Why did Javert not check for the tattoo in Les Miserables?

I think this is a question that is best answered by the original book. Not having read it, however, I can't imagine that Javert didn't check for the number. I wouldn't be surprised if the faux Valjean had some numbers, maybe close numbers, and maybe a number that was hard to distinguish.

A better explanation might be that there was a scar where the number would have been (or maybe some numbers missing/hard to read), which lead Javert to believe that he tried to remove it. Evidence of this theory would be the inmates Javert called in to testify that the accused was indeed Valjean. Why would he need to prove he was Valjean if the number was easily recognizable? This also explains why Valjean had to stand and testify in court to convince his inmates that he is the real Valjean. Showing his number was the last straw to prove his identity since it wasn't fully working.

Doubts regarding Bourne Identity

I always assumed the "doctor" to be a regular member of the fisherman crew who just happens to know something about medics too. Seen in that light, the relationship between the two had little to do with a normal doctor-patient relation wherein the doctor could order the patient to stay.

In this case, Jason was eager to find out about himself and to go to Zurich. The doctor did not "let" him go. Jason just went, as he needed permission nor release card.

Also, the time spend aboard healed his physical condition. On mental, the only thing the doctor could do was wait and observe. Something both of them would not have had much pleasure in, I imagine.

---

On your second question, assuming the fishing boat moored somewhere in the south of France or Italy, obviously Europe's mediterranean anyway (and the filming locations say it is Imperia, Liguria, Italy): according to the Schengen Agreement, traveling between its European member countries is without internal border controls. So al he needed was a plain train ticket that can be bought with cash money. In most European countries, there are identification requirements though, but normally you have to provoke to get you asked to.

Without knowledge of traveling within Europe, it sure may need a little quessing on how exactly he got what he needed. The only hint the movie tells is the doctor saying:

It's not much, but it should get you to Switzerland.

With Jason not asking how to, but instead saying just "Thank you" for the money, and the resourcefulness he later on exhibits in the movie, we might simply imagine that he just managed.

Which book to read after Game of Thrones episode 10 of the 2nd season?

Exclusively about the plot, the book that pictures the events after the 10th episode of the 2nd season would be A Storm of Swords, the third book of the series.

The issue is, if one reads the third book without reading the first two, one would be confused, specially regarding some characters of the books whose parts have been condensed or combined into different characters. The books have a lot more characters than the series.

So, the best would be to start reading from the first book. You would recognize the main scenes, and would understand what was going on in the minds of the characters, as well as getting to know some of the characters that didn't appear in the series.

star trek tng - Why are the Borg different in Voyager and TNG?

Essentially any differences that you see from the borg in the episode "i, Borg" stem from the fact that the borg on the enterprise is young, damaged, and most importantly cut off from the collective. The separation from the collective seems to affect each borg slightly differently as instead of relying on the hive mind, they are having to think for themselves, something they haven't done in a long time. the episode is also considering humanitarian rights of the borg, and whether giving the borg essentially a virus, which would infect all of the other borg, is acceptable in war or not. This is why the crew are interacting with the borg "Hugh" more so then usual. As to your final question about the looks and appearance, this is simply due to the time between shows, late 80s, to late 90s. Also for some in universe answer to this, it is somewhere between 5-10 years later, when voyager is encountering the borg, and at the borgs extreme rate of assimilation/ upgrading themselves its expected for them to look slightly different as newer and better tech becomes available to them.

grammaticality - Mixing past tenses in the same sentence

... you can't present perfect (or continuous) and past simple within a sentence.

As it stands, this rule is incorrect. In many cases it is acceptable and logical to mix past and present references in consecutive clauses

I lost my keys last week, but now I have found them.

This makes sense: A was true then, but B is true now.

This, however, does not make sense:

He has decided to go hiking, so I went hiking as well.

This sentence amounts to A was true then, because B is true now. The simple past describes a past event, your going hiking, but what the present perfect describes is not a past event, his decision, but a present state which is the result of a past event--his state of having decided. That present state cannot be the cause of the past event. The cause must be either a past event or a past state:

He decided (event) to go hiking, so I went hiking as well or
He had decided (state) to go hiking, so I went hiking as well.

The important thing is not to mix time references illogically.

As for the sentence in your friend's email:

Getting that email was such a pleasant surprise, because I was just thinking how I've been wanting to send you an email

There is no mixture of time references here, because the progressive construction "I have been wanting" marks a state, not an event, which may very reasonably be taken to continue into the present out of a past which is marked (by "just") as immediate. In effect, these pasts inhabit the same time frame as the present.

In any case, the "rules" are very loosely applied in informal discourse; see my discussion here. A casual email, which your friend probably dashed off in excitement, should not be held to the formal literary standards of coherence.

Why did Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane abandoned King's Landing in the middle of the battle?

I believe, Sandor was basically a good man and he was obeying Joffrey, only because he was bound by his sense of duty. Besides, Sandor had a past with fire. In one of the episodes from season 1, we learn that when Sandor was a kid, his elder brother shoved his face into fire and hence the burn marks on his face.
Now, during the battle with Stanis, initially he goes for fighting but in the middle of it, he faces fire and this disturbs him deeply. His memories of childhood were back and he became disillusioned. That's why he returns back, drinks wine and abandons King's Landing.

What happened to the natives?

Your scene can be seen on Youtube in Spanish with subtitles. Here is a screenshot with dialogue in English:

I think this indicates they were indeed killed. It is possible that, as this is near the end of the film, Herzog was running up against the end of his budget ($370,000, a third of which went to Kinski), and so the lack of a scene showing the death might have been a lack of cash. In the book Herzog on Herzog, he says:

Sometimes I had to sell my boots or my wristwatch just to get
breakfast. It was a barefoot film, so to speak, a child of poverty. (p. 84)

You can read the section on Aguirre: Wrath of God in the Herzog book at Google Books starting on page 76. The film is only very loosely based on the the biography of Aguirre (which is sparse at any rate). The script is almost a complete fabrication. The ending, where Aguirre goes mad surrounded by monkeys in the Amazon, is not factual - Aguirre made it out of the jungle and was later killed in Venezuela. Herzog's telling of his decision-making processes with this film are fascinating reading!

lord of the rings - Who replaced Gandalf as the Grey Wizard?

As far as I know, there has never been any good explanation for why the colors of the wizards were chosen to be what they were. The most prevalent theory involves the Istari taking on the color of the Valar they were associated with, but if you read through the Silmarillion looking for evidence, the theory doesn't really hold up. One thing we do know is that the colors are not a ranking system; though Saruman was appointed the leader of the Istari, the other 4 were all considered equals.

Thus, the only color that seemed to have any significance was the color White -- Saruman's original color, which represented a blending of all other colors. This identified him as the head of the Istari order. Gandalf's Grey color, and Radagast's Brown color, were merely ways to distinguish them from each other. (Even that theory falls apart when you realize there were two Blue wizards.)

Thus, when Gandalf was "promoted" to White, it indicated two things:

• Saruman, the previous White Wizard, was no longer considered the head of the Istari order, or even a member of it, and


• Gandalf had taken his place.

No one would need to step in and take over Ganfalf's "position" as Grey Wizard because that color had no more or less importants than the Brown or Blue of the other Istari.

Do Tom Hanks and Halle Berry meet on earth in Cloud Atlas?

That story takes place

in the distant future, in a world following a nuclear holocaust.

The cities destroyed, humans now live in small tribes, including Zachry's Valleymen tribe on the island of Ha-why (Hawaii).

The last scene is an epilogue:

Zachry is revealed to have been telling these stories to his numerous grandchildren on one of Earth's colonies, a planet with two moons, revealing that they had succeeded in sending a message to the colonies and were rescued.

What was the meaning of Schultz's flashback of dogs?

You have slightly muddled the occurrence of events. Schultz has a flashback of the dog-mauling scene not right after Candie ups Broomhilda's(Django's wife) price, but later when the deal is being put to paper. In the violent moment where Candie threatens to bash Hilda's skull with a hammer, Schultz agrees to the raised price in a breath.

Later, when Dr. Schultz has a moment all by himself, sitting in the arm-chair, does he begin to experience the flash-backs of the hideous episode(dog-mauling). I believe he had those visions as a result of the trauma he had to undergo while witnessing the scene. The doctor was indeed a violent man, but not cruel and certainly didn't agree with slavery or Candie's methods.

Excerpt:

Calvin Candie: Your boss looks a little green around the gills.

Django: He just ain't used to seein' a man ripped apart by dogs is all.

