Yep I sure am still here

So the official term for this, when a kanji is read one way in some contexts and a different way in others, is usually a case of onyomi vs kunyomi. -yomi, "reading" (from yomu "to read") basically categorizes words into whether you read them with the chinese pronunciation or the japanese pronunciation.

There are a lot of complicated factors that go into this but the easiest way for english speakers to wrap their heads around it is that the Japanese language ended up with multiple sets of vocabulary in the same way that the English language did with the Germanic language/Romance language split; you have one set of vocabulary for common, everyday use that derives from germanic vocab, and then another set of vocabulary for fancy, formal use that derives from Latinate vocab. The classic example is using swine to describe the animal, which the Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxon farmers and handlers would tend to, and porc to describe the meat, which the French-speaking Normans would eat. But pretty much every word in the English language has some degree of casual-formal duplication of this kind.

Much like European scholars did with Latin, a bunch of vocabulary got imported by the literati of Japan starting around about the 5th century in order to have a different and more formal register to talk about certain topics. This was imported alongside the Chinese writing system at the same time, which then over the next few centuries was shifted into a simpler, non-logographic, syllabic script that became hiragana (the wavy one.)

But that means that a bunch of imported Chinese vocabulary was conventionally written in their original-or-close-to-it hanzi form, and spoken with their original-or-close-to-it Chinese pronunciation. Words of this type have a much higher incidence of long vowels, left over from the Chinese where each character would represent a single complex syllable varied by vowel intonation, compared to native Japanese words which are polysyllabic and hit more consonants.

So, the system has evolved in various directions over time, and now there are a lot of ways that a single character can be read depending on positioning and context, but the broad strokes are: if the kanji is mostly on its own, surrounded by hiragana, it will take the Japanese reading (kunyomi) and if it's part of a compound word, paired with other kanji, it will take the Chinese reading (onyomi.) The more formal the text -- especially notable with medical, scientific, or governmental texts -- the more dense and compacted it will get, with a much higher ratio of kanji compounds to hiragana, and a correspondingly higher dose of onyomi readings.

To leave off with one example: the video above highlights (手), which is 'hand.' When it appears by itself surrounded by simple words like participles, it takes the kunyomi te, like in the sentence 'take my hand' (手を握って, te o nigitte.) But if you are using it as part of a more abstraction concept, like in 手動 -- done by hand, or manual, see how the english term underwent the exact same shift into latinate when it gains a level of abstraction? -- then it becomes part of a compound word with another kanji. Now it takes the onyomi shu, to become part of the compound word shudou. Catch that long vowel! If it weren't part of a compound word, that 動 by itself would take the kunyomi hataraki, for motion or action.

'Troupe', 'troop', and 'thorp'. Loaned from French twice, as well as the homegrown term for a small village/group of houses.

'Pack', and 'bailey'. Native word and French loan.

"Sir', 'sire', 'seigneur' and 'Monsieur'. All from French at slightly different times and in different contexts.

Same with 'dame', 'dam', 'madam', and 'ma'am'.

'Mister', 'master', 'magister' and 'maître d'. All from Latin and French.

To 'spout' and 'spit'. First is from Dutch, second is native English.

To 'wake', 'watch' and 'wait'. First two are native English, third is from French.

To 'ward' versus 'guard'. Same word, but the second one was borrowed into Latin and then back into English from French.

Okay so I love golf. I really do. But golf courses are such a fucking waste of space and resources. A golf course is anywhere from 20 to 200 acres of open land. For comparison, a football field is 1.32 acres.

And that open land is JUST grass. Manicured grass. Nothing else. You may have little patches of trees or shrubs, but the point of a golf course is to hit the ball to the goal in as few shots as possible, meaning you need to hit it as FAR as possible in your early shots, meaning your pathway needs to be unobstructed.

The average amount to keep a lawn "watered" properly is one inch per week. Apparently there is 27,154 gallons in 1 acre inch of water. For a football field, which is, again only 1.3 acres, that's 35,843 gallons per week. (27,154 x 1.32) Only about half of the 30 total NFL stadiums use actual grass, while the rest use artificial turf.

For a 20 acre golf course that is 543,080 gallons of water/week, for 200 it is 5,430,800 GALLONS OF WATER EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

A football field uses 6.6% of the water if the SMALLER end of golf courses. That means a FOOTBALL FIELD uses 0.66% of the water of the biggest golf courses.

One person, on average, drinks 58 GALLONS OF WATER PER YEAR!!!!!!

This math works out to the SMALLEST golf courses using enough water for 486,899 people to drink in a year.

Not to mention that the average size of a plot of land for a detached suburban house is ONE FIFTH of an acre, meaning a 20 acre golf course could house 100 people and a 200 acre golf course house 1,000 people. Plots of land in my town are around HALF that, so if you put houses as close together as where I live, you could house DOUBLE the amount of people. And this isn't even accounting for more than one person living in a home.

The last Friday of Spring vs the first day of Summer

Eiland, darling, if you put on a pair of glasses it would be no contest, I wouldn't even look at the other marriage candidates. March whom? Caldarus whomst? Actually it is a tragedy that this nerd isn't wearing glasses.

The Grammys didn’t create that “Best Asian Music” category this year to be diverse. They did it to continue boxing non English speaking artists but especially BTS, so they won’t have to nominate them in the main categories with the rest of their peers. This was the Grammys telling BTS they’ll give them a Grammy win but under their own boxed category. We give you the scraps and you are supposed to take them. They said no.

They’ve been doing this for years under the disguise of diversity. “Best Traditional Country Album” a new category introduced after Beyoncé won in the Best Country Album category because they couldn’t stand a non white artist redefining that genre. “Best African Music” being introduced in 2024 to keep Tyla away from other pop girls. And “Best Latin Song” being introduced for this year along with Best Asian Music after Bad Bunny right fully dominated all of the charts last year.