ordinarily a preposition such as like or an infinitive such as to be follows linking verbs such as seems, appears, looks, etc.

It should be more like these examples:

That looks like an interesting book.
That appears to be an interesting book.

If you want to omit the preposition like, you would need to change the syntax. With a linking verb, you can use an adjective in the predicate. Note the following example:

That book looks interesting.

Interesting is still modifying book. It does not need to precede the noun when a linking verb is used. This is called a predicate adjective.

The only other way that I could write that in the same way would be to use the verb to be, but that would change the meaning. Take this for example:

That *is* an interesting book.

That is grammatically correct, but it significantly changes the meaning of the sentence though

star trek ds9 - Why is the Dominion considered the Alpha Quadrant's biggest threat?

I think the best way to answer this is to look at all the major powers who either A. are an Alpha/"Beta on the border" Power, B. are capable of easily traveling to that part of the Alpha quadrant, or C. both; and comparing them. Note that this answer is very TNG era oriented, and is abridged in some ways

The Romulans: The Romulans are a major power, but they're not exactly a major threat. The precursor to the Federation, the Coalition of Planets, was able to force the Romulans into a stalemate, despite only having around 13 federation-precursor powers. The 24th century Federation is more than 5 times that size. Should the need arise, the Federation alone could defeat the Romulans. Furthermore, they also had the reunification movement, which was an internal issue that hindered their government's effectiveness. http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Coalition_of_Planets

The Klingons: The Klingons were stalemated by the Federation in the 23rd century, and had dealt with a major civil war just a few years previously. They had been dealing with significant government corruption "Ezri Dax covered this in more detail than is needed here".

The Cardassians: The Cardassians were a major power, but at this point in DS9, they and the Federation were having issues just dealing with the Maquis, a group of colonists. On top of that, they were having domestic issues at the time as well, with the movement for a civilian government growing. The Cardassians had too many problems to be the top power.

The Federation: The Federation was one of the biggest powers, but they had the same problems with the Maquis that the Cardassians did. Furthermore, they had a lot of political division. For examples:
* Seven of Nine said "Officially, the Ktarians were with the Federation, but they sympathized with the Maquis." in "The Voyager Conspiracy".
* Many Federation colonies had been given to the Cardassians, which ticked off the citizens, and also caused disputes in the general population.
* In “The Drumhead” with Next Gen, we saw that there's actually a fair amount of McCartyism in the Federation.
* We saw in an episode of Next Gen that at least one person had defected from the Federation to the Romulans, suggesting some internal political issues.
* There was a movement on Vulcan to align with the Romulans, which we saw in season 4 of Star Trek Enterprise. This could disrupt the membership of a core member of the Federation.

The Ferengi: The Ferengi were an economic power, not a military power.

The Borg: The Borg may be powerful, but they had only attacked with 1 or 2 vessels at this time, depending on how you count the ones left over that the NX01 encountered.

The Dominion: At this point in the series, the full extent of the Dominion wasn't known "unknown threats are greater threats". The dominion had the Changelings, which are a major political threat. The Dominion could destroy a Galaxy class with just a few fighters in minutes. The Dominion had a partial ability to see through Romulan cloaking devices "which would make the Romulans perceive them as a bigger threat." Also, we saw the Dominion defeat the Defiant in combat, which was a vessel designed to enter a fight with a Borg Cube. If the dominion can defeat vessels designed to defeat the Borg, it's a threat.

In summary, the Dominion was a bigger threat because it wasn't as well known as the other powers, could see through some Romulan cloaks, could defeat extremely powerful vessels, had the changelings, and the surrounding powers were too plagued by internal matters to be a threat.

biology - Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?

Related: Why are there humans in the Star Wars Universe?

This is a subtly different question because I'm not asking whether there's a historical relationship between the two lineages.

I am asking this question because answers to these questions:

How did Anakin think the power to cheat death would be helpful?

When was Luke Skywalker conceived?

are making assumptions about the appearance of Padme while pregnant, the period of gestation, and appearance of newborn babies.

All of these presuppose that the "humans" of the Star Wars Galaxy are 100% biologically equivalent to us. In fact, as far as I know, we don't actually know any of those facts from canon. (Do we?) All we know is that "human" children and adults look like us.

Another way to put this would be

doctor who - Do daleks have gender?

There is an episode (somewhere during number 10 I believe), where four Daleks build a more durable (and slightly larger) Dalek. The first thing all five Daleks agree upon is that the new Dalek is superior and therefore must exterminate its four builders, which it does and they don't resist at all. They do this even though only the container, not the organism within, is different.

There was an asylum of the Daleks where all Daleks showing the slightest deviation are deported to, not to ever leave the planet. Deviation from "normal" is not acceptable. There is deportation instead of trying to migitate or even embrace the differences.

Difference will always result in classification superior/not-superior and lead to drastic actions, to uphold that "the Dalek" is the supreme being. They must believe their very existance is perfection and fight everything else.

Biological reproduction (even mythosis) does not guarantee exact clones, and therefore makes the entire process unfit for the Daleks. You don't want/need evolution once you are perfect. Having corresponding organs would be inefficient and leave room for improvement, which contradicts the assumption that a Dalek is perfect. From this we can conclude, that Daleks cannot be different from one another, not even in the slightest. There is no room for diversity, not even genders.

Once upon a time there may have been (probably were) Daleks with genders, but they would have eliminated this difference one way or the other way back in their history.

The original answer before the edit, which people seem to have problems understanding:
If there were discernable genders within the Dalek race they wouldn't be able to settle on "equal". One would always think its gender is superior or inferior to the other. For the nature of the Dalek, if there are alive Daleks they must be of the same gender.

identify this movie - Boy carves Initials onto turtle shell; years later, turtle is gigantic

Years ago (late 80’s to early 90’s), we watched a movie in which a seaside town is terrorized by a sea-monster which turns out to be a giant turtle. At the very end of the movie, the turtle sinks into the ocean and we see its shell with the initials (with the typical ‘+’ and heart, I think) that the boy and girl carved onto it when they were young.

I tried Googling it, but the only thing I could find were some news articles about a real-life incident (from May 2012) where a turtle is found 47 years after a boy carved his initials in its shell. Obviously the movie predates the real-life incident (strange that I thought of the movie only a few weeks after the news broke).

Does anyone know what the movie was?

What does the girl cutting her hand in Animatrix: Beyond symbolize?

There's a couple ways to interpret this scene.

The straightforward approach is to just assume she was cutting her hand with the can to see if maybe the 'power' they thought they had had to do with the can or with themselves, meaning maybe only organic matter (bodies, blood, etc) will work, but the blood still dripped to the ground.

The other more psychological approach is her realization that the place has no more 'magic' to it and the cutting is possibly an extreme way to feel something after having this area's special properties taken away from her.

Finally, it could just be dramatic effect and nothing more, though the stories of the Matrix have never been known to use imagery for something so basic, I believe.

Short Story - Family Moving to the Moon

This sounds like "The Strawberry Window" by Ray Bradbury. As K-H-W commented, there are a couple of slight discrepancies: the family is living on Mars, not the moon, and the money is their life's savings instead of being specifically intended for a return trip.

The wife is unhappy living on Mars and misses their home back on Earth:

"Bob..." Her voice was not bitter, but soft, featureless, and as uncolored as the moonlight that showed what she was doing. "So many nights for six months I've talked this way; I'm ashamed. You work hard building houses in town. A man who works so hard shouldn't have to listen to a wife gone sad on him. But there's nothing to do but talk it out. It's the little things I miss most of all. I don't know — silly things. Our front-porch swing. The wicker rocking chair, summer nights. Looking at the people walk or ride by those evenings, back in Ohio. Our black upright piano, out of tune. [...] All those crazy, silly things... they're not important. But it seems those are things that come to mind around three in the morning. I'm sorry."

The conversation prompts her husband to admit that he's spent the family's savings:

"I threw it away, Carrie, I swear, I threw it away on nothing. It was going to be a surprise. But now, tonight, there you are, and there are those blasted suitcases on the floor and..."

