• 4 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • m0darn@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzAcademic writing
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    6 days ago

    Not who you’re responding to but I must vehemently disagree. In English, which doesn’t have a centralized governing body, the correct way of pronouncing/spelling something depends on your intention and expected audience. If your intended audience is English speakers then the correct spelling is probably octopi or octopuses, whichever you believe will cause the least confusion/distraction (surely it varies regionally).

    However, usually my intention is to portray my unfathomably superior knowledge and intellect, so the correct spelling/pronunciation in this case is: octopodes (which I think he had listed but ironically got ‘corrected’ to ‘octopuses’).






  • m0darn@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzAcademic writing
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    7 days ago

    I don’t read much (/any) academic writing, but does it really misuse words the way the link portrays?

    Eg

    • academic writing isn’t prose, like that’s almost the definition of prose.
    • intra-specialized doesn’t mean anything (the intra prefix didn’t work on adjectives)
    • “obfuscating … accessibility” means making it difficult to see that it is accessible, where the author probably actually wants to say “reducing the ability of outsiders to access the meaning”

    I get that it is satire, but imo it would be better satire if he put in the work to actually make it mean something. Unless the point is that academic writers misuse thesauruses this badly.



  • in bc we have two tier pricing, the first X kilowatthours per month is I think 0.08CAD (~0.05USD), the second is 0.15CAD (~0.11USD)

    Our power mostly comes from hydroelectric dams, but we wheel and deal it interprovincially so within the course of a day we’ll spend some time importing and some time exporting which gives us lower rates, and lets other places run more efficiently (ie Fewer gas turbines)






  • m0darn@lemmy.catoScience Memes@mander.xyzSeconds
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    26 days ago

    Yeah true, but I think they actually use wavelength of red shift, which is distance… traveled by light in the time it takes to make a full cycle. So I guess we’re back to seconds again.

    I think they use this for distance and time because at scales being dealt with they have the same implications.