lord of the rings - Why does Gandalf show such reverence for Galadriel and Elrond?

Canon

One of the opening paragraphs of "The Istari", an essay printed in Unfinished Tales, largely answers this (emphasis mine):

[The Wizards] came from over the Sea out of the Uttermost West; though this was for long known only to Círdan, Guardian of the Third Ring, master of the Grey Havens, who saw their landings upon the western shores. Emissaries they were from Lords of the West, the Valar, who still took counsel for the governance of Middle-earth, and when the shadow of Sauron began first to stir again took this means of resisting him. For with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies of as of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain; though because of their noble spirits they did not die, and aged only by the cares and labours of many long years. And this the Valar did, desiring to amend the errors of old, especially that they had attempted to guard and seclude the Eldar by their own might and glory fully revealed; whereas now their emissaries were forbidden to reveal themselves in forms of majesty, or to seek to rule the wills of Men and Elves by open display of power, but coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good, and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavour to dominate and corrupt.

^{_{Unfinished Tales Part 4 Chapter II: "The Istari"}}

From the above paragraph, the answer has two related parts:

• The Elves don't defer more to Gandalf because they don't know what he actually is. It's not entirely clear what the Elves do think Gandalf is, but it seems safe to say that they would be more deferent if they knew he was one of their Angelic spirits.




• Gandalf is forbidden from setting himself above them. This is Saruman's great failing, incidentally: the Wizards are meant to be teachers and counsellors only, not rulers. So from that perspective, it's not true that Gandalf is higher than the Noldor; he may be of a higher order of being, but within Middle-earth he's merely an advisor

Jacksonverse

Now that the real stuff is out of the way, let's move on to the films. The specific exchange from An Unexpected Journey is:

Gandalf: With or without our help, these dwarves will march on the mountain. They are determined to reclaim their homeland. I do not believe Thorin Oakenshield feels that he’s answerable to anyone. Nor for that matter am I.

Elrond: It is not me you must answer to.

[Galadriel turns around]

Gandalf: Lady Galadriel.

^{_{The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2013)}}

There is, of course, no sensible reason why Gandalf should have to answer to Galadriel alone; although he doesn't command her, equally she doesn't command him.

Unfortunately I don't believe an official script has been made available, so there isn't likely to be a canon explanation of Jackson's intentions here. However, the most sensible explanation is that Elrond is referring not to Galadriel, but to the White Council.

I discuss the nature of the White Council elsewhere on this site, but the gist is that they are a loosely-affiliated group of powerful beings (including Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel) who coordinate their efforts to counter the advances of Sauron. This is the one group in Middle-earth for whom it might be sensible to say that Gandalf "answers to."

My interpretation, then, is that Elrond's line and the subsequent appearance of Galadriel
isn't meant to convey "Gandalf answers to Galadriel", but rather that Galadriel's presence changes the nature of the conversation; rather than a discussion between disagreeing friends (Gandalf and Elrond), it has turned into a meeting of the White Council, and it's to them that Gandalf must answer.

grammar - Via and its usage

We had a discussion over over the correct usage and meaning of the following sentences.

Sign up via (web.link) or calling (phone number) by DD MMM ‘YY.

vs.

Sign up via (web.link) or call (phone number) by DD MMM ‘YY.

Which would be the correct usage if the intention is the ability to sign up via both methods? Are either or both correct? Is there a difference in meaning?

Cheers to everyone for any help!

star wars - Why didn't Jango Fett kill Obi Wan and Anakin?

There is, to my recollection, no canon answer as to why jango did not kill Obi-Wan and Anakin (i.e. there is no material where Jango explicilty says why), but given the circumstances, a few assumptions can be made.

1. He wasn't paid to.

Jango Fett was hired to kill Padmé Amidala, not the two jedi. When his subcontractor (Zam Wessell) failed to do the deed, he decided to off her to remove all traces leading back to him. That was simply cleanup, not business.

2. Inconvenient

Killing two (or one for that matter) jedi would likely result in a, so to speak, crusade for his capture. The jedi wold likely go out in force to find the culprit. Hard to do business when a legion of space wizards is gunning for you.

etymology - Prefixes milli- and cent- used for years

The Latin for thousand (not thousandth) is mille, and this survives in words like millennium for a thousand years and millipede for an animal with "a thousand feet." Similarly for cent- as a prefix in words like century; it comes from the Latin for hundred, not hundredth.

Just as in English, thousand/thousandth and hundred/hundredth are related, so they are in Latin: mille/millesima, centum/centesima. The -esima suffix survives in English in infintesimal.

In the SI system, Latin prefixes are used for subdivisions of the basic unit, as in millimetre and centigramme. The SI multiplicative prefixes are based on Greek: thousand is from χίλια; hundred in Greek is εκατό.

While it's reasonable to invent a system of measurements and use prefixes based in this way, evolved language doesn't work like that. Because language evolves, we don't generally end up with words where a prefix is Greek and the base word is Latin, like kilennium.

We can invent words how we like of course; one example is the SI millimetre, where the prefix is Latin and the base word Greek. Another (the other way round) is television, of which CP Scott, then Editor of the Manchester Guardian, remarked "The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of it."

Star Wars: Possible reference to our Solar System?

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse, by Troy Denning, page 183:

...But it was the panels between the arches that put a flutter in Raynar's stomach. The images depicted the grandeur of deep space, always with some peculiar twist that seemed unlikely to occur in nature. There was a supernova exploding in only one direction, a ring of nine planets circling their sun in a single orbital path, a nebula hanging like a curtain between two star systems...

The paragraph and others go on to narrate Raynar asking about a five planet system with two planets sharing the same local orbit, getting answer from Thuruht, "our work, Five Rocks" (Corellian system), and the book goes on.My question stands for the bolded part.

Can an adverb be a noun at the same time?

A noun can be used as an adverb as well in cases that do not involve the locative.

 "He stood at the door **hat in hand**." 

Clearly, hat modifies stood by telling the manner in which he stood.
Grammatically this is similar to the adverbial function found in "He ran fast."

The OED lists hat as a verb and a noun. It does list hat in hand under phrases and locutions, but does not analyze the grammatical category of the word, hat, in that case.

Of course, one could imagine many more examples: "He stood at the door chair on shoulder,*face aglow*,pockets empty, etc. There is really no limit to such usage of nouns as adverbs.
In the right context, English can handle it very well.

grammar - "to be + gonna" usage

Can gonna be used without a to be verb like I gonna drink this. ?

If yes, whats the difference to I am gonna drink this.

What about asking questions?

• Do you gonna drink this?


• Are you gonna drink this?

Clarification:

It is pretty clear to me that gonna is a contraction of going to, and also that this is acceptable and commonly used on spoken language...
My questions is about its usage without the verb to be (I guess that never happens with going to).

So I would like to know if this usage is considered acceptable by native speakers and if there is any difference in the meaning. Also if it can be used (and how) as a question form.

story identification - What's the name of a book about super endurance through relaxation?

I'm trying to remember the name of the book which is about a military commander who has found a way to push the limits of human endurance by completely relaxing his body. From what I can remember, his name was Cletus (I think), he had a bad knee, and he was teaching his entire squad the same relaxation technique.

Does my very limited summary ring a bell with anyone? I'm looking for the title and author.

idiom requests - Classic phrase regarding a growing distance from our children

On Children

Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

negation - Using "non-" to prefix a two-word phrase

The standard, but not very satisfying, answer is that you use an EN DASH (codepoint U+2013) as a higher-order HYPHEN (codepoint U+2010). Wikipedia says:

In English, the en dash is usually used instead of a hyphen in compound (phrasal) attributives in which one or both elements is itself a compound, especially when the compound element is an open compound, meaning it is not hyphenated itself.

So for example, it would be a non–Red Sox game, because it is an open compound. Or when you have something that is already a compound, you need a non–child-molester for someone who is not a child-molester, and a non-child–molester for someone who molests non-children.
Or if you have a flower that is colored red-violet, then it is a red-violet–colored flower.

However, opinions and recommendations — and perhaps expectations and familiarity — do vary regarding what to do in these situations. An example is how in the draft manuscript of my last book, we originally said (with regard to pattern matching with regular expressions) that:

A W matches a non–word character.
A H matches a non–horizontal-whitespace character.

