Oh yeah, it's southerners (in Australia) who call em "potato cakes" and NZers who call em "potato fritters". Where I live, we use the word "fritter" for fruit that has been deep fried. e.g., a banana fritter or a pineapple fritter.
This stuff may seem of very little importance, but consider how difficult it is for you and I to get these categories right, and yet children soak them up, often before they can even speak.
You do know that pregnancy tests have only about a 97.4% accuracy, right? And that's not even taking into account the "oh my god I hope I'm not pregnant" users. They're pretty useful.
The confusion in that particular situation was exacerbated by the fact that he was clearly trying to up-sell me to a meal when all I wanted was the burger. When you're already experiencing culture shock, having someone pretend they don't understand you is the last thing you need.
If you travel the world, expect that sandwich is something added to some kind of bread. In parts of Europe, the bread could be an open-face half of a baguette
That's a "roll" where I live. And that's the argument, that Americans use the word sandwich differently to other English speakers. There's a lot of words that subtly different in different dialects of English.. I am not claiming to be a freakin' expert.. I was just trying to help non-Americans understand why McDonalds would be patenting anything to do with "sandwiches" when, as far as most English speaking people are concerned, they sell things that are not called sandwiches.
Just to confuse you further, in the UK and Australia, we refer to anything on a Bun as a "burger". So, for example, we say "Chicken Burger", "Fish Burger" (even if the fish isn't "burger shaped"), etc. In the UK, however, people will often refer to the patty as a "burger" whereas we vary rarely do that here in Australia.. it's typically "burger patty". I order a "fish burger" in the UK and got what Australians would call a "fish cake". Where I live, we will refer to a burger shaped piece of potato that is deep fried as a "potato scallop" whereas our New Zealand neighbors (and some people in the south of Australia) will refer to one of them as a "potato cake". I'm sure all this usage of "cake" is just pissing off the Americans who, as far as I'm aware, only use the word to refer to those sweet things you have at birthday parties. And if you really want to get into dialectal differences of food names, let's talk about "muffins" and "biscuits" and "cookies".
Huh? I knew they were asking me for the size of the meal. That's why I said I only wanted the Big Mac. To acknowledge my request the clerk asked me if I only wanted "the sandwich", which is the point of this discussion. No-one else in the English speaking world calls them sandwiches, not even at McDonalds. I didn't say anyone was stupid. It's just confusing for someone who wasn't brought up in the US to have to relearn that sandwiches have anything to do with burgers. Burgers are not a subset of sandwiches where I grew up.
According to another poster, this is actually specific to McDonalds and most other stores don't refer to burgers as sandwiches. As it seems that this is a dialectal difference across the US, you probably disagree. Quite beside the point, the clerk who was serving me knew I only wanted the Big Mac but he asked me what size meal I wanted in an attempt to up-sell me. Another irritating McDonalds custom.
You and I might say an apple is "in" a bowl and a DVD is "in" its case, but the Koreans have two different words for "in" depending on how tight the enclosure is. In Korean, the "tightness" of an enclosure matters. Does that mean we are "stupid"? Or does it just mean that different languages, and yes, even different dialects, have different semantic categories.
It'd be like if someone said to you "You just want the shoe?" There's no connection between the concept of a Big Mac and a sandwich in the rest of the world.
A friend of mine once worked for a company that was making battery operated microarray testing units for the consumer market. Their plan was to sell them everywhere that condoms and pregnancy tests are sold. He claimed the unit could detect HIV/AIDS with 99% accuracy within just a few minutes. Apparently the USA, UK, Germany, Australia and France all banned the units before they even hit the market.. they were worried about discrimination against individuals with these diseases. They sell well in Africa and other countries, though only to doctors, and a positive result is always followed up with a lab test.
Fine. The point is that some Americans refer to those meat wrapped in bread things you get at McDonalds as "sandwiches". Which confuses the hell out of other English speaking people who visit your country.
