281–286 of 286 posts
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Biweekly means every two weeks. Semiweekly means twice a week. (Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth.) Please keep (politely) correcting people. It's only us against the hordes!
> Biweekly means every two weeks. Since when, exactly? http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/18553?rskey=7qC25f&result=2#ei...
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Going from 50% deficit spending to paying off equivalent of 100% of GDP (which enjoys a 2-5% annual growth) amounts to "won't be able to". We'd have to cut spending by 1/3rd just to stop increasing the debt. We'd have to route all federal revenue to debt for 5 years to pay it off. Ain't happening.
Ah, but most of the US debt is denominated in US currency... It's a convenient loophole to use if it ever becomes a more serious problem.
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No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb. Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote…
Wait, are you really sYing that when you see "irregardless" that your first response is not "that's an error and they mean regardless[1]" but "they mean regardless but negated so regard but that doesn't make sense so they actually mean regardless"? [1] why not irregard instead of regardless?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb. Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote…
Yet astonishingly you are one of the people who knew what it meant. Also, most English dialects don't strictly follow double-negation rules. I know this drives non-native speakers crazy, but you'll get over it with enough practice.
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How do you propose we evaluate the return on the Iraq War?
This could open an entire can of worms. I would be curious to see how any war ROI is calculated when not in a conquer and pillage situation (spoils of war and what not).
As a European I am exceedingly glad the US got involved in WWII, since otherwise the Soviets would have won, but how do you put a prize on my freedom and the freedom of future generations?
Another anecdote on the power of community college: Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley. The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their subjects (a f…
I agree with others that this has a lot to do with location. The classes I took were as rigorous as any other non-community college I've attended outside the bay area.