But in copyedit, it was decided that although correct, this was too alien for normal people to immediately apprehend. So we adopted a courageous but unambiguous convention that programmers would immediately apprehend:

A W matches a non-(word character).
A H matches a non-(horizontal whitespace) character.

We did it that way because we felt this style, although innovative and hardly something you will find in Strunk and White, was more likely to be clearly and immediately understood by computer programmers than carefully distinguishing en dashes from hyphens. We retained en dashes only in their two traditional and uncontroversial uses:

• for ranges, like values in the 128–256 range or supplying 1–3 arguments;


• in dash compounds like a Boyer–Moore search, which should of course not be hyphenated.

See also this question for more about hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.

Note also that most North American publishers use a hyphen after non only when it precedes a capital letter, so non-British and non-European, but nonbeliever and even nonnative. British publishers are much more apt to hyphenate all non- compounds no matter the following latter, so non-believer and non-native. Just don’t hyphenate nonchalant. :)

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Unicode Considerations

In Unicode, there are more dashes than you would believe. In fact, Unicode v6.1 attributes to all these code points the Dash character property, along with their general category and script properties:

U+0002D ‭ -  GC=So SC=Common       HYPHEN-MINUS
U+0058A ‭ ֊  GC=Pd SC=Armenian     ARMENIAN HYPHEN
U+005BE ‭ ־  GC=Pd SC=Hebrew       HEBREW PUNCTUATION MAQAF
U+01400 ‭ ᐀  GC=Pd SC=Canadian_Aboriginal CANADIAN SYLLABICS HYPHEN
U+01806 ‭ ᠆  GC=Pd SC=Mongolian    MONGOLIAN TODO SOFT HYPHEN
U+02010 ‭ ‐  GC=Pd SC=Common       HYPHEN
U+02011 ‭ ‑  GC=Pd SC=Common       NON-BREAKING HYPHEN
U+02012 ‭ ‒  GC=Pd SC=Common       FIGURE DASH
U+02013 ‭ –  GC=Pd SC=Common       EN DASH
U+02014 ‭ —  GC=Pd SC=Common       EM DASH
U+02015 ‭ ―  GC=Pd SC=Common       HORIZONTAL BAR
U+02053 ‭ ⁓  GC=Po SC=Common       SWUNG DASH
U+0207B ‭ ⁻  GC=Sm SC=Common       SUPERSCRIPT MINUS
U+0208B ‭ ₋  GC=Sm SC=Common       SUBSCRIPT MINUS
U+02212 ‭ −  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN
U+02E17 ‭ ⸗  GC=Pd SC=Common       DOUBLE OBLIQUE HYPHEN
U+02E1A ‭ ⸚  GC=Pd SC=Common       HYPHEN WITH DIAERESIS
U+02E3A ‭ ⸺  GC=Pd SC=Common       TWO-EM DASH
U+02E3B ‭ ⸻  GC=Pd SC=Common       THREE-EM DASH
U+0301C ‭ 〜 GC=Pd SC=Common       WAVE DASH
U+03030 ‭ 〰 GC=Pd SC=Common       WAVY DASH
U+030A0 ‭ ゠ GC=Pd SC=Common       KATAKANA-HIRAGANA DOUBLE HYPHEN
U+0FE31 ‭ ︱ GC=Pd SC=Common       PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL EM DASH
U+0FE32 ‭ ︲ GC=Pd SC=Common       PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL EN DASH
U+0FE58 ‭ ﹘ GC=Pd SC=Common       SMALL EM DASH
U+0FE63 ‭ ﹣ GC=Pd SC=Common       SMALL HYPHEN-MINUS

Note that codepoints with the general category Dash Punctuation (GC=Pd) do not include U+2212, the MINUS SIGN, which has the Math Symbol general category, GC=Sm. Here are codepoints whose names includes "DASH" but which do not have the Dash character property (which is different from the Dash Punctuation general category, perversely enough):

U+000B1 ‭ ±  GC=Sm SC=Common       PLUS-MINUS SIGN
U+002D7 ‭ ˗  GC=Sk SC=Common       MODIFIER LETTER MINUS SIGN
U+00320 ‭ ◌̠  GC=Mn SC=Inherited    COMBINING MINUS SIGN BELOW
U+02052 ‭ ⁒  GC=Sm SC=Common       COMMERCIAL MINUS SIGN
U+02213 ‭ ∓  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS-OR-PLUS SIGN
U+02216 ‭ ∖  GC=Sm SC=Common       SET MINUS
U+02238 ‭ ∸  GC=Sm SC=Common       DOT MINUS
U+02242 ‭ ≂  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS TILDE
U+02296 ‭ ⊖  GC=Sm SC=Common       CIRCLED MINUS
U+0229F ‭ ⊟  GC=Sm SC=Common       SQUARED MINUS
U+02756 ‭ ❖  GC=So SC=Common       BLACK DIAMOND MINUS WHITE X
U+02796 ‭ ➖  GC=So SC=Common       HEAVY MINUS SIGN
U+0293C ‭ ⤼  GC=Sm SC=Common       TOP ARC CLOCKWISE ARROW WITH MINUS
U+02A29 ‭ ⨩  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN WITH COMMA ABOVE
U+02A2A ‭ ⨪  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN WITH DOT BELOW
U+02A2B ‭ ⨫  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN WITH FALLING DOTS
U+02A2C ‭ ⨬  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN WITH RISING DOTS
U+02A3A ‭ ⨺  GC=Sm SC=Common       MINUS SIGN IN TRIANGLE
U+02A41 ‭ ⩁  GC=Sm SC=Common       UNION WITH MINUS SIGN
U+02A6C ‭ ⩬  GC=Sm SC=Common       SIMILAR MINUS SIMILAR

etymology - Where did the phrase "Holy Toledo" come from?

I found two early instances of "holy Toledo"—one from 1908 that seems to be merely coincidental with the later exclamation, and one from 1928 that seems to be the real deal. From the Monroe City [Missouri] Democrat (March 5, 1908):

The Toledo Blade [a daily newspaper] says. "We would rather sit and wait two months for rosy-cheeked spring to come [to] Tintinnabulous Toledo than eat strawberries all winter in Heavenly Houston." How about preferring to pluck ice cream sodas in Holy Toledo during the visit of ruddy-cheeked summer than to look for a cool place in Thermogenic Houston during the same period. —Ex.

And from The Saturday Evening Post, volume 200 (1928) [combined snippets]:

Whatever insight the adopted girl gained of her foster father's character came to her through observation—and the stars bear witness that there was plenty to observe. When he had been in regular service no one had ever noted McIntosh, engineer on 1 and 2, holding mugging parties with his oil can or stroking a polished main rod with a loving hand. He had never been known to do anything but be disagreeable and growl constantly and bring his train in on the money despite hell or high water. But when he went cut on pension, holy Toledo!

The instance from Thomas Johnson, Red War (1936) that medica cites in her excellent answer is actually one of two occurrences in that book. Here they are in somewhat fuller context:

The manager was wringing his hands, apparently on the verge of tears. "It is terrible, terrible, Herr Bayne, that this should have happened. No doubt there have been Communist riots somewhere. Alas, I fear no one will come back to see you now."

But in this prediction the manager was wrong, for almost as he finished speaking a great booming voice was heard in the wings. "Holy Toledo, officer, I don't savvy your lingo. All I want is to ...

...

"You seem to know everything, Mr. McWade."

"Holy Toledo, I wish I did!" groaned the Westerner. "But there ain't one of us can figger out what's up—except somebody's in for a swell double crossin'."

Rivers's words!

Versality in deformation theory vs. versality in moduli spaces

As I mentioned before, I'm a novice at deformation theory. I was wondering if the definition of versality in deformation theory is related to the versality in moduli spaces:

Deformation theory

"Moduli of Curves" defines a versal deformation space as a deformation $phi: X rightarrow Y$ such that for any other deformation $xi: X rightarrow Z$ and for every point in $Z$ there exists an open set (in the complex topology) $U$ such that the pullback of $phi$ via $f: U rightarrow Y$ is $xi$ restricted to $U$. (I imagine that in general instead of an open set one takes open etale covers - is this true?)

Moduli Spaces

In moduli spaces, versality has always meant a space such that instead of the geometric points being in 1-1 correspondence with the objects we're interested in (over the field of the geo. point), each object is going have several geometric points in the versal space corresponding to it.

