Because, as xkcd 169 says, communicating badly and then actung smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. "Orders of magnitude" refers to a decimal system in the vast majority of uses (I must admit I have no concrete data on this, but I can find plenty of references to it being base-10 and only a suggestion that it could be sometihng else).
Unless you've explicitly stated that you mean something else, people have no reason to think that you mean something else.
Some German publishers used to to that for books too, apparently. I've heard at least of cases of it happening to Terry Pratchet and Iain Banks (possibly because they wrote SF/F, which as we all know is not real literature).
Not OP, but ‘collabos’ was a slang word for ’traitor’, describing French nationals who collaborated with the German military occupiers of France during World War 2 (a synonym for ‘quisling’).
At what point does something become part of a tradition or culture? Why does "it started as an ad campaign" preclude something from becoming part of culture?
IIRC some jurisdictions consider any force at all - such as pushing an already-open door further open - to be sufficient to make it B&E rather than simply trespassing.
> Breaking and entering is defined as breaking into a place with intent to commit another indictable offence
England & Wales
> A person is guilty of burglary if they enter any building or part of a building as a trespasser with intent to steal, inflict grievous bodily harm or do unlawful damage to the building or anything in it.
New Zealand
> burglary is a statute offence under section 231 of the Crimes Act 1961. Originally this was a codification of the common law offence, though from October 2004 the break element was removed from the definition and entry into the building (or ship), or a part of it, now only needed to be unauthorised.
AFAIK, trespassing per-se is usually not a crime in England. It is typically considered civil matter. It gets more complicated I think if you get told to leave and resist. And of course trespassing with intent to steal is a crime.
I can understand land, but isn't entering an actual building/home/garage without permission a crime even if it was unlocked? it seems like it should be, but my view is tainted by US law which is overly complicated and varies state to state about severity, but I'm pretty sure it's against the law in every state.
yeah, usually you get a forceful entry charge in addition. You can't just walk into someone's house even if their door is ajar or unlocked. I'm not sure if cracking it and say asking "is anyone here?", My guess it involves actually stepping into the house, for example you're worried about a neighbor if his door is standing open
There is a Douglas Adams quote from 1999 similar to that:
> I don't think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn’t becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it's very new to us. Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people "over the Internet." They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans "over a cup of tea," though each of these was new and controversial in their day.
Worth remembering that King Charles II banned coffeehouses after returning from exile in Europe because he knew the anti-monarchy opposition groups met and discussed things in coffeehouses.
I wonder if this explains cafes in Britain? They just don’t work quite right in the UK. Cafes end up being more like tea rooms, and pubs seem to fill the role of ‘place to meet friends, grab foot and a beverage’.
I’m from Auckland, New Zealand. I also completely acknowledge that our pubs aren’t even close to as good as the ones in every single UK town.
Hmm, what's wrong with British cafes? I'm not saying they're great, just that I'm not sure what's missing!
In popular cafes there are usually plenty of people sitting around chatting and/or co-working on Macbooks, if that's what you mean.
Fun fact: the owner of a once very popular UK cafe chain, Lyon's Corner Houses, was a pioneer in computing. They built some of the first digital computers in the UK purely to manage their booming cafe business! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Lyons_and_Co.
Where I am there are broadly two types of cafe. Places that sell coffee and maybe/grudgingly three or four food items in a cabinet. You shouldn’t buy these items as they may be old and you are slowing down the coffee queue. These coffee shops survive on the quality of their coffee. More or less like a bar, but serving coffee. They are often small and grungy. They might have some limited seating. They are usually closed by about 3pm.
The other sort of cafe has a kitchen and makes food to order. They open until late.
Phrasing it carefully, British cafes didn’t make coffee anything like what I’m used to, and were pretty much a tea shop with a coffee machine. I want espresso with a dot of milk. Short, hot and the stronger the better.
I'd put British cafes / coffee shops into, hmm, 4 categories:
- Old-fashioned tea shop with a coffee machine, as you describe. Go for filter coffee if they have it.
- Big chain with OK, very reliable coffee + light food: Starbucks, Costa, Nero etc.
- Hip place with plywood panelling and very good Australian-style coffee. Often very good Danish-style pastries too.
- Brunch-y food place, again I think this style comes via Australia (and the US). Often very good coffee too (but sometimes only OK).
I don't think we really have the "great coffee but bad food" places you describe. Generally if the coffee is good, the cookies/pastries/cakes/sandwiches or whatever they have will be decent too.
In Netherland a cafe is a place you go to drink beer with your friends. I've always assumed that 'pub' was just the British word for 'cafe'. But maybe we're the outlier here.
But if you go to a coffeeshop instead, you also might not find what you're looking for.
Unless you've explicitly stated that you mean something else, people have no reason to think that you mean something else.