The climatic scene that you mention, was the repercussion or the end result of this flashback. Candie managed to antagonize Dr. Schultz so much over Broomhilda's deal and later(remember the insistence to shake hands) that he decided to pull the trigger.

EDIT: IMO, Schultz never considered the possibility (however remote or substantial) that Candie was going to kill them all. Rather than this being an act of premeditated self defense, this was more of an aggravated assault by Schultz not only against Candie's physical form but also against his misplaced ideals (read slavery, penchant for killing etc.).

word choice - Can "born" be used with creatures that come from eggs?

I don’t have any particular reaction against using ‘born’ for animals like turtles. It describes at what time their lifespan began, roughly.

The specific term that relates to the ‘birth’ of coming out of an egg is hatching, but that does specifically describe the moment when the eggshell cracks and the young emerges from within the egg, rather than more generically the time when you start to count the animal’s age (even though it’s the same moment, of course).

If you are talking about an old turtle, for example, it sounds more natural to me to say that it was born in 1832 than to say that it hatched in 1832.

negation - Are there many words that come with “a” as the prefix to mean “no, non” like “asymptomatic” and “apolitical”?

I didn’t know the word, “asymptomatic” to my shame, until I heard the following narration in AP Radio news aired on October 27 through AFN network:

“Dr. Anthony Fauci with the NIH says CDC guidelines for monitoring
health workers back from West Africa are enough to prevent them from
spreading the disease. “Guidelines regarding how you handle people who
coming back should always be based on the science, and the science
tells us that people who are asymptomatic do not transmit.”

I took ‘asymptomatic’ as ‘a symptomatic,’ when my friend in ESS corrected me and told that it’s ‘asymptomatic’ accompanied with prefix “a” meaning “no, non.”

She was right, then I asked her other examples of the words using negative prefix “a,” which I later found Greek origin.
She said she knew some, but can’t reel off them off-hand. Coming home, I tried to find out the samples through Google Search by naively inputting keywords like “negative prefix, a, words." It didn’t work.

Would you suggest me some samples of words that come with negative prefix “a” other than “asymptomatic” and “apolitical,” which I found in SummyB’s previous (Feburuary 2014) question, “If the prefix “a-” means not, shouldn't “await” or “awaiting” mean, “Not waiting?”

meaning - What is difference between implicit and explicit?

explicit means that it is expressly stated and made obvious -- overt/obvious/manual.

implicit means that it is not obvious, it is implied. hidden/assumed/automatic.

when i see "explicitly render a template", it usually means the request to render the template is there, as opposed to executed automatically and "implied to be executed".

"implicitly assign", I'm not sure exactly without more context, but the implication here is that the assignment is not explicit, it happens somewhere else, or by default....

in programming, implicit and explicit often carry a meaning which is almost exactly the same as 'automatic'(implicit) or 'manual'(explicit)

Let me know if that doesn't help

word usage - "Quite" American vs British English

I (UK) use quite a to qualify magnitude in two simple but contradictory ways (so British!) depending on emphasis -

There were quite a few people there (i.e. there were more people than expected).

There were quite a few people there (i.e. you are (tactfully) suggesting that the turnout was disappointing).

I also use quite to underline the intensity of extreme adjectives -

He was quite the best pianist I have heard;

the jugglers were quite fantastic;

quite extraordinary, the way he behaved ...

The second example in the OP ...quite 50 people ... is close to my second usage, although this way of using quite (with numbers) sounds dated to my ears. Nevertheless the meaning is clear - there were easily 50 people and possibly quite a few more.

How is Extreme Weight Loss filmed?

A show like that is filmed a number of years before it's released. For them to show four episodes covering a year, they simply would've filmed at four points throughout the year, and edited together a number of shows when all the footage was available. A year later, you see it on TV.

grammaticality - Usage of "in contrast"

The word "contrast" conveys a stark difference in the degree to which two otherwise similar objects possess an attribute. Dark, depressing books and bonobos are too dissimilar to be in contrast, whereas the former do contrast with light hearted, trivial books.

If there is a valid context for comparison between the statistics and the figure, and this comparison would indicate that they are at opposite ends of the same spectrum, then yes, using "in contrast" is appropriate.

To address your edit, I believe all of the following are correct:

• Contrastingly, the figure shows good completeness.


• In contrast to this, the figure shows good completeness.


• In contrast, the figure shows good completeness.

The last one is somewhat ambiguous, so I would avoid using it. Additionally, I have removed the "a", which is incorrect.

grammar - When can uncountable nouns be countable?

Your search for a rule is admirable, but alas! doomed to failure.

• The plural of fish is fish. Unless you're differentiating between species:

The smaller fishes are more affected by ocean warming than the larger.

Or if you are a mafioso, in which case you say

Vinnie sleeps with the fishes.

Of if you're a theologian discussing the miracle of

the loaves and fishes.

Different species form plurals in unpredictable ways. Both tuna and salmon are their own plurals. Species that end in -ing, like the ling form their plurals by adding a final s, except for grayling and herring. You just have to look it up here. However, if the fish name is the name of a special at your restaurant, you might hear a waitress call out

I need two salmons and three tunas!

She means two orders of the salmon dish and three of the tuna dish.

No matter how many you have in a bowl, you only have fish, never fishes.

• Cakes is the plural of cake. It never means pieces of cake:
  
  

  
  

  Some cakes have frosting; others have icing.

  
  



• The plural of fruit is fruits, but only when you're talking about different varieties:
  
  

  
  

  Some fruits -- bananas, apples, kiwis -- are good for you. The rest are not.
  You always eat some fruit.

  
  



• Drinks are the typical nonountable nouns, except when you're talking about varieties or individual servings:

Whiskeys are either blended or single-malt.
Give me two whiskeys, two scotches, two beers.

Waters has an additional plural as the naturally occurring water in a location, so during your vacation, you

take the waters at the spa at the hot springs

• Cheese follows the variety rule. If you have three cheeses on your cheese plate, then you have three different types of cheese, even when you have six pieces of cheese total. Same with milk:

I make three different nut milks in my blender -- walnut, hazelnut, and almond.

The plural of beef is beeves, but it's only used to describe individual animals, meat-on-the-hoof, so to speak.

grammar - What does "anything" mean here?

"These are the angry ones who would demand that others bring what love they have into madness to take responsibility for the mess that has been made,
to attempt to restore order to chaos, (anything) so that the angry ones feel less alone with what their anger shows them."

Is "anything" apposition with "chaos" in this sentence?

Thank you for the answers as always!

harry potter - Where did Hogwarts' building materials come from?

There could be protection put up around the place where they were building Hogwarts, just like protection around the woods of the Quidditch World Cup - which if Muggles come near the place they remember some appointments and turn away (Arthur Weasely says in book 4). They work for months to make these protections.

But the founders of Hogwarts were much more powerful than any wizard, for they have built a school for magic. They could easily have first created protection then build the castle.

This can also be seen, though it's small, how the trio (Harry, Ron and Hermione) protect their hiding place in Deathly Hallows - first create protection around the place, then erect the tent.

For materials they could have bought it, or just used emino curse over one block to repeat them.

film techniques - How is dialog between two people filmed?

This will be achieved through a series of shots.

Let's pretend you want to show a scene where two people are talking in a diner - here is the classic way to go about it.

First you shoot an establishing shot of the whole room - your actors can perform the whole scene and it doesn't matter if they mess up, as you will not be using the dialogue from this shot any way.

Then you would shoot a mid-shot. This would involve both actors in the frame, shot from the side (or even overhead), and they would perform the whole scene again.

Then you would shoot a series of 'over the shoulder shots'. This is where you place the camera over the shoulder of one character while the other one speaks, then vice versa. One thing to remember is to place the camera over opposite shoulders, otherwise your line of action will be screwed up. You might even notice that actors don't look directly at each other during these shots, that's because an exaggerated eyeline (looking a few inches to the side of the other actor's head) reads better on film.

Next, you might want to shoot a series of 'talking head' shots, where it is just one actor in frame - you would use this for reactions and monologues, then repeat with the other actor.

Finally, all the footage is edited together to create a seamless shot. The audio would generally be taken from the best take - if there is an issue with lip-sync then the editor now has plenty of coverage (extra shots) from which to cut away. Many times you might notice a long shot during a conversation, this is because the audio was perfect but the director didn't get a good shot of the actor. Watch mouths and backs of heads in these shots to see if the lips match the dialogue (not always!).

I've filmed in many different circumstances, and one scene which was a discussion at a dinner table involving six people once had to be shot piece-meal for time constraint reasons. I shot each actor saying their lines (I fed them each line), and then shot a series of establishing and reaction shots so that I could edit the whole thing together. It's not perfect, but that's independent film for you :)

What was under the sink in A Tale of Two Sisters?