Question

Are these two notions related? If so - how?

american english - "Would you mind and do something" in nonstandard colloquial AmEng

I was interested in seeing what use authors have historically made of the construction "mind and [other verb]," along the lines of the poster's wording "would you mind and do something." So I ran Google Books searches for three phrases—"now mind and," "mind and do," and "you mind and"—for the period 1600–2008. These searches yielded quite a few matches, going back to at least 1721 and continuing (probably) until at least 1947.

However, none of the matches attempt to connect mind in the sense of "disapprove" or "object" or "be unwilling" (which appears to be the sense of mind that the OP intends) with another verb via a conjunctive and. Instead most of the relevant instances use mind in the sense of "pay attention" or "remember" or "obey."

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Examples from England, 1721–1908

Examples of this usage go back to England in the early 1700s. From James Naylor, A Collection of Sundry Books, Epistles and Papers Written by James Nayler (London, 1721):

High carnal minds seek high things, and so they grow lofty and proud, and such God resists, and keeps them afar off: but the poor in spirit seek truth and meekness, and are fed thereof at the table of the Lord; meek, and lowly and just, and faithful are all his household, who feed and sup with him. Now mind and consider your ways, who are gone out unto the mountains to worship and feed yourselves, you may read of Israel's sin in going out from the temple, in which the Lord had said he would dwell, and be enquired of, and they built altars without him, and there called upon him but found him not, for which he rejected their worships, and their temple also.

From Edmund Calamy, A Continuation of the Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and Schoolmasters, who were Ejected and Silenced after the Restoration in 1660 (1727), citing a letter of unidentified date:

Keep close to GOD daily. Mind and do his Work thoroughly, and you will find 'tis most delightful. Find out and close with some pious, studious, ingenious Youths, and make them your familiar Acquaintance. Take heed you neglect not publick holy Duties. Remember the Sabbath to sanctify it.

From Isaac Penington, The Works of the Long-Mournful and Sorely-Distressed Isaac Penington, volume 2, second edition (London, 1761):

Now mind and remember this which followeth:

From a letter of August 12, 1808, in Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch, twelfth edition (Leeds, 1811).

MY DEAR FRIEND.—I send you these few lines to let you know that I shall get to Wittwell in Boland on Friday next, so I could wish make yourself happy thou love of mine, till thou see me tap thy shoulder for it would not do for the to know the moment, for it would put the in such fear and do not let Mary reed this letter of freedoms, for I have not wrote to hr for a long time, and for her husband i not likely to get no better and he says it is long of you and wont hardly let her stur, you may tell her to make her self easy on me not sending to her, it is for a reason, now mind and bury this near the other.

From The Novitiate's Preceptor; Or, Religious and Literary Register for the New Church, volume 1 (London, 1827):

May I put him [a dead squirrel buried in a china vase] into a halfpint stone-mug that is in the house, and then fasten the top of this box over it? Aye, aye, replied Mr. Rotchford, you may do that if you please; so away ran Kitty for the stone mug, and Charles for the spade, with which he directly began to dig for the squirrel. Take care, Charles, said his father, mind and do that carefully, or you will break the tureen and all your labour will be useless.

From a letter from James Rush to his son James (April 20, 1848), in An Introductory Narrative and a Revised Report of the Trial and Execution of J. B. Rush (1849):

Direct for me at the Shoreditch station, and mind and write me a long letter of every thing that has taken place. If they have token possession, mind and do not let them take anything away, or meddle with any of my papers; but as I said before, if they are not yet on, keep them out of the house at all events till you see me on Sunday morning, and do not let any one know when I am coming.

From Andrew Lang, "Brother and Sister," in The Red Fairy Book (1893):

'Sister, open the door, I must get out.'

So sister opened the door and said, 'Now mind and get back by nightfall, and say your little rhyme.'

And from Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908):

When we are through [the tunnel], I will shut off steam and put on brakes as hard as I can, and the moment it's safe to do so you must jump and hide in the wood, before they get through the tunnel and see you. Then I will go full speed ahead again, and they can chase me if they like, for as long as they like, and as far as they like. Now mind and be ready to jump when I tell you!

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Examples from North America, 1725–1887

Similar examples appear in letters by colonial Americans by 1725 and in books by American authors by 1825. From a modern history citing a letter by JC [James Crokatt?], August 24, 1725, in The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (2004):

It was an Indian, the head warrior of Tennessee, who, according to Colonel Chicken, agent at the same period among the Cherokee, 'got up and made the following Speech to me and the People of the Town. "That they must now mind and Consider that all their Old men were gone, and that they have been brought up after another Manner than their forefathers and that they must Consider that they could not live without the English."

From A Lady, Stranger of the Valley: Or, Louisa and Adelaide (New York, 1825):

Laluce strongly opposed this measure [a plan of action suggested by uncle Charles], for he greatly feared they would refuse to bestow their incomparable daughter on a person who had so long depended on their bounty, and whose connections they were unacquainted with; but uncle Charles insisted on having his way, or he would do nothing about it, and Laluce was obliged to submit.

"Now mind and work your card right," said the delighted uncle Charles, "and if you fairly set out for it, my dear boy, you can make up a story equal to any one."

From Susanna Moodie, Richard Redpath, in The Literary Garland, and British North American Magazine (Montreal, October 1843):

"Well, well, Bess! You may have him," returned the planter. "But you spoil all your slaves. Now mind and keep a strict eye over him. If he is such a good cook, he will spare you a world of trouble."

From Theodore Fay, Hoboken: A Romance of New York, volume 1 (1843):

"Pooh, pooh, Katy! what a superfine Spartan mother you would have made! I fancy your presenting Frank his shield and telling him 'with it or upon it!'"

Mother would say," interrupted Mary, laughing, "'with it or without it! but, at all events, do you mind and come home!'"

From Joanna Mathews, Belle Powers' Locket in Little Sunbeams (London, 1872 [but Mathews was born in New York, and wrote and lived in the United States]):

A door in the side of the garden wall opened upon the street which bounded one side of it; and, unfastening this, the cook passed out,saying to Marcia,—

"Now mind and keep the door shut; and don't you be poking your head out, and leaving your work."

From Mrs. S.E. Dawes, "Out in the Cold: A Story for Girls," Our Boys and Girls (New York, April 1873):

"We are well met," said he, "for I have something to say to you, Kate Somers. Now that some one has at last given you a home, do you mind and keep it. If you don't like, you needn't think of going back to the city, for no one will take you at the Home you left."

From "Buds, Blossoms & Leaves," in Popular Gardening and Fruit Growing (Buffalo, Ne York, October 1886):

Now mind and plant your bulbs, mainly in clumps, each sort by itself.

From Grammar School, issue 6 (Chicago & Boston, 1887) [combined snippets]:

I had it [a night-cap] off in a second, and I saw my mother's basting threads in the hem. She seemed very near me, somehow, as I sewed and sewed, until it was really finished at last. But every stitch I put in had the same word to say for itself. One said, "Now mind, and finish the next thing!" And another one said, "Now mind and finish the next thing!" And another one said, "Now mind and finish the next thing!" until I got pretty tired of it.

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Conclusions

The reason "Would you mind and do something" sounds vaguely plausible as colloquial American (or British) English is that the wording "mind and [do something]" was in at least occasional usage in parts of the English-speaking world for at least a couple of centuries. But two points are essential in accurately appraising the significance of this fact.

First, the recorded usage of the phrase involves mind being used in the sense of "pay mind to"—that is, "pay attention" or "remember" or "obey." That is not at all the meaning of mind in the OP's example; there, the meaning is "disapprove" or "object" or "be unwilling." But in the dozens of relevant matches that Google Books found in the searches I conducted, the construction "mind [as a verb] and [some other verb]" never used mind in that sense.

Second, the Google Books results strongly suggest that the "mind and [another verb]" formulation has rarely been used in published writing in the past century, and that the wording is moribund. The last example from the United States that seems to use the phrase in the old way is Marguerite McIntire, Carey Brown (New York, 1942):

"I'll give you a small pail to pick into," Mrs. Steven said, "and a larger one for dumping in. You've got to pick clean. I won't pay you anything for dirty berries; no sticks, no leaves, no green ones. Now mind. And pick with the tips of your fingers so's you won't rub the bloom off. Think you can do it all right?"

