The Al Realpolitik Institute of Sulfur Mining & Extraction

[platypeanArchcow]

Wait, how are you people pronouncing these words? The vowel sound is traditionally transcribed as /ʌ/, but in my English it's much closer to [ə], which can of course be represented by any of six letters.

This is making me wonder if I actually distinguish between /ʌ/ and /ə/. I don't think I've read anything about such a merger.

You're right -- in the US in general, and in California in particular, this vowel is more centralized than in other varieties of English.  (My 12-year-old brother's pronunciation of short vowels uniformly confuses me by exhibiting way too many of the arrows on that chart.)  And of course in Indian English it's much closer to [ə], I don't know how much that influences you.  But /ə/ is also a fluid concept -- the French one is very nearly [œ], and the English one is much closer to, well, [ʌ].

The answer to your question is that it's not really relevant whether they sound the same because they're in complementary distribution -- /ʌ/ is always at least weakly stressed.

[Landslide Lyndon]

While Meeker and I are technically different people, I will nonetheless accept my accolades.

Always here to make you feel good.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You realise you're not actually a fictional politician, just some guy on an obscure internet forum, right? Who is the intended audience of this vapid drivel?

[Paul Kemp]

...

You do know this is a high school newspaper?

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[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Context

Yeah, you did. You also told us he's irrelevant in this race. You also don't let your kids watch The Simpson's yet have no problem posting pictures of your children on the Internets. Do I need to go on with your stupid ideas or will that due for now?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I would read this if you put more asterisks and capital letters in the title.

[Gustaf]

Not surprising if true. Newt's focusing on the South.

At this point, he'd do better to focus on Christmas.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Sigh.

That post would've been an absolute direct hit if anybody else but you had said it, BRTD.

[Oakvale]

No doubt, youngs today are stupider than ever before.

If you don't want to do any thinking at all, why even post here? I get that lamenting the inevitable moral decay of society from some invented past is your thing, but that statement was unusually vapid and sophomoric even by those standards.

[Paul Kemp]

i need a hint to what the c word is

You are one.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Whack-a-Mole may be back for a fortnight.

Will you just shut up already? We get it. Whack-a-mole. Ha ha. Well done.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Write-in: make him shut up.

you're seriously the worst poster with above 20k posts I have ever seen.

[Paul Kemp]

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.

Oh my God

This is a reference to a classic moment of the 2008 Democratic primary, circa late April of that year, in case you were too young to experience it at the time.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Can a Presidential candidate for once use a screamo metal campaign song rather than a sappy country or pop ballad?

For implying that such a thing as "screamo metal" even exists.

For implying that anyone else cares about such a thing as "screamo metal"

[Mr. Morden]

This whole debate with J.J. about Santorum's poll standing in Iowa is hilarious:

haha J. J.

The two polls with Romney leads were in October, well after the Bachmann surge.

Your claim again, was:

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But, really, keep digging this hole, it's fantastic.

I missed those two and was looking at the end.  Somebody was jumping up, I thought it was Bachman.  

By Bachman, you mean Bachmann.

By two, you mean five.

By "Somebody was jumping up, I thought it was Bachman," you mean, "man, I really made myself look like a grade-A schmuck."

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Further proof that people with positive social PM scores are horrible people.

You know, after this comment, I think it's time to stop holding my tongue on what I've thought of you ever since the first post of yours I had the misfortune to see: you are quite possibly one of the most ignorant hacks I have ever met on a political forum. And give yourself a pat on the back, because I've been to a lot.

Just to put it out there. And before you try and claw my throat out for being a fascist(not that you would know the actual meaning of the term), I would like to reiterate that I think Rush is the scum of the earth.

[Joe Republic]

This is bad and you should feel bad. I recommend you stop this drivel and get a nice stable job as a janitor with no internet access.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

This is bad and you should feel bad. I recommend you stop this drivel and get a nice stable job as a janitor with no internet access.

Truly one of the best contributions, Naga......Joe licks his chops to find ones like this

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Have to read in context to get the full understanding of why it's so brutal:

I guess, the conclusion of this thread should be that Ben Karoubi

a. Does not know much about the US constitution
b. Is not fully English-speaking - which might explaing (a) 

[dead0man]

I still don't understand how a thread celebrating insults of one poster to another is allowed to exist if people are regularly being infracted for insulting one another.  Seems a bit....counter productive.  Even more so when you look at how many mods are posting and being quoted in it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I still don't understand how a thread celebrating insults of one poster to another is allowed to exist if people are regularly being infracted for insulting one another.  Seems a bit....counter productive.  Even more so when you look at how many mods are posting and being quoted in it.

You're a damn killjoy, aren't you ?

[dead0man]

So you don't understand either heh?

[opebo]

I still don't understand how a thread celebrating insults of one poster to another is allowed to exist if people are regularly being infracted for insulting one another.  Seems a bit....counter productive.  Even more so when you look at how many mods are posting and being quoted in it.

But the rules don't apply to the mods, obviously, dead0man.

[Joe Republic]

I still don't understand how a thread celebrating insults of one poster to another is allowed to exist if people are regularly being infracted for insulting one another.  Seems a bit....counter productive.  Even more so when you look at how many mods are posting and being quoted in it.

It's a celebration of witty retorts (for the most part).  Plain old insults usually don't fall into that category.

[Paul Kemp]

I still don't understand how a thread celebrating insults of one poster to another is allowed to exist if people are regularly being infracted for insulting one another.  Seems a bit....counter productive.  Even more so when you look at how many mods are posting and being quoted in it.

shut up