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New Parental Controls Limit Xbox Time
An anonymous reader writes "As part of a new marketing blitz to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" video game console, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out a new feature called Family Timer, which will show up in the Family Settings Screen.
The Timer will let parents limit the number of hours their kids can play the Xbox on a daily or weekly basis. When the time limit is reached, the console will automatically shut off, ostensibly after saving the game."
Is this that rare? I'd think that any household that could afford to buy an xbox rather than more pressing needs is probably solvent enough to have a stay-at-home partner. I know that when my fiancee and I get married and have kids, she plans to be a full time mum to our kids, and I'm happy to support that.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
"Parent" is not a verb. Stupid Americans.
"Parent" comes, via the French language, from the Latin "parens". Itself coming from the verb "parere".
I am not enough of an Latin etymologist to tell if it comes from
*parere/pareo : to be obedient to, obey
*parere/paro : prepare, raise, furnish/supply/provide or
*parere/pario : bear, give birth to, beget
But clearly, it comes from the verb "parere", which would be something like "to pare" if it had propagated to Modern English.
Putting a -ens generally is a way to make up a substantive from a verb which will specifically refer to the performer of the action.
Examples:
ferere (to bear) --> ferens (bearer). Ex. Christopher = Christos Ferens = the one who bears Christ
exponere --> exponens
Anyway, it is plain ridiculous to take a verb, make a substantive out of it, and make another verb out of it that means the same thing as the original verb. Someone who fishes fishes is called a fisherman or a fisher, yet his job is not called "fishermanning" nor "fishering". Someone who farms is a farmer yet you don't call his job farmering. Someone who insures people is an insurer, yet he is not in the "insurering" business.
The only way "to parent" would be an acceptable verb is if it was not about raising children (performing the action) but about making one a parent (making the object a performer of the action).
Fuck you, language rapists. What's next ? are should we call people, who perform the action of "parenting", "parenters" ?