This is your daily reminder that you have millions of friends and allies in the EU.
Also, can I just repeat what a great favor you do your country. The government's visage as the face of Britain has been one of lording arrogance. You show the world that Britain has another face.
Interestingly the example provided by @MerriamWebster is in itself a case in point:
"Wherever French voters had turned, somehow there was still a neoliberal lording over them in the Élysée Palace, favoring the diktats of the European Union, the forces of unregulated markets, the juggernaut of globalization."
The dictionary writes of the chosen examples:
"These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'lording.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors."
I am much relieved.
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I have to tell you this little story about the best answer to the worst question I ever witnessed. It was two minute masterclass in educating stupidity. If only I could ever be that good. This is not strictly #ForeniscLinguistics, but it is something with language and law. 1/
I was at a public lecture about the concept of justice in the Danish legal system, and the lecturer was the Danish public Ombudsman at the time. Quite possibly the most silver-tongued person I ever met. 2/
Now, the function of the Ombudsman is literally the rule of law. And the Ombudsman's primary purpose is to protect citizens from legal, administrative, and broadly speaking public overreach. As such he is, of course [sigh], universally detested by the tough-on-crime crowd. 3/
#AnneFreadman is well known among #genre researchers for her insistence on seeing genre as a loose open-ended system of interrelations and differences. A key point in her understand is her presentation of what she calls "not-statement". 2/
The point is most easily made in an example. If I say "a refrigerator is not a deep freezer" the statement will almost always be more meaningful than if I say "a refrigerator is not a rhinoceros." 3/
"Many of them are very young, have little or no experience of government and, it’s perhaps fair to say, a greater degree of confidence in their own abilities than a more objective analysis would warrant."
"... for increasingly there are reports (£) of the resentment that experienced MPs and ministers (and, I would assume, senior civil servants) feel about the transparent contempt with which they are treated by the Vote Leave wunderkinds. ...
Bad enough to be subjected to that indignity by those who are competent; intolerable when it comes from those who are serial bunglers."
Hver gang min fireårige datter står og vasker hænder synger hun:
Vaske hænder
Raske venner
På med vand og sæbe
Væk med alt det slemme
Tommel ikke glemme
Før vi spiser
Når vi grisser
Og gør stort og tisser.
Hun har lært det i børnehaven, og hun bliver troligen ved med at vaske hænderne, indtil sangen af omme, og tomlen på begge hænder får også en tur på det relevante sted i sangen.
Nej, det er vel ikke en professionel håndvask, som kommer ud af det, men jeg kan godt love, at hendes hænder er betydeligt renere bagefter, end mine nogensinde blev det i fireårsalderen. Så #genren læredigt er virkelig kommet til sin ret her.
Ja, jeg ved godt, at det er en detalje, men den generer mig, så nu får I lige et udbrud af gnavenhed. Min undervisning er blevet flyttet fra de "gamle" lokaler på Københavns Universitet Amager til de nye. I disse lokaler er der ikke længere tavler, men kun whiteboards. 1/
Moderne tider dejligt og alt det der. Hvis ikke det lige var, fordi der nu er pøset så megen sprit på de tavler i disse #COVID19dk tider, at whiteboard-markerne ikke længere kan skrive på dem. 2/
Men man har vel ikke brug for tavlen så meget i disse PowerPoint tider? Jo. PowerPointen fungerer til forberedte fremlæggelser, men er bovlam til åbne drøftelser. Det er svært at gribe ideer i luften og lave et vellykket PP-slide ud af dem på stedet. 3/
In the department of "shit that could actually have been predicted ages ago" here's a blogpost I wrote almost two years ago. Here's what it says about the Irish border question: 1/
"The abhorrent debate over the Irish border has been particularly vexing in this regard. The basic problem is not particularly hard to grasp, yet it is recurrently obfuscated through ignorance, negligence, selfishness, or even plain malice. ... 2/
If the UK leaves the EU, the Irish Border is an external border for the EU. Relinquishing control of it, would amount to giving up control of what happens in all EU-territory. If the UK establishes a trade deal with the US that lowers safety standards, food standards, ... 3/