And the last British example may be from The National Review: The English Review (1947):

"Here you are, Sir, they were no' quite dry before. Now mind, and fold the meat this way, John, or you'll lose the blood. This label's no' on firm enough — I'll re-tie it." She looked fine, Mrs. Goodwins, in her spotless white overalls, with her laughing eyes.

So strike one is that historically "mind and [another verb]" never used mind in the way that the OP wants to use it. Strike two is that usage of the wording in the way that was fairly popular once upon a time has dropped off considerably since the late 1800s. And strike three is that the OP not only wants mind to mean "disapprove" or "object", but also wants to frame the wording as a conditional question. Here again, the Google Books search results do not yield a single match that illustrates similar manipulation of the phrasing to pose a conditional question.

Taking all of these considerations into account, I think that the OP's wording may stir readers' memories of superficially similar wording in The Wind in the Willows, The Red Fairy Book, and elsewhere—and thus may strike those readers as being potentially valid as colloquial language from somewhere else. But there is no record of a genuinely similar usage in Google Books, and I think the OP's wording has probably never been used un-self-consciously by a colloquial English speaker in North America or the UK.

vocabulary - Is technical copywriting jargon or style?

I'm going to answer your principal question, comment on your approach to revising your questions on english.stackexchange.com and finally attempt to address each of your supplementary questions.

Primary question

Is technical copywriting jargon or style?

Technical copywriting is a style of writing that employs technical terms. People unfamiliar with those technical terms would regard them as jargon.

The word jargon is not always used in an insulting way, it is sometimes used as a complaint by people who feel the written material uses technical terms which are inappropriate for it's audience.

Revisions of questions

As I write this, you question appears as a rather long, slightly rambling, collection of complaints, supplementary material and additional questions. As a copywriter you will be aware that this is not the best way to communicate a complicated subject to your general audience here.

I believe that the facility on english.stackexchange for editing questions is there to enable you (and others) to gradually improve the question. I may be wrong but I believe improvement would best be accomplished, not by periodically extending the text with new material, but by rewriting to produce a clear succinct expression of the question.

Supplementary questions

Technical writing is jargon using incorrect English words.

As others have said, jargon isn't incorrect English. It is only a specialised vocabulary used by a limited group of people. Every profession has their own jargon. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is only when we use that private vocabulary to communicate with people outside the group that we are making an error.

definitions of "prepend" in internet, all with inserted derogatory remarks ... like 'jargon'

Describing a specialised vocabulary as jargon is not especially derogatory. It is usually faintly disparaging but not always. In this reply I am mainly using jargon to mean specialised vocabulary used by a small group of people.

Is Technical Writing jargon or writing-style ...

You restate your main question - see above for my answer.

However I note that in various places you say

• Technical copywriting


• Technical writing


• Copywriting

I am assuming you mean the same thing in each case.

and the branch of correctly used English?

Technical copywiting can be regarded as a branch of English, a subset of English writing, that is a legitimate use of English. When done well, the appropriate audience should regard it as a correct use of English.

Would I better avoid to refer to it as English at all,

I see no harm in referring to a subset of English as English. All of us do. If it involves technical terms you might refer to it as technical English

If I write using the words which are not English WORDS, do I write in English?

Yes. English is still English even when it uses the occasional non-English words where necessary. If I say I visited München, I am still writing English - though some might wonder why I chose not to use an anglicized form of the place-name. If you carry this too far, you might end up using a mixture of languages.

The term Copywriting "refers to writing ... non-technical material". Where is here a "jargon ... nearly impossible for the average person to decipher"?

Are we still referring to what you elsewhere call "Technical copyrighting" or are you making a distinction?

In my inexpert view:

• Copywriting for a general audience should not contain unexplained jargon.




• Technical copywriting (for a technical audience) should make appropriate use of a technical vocabulary that a general audience might regard as jargon.

What is unclear in "prepend" and to whom?

So far as I know prepend isn't in general use amongst English speakers - I think some of the other answers may have shown this - I'll update this part of my answer with some statistics later, if I can find some.

Why isn't busyness letter or step-by-step instructions a formal writing?

Business letters and step-by-step instructions can be formal writing. You could write them in an informal way but this would often be inappropriate.

Should it be be understood that insulting obscenities known to everybody are not jargon [but] full members of "correct" English ... [whereas] understandable "technical" ubiquitous words are out?.

No it should not. Some insulting obscenities might be both jargon and full members of English. English jargon words are as much members of the English vocabulary as English obscene words. As discussed elsewhere, there is no single authoritative nor prescriptive authority for what is English. I think you may be focussing on the wrong thing here. At issue is whether it is appropriate to use certain words in certain types of writing - not whether they are English words.

Do you know anybody who ... does NOT know the words RAM or CPU?

Yes. Members of my family have complained to me saying "why should I need to know this? I just want to send an email to my sister!"

Do you know anybody who ... knows, without consulting with dictionaries, all "correct" words of a language?

Yes. JRR Tolkein knew all the words of the languages he invented. I doubt anyone could recite the million or so words that some say are in English. I don't think you can draw any conclusions from these two facts - certainly none that seem relevant to your main question.

May I ask [people] to [not] delete/edit my question, so distorting its sense, after [an] answer to [my] question [has been accepted]?

You can ask. In my view, the question desperately needs editing. There is a good reason why the designers of english.stackexchange designed it to allow people to edit other's questions.

I hope the above helps and does not cause offence, none is intended. If offence is caused, I regret it and apologise for any deficiency in my writing, or carelessness on my part, that caused it.

at.algebraic topology - What is known about K-theory and K-homology groups of (free) loop spaces?

There are a lot of computational methodologies from algebraic topology that you can apply here, moving from less to more complicated. Suppose E_* and E^* is a pair of a generalized homology theory and its cohomology theory, which has a commutative and associative product, and you have a space X where you are interested in the loop space ΩX and the free loop space LX, which live in fibration sequences ΩX -> PX -> X and ΩX -> LX -> X. (Here PX is contractible.)

There are Atiyah-Hirzebruch spectral sequences

Hp(Y; Eq(*)) => Ep+q(Y)
Hp(Y; Eq(*)) => Ep+q(Y)

which, because they are generic, do not have such stellar behavior except in "easy" cases.

If you have a good grip on the (co)homology of X, then there are the Serre spectral sequences associated to the path-loop fibration

Hp(X; Eq(ΩX)) => Ep+q(*)
Hp(X; Eq(ΩX)) => Ep+q(*)

and those associated to the free-loop fibration

Hp(X; Eq(ΩX)) => Ep+q(LX)
Hp(X; Eq(ΩX)) => Ep+q(LX)

The Serre spectral sequence is sometimes less-than-spectacular for loop spaces and free loop spaces, again because it's pretty generic, and because to use then to compute for the loop space you have to play the fiber off the base. This leads to nasty inductive arguments.

Then there are the Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequences for ΩX. If E^*X is a flat E^*-module and X is simply connected, then you get a spectral sequence

Tor**E*X(E*,E*) => E*ΩX

where this is Tor of graded modules over a graded algebra and inherits a bigrading. This is usually much more straightforward than the standard technique of playing the Serre spectral sequence game to find the homology of the fiber. There's also a homology version but it involves CoTor for comodules over E_*.

There's also an Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequence starting with Tor over the cohomology of X of the cohomology of LX with the ground ring, and converging to the cohomology of ΩX. This is often less useful because usually you want to go the opposite direction, but it exists.

Finally, there is the Hochschild homology spectral sequence for LX. If E^*X is a flat E^*-module and X is simply connected, then there is a spectral sequence

HHE*(E*X,E* X) => E*LX

where this is Hochschild homology of E^*X (over the ground ring E^*) with coefficients in itself. This is a graded algebra over a graded ring and the Hochschild homology recovers a bigrading. If you instead took coefficients in the ground ring E^* you're recover the Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequence for the based loop space ΩX.

For example, if E^* X is a polynomial algebra over E^* on classes in even degree, the cohomology of the loop space is exterior and the cohomology of the free loop space is the de Rham complex. More complicated cohomology yields more complicated behavior.

If you have specific spaces in mind then there are more specialized results. For example, one major theorem is the Atiyah-Segal theorem relating the K-theory of the classifying space of a compact Lie group to a completion of its complex representation ring. This is very hard to extract from the above general methods.

(Somebody who is an expert in string topology should step in and talk about K-theory of free loop spaces!)

