12am might mean midnight…but which midnight? Always better to use 23:59 or 00:01
Eg meet you at 12am on Tuesday…does that mean the midnight between Monday and Tuesday or the midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday…
My thinking here is that the literal noon / midnight is only relevant for an infinitesimally short period of time (on an analogue system) - ie, the instant that it hits midnight it's then no longer midnight, it's after that. So 12am on Tuesday is as you've passed from Monday into Tuesday. It's like trying to define the corners on a circle.
Have you never heard England being used as a synonym for Great Britain? I have.
Many years ago I once heard an American tourist ask a lad from Scotlandshire, "so whereabouts in England is Scotland?"
Flaunting and flouting. For example; "the cyclists were flaunting the law by riding two abreast". They were weren't they, but that's not what you actually meant was it.
Black headed gulls have brown heads
Black backed gulls have black wings not backs
Their heads might be very dark brown when seen up close, or through binoculars, but seen from a distance, as they would have been when they were named, their heads are, to all intents and purposes, black.
Black-backed gulls have black backs, or at least a very dark grey, when they’re perched and seen from a distance; in flight, if seen from above, their flight feathers extend far enough across their body to look as though their entire back is black.
By the way, Which Tyler led the Pedants Revolt.
Here you go, teej, a photo of a black-backed gull in flight - care to tell the class what colour its back is?
And to a casual observer, seen from a distance of more than ten feet, what colour would you say this bird’s head is, when compared to its wing-tip feathers?
“I brought a bike for £500”. No, you bought a bike. You may have brought it home after you bought it though.
Ah you're wrong there. They brought it.
The guy they sold it to bought it but they definitely brought it [to the point of sale] for 500 quid.
And to a casual observer, seen from a distance of more than ten feet, what colour would you say this bird’s head is, when compared to its wing-tip feathers?
Much more importantly, its water proofing is crap for a sea bird.
Count zero - and what about herring gulls and their diet? Common gulls and their rarity?
Anyway - IIRC the female black headed gull does not have even a brown head
the whole thing is a ruddy fib!
While we're on the subject, seagull...
Common gulls and their rarity?
I thought you lived in Edinburgh, you can't tell me you've not seen swarms of common gulls up town? One is often bedecked in a veil? Throwing up in gutters? No?
Anyhow, why hasn't binners turned this into another thread about pies?
colournoise
While we’re on the subject, seagull…
And this is why you should never just skip to the last page of a thread...
Is there a misusable word for that?
why not refer to them as Mews?
Because that would cause all sorts of confusion; the place where falconers keep their birds when not hunting is called a mews, and there are mews houses in many cities.
meet you at 12am on Tuesday…does that mean the midnight between Monday and Tuesday or the midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday
It's the 12 o'clock before noon on Tuesday, so between Monday & Tuesday.
its water proofing is crap for a sea bird
But it's not as much of a sea bird as some, and cormorants & shags have worse waterproofing, which is beneficial to the way they feed.
I’m sure Petard never meant a wide mouthed canon.
No, those are either a mortar or a bombard, both used in siege warfare. Hence bombardment or bombarded.
The relevance is these are things that ‘bug’ TJ
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Anyway – IIRC the female black headed gull does not have even a brown head
Both sexes have dark hoods, both gradually recede to a dark spot on the side of the head out of breeding season. Like many birds, both sexes are similarly coloured, bulls and corvids in particular.
I did cheat a bit with that photo, it was a Mediterranean Gull, but they’re becoming a fairly common breeding resident now, like Little Egrets, Great White Egrets, Glossy Ibis, so getting them mixed in with our own black-headed gulls will make it a moot point...
I am going to sue under the trades descriptions act! Not as described. Grey backed Gulls and sometimes brown headed gulls!
Right. Thats it. Where is my kris. Its time to be run amok!
Oystercatchers don’t catch oysters
But it’s not as much of a sea bird as some, and cormorants & shags have worse waterproofing, which is beneficial to the way they feed.
Nah, the one in that photo is only IP44 rated, it'd be full of water in moments and unable to fly, anything less waterproof than that would just sink and drown.
Errmmm- do do realise this is not meant as a serious thread don’t you?
yep, I'm not completely* stupid.
* some stupid, fo'sure.
and there are mews houses in many cities.
Y'know, I don't think even TJ would confuse the two...
"I was sitting minding my own business, eating some chips on the prom, when this row of nicely restored semi detached cottages with a cobbled lane came out of no-where, squawking it's head off, and nabbed a great handful...It was chased off by a rural semi and a block of flats..."
I don’t think even TJ would confuse the two…
There's another one.
Would when you clearly mean could. He couldn't confuse them, he clearly would,just to be [s] country [/s] contrary.
🙂
Infamy infamy you have all got it in for me!
squawking it’s head off
Ah ah, another misuse that annoys me.
You mean its head. The head belonging to the bird is its head. It's means it is.
I bow before Mister P for he is correct, and I am not. (curses)
I wave two fingers at Dangeourbrain, I used the word I wanted correctly. (hoorah)
no apostrophe needed before "and" in a sentence
no apostrophe needed before “and” in a sentence
That apostrophe is a comma.
Muphry's Law in action.
Muphry’s Law in action.
Well played.
FFS! its still not needed whatever the curly little twerp is!
(I think - one for the facts thread "TJ does not understand punctuation" )
Here is another:
the misuse / conflation of "knob" and "nob" in insults
"knob" means bellend
"nob" means member of the nobility meant in a derogatory way
no apostrophe needed before “and” in a sentence
If I overlook the apostrophe/comma error, I was (and this isn't actually a made-up thing post event, honestly) aiming for prose...Hence the way the post was constructed.
