The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by modallist:

#281, #306:

It's the programmer's mindset, which I recognize (being a programmer) in myself as well: code for the majority case first. Implement exceptions later. Or use subclasses or whatever.

Information analysts and database designers have been taught to think that way.

Even if you could somehow change society so that white-straight-male was not an unmarked state, you might need a new computing paradigm to avoid something like this happening anyway.

#6 #11 #12 #32:
I'm amazed to learn that it's possible, apparently, to go to sleep before midnight on New Year's Eve in some parts of the world. Where I live the first firecracker detonates several days before Hour Zero, and the frequency and intensity slowly increases, stringendo from about dinner time on the evening itself, only to reach a peak 'round about midnight. Sleep has become an impossibility several hours earlier, and attempting to sleep is fruitless until several hours later.

Tangential to the subject of separating prepositions from verb roots, which is a function of grammar, there is an ungrammatical phenomenon called Engelse ziekte (yes, 'English disease': sorry, no en.wikipedia article:), also called 'Deppenleerzeichen' in German, in which compounds are broken up cloven apart into separate words. E.g. webpagina (web page) becomes web pagina.

This also occurs in North Germanic languages. The increasing influence of English is usually seen as the culprit.

#68:

Indeed. In Dutch gift means gift (as in: a present), or poison. gif also means poison. And then there's gave, which means gift (as in: a talent).

opgeven: to give up.
weggeven: to give away
etc.

Abi @ 52:
Ik wil het voorkomen unambiguously means 'I want to prevent it.' You cannot use this construction to mean you want something to happen. Instead, you'd say Ik wil dat het voorkomt, but this sounds somewhat awkward even in Dutch.

And as long as I'm here: het ongeluk, not de ongeluk.

Theophylact @ 28: I assume you mean the words "klieven" (to split apart) and "kleven" (to cling together): different words, differently pronounced, although I can see where an Anglophone would consider them (almost) identical.

Chris W. @ 13: The "Dei Gratia" bit is interesting, though. Given that the doges were elected by the aristocracy of a republic, one wonders what God had to do with it.

grackle @42 Who will speak for them?

The Party for the Animals... (seriously!)

Hah! I live in Utrecht (or, to stay in context, Hoogheemraadschap De Stichtse Rijnlanden) which feels linguistically somewhat on the border between the mellifluous and the guttural (although I'm actually a northern boy raised in the tradition of good old hard-g's and rolling-r's). It's nice to hear the variety here, and I once had a boyfriend from the deep south of Limburg...

Anyway, I am glad you take the time to get informed, Abi. The Waterschapsverkiezingen are far less glamorous than the national elections, but the issues are not getting any less pressing.

I wish they gave out "Ik heb gestemd!" stickers overhere, though.

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