Story about a temporal research station, lots of time travel

A few years back, I've read a very nice story about time travellers.
I've been reading it online - no idea if it was ever published properly, or just an online-only piece - and was too busy that day to finish it in one sitting (it was a novel-length story, and I made it to roughly the middle). Then the next time I wanted to see it, the browser had already been reloaded, and I couldn't recall where I found it originally (most likely, somewhere on TV Tropes, but I have no idea what page, and I'm not sure enough it was that to consider checking all the possible options).
I hope that I give enough information here for you to figure out what story it might have been - I really want to finish it properly some day.

There was a temporal research station set up somewhere in the distant past (Mesozoic? not sure about that part) which was a main base point for time travellers going to various times.
The research station was active for several centuries. The main character (male, I think, but not sure) is from the first few decades of the station's activity; at some point he meets, and has further adventures with, a girl who worked at the station about 1300 years later (and was surprised that the other guy was from that early - apparently their home times were separated by a similar time period).
Not too long after the girl worked there, the station was closed/abandoned for some reason, and at some point the main characters visit the now-abandoned station and try to figure out said reason. That was almost at the point where I had to stop, so I have no idea what happened later (in particular, whether they ever figured that out, and what the reason was).

Now the less certain parts: I'm almost sure that the main character (the one who's not the other girl) was stuck in the past in some way (cut off from normal methods of escape, hoping for some other lucky escape), and when he met the girl, they ended up stuck together.
Also, there were time paradoxes involved in some way; maybe the girl's future was prevented by the main character being lost. I think one of the paradoxes had to do with why the main character was stuck in the first place, but I'm not entirely sure (and it might have been explained in the half that I didn't read). The girl is definitely surprised that they both exist, and are stuck the way they are (as in it was not supposed to happen in the "normal" time path, whatever that was).
For some reason, I seem to recall that the original link I got the story from mentioned it involving a real lot of paradoxes and general time travel messes - a lot more than I ended up seeing - but I didn't get to read far enough (as I mentioned, I stopped around the middle - maybe at 40%).

Any idea what it might have been? I know there's a lot of stories about time travel and paradoxes and stuff like that; hopefully the whole thing about a temporal research station being active for ~1400 years (I'm fairly sure of that number, at least approximately) and then getting abandoned is unusual enough to identify the story.
I know it must have been online (as of two years ago, at least, and probably still), and linked from somewhere (likely TV Tropes). But even that includes an awful lot of stuff (and searching for the 1300 or 1400 years isn't likely to help, because I think it's been a more precise number in the story - which I don't actually remember).

conjunctions - Alternative structures for "not only ... but also ..."?

I'm trying to write this essay and I find myself writing too many "not only ... but also ..." structures. Can you guys help me come up with some alternatives?

Basically, I want this kind of progressive effect:

Doing this is not only fun, but also one of the most important activities of human beings.

How about this one:

He is not only a teacher, but also one of the greatest educators in history.

doctor who - Why did Rose's touch revive the Dalek?

The explanation given in that episode is that time travelers in the TARDIS pick up a sort of background radiation. It's largely harmless, but during the Time War the Daleks picked up on it and adapted to steal the energy for their own use. It was enough to get the Dalek moving again, and was later used in Doomsday again when Mickey touched the Dalek "Genesis Ark" prison ship.

The DNA transfer seemed to be incidental, and accidental. Daleks seem to have a lot of defenses around that sort of thing, and it probably only happened because it was so weak.

meaning - What does "wax lyrical" mean in this context?

The idiom wax lyrical means to talk about something with a lot of enthusiasm.

There are similar idioms, like wax eloquent (talk about something eloquently), wax poetic (talk about something in flowery speech) and wax wroth (talk about something angrily or with agitation).

Lyric comes from the classical instrument, the lyre. The word was transformed via old french to mean a "short poem expressing personal emotion". Wax means "to grow". So literally it means "to grow in poetic and emotional speech", but usually the phrase just emphasizes the interest and excitement the speaker has for the topic.

single word requests - Name for a special type of abbreviation, such as "mart" for "market"

"Mart" is a word coined in the middle of the 1400s. The abbreviation for "market" is "mkt". If it was borrowed from Middle Dutch "markt", the orthographic shortening is understandable: English phonetics doesn't provide for the sound represented by kt in Dutch.

It seems to me to be merely a respelling, just as American English has changed British English spellings of words like "foetus" to "fetus", "haematology" to "hematology", and "colour" to "color", and, for example, the German spelling of München to Munich.

regeneration - When was the phrase "Timey Wimey" first invented by the Doctor?

The War Doctor never claims to have not heard the phrase. He's just disgusted that his two ostensibly older selves are still using it, since it's clearly a child's phrase. The implication has always been (from its very structure) that it's the sort of thing that Time Lord children learn in school and eventually outgrow.

In general, the implication of Day of the Doctor is that, for all that the stories of the series are somewhat more mature in their approach much of the time, the Doctor has somewhat deliberately reverted. The Doctor has always had both a child-like and a child-ish streak to him, but 10 and 11 have brought the child-like streak out much more strongly, while the War Doctor was Very Serious and hence, very grown-up.

In some ways, the War Doctor reminding the Doctor that being a grown-up should not be a bad thing is also a set-up for the new, more mature (age-wise, anyway -- we'll see about his personality) Doctor debuting in August...

game of thrones - Is there any proof that Jaime Lannister is actually a good swordsman?

From what I can tell of Jaime Lannister, he is a good swordsman, because he has fought numerous battles and lived to tell the tale.

What I can't find is any evidence of him beating anyone in a duel with anyone actually good with a sword. All the one-on-one fights he has taken part in with anyone who is particularly skilled with a sword have been inconclusive.

These include:

• Big Belly Ben of the Kingswood Brotherhood: He saves Lord Sumner Crakehall, but Ben escapes.


• The Smiling Knight of the Kingswood Brotherhood: He managed to hold him back until Ser Arthur Dayne managed to take over and kill him.


• Ned Stark: One of Jaime's guards manages to intervene by attacking Ned before the fight is over.


• Brienne of Tarth: Their fight is interrupted my Vargo Hoat (Locke in the TV series).

There might be more, but I can't find anything about them on the wiki.

He might have won a tourney melée or two in his youth, but from what I can tell most of the better knights joust, so I doubt he would have bested anyone noteworthy in a sword fight during a tourney.

And he was only given the position of Kingsguard by Aerys because he wanted to make sure that Tywin's heir couldn't inherit his lands.

Every other scenario I can think of that he has fought in throughout the timeline of the books/tv show have been in a group, like the Battle of the Whispering Wood and when he attempted to escape from Riverrun (books).

Of course, now that he has lost his right hand it is likely that he will never be good again, but with his left hand he can't even compete with Ser Ilyn Payne/Bronn.

I have no doubt that Jaime was good, as he is an heir of one of the greater houses, so would have had the best training, but where did he gain this fearsome reputation of being one of the best? Was it simply because he became a Kingsguard so young?

---

EDIT: Thanks to the comment of Nika G for pointing out the feats of Barristan the Bold, this is the exact kind of thing I'm looking for.

There's not much in the White Book about Jaime, and that's kind of what I mean. Whilst he has shown his bravery (protecting Brienne from being killed) and ferocity (trying to kill Robb after he had already lost the Battle of the Whispering Wood), we haven't had much proof of his supposed legendary skill.

I don't doubt that Jaime is actually a good swordsman, he has cut down knights left, right and center. But they were all less experienced/not as well trained, that's nothing more than many others have done. People like Ned Stark, Jon Snow & Stannis Baratheon are all considered good swordsmen, but none of them are called the best.

I'm saying that Jaime hasn't done much to claim the mantle of the best (or one of) other than being appointed the youngest Kingsguard in history, which he didn't get on battle merits alone. I'm asking if his reputation might have originated from somewhere other than that, or if people had given him this accolade simply from seeing him fight (like Barristan Selmy).

How can Fenchurch read the Guide?

The implication is that the Hitchiker's Guide is able to self-translate itself for readers. When Ford initially hands it to Arthur (prior to putting a Babel fish in his ear), the text turns from "characters" into readable English after he presses a few buttons.

A screen, about three inches by four, lit up and characters began to
flicker across the surface.

"You want to know about Vogons, so I enter that name so." His fingers
tapped some more keys. "And there we are."

The words Vogon Constructor Fleets flared in green across the screen.

Assuming it's now preset to "English-mode", that would also explain how Fenchurch is able to read it in the later novel.

