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Strange questions that sometimes need answering (or not asking in the first place really).

DiogoJ42 said:
Why do minicab / rideshare drivers always fit those stupid tinted covers to the top of the door windows?
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They're designed to prevent wind buffering when the windows are wound down, along with channeling rain away allowing you to open the window a crack during wet weather. A lot of cars come installed with them as standard, ours does.
 
I had a random thought when playing Duolingo the other day… with the rise of gender ideology in recent years, how do languages with masculine and feminine words (e.g. Spanish) handle non-binary people with they/them pronouns?

In Spanish and other languages with gendered words, some words change according to the gender of the person being spoken about (for example, “the waiter” becomes “el camarero” if talking about a male waiter and “la camarera” if talking about a female waiter). But this only allows for a gender binary; you’re either male, in which case “el” is used, or you’re female, in which case “la” is used. A singular form of “they” does not exist as a construct in Spanish, to my knowledge (and I imagine other languages are similar), so I’m curious to know how the likes of non-binary people are referred to in this sort of instance.

Is there a word/grammar construct I’m not aware of? Is gender ideology less of a thing in non English-speaking countries? It was just a really random thought I had the other day while playing Duolingo!
 
Matt N said:
I had a random thought when playing Duolingo the other day… with the rise of gender ideology in recent years, how do languages with masculine and feminine words (e.g. Spanish) handle non-binary people with they/them pronouns?

In Spanish and other languages with gendered words, some words change according to the gender of the person being spoken about (for example, “the waiter” becomes “el camarero” if talking about a male waiter and “la camarera” if talking about a female waiter). But this only allows for a gender binary; you’re either male, in which case “el” is used, or you’re female, in which case “la” is used. A singular form of “they” does not exist as a construct in Spanish, to my knowledge (and I imagine other languages are similar), so I’m curious to know how the likes of non-binary people are referred to in this sort of instance.

Is there a word/grammar construct I’m not aware of? Is gender ideology less of a thing in non English-speaking countries? It was just a really random thought I had the other day while playing Duolingo!
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There isn't a construct that you're not aware of, English is quite fortunate because of the article "the".

Languages like French and Spanish are having to adapt and catch up fast, with a variety of changes and techniques. The first being Neopronouns. In French the most common one would be "iel", which is a combination of "il" (he) and "elle" (she). The slight difficulty with French, is that although it's gaining social acceptance through use by people, it's not recognised by the Académie Française and is unlikely to be for at least another decade.

There are some emerging Neopronouns in Spanish, such as "elle" and "le".

You can use strategies to avoid gendered terms. Using gender-neutral nouns is one option, which isn't technically gramatically correct but isn't incorrect either. "Personne", instead of "homme" or "femme"; "le personnel", instead of "les employés" or "les employées" in French. Epicene words are also an option.

Adjectives are much trickier. One commonly adopted solution has been to use the point médian, a dot between masculine and feminine endings, like "étudiant·e·s". Another has been to use both masculine and feminine forms, but it's still quite a binary approach.

The use of gender-neutral language is still very much in its early days and evolving, it's also not standardised yet in either language. Arguably it actually matters less because gender in language isn't actually about biological sex, which I think is difficult for us to get our heads around. It's entirely a grammatical system that helps with agreement and word order. The use of gender assignments in Romance languages is also,arguably, arbitrary. Whilst some assignments seem logical, there isn't actually any inherent reason behind them.

What is particularly interesting is that the romance languages evolved out of Latin, which was also gendered but had "neuter" too (where we get neutral from). Over time the neuter gender gradually disappeared, with most of its nouns becoming masculine.

The debate within English is about social gender, but we correlate this with grammatical gender when looking at the romance languages, even though they're pretty much separate.

TLDR it's a headfuck. No one's quite worked it out yet, but generally they seem less bothered about it than we do.
 
I was going to put this in our RMC thread, and then I realised we don't have one (maybe we should?) but this thread seemed fitting enough.

What makes a wooden coaster 'no longer' a wooden coaster?

I think it's uncontroversial to say that a hybrid coaster such as Untamed or Steel Vengeance is not a 'wooden coaster' but a hybrid, i.e. a category in its own right. However I read somewhere that the RMC Topper track was intended for use on wooden coasters that wanted to preserve their 'woodie' status (examples: Lightning Rod, Outlaw Run) - so are these not actually hybrid coasters despite being RMC'd and having steel track?

