Who could have predicted this!?!?? Why weren't we warned?

Does it not? It still does in my experience. Our company has these weird company wide meetings where they tell us how they're doing great, everything's great, but because growth isn't "double digit" due to inflation so there is a pay freeze. (I'd love even a less than double digit pay rise - even though that's still a pay cut with inflation).

Pretty much exactly what you are saying. Employees are grumbling, but don't want to get laid off and are uncertain about the job market.

I love getting socks.

God, I don't miss exams every single year for 7 years straight

My wife's grandmother went through chemo and was so happy when her hair grew back naturally curly and she never had to get a perm again. Was nice for something to make her happy after it all!

Building a garage. Concrete pour went well, which is what I was stressing the most about. Not I'm just gradually laying blocks on evening and lunchtimes. It's exhausting doing a day's work then cooking, then spending hours building walls - but it's very rewarding seeing it slowly turn into a garage.

Grew up in Yorkshire where we will shorten anything but an "o" sound, which instead becomes very long. So scone rhymes "stone", with extra "o".

Slap bang in the blue area: https://brilliantmaps.com/scone-map/

should say that I’m speaking in terms of epistemology and counterargument. I’d much rather you just acknowledge the obvious truth and move on rather than try further to contort the evidence to make Redditors not racist. Some arguments are fun, but this one is tedious.

Yeah, you're right, I agree with what you've said. It is a racist slur, regardless of the source.

It comes from the Lord of the Rings, that's just someone using it. I don't think it has anything specifically to do with Muslims. They use it to dehumanise, that's true. It mostly spread as use for Russian soldiers that were just rampaging around killing and torturing civilians, or for those shelling and killing civilians, ultimately - behaving rather inhumanly. I've only ever seen it referencing Russian combatants. Honestly, comparing your enemies to characters in a fantasy novel isn't exactly the worst slur in the world.

Soldiers almost always have a slur for enemy combatants, sadly, but honestly I don't blame them. Dehumanising your enemy is a sad reality of war.

I agree that us as bystanders should try not to use such slurs though. Ultimately, throwing slurs around doesn't look good even if the people you're throwing them at are committing atrocities and invading countries.

Edit: I agree it's racist, reminds me of WW2 soldiers's slurs like "jap", "krout" etc. Regardless of the original source, it's a racial slur and shouldn't be used.

Yes definitely. Don't pander to his need for theatre. Mugshots and handcuffs are exactly what he wants. His own press team released their own mock mugshot last time. He'd absolutely love it.

Tankie was first used for that kind of communist supporter who kept singing Russia's praises/defending Russia even when Russia was sent 5000 tanks to crush a popular uprising in Czechoslovakia (the "Prague Spring") on August 20, 1968. Some people just couldn't accept that a communist country could do something bad, so defended the action.

Nowadays, it's used to refer to those that are strongly supportive of Russia, completely ignoring the awful things they do. Often these days there's a lot of anti American bent to it. Like, anything anti America and American "imperialism" must be good - even blatant and awful Russian Imperialism.

These days they calmly explain how Ukraine just needs to come to the table and discuss peace (ignoring that Ukraine wouldn't exist if they did so) and blame America for the war in Ukraine for... well... they're America. The people who want war, or are causing the war, are those giving Ukraine weapons - not the country that is literally invading it.