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Pajaholic

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Everything posted by Pajaholic

  1. DING to dodgydaved, and a bonus point for other! Over to you ...
  2. Thanks for the ding. Personally, I love some of the more unusual collective nouns, particularly those that follow stereotypes such as a "Lie" of politicians, a "Squabble" of seagulls and a "Shower" of meteorologists. So, to continue the theme, for the ding give a collective noun that applies to whales and dolphins?
  3. I've heard both "shoal" and "bloom" used in various documentaries.
  4. Radicalmm is Canadian, so I suspect that we're looking for his local international hub. I know it isn't Vancouver (YVR). I can't think of a Canadian city that abbreviates to YZ. So I'll guess Ottawa.
  5. So I suspect it must be one of the ones I'm not sure about. Finland is Suomi in Finnish IIRC (but it's been a while since I last spoke with a Finn), which leaves Canada; which is "Canada" in both French and English. Perhaps Canada is spelled with "K" in some Inuit dialect, so that's what I try next.
  6. I'm trying for the Actic: I don't think it's Scandinavia -- Norway (N), Sweden (S), Denmark (DK) or Finland (FN?). I don't think it's Canada (CA?) or USA (USA?). It's not Iceland (IS) and Greenland isn't a country (it's a Danish territory and so carries "DK"). Similarly, Svalbard isn't a country (it's a Norwegian territory and so carries "N"). That only leaves the northern part of the former USSR. I'm racking my brains, but I can't think of a likely candidate. So I've pretty much ruled out the Actic. WRT other regions, there are way too many countries that are part of the former USSR, way too many Middle-Eastern countries; way too many African countries and way too many in Asia. The UN recognises 196 countries in all, so I suspect that you'll need to narrow it down a little more. Can you at least tell us which continent, or which latitude region (Arctic, Temperate, Sub-tropical, Tropical or Equitorial)? In the meantime, I've just looked at a World map and I'm having another guess at Nicaragua?
  7. Thanks for the ding! On checking after the fact, I note that Rosyth no longer has the HMNB tag and that the official name of the Clyde Submarine Base is HMNB Clyde. Keeping with Royal Navy bases, HMS Rooke used to provide the accommodation for which overseas naval base?
  8. Technically, the naval bases are HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport, HMNB Rosyth and the Clyde Submarine Base. Three of those have associated accommodation shore establishments. HMNB Portsmouth has HMS Nelson; HMNB Devonport has HMS Drake and the Clyde Submarine Base has HMS Neptune. HMNB Rosyth used to have HMS Cochrane until that was decommissioned.
  9. Some clues: 1. You are correct that "R" denotes an aircraft carrier. 2. The Invincible class were HMS Invincible (R05), HMS Illustrious (R06) and HMS Ark Royal (R07). 3. The previous R08 was Centaur class and the previous R09 was Audacious class. Both were in commission when the first of the Invincible class was laid down but decommissioned before the last of the Invincible class was commissioned.
  10. Many thanks. HMS Queen Elizabeth has pennant number R08 and HMS Prince of Wales has pennant number R09. For the ding, what were the previous UK warships to carry those pennant numbers?
  11. Both are currently in build at Rosyth. They are HMS Queen Elizabeth (pennant number R08)and HMS Prince of Wales (pennant number R09).
  12. @speakers-corner: FWIW, that's why I wrote "Mandarin" rather than "Chinese". AFAICT, Mandarin is a common, Imperial language with several dialects rather than a set of languages. Whereas both Chinese and Arabic are language sets (quick Google after the fact shows that Chinese is a macrolanguage comprising over a dozen distinct, individual languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.) and Arabic is a macrolanguage comprising about a dozen and a half distinct, individual languages). So both are like "Scandinavian" -- and we consider Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish to be separate languages even though, like Chinese and Arabic, they have many similarities and share the same root. That said, I'm in this thread to learn and the question setter is always right. You have the ding, and I look forward to your next question!
  13. @speakers-corner: I thought that each dialect of Arabic was its own language -- similar to the situation in Scandinavia (but I could be wrong!) Certainly the Islamic empire was vast, but it was also a long time ago and most of it has had the time to switch to other languages and/or for regional dialects to evolve into full-fledged languages in their own right?
  14. Since we're asked to find the languages most spoken rather than the languages most common as 'first language', English and Mandarin have to be the top two. The next is probably Hindi (India is the most dense large country). We now have the empire languages: Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French and Russian. Spanish almost certainly is there as it's spoken in most of Southern America as well as being a second language in much of Europe. I'll go for Russian as the last simply because the USSR is the most recent large ex-empire. So, English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish and Russian. Edited to add: one day I'll learn to post a synopsis first and edit later!
  15. Close enough. They all founded major guitar making companies. Over to subay...
  16. I don't know what's going on here, but for days my post followed curlingfan11's question in my view of the thread. Today, I got notification that radicalmm had posted twice after curlingfan11 had given the ding -- yet one of his now appears before my reply and the other after; and both before curlingfan11's I'll set the next question on the basis that one of radicalmm's posts gave the ding to me -- and hope that I'm not stepping on someone's toes! Continuing with the musical theme: Christian Fredrick Martin, Bob Taylor, Orville Gibson and Clarence Leonidas Fender are all famous for the same thing. For the ding, what is that thing?
  17. AKA a "sweet potato", it's a musical instrument shaped a bit like an egg with a projection to form a mouthpiece. The body has finger holes. The instrument is played by blowing into the mouthpiece and changing the pitch of the sound by covering and uncovering the finger holes.
  18. FWIW, this came up on a writer's forum some time ago when someone reminded American subscribers that the "octothorpe" is not the GB currency symbol, and asked that they please stop calling it "the pound sign"! The hash symbol is properly called the octothorpe.
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