![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak - Paradise 2.06 + 2.07pedanther - Notes on a music collection, part 5larryhammer - “it’s not far down to paradise / at least it’s not for me / if the wind is right you can sail away”adore - (no subject)toastykitten - found a chinese scholar turned comedian who's not a conspiracy theorist/holocaust denierjames_davis_nicoll - Future So Brightandrewducker - Interesting Links for 23-03-2026bookscorpion in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
icons - Night In the Woods Iconsjazzyjj in awesomeers - Just one thing: 23 March 2026dr_zook in recthething - [fic rec] Star Wars: Andor, Cassian Andor/Luthen Raeltamaranth - 2026/040: Enshittification — Cory Doctorowoursin - (no subject)![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
languagelog_feed - Esperanto warningandrewducker - Morning medical annoyancelanguagelog_feed - The BBC understandslaughing_tree in scans_daily - Super Creepshow #1 - "Creeping"torachan - Daily Happinessflowing_river in traumaticexperiences - All Required Assignments Turned In!ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "The Bridge of Mist"quillpunk - inboxtimeasmymeasure
china_shop's recommendation and IT WAS SO GOOD. isabrella because I wouldn't have found out a second season was out now if you didn't mention it!
Compared with the climate emergency, genocide, inequality, corruption, democratic backsliding, authoritarianism and sustained racist, homophobic, misogynist and transphobic attacks, the internet is just a sideshow. But the internet ...is the communications medium we will use to organise to save our species and planet from their imminent eradication. We can’t win these fights without a free, fair and open internet. [introduction]
Audiobook, read (with vigour and enthusiasm) by the author. Doctorow's foundational argument is something most internet users will agree with: that big internet sites, such as Facebook, Amazon, and the-site-formerly-known-as-Twitter, have become much less usable and user-friendly over recent years. (I would add Del.icio.us, Vinted, Goodreads, LiveJournal...)
( Read more... )
From Frederick Newmeyer: "A sign in the breakfast room of a not very classy hotel in Amsterdam:"
"The middle language is Esperanto! Who could have decided on Esperanto as the third language and who can read it? The hotel receptionists have no idea."
I don't have much to add, except that Google Ngrams suggests that Esperanto is gradually dying out:
And why the ~20 year oscillations?
It always surprises me that Boots isn't open until 9am. You would have thought that there'd be enough people wanting to pick up painkillers or similar on the way in to work.
Sima Kotecha, "Soham murderer Ian Huntley taken off life support, BBC understands", BBC 3/6/2026:
Soham murderer Ian Huntley is close to death after being taken off life support following an attack in prison, the BBC understands.
The 52-year-old has been in hospital since 26 February after being beaten over the head with a makeshift weapon at HMP Frankland in County Durham. The high security prison houses some of the most violent inmates.
Prison sources said Huntley was found lying in a pool of blood after the attack. He suffered significant head trauma from his injuries.
A sample of other recent BBC understandings:
Iranian Missiles Fired at UK-US Base, BBC understands
The Hillsborough Law – which the government intended to pass a year ago – will be further delayed, the BBC understands.
More than 100 tenants privately renting in homes owned by one of London's biggest landlords have been given as little as two months' notice of termination of their tenancy, the BBC understands.
BBC South East understands that a further 11 people from the Canterbury area are currently in hospital and reported to be seriously ill. It is understood that most are aged between 18 and 21 and a number are students at the university.
Edwards said the most recent closures have included The Rose & Crown in Bradford city centre, Studio 48 & Groove Pad, in Shipley, and The Roebuck, in Keighley, although the BBC understands The Roebuck is set to re open under new management.
These examples aren't meant to mean that the BBC grasps the meaning of the various events and situations. Rather they seem closer to sense (5) of the Wiktionary entry:
5. (transitive) To believe or infer, to think one grasps sufficiently despite potentially incomplete knowledge.
I've been given to understand that you have a package for me?
At least four people are understood to have been injured.
More specifically, this seems to be a way to avoid citing a source — the BBC is presenting these things as facts, but is choosing not to give us any details about the basis of its knowledge. I haven't seen other publications using the same idiom, though no doubt it happens — rather we see things like "Trump is strategizing means to seize Iran's nuclear stockpiles, sources say". I wonder whether the different choices are formal editorial policy, or just local culture.
A similar sense of understand is used in ordinary discourse when the speaker is asserting something about the listener's actions, attitudes, or plans. From Pride and Prejudice:
Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library.
“Come here, child,” cried her father as she appeared. “I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?”
Elizabeth replied that it was.
“Very well—and this offer of marriage you have refused?”
“I have, sir.”
“Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?”
“Yes, or I will never see her again.”
“An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning; but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed.
librarygeek for Gwinnie, a pit bull mix and a good dog. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.