"Bob," she said, turning around. "You mean we've gone through all this, on Mars, putting away extra money every week, only to have you burn it up in a few hours?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm a crazy fool. Look, it's not long till morning. We'll get up early. I'll take you down to see what I've done. I don't want to tell you, I want you to see. And if it's no go then, well, there's always those suitcases and the rocket to Earth four times a month." [...]

"The freight rocket came in this morning," he said, quietly. "Our delivery's on it. Let's go and pick it up."

He reveals that the "delivery" contains the family's belongings and bits and pieces of their house back on Earth. And when he gets to the final crate:

He ran down the steps to the last and as-yet unopened canvas-covered crate. With his pocket knife he cut a hole in the canvas. "Guess!" he said.

"My kitchen stove? My sewing machine?"

"Not in a million years." He smiled very gently. "Sing me a song," he said. [...]

He ripped the canvas wider and shoved his hand into the crate and touched around for a quiet moment, and started to sing the words himself until he moved his hand a last time and then a single clear piano chord sprang out on the morning air.

anatomy - Skeletal muscle without antagonist

I would argue that the orbiculares do have antagonists. To some extent, levator palpebrae superiorus antagonizes orbicularis oculi, and zygomaticus major/minor as well as risorius antagonize orbicularis oris.

I can think of three muscle that don't have obvious antagonists:

1. Stapedius


2. Tensor tympani


3. Articularis genu

1 and 2 essentially perform the same action, to dampen sounds reaching the cochlea. 3 elevates the suprapatellar bursa.

What is a word for a punishment given by people without proper trial instead of the court?

Is there a word that describes the giving of punishment (usually stoned to death) of a criminal by the local people near where the crime happened?

A typical example would be when a thief in a village steals a motorcycle, and then gets caught by the angry mobs, and then usually the thief gets either killed by the mobs or beaten badly without proper hearing and trial, usually until the police intervene.

I've tried searching for "trial by the mass" (but apparently Google found mass trial instead), "public trial" (but apparently it means something different), "trial without hearing" (but the results are not what I'm looking for), "punishment by the mass" (but Google found capital punishment and collective punishment instead), and so far, nothing gives me a word for punishment by the public/mass.

Did Tolkien borrow some of the Ring's properties from the Silmarils?

In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring has many powers which make it incredibly dangerous to anyone who holds it, or even comes within close proximity to it. It inspires jealousy, possessiveness, mistrust, discord, infighting, treachery, betrayal, murder, and hatred.

In The Silmarillion, the Silmarils appear to share many of these characteristics. They provoked Fëanor and his kin to take an evil oath, dooming themselves and the entirety of Arda - and even Aman, albeit indirectly. The Silmarils are the cause of much of the suffering and bloodshed of the Elder Days, and countless Men, Elves, Dwarves, and others die as a result of the Silmarils' effects on all who see them. Really, the whole story of The Silmarillion is a long, mournful tale of the misery and malice created by the Silmarils.

There are other parallels between the Ring and the Silmarils. Sauron desperately sought the Ring, much like his master Morgoth sought the Silmarils (although for very different reasons). Some part of the power of the Ainur was locked in each of these objects. Both the Ring and the Silmarils were, more or less, cursed, and brought pain and suffering upon those who possessed them.

Almost anyone who looks upon the Ring or the Silmarils is overcome with covetousness, to such a degree that, even if they are otherwise decent people, they can be inspired to commit horrible acts and unprovoked violence. Both the Ring and the Silmarils are physically beautiful, but are the catalysts for unimaginable ugliness. Both the Ring and the Silmarils are responsible for the deaths of many great leaders and virtuous people.

And so on. As I understand it, much of The Silmarillion was written before Tolkien began working on The Lord of the Rings; however, The Silmarillion was published years after he died, and decades after The Lord of the Rings was published. And although the One Ring appears in The Hobbit, this was actually a retcon, and the description of the ring in the first edition of The Hobbit is nothing like the description in The Lord of the Rings; in the first edition of The Hobbit, the ring is simply an invisibility device with no apparent evil characteristics. It isn't particularly remarkable, in fact, and there is no indication of the far more sinister qualities associated with the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings.

This begs the question of whether he borrowed some of his own ideas regarding the Silmarils and attributed them to the One Ring. Is there any evidence to support this notion? Did he ever write anything along these lines (presumably in his letters)?

---

Note: While the Ring and the Silmarils share many of their less pleasant attributes in common, there are also some very obvious differences between them. The One Ring is inherently evil, because it was created by an extremely evil being for incredibly evil purposes. The Ring is almost a physical embodiment of evil.

The Silmarils, on the other hand, were not evil at all. The Elf who made them, Fëanor, became quite wicked later on (as a direct result of having created the Silmarils), but when he was making them, he was a nice enough person. And whereas the Ring was made by an evil being using evil materials in evil ways for evil reasons, the Silmarils were made from the light of the Great Trees of Valinor, which were themselves created by the purest, most un-evil beings in the universe - the Ainur; the materials from which they were made were from Valinor, and were therefore also not evil.

The Ring was always, inextricably and irrevocably evil, and it was always intended to be evil. Of the Silmarils, quite the opposite is true. It wasn't the objects themselves that were evil, but the greed and conceit which they inspired in their creator. If Fëanor hadn't sworn a wicked oath upon them, they would have remained beautiful jewels, and proof of a remarkable feat of craftsmanship, and nothing more.

harry potter - Can non-British wizards attend Hogwarts?

I don't remember any direct statement in the books saying that some student does not come from Britain.

There is some canon evidence that wizards can attend foreign schools though. Draco says that he considered going to Durmstrang but his mother opposed because it was too far away:

… Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. He knows the Headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore – the man’s such a Mudblood-lover – and Durmstrang doesn’t admit that sort of riff-raff.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 11: Aboard the Hogwarts Express.

One more indirect evidence can be found in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Lupin says there that this year it is mandatory for all children to go to Hogwarts and that is did not use to be like this. Some parents were allowed to educate their kids at home or abroad:

‘Attendance is now compulsory for every young witch and wizard,’ he replied. ‘That was announced yesterday. It’s a change, because it was never obligatory before. Of course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their parents had the right to teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 11: The Bribe.

So it sounds plausible that also non-British students are allowed to study in Hogwarts.

directors - What is the reason for making "Human Centipede 2" in black and white?

Somtimes filmmakers use black & white for showing the darker aspects of story.

For example in the 1998 film American History X, the parts of the movie where Edward Norton's character is a racist, are shown in Black & White, whereas the part of the movie where Edward Norton is no longer a racist and is seen repenting are shot in color. Take a look here.

So my point is that use of 'Black & White' in contemporary movies do deal with darker aspects of the story. Or let's say the use of 'Black & White' adds to the dark nature of a scene or a whole movie.

Adding to that, Wikipedia entry of the movie says

"According to Six, he intentionally made Full Sequence very different
from First Sequence, due to two reasons. First, back when he was
writing the script of First Sequence, he knew people would want more
"blood and shit" than is shown, and second, the two parts reflect the
two different characters of their antagonists: the coloured First
Sequence, with a slow-moving camera, fit the story of Dr. Heiter,
while Martin Lomax's character required a "dark and dirty" film. Six
shot Full Sequence in colour, but "was always thinking about black and
white" and realized while editing that it was "much scarier" in black
and white"

So I guess, we have an idea now why it was made in Black & White.

grammar - Is this "imperative" corrrect? What is dropping the subject called, if anything?

I was reading through this Git Commit Message Conventions document for a project and discovered what I think to be an improper recommendation to use imperative mood.

First, if you're not familiar with Git, here is a little background. Git is source code management software. When you make a change to your code you "commit" the code to the repository. When you "commit" you need to include a message explaining what the "commit" does or changed.

The document, based on this blog post, says to use imperative, but the example does not seem to be imperative. Instead it just seems like a fragment. In fact the blog post says that the message should describe what will happen if the commit (the set of changes) is applied.

It seems weird for it to be imperative:

[You,] rename the iVars to remove the common prefix.

[Let it] rename the iVars to remove the common prefix.

When this really what it should mean:

[This commit will] rename the iVars to remove the common prefix.

