I wonder if perhaps an older dialect used to pronounce the W.

That’s correct, and it isn’t even that old - based on the [o:]→[u:] change it should be from 1500 or so. And the modern Scots cognate ⟨twa⟩ /twɑ:/~/twɔ:/ still has it.

The ⟨W⟩ is silent now, but it wasn’t until 1500 or so. Back then the word was pronounced /two:/; it would almost rhyme with contemporary “toe”. But then that /o:/ became /u:/ (the modern pronunciation), due to the Great Vowel Shift, and since /w/ and /u/ are really similar they fused together.

@FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world mentioned that in a few associated words that ⟨W⟩ letter still represents an actual /w/ phoneme, note how the following vowel is different - that blocked the “fusion”.

At least for my ex-fiancée it was about the link between husband and wife, plus tradition. It was basically “I’m married, you see?”. Just like a ring.

(We talked a fair bit about this stuff, as back then I was planning to add my maternal surname to my legal name. She was OK taking either surname.)

That’s good news. Odds are that some of those people will go back to closed media platforms after ~2 months; but the ones who stay help Mastodon and the Fediverse to grow.

Thanks for sharing this data - it’s great.

It actually makes sense; if cat urine contained ammonia the smell would be gone once you washed your cat’s impromptu litterbox, since ammonia is both volatile and highly soluble. And yet it keeps stinking - this hints that there’s something else there producing that ammonia by decomposition. (Probably proteins. Cats eat a lot more protein than we do.)

Note: chlorine gas is the one that leaks from an open bleach bottle, and gives it a distinctive smell. The ones created by reacting bleach with ammonia are chloramines, considerably more poisonous.

I’m not sure if it’s because of Christianity.

Calling a language “of the people” pops up often across different cultures. Quechua for example does the same; the native name of the language is “runa simi”, it’s basically “people’s language”.

And in the case of the Germanic languages it’s so common that it was likely already in Proto-Germanic, thus probably older than the christianisation of those tribes.

I’m almost sure.

Your typical instance only defeds another as a last case scenario, due to deep divergences or because of blatantly shitty admin or user behaviour. But, past that, they’re still willing to let some shit to go through - because if you defederate too many other instances, with no good reason, you’re only hurting yourself.

That’s simply not enough to create those “corners”. Specially when all this “nerds vs. normies*” thing is all about depth - for example the normie wants some privacy, but the nerd goes all in, but they still care about the same resources.

*I hate this word but it’s convenient here.

Sometimes ghosting is for people who value their own peace of mind, who predict that saying “sorry, I don’t want to be contacted further” will either cause drama or be ignored.

Plenty people. For stuff like

• insisting on a subject after I clearly said “I don’t want to talk about this”
• throwing a tantrum against me for something that is clearly not my fault
• sending me multiple messages sequentially, containing nothing of value
• trying to proselytise their stupid superstition, whichever it may be
• bossing me around with uncalled advice, after I said to drop it

And I don’t feel bad for ghosting any of those. At all.

My two choices:

• Pontic Steppe, around 3000 BCE. Likely region where Late Proto-Indo-European was spoken.
• northern Lazio, around 650 BCE. If possible/reasonable I want to spend a bit of time in an Etruscan city, then in a Faliscan city, then in a Sabine one. I’m OK travelling by foot if necessary, as long as there’s always people talking around me.

In both cases I want to be able to record everything people say. Preferably video, but audio is good enough. I just want to know better about languages of the past.

It’s kind of tempting to include 1450 Uruguay as a choice, since we barely know anything about the Charrúa language. However the Charrúa weren’t exactly friendly to outsiders, so this option would be only if neither side can interact with each other.

I get what you say, and I agree; but when it comes to the average user I wonder if they’ll even get it. They don’t think on the grounds of a “protocol” or a “platform”, it used to be “site” and now “app”. They do it even with email, of all things, even if it’s one of the oldest cross-platform protocols out there!

They tolerate each other enough to get each into a corner and not interact much.

And yet that is not what we see in the Fediverse. Those “corners” don’t exist here.

The people here and their attitude towards people who don’t agree with them are the problem.

And that’s a structural problem. The ActivityPub was supposed to allow both the “average person” and the “nerd” to coexist in the same platform, without one getting too much in the way of the other; it doesn’t.

I’m not sure on a good solution for that.

It’s all fun and games until venture capital kicks in, and exploits that central user data store to further centralise the rest of the network. Even then yes, I think that Mastodon has a lot to learn with Bluesky, on how to make user experience smoother.

I left Debian but Debian didn’t leave me, it seems…

Not to my knowledge. However, there are plenty references to bees in the whole mythology.

For example, the priestesses of Demeter (Olympian goddess of the soil, crops and food) were typically called μελισσαι melissai “honeybees”; and Persephone (goddess of the spring and underworld; Demeter’s daughter) got quite a few honey-related epithets, such as Μελινδια Melindia and Μελινοια Melinoia (both with μελι meli “honey”).

Brazil is a Bad Idea®.

• There’s a reasonable chance that a Trump-like clown wins in 2026. Probably a Bolsonaro ally, or even a relative (there have been talks about his wife running for presidency).
• Repeat with me the Latin American mantra: Nothing Fucking Works®.
• 
• Ask Haitians and Venezuelans how they’re treated.

I’d gladly post Batatinha’s pics if he was my dog, but my cousin would probably get annoyed, it’s a privacy matter.

But, basically: picture a huge dog. By “huge” I mean, he probably weights 40kg or so. Mostly black, with some tan; it doesn’t follow the same pattern as the Rottweiler or the German shepherd, it’s different. Short hair, floppy ears. Rather intimidating, I wouldn’t go anywhere close to that dog without my uncle or my cousin nearby.

I spend most of my day reading, as a translator. But it’s almost always stuff that I wouldn’t read, if not being paid to.

If counting only books that I read for fun, I guess it’s ~2 books/month? Typically fantasy light novels. I also read a fair bit of manga (~5 chapters/day).

Beyond those LNs I think that the last book I’ve read was in September; Um Copo de Cólera (lit. “a glass of rage”), from Raduan Nassar. Short but good first person story.

I’m almost 40. I’m… tired. I don’t read stuff to feel myself cultured; I read stuff when I need to (because of my job) or when I feel in the mood to do so.

My relatives do it all the time. On purpose. Cue to

• Átila - named after Attila the Hun.
• Batatinha - roughly “little potato”.

Guess who’s the toy poodle and who’s the shepweiler.