Random Questions Thread

Hello, fellow writers! Got any question that you can't find answer from Google or Wikipedia, but you don't think it needs a separate thread for? You came to the right place!

Don't be shy, and just ask away. The nice folks here, writers and non-writers, experts and non-experts, will do their best to help you.

The folder below contains links for special interest threads, mostly at OTC, but also from Yack Fest and Troper Coven.

Also take a look at Useful Notes on various topics. They can be pretty useful.

Now, bring on the questions, baby!

edited 11th Apr '18 6:31:51 PM by dRoy

Depends on the school. It's apparently not in my school despite a rule against hats, but in a school with a stricter dress code, it might.

I hate to break it out to you, but in and on are no longer the same word. </obligatory Anglo-Saxon reference>

edited 20th Mar '11 1:25:06 AM by annebeeche

Uhm, what do you mean, both the grammar and AS reference?

It appears that in Old English, "in" and "on" were expressed by the same preposition, "on". You wrote "in" instead of "on", so I felt the compulsion to point it out.

A lot of European languages such as Spanish ("en") also do this, but English is no longer one of them.

Anglo-Saxon reference because I am incredibly obsessed with Anglo-Saxons and manage to make references to them a lot on TV Tropes.

edited 20th Mar '11 1:56:55 AM by annebeeche

Ah, I see. Genius Bonus, much?

Has anyone ever seen a pizza with an odd number of pieces? I know it doesn't make sense, but technically it's not impossible. (A pizza that you yourself cut to an odd number of pieces doesn't count.)

Somebody comes in and asks for a slice after you've cut the pizza, so you cut one of the slices in half and hand one to him.

Not necessarily equal sized pieces, but still an odd number.

I should have clarified that I meant a whole pizza, which was delivered in such a way.

I highly doubt that a pizza would be delivered cut that way, because cutting an odd number of slices takes more work than cutting a number of even slices.

The reason why is because with even slices, you run the blade straight down the diameter, while with odd slices, you have to run the blade up along a radius and to a center.

Yeah, as I said, it doesn't make sense. I only asked because it's not impossible.

it's not impossible for me to go to school by driving down to the airport, taking a plane to London, rent a car, drive all the way to Moscow, fly a plane back to Hartford, catch a bus to my hometown, and then walk the rest of the way to school.

But if I did do that, I would miss several days of school, break several driving laws by not having a license, spend a lot of money, piss off my mom, and quite possibly be late for school, so I'll opt for just taking the bus.

edited 20th Mar '11 4:20:57 AM by annebeeche

What do polices, American ones, do when they find a dismembered body and a half eaten body together? I never got to watch a lot of crime shows to know that.

They'd do the same sort of thing they'd do at most crime scenes, really. Work out about how long the bodies have been dead, identify the bodies if possible, mark out where the bodies lay, dust for fingerprints, murder weapons and other clues, take the bodies to the morgue for more examination.

I could be wrong, but that's my educated guess.

edited 21st Mar '11 6:15:00 AM by annebeeche

Does anyone knows what rhymes with "orange?"

I'm pretty sure that it only rhymes with "orange", but I'm sure that's only the case when you ignore other languages, proper nouns, and any newly created words made up for the express purpose of rhyming with "orange".

Doorhinge?

What's the literature equivalent of Decompressed Comic?

Uh...slice of life maybe? Something which doesn't focus on plot too much is my guess. It sort of hard to translate a visual media such as Decompressed Comic into literature, but that's what I'd go with.

edit to ask, what are the chances of seeing a pick up truck in Europe? I was there for a few weeks in the summer and didn't see any in Italy or France.

edited 24th Mar '11 10:54:57 AM by AwayLaughing

I have. And it was because the method of slicing involved going only halfway through the pizza per slice instead of one end to the other.

I see them often enough that I don't even notice. Not saying that you could wait on a highway for an hour and expect to see one, but we certainly have them. (Greece. I live in a city, so I guess I'm pretty close to average.)

edited 26th Mar '11 12:46:45 PM by Dealan

Are "stone gargoyles" metaphors/similes to describe someone perched on a high place cliche?

edited 26th Mar '11 11:12:13 AM by melloncollie

Not cliche, but redundant, as gargoyles are generally made of stone.

What are some Latin inscriptions that you would commonly, or at least plausibly, find on clocks, other than the obvious Tempus Fugit?

^^ Nuh-uh, what if it's a fantasy setting? :P

Technically, gargoyles are fountain-statues. A non-fountain ugly monster statue is simply a grotesque.

• My character faints at the sight of blood. He attempts to avert this problem by applying a blind-fold. Will this work, or will the sound and smell of gore still make him faint?