[Applying this commit will] rename the iVars to remove the common prefix.

I have two questions:

1. Am I correct that imperative is the wrong grammatical construct?




2. Is there a grammatical name for dropping the subject, as in the latter example?

Could the Death Star travel faster than light?

Yes, of course! If it could not travel faster than light, interstellar travel would be impossible, and battle station that would be restricted to a single star-system would be pretty useless.

In Star Wars Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the Death Star travel travel from Alderaan to Yavin IV, which are not in the same stellar system. Without faster than light capacity, that travel would have taken years.

Here is what the first Death Star Wookiepedia article have to say about it :

The battlestation also included two massive sublight engines in the midsection, as well as a formidable hyperdrive system. Driven by 123 individual generators tied to one navigational matrix, the Class 4 hyperdrive was fast enough to allow the Death Star to travel thousands of light years from Alderaan to Yavin IV in only a few hours.

Was Alfred Hitchcock a feminist?

Many of Alfred Hitchcock's films contain a strong female lead. From Grace Kelly's Lisa in Rear Window to Ingrid Bergman's Alicia Huberman in Notorious, these actresses were characteristically assertive, intelligent and rarely allowed themselves to be sublimated by men.

The term feminist may be ambiguous, so I'll define a feminist for this situation as: a person who believes that women should enjoy the same benefits as men through equality in the political, social and economic spheres.

Consider Alma Hitchcock, his wife. She was by his side for many of his films, and was considered an asset in the editing room. Per the Hitchcock Wiki, Alma "...noticed Janet Leigh inadvertently swallowed after her character's fatal encounter with Norman Bates' "mother" in "Psycho" (1960), necessitating an alteration to the negative."

Or even Edith Head, Hitchcock's favorite costume designer, who won eight Academy Awards-- more than any other woman.

By including such characters (or such actresses) in his films, and surrounding himself with smart and successful women, was Alfred Hitchcock (either consciously or unconsciously) expressing a personal desire to see equal treatment for women?

grammaticality - Do the -ing and to-infinitive "verbs" that follow catenative verbs always take the grammatical function of "noun"?

I'm wondering whether or not the verb form that follows a catenative verb has the grammatical function of a noun or of a verb, and whether or not it depends on the first catenative verb.

"I like to run"
"I like running"

the -ing and the to infinitive can easily be switched in this sentence, and it seems to be implying "I like [the act of[running]]", so both the infinitive and the gerund are nouns.

"I like to run marathons"/"I like running marathons"

These seem like they might still be nouns but need "verb powers" to take the object, and then these sentences really turn into "I like [the act of [running marathons]]"/ "I like [to be in the state of [running marathons]]".

Is this true for both the -ing (and so it would be a gerund) and the to-infinitive? Are they, sort of, initially verbs so that they can take the object, and then the verb + object becomes a noun phrase?

If this is true, I'm also wondering if the same rules apply for a catenative verb such as "start".

"I started to run in the mornings"
"I started running marathons in 2008"

"start" is a catenative verb that isn't a cognitive/emotion verb, and specifically suggests action. So what is the grammatical function of the to-infinitive and -ing verb forms? are they verbs? are they nouns? It just seems incorrect to say that their grammatical function is a noun, but everything I've seen on the internet is pretty vague. I've also seen that to-infinitives are never verbs, but only from one source and it just doesn't seem right to me.

So any ideas on the true grammatical function of the -ing and the to-infinitive after a catenative verb? And is it universal across catenative verbs, or does it depend on the verb category?

lord of the rings - Who or what was Old Man Willow?

Something Ent-like

It's not clear exactly where Willow falls on the continuum of tree-like creatures, but Treebeard implies that he's something at least sort of like an Ent:

Most of the trees are just trees, of course; but many are half awake. Some are quite wide awake, and a few are, well, ah, well getting Entish. That is going on all the time.

'When that happens to a tree, you find that some have bad hearts. Nothing to do with their wood: I do not mean that. Why, I knew some good old willows down the Entwash, gone long ago, alas! They were quite hollow, indeed they were falling all to pieces, but as quiet and sweet-spoken as a young leaf. And then there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as a bell, and bad right through. That sort of thing seems to spread. There used to be some very dangerous parts in this country. There are still some very black patches.'

'Like the Old Forest away to the north, do you mean?' asked Merry.

'Aye, aye. something like, but much worse. I do not doubt there is some shadow of the Great Darkness lying there still away north; and bad memories are handed down.

^{The Two Towers Book III Chapter 4: "Treebeard"}

This is of course not very helpful, and most people would have guessed this already, but it's all we have from the published canon.

Going back in time a bit, an early draft of the Bombadil chapter says that Willow was an angry spirit that got trapped in a tree:

Amongst [Bombadil's] talk there was here and there much said of Old Man Willow, and Merry learned enough to content him (more than enough, for it was not comfortable lore), though not enough for him to understand how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the Forest. The tree did not die, though its heart went rotten, while the malice of the Old Man drew power out of earth and water, and spread like a net, like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had infected or subjugated nearly all the trees on both sides of the valley.

^{History of Middle-earth VI The Return of the Shadow Part 1: "The First Phase" Chapter VI:"Tom Bomabdil"}

I'm not entirely sure of the dating of this passage, but I tentatively want to place it around 1938 - so a very early draft indeed, so how canon you consider it is a matter of personal taste.

This passage suggests that Willow was originally an ordinary tree, but that an angry "earth-bound" spirit got bound up inside of it, and spread its malice over the whole forest. The phrase "earth-bound" is interesting, because it precludes the possibility of him being a Maia; it takes a lot of effort to make one of the Ainur bound to the Earth, as Morgoth found out to his detriment.

Two more likely explanations would be:

But this is nothing more than speculation, and again depends on how "canon" you consider Tolkien's early drafts.

story identification - Obscure failed 90's live-action sci-fi pilot or mini-series involving teleportation and solar sails

What I vaguely remember:

Live action, aired anytime between 1992 and 2000 — likely before 97. The show is set in space.

Basic plot summary:

Some good kids (two of them I think, age range of 10-16 maybe?) are on the run and are rescued? By some adults..

They have or find some great spaceship which has a drive or power system involving solar sails.

If I remember correctly the ship was long, narrow, generic whitish grey in color with blue glowing outlines in places. On top it had 3 "sails" folded down. I think sails were down for sublight and up for whatever warp or FTL travel this series had. I don't mean like a rocket ship or 50's style sci-fi. This probably had a rounded front and rounded edges. The ship seemed awfully big for the size of crew it had (only 4-5? unless I'm missing many memories)

These sails did not fold out like sails on a boat. They swung up, stood tall, and were only as wide as the ship. They were thick solid grey/white material like the rest of the ship, also with glowing blue outlines. There is a point in the story where the sails are jammed/locked in the sublight position or in between and their enemy is catching up to capture the kids whose parents probably did something important before they were captured, killed, or whatever happened to them.

Apart from the ship the biggest point that stands out is the teleportation used.

When they need to use said teleporter one of the characters asks about (something like star trek beaming technology?) and I think one of the flat adult characters says something about that having been too dangerous and having been outlawed. Instead they use some kind of ... (tesseract?) don't remember what they called it.. but how it worked was:

• they stand back to back tightly


• they become visually distorted and some kind of dimensional transportation occurs


• if they get close to the edge of the blurry field ... they probably lose a limb

Apart from a memorable looking spaceship and approach to teleportation that was unusual for the time, the show seemed quite flat and the good characters seemed excessively and idealistically good. "We'll automatically do anything for each other because the writers wrote it in the script!" kind of tone.

I have scoured lists of 90's sci-fi TV pilots on IMDB and YouTube and tried Google image searches for the ship but never found anything.

The pilot (or what I saw) probably featured 2 large space craft and I don't recall any shuttles or fighters.

Almost certainly had scenes of one or two spaceships near a planet.

And obviously this was a long time ago so I could be off on some details.

