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Giant Guatemalan 'Sinkhole' Is Worse Than We Thought
reillymj writes "Despite hundreds of media reports to the contrary, Sam Bonis, a geologist whose life work has been studying Guatemalan geology, has plainly said that the dramatic 'sinkhole' in Guatemala City that opened over the weekend isn't a sinkhole at all. Instead, he called it a 'piping feature' and warned that because the country's capital city sits on a pile of loose volcanic ash, the over one million people living on top of the pile are in danger. 'I'd hate to have to be in the government right now,' Bonis, who worked for the Guatemalan government's Instituto Geografico Nacional for 16 years, said. 'There is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city.'"
Looks like the city nearly doubled its surface area!
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Probably not even remotely possible due to its size, but a similar problem seems to have been created in Kiruna, in Sweden. The town sits on top of the world's largest iron ore mine, and the mine has created a large cavity under the town. They are moving everything, in some cases, literally brick by brick. There's a neat article about it in this month's National Geographic.
He is just now making this information public? How long has he known about this? Why were the people not informed earlier? TFA states a similar (but smaller) hole opened back in 2007, not too far from this monster.
Reply to That ||
So ironically the funny sensationalists headlines of hell hole opening in Guatemala might not have been so far off.
The article's title (Don't call it a sinkhole) is certainly on the money. I was shocked. If you haven't read/looked at the article, do. I was expecting, you know, a little crater thing or something. This is far, far beyond that. It is literally a massive cylindrical hole. It's amazing.
I think you are confusing it with this.
Living With a Nerd
Don't do it.
The full size version of that photo thats always on the front page of this story is on flikr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gobiernodeguatemala/4657053554/sizes/l/
Amazing, it looks like something out of a scifi movie. Did the death star missfire?
"Feature" like Microsoft's "features"?
Holy hell, that's amazing. Just a giant almost perfect circular hole in the middle of the city. Amazing.
Sent from your iPad.
Just put giant parachutes on all the buildings.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Here in PA we have a town called Centralia that is over an active burning coal fire. I believe it has been burning for over 50 years. The town was considered unfit to live in and everyone was encouraged to move. There are still some stragglers remaining, I believe the population is about 5 people. You can still walk/drive through it, but at your own risk as sink holes are a huge issue. If you can ignore the rediculous pop-ups pictures of what a zombie apocalypse might look like here
It's the Rise of the Silver Surfer!!!
Goatse recently moved to Guatemala City.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Looks like the holes the silver surfer drilled in the last Fantastic Four Movie....
Any chance a large amount of oil would fix things?
That huge gaping hole that swallowed your neighbor? That's not a geological bug, it's a 'feature'.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
I think we have just found the entrance to middle earth. Does anyone see any dinosaurs or dragons down there?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The Silver Surfer in all likelihood created this hole. Investigative journalism, where are you?
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
As mentioned in comments here, volcanic ash makes for stronger concrete. All they need to do is pour a lot of concrete down there and mix it together. Slashdot and an AC save millions of lives again!
El chupacabra meets goatse on the battlefield of genetic engineering?
Remember to maintain your supply of
There were all of those holes appearing in the alternate world.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
breaking news, we've come to find out that all of central america and mexico are prehistoric land bridges made of volcanic ash.
Guess that solves the immigrant problem the US is having.
My ex made a /. headline!
My mother-in-law is in Guatemala?
It sounds like he's saying that the city is on top of a layer of volcanic material, which is on top of plain-old dirt. And the dirt is washing away underneath... which sounds like a massive freaking problem...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
That huge gaping hole that swallowed your neighbor? That's not a geological bug, it's a 'feature'.
Yeah, I figured there was a way to get a Microsoft joke out of this thing if we worked on it hard enough.
This ain't rocket surgery.
The spice must flow. The spice is life.
you mean, "sunk"?
But why is this hole almost perfectly circular? I was under the impression this wasn't man-made.