Then you have the equivalent GCI Titan track, which has been used to partially retrack some woodies such as Joris and Wodan - if this was used for a full retrack would that still be a wooden coaster or would it become a hybrid?
 
Wooden coasters usually have metal running rails anyway. The line? Wherever you want. Wooden with metal rails or metal track wooden structure or up your nose, wherever you prefer.
 
Matt N said:
Apologies for a slightly strange question this evening (although then again, I guess that’s what this thread is for!), but there are some people on here who seem very knowledgeable about all things transport and I have a random one about London-related transport.

I was just wondering; is it me, or do the London rail termini and the principal routes into them seem to almost perfectly parallel motorway corridors/routes into London? Obviously it’s a bit more nuanced than this, but to me, a few examples of this would include:
  • The main route into London Paddington closely parallels the M4.
  • The main route into London Marylebone closely parallels the M40.
  • The main route into London Waterloo closely parallels the M3.
  • The main route into London St Pancra’s closely parallels the M1.
  • The main route into London Euston closely parallels the M1 up to about Rugby or wherever the M1/M6 interchange is and then closely parallels the M6.
  • The main route into London King’s Cross closely parallels the A1/the Great North Road.
  • The main route into London Liverpool Street closely parallels the M11.
It could be a complete coincidence or I could be miles off the mark, but it’s just something weird I noticed. Is it only me who noticed this?
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A month late, but the saddo resident motorway enthusiast couldn't resist chipping in.

The basis of much of the main trunk routes are historical, because the importance of the towns and cities are. Londinium was the base camp of Roman Britannia operations, and London still is for the UK today, so naturally there were going to be major trunk routes radiating out of it towards other major settlements.

For example;
The Romans built a fosse way to connect Londinium with Aquae Sulis, both very important cities.
The rivers Avon and Kennet were later made navigable and stretches of joining canals built in the 18th century to create a goods trunk route between London and Bath.
In the 19th century, new steam technology was harnessed to transport people and goods more efficiently, so this route between the cities was complimented by the new Great Western Mainline between London Paddington and Bath Spa.
In the 1920's, the ministry of transport adopted a numbering system for roads in the UK. This system was based on these historical routes, i.e routes radiating from London clockwise. They were numbered A1-A4, A designation meaning it's a primary trunk route. Although route alterations had taken place, the old Roman route between London and Bath still existed and was numbered A4.
Around the same time, another new technology eas emerging, motorcars and motorised haulage. By the 1950's, all these routes were not fit for modern purpose, and the A4 in particular was choked up around towns, villages, and intersections (still is in Bath!). The M4 bypassed much of this older route. It was numbered as such because it started in 'zone 4' in the radial road numbering system, and the M standing for 'Motorway' indicating it is only for use by motorised vehicles and to this day these remain the most primary of trunk routes and entirely maintained centrally by the Ministry of Transport.

Of course a number of factors have meant these routes have evolved over time. If you want to connect 2 rivers and turn them into a canal network, well much of these settlements were near rivers anyway, hence their importance, but geography is more of a factor to consider when building canals than roads. The Great Western Mainline was nicknamed "Brunel's billiard table" due to how much cost and engineering had to go into it's design and construction. Railways need to be relatively flat and as such the line is elevated through parts of the home counties, is elevated all the way through Bath including Bath Spa itself, and goes right underneath a large hill in Box Tunnel near Corsham. By the 1950's, there was more consciousness of the natural landscape, so rural motorways were often built to be as inconspicuous as feasibly possible, and the industrial revolution had changed the importance of some cities. This, and as motorways were also built to bypass roads, means the M4 deviates from the A4, Avon and Kennet canal, and the GWML in a number of places, including staying well clear of Bath itself.

