an old monitor

There's gold in them thar hills!

Cool! Here's a high resolution monitor:

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs, LLC Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design Website:

Looks like it's eating a piece of zip cord.

English is a weird language. We have many more words than most other languages, but we still manage to assign a lot of radically different meanings to one word.

Here's some pics of Dutch Flat.

Incredibly environmentally destructive technique, makes everyone glad those days are gone and all the people dead. And they probably constructed the wood sluices from 3000 year old redwoods.

Yes, the early Americans assumed that infinite natural resources were available for the taking. Human resources, too: all the hard work - building the sluces, blasting the railroad tunnels - was done by Chinese, who were then thrown out. Dutch Flat had about 2000 Chinese, and now has none that I could see.

That is one heck of a spud gun!

It isn't "incredibly destructive"; it is "credibly destructive".

Far too many TV talking heads, including those that should know better, use "incredibly" when they mean "very" but are afraid of giving a number.

I'm beginning to hate adjectives, or numbers in cryptic units. I suspect when they launch the next aircraft carrier the news will give its length in "football pitches" and displacement in "olympic sized swimming pools" :(

It's English. Messy, ambiguous, irregular, and fun. Get used to it.

sure but, "incredibly" as in so much you can't believe it, sounds perfectly logical

there was a website that converted any unit of measurement into "journalist units"

Nah. That's not English like wot I no it. Certainly t'ain't fun.

It is a version that has been devalued to suit lazy presenters, or worse, because the producers thought the audience would switch off if given hard information.

In rare cases, such things can be accurately described as "incredible". But recently "incredible" has been used far too often.

ISTR that. There's still an art in choosing correct but wryly (in)appropriate units, though. I'm rather fond of the volume of holes in Manchester roads being measured in "double decker busses"

tor.jpg

plate.jpg

those days are gone and all the people dead. And they probably constructed the wood sluices from 3000 year old redwoods.

Hmm incredible has more than one meaning. (like monitor)

From the web....

in?kred?b(?)l/ adjective

1. impossible to believe. "an almost incredible tale of triumph and tragedy" synonyms: unbelievable, beyond belief, hard to believe, unconvincing, far-f etched, implausible, improbable, highly unlikely, dubious, doubtful; More
2. difficult to believe; extraordinary. "the noise from the crowd was incredible" synonyms: magnificent, wonderful, marvelous, spectacular, remarkable, pheno menal, prodigious, breathtaking, extraordinary, unbelievable, amazing, stun ning, astounding, astonishing, awe-inspiring, staggering, formidable, impre ssive, supreme, great, awesome, superhuman; More

I was just listening to Fresh Air, on public radio, an interview with a dictionary editor. Very cool lady... both of them in fact.

Seems that a lot of English language rules were adapted from the structure of Latin. Sometime in about the 19th century, a bunch of guys decided that they would formalize English spelling and grammar.

Pity.

The ambiguities of English are resolved by context and redundancy. It's sometimes hard to send technical emails, or write manuals, that are clear.

I especially hate data sheets that say

"The data is accepted at the falling edge of the WT input"

without making clear if the register is clocked, or a transparent latch.

Ah, the Humpty-Dumpty response :)

None of those match; it isn't impossible/difficult to believe, neither is it extraordinary.

The spelling was crystallised by Dr Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 dictionary.

English is an interesting mish-mash, with 1066 playing a decisive role. Most of the "simple" English words are Teutonic in origin, from the Anglo-Saxon world. Most of the "high-faluting" words are Latin in origin, superimposed by William the Bastard when he conquered England.

I don't think that can be blamed on English per se. Lazy thinking and expression by the authors, more like.

OTOH the differences between must/will/should/may/might/etc do make English a bad language for diplomacy :)

And a not so high resolution old monitor.

You mean like "CNN is an incredible news network."?

Gallagher would be proud.

Incredible is an incredibly overused word.

NT