Coronavirus - A pale horse,4 men and ....beer

[firlandsfarm]

I think it's got to the stage where every time he opens his mouth I'm expecting lies or garbage and it's just become second nature to attack him.

No problem, I felt the same about Blair and more recently Corbyn!

[Kafkaesque]

In Denmark the virus has traveled to minks, mutated, and traveled back to humans. Found in 10+ so far. Showing signs of not responding to antibodies. Best case, the mutation would need a seperate vaccine.

[greenmark]

In Denmark the virus has traveled to minks, mutated, and traveled back to humans. Found in 10+ so far. Showing signs of not responding to antibodies. Best case, the mutation would need a seperate vaccine.

Your post has astonished me. I've always thought of Denmark as being really PC, environmentally aware, just cool and progressive.
So to discover Denmark has an industry that provides adornments for the rich, at the expense of farmed animals, whose carcasses are wasted is quite shocking. Covid-wise this development may show this intensive farming is being exposed as a really bad idea.

[Kafkaesque]

In Denmark the virus has traveled to minks, mutated, and traveled back to humans. Found in 10+ so far. Showing signs of not responding to antibodies. Best case, the mutation would need a seperate vaccine.

Your post has astonished me. I've always thought of Denmark as being really PC, environmentally aware, just cool and progressive.
So to discover Denmark has an industry that provides adornments for the rich, at the expense of farmed animals, whose carcasses are wasted is quite shocking. Covid-wise this development may show this intensive farming is being exposed as a really bad idea.

We're way behind Sweden in being PC But yeah, and it's been hotly debated for a while before Covid. It's a huge industry by Danish standards though. In fact, our nation of just 5 million people is - or was! - the biggest mink furs in the world. There's absolutely no interest in being the new Wuhan. Every single of the 15 million minks are being put down and keeping any mink will be illegal through 2021.

[greenmark]

In Denmark the virus has traveled to minks, mutated, and traveled back to humans. Found in 10+ so far. Showing signs of not responding to antibodies. Best case, the mutation would need a seperate vaccine.

Your post has astonished me. I've always thought of Denmark as being really PC, environmentally aware, just cool and progressive.
So to discover Denmark has an industry that provides adornments for the rich, at the expense of farmed animals, whose carcasses are wasted is quite shocking. Covid-wise this development may show this intensive farming is being exposed as a really bad idea.

We're way behind Sweden in being PC But yeah, and it's been hotly debated for a while before Covid. It's a huge industry by Danish standards though. In fact, our nation of just 5 million people is - or was! - the biggest mink furs in the world. There's absolutely no interest in being the new Wuhan. Every single of the 15 million minks are being put down and keeping any mink will be illegal through 2021.

Maybe the moment for the Minkburger. Sorry, that may appear to be making light of a massive knock to a significant Danish industry. No offence intended. In the UK we perhaps don't understand the concept of using your resources wisely. Our approach was imprerialstic invasion and exploitation of other countries (worldwide). And thats just the way it was. Not good, not bad, just c'est la vie.

[superfrank]

In the UK we perhaps don't understand the concept of using your resources wisely. Our approach was imperialistic invasion and exploitation of other countries (worldwide).

If I remember my history correctly the Danes did their fair share of invading and pillaging.

[greenmark]

In the UK we perhaps don't understand the concept of using your resources wisely. Our approach was imperialistic invasion and exploitation of other countries (worldwide).

If I remember my history correctly the Danes did their fair share of invading and pillaging.

In the UK we perhaps don't understand the concept of using your resources wisely. Our approach was imperialistic invasion and exploitation of other countries (worldwide).

If I remember my history correctly the Danes did their fair share of invading and pillaging.

Well, quite. And perhaps that is one of the many places we drew our ability to wander and exploit (both in a good and a bad way). We are a mongrel nation and I'm chuffed with that fact.
I family friend has told me that the english language is heavily inlfuenced by norwegian and danish. Which may explain their ability to speak English better than most english people.

[firlandsfarm]

... Which may explain their ability to speak English better than most english people.

I always thought they learned English as being the most 'international' language because nobody other than they can speak their language!

[to75ne]

... Which may explain their ability to speak English better than most english people.

I always thought they learned English as being the most 'international' language because nobody other than they can speak their language!

i always thought it was just the natural order of the world. if your going to bother learn another language, surely you learn the only sensible one first.

[firlandsfarm]

i always thought it was just the natural order of the world. if your going to bother learn another language, surely you learn the only sensible one first.

I guess it's a sort of inverse curve in that the more your native tongue is spoken around the world the less you speak English ... I have been to many places where French, Spanish, Portuguese etc. (the other great explorers of the world) is the main or secondary language (Caribbean, South America and Africa) and the knowledge of English is very limited.

[Kai]

... Which may explain their ability to speak English better than most english people.

I always thought they learned English as being the most 'international' language because nobody other than they can speak their language!

Because English is just one of the many Germanic languages and the vast majority of the most used words actually have Germanic origin. Same as Danish, Dutch, German etc that all belong to the same language family, so it's all obviously much easier to learn.

While on the other popular branch of Indo-European languages you have Italic languages, with the likes of Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. That's why they all sound very similar and use the same words, and if you become fluent in one of them it is extremely easy to learn another from that same branch.

But yeah, Scandinavians generally find English very natural to learn and speak, besides the likes of Finland whose language belongs to the Baltic branch and is vastly different. From personal experience Danes are the only people I've met so far that sometimes don't even have an accent when speaking English, I could barely tell despite having a good ear for these sorts of things.

[Crazyskier]

... Which may explain their ability to speak English better than most english people.

I always thought they learned English as being the most 'international' language because nobody other than they can speak their language!

Because English is just one of the many Germanic languages and the vast majority of the most used words actually have Germanic origin. Same as Danish, Dutch, German etc that all belong to the same language family, so it's all obviously much easier to learn.

While on the other popular branch of Indo-European languages you have Italic languages, with the likes of Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian. That's why they all sound very similar and use the same words, and if you become fluent in one of them it is extremely easy to learn another from that same branch.

But yeah, Scandinavians generally find English very natural to learn and speak, besides the likes of Finland whose language belongs to the Baltic branch and is vastly different. From personal experience Danes are the only people I've met so far that sometimes don't even have an accent when speaking English, I could barely tell despite having a good ear for these sorts of things.

Interesting! Though as a well-travelled linguist, I can tell you that Portuguese, Italian and Spanish while Latin-based, are quite different and nothing like 'easy to learn from another of the same branch'.

The similarity between Danish, Swedish and Norwegian is far, far closer than any of the Latin-based languages. Finnish however (Suomi), is more Russian-influenced and very different to the other Scandi dialects.

The toughest European languages I have studied (thus far) were actually Greek and Polish and they are both a work-in-progress.

There's one word that always comes back to me as it's the same in most of the Latin AND Germanic languages. Can you guess what it is?

Answer: Ananas (pineapple).

CS

[Kai]

It all still belongs to the same language tree, so it's considerably easier to learn compared to the likes of Mandarin, Arabic or Japanese where you would most likely have to start from scratch because they may feel a bit alien

[greenmark]

BJ says " this is not a repeat of the spring".
So is that better or worse?

[Derek27]

BJ says " this is not a repeat of the spring".
So is that better or worse?

It's worse as Autumn's colder than spring. But it's better now that we all have a supply of bog roll.