Aired in English. I don't recall seeing any aliens in the story. If there were they were likely the humanoid kind.

story identification - Magic leaves "smudges" and a sorceress becomes a book

I could use some help identifying a book I read some time in the last year or so. The book goes between two different stories:

1) A student of magic finds a book in a cave that turns out to be a person transformed into a book. The book talks to the student and they share thoughts. At some point, the student runs away, chase ensues, and at the very end of the book, he manages to travel to another plane.

2) A girl in a religious society where magic is forbidden. She is the daughter of painters. She discovers she can see magic. Falls in love with some random painter, risks performing magic to not be pregnant, does it again so she can, and is arrested and sent to some prison thing.

The common element between the stories is that magic use leaves behind a smudge of some kind that can be visible.

Any assistance is appreciated.

hitchhikers guide - What is the source of the quote: "The universe doesn't care?"

I found this article opening with the quote, but it has a different title than the one you mentioned.

In any case, based on a Google search it appears that Jeffrey Kluger (The author of that article) made it up. Pretty much every attempt to search for the phrase directs me to Kluger's article in one form or another, except for this article posted on Bernstein & Andriulli's website last week:

We are very, very small. In the context of even our Solar System, human beings are such a minute part of the total planetary existence that we’re hardly worth mentioning. Put that into the context of the universe, and we wouldn't be a footnote. As TIME Magazine reporter Jeffrey Kluger puts it, "There is no reason at all you should care about the universe. For one thing, it doesn't care a whit about you."

Emphasis mine. Although it does kind of sound like it belongs in a Douglas Adams book, it seems to be an original creation.

word choice - Should I use "everyone's", "everyones'" or "everyones"?

As Robusto says, you should use everyone’s. Neither everyones’ nor everyones is a word.

Note that everyone is always singular and cannot be pluralized, which means everyones is incorrect. If everyones were a word, everyones’ would be the possessive form of everyones, but since everyones is incorrect, everyones’ is also incorrect.

synonyms - What is a more formal way of saying "get certifications"?

You've 'qualified' in something.

2.1 [WITH OBJECT] Officially recognize or establish (someone) as a practitioner of a particular profession or activity:

You are now 'certified' in that thing.

1.1 chiefly British Officially recognize as possessing certain qualifications or meeting certain standards:

You might even be 'accredited' (or licensed or authorised) to do it.

2. (Of an official body) give authority or sanction to (someone or something) when recognized standards have been met:




3. Give official authorization for (someone, typically a diplomat or journalist) to be in a particular place or to hold a particular post:

Obtaining stars vector position in relation to the center of the galaxy at a given date

EDIT: It turns out a major problem with galaxy-center-based coordinates is that we don't actually know how far from us the center of the galaxy actually is. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Center estimates vary between 24,800 and 28,400 light years. You could arbitrarily choose a value, but the results would be off by at least 2,000 light years in some cases.

I was surprised that I couldn't find something like this
online directly. The closest I found is the file
"heasarc_tycho2.tdat.gz" on
http://heasarc.nasa.gov/FTP/heasarc/dbase/dump/

The format is explained on
http://heasarc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/tycho2.html and it
includes the galactic latitude and longitude which are
explained here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system

Using this information, you'd still have to compute the
positions yourself, but at least all of the data is there.

Of course, as others have noted, you can take any star
catalog with any set of coordinates and convert it to the
format you need. The catalog I list above just makes it a
little easier, since they're precomputed some of the steps
for you.

As you mention above, SIMBAD also includes galactic
coordinates, but I couldn't find an easy way to download
the entire catalog.

What "Earth-Origin" animals exist in the canon Star Wars universe?

I looked through my Kindle editions of all the canonical books I own, and found the following words; I have taken the liberty of providing links for the few entries on the list that might be unfamiliar to some people:

---

Star Wars: A New Hope novelization:

Dogs
Cats
Moths
Rodents; mice
Insects
Bees
Vultures
Crows
Lizards (although they are "enormous" and have eight legs and huge tusks)
Elephants

---

Tarkin:

Birds; vultures
Fish
Rodents
Insects; ants; stinging ants
Felines
Crustaceans
Canines
Reptiles; serpents (which "rattle... in forewarning" - i.e., rattlesnakes); vipers

---

Aftermath:

Dogs
Cats
Rats
Pigs
Birds; hawks; chickens; peacocks
Fish
Snakes; vine snakes; venomous snakes; adders; vipers
Moths
Butterflies
Monkeys
Ants
Wasps
Spiders; Assassin spiders
Bulls
Lizards (in reference to monkey-lizards)
Amphibians

---

So You Want to Be a Jedi?:

Snakes
Dogs
Cats
Lizards (although this refers to Tauntauns)
Birds; chickens
Fish; silver-fish; sharks
Frogs (mentioned several times, all but once referring to Yoda :) )
Mice
Tigers
Rabbits
Cows
Toads
Flies
Sheep
Bats (Mynocks have "batlike" faces)
Spiders
Gorillas (The Wampa is compared to one)
Polar Bears (The Wampa is compared to one)

---

A New Dawn:

Rodents
Fish
Insects; bugs
Monkeys
Slugs (albeit space slugs)

---

Heir to the Jedi:

Dogs
Cats
Birds; carrion birds
Amphibians
Insects
Fish
Slugs
Snakes
Scorpions
Spiders
Mammals
Eels

---

Smugglers Run

Birds; birds of prey; shrikes
Insects
Fish

---

The Weapon of a Jedi:

Birds
Insects; bugs

canon - Which level of canonicity does the Star Wars Holiday Special hold, relative to other works?

TL;DR:

Disney canon:

Unknown as of end of 2014, but probably Legends. (UPDATE: As per Richard's later answer, it's most certainly not canon as of 2015)

So far it hasn't been listed among "these are New Canon" items, but also not listed among items clearly going into Legends canon.

Unless and until someone from DisneyLucasFilm clarifies that, we can speculate that it's Legends (seems like a safe bet) but we just don't know for sure.

Wookiepedia lists it under "Legends" list but I wasn't able to find a cite, from either Chee or Heddle.

Pre-Disney canon:

• No canon level for the whole thing overall




• It's NOT a movie (G-canon) or post-movie TV series (T-canon).




• Bits and pieces range from C-canon (confirmed in other works) or S-Canon (Can be contradicted by C-canon level works in the future).

---

From Wiki: Canonicity of the special

The Star Wars Holiday Special is technically in the Star Wars canon, which means that the events depicted are part of the greater continuity that includes the other films, novels, comic books, video games, etc. Generally, it falls in the C-Canon in the overall Star Wars continuity.

According to Leland Chee, the keeper of The Holocron, an internal Star Wars continuity database at Lucasfilm:

contains at least 28 individual entries relating to elements of the holiday special, most elements from the holiday special are definitely considered canon; however, there are specific rules as to what is what.

First off, any element from the holiday special that is referenced in another work is considered C-Canon (such as Life Day, Chewbacca's family, etc.).

Any element from the holiday special that is not referenced in other works is considered S-Canon, which means that it is canon, and that it "happened," but its canonicity is not set in stone.

The only element from the holiday special where the canonicity was disputed was reused footage of Chief Bast, a character who was killed during the destruction of the Death Star from the first film. Despite being portrayed by the same actor, he is intended to be a different character.

What is the meaning of the term "herbert" in British slang?

"Herbert" is a mild form of abuse meaning a silly, or dim-witted person. The origin of this term seems to be that it was derived from the name Herbert, which meant "bright." It was used in the very direct opposite, to mean dumb.

I found this definition here, but it doesn't make sense to me in the context of the song:

It makes sense, as he is calling the person a "dim-witted person". He says "My son is not going round as a hippie(weirdo) or as a dim-witted person, which you are"

Chemical reactions in white dwarf and carbon allotropes

White dwarfs are objects the size of the Earth, but with a mass more similar to the Sun. Typical internal densities are $10^{9}$ to $10^{11}$ kg/m$^{3}$.

White dwarfs are born as the contracting core of asymptotic giant branch stars that do not quite get hot enough to initiate carbon fusion. They have initial central temperatures of $sim 10^{8}$K, that swiftly (millions of years) drops to a few $10^{7}$K due to neutrino emission.