Spoilers ahead, for those who haven't seen this film

I remember watching this film with the commentary on (on the UK double disc DVD release), and the person providing the commentary (their name eludes me at the minute) talks about how the film originally had scenes which implied

the father and Su-mi were having an incestuous relationship.

In fact, I remember the scene being available on the bonus disc somewhere.

This might help explain the unreliable nature of the narration/story telling, as Su-mi might be using the apparition of her Su-yeon as a way of dealing with the death of her sister and mother, and (the above spoiler).

This all makes me think that huge chunks of the film happen inside Su-mi's head. And the kitchen scene takes place in her head, or is partly fictional.

At least, that's my interpretation of it.

When can past indefinite tense be used instead of past continuous tense?

"I answered the phone in my apartment and heard the sloping drawl of one of my students , Travis. " Miss Diana , " he said , "Could you come on down the stairs a minute?"

It was early May on the Great Plains . The University of Nebraska had just let out for the summer, and there was an aroma of pasture and cow everywhere, even - when the wind was right - - at the center of the city. I didn't want to be in Nebraska. I was 26 years old , and I wanted to be writing novels , not grading papers on detasseling corn."

These sentences have been recited from the following link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/2004/07/11/the-goddess-of-flowers/f0ca69bf-fb03-47e2-bd6a-460073fbdf52/

1) In first sentence why has past indefinite tense been used? My opinion is- we should use past continuous tense in this case, i,e we could say- I was answering the phone.....". Please, tell what you think.

Thanks to everyone of this forum.

story identification - Help in identifying a novel about a black US president

It's a short story by Miriam Allen deFord, "The 1980 President"; first published in Galaxy Magazine, October, 1964; reprinted in deFord's collection Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow and in the anthology American Government Through Science Fiction. Translated into Italian by Cesare Scaglia, it appeared in Urania N. 364 (with a cover date of 27 dicembre 1964) as "Le date maledette" ("The Cursed Dates").

The story is based on the odd fact that every U.S. President elected in a year divisible by 20, from William Henry Harrison (1840) to John F. Kennedy (1960), died in office, either by assassination (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) or from natural causes (Harrison, Harding, Roosevelt). This historical oddity would have been in the news after the Kennedy assassination (November 1963) and presumably around the time deFord wrote her story, in which the "curse" is taken seriously. The presidential nominees are unaware of the curse until they are briefed by the mysterious Man in Brown:

What I want to say to you both, in the presence of each other, can be put in very few words. Whichever of you wins in November will probably die soon." [. . .] "Because of your age?--no, not because of that," he said, "though that was the real reason why both of you, though naturally you were both highly qualified otherwise, were nominated so easily on the first ballot--and also the reason that both of your vice-presidential candidates are such outstanding figures. [. . .] "Every twenty years, for 140 years now, the successful candidate for president of the United States has either been killed or has died of natural causes while in office. This is 1980."

I won't spoil the story any more than I already have by telling you how the curse was foiled, but it was:

The new president (every American knows now which one it was, and how good a president the successful candidate became) had thus been elected [. . .] Both Robert John Woodruff and Lynn Bartholomew, as we know, are alive and usefully active today. But it had taken the Crisis of 1980 to induce the two major parties to nominate respectively a Negro foundation head and a Senator who happened to be a woman.

game of thrones - Why do the Tyrells come to King's Landing?

Well, the Tyrell army comes to King's Landing

along with Tywin's army to save the city from Stannis Baratheon in the Battle of the Blackwater, at the end of ACOK.

Presumably one of the reasons they decided to help is because

the Lannisters agreed to a wedding between Margaery Tyrell and Joffrey, making her queen of the realm. There may have been other guarantees made as well; or perhaps along with the wedding come other expectations of power, for example we know that Mace wants to become hand of the king.

So many Tyrells come to King's Landing in ASOS to attend this event. Some of them, such as Mace and Loras stick around to

assist in governing/ruling the realm (for example, taking up positions on the small council, in the Kingsguard, etc),

while others return to Highgarden afterwards.

Is there an idiom or set phrase for "pretending not to understand an innuendo"?

She was just being coy about her love life, deciding to play dumb and beat around the bush until you changed the subject. Your response could have been 'don't be coy; answer the question'.

coy (koi) adjective

TFD: 2. Unwilling to make a commitment or divulge information:
"As a child, when I asked my mother her age she was coy and evasive" (Lynne Sharon Schwartz).

Google: reluctant to give details, especially about something regarded as sensitive.

“Pretending not to understand an innuendo” could be rewritten as: unwilling to divulge information of a sensitive nature.

beat around the bush –etymology, SE

to avoid answering a question; to stall; to waste time. -TFD

Bending the ear of a third party, you could snarkily say, "I think she's ignoring me." In your sentence, "She just ignored it."

usage - Partisans interest - meaning

This is probably a typo for partisan interest. A "partisan interest" is an interest that derives from one's affiliation with a party or faction.

In this context, the sentence you've quoted is basically saying that Muslims should prioritize the interests of Islam as a whole over the interests of subgroups of Islam or other factions (e.g. the interests of Shias, Sunnis, Afghans, Arabs, etc.).

Words to separate value from counting

I'm a developer as well, I try to make my variables easily understandable for the poor soul who comes after me and has to maintain my code. For number of a given set of things, I'll use thingCount. For the value of that or those things, I'll use thingValue and if there's a total amount of things, I'll use thingTotal. I don't worry about the verbosity of the variable names because it makes them more understandable and the compiler (at least in modern languages) doesn't care and they take up just as much space as terse variable names.

When I first started developing code (for AutoCAD of all things), I used to condense my variable names down to things like: tv which made perfect sense to me as long as I was actively working on the code, but let a couple of weeks go by, and tv again meant television instead of "thingValue", and I had to go back through my code to figure it out again. Much-much easier to simply name things after what they are regardless of verbosity because it's much-much easier to figure things out when you're deep down in the bowels of your code (or worse, someone else's that you have no history of). There's a good Uncle Bob (I think) quote & blog post on this that I'll try to find & update my answer with.

This isn't exactly the blog post I was looking for, but it's still a good start. I'll find the other one and get it in here as well.
Uncle Bob's Naming Conventions

Here's the original blog post, some of the humor may not ring true with folks like the OP who didn't grow up in the US, so apologies for that. However, the post is still very valid:
Uncle Bob's Bad Variable Names

prefixes - Proper usage of Prefix "UN" is there a word as "UNSWAPPING"

The interesting thing about "unswapping" (putting exactly two things, which have been swapped, back into their original positions) is that it is semantically equivalent to "re-swapping" and logically equivalent to "swapping". It's just another swap.

And after you do this, the two things might SEEM "unswapped", but they will have been swapped twice!

So, yes, you could use unswap, but there are better alternatives. In my opinion, you would be more easily understood (as restoring a prior state) if you said "swap(ped/ping) back".

.

cinema history - When/Why did American television change from primarily episodic to primarily serialized?

My recollection of the prime-time television I watched growing up -- the 70s and 80s plus whatever were on at the time -- are almost invariably of episodic television. At the end of each episode, everything that had happened was completely and forgotten, and the show effectively "reset" for the next episode. This included not just the obvious sit-coms, but also dramatic shows like sci-fi, cop shows, etc. I don't remember any show that stands out as paying the least attention to "continuity".

The only deviation here were soap operas, which were just a bunch of overlapping, long-running storylines woven together, but those seemed to be the exception to the rule, and only a handful showed up on prime time.

By the late 90s it seemed like there was a change, to the point where everything but sit-coms were more serialized. Episodes were still self-contained but also fit together into longer, multi-episode, season-wide or even multi-season story arcs. Things that happened in one episode would be written in to subsequent episodes on a regular basis.

For some reason, the two shows that always stick in my brain when I think about this are Golden Girls (one of the last shows I remember from living at home) vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (one of the first shows I remember from living on my own.) and how dramatically different those shows treated continuity. These days, most dramatic television seems to make at least some effort to be internally consistent from show to show.

Am I just mis-remembering the kind of TV that was popular up through the 90s? Were there a lot of quality serial-type shows on at that time that I just never saw or have since forgotten? Or was there really a shift in the type of programming that made it to prime time teleivsion, and if so, why did that happen?

(Also, I should point out that I'm specifically not counting things like major cast changes, which would be impossible for a show to ignore, but rather that events that happened in one episode are never brought up again, even when they would be relevant, or that there was no cross-episode plots that linked them together.)