Here's some interesting photos of the area http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/a_rough_week_for_guatemala.html
Lets fill this thing with our corrupt career politicians and lawyers, I know the hole isn't big enough - but its a start!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I think you are confusing it with this... look at the photo, if any feature on the earth ever looked like a gate to hell it's this fiery pit. :-)
Actually 'sinked' is more proper/correct, though I no it sounds weird. Kind of like the last line in To Kill a Mockingbird: "[Atticus] would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning"
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Ah, THAT'S the one I was looking for. Thank you :-)
Living With a Nerd
Have you seen the pictures? It looks awesome. Sure it killed some kids, and that sucks, but usually interesting geological features are horribly inconvenient to get to. Here you can have a chalupa mid-ride down. Basement floor #30 would be a classy bar called Satan's hollow.
A group of Iranian visitors inspecting the hole claimed that it was "madness", but they were quickly dealt with.
Sorry my friend, but Microsoft sadly is not the only company who uses the term "feature".
They also aren't the only company who do coding...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
That just looks like a lame knockoff of Yellowstone.
Get a web developer
Actually 'sinked' is more proper/correct, though I no it sounds weird.
You "no" it sounds weird?
Somehow I don't think I'll be taking advice on what's more proper/correct from you.
For what it's worth, a quick glance at Dictionary.com shows no results at all for sinked (and Firefox's spell checker just red-lined it when I typed it), while it clearly identifies sunk as the proper past tense of sink.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Learning about this "piping feature" that could happen almost anywhere in the city, I suddenly feel that my past SimCity experiences have been missing something. Having a hole open up randomly in a SimCity, swallowing buildings and power poles. Awesome! Be sure to give it a keyboard shortcut, because I want to use it a lot.
LOL!111!!1111!! SO FUNNY! Idiot.
the "sinkhole" happened because of the irresponsible leaders we have in the government. If you look at the picture of the sinkhole from above you'll see a that there's a sort of tunnel at the bottom, which forms part of the sewer system. underneath that factory that sinked there was a vertical cylindrical (not as big as the hole) acces tunnel to check on the massive sewer, which they didn't reinforce or took care of properly, the water started filtraring arround it and washing the way outwards to form the gigantic cylindrical hole, it's not likely to happen like that all over Guatemala, and your average sinkhole has the same probability as in any other city in the same circumstances, which is still high but heck, were are you safe these days...
If anyone needs additional proof for last week's article about the dramatic loss of empathy among the latest generation - just read these comments.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
All the other mayors said I was daft to build a city on top of ash, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Odd that posting a RTFA comment is now meritorious enough to get someone an insightful mod. :/
Not one Buffy reference yet? Shame on you /.!
There is a couple of pictures of the "sinkhole" there, and especially one of the bottom, it seems there is a big cave
http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Guatemala-sinkhole/(photo)/2
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
old horror novel; basically a series that started with "The Keep"; where the bad guy opened all these bottomless holes around the world that were merely portals from another far nastier place.
When I first saw pictures of this hole it came to mind very fast.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
i was going to make a joke referencing "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," an effort i will now abandoned, having been humbled by your superior effort
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Looks like that's where the Combine is going to put the new Citadel...
I'll be honest, that's a pretty mean thing to say about Penelope Cruz.
What I want to know is, where did all the material go that used to be filling in the hole? I understand that groundwater can wash stuff away but that hole represents a ridiculous number of cubic meters of soil. Where is it now?
I was referring to the AC. :p
Remember to maintain your supply of
I'm surprised that the fire pit was not renamed "Turkmenbashi" since the old leader, Saparmurat Niyazov named himself, and just about everything else in Turkmenistan "Turkmenbashi".
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
Have you seen the pictures? It looks awesome.
More importantly, how the hell can the summary conclude that its worse than I thought? Fuck! I'm pretty sure that shit in the picture is god damned bad. Very god damned bad. Holy shit thats bad.
...and awesome, of course.
"His name was James Damore."
So must the CIA, the BBC, and even their own embassy and government. They've got their own TLD for crying out loud.
Seriously, listen to the news or something. Read a book. It's an actual country.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Quick! everyone get to the Jacinto Plateau!