---

As to when the Guide itself learned to speak English, this was possibly from scanning and studying its environment (unlikely) or simply that Ford, or one of the earlier researchers, inputted an English dictionary at the same time they uploaded their journal entries about life on Earth (far more likely).

"Lick on a trick for a Rolex" — meaning?

I heard this line in the rap song Ghetto Bird by Ice Cube (full lyrics here) and I'm completely puzzled by its meaning.

My homey's here to lick on a trick for a Rolex
And let me try the four next
Now the four I was driving was hotter than July
looked up and didn't see it whippin' in the sky
Saw a chopper with numbers on the bottom
"Calling all cars, I think we've got em."

I learned that lick can mean "easy money", and a trick can mean "a naive person", "a sex act with a prostitute", or "a robbery".

I could come up with several combinations of these meanings that would make sense on their own, but none of such combinations makes sense together with the following lines. Could somebody enlighten me what this line really means?

hitchhikers guide - Why does Zaphod Beeblebrox call Ford Prefect "Ford" when they meet on the Heart of Gold?

Ford Prefect took that name because he thought it sounded like a normal name on Earth. I couldn't find any mention anywhere that he used this name before his 15-year-long visit to Earth and he didn't have any contact with anyone not from Earth who knew him (specifically not with Zaphod) until he was picked up by the Heart of Gold. Unless I missed something while reading, the name "Ford Prefect" wasn't mentioned until Zaphod addressed Ford directly.

My question is, firstly, how does Zaphod know about the name in the first place and secondly, why does he prefer to use it over whatever name he used before Ford's trip to Earth?

grammar - Is this parallel? "He's not only the Hair Club president but also a client.'

What Sy Sperling not only said in his television commercials, but also legally trademarked (!), was this:

"I'm not only the Hair Club president, I'm also a client!"(TM)

http://tinyurl.com/Hair-Club-Trademarks

And yes, Mr. Sperling's usage was grammatically parallel. :-)

Story Identification - post-apocalyptic novel solar incident, new time and old time

I'm trying to identify and find a story set in a post-apocalyptic world (probably based in USA/California but not 100%) where something has happened to the Sun, and as a result probably changed human genetics somehow and some people live on 'Old Time' and others live on 'New Time'.

The book sounded interesting during a radio review but I can't remember the title or author.

Any ideas?

phrase requests - Word for having strong political opinions but no consistent "side"

(With your call for informal words/phrases as well in mind, you could consider the following):

cf. “Politics makes strange bedfellows” (from Dictionary[dot]com)

If the person you describe ‘awakens’ often enough with the proverbial “strange bedfellows” because of his/her across-the-spectrum opinions, perhaps it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to label them as
“a strange bedfellow” themselves (after all, it takes two to tango, no?)
(example from Latin Times);

or to avoid a possible double entendre:

a/the proverbial strange bedfellow.

To avoid coming right out and calling them a “strange bedfellow,” even a proverbial one, perhaps you could use the term as an adjective (one that I would hyphenate) to describe their political opinions or sympathies, i.e., their politics:

“[His/her strange-bedfellow politics … cut across familiar partisan and ideological lines.”
(example of unhyphenated usage from ‘Debating Immigration’ by Carol M. Swain, via Google Books)

etymology - How did we get ‘deft’ and ‘daffy’ from “daft”?

Metaphorical extension does amazing things to cause a root meaning to radiate out in various directions, quoting the linguist Jeffrey Henning:

Radiation is metaphorical extension on a grander scale, with new
meanings radiating from a central semantic core to embrace many
related ideas.

• The word head originally referred to that part of the
  human body above the rest.




• Since the top of a nail, pin or screw is,
  like the human head, the top of a slim outline, that sense has become
  included in the meaning of head.




• Since the bulb of a cabbage or
  lettuce is round like the human head, that sense has become included
  in the meaning of head.




• Know where I'm headed with this?



• The meaning of the word head has radiated out to include the head of a coin (the
  side picturing the human head), the head of the list (the top item in
  the list), the head of a table, the head of the family, a head of
  cattle, $50 a head

Wikipedia emphasis mine and reformatted for clarity

Semantic deterioration also shifts words from their root meaning:

A disapprovement in the meaning of a word.

• The term knave meant originally (Old English) ‘male servant’ from ‘boy’ (cf. German Knabe) but deteriorated to the meaning of
  ‘base or coarse person’, having more or less died out and been
  replaced by boy.


• Villain developed from ‘inhabitant of a village’ to ‘scoundrel’.


• The word peasant is used now for someone who shows bad behaviour as the word farmer has become the normal term. In official contexts, however, the term ‘peasant’ is found for small and/or poor farmers.

Types of Semantic Change, University of Duisburg-Essen, Reformatted for clarity.

Semantic amelioration shifts words in the opposite direction:

An improvement in the meaning of a word.

• The term nice derives from Latin nescius ‘ignorant’ and came at the time of its borrowing from Old French to mean ‘silly, simple’ then ‘foolish, stupid’, later developing a more positive meaning as ‘pleasing, agreeable’.

Types of Semantic Change, University of Duisburg-Essen, Reformatted for clarity.

In this case, these three forces seem to radiate the meaning of two words from the root in opposing directions:

The etymological theory, which is plausible though not 100% certain, suggests that the PIE dhabh- "to fit together" developed slowly toward its present deft- "skillful" by a metaphorical extension of the gentle skills used to fit together fabric, a word that shares the same PIE root dhabh-. That metaphorical extension is intuitively understood in the picture of a deft boy:

Photo © Jena P. Jones/f2photos.com

Apparently, deft and daft shared a sense of "gentle, and becoming" in Old English. Their different pronunciations (which only later formalized into spellings) experienced different metaphorical extension in Middle English. Deft continued to develop the meaning of "skillful".

But daft seems to have experienced systematic semantic deterioration from "mild-mannered" (1200), to "dull and awkward" (1300), and eventually to "foolish and crazy" (1500) under the added influence of the third word daffy. In the same way that the weaker children at school become awkward in the presence of the stronger children, we can imagine some mild-mannered people being oppressed by skillful manipulators, who label themselves deft, and their victims daft. Continuing this pattern of derogatory differentiation over generations would reinforce the semantic deterioration of daft:

jackfrost.blog.co.uk

It is not certain, but it seems reasonable that daffy developed from daft. The adjective suffix -y indicates "full of or characterized by," and eventually the sense of diminutive pet suffix -y may have added to the semantic deterioration of daffy. Even if the direct source of daffy was not daft, but rather daffe - "a halfwit", the phonetic analogy of daft and daffy could have easily added to the semantic deterioration of daft.

This metaphorical extension, semantic deterioration and analogy took place over time, only becoming obvious to us by comparative linguistics. The way people used the words deft and daft slowly changed, until their meanings became opposite, and the way people used daffy reinforced the distinction.

---

Recommended Reading: Analogy and Morphological Change, by David Fertig

meaning - The rhetorical effect of "no more ... than" construction

In his book Studies in English ([1]) Stoffel says ,
in a sentence like "Rachel is no more courageous than Saul(is)",

we have the full-stressed word-negative no prefixed to a comparative,
and here it has the force of changing the sense of more than into that of as little as.

His explanation is

the word-negative no in this case acts both on the notion of superiority expressed by more,
and on the meaning of the notion of which superiority is predicated.

The effects are

• superiority is changed into equality

If I say of a man that he is not my superior, I imply that I am his equal.

• courageousness is changed into uncourageousness

the full-stressed word-negative not in "it is not fair", expresses,
not negation, but opposition, so that "it is not fair" is equivalent to "it is unfair".

In this way the predicate in our sentence becomes the expression of equality of uncourageousness;
that is, no more courageous than comes to mean as litte courageous as

The following is the Jespersen's remark ([2]) about Stoffel's distinction based on the observation above between no more than and not more than.

some of his distinctions seem too subtle and are rarely observed even by accurate writers.