An important point to make is that after that, the interior of a white dwarf is almost isothermal. This is because the degenerate electrons that provide the pressure support also have extremely long mean free paths for scattering interactions and thus the thermal conductivity is extremely high.

The exterior of the white dwarf is a factor of 100 cooler than the interior. The temperature drop happens over a very thin shell (perhaps 1% of the outer part of the white dwarf), where the degenerate gas transitions to becoming non-degenerate at the surface.

This outer layer acts like an insulating blanket and makes the cooling timescales of white dwarfs very long. From interior temperatures of say $3times 10^{7}$ K it takes a billion years or so to cool to $5times 10^{6}$ K and then another 10 billion years to cool to around $10^{6}$K, and such white dwarfs, which must have arisen from the first stars that were born with progenitor masses of 5 to 8 solar masses, will be the coolest white dwarfs in the Galaxy.

At these temperatures there is no possibility of the carbon undergoing chemical reactions, it is completely ionised; the carbon and oxygen nuclei are in a crystalline lattice at these densities, surrounded by a degenerate electron gas. There is evidence that crystallisation does take place, via asteroseismology of some pulsating massive white dwarfs.

The details of the crystalline structure in these objects is unknown, and the subject of theoretical investigation. However, diamond is pure carbon and white dwarfs are expected to be a carbon/oxygen mixture. A further complication is that the process of crystallisation may be accompanied by gravitational separation of the carbon and oxygen, so that the inner core is more oxygen-rich than the outer core.

Original ideas were that the crystalline form would be body-centred cubic (bcc), but other more complex possibilites are opened up by the mixture of carbon and oxygen. bcc Carbon would be a new allotrope of carbon and not like diamond - it is a denser way of arranging the nuclei.

EDIT: To answer a point in the comments. Even if you were to wait trillions of years and allow white dwarfs to cool to the thousands or even hundreds of degrees that you might think would allow electrons to recombine and for chemistry to occur, that is not how it works. In the degenerate electron gas, the typical Fermi energy of the electrons is an MeV or so, compared with the eV-keV of bound electron states, and this is completely independent of the temperature. So the high electron number densities ensure that they will never recombine with the carbon nuclei (a theory first developed by Kothari 1938).

Why didn't River Song immediately know when she was meeting the Doctor for the first time?

While I do think that it was mainly because they didn't know Tennant would be leaving so soon, the matter is not without a number of possible reconciliations:

1) It could be that the events of "The End of Time" and the whole "returning Time War" business mucked up the timeline a little and resulted in Ten regenerating earlier than he should have. As we saw, the oncoming re-emergence of the War did cause some significant temporal anomalies such as "bad dreams" about the Master bleeding through into everyone in the universe's minds as well as the rapid development of the Ood race. However, this would retroactively alter the events of "Silence in the Library" (albeit to a very small degree) because River would likely not ask about about the Crash of the Byzantium. However, while his explanation provides an in-story "out" for the contradiction, it is rather pointless from an out-of-universe perspective as it simply ignores the contradiction as opposed to justifying it.

2) She assumed that Ten was a future Doctor (Twelve, Fourteen, etc.). Since she never meets the Doctor in the right order, it is very possible that she could have met some from far into the future (the 37th Doctor, perhaps, although that seems a bit of a stretch) and thus, Ten could still be considered "early days" for her, as the first Doctor that she met was Eleven, and thus, he would be the "earliest." I kind of prefer this explanation, as we know that the crash of the Byzantium occurred in Eleven's lifetime and the picnic at Asgard seems like something that Eleven and her would have done, considering how close they were. However, it is probable that she has met Ten more than once, as Eleven is already accustomed to meeting her in the wrong order in "The Time of Angels". From Ten's perspective, any subsequent encounters with a younger River than the one seen in "Silence in the Library" would likely have occurred when he was avoiding his oncoming regeneration, which he did in between "The Waters of Mars" and "The End of Time" (and, since this wasn't long after he lost Donna, it could have been when he told River about her, as the River in "Silence in the Library" was aware of who Donna was and seemed to know about what would happen to her). This doesn't really cause any major problems for this explanation (in fact, it helps to explain her "younger than I've ever seen you" comment, as Ten would have been older by this point), but it does seem odd that she would mention smaller events like the crash of the Byzantium and the picnic at Asgard when, if she did indeed mistake Ten for a later-but-still-early incarnation, they would have shared much "bigger" events together like rebooting the universe. (Although Eleven was still fairly "early" when that happened, so even now it should seem odd that she didn't bring it up.) Still, this seems to be the most likely rationalization given what we know.

3) She recognized Ten as "the Doctor," but not as any particular incarnation due to her "Time Lord sense." I'm not very fond of this explanation, as it presents some questions such as why, if she could sense who he was, could he not tell who she was? The "Time Lord sense" should technically work both ways. Plus, she obviously did recognize him (primarily because she had pictures of all of his incarnations, but it helps to assume that she mad met Ten before when he was later in his life, which does seem to be evidenced by Eleven's familiarity with their anachronistic relationship), so even if she recognized him because of her "Time Lord sense," she probably would have followed the exact same process (that is, asking him about events in her diary) and would have gotten the same problematic result as the one with which we are currently dealing (which is "why did she ask Ten about the crash of the Byzantium if she experienced it with Eleven?").

In 'Synecdoche, New York' , what is the significance of choosing the play 'Death of a Salesman'?

My interpretation of Hoffman's character Caden is that he is struggling with the purpose and apparent futility of life and is trying to understand it, to capture the essence of life in a single piece of art. His attempts become bloated and spiral out of control because he is trying to explain the unexplainable.

Seems to me he is tackling the same problem with his interpretation of Death of a Salesman. I think it is less of a statement on today's society being harder for younger people than it used to, and more about the universality of struggle. Caden views everybody, young and old, as rocketing towards death and insists they should find meaning in their lives before they die.

There are also a few parallels between Salesman and Synecdoche, mainly in their leading characters. I think Willy and Caden are both a little deluded; they are not as good at what they do as they want to believe. As both approach the end of their lives they worry that they haven't made much of an impact. Willy is so heavily invested in his job that he is broken when he is fired, and similarly Caden so obsessively pursues the meaning of life in his play that he doesn't end up creating anything meaningful. However, the similarities between the two works don't run much deeper than that.

grammar - When is "to" a preposition and when the infinitive marker?

I know that giving rather strange rules which demand quite different analyses of similar-looking constructions can seem worrying / bewildering / infuriating. Perhaps if we look at near-paraphrases it will help a little (perhaps not):

2. I look forward to seeing you.

The string look forward is rarely used without the to (it would then be a less opaque idiomatic usage - don't look at what has happened in the past; look forward/s - and then ahead would probably be preferred anyway). (Google searches for "look forward to" and "look forward" -"look forward to" lend reasonable support to this claim.)

Look forward to has the fairly opaque (not too guessable from its component words) idiomatic meaning, eagerly anticipate. I'd say it has a unitary meaning (although in this case, I can only think of a two-word 'synonym', not a single word one - and perhaps 'anticipate quite eagerly' is closer in sense). Some would class the three-word string as a transitive multi-word verb (and possibly reclassify the to as a particle if pressed to parse individual words).

Notice that a noun as well as an -ing group could occupy the object space:

I look forward to seeing you.

I look forward to playing.

I look forward to the concert.

1. I want to see you.

Here, although there are again arguments for considering want to as a unit (He helped wash up / he helped to wash up; I want to go / je désire aller; But I want to!) there are considered to be more persuasive reasons for us to consider the to as more tightly bound to the base form of the following verb (to make a to-infinitive rather than the bare infinitive):

To see you tomorrow is impossible.

What do I want most? To see John.

I intend to see him tomorrow.

?/* Sorry, what did you say you intend?

Sorry, what did you say you intend to do?

*Sorry, who did you say you intend to?

Sorry, who did you say you intend to see?

*I intend to the concert.

Is Katherine Hepburn's shaking real or acted in On Golden Pond?

Katharine Hepburn's tremors in On Golden Pond were real. She developed essential tremors, a disease that can affect the extremities by causing them to involuntarily shake in varying degrees.