What if we thought it was 2 inches deep, and then found out it was 3 inches deep? Is that news?
I would be interested to see what sorts of technologies are available to map possible underground strata. IANAG (I Am Not A Geologist) but I'm assuming that what Bonis is concerned about is horizontal water flow that will scour out loose strata and undermine more ground.
I live in the Seattle area. We have recently undertaken some major infrastructure projects that involve horizontal boring. In spite of hundreds of millions in potential cost overruns, it appears that the only techniques employed have at times missed major underground features.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who modded this troll? Over-rated perhaps, but troll?
It's too bad that metamoderation is broken anymore because there have been a rash of horrible mods lately.
*tilts head* huh? I wouldn't doubt it if you were Al Gore. I was trying to make a joke.
I'm from Guatemala. This is actually the second (and smaller) sinkhole. The first one was located not too far away, http://conred.gob.gt/galeria/fotos/fotografias-de-incidentes-1969-2009/640x480Hundimiento%20Barrio%20San%20Antonio%20Zona%206%20102%202007.JPG/image_preview and happened last year. However, earth just doesn't open, first huge rumbling sounds begin, then, after a couple of weeks, earth opens. Also, we have already pinpointed possible new sinkhole locations, one which is barely 200mts from the last one. Now is just a matter of time to see if the government does something, which is unlikely.
Turkmenistan? Wikipedia is making up country names now?
Wikipedia may have made up Uzbekistan, but not Turkmenistan. That was made up by Burat or somebody.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The -ed in past tense verbs becomes more common in ares that have been speaking English for a longer period of time. For example, in the Southern US (where they have been speaking English for a long time)...
Yup. Them Southerners done best know how to talked.
I can tell from seeing some of teh pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.
That's not a sinkhole, that's a Emergence Hole. Someone better toss a grenade in there ASAP before the Locusts Horde starts streaming out!
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Cant BP just fill it up with oil?
going down the tube
Rotorua is pretty awesome, actually.
First of all...whoosh.
I don't get the joke here either. Are you claiming "sinked" is correct or not? Did you intend to say "no" instead of "know" or not? I think you need [sarcasm] tags.
Secondly, I would recommend a real (e.g. physical), unabridged dictionary. However if you want you want to use an online dictionary I would recommend thefreedictionary.com as it is far more expansive on pronunciation.
Actually, the best unabridged dictionary in the world is the Oxford English Dictionary, which is available online (for a subscription fee, though). It's better than the paper form of the OED, which isn't updated as frequently.
The -ed in past tense verbs becomes more common in ares that have been speaking English for a longer period of time. For example, in the Southern US (where they have been speaking English for a long time), and in England (where English was invented) many verbs are in the -ed format: swimmed, runned, stinged, waked, sinked, etc.
I'm going to have to call BS on this part. The OED is the standard authority of English in England. Under "sink" it lists:
Pa. tense sank, sunk. pa. pple. sunk, sunken.
The OED is notorious for being a bit permissive in such matters, being a fairly descriptive dictionary. If "sinked" were a common form, it would be listed as such. Furthermore, even in the historical list of forms, "sinked" comes up short:
pa. tense. {alpha}. sing. 1, 3-4 sanc, 5 sanck; 4-5 sanke, 4-5, 8- sank. pl. 5-7 sanke, 6 sancke, 9- sank. {beta}. sing. 1 sonc, 4 sonk. pl. 3-5 sonken, 5-6 sonke, 6 soncke, 6-7 soonke. {gamma}. pl. 1 suncon, 3 sunken, sunke, 5 sunkyn; also sing. 6 suncke, 6-7 sunke, sunck, 7- sunk. {delta}. 5 synked, 7 (9 dial.) sinked. pa. pple. {alpha}. 1 suncen, 3 i-sunken (Orm. sunnkenn), 3- sunken, 4 sunkin, -yn, 6 suncken; 4-7 sunke, 6-7 sunck(e, 7- sunk. {beta}. 4-5 sonken, 5 sonkyn; Sc. 5 sonkine, -yne, 6 sonkin; 4 i-sonke, 6 son(c)ke, soonke, 7 soonk. {gamma}. 9 sank, dial. sinken.
