Nonsense. I've even had hens that paired together to open doors – one flying repeatedly on the handle, another one pushing the door. And those were reform hens that seemed particularly blunt relative to their peers.
Most research on animals is conducted after we’ve placed them in mind numbing cages and in non social environments (and if they are with other animals they’re crammed in together).
Imagine living your entire life either in solitary and/or packed in a Japanese subway car, and someone doing research being shocked you’re acting in anti-social ways.
I agree with the sentiment, but Normans speaking a Breton variant of French… Oh gosh… And why "they"? What's with the lumping of 300+ million French speakers with the personal opinion of one person? What's that talk about relevance as if not being number 1 meant that the language was damned?
Nice anecdotes, but the last one is a misinterpretation that got me into a rabbit hole. "poe-tat" is juste "patate" and is widely used not the least because it's just faster to say than "pomme de terre" (following Zipf's law of abbreviation and the principle of least effort). It's more informal, but it's pedigree is excellent as it comes from Taíno via Spanish, was first recorded in 1582 and recorded by the French Academy in 1762… which was actually only the case for "pomme de terre" in 1835! It seems that "pomme de terre" referred to other tubers in the distant past, but that the famous agronomist Parmentier remarketed "patates" as "pommes de terre" in the 18th century to promote their acceptance.
And yet, you'd say "the House of the Virgin Mary" or "the House of Windsor" in English (which translate to "la Maison de la Vierge Marie", but the "Maison Windsor" in French). English grammar has incorporated a lot of key Romance features alongside its Germanic ones.
The term "Old English" is completely misleading in this context given how distant modern English is from that language. Both were spoken in England, that's about it. Applying the same logic to "France", should we then consider Gallo-Roman works like Ausonius's Mosella (c. 370 CE) to be "French" literature?
The Beowulf manuscript dates from around 975 CE and is written in what might be better termed Anglo-Saxon. How much can you understand from this random sentence: "þa me þæt gelærdon leode mine, þa selestan, snotere ceorlas"? ("So my vassals advised me well…) I personally can't understand a single word or even relate it in any way to the English I know.
On the other hand, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia was composed in "Old French" in 880 BCE and seems rather intelligible to me. I also just took a random sentence from the Chanson de Roland (c. 1100 BC) and can understand all of it: "Seignurs, vos en ireiz. Branches d’olive en voz mains portereiz, Si me direz a Carlemagne le rei Pur le soen Deu qu’il ait mercit de mei." I'd even go so far as to say that's closer to modern French than Shakespearean English despite being written in Anglo-Norman … Which also means it should probably count as being English literature if Beowulf qualifies…
I guess the lesson here is simply to remember that reality is always a lot more granular than we first expect and that any sweeping judgements on languages, countries, etc. over the span of millennia make very little sense. By that criteria, the linked article was pure clickbait to begin with.
Interesting mix of wood too. The 1619 viola has a very tight grain spruce top and the maple back has a beautiful curl. Same with the 2019 Beilharz cello and the 1785 Storioni violin – the curly maple really shows. The back on the 1705 Goffriller cello seems very plain on the other hand, and suprisingly so does the 1717 Stardivari's. The 19th century Hopf violin has nice curly maple, but the grain on the top seems extremely loose. Any idea how do these compare musically? And does someone know if Stradivarius ever used curly maple and when curly maple was first used for musical instruments?
In Italian, corporativismo has a distinct meaning that is unrelated to the concept of commercial corporations. It refers to a system of collaboration between social groups, represented through joint associations of employers and workers. Essentially, it is a state-aligned alternative to independent trade unions, a "national syndicalism" of sorts.
Muskotrumpia may excel in performance-based state capture, but fascism it is not. The anti-state culture of the U.S. clashes with the "everything for the state" ethos that defines fascism. We're simply entering textbook Caesarism territory.
In Western Europe at least, cows are kept in pastures, which are permanently dedicated to that use and not used as fields to grow crops. All in all, cows are probably only low carbon in premodern rural contexts in West Africa and Asia for instance.
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