Per a website specializing in health-related information for older adults:

"...her tremulous voice and the persistent involuntary movement of her
head, particularly during her performance in "On Golden Pond." These are classic symptoms of essential tremor that has affected the head and voice. She never appeared to have any difficulty walking. Ms. Hepburn did not have Parkinson's Disease, and despite her "disability," she was able to perform for many, many years."

Here is an additional excerpt from a New York Times Q&A where someone asked "Why did Katharine Hepburn's head shake?":

Katharine Hepburn's ailment, recently discussed on television by her
niece Katharine Houghton, was not Parkinson's disease, but a
progressive yet treatable neurological disorder called essential
tremor. Ms. Hepburn's was referred to as familial tremor, the
inherited form. Each child of a parent with the disease has a 50
percent chance of inheriting a gene that causes it. In other cases,
there is no family history.

The disorder, which varies in location and severity, used to be called
palsy. The International Essential Tremor Foundation, which offers
information and helps search for a cure, says the disease stems from
abnormal communication among areas of the brain, including the
cerebellum, thalamus and brain stem. The group estimates that 10
million people in the United States and 200 million people worldwide
have some form of the problem, often undiagnosed.

Many do not seek treatment because they fear Parkinson's or think
tremors are part of aging. Shaking, usually starting with the hands,
can begin at any age but is more common in older people; tremors
starting with the head are more common in women.

Is there a literary term for the circular nature of a story?

Your question is a tad broad but you may be thinking of the "Hero's Journey" or "monomyth". The steps of the journey are:

1. Departure


2. Initiation


3. Return

The Wikipedia article has plenty of details for each step. For instance, the subgroups for Departure are:

1. The Call to Adventure


2. Refusal of the Call


3. Supernatural Aid


4. The Crossing of the First Threshold


5. Belly of The Whale

The term originated with Joseph Campbell's work on myth and examples can be found in plenty of works. Two modern examples are Star Wars and Ender's Game.

Edit: In response to the clarification, here are a few relevant terms.

• throwback


• callback


• revisiting


• reminiscent

star trek - Why did the Borg never bring waves of ships to the Alpha quadrant to conquer it?

All the other answers are correct, but I'd like to add one more point that no one has mentioned:

Because they don't care.

Picard was surprisingly tricky, and they had some fun hijinks with the Voyager crew, but the Borg have no reason to bring their entire civilization's might toward assimilating Earth, or even the entire Alpha Quadrant. We're just not that important.

The Borg are, above all, attracted to technology that can help them improve. The Federation has basically none. Humans are chock-full of gumption, trickiness, and a can-do attitude, so they often pull off feats that the Borg didn't expect. And because of that, they sent a cube to assimilate Picard and Earth, and another one when the first failed.

But when two cubes in a row were defeated by tricks, and with no notable tech to make the endeavor worthwhile, the Borg probably gave a galactic shrug, made a mental note to get those rascally Humans in a few hundred years, and then turned their attention back to the 10,000 other planets they were in the process of assimilating at the time.

lord of the rings - What non-canon elements were added to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The addition that most strongly contradicts Tolkien's timeline was to have Radagast discover the Necromancer at Dol Guldur. It will allow the movies to have one coherent story but grates really badly against canon.

You see, in the canon timeline the Necromancer had first appeared at Dol Guldur almost 2000 years before the events of The Hobbit, and Gandalf had gone there (and confirmed that it was Sauron) almost 100 years before, which was also the time when he acquired the map and key from Thorin's dying father.

This is vitally important because it explains why Gandalf personally accompanied and helped Thorin on his quest: it was really a carefully planned diversion to prevent Smaug from helping Sauron when the White Council attacked Dol Guldur.

Word or shorter term for "Possibly delayed", as in the capacity for unreliable timing

I'm looking for a word or shorter term for "possibly delayed". This is not expressing any probability of a delay, just the capacity to be delayed.

The specific usage I have in mind is: the displayed information may be up-to-the-minute, but if for some reason the connection fails, it will fail back to displaying yesterday's information.

Therefore, this is "possibly delayed information".

Another example would be: You should be sure to order a replacement cartridge well in advance of when you expect the current one to be depleted, since shipping could be possibly delayed.

Shipments are not currently delayed, but the nature of shipments is that they could be either timely or late.

In Skyfall, what happened in the boat on the way to the island?

In Skyfall, after leaving the floating casino in Macau, Sévérine gets on board a boat. Bond gets on board too and they have an amicable scene in the shower. The boat is shown going out to sea.

Then, the ship is approaching the deserted island where the villain Raoul Silva is hiding out. Bond and Sévérine are both restrained with their hands tied behind their backs, and there are a number of thugs on deck with automatic weapons.

Did I blink and miss something? When were Bond and Sévérine taken prisoner? I don't remember any fight scene on the boat. Was she used as bait? Was she being forced to go to the island in the first place? If she was going to be taken prisoner, why didn't she warn Bond? (Well, I guess she did sort of, in the casino she told him he would be killed shortly.)

Damon taking Elena to a faroff city and bar?

from Vampire Diaries wikia:

Damon came with Elena here(Bree's Bar in Atlanta, Georgia) in the episode Bloodlines to ask Bree for help. Damon, hoping to release Katherine from the tomb without the crystal, seeks out Bree's help.

Damon needed the help of a witch to know and to open the seal on the tomb of Katherine. Bree was a witch who was on friendly terms with Damon, and hence he went to her to ask for help.

Why is Azula's fire blue?

As per the cross post from scifi exchange , The reason here flame being blue is attributed to the fact that the blue part of the flame widely believed to be the most hottest part of it, and that blue color was also to highlight the fact that Azula was a most skilled fire bender and in terms of raw power her power is second compared to that of Fire lord Ozai.

I personally think that she was the primary antagonist of the second season and to showcase her power and make her a formidable match to Aang they made her flames blue to highlight her proficiency and prowess are much higher than Zuko's who was quite weak in his encounters with Aang in the first season.

The excerpt from the Avatar wiki also confirm the cross post's highlighted points

Azula's characteristic blue flames symbolized the power she possessed and constantly sought to increase. Her apathy also accounted for her ability to create and direct lightning, the "cold-blooded fire". According to Iroh, the skill required complete control of all emotion, which would not prove difficult for Azula with her one-track mentality. Because of these skills, she was also an excellent tactician, regularly displaying cunning, perception, and resourcefulness that allowed her to take advantage of almost any situation. She possessed good self-control, facing down Long Feng and deceiving him when held captive and could lie with a straight face and no physical reactions.

What's a word/phrase to describe a personality with seemingly random or disconnected interests?

I'm looking for a word that describes a person's personality. That person has many seemingly disconnected interests from the point of view of most onlookers, but to that individual he/she is able to draw the connection or is internally struggling to draw the connection but has a 'gut feeling' that there is a connection that bridges the many interests. Not quite 'organized chaos' because the appearance of chaos is only to the onlooker.

Explanation of the ending of A Clockwork Orange

I believe in a sort of compromise between the previous responses. In the last couple scenes Alex appears with a seemingly well respected, or at least important, member of society. He makes a deal with this man (Fred) which symbolizes his deal with the government and therefore society. Fred arranges for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to be played, as a treat for Alex because he thinks he will enjoy this song. Previously in the movie, this song made Alex want to kill himself. It made him go crazy (due to the conditioning). Just as Beethoven meant for the song to symbolize when he wrote it, it symbolizes in Alex the ups and downs of his life. This parallels the ups and downs of society, as Beethoven had hoped. While this song is playing Alex is being photographed by paparazzi and is conforming to proper societal norms in these photographs. He is seen hugging Fred; symbolically approving of the government. However, the very last scene of the movie is an orgy with Alex and a women, along with a group of proper, elderly women who are applauding him. The last words of the movie were "I was cured alright." This can be interpreted as sarcastic or sincere, yet I believe it is a slight mixture. The orgy appears to be consensual and non violent, as well as monogamous (as opposed to his previous sexual acts). The fact that the orgy is in combination with approving, conservative women, and the fact that he is looking good in societies eyes (the paparazzi), seems to hint that he is accepted in society. The last line purposefully sounds satyrical because it shows the real Alex that we knew in the beginning, yet a nonviolent version; a changed version. It shows that now he is conscious and able to make decisions and think for himself, as if the treatment no longer effects him in such harmful ways, but the fact that the orgy is consensual, monogamous, and approved by society shows that he is now a "good person."

grammar - Interpretation of 'have' as stative or dynamic

Please bear with me. It's been a long time since I looked up grammatical concepts.