Here "sinked" is only listed as a relatively minor historical dialect form, hardly what is "proper/correct" as you claim. Moreover, it doesn't appear to be that historically important, and certainly not the most common "old" form.
lopl
Hey now, you can't "whoosh" and argue at the same time. You either agree to pretend that your original post was a joke (whoosh) or you can continue to futilely argue.
Luckily I happen to work at an institution with a subscription to the OED. Let's look shall we?
c1250 Gen. & Ex. 3775 Alle he sunken e ere wi-in, Wi wifes, and childre, and hines-kin.
Yeah, that 1250 is the year the quote was written. This usage is also specifically referring to sunk into the earth.
All told, their examples for the word "sink" have 55 uses of the work sunk and 0 of the word sinked. Sinked is listed as an obscure, colloquial use though.
The argument for centuries has been between sank and sunk, sinked is right out.
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blogger-blog/2010/01/honey-i-sunk-boat.html
This is amazing, and the implications are epic and nightmarish for anyone sleeping in that city. That said, then what the hell is at the bottom of that hole? The pictures do not tell the story. I gotta know. Anybody with a few hundred feet of rope and a wench want to drop me into it?
The aliens did it from outer-space with a "laser"
So, "sinked" in this case is listed as "7 (9 dial.)", which means that it was common in the 17th century (1600-1700) era, and apparently was a dialect form in some regions in the 19th century. Not exactly a popular historical form.
Okay, I don't see anyone else 'fessing up here to rubbernecking, so I'm just going to have to say it. Sure it's really scary and all that, but that is one of the coolest pictures that I have seen in a long time
I mean this is seriously cool.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
you aren't funny. you just stole that from http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1675240&cid=32458988
Well, it can’t reach the “quality” of his previous amazing work on the Internet Explorer. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Did you mean 200m?
Build a glass bottomed bridge over it and offer bungee jumping. Should attract some tourist money.
The whoosh was regarding the 'no'.
And I never said it was common. I only said it was 'proper/correct'.
And the OED is not, even remotely, the 'best' dictionary in the world. Just the most respected. Like calling Oxford or Harvard the 'best' schools. I would recommend a unabridged dictionary, which the OED is not.
But I doubt you would specifically find 'sinked' in any of them, anymore than you would find an -ing version of every noun. Just the way it's said/written in proper English conversation or correspondence.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
> "In England" : swimmed, runned, stinged, waked, sinked, etc.
Not the England where I'm from...
While we are at it 'more proper' is terrible English too.
the past tense of sank is iceberg.
Would you care to offer a better example of a dictionary? I was under the impression that for pretty much any scholar of the English language, the OED was pretty much the absolute definitive source.
Reading more ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary#Criticisms ), it seems that the OED is criticized for putting more emphasis on written english than spoken. However, given that written records are all we have of what was proper (and, indeed, authors like Shakespeare used relatively common language in their writing), I'm not sure where you'd find a "better" dictionary than the OED for finding out what was "proper" in the history of the language.
At least they have somewhere handy to dump their garbage now.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Are those Mynocks in that crater? That must mean Space Slug!
All right, Chewie, let's get out of here!
Also (I wish I'd thought of this before posting), the common-ness of a spelling is orthogonal to its proper-ness. Hundreds of thousands of teens spell "wait" as "w8" and "your" as "ur" (while also abusing the same letters to mean "you are" and "you're"), but I doubt anyone would consider that a proper spelling of the word.
Now, if you want to say that some particular mangling of a word (like "runned" or "sinked") is used in some dialect, that's OK. The rest of the English-speaking world, though, tends to believe that they don't know how (or want) to speak proper English.
think that the Internet is a series of tubes.
Hey now, you can't "whoosh" and argue at the same time.
"Hedging an argument"?
Argue the point. If proven wrong, make the claim it was all a joke.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Obscure and colloquial count as use.
As dictionaries are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive*, that's enough to make a use of "sinked" valid.
