i'm amused by zucchini because italian for pumpkin is zucca, meaning theyre just called small pumpkins
This raises the question of who first saw a zucchini and went “this looks like a small pumpkin”...like yeah, they’re both squashes, but that’s about it??
Well, "zucca" can mean any kind of squash, and zucchini are basically a variety that's meant to be eaten before it's ripe.
yeah the older sense of "zucca" is just "gourd/squash," so "zucchini" is just "small squash." i actually found out recently that the zucchini is just a baby marrow squash! and "courge" is french for "marrow squash," so "courgette" is actually a bit more specific of a word. but they both mean "tiny squash" pretty much.
Well, it kinda depends on what you're using it for. It doesn't work for getting accurate information, but if you want the person to say what you want them to say, or to get them to be Compliant, then it's pretty okay.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in that for writing reference: recent research points to some interesting, really unexpected things like "Treat the person like a human being". Yes, this sounds really stupid put that way, but there are, in fact, some interesting things that have been found out, like: It turns out a lot of people want to give you the information: they've got a story to tell. If they think you'll take them seriously, they'll tell you. This is, oddly enough, particularly true of terrorists: if you hint that you're willing to consider their ideological point of view when asking them about explanations (focusing less on the "how" and more on the "why", but you'll still get useful info on both), they're likely to actually answer. You know the "good cop, bad cop" thing? It works exactly as well, if not better, if you take out the "bad cop" part. When someone is trained to resist interrogation, their tactics entirely rely on assuming the other party is evil: aggression only proves that to them.
That would explain so much about my entire life. The part about being interested in people, not the terrorists or bad cops.
When headcanons or trivia that make sense get tainted by association with either terribly written or ridiculous fics. Fat Sollux makes perfect canonical sense but it's never going to make me not think of Homestuck High.
also, when headcanons or trivia that make sense get tainted by association with assholes who headcanon them.
At some point I will stop getting my hopes up every time a bdsm fic is posted for a pairing I like. I nearly always seem to be let down. Same for magic AUs. Why are people so bad at magic AUs. And gender-benders, jfc, what is with the massive mischaracterization in gender-benders.
No one is obliged to tag for jack and/or shit, but there is nothing more infuriating than getting a massive downer ending with no warning, right when it looks like things are going to look up at the end there. At least warn me that you're going to yank the rug out from under my feet if you're also going to make me invest 50k words of my time in your fic too.