[1] Studies in English, C. Stoffel (1894)

[2] A MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES, O. Jespersen (1949)

phrases - A formal synonym/expression for "saying that"

Here are a few options for your consideration:

state verb: 3rd person present: states; past tense: stated; past participle: stated; gerund or present participle: stating

1. express something definitely or clearly in speech or writing.

synonyms: express, voice, utter, put into words, declare, affirm, assert; see, Google state

In your example: To state [or, Stating] that rape culture is an environment where emotional and physical violence against women is the norm is, in a way, normalizing and excusing sexist behaviors and beliefs.

assert verb: gerund or present participle: asserting

state a fact or belief confidently and forcefully.

synonyms: declare, maintain, contend, argue, state; see, Google assert

In your example: To assert [or, Asserting ] that rape culture is an environment where emotional and physical violence against women is the norm is, in a way, normalizing and excusing sexist behaviors and beliefs.

characterize verb: gerund or present participle: characterizing

1. describe the distinctive nature or features of.

synonyms: distinguish, make distinctive, mark, typify; see, Google characterize

In your example: To characterize [or, Characterizing ] rape culture as an environment where emotional and physical violence against women is the norm is, in a way, normalizing and excusing sexist behaviors and beliefs."

ag.algebraic geometry - K3 surface of genus 8

To be able calculate the degree it is worth to read a bit of Griffiths-Harris about Grassmanians (chapter 1 section 5). To prove that $S$ is $K3$ one needs to caluclate the canonical bundle of $G$, use simple facts about Plucker embedding, use adjunction formula and finally the fact that a simply connected surface with $Kcong O$ is $K3$.

I will make the second bit of calculation, that proves that $S$ is a $K3$ (so I don't calculate the degree $14$).

First we want to calculate the canonical bundle of $G$. Denote by $E$ the trivial $6$-dimensional bundle over $G$, and by $S$ the universal (tautological) rank $2$ sub-bundle. Then the tangent bundle to $G$ is $TG=S^* otimes (E/S)$ . It follows from the properties of $c_1$ that $c_1(TG)=6c_1(S^*) $. Similarly for the canonical bundle $K_G$ we have the expression $K_Gcong (detS^*)^{otimes -6}$.

Now we will use the (simple) statement from Griffiths-Harris that under the Plucker embedding we have the isomorphism of the line bundles $det S^*=O(1)$. Using the previous calculation we see $K_Gcong O(-6)$.
Finally, the surface $S$ is an iterated (6 times) hyperplane section of $G$. So by Lefshetz theorem it has same fundamental group as $G$, i.e., it is simply-connected. It suffices now to see that its canonical bundle is trivial. This is done using the adjunction formula $K_D=K_X+D|_D$. Every time we cut $G$ by a hyper-plane we tensor the canonical by $O(1)$, but $O(-6)otimes O(6)cong O$.

Added. The calculation of the degree is done by Andrea

Added. The number 19 is obtaied in the following way. The dimension of the grassmanian of $8$-planes in $CP^{14}$ is $6cdot 9=54$. At the same time the Grassmanian of $2$-planes in $mathbb C^6$ has symmetires, given by $SL(6,mathbb C)$, whose dimension is 35. We should quotient by these symmetries and get $54-35=19$

mathematics - Word for equivalence preserving transformations of equations

I am searching for a mathematical term describing an algebraic manipulation of an equation which preserves equivalence. So while adding 2 to both sides of an equation results in an equivalent equation, squaring both sides does not. In German, there is the word "Äquivalenzumformung" (literally: equivalence transformation). Is there a similar word in English?

higher category theory - Is there a meaningful difference between biased and unbiased composition?

In higher category theory, there are notions of biased and unbiased definitions of composition of $n$-morphisms (or, as a special case, tensor products of objects). In the biased framework, we define what it means to have a $2$-fold composition of $n$-morphisms as well as the $0$-fold composition (i.e., the identity $n$-morphism), and then we add in some sort of coherent associativity relating the various ways of composing $k$ $n$-morphisms for all $k$. In the unbiased framework, we define, for all $k$, the notion of a $k$-fold composition of morphisms, and then give compatible isomorphisms between a $k$-fold composition and the various composites of smaller-fold compositions.

The traditional definitions of mathematics lean strongly towards the biased framework. Perhaps the simplest example is a group (or monoid), which is usally defined as having a binary operation ($2$-fold product) and identity ($0$-fold product), with the condition that $(xy)z = x(yz)$. Of course, this definition is easier to write out than an unbiased one. In the unbiased world, we would define a group to have a $k$-fold product for all $k$ and then say that for any $k_1, k_2, ldots, k_r in mathbb{N}$ such that $sum_{i = 1}^r k_i = k$, and any $x_{11}, ldots, x_{1k_1}, x_{21}, ldots, x_{2k_2}, ldots, x_{r1}, ldots, x_{rk_r}$, the $k$-fold product of the $x_{ij}$ is equal to the $r$-fold product of the $k_i$-fold products of the $x_{ij}$. However, the relative simplicity of biased definitions seems to vanish as one moves up the $n$-categorical ladder, as more and more complicated coherence axioms are required for fully weak notions of composition of $n$-morphisms.

It seems that in many cases, an unbiased definition feels more natural. For instance, when defining tensor products of modules, we use a universal property, and this universal property definition works just as well for any number of modules as it does for two. Moreover, the universal property immediately provides the relevant maps from the $k$-fold tensor product to composites of smaller-fold tensor products, whereas I'm not sure of an obvious direct way to give an isomorphism $(X otimes Y) otimes Z to X otimes (Y otimes Z)$ without using elements or at least implicitly going through the three-fold tensor product.

Ross Street, in his review of Leinster's Higher Operads, Higher Categories (which is a good reference for biased and unbiased definitions), seems to imply that the difference between unbiased and biased notions is more technical than foundational. Is this the case, or are some concepts of tensor product or morphism really more suited to a biased or an unbiased interpretation? It seems, for instance, that the theory of Lie algebras of Lie groups is rather firmly planted in a biased definition of group, as it relates to the failure of $2$-fold products to commute. Is there a formulation of Lie algebras that is unbiased? Do biased or unbiased definitions better lend themselves to categorification?

EDIT: I should probably clarify what I mean by technical vs. foundational. I imagine any biased gadget should be equivalent to an unbiased one and vice versa, so I'm not envisaging the creation of new types of objects by taking an unbiased viewpoint. Rather, I'm asking if the unbiased viewpoint can provide fundamental insights that the biased viewpoint cannot (or vice versa).

An example of such a foundational reformulation would be the use of the functor of points in algebraic geometry. That you can view schemes in terms of their functors of points is a triviality, but this change of reference frame is more than a technical convenience; in fact, it buys us a great deal. For instance, it leads to the theory of algebraic stacks. It might have been possible for algebraic stacks to have been developed in the absence of the functor of points, but I imagine that it would have taken much longer and would be less elegant and more inaccessible.

So my overarching question is, might viewing composition in one way or the other be more than just a technical convenience?

grammar - What's the meaning of "should we be interested"?

I contacted someone and he replied:

...

I've passed your information along and someone will get back to you should we be interested.

After sending him another message he replied:

...

... will return should we be interested.

Is this a question?

I've passed your information along and someone will get back to you. Should we be interested?.

What do I have to reply? What's the meaning of this expression?

ap.analysis of pdes - Why is the harmonic oscillator so important? (pure viewpoint sought). How to motivate its role in Getzler's work on Atiyah-Singer?

I too am but a mere graduate student trying to sort through some of these same issues, but I might have some helpful insight. I'll let you be the judge.

The basic idea behind the heat equation proof of the index theorem is to extract the right term in the asymptotic expansion for the heat kernel and then appeal to the McKean - Singer formula. According to my understanding the original strategy for doing this was to realize that the index is a cobordism invariant and thus it would suffice to do enough explicit calculations on generators for the cobordism group until all free parameters are fixed; as it turns out the complex projective spaces are a good choice. That's exactly what was done. I believe - and I really hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't gotten my hands dirty myself - that the required calculation really boils down to dealing with the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator when you work it out for $CP_2$. If this is correct, then the first hint that the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator is important came from a very fundamental example.

But I think a more analytic answer is also possible. Let's say instead of working with a Dirac operator acting on smooth sections of the spinor bundle you instead just consider the usual scalar Laplacian acting on functions. What happens if you imitate the heat kernel proof in this much less subtle context? You wind up reproving Weyl's asymptotic formula for the eigenvalues of the Laplacian. In essence this calculation amounts to rescaling the spacial variable so that your operator is deformed into the constant coefficient operator obtained by freezing coefficients. The basic idea of the Getzler calculus is to rescale both the spacial variable and the Riemannian metric in a compatible way - this rescaling deforms the Clifford algebra into the exterior algebra (thereby making Clifford multiplication act like an order one operator) and hence the Dirac operator into a polynomial coefficient operator. What polynomial coefficient operator is it? We have reached the limit of my ability to motivate things any further, but the answer is the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator operator. I of course have no idea whether or not the physical significance of this operator can be accounted for according to a similar rescaling argument.