Albeit its validity is weak, since it's unlikely the rest of the statement in question was cast in the same colloquial idiom.
* - if you want to be told how to talk, get Strunk & White or any of a number of journalistic stylebooks. Or wait for Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arr.
And I never said it was common. I only said it was 'proper/correct'.
Ok, so it's not common, but even according to the dictionary you linked (thefreedictionary.com) it's not listed as a valid form of sink. Only in the OED (which you for some reason take issue with) does it appear to be listed as a rare archaic past tense. Certainly not "more proper".
I guess I must have missed the memo where we just say absolutely incorrect things with no comical value whatsoever and can just blurt out "whoosh" when called on it. I think you're trying to pull a Chewbacca defense on this one.
I can just see this going down soon:
Reporter: "Mr. President, you said that the bailouts were going to end the recession, and they haven't. What is your response to this?"
Obama: "Whoosh!"
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Naa, just a lame knockoff of goatse!
Good God, when I first saw a picture of this on 4chan I thought it was a photoshop.
The whoosh was regarding the 'no'.
Since this post has been modded funny, I'm not sure when you're joking anymore.
And I never said it was common. I only said it was 'proper/correct'.
"Proper/correct" by whose standard? Apparently, since you appeal to "unabridged" dictionaries in your previous posts, those are the places to look. Yet such dictionaries don't list your form as correct. So how do we determine what is "proper/correct"? Do we just ask you?
And the OED is not, even remotely, the 'best' dictionary in the world. Just the most respected. Like calling Oxford or Harvard the 'best' schools. I would recommend a unabridged dictionary, which the OED is not.
The OED is an unabridged dictionary. "Unabridged" isn't in the title (as it is for some Webster dictionaries), but it is unabridged, according to the traditional meaning of the term "unabridged." It tries to track every variant of every meaning, spelling, etc. of every word that has existed in English since Old English. I don't know how it is possible to be more "unabridged" than that.
You do realize that the OED is actually 20 VOLUMES long, right? It's about as long and as big as an entire set of encyclopedias. It has its faults, and may not always be the "best" dictionary for all purposes, but it can certainly claim to be the most comprehensive (i.e., unabridged) dictionary of the English language.
But I doubt you would specifically find 'sinked' in any of them, anymore than you would find an -ing version of every noun. Just the way it's said/written in proper English conversation or correspondence.
"-ing" versions of verbs are called gerunds, and you'll find all of them listed in the OED. They often even have separate entries, with all the variant historical spellings and any specialized uses separate from the root verb. (As opposed to in Webster's Unabridged where they are generally just included in an entry as "-ING" for a primary word.) Nouns don't generally have an "-ing" form, so they wouldn't be in a dictionary.
Thats how we do Goatse on a planetary scale.
Greatest tourist attraction ever, they could rake in millions.
If people actually read TFA, or the summary would plagiarize (I mean, "cite") the correct parts of it, it would have included,
Does the Barlog know that his home entrance has been revealed?
You can't handle the truth.
In all the photos, probably taken at least 12 hours later, if not days, not even an orange cone.
"This ain't no fucking Disneyland!"
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Sinked - clobbered to death with a kitchen sink.
You can't handle the truth.
Discover New's header banner says "Discovery News...Welcomes robotic overlords." in one of the dynamic text. Reference to us Slashdotter's flooding their hole (pun intended), or chance circular reference? (bad pun intended)
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
It is saddening that regionalism/classism is so prevalent among Slashdotters.
But I see this thread is evolving into a (so far civil) flame war. So I am going to quietly back out of the room....
But real quick:
Are you whooshing me now? The verbing of a noun is called, well, verbification (or conversion). It can be done with nearly any noun. Just a few examples that are likely listed in the OED.
Batting
Phoning
Emailing
Mousing
Inking
And a few that may not listed:
Incesting
Bookending
Tasing
incentivizing
That is all. As you were.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Wait. What? They had wi-fi in 1250?
