Agreed on all counts.

Enough with the spammy questions. I’m not going to convince you and vice versa, and nobody is reading because the conversation has moved on. Good night.

Sure, that’s fair. And of course the guy on the street is not waiting on a linguistics academy for permission to open his mouth.

But you’re gonna have a tough time persuading me that a change like this is somehow “good” for our language. Languages get poorer as well as richer through use. The envy-jealousy case to me looks pretty clear: most people never learned the difference at school, or didn’t understand it, or just didn’t care, and now the rest of us have to accept that there’s no word for “jealousy” any more. Coz the people is always right, innit? It’s this attitude that is really modern.

So many other examples. “To step foot on” springs to mind. Yes, yes, entirely correct, and logical (foot! step!), and probably already in the dictionary. But to me it will always be what it obviously is, really: a mishearing by a lot of people who never saw it in print because they don’t read.

While obviously you’re correct, this is not necessarily a good thing. The jealousy-envy collapse is clearly an impoverishment of language. These are two different concepts and it’s useful to have words for concepts.

FWIW: the doctrine that “whatever people say is by definition correct and wise” is actually a pretty Anglocentric and modern thing. Linguists didn’t always think this, and you won’t get people saying this for French, for example.

Quick primer. This is not the Parliament. This is the Council, the intergovernmental branch of the EU. Specifically, a meeting of national justice ministers. They sometimes vote but their real objective is to find consensus, since the EU is not a federation and it’s politically hard to pass anything against the wishes of national governments. If they can agree, then it goes to the Parliament, which definitely does vote and is obviously a bit more open to influence from ordinary voters.

From the agenda for tomorrow:

Ministers will also exchange views on the concluding report of the high-level group on access to data for effective law enforcement. At this year’s June meeting of home affairs ministers the Council welcomed the group’s 42 recommendations on access to data. At the upcoming meeting ministers will discuss the way forward now that the group has presented its concluding report.

My guess: cultural proximity to Germany, whose national identity is based on engineering and in particular the internal combustion engine.

Related: Italy banned lab-grown meat even tho it doesn’t even exist yet and might never happen.

Remember these things next time you hear farmers and “country folk” claim that they somehow live in closer communion with the earth than the rest of us.

That explains it! My bad.

The hypocrisy and entitlement is infuriating.

The internet has destroyed journalism’s business model. A respected profession has been pauperized. Salaries in freefall, hardly any job security left.

And people who pay nothing (let’s be real, OP is paying nothing) add insult to injury by demanding a higher quality product.

Very surprising and pretty shameful for Italy.

In Paris, car use has been dropping continuously for decades. In recent years the trend has even accelerated. In Copenhagen: forget transit, well over a third of all trips are by bicycle.

The hypocrisy of these kinds of laws really bothers me. Another example: the German ban on keeping single guinea pigs.

The people who passed these (undeniably) good rules are very likely celebrating with chicken wings or ice cream.

It would be so nice if more humans would just stop and think a little.

To mindless downvoters: What is your exact objection to my point? Did you actually read it or did you just vote on the basis of what you vaguely perceived as negative vibes? Would you prefer that things stay the way they are, and that there is no difficult discussion of any uncomfortable subject? Seriously, I sometimes wonder what the point of a discussion forum is. End of rant.

Went there once in the 90s. It was a tawdry place, with games arcades and junk-food stalls next to big pools with orcas in them.

About time.

This data, especially the second graph, is surprising and needs explanation. The trend in transport mode in major cities, i.e. where most people live, is clearly away from cars in recent years.

Correction: I misunderstood, this is ownership not modal share. Sorry.

ITT: the justification for civics education.

Yes it would. As would the almost certain fact that you personally choose not to actually pay for journalism, despite criticizing it liberally.

This is a cynical take that would be disputed by the people you are denigrating.

The world you are advocating cannot work. We have specialized professions for a reason.

Of course. Hence the word “abuse”.

Yes, it is. It’s literally how a complex society works. Do you advocate trusting nobody about anything and somehow doing all the research yourself? Would you dismiss your doctor for their “appeal to authority” when they open a medical textbook? This is silly.

You’re doing exactly what you criticize others for doing.