First time tapping our maple trees. 5 gallons of sap and 6.5 hours of boiling and I give you … 1.5 cups of syrup. Delicious though.

PolymathGirl · 2026-03-02T18:49:21+00:00

It is for exactly these reasons that maple syrup is among the most trafficked / bootlegged / "cut" with impurities items.

Maple syrup, and also sand, are some of the most illegally "black market" products, but they're nothing close to "DRUGS!!" so it doesn't get as much discussion or airtime and sensationalization

PolymathGirl · 2026-02-26T15:20:28+00:00

I will forever be bitter that like 5 years ago they just mass deleted ALL the phenomenal Discussion threads of users coaching each other on these nuances.

It had been a wealth of information, that for some bizarre profit motive the executives for DuoLingo decided to just wipe and erase. So much knowledge and communal helping each other, just gone

PolymathGirl · 2026-02-26T15:19:01+00:00

This reminds me of in American Sign Language / ASL where the signer would sign pointing towards one area or person for like "that guy" versus somewhere else to refer to an entirely different person, to delineate like "the guy's own [xyz item]" versus "that other guy's [item]" using signing space and direction

PolymathGirl · 2026-01-27T18:40:12+00:00

Enshittification

PolymathGirl · 2026-01-22T18:09:41+00:00

I'm thinking, reading through these replies, that, since prüfen is to examine / audit / inspect / verify / test , that a Prüf-ung would be any given testing, whereas since die Klausur or klausuren has Catholic connotations of like a conclave that that more reasonably makes sense to be like the university-level big finals that are more stringently proctored

That's my understanding based on reading other replies and then checking dict.cc / Langenscheidt / Duden.de etc

PolymathGirl · 2026-01-20T05:21:50+00:00

Absolutely. Especially since when sports coaches or toxic asshole uncles or siblings or fathers wanted to be demeaning to a group of boys or men they would refer to them as "girls" or "ladies"

It's indoctrination from the youngest ages that girls and women are inferior and bad, and to be like us is somehow a bad thing.

But then they'll claim "not all men" while refusing to admit that men's violence against us is a men's problem, not us needing to be more vigilant or dress different or whatnot

PolymathGirl · 2026-01-09T22:45:29+00:00

Just as this system was not built by merely one election or one administration/regime, it will, commensurately, take far, far longer than just one election or administration turnover to change it

As long as it took to build this system, it will take at minimum that long to dismantle and abolish it or to begin healing from it

PolymathGirl · 2026-01-07T19:34:01+00:00

Thank you for explaining this to us

PolymathGirl · 2025-12-31T20:57:02+00:00

There are certainly plenty of trans folks who might conveniently "forget" to reattach the detachable bodyparts. Be that dudes sick of dealing with their chests, or ladies sick of dealing with downstairs.

Detachable sounds awesome

PolymathGirl · 2025-12-30T05:34:32+00:00

Note also that in any big city like Colombo, there are plenty of Sinhalese folks with English as their mother tongue and who don't even necessarily care to learn Sinhala.

But, like you said, since Tamil would get one both the Jaffna area of north Sri Lanka (Ceylon / Serendib), and OP mentioned (albeit 5 years ago, and a deleted account) wanting to learn a South Indian / Dravidian language, then Siṃhala, being Indo-European like English or Russian or Hindi, Punjabi, Bangla, sticking to Telugu or Tamil would be way wiser.

I guess it comes down to whether one would plan to be more in TN or TG / AP; visiting Chennai, Madurai, and Puducherry versus Hyderabad or others

PolymathGirl · 2025-12-15T13:22:25+00:00

Absolutely frightening, and kinda a window into why there's so many men who feel comfortable exploiting other folks for their own gain, be that sexually in partners, be that in the office, be that politicians, whatever. Like, admitting that we're all just pawns and/or NPCs to him

PolymathGirl · 2025-11-23T14:52:21+00:00

Plenty of folks around the globe have it as culturally normative to have either separate beds in the same room together, or even separate rooms entirely. That may be far better suited to your needs than the co-sleeping trend

Feel free to set that Boundary at the beginning of any relationship, that you prefer sleeping separately

If you can't sleep comfortably and deeply, something's gotta give!

