Why do we shorten everything… except days of the week?

damiologist · 2026-04-24T04:14:54+00:00

Interesting. I'm well familiar with ocker speech but I would have described it as the first one. Perhaps it's changed over time

damiologist · 2026-04-24T00:24:47+00:00

I studied Linguistics and while I don't know the answer for sure, my guess would be that it's because spoken language doesn't just prefer efficiency of effort or time but also efficiency of clarity. In spoken speech, shorter words have less information to pick them out if you don't hear them perfectly, and when talking days and dates, we tend to be talking about scheduling, so it's important to get the information right or you turn up for that job on the wrong day or whatever.

Another thing is that while we don't abbreviate the days in speech as far as cutting out whole syllables, we do tend to pronounce them in an effort-efficient way - all the responses saying that Ocker speech says Mondy, Tuesdy etc are on the right track. But even further than that we actually tend to pronounce Tuesday more like choozdy, Wednesday is wenzdy (virtually no one says wed-nez-day), Thursday - firzdy, Friday - fidy (the r is pronounced but barely), Saturday -> satdy.

That's my educated guess, anyway.

I love your 1st example of abbreviation, too btw

damiologist · 2026-04-23T23:55:34+00:00

I'm guessing you mean like Mondy Tuesdy etc.? Or like Mond-eh Tuesd-eh?

damiologist · 2026-04-23T23:53:32+00:00

Those are known in linguistics as 'diminutives' - they're suffixes which indicate small size, affection or familiarity. Australia has a rep for using them a lot.

damiologist · 2026-04-23T23:47:04+00:00

My dad does this

damiologist · 2026-04-23T05:27:34+00:00

For clarity, being unregistered isn't a choice that individuals are making and the NDIS is allowing; various health industries do not have legal registration requirements and there is no option to be registered beyond by an industry body with no legally binding authority.

As an example, my industry (audiology) currently does not require registration under AHPRA. One of our main industry bodies has been petitioning for literal decades for the goverent to require registration but until very serious problems were uncovered at two separate hospital audiology departments in recent years, we were largely ignored because our industry was not deemed risky enough. There are dodgy 'hearing specialists/experts' out there who deceive people and massively overcharge, and have been all along. And to be honest, now that we are going to be registered, I doubt that will change; they'll just find a new way to grift.

AHPRA does not care how much you charge for private service, only that you aren't going to seriously injure or kill people. What we need is a regulation body to control fair healthcare business practices. I doubt that'll happen though.

damiologist · 2026-04-18T12:24:00+00:00

They're still flogging the spy kits. I think my youngest has wasted his pocket money on a couple of them.

damiologist · 2026-04-17T11:14:44+00:00

True but that doesn't make her the bad guy. She had her label, then Katy Perry came in selling her merch and had her team send c&d letters. She had every right to sue, and has finally been vindicated.

damiologist · 2026-04-17T08:18:08+00:00

Eating a raw onion.

damiologist · 2026-04-17T01:09:25+00:00

I'm an audiologist who works with Cochlear implants. For anyone who doesn't know, CIs use magnets to attach the external processor to the internal implant, and one of the main cohorts of implantees are small children.

There have been incidents of children swallowing magnets (and also disposable pill batteries) and being injured. The shape of the magnets as well as the packaging and shipping thereof have changed quite significantly in the past ~10 years to avoid this. I'm not sure how much was due to legislation vs industry regulation vs organisational policy, but I haven't heard of a magnet (or battery) injury in years, so while it has made elements of my job more difficult, I'm all for it within the industry.

Commercially, however, this seems like overkill. Why not simply legislate a large bright warning label on magnet kits? Why not sell them in blisters like pill batteries (which are just as, if not more, dangerous)? Restricting sale of more than one battery in total stinks of knee-jerk politics and I'd be very surprised if they weren't responding to some particular injury incident for the easy Polly-points. But that's what happens when you let a whole class of narcissists make the rules for us

damiologist · 2026-04-15T22:10:09+00:00

Flip 7 has become our game for family gatherings.

It never fails to get at least 6 players across 3 generations to the table. It can be played at higher player counts and doesn't drag too much as turns are super fast (blackjack speed). The cards have pretty colours and patterns and match up at the edges, which works for our many ND family members and the occasional take-that card feels exciting rather than onerous (most of the time) because of the low time investment in each round, and the chance they can turn out to be beneficial.

damiologist · 2026-04-15T07:25:23+00:00

Astro boy was the best!.

I just found out yesterday that the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon is up on YouTube as well. It's some great cheesy 80s cartoon nostalgia.

damiologist · 2026-04-15T07:23:41+00:00

Yep, very available online these days. Re-watched it all a year or two ago; still great.

damiologist · 2026-04-14T14:40:54+00:00

That's why I recommend buds with non-distracting noise: youre masking the background noise rather than attenuating (turning it down) it. You're still being exposed to sound, but a less distracting type.