UPATE:

Several comments have pointed out how much riskier serial dramas are than episodic ones from the network's perspective. That makes sense, especially when you factor in syndication deals later on. That might explain the my lack of memory of such dramas on television in previous decades. However, it doesn't explain why so many dramas on television are serialized.

prefixes - Etymology for “Mc‑” and “O’‑” prefix in surnames

Mc is an abbreviation of Gaelic Mac, "son".

The standard way to form a name using a simple patronymic byname for men is:

    <single given name> mac <father's given name (in genitive case & sometimes lenited)>

which means

    <given name> son <of father's given name>

For example, Donnchadh who is the son of Fearchar mac Domhnaill would be:

    Donnchadh mac Fearchair

which means

    Donnchadh son of Fearchar

O' is the Anglicized way to write Ó "male descendant of".

The standard way to form a name using an Irish clan affiliation byname for men is:

   

<single given name> Ó <eponymous clan ancestor's name (in genitive case)>

which means

 

<given name> male descendant <of eponymous clan ancestor>

For example, Donnchadh who is the son of Fearchar Ó Conchobhair would be:

   

Donnchadh Ó Conchobhair

which means

   

Donnchadh male descendant of Conchobhar

Two common misconceptions are (1) that Mac means "son of" — it actually means just "son", and the "of" comes from putting the father's name into the possessive case; and (2) that Mc is Irish while Mac is Scottish (or vice versa) — actually, Mc and Mac are two ways to write the same thing, and both occur in names from both countries. (What is true is that O' is almost exclusively Irish; despite the romantic notions we have of Scottish clans, they didn't use their clan affiliation in their names.)

Edit: as for why the prefix is used even though the prefix-less names look perfectly fine on their own, this is basically Gaelic grammar and thus out of scope for this site. Suffice it to say, some languages are fine with unmarked patronymics — names that identify the bearer's father using the unmodified given name — but Gaelic is not one of them.

meaning - Can't come up with the correct sentence

I have some trouble coming up with the right sentence for a form input where I'm asking a user's first and last name.

What I'm actually trying to say is that the name the user is filling in will be used to name this person, in for example emails.

Right now I have:

We will reference to you by this name.

But it doesn't sound right to me, and I think it isn't.

zoology - Will the "frog in boiling water not jumping out" work on warm blooded animals

There is the famous saying about a frog that is put in water that are slowly boiling will not jump out until it's too late. I realize it happens because of the frog's cold blood that adjusts to the temperature change until it's too late.
Will this work as well on an animal with warm blood, or will the animal jump out ones it gets hot, but not hot enough to cause permanent damage?

Edit due to comments:

Cold blooded animals, like the frog, can adjust easier to their surrounding when the surrounding changes temperature gradually as their body temperature adjusts with the surroundings. Will the same happen to a warm bodied creature, and will it find it easier to adjust to the surrounding if the change is gradual.

For example, I don't like saunas, when I get in them I have problem breathing and I can't stand the heat, which means that I can be in a sauna for a very short time until I have had enough and get out. Will putting me in a sauna at room temperature and then turning it on to gradually begin to heat until its destination temperature will allow me to fill more comfortable and stay longer inside once it's at the normal sauna temperature?

meaning - "Would" means something different in the past than in the future?

This usage of would is considered fairly casual, but the difference between your two examples is only in point of view: whether you're telling the story as your past self (I would often notice) or as your present self (I often noticed). Another common application of would in a similar context is for habitual actions:

I would go there every day after school when I was little.

Which is identical to:

I used to go there every day after school when I was little.

Generally the version with would only makes sense if a time is specified, or at least understood from context. So this is valid:

I remember when I was little. I would go to my grandma's every day after school.

But the second sentence by itself makes the listener wonder when the speaker is talking about. So generally speaking, these are identical:

I used to…
In the past, I would…

Identify movie: [comically] breaking stuff around the house with his penis

There is this scene, where a guy, walking around naked in the house, but his private parts cleverly hidden behind household objects, breaks stuff around in a way that implies an extremely long an erect penis. What's the movie?

The scene is reminiscent of this Austin Powers scene, but the actor in the movie I'm looking for actually breaks stuff, as in, kicking a vase off a table when turning around, and similar.

american cinema - Minimum or Maximum Movie Running Time Limits?

Although there seems to be a a good length defined for Hollywood movies, Bollywood produced 2.30 hours length movies. There are a number of reasons for that:

1)Bollywood movies are long because they do have singing and dancing, but it also gives the masses a chance to get out of the heat of India and into some air conditioning. The singing/dancing added to the story simply makes the movie a more rounded entertainment experience for the average movie goer.

Movie tickets in India are cheaper than in the U.S. Yet the population is poorer, so they want good value...paisa vasool(make the most of the money)...for their money.

2) While Bollywood films have singing and dancing, classifying them as "musicals" isn't totally correct. Hollywood musicals have the actors breaking into song in the middle of a scene. In Bollywood, the song sequences are generally stand alone, meaning a lot of times, they are nearly like music videos (and they are marketed like this to help promote the movies). Sometimes, the songs are used to push the storyline along with various scenes of the actors doing something. In this way, it actually shortens the film by pushing the plot along without excessive dialog. Bollywood movie soundtracks can be as important to the marketing of the film as the movie themselves.

3) Another difference is that religion can play an important role in Bollywood movies. While not every one features something about religion, it is important to note that religion is an important aspect of Indian culture, so you will find more religious tones or ideas in Bollywood films than you will in Hollywood. So it goes without saying that nudity or overt sexual scenes are not prevalent in Bollywood films. Beautiful women in swimsuits? Sometimes. Steamy sex scenes (sometimes not even kissing) are a no-no. Many times, it depends upon the actor's feelings as to whether he/she will kiss in a movie. Some will, some won't. These are real facts in Bollywood movies.

However we are seeing changes:

Take a filmmaker like Karan Johar, who makes decidedly old fashioned Bollywood movies albeit in new clothes. Karan's last movie My Name is Khan clocked in at 145 minutes. Now take an upstart filmmaker like the brilliant Dibaker Bannerji. His last movie Love Sex aur Dhoka had a running time of just over 100 minutes. Imtiaz Ali's Love Aaj Kal? 122 minutes. Ayan Mukerji's Wake Up Sid? 138 minutes.

At the end I would like to add a picture to describe although Indian films are cheaper to produce, cheaper to promote or lengthy in time it is the business which has forced hollywood production house to come to India.

Book identification about boy who gets computer zapped into head

My first impulse was Disney's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, but that was a movie, of course (which was later remade). Somewhat unsurprisingly, I've found reference to a novelization. Could that be what you're looking for?

Here's a plot description from Wikipedia:

Dexter Reilly (Kurt Russell) and his friends attend small, private Medfield College, which cannot afford to buy a computer. The students persuade wealthy businessman A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero) to donate an old computer to the college. Arno is the secret head of a large illegal gambling ring, which used the computer for its operations.

While installing a replacement part during a thunderstorm, Reilly receives an electric shock and becomes a human computer. He now has superhuman mathematical talent, can read and remember the contents of an encyclopedia volume in a few minutes, and can speak a language fluently after reading one textbook. His new abilities make Reilly a worldwide celebrity, and Medfield's best chance to win a televised quiz tournament with a $100,000 prize.

And, for the ending:

Reilly single-handedly leads Medfield's team in victories against other colleges. During the tournament, a trigger word causes Reilly to unknowingly recite on television details of Arno's gambling ring. Arno's henchmen kidnap Reilly and plan to kill him, but his friends help him escape. During the escape Dexter suffers a concussion which, during the tournament final against rival Springfield State, gradually returns his mental abilities to normal; one of Reilly's friends, however, is able to answer the final question ("What is the geographic center of the contiguous United States?"). Medfield wins the $100,000 prize, and Arno is arrested.

indian english - What's the Australian or British way to say 'Ticket collector'?

I would say "ticket collector", and I'm a native speaker of British English.

The British National Corpus seems to be consistent with my idiolect, with 31 hits for ticket collector(s)*. JLG mentioned ticket taker(s), which sounds completely off to me and doesn't appear in BNC at all. Various people have mentioned conductor: there are 3 for conductor in close proximity (4 words either way) to ticket, but a conductor is someone who comes round on a bus or train to sell you the ticket - i.e. they collect money rather than tickets.

I can't speak to Australian English, and I don't know a suitable corpus to conduct research on it.

* Search term ticket [collector] via this web interface

Did Susie Greene's pregnancy ever get resolved?

