what I have learned today.

[hellymedic]

Including ducks...

[T42]

The city of Saverne, that I passed through yesterday, is called Zabern in German. The name comes from the Latin tres tabernae: it was apparently a halt on a Roman road that probably went on into the Pfalz - there's a town NE of here called Bad Bergzabern, on the edge of the extension of the Northern Vosges hills into Germany.

Saverne's town hall:

[Efrogwr]

There's a massive overflow pipe between Kielder and the Tees
 It's only been used twice.

http://www.visitkielder.com/about-us/how-it-all-works

The reason for flooding the North Tyne valley (which was a beautiful landscape) was to supply water to steel works on Teesside.

[L CC]

Dehiscence.

[T42]

I know that word!  I've just forgotten what it means, though.

[L CC]

I'm researching sesame.

Quintal would appear to be the most useless and inconsistent measure EVAH.

[T42]

It doesn't hold still long enough to hit it. A hundredweight in UK English but 100 kilos in American?

[T42]

Nothing to do with it, but German has the useful expression Quartalsäufer - someone who gets absolutely plastered every so often.

[Basil]

That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm researching sesame.

Quintal would appear to be the most useless and inconsistent measure EVAH.

Yes. 50 or 100? Or another number? Pounds or kilograms? Or the equivalent of 50 or 100 pounds expressed in kilograms? Or the equivalent of 50 or 100 kilograms expressed in pounds? Etc

[Cudzoziemiec]

A chap called Lord Rufus Noel-Buxton waded across the estuaries of the Thames, Humber and Severn, using knowledge from helpful locals and a large stick, in order to prove that Roman armies could have crossed major rivers by fording. He walked across the Severn in September 1954, the other two were earlier but I don't know when. He wrote a poem about it:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ford-Rufus-Noel-Buxton/dp/B0006DE7IM

[PaulF]

That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.

For the non-polyglottal amongst you "She is a president, he is a nurse" translates to  to "O bir başkan, o bir hemşire".

Putting it back into English Google Transalate gives:

Translations are gender-specific. LEARN MORE
She is a president, she is a nurse(feminine)
He is a president, he is a nurse(masculine)

[Basil]

That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.

For the non-polyglottal amongst you "She is a president, he is a nurse" translates to  to "O bir başkan, o bir hemşire".

Putting it back into English Google Transalate gives:

Translations are gender-specific. LEARN MORE
She is a president, she is a nurse(feminine)
He is a president, he is a nurse(masculine)

Looks like whoever I was listening to was not being entirely truthful.

[T42]

I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.

[hellymedic]

I know that word!  I've just forgotten what it means, though.

I won't split on you...

[Paul]

I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.

Explique, s’il vous plait.

[Giraffe]

I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.

Changed sex or changed gender?

[T42]

Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle. 

[Giraffe]

le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

[Paul]

Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle. 

Interesting. Is a woman soldier ‘le’ or ‘la’?

[T42]

le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

Nope: un tour is a circuit and une tour is a tower. Different roots.  English has its own six-legged camels: to cleave can mean either to split apart or to stick together. Again, different roots.

[T42]

Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle. 

Interesting. Is a woman soldier ‘le’ or ‘la’?

When that book was written she would have been le until she went on sentry-duty, but PC sticks an -e on soldat as appropriate these days. Similarly, Madame le ministre became Madame la ministre a few years ago.

[Cudzoziemiec]

le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

Nope: un tour is a circuit and une tour is a tower. Different roots. English has its own six-legged camels: to cleave can mean either to split apart or to stick together. Again, different roots.

Janus words, from the two-headed Roman god. There's a whole list of them, some of which I might remember too late to post here.

[T42]

Linguistic enantiomers, as it were.

[hellymedic]

le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

My French might be rusty but isn't the masculine noun a tour and the feminine a tower, in English?
Likewise, 'livre' can mean 'book' or 'half-kilogram'.