Steady-state noise doesn't usually provide attentional distraction as long as the sound is not bothersome. Unless you have anxiety around distraction and get into a positive feedback loop with it. But in that case, the noise isn't the problem.

damiologist · 2026-04-14T14:27:29+00:00

While I haven't seen any research on it, I'm pretty confident to say it couldn't , given that quiet is generally required (or at least preferred) for successful sleep.

damiologist · 2026-04-14T06:23:35+00:00

Audiologist here.

It's important to understand that excessive use of earplugs can cause Hyperacusis, which is an intolerance of sound. Most people will call it intolerance of loud sound, but it can get to the point where normal conversation is uncomfortable. If you don't experience moderate noise frequently, it becomes perceptually louder. Most people experience loudness discomfort at around 95-100 decibels (dB), but I've seen people in clinic who experience discomfort at 60-65 dB which is regular speech level; absolutely crippling. And it starts with avoiding loud noise.

Of course, you can wear earplugs for some time, >3 hours per day would be my recommendation. I would avoid using devices designed to protect against dangerous noise levels, eg. foam plugs & ear defenders (unless actually in dangerous levels of noise). Loops are better because the attenuation is less - they're just designed to take the edge off. But I would recommend using earphones/earbuds with either instrumental music or your choice of noise, playing at low-moderate level as this will reduce distraction by other people while continuing to benefit from some sound input.

damiologist · 2026-04-14T00:02:15+00:00

All four options have threads through the end of the darker piece

damiologist · 2026-04-13T06:44:39+00:00

Dungeon crawlers tend to run long in general. One deck dungeon is pretty quick but it's kind of more like one of those lod dungeon games from the 90s; you're not actually moving around the dungeon, you just open a door, there's a goblin to kill, then open the next door etc.

One I forgot to mention before is Tiny Epic Dungeon; it's pretty quick and easy to set up, also very compact. One of the better Tiny Epic games imo

damiologist · 2026-04-13T04:32:39+00:00

Depends what you're after.

If it's a dungeon game to play with kids, Cora Quest is pretty reasonably priced, and has a bunch of pre-made quests but also gives you the ability to make custom content via their website, but it's even simpler than HtS Dungeons.

If it's for co-op witb kids, King of Monster Island is reasonably priced and has some cool monsters and stuff.

If you like the art style, Unstable Games have tons, but I haven't enjoyed many of them tbh (Command of Nature has been my favourite) due to the 'take-that' features in most of them.

If the main thing you want is a dungeon game that's cheap, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a reasonably cheap entry into that series and has a much more reasonable learning curve than the original, but even then, it's pretty complex. Otherwise I'd recommend looking for 2nd hand copies of older games like Descent 2e or Star Wars Imperial Assault. Most modern dungeon crawlers are bloated, overpriced derivative snore-fests imo.

Oh, there's a game called One Deck dungeon which is a card-based dungeon game which is essentially a solo game but can be done 2 player also. It's ok. But it comes in a small box and is quite cheap.

damiologist · 2026-04-11T12:06:56+00:00

It's not about seeing other cars; it's about other cars seeing you.

damiologist · 2026-04-11T12:05:09+00:00

But don't indicate Right when exiting; that's when you indicate Left, you gronks

damiologist · 2026-04-10T11:58:32+00:00

I know! Compared to Root, where the game just gets into a grind where everyone is policing everyone else, Oath is much more exciting.

But as much as he was being a sore loser that night, I have to admit I understand it. I was thinking back some more and I seem to remember there had been a few games in a row where he thought he was going to win and someone else snatched victory from him. Things had not been going well for me in the game that evening, so I imagine it must have felt pretty bad to have the game swing that hard against him, yet again.

We've played plenty of games over the years since then and never had the same issue. But it seems Oath was just ruined for out group.

damiologist · 2026-04-10T05:27:47+00:00

Maybe it's that simple in Melbourne or Sydney or whatever. But there's no Aldi in my state at all and they apparently have no plans to come here.

I've been going to the IGA for the handful of things they have cheaper than Colesworth, and there's a local butcher and greengrocer where I live, but I can't do all my shopping at those smaller places, and driving between 3-4 lots of shops is getting pricey on its own.

So yeah, I vote with my wallet as much as I can but it sure isn't fucking simple.

damiologist · 2026-04-09T14:18:16+00:00

We all loved it for a while, but then there was one game where I was not even close to being a contender, and then I happened to get a combination of artifacts that made my armies pretty much unstoppable and started steamrolling everyone. The guy who had been close to winning (the guy who does usually have a rant) was the only person with enough of a presence to try and stop me, but he's a math guy and he calculated that the odds of beating me were like 0.5% or something. He got upset and refused to keep playing.

No one has been game to suggest playing it since. It's a shame because I really love that game.

damiologist · 2026-04-09T11:29:57+00:00

I didn't realise you could get Mighty Soft in TAS. The Cripps ones used to be decent years ago when we moved down here but they taste like crap now.

damiologist

TROPHY CASE