Susie Greene's pregnancy is referred to, obliquely, in just one subsequent episode. The actress, Susie Essman, described the situation in an interview for Something Jewish:

In series two, we're told Susie is pregnant but we never see a baby – what happened?

It was never mentioned again. There are so many inconsistences in the show. The only reason he had me pregnant was because of the episode where I fall out of a window on to a pile of sponge cakes. Then it was never mentioned again. The next season we make one little reference to it, in the episode with the studded sweatshirts, I made a reference to the fact that I loved designing clothes out of my own home because it was easy with the new baby. But it has never been discussed since.

The studded shirts episode was "Ben's Birthday Party" from season 4 (since the pregnancy was mentioned in season 3, not season 2 as the interviewer thought). Her line was

The thing that's so great about these shirts is that I've got the business from the house and I can take care of the baby.

story identification - Trying to find a space archeologist/explorer book I read once before, can't remember the name or author

I'm trying to find a book series of which I read one book that was right smack in the middle of the series... but it seems as if each book can stand alone really. unfortunately I have totally forgotten the name and author, I hope someone can help. Ok here goes:
Book is set in the distant future. It centers around an archeologist/scavanger who finds ancient crash sites. He or She? I'll say he for now, finds an artifact. A cup I believe with ancient writing on it. This leads him on a chase to find out where its from and it ends up being from one of the first space colony ships to leave earth or something like that. This prompts him to try to find the ship which was lost long ago.... He ends finding a planet that is following a rouge star that ripped apart the solar system the people of the ship were supposed to get to. The planet is populated by the descendants of colony ship, and they are completely unaware where they originally came from. I also remember that they lived on a ring around the world because one side of the ring was to hot and the other to cold.

Also remember there being one Alien species that was telepathic and had very sharp teeth. It was mentioned that when we met them our tech was similar in advancement they were better at some things and we were better at others...

My brother read another book in the series and told me it has to do with the hero going to a vacation planet where there are vampire stories and it ends up being that planet's government doing the kidnappings or something like that.

Well I hope you guys can help I'm at a total loss and its killing me. was such a great read!

meaning - What does "blue's my colour" mean in this context?

Monica: How are you?

Fake Monica: I'm not too bad. Fortunately, blue's my colour. How-how
did you know I was here?

Monica: Because... I'm Monica Geller. It was my credit card you were
using.

It is from the sitcom Friends season 1 episode 21.

To me, "blue's my colour" barely makes any sense in this context.

Why was Tyra so worried about college in season 1?

One of the more annoying/irritating things about the show was how it, and presumably the writers played around with the characters ages and what grades they were in. For instance Landry it turns out was a freshman in season one, yet he apparently is old enough to have a drivers license, since he has regular access to a car from the very first episode. Honestly the ages and various grades of the students area rabbit hole that you don't go into without a heater and some smelling salts.

That being said, I was never under the impression that anyone of the characters with the exception of Jason Street were seniors in season one, and in Street's case that was very clearly stated.

As for Tyra, I seriously don't know where you get the idea that she was a senior in season one. She never talked about being a senior, not even to Mrs. T And it wasn't her (Tyra's) desire/decision to try and bring her grades up in the first season, it was Tami, who told Tyra to come by and see her at school so they could look things over and make a plan. Tyra

Overall, Tyra wasn't worried about college in season one as much as she was worried about being stuck in Dillon for the rest of her life. It was Tami who started pushing the idea of college on her.

As for real life, my understanding is that colleges look at both your overall GPA and your grades from all four years of high school as well as extracurriculars and letters of recommendation.

etymology - Conundrum: "cleverer" or "more clever", "simpler" or "more simple" etc

The rule that mono- and disyllabic adjectives form their comparatives with -er and larger adjectives do so with more is more or less consistently correct (unless they be participles); however, if you want a more detailed explanation, I have given one below:

There is no absolute rule, but the general trend is that any word that comes from Latin or French into English will form a comparative with more, whereas adjectives of Germanic origin tend to use -er. Past and present participles also use more to form comparatives.

Obvious Latin adjectives usually end in -ive or -ous, both of which form their comparatives with more. E.g. he is lecherous and he is more lecherous, but never he is lecherouser; he seems pensive and he seems more pensive, but never he seems pensiver.

The most notable exception to this is when a Latin comparative or superlative wriggles its way into English; such examples include major 'lit. greater (comparative of magnus 'great') and supreme 'lit. highest (superlative of superus 'high'). These, however, are still not formed regularly by English standards.

Another exception occasionally occurs when adjectives come through French or Vulgar Latin, such as certain, which has in the past formed its comparative as certainer, but this use is almost completely gone. More persistent comparatives of this category include nobler and gentler, largely because of the ease in reducing gentilis to gentle and so on.

French adjectives tend to end in -ant or -ent. Again, a man can be defiant or more defiant, but he cannot be defianter. These adjectives are past participles, and so this rule is also in line with the English rule.

Germanic adjectives, however, almost invariably form their comparatives with -er. Happier, sillier, darker, et cetera are all in this class.

Participles, whether they be Germanic or Latin, present or past, never use -er: he is more annoying, his beard was itching more, the sheep is more shorn, the passage was read more, and so on.

Basically, if it sounds Germanic and is not a participle, use -er; if it sounds Latin, use more.

star trek - Did Khan disapprove of Spock in an early draft of "Space Seed"?

A few years ago, an acquaintance had informed me that, in an early draft of "Space Seed", there was a scene in which Khan had expressed disapproval toward Spock's existence. He explained that Khan abhorred the fact that Spock is half human and half Vulcan, and hence "impure". According to my acquaintance, Khan openly expressed his displeasure of the fact that, while humans have developed great technologies that have opened up the galaxy for them, they have interbred with other species instead of maintaining pure bloodlines.

Some of these views may have been espoused in the dinner scene where Khan and Spock argue:

At the time that we spoke of this, my acquaintance did not have a copy of this draft or access to any source confirming its existence. I did already know that, in at least one early draft, Khan was supposed to be a Nordic general named "Ragnar Thorwald". However, I have not come across anything indicating Khan's specific disapproval toward Spock, apart from my acquaintance's assertion.

Is it true that Khan openly disapproved of Spock's dual ancestry in at least one draft of "Space Seed"? If so, why exactly was it removed prior to the final script?

Curiously, in the actual episode, Khan does not even ask about Spock's appearance or question whether he is human or an alien, and the term "Vulcan" is never uttered in the episode even though Khan has never encountered an alien before (see transcript). Khan might have read about Vulcans and other aliens in the various reading materials he absorbed while in Sickbay. However, it seems unnatural that the fact that Spock is not human fails to come up when he and Khan first meet at the dinner. Of course, such discussion could have happened off-screen. Still, it does seem that something has been excised from the script...

What is the Significance of the Sound Amplification in George Valentin's nightmare?

He was having a nightmare. He was experiencing a period where talking movies became more and more popular and silent movies were less and less produced. He feared for his future as an actor. His unconscious mind picked on this very fear and created this awful dream: a world where everything and everyone is drowned by loud sounds and where he is alone and mute, that is to say a powerless nobody.

Since the movie was made in 2011, it could actually use sounds (as opposed to a real silent movie) to make that dream even more startling to the audience. I personally thought it was the best scene in the movie.

How/Why did Tyler Durden got shot in the head?

From the movie Fight Club, in the ending scene we can see the narrator shoot himself in the mouth asking Tyler to "really listen to him"...

The question is How/Why did Tyler got shot in the head when the narrator himself shot in the mouth? It could have been somewhere else and not the head, right?

Is this just because the Narrator "really" wanted Tyler to listen to him and die?

Since Tyler is just a hallucination, we know that Tyler dies when narrator mind accepts his death. The narrator can't do this on his own, since he needs Tyler's permission to do so (otherwise why would he ask Tyler to listen to him?). Now, if he really wanted Tyler to die, he could have shot Tyler directly and imagined his death, which would have lead to the end of Tyler.

Is this shooting scene in the significance of "Fight Club" where the narrator wanted to shoot himself just with the spirit of hurting himself? Does this indicate that Narrator and Tyler became one at the end?

Was that shot really needed to kill Tyler? What would have happened if Tyler also got shot in his mouth and was alive instead of getting shot in his head?

I have attempted the plot-explanation, but I watched the movie only once long back... I would be glad if someone can expand this/ explain this even better.

Plot behind Ros and Joffrey

Ros was never really under Baelish's protection, merely another of his workers. Towards the end of season 2, Varys employs Ros as a spy for him in order to follow Baelish's acts around King's Landing.

By the time of this episode, Baelish finds out who this traitor is and gives her back to Joffery for a little...fun as one may call it.

