Starship Asterisk*

owlice wrote:Right, but that''s not the point, or not my point, anyway. My point was that in English (at least in the US), the Sierra Nevadas are called the Sierra Nevadas, as in the title of the APOD.

I know. It was just a tangent.

Chris Peterson wrote:

owlice wrote:Right, but that''s not the point, or not my point, anyway. My point was that in English (at least in the US), the Sierra Nevadas are called the Sierra Nevadas, as in the title of the APOD.

I know. It was just a tangent.

Ahhhh, okay; sorry! Head is pounding, so I'm even more confused than usual. At least, I hope this is more confused than usual, but I may not be in a state in which I can really determine that.

madtom1999 wrote:Its a lovely cloud and a lovely picture but this is Astronomy Picture Of the Day and it seems clouds are getting in the way of astronomy here too!

Weather affects astronomy....and I guess that makes it a part of astronomy....or something there-a-bouts.....

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Dirt it may be....necessary for plant life, it is....we would not be here if not for the Humble Dirt.....even with water...

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We get "Not astronomy!" comments here virtually every time a terrestrial image is run. If you're a regular, you should know this and we should probably just shrug them off.

owlice wrote:As others have mentioned, we have a mountain range called Sierra Nevada in the US, too, and these are usually referred to/called "the Sierra Nevadas."

I suppose that's one of the things about the English language which adds to its richness. It seems to have been appropriate to appropriate many words from other languages and tweak them and call them English. Having said that, some might refer to the word "nevadas" as Spanglish (which is itself a word of the New World).

Bell Weather? I don't thin so. Maybe Belle Weather from the French.

From Wikipedia A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight

Cute though. Great photo

Bill R wrote:Bell Weather? I don't thin so. Maybe Belle Weather from the French.

From Wikipedia A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight

Cute though. Great photo

The cloud looks like a bell.

Nitpicker wrote:

owlice wrote:As others have mentioned, we have a mountain range called Sierra Nevada in the US, too, and these are usually referred to/called "the Sierra Nevadas."

I suppose that's one of the things about the English language which adds to its richness. It seems to have been appropriate to appropriate many words from other languages and tweak them and call them English. Having said that, some might refer to the word "nevadas" as Spanglish (which is itself a word of the New World).

I wouldn't call this an example of Spanglish. This is just the adoption of a proper noun from one language into another. We use neither "sierra" nor "nevada" as borrowed words. And even if it were a borrowed word, we'd expect to adapt it to English rules of grammar. Pretty much all languages do the same. Cases where we preserve some aspect of the original grammar rules are the exceptions, not the rules.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:some might refer to the word "nevadas" as Spanglish

I wouldn't call this an example of Spanglish. This is just the adoption of a proper noun from one language into another. We use neither "sierra" nor "nevada" as borrowed words. And even if it were a borrowed word, we'd expect to adapt it to English rules of grammar. Pretty much all languages do the same. Cases where we preserve some aspect of the original grammar rules are the exceptions, not the rules.

Opinions vary and exceptions abound. It is hard to be definitive with (exceptional) English and especially hard with pidgin languages like Spanglish. I can accept that you don't think that "Nevadas" is Spanglish. I only made the rather soft statement that 'some might refer to the word "nevadas" as Spanglish'.

Si. sum. It does sorta add up.

It's a cute image of the cat that is brought up through the "cooling" link in the explanation to the APOD. I cannot decide though if it is a manipulated image or not.