Domain: qi.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to qi.com.
Comments · 7
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Re:But...
If you watched QI, you would know that you can't rely on the fact that the Earth has one moon. Just because it's what everybody knows doesn't make it so.
In the A series, we said the earth had two moons. In the B series, we said there were either five or one, but definitely not two. These ideas were novel at the time (and quite controversial) but scientists now think the Earth has thousands of moons. At least one is the size of a washing machine, with a thousand more as big as a basketball. NASA calls them ‘mini-moons’ or Temporarily Captured Objects (TCOs).
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Re:Good
Well you have to understand that the EU is blamed for all possible strange things by the European politicians so that might be why you as an outsider have a better view of EU than most of the people in it. I.e when national politicians wants to push some legislation that there is public outcry for they always say that they "have to do it due to EU" and for some reason people swallow this most of the time.
Just look at the Brexit situation, there the anti EU people somehow managed to convince Brittons that the a country the political and economical size of UK would have no say in any EU decisions and they all lived like slaves under Germany when the real truth is that there was probably not a single EU decision ever made that wasn't OK:ed by the UK government. And then there exists these millions of EU myths that even otherwise sane news media have published as being true, for example the ones brought up on the BBC QI show: http://qi.com/infocloud/the-eu
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Re:Eskimo?!
Some Inuit in Canada and Greenland object very strongly, which is as good a reason as we need not to do it.
This whole topic is a bit of minefield, it's fair to say. We can initially divide the Eskimo/Aleut people into three - the Inuit, the Unangax (Aleut), and the Yupik.
The Unangax of the Aleutian Islands don't care to be called Inuit or Eskimo. They see themselves as distinct from Eskimos and don't mind being described as Native Americans; other Eskimo/Aleut people don't identify as being such. The Unangax are easily distinguished by their language (many borrowings from Russian, including the system of verb inflexions) and their religion (most are Russian Orthodox).
The Yupik have no objection to being called Eskimos, and will use that term to encompass both themselves and the Inuit. The main groupings within the Yupik are the Alutiiq of the coast, the Yuit or Siberian Yupik, and the Yup'ik of Central Alaska.
Then we come to the Inuit. The two largest groupings are the Canadian Inuit and the Kalallit or Greenland Inuit, both of which would prefer you not to call them Eskimos. (The Greenlanders are happy with Inuit to mean both themselves and the Canadians.) Ethnically speaking, two smaller groupings - the Iñupiat of the North Slope and the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic - are also Inuit, although the Iñupiat would rather be described as Eskimo.
I said it got confusing
...by "suze", from http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...
further in http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...The word "Eskimo" is non-PC in Canada, much as it's fine in Alaska. The particular indigenous person of the north who was featured on QI was a Yupi'ik from Alaska - Sarah Palin's husband is one of those as well - and hence "Eskimo" rather than "Inuit" is the term to use. The plural of Yup'ik is Yupiit.
Had the person been an Aleut, then again "Eskimo" might have caused offence. The Aleut are very sure that they are not Eskimos; while they don't object to "Aleut", they prefer one Unangax, two Unangax, three or more Unangan. (Note that most of the Eskimo-Aleut languages have what's called a dual number; this comes between singular and plural and is used when there are two of something. It's rare in European languages; Slovenian and Sorbian have it, and it's on the point of vanishing from Lithuanian.)
The indigenous people of Baffin Island and such like places absolutely are Inuit, although "an Inuit" or "lots of Inuits" are always going to be wrong since "Inuit" is the plural. One Inuk, two Inuuk, three or more Inuit.
While the people of the central Arctic would prefer Inuinnaq to Inuit, they won't get especially upset at the more general word. As for indigenous Greenlanders, the preferred term is Kalaallit, singular Kalaaleq. (There's no dual in Greenlandic.)
Wikipedia is not informative on why/where it is considered offensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... But it has a nice map of the tribes.
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Re:Eskimo?!
Some Inuit in Canada and Greenland object very strongly, which is as good a reason as we need not to do it.
This whole topic is a bit of minefield, it's fair to say. We can initially divide the Eskimo/Aleut people into three - the Inuit, the Unangax (Aleut), and the Yupik.
The Unangax of the Aleutian Islands don't care to be called Inuit or Eskimo. They see themselves as distinct from Eskimos and don't mind being described as Native Americans; other Eskimo/Aleut people don't identify as being such. The Unangax are easily distinguished by their language (many borrowings from Russian, including the system of verb inflexions) and their religion (most are Russian Orthodox).
The Yupik have no objection to being called Eskimos, and will use that term to encompass both themselves and the Inuit. The main groupings within the Yupik are the Alutiiq of the coast, the Yuit or Siberian Yupik, and the Yup'ik of Central Alaska.
Then we come to the Inuit. The two largest groupings are the Canadian Inuit and the Kalallit or Greenland Inuit, both of which would prefer you not to call them Eskimos. (The Greenlanders are happy with Inuit to mean both themselves and the Canadians.) Ethnically speaking, two smaller groupings - the Iñupiat of the North Slope and the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic - are also Inuit, although the Iñupiat would rather be described as Eskimo.
I said it got confusing
...by "suze", from http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...
further in http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...The word "Eskimo" is non-PC in Canada, much as it's fine in Alaska. The particular indigenous person of the north who was featured on QI was a Yupi'ik from Alaska - Sarah Palin's husband is one of those as well - and hence "Eskimo" rather than "Inuit" is the term to use. The plural of Yup'ik is Yupiit.
Had the person been an Aleut, then again "Eskimo" might have caused offence. The Aleut are very sure that they are not Eskimos; while they don't object to "Aleut", they prefer one Unangax, two Unangax, three or more Unangan. (Note that most of the Eskimo-Aleut languages have what's called a dual number; this comes between singular and plural and is used when there are two of something. It's rare in European languages; Slovenian and Sorbian have it, and it's on the point of vanishing from Lithuanian.)
The indigenous people of Baffin Island and such like places absolutely are Inuit, although "an Inuit" or "lots of Inuits" are always going to be wrong since "Inuit" is the plural. One Inuk, two Inuuk, three or more Inuit.
While the people of the central Arctic would prefer Inuinnaq to Inuit, they won't get especially upset at the more general word. As for indigenous Greenlanders, the preferred term is Kalaallit, singular Kalaaleq. (There's no dual in Greenlandic.)
Wikipedia is not informative on why/where it is considered offensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... But it has a nice map of the tribes.
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According to QI ...
... that's bollocks. Not that I'm taking QI as the arbiter of whether something is bollocks or not. Discussion here (do a search for "Camel") and as discussed in the show.
Also The Straight Dope.
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Re:in addition, totally unnecessary
While the Eskimos may have 70 words for snow
Not quite, according to Stephen Fry, ( QI ), who reckons it's one of those Arctic myths.
How many words do the Eskimo have for snow?
A popular myth claims that the Eskimos have 50, 100 or even 400 words for snow in their language, compared to English's one word. Like all myths, this one is not exactly true. When you consider how many words there are in English to describe snow (such as ice, slush, sleet, hail, snow flake, powder, frozen water, etc.) it becomes evident that to count all of the words that people in snowy cultures have for snow would be impossible. Not only is it impossible to define what would count as a substitute for 'snow,' there exists no single 'Eskimo' language. At most, linguists argue that out of all of the languages of Eskimo groups, there are 4 root words for snow, to which various adjectives are added.
http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2939&start=30&sid=5f67d99f30a3543309278c29a8e3af64 -
Reminds me of a story...
In 1814 in in London town,
a flood of beer came to drown.
http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=121&highlig ht=&