The conversation between Baelish and Varys which unravels the plot is as follows:

Varys: Thwarting you has never
been my primary ambition, I promise you. Although who doesn't like to see
their friends fail now and then?

Baelish: You're so right. For instance, when I thwarted your plan to give Sansa Stark to the Tyrells.
If I'm going to be honest, I did feel an unmistakable sense of enjoyment here.
But your confidant, the one who fed you information about my plans, the one you swore to protect...you didn't bring her any enjoyment. And she didn't bring me any enjoyment. She was a bad investment on my part. Luckily, I have a friend who wanted to try something new. Something daring. And he was so grateful to me for providing this fresh experience.

The confidant here being Ros and the friend being Joffrey .

Why did the man-next-door attempt to kill the family-next-door?

He wants to kill his wife, but his murderer (who should kill his wife) went to wrong house - he made mistake.

At the end, he wants to fix everything by killing his wife and neighbour (Ward) too, because everybody thought that Ward is crazy killer - and because he is crazy, he could kill whoever.

grammaticality - Why Is "You did well." Even Grammatically Correct (American English)?

The reason is less one of grammar and more one of the various different meanings of the verb "to do". Although we think of "do" as being a catch-all, usable-in-all-situations type of word, in fact it isn't: each meaning of the word is very precise and requires its own particular grammatical structure to be acceptable to an English speaker.

So when you say you did well, or poorly, or splendidly, you are effectively saying you "acted" or "performed" well (or poorly, etc.). In my Shorter OED this is meaning II.1 ("To put forth action; to act") or II.2 ("To perform deeds; to work"). A slightly different meaning of "you did well" is to have fared well, but still the general notion is the same.
However, just because the word is understood to have this meaning doesn't mean it is synonymous with the definition: you may have acted properly but you wouldn't say "you did properly".

The question of grammar returns as a secondary consideration because this version of "to do" is clearly intransitive.

"You did good" is a quite different meaning, and equally clearly transitive. "To do" in this sense means "to bring into existence" or "to accomplish". And although we are far more tolerant of generalised usage of the verb in this sense, we still insist on differentiating "do" and "make" in numerous cases: you did 50 mph but you made record time, you did the dishes but you made dinner, you did wonders but (if you were a powerful ruler many centuries ago) you made wonders.

Finally, looking at different dictionary definitions of "do" gives further proof of the highly specialised usage of each sense of the word over time. My 1933 edition of the Shorter OED groups all of the above transitives in definition I. This includes doing a speed ("do a mile a minute") or doing a good deed. The online definition linked to above, however, splits many of these uses into quite different categories.

So although some might claim that "you did well" is a special case, it would rather seem that most of our current uses of the verb "to do" are special cases in themselves. Grammar tells us how to do "do" well, style guides tell us not to do "do" too often, and changing speech shows us how we cannot (literally) do "do" to die, we can (figuratively) do "do" to death.

What was the original ending and why was it changed?

I don't quite get what you meant by,

I found it weird that the first ending would not compromise the other (it's like a happy ending where the viewer doesn't know what happened to his mother or to the main character's "gift")

Anyway, the way I understood is this:

The original ending was the ending which Evan was in a psychiatric hospital- he is in a really depressed state as he is fully aware that it is he who killed his girlfriend, Kayleigh. What the doctor said was true- Evan was making alternate realities in his mind to escape his guilt about killing her (he throwed the dynamite at her father, but it landed beneath her).

But then he steals the earliest home-movie tape in which he had met Kayleigh for the the first time in his life (the real one)- at a party. He then "travels" into the scene (for real) and then blames Kayleigh (says he hates her, etc, etc.), thus avoiding ever meeting her and playing with her- and the dynamite scene and child abuse (by her father) would never have happened in the first place. And consequently, Evan would not be crazy, his other friends would be good in life, and he would have led a normal college life.

This is not based on real facts, but is the way I interpreted the movie and understood it.

What language technique is 'She is pure guts and steel'?

It's a sentence, not a phrase, but I don't think that is the answer your teacher is looking for.

"Guts" -- which literally means "intestines" but is used to mean courage -- is an idiom, as you suspected, or more exactly a figure of speech.

"Pure guts" is hyperbole, an exaggeration for rhetorical effect.

"Steel" is a metaphor ("the use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it is not, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described").

Perhaps the technique referred to is one of these.

story identification - Animated show: mechs in space and anihilating shield-field-like weapon

I've watched it in 90' on some Cartoon Network or Fox Kids or something like that. There was a Space Fleet, with a mothership of course, and there was a team of people, of whom each piloted one mech (big, anthropoid robot) and done some heroing, exploring and fighting on some planets. I have vague memory of one mech being piloted by someone like Jubilee from the X-men cartoon, and another by someone like Captain Nick Fury from tv animated Spider Man (the white one) - but that is probably my memory leaking ;)

And there was one episode where some kind of super weapon was activated and it was orange field that grew from the generator ship and annihilated (or maybe just stopped) every ship in sight.

That is all I can remember :)

(I don't think it was Japanese - but that is only a hunch, and a very weak one)
Thanks for trying to remember and every guess ;)

story identification - Title/Author search: read late 70's, last human revived from stasis, intelligent forest

Looking for title and author. This is a novel I read back in high school. Ended on what appeared to be a cliff-hanging transition to a follow on novel. I wasn't crazy about the story, but did wonder how it turned out. Back before the Web it was difficult to keep track of not-very-famous authors !

Here's what I remember:
The main character is a male research physicist whose last experiment accidentally puts him (and the chair he sat on) into an apparently unrecoverable stasis - read indestructible statue. One night, 1000's of years later, a lightning strike revives him (lightning can do anything, eh?). Although he meets/befriends other intelligent beings, some very similar to human, he finds they are of species gene engineered/uplifted - possibly by the long lost human race. His new friends have been fighting a losing war against a nearly world spanning intelligent forest that wants to dominate the remaining planet surface and species it doesn't already control. Near the end of the book, the man communicates with the forest by direct contact and learns that it has memories that go back to the time of humans - before some wrathful alien race hunted them all down. It turns out the forest and many of its subservient species are also result of humanity's work. Since the man has joined the fight against the forest and has knowledge of long lost science (think herbicide), the forest sees him as a/the prime threat to it's plans.

I've looked high and low on the Web with every combination of likely search terms I can think of and have struck out. Hopefully a human brain out there can help me? Thanks!

usage - Verb have in experience

The example makes sense, but it is rather odd sounding. It means that the lady's being disrespected affected you and was a bad experience for you. Other such "have" sentences are completely normal English. For instance,

"As I was waiting in line, I had a piece of the ceiling fall on my head."

It is certainly not a causative "have" construction. It's been called "adversative" or "experiential" have. Other examples are "I have a hole in my pocket", "He had a truck put a dent in his right front fender" (this is also interpretable as a causative).

The two oddities in your example that keep it from being fully grammatical standard English are (1) the "have" is in the progressive, (2) the subject of "have", "I", is referred to in the remainder of the construction after "have" only by "next to me", which doesn't make much of a connection between you and the lady's sad experience.

For (2), looking back at the previous example I gave, "I have a hole in my pocket", note the "my", referring back to me. The "my" could be suppressed, but it would still be understood. "I have a hole in Louise's pocket" is an entirely different construction.

grammar - "Would you mind if I write X?" vs. "Would you mind if I wrote X?"

To my ears it sounds like "Would you mind if I wrote..?" is more of an "in theory" question, while "Do you mind if I write ..?" is the way you would phrase when standing right next to a sign-up list with your mate and presenting him with an actual choice. Also I don't think it's correct to use "would" + present tense.

Should he confirm the latter question, you're GOING to write his name on the list. Asking "Would you mind if I wrote.." feels like asking someone if he'd generally object or agree to you writing his name on that list.

Anyway: Out of those two choices you gave, the correct one is "Would you mind if I wrote".

grammar - Change of voice within a sentence

I am currently proof-reading a technical manual and am coming across numerous instances of sentence structure which I believe to be incorrect. Here's an example:

After filling in a custom field, this will add a new field to the
Add Person screen...

My problem is with the use of the word "this" after the first phrase. I re-worded to say,

After filling in a custom field, a new field will be added...

I think this is a case of active vs. passive voice. Am I right to note the first statement as incorrect grammar?

prometheus - Why did Ridley Scott decide on doing a prequel?

It's not actually a prequel, but rather is set in the same universe but earlier in the time line. He made the coice to not make a direct prequel to essentially avoid being repetative in the material.