I should also mention that the quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator makes no obvious appearance in the original global proofs of the index theorem. It does, however, make a non-obvious appearance via Bott Periodicity which can be proven essentially using Mehler's formula. Nigel Higson and Eric Guenter wrote a very readable paper explaining most of the details of this proof entitled something like "K-Theory and Group C* Algebras". You can find it on Nigel's website, www.math.psu.edu/higson.

The last thing I will say is that I found Getzler, Berligne, and Verne to be a pretty tough way to penetrate this material. The style pays off in some of the later material, but I think I would have had a lot of trouble learning the heat kernel proof of the index theorem for the first time from that book. You might try John Roe's book "Elliptic Operators, Topology, and Asymptotic Methods" instead of or as a supplement.

I hope this has been helpful!

sp.spectral theory - Perturbations of an operator that disconnect the spectrum

The following question came to me while working on a technical matter about transversality in infinite dimension, and I'm really curious to know whether it has an affirmative answer at least under extra hypotheses.

Let A be a bounded linear operator on
a Banach space E. Does it exist a
bounded linear operator S such that 0
and 1 do not belong to the same
connected component of the spectrum
of the operator A_S:= A + A(I-A)S?

That is, S is OK if either 0 or 1 is not in the spectrum of A_S, or if they both are in the spectrum, they should belong to different connected component of it. Thus it may be assumed that 0 and 1 belong to the same component of spec(A), otherwise S=0 trivially solves the problem.

The first idea is to look for S of the form f(A), but this can't work if f is continuous,
since then spec(A_S) is the continuous image of spec(A) with a map that fixes 0 and 1. However, if A admits a discontinuous functional calculus (e.g. a normal operator on Hilbert space), the trick does work.

I do not know the answer to the question even on Hilbert spaces. In a general Banach space the problem seems even harder, due the difficulty of building operators.

I'd very grateful of any suggestion! (Pietro Majer).

edit (17/11/2011).

Here are a few more or less trivial facts that I know.

• For a Banach space $X$, the set $mathcal{A}$ of all $Ain L(X)$ such that there exists $Sin L(X)$ such that no connected component of $operatorname{spec}(A_S)$ contains both $0$ and $1$, is an open set;




• If $Ain mathcal{A}$, then there is $S$ such that $A_S$ is even a linear projector (thus satifying the condition on the spectrum ad abundantiam);




• If $Ain L(X)$ and $A_Sin mathcal{A}$ for some $Sin L(X)$, then $A$ itself is in $mathcal{A}$;




• $Ain mathcal{A}$ if and only if there are closed subspaces $V$ and $W$ of $X$ such that $Vtimes Wni (v,w) mapsto Av + (I-A)w in X$ is bijective;




• if $AX$ is a closed subspace and $(I-A)^{-1}(AX)$ is a complemented subspace of $X$, then $Ain mathcal{A}$.

time travel - Asimov short story about nuke going off in 1945

End of Eternity(1955) is a novel with this plot. Asimov originally wrote it as a short story, it was not published at that time, but this original was later released in an anthology called "The Alternate Asimovs"(1986)

The basic idea was that humanity never developed atomic power and space flight, but discovered time travel technology instead. Since all new developement is being spent in time travel, and since the "Eternals", a cabal of human time travelers, aim to minimize wars and dangerous technologies by altering history, humanity never develops the technologies required to leave the solar system before the whole galaxy is colonized by different races, and humanity eventually dies out in this version of history.

Ultimately, history is altered so that humanity will colonize the galaxy before any other races have the chance to develop, which also prevents the discovery of time travel and the founding of the "Eternity" cabal.

The short story apparently has a slightly different plot and in particular a different ending than the novel. Asimov himself called it weak.

lord of the rings - Where did J.R.R. Tolkien state that Arwen suggested that Frodo be allowed to sail West?

In fact this was mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, though perhaps in not as much detail. This comes after the Ring is destroyed, and everyone is celebrating in Minas Tirith. Arwen and a bunch of other elves have just arrived, and Frodo has gone to talk to Aragorn and Arwen:

The Queen Arwen said: "A gift I will give to you. For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him now when he departs to the Havens; for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. But in my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, and if you then desire it. If your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed."
_{The Lord of the Rings Book 6 Chapter 6: Many Partings}

So when Arwen, like Luthien of old (with whom she was often compared in beauty), chose the mortal life with the man she loved, she managed to arrange for Frodo to take her place if he wanted to.

grammar - Verbs with prepositions in subordinate clauses?

The Original Poster's example is:

• I wonder if I should go visit the people I left so suddenly in that one town I never knew of*?

Although the sentence is perfectly grammatical, a more natural wording for a native speaker might be something like:

• Should I go and visit the people I left in that town I never knew the name of?

The Original Poster's question is actually about when the object of a verb + preposition combination must follow the verb + preposition, and when it can be separated from it. Notice that in the Original Poster's example, the apparent object of the verb and preposition combination precedes the verb:

• ...a town I never knew of.

The structure

Let's have a look at the structure of the verb phrase in a normal subordinate clause:

• I said that I never knew of that town.

Here the verb knew takes as it's complement a Preposition Phrase headed by the preposition of. In other words the complement of knew is the phrase of that town:

• [[knew] [of that town]]

Within the Preposition Phrase itself, the preposition of is taking the Noun Phrase that town as its own complement.

The reason that a town precedes I never knew of in the Original Poster's example is that a town is not the object of the preposition of here. Neither is it functioning as an object of a verb plus preposition combination. Quite the reverse in fact. The string a town I never knew of is actually a Noun Phrase.

The phrase is, more specifically, a noun modified by a relative clause. A fuller version of the phrase could be either of the following:

• a town which I never knew the name of.


• a town that I never knew the name of.

Here the relative clause which I never knew of is modifying the noun town. The structure of the phrase could be represented thus:

• [a] [town which I never knew of].

The relative clause is fronted by the relative pronoun which. Which is actually the object of the preposition of. Because it is functioning as a relative pronoun it moves to the front of the clause. However because which is not a subject in the clause, but, in this case, the object of a preposition, we are allowed to omit it from the sentence, as in the OP's example.

Preposition stranding

Old fashioned prescriptive grammarians might once have argued that leaving the preposition stranded at the end of the sentence like this without a following object was ungrammatical. They might have given the following as a better version of the phrase:

• a town of which I never knew.

In this type of construction, the whole preposition phrase moves to the front of the sentence. This means that the preposition appears before its object as in a normal sentence. Whilst this is perfectly grammatical, it is of course complete nonsense that we cannot leave the preposition stranded at the end of the clause, and most good writers do so, often. Especially in the OP's rather informal sentence, it is far better style to leaver the preposition at the end of the relative clause than move it to the front. One important reason why is that it allows the pronoun which to be dropped from the sentence, which in informal speech and writing is usually preferable. This is not possible if the preposition is fronted:

• a town of I never knew. * (wrong)

The other reason is that both the versions with which and that read very clunkily. The stranded preposition version is by far the least offensive to ones natural ear.

The alternative example

The same sort of principles would apply to:

• a town I never knew the name of.

Only, here, the structure of the original verb phrase is quite different. A canonical version of the clause would be:

• I never knew the name of that town.

In this example the verb knew is taking as it's direct object the Noun Phrase the name of that town. This is a genitive construction where the noun name is modified by the Preposition Phrase of that town. This Preposition Phrase consists of the preposition 'of and its complement that town. Again, in a relative clause, the element which representing town in the clause would be omissible. This time, one option would be to move the whole NP containing the source of the relative word to the front of the clause:

• that town the name of which I never knew.

Alternatively, we could use the relative pronoun whose in a similar construction:

• that town whose name I never knew.

As in the OP's original example, the versions without which or that and also without whose are infinitely better.

Conclusion

In short, when the object of a preposition is relativised and moves to the front of a relative clause, it is perfectly acceptable to leave the preposition at the end of the clause. In normal sentences however, the object of the preposition usually appears directly after it.

Hope this helps