"Can I get a Big Mac please?" "Small, medium or large?" "Huh? No, I just want a Big Mac." "You just want the sandwich?" "The what? I just want a fucking Big Mac, ok?"
I always wonder who was the jerk who wrote the "virus" that went on the Sony BMG music CD's that disabled the ability to burn CDs as a form of copy protection. Surely that person knew what he/she was doing was wrong.
So now it's a virus eh? I tell ya, geeks play an awesome game of telephone.
At the time, the use of the term "root kit" to describe the malware on the CD was considered a semantic stretch, because the intent of the word had been lost. Of course, since then, the term has come to mean exactly what appeared on these CDs. So we're just going to have to let that one go.
I think what you're talking about is XCD, developed by then First4Internet (now Fortium Technologies Ltd) in the UK. I'm sure the person who wrote it knew exactly what it was for and didn't consider it "evil" or "bad" in any way. That's why people use terms like "copy protection".. it causes cognitive dissonance. "Copy protection" doesn't "protect" copies, or anything else for that matter. But people who work for a company providing copy protection software are likely to believe they are "protecting" someone. Less so than if the term was "copy restrictions", as it should be.
See, these guys don't want to be identified. That's why they don't have their names on the stuff. So basically the only way they can stop someone from fucking them over is by identifying themselves..
Slashdot Mirror
Next you'll be suggesting that people should just start enjoying each other's company.. or going to the same places.
People like private transport.
It's funny now, but wait until she starts telling people you're a good fella.
hahaha, you should work for Hollywood!
The jokes are funnier if I don't have to explain them.
Cause then it would no longer be socially acceptable for women to call us that anymore.
1. Go fuck yourself.
2. I wasn't "speaking for" anyone.
3. The dictionary of which dialect exactly?
4. Did I mention; go fuck yourself?
Oh yeah, it's southerners (in Australia) who call em "potato cakes" and NZers who call em "potato fritters". Where I live, we use the word "fritter" for fruit that has been deep fried. e.g., a banana fritter or a pineapple fritter.
This stuff may seem of very little importance, but consider how difficult it is for you and I to get these categories right, and yet children soak them up, often before they can even speak.
Yes, because the dictionary is where semantic categories come from.
http://archfami.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/7/5/465
Apparently 75% accurate when put in the hands of the common user.
You do know that pregnancy tests have only about a 97.4% accuracy, right? And that's not even taking into account the "oh my god I hope I'm not pregnant" users. They're pretty useful.
Whereas in Australia we say "mince" for ground beef :)
The confusion in that particular situation was exacerbated by the fact that he was clearly trying to up-sell me to a meal when all I wanted was the burger. When you're already experiencing culture shock, having someone pretend they don't understand you is the last thing you need.
If you travel the world, expect that sandwich is something added to some kind of bread. In parts of Europe, the bread could be an open-face half of a baguette
That's a "roll" where I live. And that's the argument, that Americans use the word sandwich differently to other English speakers. There's a lot of words that subtly different in different dialects of English.. I am not claiming to be a freakin' expert.. I was just trying to help non-Americans understand why McDonalds would be patenting anything to do with "sandwiches" when, as far as most English speaking people are concerned, they sell things that are not called sandwiches.
For fuck sake, stop being an anal dickhead.
The shape of the bread matters. Different languages/dialects have different ideas about what "matters" to a semantic category.
In Australia, if I ordered a sandwich and it came on a hamburger bun, I'd send it back.
Just to confuse you further, in the UK and Australia, we refer to anything on a Bun as a "burger". So, for example, we say "Chicken Burger", "Fish Burger" (even if the fish isn't "burger shaped"), etc. In the UK, however, people will often refer to the patty as a "burger" whereas we vary rarely do that here in Australia.. it's typically "burger patty". I order a "fish burger" in the UK and got what Australians would call a "fish cake". Where I live, we will refer to a burger shaped piece of potato that is deep fried as a "potato scallop" whereas our New Zealand neighbors (and some people in the south of Australia) will refer to one of them as a "potato cake". I'm sure all this usage of "cake" is just pissing off the Americans who, as far as I'm aware, only use the word to refer to those sweet things you have at birthday parties. And if you really want to get into dialectal differences of food names, let's talk about "muffins" and "biscuits" and "cookies".
