Fogbow

MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:29 pm I shopped at Costco this afternoon. It’s not even Labor Day and they have a Christmas tree up.

Sunken Arctic Expedition Ford F-150 Recovered From Ocean
The Arctic Trucks AT44 Ford F-150 fell through the ice, and it took divers and a helicopter to get back on land.

In a first-ever expedition across continental shelf of Canada to the high Arctic, one of their AT44 trucks—based on the F-150—broke through the ice just after the drive was completed. While no one was inside, the Arctic Trucks team initially had to leave it—but they also have a policy of leaving nothing behind. That meant the team needed to recover it, no matter what it took.

It was an unfortunate end to the otherwise successful expedition. Starting from Yellowknife, Northern Territories, the Arctic Trucks team drove all the way to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut without incident the entire trek. According to Car and Driver, during their return to Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island, Nunavut, one of the AT44s broke through the ice due to high currents causing rapidly shifting ice conditions. Hoping to avoid damage to the fragile ecosystem of the Arctic, the Arctic Trucks team worked with Transglobal Car Expedition by GoodGear.org to recover the lost F-150.

It took four attempts, but the AT44 was successfully removed by the chopper and returned to land at Gjoa Haven in Nunavut. Shockingly, save for the driver's side rear wheel, the F-150 is otherwise intact. It's now waiting for the next sealift vessel to return to Montreal, and we wonder what its fate will be after that. Perhaps a perfect candidate for a new "Ford Tough" ad campaign?

It's About the Sound

The deciding factor for which of these words should be used is the sound that begins the word which follows these indefinite articles, rather than the letter which does. And there are scads of words in English that begin with a vowel, but which are initially voiced with a consonant sound (and vice versa).

One, useless, unicorn all clearly begin with a vowel; yet one sounds as though one is saying W, and the other two are voiced with an initial Y sound, and so these would be preceded by a, rather than an (“A one hundred dollar bill”). On the flip side, we have plenty of words that begin with consonants, but which are voiced as though they begin with a vowel (especially for H-words, such as heir, honesty, hourly), and these words are preceded by an, even though they begin with a consonant (“He was an honest man”).

The same rule applies to acronyms and initialisms, which when viewed on the printed page may lead to a certain visual incongruity, especially if readers are not silently voicing the words in their head as they read. For instance, if one were to write about a memo sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (in its initialized form) it would be “an FBI memo”; even though the word following an clearly begins with a consonant, it is voiced as a vowel (“eff-bee-eye”). Should one, however, write about a memo sent by the Central Intelligence Agency (again using the initialism for the name) it would be “a CIA memo.”

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:21 pm Dunno about you, but in all the years we’ve been following them I’ve never said RWNJ, even when I’m reading. It’s always the full phrase. I’m not sure why.

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 11:21 pm Dunno about you, but in all the years we’ve been following them I’ve never said RWNJ, even when I’m reading. It’s always the full phrase. I’m not sure why.

RVInit wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 4:56 pm Gurdeep Pandher always brings a smile to my face whenever he posts.

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:23 pm We were also underwater then. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. We didn't get out from underwater until 280 million years ago. We seem to have stayed high and dry since then. I think the Appalachian Mountains are supposed to have been the highest mountain range ever on the planet, but we're just in the foothills now.

jez wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:51 pm

If I remember my Geology right, the Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges. Just lots of erosion.

Frater I*I wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:22 pm

jez wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:51 pm

If I remember my Geology right, the Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges. Just lots of erosion.

And hillbillies.....

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 5:57 am Except that I don't like plate marks on my squashed food nor food sticking under my plate

Otherwise the performance was impressive.

now let's see him carry the dishes up a flight of stairs

keith wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:03 am

I also don't like all the other lazy ass coworkers that would rather just stand aside and maybe open a door than maybe carry a tray so one guy isn't stuck carrying them all.