Actually the people in the Southern US do speak with a more proper form of English. And they were recognized as such in the antebellum days. Just because post Civil War pop-culture has consistently depicted Southerners are dopes and idiots does not make it so.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Your trolling makes me laugh. How long do you think you can string people along believing that you actually think "sink" can turn into "sinked"? That's hilarious, and normally I would expect people to simply ignore such an obvious troll, but you seem to have pulled it off. Kudos.
Can I move into it??
Pretty sure you lost, buddy. Your lame attempt to claim sarcasm for "no" has been clearly exposed as fraud, so just give it up.
Looks like the holes the silver surfer drilled in the last Fantastic Four Movie....
One thing I hate about hollywood is how they take one cool aspect of a villain and use it for another villain.
You can't take the sky from me...
They need to do some underground mapping and find other voids. That's routinely done for oil exploration, by using a "thumper truck" to pound on the ground while arrays of microphones listen. Suitable number-crunching yields an 3D underground map. Then they'll at least know where future problems are expected. That's not too expensive.
Fixing the problem is tougher. Drilling holes into voids and pumping in cement might work, but that's expensive, and it's going to divert water flows to some other area.
What the fuck? What drugs are you on dude? The Oxford English Dictionary is the most complete dictionary of the English language available, bar none.
Available in a mere 20 volume set:
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-English-Dictionary-Vols-1-20/dp/0198611862
Yes, there are abridged versions, but to quote the above:
"The Oxford English Dictionary has long been considered the ultimate reference work in English lexicography"
From the OED website:
"The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery book"
I don't know how you could possibly claim that there is a better or more complete dictionary of the English language. It might not be the best option for speakers of the American dialects of English because they use unusual spelling conventions, but it is the most complete dictionary possible. And it is available in an Unabridged form as the Amazon link shows.
The $995 US cost might be a barrier for the average user, I admit. I myself only have the 2 volume abridged version, which is more than enough for every day use of course.
As for your post, I suspect "sinked" is merely a dialectally accepted version in your area. "Sunk" is the generally accepted version for standard English I am sure. Its like "waked" versus "woke" etc. There are some dialects of English that have lost the old Anglo-Saxon irregular past tense formations, and have applied the regular formations instead. I myself would never say "sinked". That doesn't make it incorrect, just not the standardly accepted version for English.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
When I see that picture, I am imagining a Guatemalan who just divided by zero and jumps into the hole exclaiming in their best Buzz Light-year voice: "To infinity and beyooooond!!!"
I'll back away as well; this will be my last contribution to the debate.
I'll just note that your claim a few posts up was that your form was used in places with a long history of speaking English... like England. There may be some problems with the OED, but it is pretty comprehensive, and it doesn't support that claim. About the Southern US, well, it may be an older dialect form (perhaps this is what's showing up as the 19th century dialect form in the OED), but I did live in the Southern US for a few years, and I didn't hear many verbs in the form you mention.
The verbing of a noun is called, well, verbification (or conversion). It can be done with nearly any noun.
Yes, you're talking about turning a noun into a verb, which you then add an "-ing" to (forming a present participle or gerund). But that's not an "-ing form of a noun." It's an "-ing" form of a verb that is derived/converted from a noun. You wouldn't generally have an "-ing" form of the noun if the root isn't also a verb. Want proof? Ask yourself how many such "-ing" forms depend on a specific verbal meaning that isn't the same as the original noun. "Batting" or "e-mailing" already have a primary action associated with the noun. But take other words:
benching, screening, dolling, booking, walling, pencilling, chairing, etc.
These ultimately come from nouns bench, screen, doll, book, wall, pencil, chair, etc., but not directly. Instead, there are verbs that have very specific meanings, which are related to the original nouns, but often have different connotations (and often require specific idioms -- "dolling up," "pencilling in," etc.).
In essence, these aren't "forms" of a noun. They are other words derived from a noun. What's the difference? In the former case, you're just using English syntax to make a word plural, change to a different tense, mood, etc. You can do it to any word of a particular grammatical class. In the latter case, you're actually making a new word that has to have a new meaning. For some words, it may be apparent to listeners or readers what you mean, because (like "e-mail" or "bat") there is a clear associated action.
