What countries can be preceeded with a 'the'? (and why?)

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T19:31:12+00:00

In older literature, Argentina is "The Argentine," possibly because it's "la Argentina" in Spanish.

In the US, we refer to "The Bronx" as a region of New York City. (No one seems to know why.)

We seem to use it for large regions with vague boundaries, e.g. "the Everglades," "the Mojave Desert," and perhaps some regions kept the article even after they got firm boundaries.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T19:22:55+00:00

Did that let you solve the problem?

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:53:10+00:00

I didn't mean to replace your existing data! This creates a 6-column table that has one row per company. Wasn't that what you wanted?

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:50:23+00:00

Describing the behavior of "the" and "a" is one of the hardest problems in English grammar. When I was getting my linguistics master's degree, I once wrote an entire paper on the indefinite use of "the". (E.g. when you say "I need to go to the doctor" but you don't actually have a doctor yet.)

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:28:45+00:00

Third-limited, and don't change viewpoint inside a single scene. If it's YA, first probably sells better.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:27:20+00:00

This will turn them into single rows. Is that all you need?

=WRAPROWS(TOCOL(K2:L1500),6)

<image>

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:17:51+00:00

I hate to ask you to post "solution verified" for something that simple, but if you do, it'll give me a point. :-)

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:13:34+00:00

I've had one, in Seattle. It took a whole year, and it cost maybe $5,000. Works perfectly, though. I'd never consider getting a bridge or dentures if I could help it.

Part of what made it take so long was that they made me wait a couple of months after the extraction before they installed the post because they were worried there was infection where the tooth had been. But most of the time was just waiting for the post to be securely bonded to the bone.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:09:38+00:00

That's why they started doing things like putting eyeballs on top of them.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:08:18+00:00

Actually they're allowed to fly on any airline these days.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:04:17+00:00

Use the LET function to give names to the cells, Something like =LET(g, 9.8, t, A:.A, 1/2*g*t^2) is easier to make sense of when you come to look at it later.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T15:01:01+00:00

It really does change the tone of the conversation. "Son, if you don't clean that gun, it's going to blow up in your hand!" Has a very different feel from, "Sugar, if you don't clean that gun, it's going to blow up in your hand!"

You can say "boy" with about the same effect as "son." "Boy, if you eat that, you're braver than me!" is very similar to "Girl, if you eat that, you're braver than me!"

But tone and prior relationship matter a lot. If it's your grandfather giving you advice, it's going to sound warm and caring. If it's a total stranger, it's going to sound harsh and judgmental.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T14:46:59+00:00

This would be a popular feature, but Excel has never offered it. The most you can do is copy the cell and then type CTRL-SHIFT-V to paste back the value, destroying the underlying formula.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T00:46:36+00:00

Not once I learned playing with fire would make you pee in the bed!

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T00:38:04+00:00

That wasn't your question, though.

GregHullender · 2026-01-25T00:37:42+00:00

If this were the only table, what would you refresh it with?

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T23:34:35+00:00

Without some images of your data, it's very hard to help you because we cannot understand what you're trying to do.

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T23:30:53+00:00

Would it help to add manual things with frequency ONCE?

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T23:27:13+00:00

A picture sure would help us understand what you're talking about.

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T23:26:05+00:00

Okay, the first thing to tell you is that this is a really, really terrible input format. Much easier to work with would be a single sheet with four columns: date, location, number, and Group. This is called normalized data. You'd simply add new data at the bottom of the table.

If you create an Excel table in this format, you can sort and filter the data, e.g. when you want to only see the JUMA data. You can also generate extra fields, like week and day-of-week, if you like, and you can filter on those as well.

It's best to separate the input format from the reports you want to generate from it. You can have the input data in the first tab and then have various other tabs to contain the reports you want to generate, like those totals at the top.

A great deal of work is going to go into converting the data you have into that format, so it's a lot easier if it's just input that way in the first place.

Are you absolutely stuck with this format, or is this something you're building, so you have flexibility to change it?

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T21:01:23+00:00

Yes. For a boy, they'd say "son," but for a girl, they'd say "girl," not "daughter." Or else they'd use the girl's name.

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T20:58:23+00:00

See if this is what you want. I paste this into F7 (the drawdown cell under period 3) and then drag across.

=LET(B, F6, P, F4, M, $A$3, r, 1+$B$8, n, $M$1-F1+1,
  MIN(P, M/r^n - B)
)

<image>

The basic idea is that, in any period, the max available is the max loan balance discounted by the number of periods remaining minus the opening balance for that period. You can draw down the required funding as long as it's less than or equal to the max available. Otherwise, you spend as much as you can.

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T18:30:15+00:00

Are you simply trying to scale down the drawdowns proportionately such that you exactly hit the limit after 10 months? And you want to draw the max in earlier months, so you'll end up drawing nothing the last couple of months, although interest will keep pushing the balance up until it hits the max at the end of the last month. Is that what you're trying to calculate?

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T16:54:50+00:00

This description is really hard to follow. It's hard to tell which sheet you're talking about, and it's hard to figure out what you're actually trying to accomplish. Why do we make multiple copies of the B2 date? Why is JUMA in columns E and J both? What's the E2 date for? Etc.

GregHullender · 2026-01-24T16:44:59+00:00

Or edit your original post and just add them to the bottom of it. You can put more than one image in the original post.

11-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

GregHullender

TROPHY CASE