Huh? I knew they were asking me for the size of the meal. That's why I said I only wanted the Big Mac. To acknowledge my request the clerk asked me if I only wanted "the sandwich", which is the point of this discussion. No-one else in the English speaking world calls them sandwiches, not even at McDonalds. I didn't say anyone was stupid. It's just confusing for someone who wasn't brought up in the US to have to relearn that sandwiches have anything to do with burgers. Burgers are not a subset of sandwiches where I grew up.
According to another poster, this is actually specific to McDonalds and most other stores don't refer to burgers as sandwiches. As it seems that this is a dialectal difference across the US, you probably disagree. Quite beside the point, the clerk who was serving me knew I only wanted the Big Mac but he asked me what size meal I wanted in an attempt to up-sell me. Another irritating McDonalds custom.
You and I might say an apple is "in" a bowl and a DVD is "in" its case, but the Koreans have two different words for "in" depending on how tight the enclosure is. In Korean, the "tightness" of an enclosure matters. Does that mean we are "stupid"? Or does it just mean that different languages, and yes, even different dialects, have different semantic categories.
Well, it's a lot harder for adults to acquire semantic categories, so you should be impressed that I even got it half right.
It'd be like if someone said to you "You just want the shoe?" There's no connection between the concept of a Big Mac and a sandwich in the rest of the world.
A friend of mine once worked for a company that was making battery operated microarray testing units for the consumer market. Their plan was to sell them everywhere that condoms and pregnancy tests are sold. He claimed the unit could detect HIV/AIDS with 99% accuracy within just a few minutes. Apparently the USA, UK, Germany, Australia and France all banned the units before they even hit the market.. they were worried about discrimination against individuals with these diseases. They sell well in Africa and other countries, though only to doctors, and a positive result is always followed up with a lab test.
Fine. The point is that some Americans refer to those meat wrapped in bread things you get at McDonalds as "sandwiches". Which confuses the hell out of other English speaking people who visit your country.
"Can I get a Big Mac please?"
"Small, medium or large?"
"Huh? No, I just want a Big Mac."
"You just want the sandwich?"
"The what? I just want a fucking Big Mac, ok?"
Americans refer "burgers" as "sandwiches".. reserving the word "burger" to refer to just the patty.
I always wonder who was the jerk who wrote the "virus" that went on the Sony BMG music CD's that disabled the ability to burn CDs as a form of copy protection. Surely that person knew what he/she was doing was wrong.
So now it's a virus eh? I tell ya, geeks play an awesome game of telephone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal
At the time, the use of the term "root kit" to describe the malware on the CD was considered a semantic stretch, because the intent of the word had been lost. Of course, since then, the term has come to mean exactly what appeared on these CDs. So we're just going to have to let that one go.
I think what you're talking about is XCD, developed by then First4Internet (now Fortium Technologies Ltd) in the UK. I'm sure the person who wrote it knew exactly what it was for and didn't consider it "evil" or "bad" in any way. That's why people use terms like "copy protection".. it causes cognitive dissonance. "Copy protection" doesn't "protect" copies, or anything else for that matter. But people who work for a company providing copy protection software are likely to believe they are "protecting" someone. Less so than if the term was "copy restrictions", as it should be.
You also can't enforce your copyright, so putting your work out under the GPL is pointless.
Publishers own the copyright on books written by authors under pseudonyms.
If someone violates the copyright, the publisher sues them.
An anonymous copyright holder is ineffective.
Yeah, that's not how it works.
See, these guys don't want to be identified. That's why they don't have their names on the stuff. So basically the only way they can stop someone from fucking them over is by identifying themselves..
It's a pretty obvious catch-22.