For most words, though, it's not readily apparent to a listener what you mean if the verbal form doesn't already exist. What would "desking," "dooring," "knobbing," "drawering," "bookshelfing," etc. mean? (Just to verbify a bunch of objects I see when I look around the room from my desk.) Some of these are used as verbs, but the meaning is not readily apparent -- "knobbing," for example, has been used historically in some circumstances to refer to putting knobs onto something and in other ones to taking them off/out of something. Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that there is an "-ing" form of the noun "knob," because it has never become a standard verb.
Hence, I repeat my assertion that nouns don't generally have an "-ing" form. If you wish, I'll qualify that by saying -- except when they have already been turned into verbs.
Why don't we stuff the hole with golf balls and cut up rubber tires?
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
kind of a gUatamala thing...
Wikipedia sez: Soil piping is a particular form of soil erosion that occurs below the soil surface. It is associated with levee and dam failure, as well as sink hole formation. Turbulent flow removes soil starting from the mouth of the seep flow and subsoil erosion advances upgradient.
Actually the people in the Southern US do speak with a more proper form of English. And they were recognized as such in the antebellum days.
Funny that you italicized 'do', when you should have written 'did'. If you had done so, your entire argument would be cohesive. As it stands, you back your statement of 'do' with an argument that refers to the past and not the present.
Please don't feed the trolls.
You can't be more right. I've been trying to get rid of that neighbor for years!
That is both very funny, well related, and yet more disgusting that I really want to process.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Not dealing with reality in second sentence. Dealing with perception. The reality is present tense, the perception is past tense. Nonlinear thought is key in these difficult times.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Ahh, so that's where I dropped my portable hole..
Cover it with a giant tarp with channel to sewer for runoff. Sounds simplistic, but I actually read the fine article, and the problem appears to be that much of the city is built over a valley filled in with volcanic pumice prone to erode when exposed to water.
but by mislabeling the feature a sinkhole, it distracts from a dangerous situation that could be mitigated, if not neutralized, by better handling of the city's runoff and waste water.
Leaving it totally open and exposed to the elements like that doesn't seem wise.
Loose lips lose spit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He was getting too much spam on the Balrog account, it's a feature, not a bug.
You can't handle the truth.
The article also says that the circular shape of the hole indicates that there may be a cavern system under the city. Bad news may be an understatement..
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tx.html
Turkmenistan is the named used in the english speaking world.
The country was a former province of the USSR.
Good odds it will be again at some point.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I just hope the queen doesn't crawl up to the surface...
Balrog...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balrog
You have received a nerd demotion point because all
nerds have watched LOTR, and can quote Gandalf from memory !
LOL
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Adding insult to injury... This is not the first time it happens.
The capital of Guatemala was originally founded near Iximché, an ancient Mayan settlement. It was soon abandoned IIRC due to native raids.
In 1527, the capital was re-founded at Almolonga (although already named Guatemala). It had to be abandoned in 1541 due to a terrible flood (after which the nearby Water Volcano got its name). That site is now known as "Ciudad Vieja" (Ancient City).
In 1543, the new capital of Guatemala was founded few kilometers from there, named "Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala". In 1773, earthquakes damaged the city so bad it had to be abandoned as well. It is now known as "Antigua Guatemala".
In 1776, a new city was built, called Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. It is today the capital of Guatemala.
So... well, more holes in the ground will not scare them too much.
demotion rejected: He was getting too much spam on the Balrog account, it's a feature, not a bug.
You can't handle the truth.
Watched? What about 'read'. Someone else is going to loose their nerd card too....
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
Has anyone been down it yet? any pictures of whats at the bottom? looks like you could easily rope down or even take a helicopter...
www.boznz.com Simple solutions to complex problems.
... how long it'll be before a movie is made?
I give it about ten weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotorua As long as you can put up with the smell! (sorry if you are a local and tired of the same jokes!)