From Wikipedia:

The film began development in the early 2000s as a fifth entry in the
Alien franchise, with both Scott and director James Cameron developing
ideas for a film that would serve as a prequel to Scott's 1979 science
fiction horror film Alien. By 2003, the project was sidelined by the
development of Alien vs. Predator, and remained dormant until 2009
when Scott again showed interest. A script by Spaihts acted as a
prequel to the events of the Alien films, but Scott opted for a
different direction to avoid repeating cues from those films. In late
2010, he brought Lindelof onto the project to rewrite Spaihts' script,
and together they developed a separate story that precedes the story
of Alien but is not directly connected to that franchise. According to
Scott, though the film shares "strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak",
and takes place in the same universe, Prometheus will explore its own
mythology and ideas.

lord of the rings - How long did it take to build Minas Tirith?

I'm going to answer your questions in reverse order.

Akallabeth answers your second question; Minas Tirith (which was originally named Minas Anor) was built at the feet of the pre-existing Mount Mindolluin (emphasis mine):

Isildur and Anárion were borne away southwards, and at the last they brought their ships up the Great River Anduin, that flows out of Rhovanion into the western sea in the Bay of Belfalas; and they established a realm in those lands that were after called Gondor, whereas the Northern Kingdom was named Arnor. Long before in the days of their power the mariners of Númenor had established a haven and strong places about the mouths of Anduin, in despite of Sauron in the Black Land that lay nigh upon the east. In the later days to this haven came only the Faithful of Númenor, and many therefore of the folk of the coastlands in that region were in whole or in part akin to the Elf-friends and the people of Elendil, and they welcomed his sons. The chief city of this southern realm was Osgiliath, through the midst of which the Great River flowed; and the Númenóreans built there a great bridge, upon which there were towers and houses of stone wonderful to behold, and tall ships came up out of the sea to the quays of the city. Other strong places they built also upon either hand: Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon, eastward upon a shoulder of the Mountains of Shadow as a threat to Mordor; and to the westward Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, at the feet of Mount Mindolluin, as a shield against the wild men of the dales.

^{The Silmarillion IV Akallabeth}

A 1977 drawing by Tolkien further hints that Minas Anor was build from scratch, using the existing geography principally as a foundation:

However this drawing is

1. Unfinished


2. Not exactly commensurate with the city as described in Return of the King

So you may want to take it with a grain of salt.

The above quote also suggests that it was built in the same year that Isildur and Anárion landed after escaping from the downfall of Númenor; according to Appendix B, that was S.A. 3320. The implication, then, is that the city was built in a single year.

However, even if that assumption is incorrect (and, in fairness, I have no reason to suspect it is), we know that construction cannot have taken more than nine years; in S.A. 3329, Sauron unsuccessfully attacked Minas Anor:

3329 Sauron attacks Gondor, takes Minas Ithil and burns the White Tree. Isildur escapes down Anduin and goes to Elendil in the North. Anárion defends Minas Anor and Osgiliath.

^{Return of the King Appendix B "The Tale of Years" (i) The Second Age}

However, note that the city wasn't built all in one go; there were two expansions recorded in Appendix B:

So, from a certain point of view, the Minas Tirith we're familiar with took 1912 years to be constructed, though that's probably not what the question was asking.

grammar - "Would you mind not to do something?"

OP's construction is extremely "non-standard". Many instances in the first page of results from Google Books for "would you mind to" are language guides citing it as an example of incorrect usage, and several others appear to be from non-native speakers anyway.

I don't think there's any grammatical rule in play here - there's no fundamental difference between mind and, for example, care. And we certainly say "Would you care to do that?" - although in the negative, native speakers invariably prefer "Would you mind not doing that?" rather than "Would you care not to do that?" (but you could use wish there without raising eyebrows).

Perhaps because it's a construction primarily used in "polite/formal" requests, native speakers may be extra careful to take note of and replicate the exact form used by others. Which makes the "idiomatic preference" particularly strong in this case.

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EDIT: I don't know why all this answer has collected so far is a downvote. I admit this example...

I should not mind to die for them, my own dear downs, my comrades true.

But that great heart of Bethlehem, he died for men he never knew.

...is effectively "doggerel", but I don't think it would have been published at all if it had been considered blatantly ungrammatical.

grammaticality - Is the "are" this sentence correct?

The way it is structured, the sentence is ambiguous.

Eating and playing like the locals, or like the locals are?

Are is wrong, since eating and playing is a ... hmm ... singular ... concept?

Change it to "is," and you'll be using "is" twice in the same sentence. Actually, a combination of "are" and "is" ain't that great either.

important for enjoying is awkward.

How about this:

Enjoying the food and entertainment the way the locals do can help one appreciate the festive atmosphere.

If you're not comfortable with one, change it to you.

grammar - What do you mean that it's wrong?

I wonder whether different examples can shed some light: 
 

How can you say [that] it's wrong?

There doesn't seem to be anything odd about the nominative subordinate clause "[that] it's wrong".  To my eye, it looks like an direct object.  It's the thing that can be said.

The part that seems odd is that "how can you" and "why would you" express the same sentiment in this context.  That doesn't hold true in other contexts.  Questions like "how can you eat so much?" and "why would you eat so much?" expect different answers, such as a high metabolism and a low self-esteem respectively. 

However, that's a question of modality which we can ignore for the moment. 

What do you mean that it's wrong?
Why do you say that it's wrong?

The subordinate clause still appears to be a direct object.  These two questions seem to express similar sentiments and expect much the same range of answers.  Both questions allow the original statement to be supported or explained, or for the implications of that statement to stand as an answer. 
 

The oddity here is that the "what" in that question acts like "how" and "why" usually behave.  "How" and "why" are adverbial interrogatives.  They can be parsed as adjuncts rather than arguments.  Ordinarily, "what" is a pronominal interrogative, which isn't a suitable adjunct on its own. 

We can explain this oddity if we assume an elision:

What do you mean [by saying] that it's wrong.

Here, "that it's wrong" is the direct object of the gerund "saying".  The entire prepositional phrase "by saying that it's wrong" is an adjunct to the verb "do mean", while "what" acts as its direct object. 

If we do not assume the elision, the next obvious possibility is that "to mean" allows "what" to act as an adjunct.  The questions "what do you mean that it's wrong?", "how do you mean that it's wrong" and "why do you mean that it's wrong" expect similar ranges of responses, even though we've progressed from the utterly unsurprising to the highly questionable. 

The elision seems easier to support. 

How do you mean that it's wrong? 
You mean that it's wrong, but how? 

Given a clear adjunct, we can separate the question that it asks from the statement that it modifies.  The same doesn't hold for "what": 

What do you mean that it's wrong? 
*You mean that it's wrong, but what? 

Once the verb "mean" has an obvious direct object, the word "what" no longer makes sense.  It doesn't act like an adjunct from other positions, even though we haven't changed the governing verb. 

What do you mean that it's wrong? 
You said that it's wrong, but what do you mean? 

This transformation practically begs for the restoration of at least one elided word.

expressions - What's the proper response when someone says something modest and underrated about himself

Recently when I told a British colleague of mine that he sent me the right assets earlier he told me this:

Wow, me being efficient? Doesn't sound right

I understand that this is supposed to be modesty in a funny way but I'm not sure how to respond to this. And so I choose an awkward silence instead. We have the same thing in the my own culture but translating the proper response there wouldn't make any sense in English. I know I can respond like this:

Oh! You're being too modest

But I don't want to sound like I'm from 18th century. So what could be the proper response to this sentence?

Why did Mona's name change in the later part of 3 idiots?

Mona Singh, whose name is Poonam, becomes Mona in the later part of the film 3 Idiots. After squabbling with Viru Sahasrbuddhe, Rancho suddenly starts calling 'Mona Push'. AFter that everybody, including her father, starts calling her the same name.

Is this a movie mistake or was Mona her nickname in the film?

rhetoric - Word/name for rhetorical technique to give appearance of expertise where none exists?

Cold Reading
wikipedia

Cold reading is a series of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, mediums and illusionists to determine or express details about another person, often in order to convince them that the reader knows much more about a subject than they actually do.[1] Without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. Cold readers commonly employ high probability guesses about the subject, quickly picking up on signals from their subjects as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, and then emphasizing and reinforcing any chance connections the subjects acknowledge while quickly moving on from missed guesses.

Cold reading seems to have the same goal as what you mentioned above, although the methods and usages might be a bit different.

grammar - Usage of Such as

Because your example exhibits other issues than those you ask about, you may wish to ask questions in Writers stackexchange or in English Language Learners.
(For example, drop the phrase “an extensive training”. For one thing, no article should be used there. For another, it may be better to refer to study, education, or coursework rather than to training, which has non-professional overtones.)