But the main basis of these routes remain unchanged. They even number the roads in zones based on arterials radial routes clockwise from London, although I used the A4, Avon and Kennet canal, GWML and M4 corridor here as all 4 are probably the closest aligned holistic in the country. A close example not related to London though being the A38 corridor. The Bristol to Exeter mainline runs relatively parallel with the M5, sometimes even exactly alongside the north bound carriageway in parts of Somerset and East Devon (easy to spot speeding drivers from the train as it's a 100mph stretch of track and I've often seen cars keep up with the train). The A38 also runs alongside most of the stretch between Burnham-on-Sea and Exeter, it even duplexes with the M5 at twice in this stretch where both are the same road, and continues as A38 beyond Exeter into South Devon where the M5 ends. The M5 diverges quite a bit from the A38 and rail lines in North Somerset (A38 heads south through the northern edge of the Mendips, M5 stays closer to the North Somerset coastline, BEML runs between them), through Bristol (A38 runs right through the centre of the city South to North, BEML enters in the west and Cross Country route leaves the city from Temple Meads and heads north, M5 stays to the North of the city and meets up with it again at Almondsbury) and through Birmingham (where the M5 ends and the A38 goes right through it to Derby). But all 3 follow a similar alignment between Bristol and Birmingham, and also the Gloucester and Sharpness, and Worcester and Birmingham canals.

Gravely Hill interchange is commonly referred to as Spaghetti Junction due to it's complex nature and is a good place to use as an example of all these historic routes meeting in a single place. It's where the M6, A38, A5127, Cross City line, Midlands Railway, Birmingham and Fazeley, and Grand Union Canals all clash in the same place.

With a series of canal, A road, motorway, and rail line arterials terminating in London from elsewhere in the country, there's always been a problem of how to distribute this flow once inside it. Hence London's congestion problems. London's advanced public transport network, particularly rapid light rail, distributes people from the main rail terminals. But since canals aren't really suitable for haulage anymore, that presents a problem for freight. Space has always been tight for rail freight. So as early as before the second world war, the 'London Ringways' project was started to connect arterial roads into a series of ring roads to distribute motor traffic around the city.

This ended up as the London Rigways Motorway scheme in the 1960's and 70's. Ringway 1 would have been the inner ring and so forth until Ringway 4 would have circled the entirety of the Greater London urban area. The major motorways would have intersected with them. To use the M4 and M1 as examples, they would have distributed their traffic by interchanging with Ringways 4, 3, and 2 before terminating in inner London at Ringway 1. But obviously, many Londoners, particularly south of the river, weren't best pleased about having their houses and other buildings demolished to make way for all these roads, or having and elevated mortway outside their bedroom window.

But some of these Ringways were actually partially built! That's why there's random stretches of high standard grade separated road in London that hopelessly end on low quality roads. The Westway, North Cross route, and South Cross route are all unfinished parts of Ringway 1. The A127, A20, and A13 were upgraded to eventually become connected as Ringway 2. As for Ringways 3 and 4, much of these were actually fully built from scratch. But when the scheme was abandoned in the 1980's, these Ringway 3 and 4 sections were haphazardly connected together and opened as the M25.
 
is it a common thing for coaster enthusiasts to also be enthusiasts for things like trains, aviation and cars?
 
Here's one to ponder:
They say "[insert First Nations native tribe here] have [n] words for snow".

Yeah, OK, they probably do. Snow matters to them.
But has anyone ever counted how many words we have for rain?

Here's ten, just off the top of my head, and not counting the word "rain" itself, we have:
Shower,
Spitting (it's the fine rain that soaks you through),
Lashing,
Pissing,
Slush,
Sleet,
Globs,
Spits-and-spots,
Cats-and-dogs,
I-don't-need-to-go-to-the-shops-that-badly.

What others can you come up with?
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Here's one to ponder:
They say "[insert First Nations native tribe here] have [n] words for snow".

Yeah, OK, they probably do. Snow matters to them.
But has anyone ever counted how many words we have for rain?

Here's ten, just off the top of my head, and not counting the word "rain" itself, we have:
Shower,
Spitting (it's the fine rain that soaks you through),
Lashing,
Pissing,
Slush,
Sleet,
Globs,
Spits-and-spots,
Cats-and-dogs,
I-don't-need-to-go-to-the-shops-that-badly.

What others can you come up with?
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Banging it down.
Damp.
Good weather for ducks.
Bucketing.
Persisting it down
Wetter than an otters pocket.
Torrential
 
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