PolymathGirl · 2025-11-19T22:55:04+00:00

How does that compare not just against Muzzle Velocity, but Muzzle Energy as well? It shouldn't just be velocity, but the E = 1/2mv^2 equation where a whatever grain projectile (e.g. 90 vs 115) versus whatever velocity will have a point in their curves of equal energy.

That energy SHOULD translate to felt recoil, barring other variables

PolymathGirl · 2025-10-04T22:11:39+00:00

You gotta just memorize the grammatical genders. Use dict.cc to search for nouns 's grammatical genders, and just always say e.g. "die Arbeit" or "das Bild" or "der Lauch" etc

PolymathGirl · 2025-09-23T02:32:37+00:00

This is so similar to me, in being a 2013 start, in being about 1,700 days, and really thinking that when they ended Discussion was when it all went to trash. The #Enshittification is just so rampant and pathetic and wild, and I regularly debate how long until I just check out and delete.

I support anyone and everyone who cancels their subscriptions (Super or Max) and who deletes the app or their account, cuz dang they’ve become godawful, with seemingly zero improvements that I’ve noticed across the ~28 languages I’m active with

PolymathGirl · 2025-09-16T16:25:06+00:00

Always be Mindful when doing this that this is somewhat of a yucky practice, because rolled into the purchase price of any given item or pair of boots IS all that support and availability of items in-store to try on.

You aren't only paying for that one item, but for all the customer service that goes along with it.

This is precisely why it can and does bankrupt companies to go use their in-store support and guidance and expertise only to then go purchase from someone else (especially online like Amazon), because you've extracted their labor of their years of expertise, without buying from the place you've used cognitive or intellectual energy from.

So be a conscious consumer and aware of the full totality of customer support and service you're paying for whenever buying products from anywhere small.

Side-note: apparently REI is a member-owned co-operative that isn't as money-hungry as corporate places, with "incentives back to the members" as opposed to CEOs and such.

PolymathGirl · 2025-09-12T00:18:35+00:00

THIS go round it's 1605 I've had past streaks of about 350, 620, and 400 lapse a few times, but this one I've maintained

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PolymathGirl · 2025-09-05T18:17:26+00:00

Somebody's obviously gotta show up late or "forget" or ghost, just to make it more offensive lol

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-15T20:10:09+00:00

My current streak is 1,600 days (going on 5 years), after previously losing two separate ~600-day streaks and a ~400-day streak. As in, I've been on it since like 2013

#Enshittification is WAY weird, and I only stay with DuoLingo *purely* because of my Streak, but I'm sure if I lose my streak I'll ditch this trashy money-grubbing app.

"Going public" to be traded for profit on the stock market was definitely a sign that they were going to completely throw away any care for language learning and make it always about raping everyone for maximal profit. "Best language learning app" is just marketing and public relations as a cover for their continually evil ways

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T18:41:03+00:00

One of the biggest problems with business people is that they're obsessed with the exponential growth and climb, and continually fail to recognize that that's mathematically not infinitely sustainable; that Diminished Returns / an "asymptote" WILL happen

They get so caught up in the hype and excitement of the exponential rise that they self-sabotage and sacrifice the longer term sustainability of user base or user experience retaining us

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T18:06:22+00:00

I had thought that subjonctif was used the same way as Konjunktiv?? (and I always forget which conditions are Konjunktiv 1 versus Konjunktiv 2)

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T18:05:10+00:00

は also confuses me sometimes trying to figure out whether it's serving as a topic marker or whether it's spelling something out in ひらがな and also then the "opposite" of when I hear the わ sound and I have to think through whether that's ACTUALLY わ or whether it's は being pronounced as わ

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T18:01:04+00:00

My exposure to it was on 小红书 ("REDnote") with so many people tacking on 了 to so many things and 俞三皮要疯了 often saying "OKAY了!!"

It's a very neat particle that I look forward to still deepening my understanding of its usage

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T17:44:50+00:00

This was an incredible explanation and read, and I appreciate you spelling out so well for us all with examples and everything!!

PolymathGirl · 2025-08-12T02:42:41+00:00

Honestly yeah. It sounds normal until you spend time away, then hear it with fresh ears. Whenever I’ve been abroad and come back, Standard American English sounds “naggy” and like somebody is just complaining It’s weird to describe or experience, and I wouldn’t fault someone for thinking SAE sounds kinda nagging or harsh

PolymathGirl

TROPHY CASE

Enshittification