That said, consider forms like the following:

At XYZ, I studied mathematical and statistical topics including measure theory, stochastic processes, time series analysis, and general linear modeling.

At XYZ, my math and statistical coursework included topics in measure theory, stochastic processes, time series analysis, and general linear modeling.

Short story or book about a space crew on a broken ship who were capturing alien animals for a zoo

I would like to know the title and author of a short story I read a long time ago.

"Collecting Team" aka "Catch 'em All Alive!" by Robert Silverberg.

It's about 3 men in space. They were sent to different planets to catch other organisms on different planets. Presumably to bring back to Earth and put in zoos.

Davison disappeared back into the storage hold, while Holdreth scribbled furiously in the logbook, writing down the co-ordinates of the planet below, its general description, and so forth. Aside from being a collecting team for the zoological department of the Bureau of Interstellar Affairs, we also double as a survey ship, and the planet down below was listed as unexplored on our charts.

The ship they are on breaks down.

I stood there thinking about nothing at all for a moment, then went inside myself to begin setting up the blastoff orbit.

I got as far as calculating the fuel expenditure when I noticed something. Feedwires were dangling crazily down from the control cabinet. Somebody had wrecked our drive mechanism, but thoroughly.

For a long moment, I stared stiffly at the sabotaged drive.

They notice that the animals on the planet, instead of running away, curiously walk up to them. The animals are too friendly and easy to capture.

He put the animal down--it didn't scamper away, just sat there smiling at us—and looked at me. He ran a hand through his fast-vanishing hair. "Listen, Gus, you've been gloomy all day. What's eating you?"

"I don't like this place," I said.

"Why? Just on general principles?"

"It's too easy, Clyde. Much too easy. These animals just flock around here waiting to be picked up."

They cannot fix the spaceship

That night, the three of us stood guard in the control-room together. The drive was smashed anyway. The wires were soldered in so many places by now that the control panel was a mass of shining alloy, and I knew that a few more such sabotagings and it would be impossible to patch it together any more—if it wasn't so already.

and after a few days, one of the men attempts suicide by slitting his wrists. His attempt fails.

I entered his cabin. He was sitting at his desk, shaking convulsively, staring at the two streams of blood that trickled in red spurts from his slashed wrists.

"Clyde!"

He made no protest as I dragged him toward the infirmary cabin and got tourniquets around his arms, cutting off the bleeding. He just stared dully ahead, sobbing.

They look outside on the planet and they find their homes that they had on earth.

The following morning I rose early and got my tool-kit. My head was clear, and I was trying to put the pieces together without much luck. I started toward the control cabin.

And stopped.

And looked out the viewport.

I went back and awoke Holdreth and Davison. "Take a look out the port," I said hoarsely.

They looked. They gaped.

"It looks just like my house," Holdreth said. "My house on Earth."

The men realize that they were captured by aliens and that they were meant to live on this "alien zoo."

"Forget the giraffes. They tried to warn us, but it's too late. They're intelligent beings, but they're prisoners just like us. I'm talking about the ones who run this place. The super-aliens who made us sabotage our own ship and not even know we're doing it, who stand someplace up there and gape at us. The ones who dredged together this motley assortment of beasts from all over the galaxy. Now we've been collected too. This whole damned place is just a zoo—a zoo for aliens so far ahead of us we don't dare dream what they're like."

reference - Is Chandhramukhi / Manichitrathazhu / Bhool Bhulaiyaa a partial copy of Vertigo?

I don't think Manichithrathazhu shares any similarities with Vertigo. Also to me, remakes of Manichithrathazhu often felt like inaccurate description of Ganga's medical condition (her anger directed at Hero in these movies, which could be a deliberate detour from original narrative to give more screen time to Hero).

Manichithrathazhu script is inspired from the case dairies of a Psychiatrist. Original movie has decent medical accuracy in which it portrays Ganga, a patient suffering from Dissociative identity disorder. Split personality / multiple personality have its roots in child-hood trauma (sexual abuse and other trauma, including dejection). Lonely childhood of Ganga has enough clues to establish roots of DID. More importantly Manichithrathazhu also has strong themes suggesting that the dejection from Nakulan could have triggered Split personality in Ganga's adulthood. Watch carefully two scenes when

1. Ganga ask Nakulan to wake her up when he is done with his work (both are newly weds as per the opening scenes from the movie, her tone says she wants to spent the night with him and not sleep alone).


2. Ganga passionately talks about opening Manichithrathazhu when Nakulan is still working (a work Computer in newly weds bedroom). Nakulan nods his approval, without looking away from his computer screen.

Over all it feels like Manichithrathazhu is a serious attempt to portray DID and not inspired from Vertigo.

single word requests - Correct verb to describe relationships between processes in technical writing

I am writing a thesis, and the tone of my writing is technical. At a few places, I need a specific verb to describe how a particular process/method/technique relates to another process/method/technique. For example, a particular process only focuses on one aspect of a second process but not other aspects of that process. I find it hard to express this.

For example, I want to say:

"the dependence computation process concerns only the connectivity relationship among nodes"

but I feel that "concerns" sound like a human word; it is weird to say that a process/method/technique "concerns" something.

I could replace the word with "cares", "is interested in", but still it looks weird.

Edit:

Let me clarify a bit: "concerns"/"cares"/"is interested in" are words that seem to anthropomorphize the process/method/technique. So I'm looking for a verb which describes the same meaning but can be used by inanimate objects.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

a song of ice and fire - Game of Thrones: ex Queen Regent (season 4/Storm of Swords spoilers)

tl;dr: Cersei's position as regent ended when Joffrey turned 16, but exactly when that happened in the show isn't clear. It certainly had nothing to do with Joffrey getting married.

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In the novels, Cersei is still Queen Regent at this point in the story. Joffrey won't be considered an adult until he is 16, and in the novels he's only 14 when he gets married

and dies, at which point she is Tommen's regent.

In the show, the question is a lot more complex. Most of the underage characters in the show are several years older than their book counterparts (largely because of Danaerys being only 12 when she marries Drogo and gets pregnant). Thus, by this point in the show, Joffrey should already be 16, which means, he shouldn't have a regent, he is King in his own right. I'm not exactly sure of the time scales in the show, but it possible that Cersei had no right to name herself regent in the first place.

Out of universe, I'd have to chalk this up to a continuity goof on the writer's part, stemming from their age advancement of Joffrey. In universe, there's no real explanation for Cersei's title, or why Oberyn thinks she "lost" it, in any official capacity.

However, I can make a guess, based on the political maneuvering at King's Landing, that something like this is happening:

• Cersei desperately wants to be Queen, so when her husband dies, she takes the opportunity to name herself regent for Joffrey, deserved or otherwise. Given her connections both inside and outside King's Landing, no one argues with her.


• Joffrey's behavior clearly indicates that he's not mentally mature enough to be King, regardless of his physical age, so when Cersei, and later Tywin, act on his behalf as Queen Regent and Hand to undo some of Joffrey's screw ups, people just listen to them.


• Now, however, there is another powerful woman in Joffrey's life -- Margaery -- whom he is starting to listen to more than his mother. This diminishes Cersei's control over Joffrey, which was probably never official to begin with.


• As soon as Margaery marries Joffrey, she becomes Queen, and gains some official authority. This, plus Joffrey's obvious support for her, basically pushes Cersei into the background.


• Oberyn was basically making a dig at Cersei, letter her know that he understands the dynamics going on in the King's court, and how much power she is losing there.

deep sky observing - How does one find the extinction coefficient of a particular galaxy?

I am doing photometry on a number of objects in a number of different galaxies. I need the extinction coefficients for these galaxies for various filters passes. Is there some database that displays extinction values for different galaxies at different filter passes?

grammaticality - What is the meaning of the phrase "Those who"?

While the word is missing, that phrase, and similar phrases, are usually about people. 'Who' is a relative pronoun. You use 'who' to connect someone to something, usually an action or trait. Usually to use 'who' and related words the person or people in question are not known. It is used for general statements, keeping it open to whoever it can possibly apply to.

For example an equivalent way to say that phrase would be "Heaven helps people that help themselves." It's quite obvious what we're talking about here but it doesn't sound as eloquent, which is the main reason for talking in a style that the original question uses.

Here are some examples of the usage of who in a similar manner:

• "Do you know who did this?" "No, I do not know who did this."


• "Actually she was the one who was responsible for that."


• He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.


• "To whoever took the 'L' from the motor pool sign: ha ha we are all very amused."