---
Skipping right past whether something can be "more correct" or not--I'll meet those of you who wish to discuss it on the 'inflatable hover fort' at David Mitchell's Soap Box--I felt it might be useful to add to AthanasiusKircher's comment on "sinked" as a "relatively minor historical dialect form". I agree, with the caveat that it's still useful to know, as uncommon (or, dated) usage can still be prominent. In Iowa City, Iowa, the Old Capitol Building sports a plaque just to the right of the west entrance (about halfway down the page, the 1840's plaque is partially visible behind the rightmost pillar). The building is a popular place to study for UIA students, so one afternoon I also found myself there, thought it quaint that the plaque had such a "glaring" grammatical error, then corrected myself with a dictionary later. While trying to find a picture of the plaque--in vain--I discovered that it's not difficult to find other references to that "-ed" vs. "-t" construct from the time (everything from Masonic texts to new settler's constructions). Having been born several generations too late (and not grammar's bitch for the most part), I couldn't possibly comment on the dialect's influence...but they did put it on a rather important building for the time.
Still, I'm definitely not arguing for anything other than, e.g., swim/swam/swum. "Swimmed", to me, just sounds wrong--and in support of your BS call, it would appear the BBC agrees.
I've seen the picture before, but only by clicking on the one in the article to get a higher-res version do I finally think I understand what it is I'm seeing.
See, there was this darker bit at the bottom that you couldn't make out properly, I figured it was an artifact of the image, or a heap of black stuff at the bottom. When it first went around the office, people were saying 'Why can't you see the bits of the building at the bottom?'
Now that I can see it more clearly, it seems to me that the brown bit is the crust, and the black bit is a hole into a fuck-off big cavern, which could quite easily be as big as the rest of the picture, if not much of the town.
I've seen her. The queen's cuter than in the game. One of those: "Wow, I can't believe she's not a model!" Dentist's assistant types. One of those BROODING sexual predatory "Ripped my torso to pieces sarge, had to go as far as the eat sh*t and die thing to pacify the b*tch!" but sexually repressed by society in such a way that she has to do her thing in secrecy. That's why she lives underground.
Is anybody else channeling SMAC boreholes?
human stupidity and infinity and deathwishes i will never understand but that mental dude was right, most humans ARE born with a craving for eternal rest
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Thanks for this note. It is interesting. I did try to do a little digging and find out more about the "-ed" forms in the Southern US, but didn't find anything quickly through online searches.
In any case, it wasn't so much that I was arguing that the "sinked" was never a common form anywhere, merely that it isn't considered common or proper today, and its historical importance was limited to perhaps a few specific periods and places. English in 1840 was still not as completely regularized as it is today, so it's not surprising that we might find variant spellings and forms in some regions.
Interestingly, "swim" would have been a better example for the GGP's case. The OED's historical forms for that:
Forms: pa. tense strong 1 swamm, 3-4 suam, (4 squam), 4-6 swame, 5-7 swamme, 1- swam; pl. 1 swummon, 2 swummen, 3 svommen, 3-5 swomme, 4 swumme; 1, 4-7 (9 dial.) swom, 4-7 swomme, 6-7 swumme, swome, (6 swoome, swume, swomm), 6-9 swum; weak 3 swymde, 5 swymyd, 6 swymmed, Sc. swoumit, 6-8 (9 dial.) swimmed, 7 swimed, 9 Sc. soomed. pa. pple. strong 1 ({asg}e)swummen, 4, 7 swommen, 6-7 swom(m)e, (7 swoome, swumme, swom, swimme), 6- swum; 7- (now incorrect) swam; weak 6 swymmed, Sc. swymmit, 6-7 (9 dial.) swimmed, 9 Sc. soomed, sweemed.
Note here that there are entire "strong" and "weak" categories over prolonged periods, suggesting that there was a common historical tendency to use "-ed" forms, as well as a strong form (i.e., a verb that doesn't follow the normal English pattern of "-ed" for past tense). "Sinked" on the other hand is clearly a historical aberration (though perhaps one that was common in some places during some periods), rather than the original historical form that the GGP claimed.
The moderation on this comment pretty much proves my point.