The sentence is:

I can quite clearly see the bewildered looks you will be having on your faces on reading this. An entirely natural reaction.

(Implying I can imagine the reader's look of bewilderment on reading what I have written previously.)

A commentator has mentioned that the reason this sentence is odd because 'have' is stative and can't take a 'progressive' (ing) form.

I found the following information on where 'progressives' can be used: http://goo.gl/arxla)

Progressive forms include a form of “To be” plus a present participle
(an -ing ending). Frodesen and Eyring** categorize progressive verbs
according to the following functions:

• to describe actions already in progress at the moment "in focus" within the sentence, as in

“I was doing my homework when my brother broke into my room, crying.”
or “I will be graduating from college about the same time that you
enter high school.”

• to describe actions at the moment of focus in contrast to habitual actions, as in

“We usually buy the most inexpensive car we can find, but this time
we're buying a luxury sedan.”

• to express repeated actions, as in

“My grandfather is forever retelling the same story about his
adventures in Rangoon.”

• to describe temporary situations in contrast to permanent states, as in

“Jeffrey goes to the University of Connecticut, but this summer he is
taking courses at the community college.”

• to express uncompleted actions, as in

“Harvey and Mark are working on their deck.”

*Kolln suggests that we think of the difference between stative and dynamic in terms of "willed" and "nonwilled" qualities. Consider the
difference between a so-called dynamic adjective (or subject
complement) and a stative adjective (or subject complement): "I am
silly" OR "I am being silly" versus "I am tall." I have chosen to be
silly; I have no choice about being tall. Thus "tall" is said to be a
stative (or an "inert") quality, and we cannot say "I am being tall";
"silly," on the other hand, is dynamic so we can use progressive verb
forms in conjunction with that quality.

The same applies to verbs. Two plus two equals four. Equals is inert,
stative, and cannot take the progressive; there is no choice, no
volition in the matter. (We would not say, "Two plus two is equalling
four.") In the same way, nouns and pronouns can be said to exhibit
willed and unwilled characteristics. Thus, "She is being a good
worker" (because she chooses to be so), but we would say "She is (not
is being) an Olympic athlete" (because once she becomes an athlete she
no longer "wills it").

First, cannot 'the look you will have' be interpreted as a 'choice' or a 'willed' quality, similar to what is mentioned in the last part of the text I've quoted? [Also, 'owning a bike' and 'loving it' @ http://goo.gl/XBzpU ]

Secondly, does not 'have' in the example I have given above, fit at least one of the three situations marked in bold?

harry potter - Why could Madeye Moody/Barty Crouch see through the Invisibility Cloak using his Magical Eye?

There is a canon discrepancy regarding the Invisibility Cloak. You are correct that Harry's cloak was described as a "true" Invisibility Cloak, immune to charms and spells, indestructible, and invisible even to Death, by Xenophilius Lovegood.

However, in Tales of Beedle the Bard, Dumbledore's notes represent the cloak differently and not quite as impervious as Xenophilius Lovegood claimed. In Tales of Beedle the Bard, the cloak is described as having a "uniquely durable nature" and is not described as indestructible, impervious, or immune to Death's gaze. J.K. Rowling writes:

Invisibility Cloaks are not, generally, infallible. They may rip or grow opaque with age, of [sic] the charms placed upon them may wear off, or be countered by charms of revealment. This is why witches and wizards usually turn, in the first instance, to Disillusionment Charms for self-camouflage or concealment.

_{Tales of Beedle the Bard - pages 96-97 - Bloomsbury Edition - chapter 5, The Tale of the Three Brothers}

We know for certain that at least one spell works against the Invisibility Cloak: Homenum Revelio. In Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore uses Homenum Revelio to see Harry and Ron under the Invisibility Cloak in Hagrid's hut:

‘However,’ said Dumbledore, speaking very slowly and clearly, so that none of them could miss a word, ‘you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.’

For a second, Harry was almost sure Dumbledore’s eyes flickered towards the corner where he and Ron stood hidden.

_{Chamber of Secrets - page 195 - UK Hardcover - chapter 14, Cornelius Fudge}

J.K. Rowling confirms this in an interview:

Angela Morrissey: Why is it that albus dumbledore can see harry under his invisibility cloak at certain moments? (during the series is the cloak only infallible to those who do not own a deathly hallow).

J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore, who could perform magic without needing to say the incantation aloud, was using ‘homenum revelio’ - the human-presence-revealing spell Hermione makes use of in Deathly Hallows.

_{J.K. Rowling Webchat - 07.30.07 - [THE LEAKY CAULDRON]}

If Hermione could master Homenum Revelio, I'd wager Barty Crouch Jr as Mad-Eye Moody could have as well. Barty Crouch Jr was a bad guy and a Death Eater, but he did demonstrate he was competent at magic throughout Goblet of Fire. So Homenum Revelio is one possibility for how Crouch Jr/Moody was able to see Harry through the Invisibility Cloak. I interpret canon, though, as Mad-Eye's eye having powers above and beyond Homenum Revelio. Crouch Jr/Moody actually interacted with Harry while Harry was under the Invisibility Cloak; they had a silent conversation. It's clear Crouch Jr/Moody saw Harry. It's not clear whether Dumbledore saw Harry and Ron under the cloak in Hagrid's hut, or if he merely detected human presence (which is the extent of Homenum Revelio's power), then discerned what general area it was coming from, and knew it was Harry because who else (that we know from canon, circa Chamber of Secrets) had an Invisibility Cloak at Hogwarts?

Putting it lightly, it's likely Moody's magical eye was charmed to have exceptional and/or rare sight abilities -- heck, Moody probably could've seen the future with that eye! Okay, not really, but at the very least the magical eye was a prosthetic device that Moody could effectively channel revealing charms through (although that Ollivander in Deathly Hallows says a wand is the required instrument for channeling magic should be taken into consideration. If it actually channeled magic, I believe Moody's eye would be the only other instrument besides a wand to channel magic in canon¹). At most, the eye itself is a very powerful magical object (this is what I tend to think) which has magical abilities that just aren't directly explained by canon. We can only infer. Another point to remember is Dolores Umbridge was able to fasten the eye to her office door and presumably use it to channel sight in some way; we don't know from canon exactly how Umbridge used the eye, although it seems she merely used it to see who was approaching her office.

While a powerful magical object, I don't see Moody's eye as being on the same level as the Hallows.

¹_{I realize that some people parse Ollivander's words to mean a witch or wizard can channel magic through any kind of instrument -- meaning anything, any object -- but in the context of the conversation, I interpret Ollivander's words to mean a wand is the singular instrument for channeling magic and that almost any wand will work for a magical person. Deathly Hallows - chapter 24 - The Wandmaker - page 399 (UK) - page 494 (US)}

Is X-Men First Class based earlier in time than X-Men Origins:Wolverine?

To answer your main question, X-Men First Class is based before X-Men Origins.

X-Men First Class is based in the 60s.

In 1962, the United States government enlists the help of Mutants with
superhuman abilities to stop a malicious dictator who is determined to
start world war III.

In Origins, Striker doesn't approach Wolverine until the 70s.

In 1973, Victor (Liev Schrieber) attempts to rape a local village
woman, but is stopped after killing a senior officer. James (Hugh
Jackman) defends his brother, and the two are sentenced to execution
by firing squad, which they survive. Major William Stryker (Danny
Huston) approaches them, now in military custody, and offers them
membership in Team X

In regards to Xavier walking, there is a lot of debate as to which movie is canon and there is currently no correct answer (AFAIK). First class also seems to have a lot of other continuity problems.

Need a word for having rewritten something after translation

I have written a book.

Well, actually, my mother-in-law told the story of her experiences as a German forced laborer in the Soviet Union after World War 2. This was given in German and recorded onto audio tape a number of years ago by my sister-in-law. My S.I.L. later transcribed the story in German onto twenty or so tightly typewritten foolscap sheets, and a few years ago she gave us a copy of this. My wife and I eventually translated this into very rough English (we both speak German, my wife being a native speaker). It is quite a story and we have determined to self-publish it as a book. So this is what I need: a word (or two) for having put it into a final form for the book.

See, the original telling was done pretty much as it occurred to her to tell it, and it tends to get lost in parts, backtrack, go forward, and around the bend at times. The final version is still her story, but it has been reworked into what I hope is a readable and understandable whole, with a beginning, a middle and an end. I've also a spot of research on historical matters pertaining to the story, and because some words she used were Russian, I used Google Translate and the Russian Language SE to get some more information.

On the title page, I am giving the title of the book, followed by the subtitle, then the author attribution: by Gertrud Baltutt.

Below the author attribution (she is now deceased, btw), I want to indicate that the work is a transcription and a translation of the original tale, and the word I need is for the really hard part, putting it into a coherent form for publication. Here's what I got, so far:

by Gertrud Baltutt

As told to her daughter Cyberherbalist's Sister-in-Law.
Translated by
her daughter Mrs. Cyberherbalist
and XXXXXXed by Cyberherbalist

What is that word (or words)? Arranged? Edited? What?

A secondary question is this: my mother-in-law did not actually write this book. It's her story, but when it comes down to it, I wrote it, or at least co-authored it. I tried to maintain the flavor of the original German, but is it really her who is the author? Or me? With her being deceased, there's not danger she'll get upset with me about it, so whatever.

What is this recent movie about family secrets?

This should be easy for someone to remember.

It was possibly made in 2009-2010, set in an isolated seaside town in New York.
The wife thinks her husband is cheating on her but he's really taking acting classes and ashamed to admit it.

I thought the husband was De Niro, but I can't recognize the movie name in his filmography.

Parents thought the daughter was at college but she was stripping. The teenage son had a fetish for fat women. The Wife went to cheat on her husband because she thought he was cheating on her.

Is Ashley Schaeffer from Eastbound and Down modelled on Ric Flair

Series co-creator Ben Best plays Clegg, Kenny’s confidant and drug dealer, and Sylvia Jefferies is Tracy, a coke-sniffing drunk who becomes Kenny’s sort-of girlfriend.
Of course, Kenny wants to get back to the major leagues, or at least make some money off his notoriety. To that end, he approaches BMW salesman Ashley Schaeffer, played by Ferrell in full Ric Flair mode – bleach blonde hair, sunglasses and suits with no socks.

What is the significance of exchanging names at the end of 12 Angry Men?

A jury usually withheld names in order to remove any effects of names, castes etc into the process. Inside the jury room, the people are simply humans trying to impart justice. When two people swap names, it signifies a bond, especially if it is done after passing through an experience together. The men, after having gone through a emotional, social and philosophical awakening inside the room, share a common realization of the darkness inside every one of them. They have now formed a bond because they believe each of them has contributed to the right by voting not guilty. When the two men exchange names, it is their belief and respect in each other, as well as the implication of a beginning of a bond or friendship between the two. When (in the old times), strangers came to town, the names would be exchanged only when they had gathered respect or became enemies. Thus, the name exchange signifies the human social element in the men, that outside the jury room, they are just ordinary people in their lives.

story identification - Paperback novel about a man who kills a birdlike alien on his balcony with a watering can

This is probably Kevin O'Donnell's ORA:CLE.

It takes place in a fairly far-future where global warming has forced the entire (surviving) population of earth into living completely indoors in large apartment/office towers. There are matter transporters that can only send non-living items (it kills living things). Some time after everyone moves into these towers the Earth is invaded by winged aliens called Dacs (short for pteradactyls). The Dacs don't seem to care about taking over in any usual sense, they just keep us from developing space travel and hunt us for sport - but only if we go outside.

Here's part of the scene with the watering-can and the winged alien:

    He moved. Whirling to his right, he swung the
watering-can like a tennis racket, wristing it up and into an overhead
backhand shot. He had plenty of time because time had slowed. A sub
broke water in New Haven harbor. The wrought-iron railing cast a
short, slanted shadow. The Dac mothership drifted three klicks
overhead. His lungs were already
laboring.
    To his right, great bat-wings
fluttered as the Dac tried to balance itself. The five-centimeter
claws of its knobbly eagle’s feet skidded slightly on the flagstones.
Its carrot-colored beak snapped in frustration, flashing razor-sharp
teeth and a predator’s hook to the upper jaw. Its huge head bounced on
its child-sized torso. Its hand—with a thumb, three fingers, and
retractable claws—wavered as it tried to aim the gun that gleamed like
silver.
    Ale had spun nearly a hundred and
eighty degrees. Thinking, But the damn alarm was guaranteed! he
hurled the watering-can.

After killing the alien, other aliens (of the same species) come to investigate and apparently decide that this was a "fair killing". The cut off the dead one's beak and give it to the main character as a trophy.

Why was a female selected for M's character in James Bond?

So I don't think the other answers, although good, actually address why a female M (they're more about why Judi Dench to which the answer is Stella Rimmington). To answer why a female M, we need to look at both the history of Bond pre-Judi Dench, and also the film GoldenEye itself.

Prior to GoldenEye the previous two Bonds had been a mixed success. Roger Moore had been popular in the role but his advancing age (58 in a View to A Kill) and an overkill of gadgets (Moonraker is basically Bond in Star Wars), had led the makers to move to a more Fleming-esque line of films: more plot, less gadgets, more stunts. This had mixed results (For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy are seen by many as minor Bond films), and Moore's swansong (A View to A Kill) returned to earlier themes (look at Zorin's fold out map dastardly plot reveal on the airship and his plan to become dominant in his field by nuking the competition ala Goldfinger).

Post AVTAK, we had Timothy Dalton, and again a more Flemingesque, plot driven, pair of films, again with mixed success (did ok at the box office, but again regarded by many, but not all, as minor Bond films). There was then a big hiatus due to legal action (the Danjaq stuff about Thunderball rights) which meant it was nearly 10 years until a new Bond and film appeared (GoldenEye).

At this point to look at GoldenEye we see a number of points.

The film was a change of direction (again), but this time there was an attempt to bridge the two worlds of Fleming fans and Gadget Fans. This was done by bringing in a plot which was again similar to Goldfinger, but also made some decisions to span the worlds:

• A suave Bond in Pierce Brosnan, evoking Sean Connery;


• A conflicted Bond ala Timothy Dalton;


• Still a number of quips and side seductions ala Roger Moore;


• Retro elements such as the Aston Martin;

There are also modernising elements, to account for the later decade in which the film is made:

• An updated storyline, taking into account the Soviet decline;


• The impregnable bank is electronic, not a physical place;


• The lead villain is an ex-ally turned traitor;


• The indestructible henchman is a sexy woman (Xenia Onatop!);


• The female lead (Natalia) is much stronger and survives much worse (the Severna attack, and return to Moscow) on her own without Bond's help;


• The film abandons John Barry for music, using French artist Eric Serra (although you can hear this is abandoned halfway through to return to stock Bond music, and this finally worked when David Arnold came in in Tomorrow Never Dies)


• Bond himself is seen as an anachronism, a blunt instrument and misogynist dinosaur;


• A stronger and less sappy Moneypenny (although she ends up as much in love with Bond).

In this realm of change it is easy to see that with so many strong female characters, it's obvious that a female M would be a part of it. That they had Judi Dench/Stella Remington was a bonus.

As the Brosnan films went on, they ended up drawing back to the Moore days of gadgets, and when another hiatus due to studio financial issues caused them to start yet again, this time it was a full revamp of a young Bond, partly due to the only novel being left being the first, Casino Royale.

In this context the Judi Dench M was subtly changed to be a comforting carry over, AND a surrogate mother to the younger, less experienced Bond.