I was surprised to see &quot;his husband&quot; in the :        He complained that his husband never paid him any compliments anymore.  Isn't that a mistake? Or is Cambridge talking about something homosexual?
123464
I know that non-married lovers address each other by saying “This is my girlfriend/boyfriend.” I know that married couples address each other by calling “my wife/husband”.  I also know that gay lovers who are not married (yet?) address each other by saying "my boyfriend" (for gays) and "my girlfriend" (for lesbians).  But if they are married, how do they address each other?  And how do we describe them? I mean if they are gays, are they “husband and husband” or “husband and wife” (one of them acts like the wife)? And if they are lesbians, are they “wife and wife” or “husband and wife” (one of them acts as the husband)?  I know they can be referred to as a gay couple or gay lovers from , but I couldn't find the answer to address each of the two.
65093
When I was a student of EFL, I was taught the word "mutual" implies a reciprocal relationship where X does to Y what Y does to X.  If John admires Peter as much as Peter admires John, we can say their admiration is mutual.  That said, can I say that Charles and I have a mutual friend ?
47876
Guys, I just wonder if people are allowed to have civilized discussion (on any IT topic) on this forum without actually being accused of starting a row. I'm asking this question for a reason that few days I've asked few questions referring to VM, JIT etc. and compared them to C++ way and despite the fact that I've explained myself that I'm not starting any agro with anyone, that I'm really just genuinely curious, my post was first closed and then removed. I'm asking: What's wrong with asking nonstandard questions which sometimes my be quite difficult to answer? Thanks
121967
As we all know, the inclusion of LGBT characters has been a mighty controversial topic in recent film and literature (). Some love it with every fiber of their being, while others absolutely detest the very thought of it. Now, keep in mind that I am not here to start a political firestorm nor am I here to preach my own personal beliefs regarding this, I'm simply asking the question: will the inclusion of LGBT characters decrease potential sales?  In our game, a pseudo-'90s JRPG, one of our main story writers added two  (of a civilization with heavy Roman influence, but with different laws), both female, married. Originally hailing from an area in which LGBT relationships are looked down upon, I was quick to note that it may be too much controversy, but it truly depends on where you live—for him it was almost completely normal.  As I see it, we have three choices.   We can keep the characters just as they are. We can keep the characters, but only imply their relationship. We can alter the relationship entirely, changing one to a male.   Right now, our main goal is to satisfy the general public while still strongly appealing to those who actually played JRPG's such as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy back in the day. Which of these three options should we choose to best enhance our sales, or, if it's not up there, what is the wisest way to go about doing this? I am looking for facts and data if possible and/or applicable.  EDIT: Our target audience is Everyone! Like we said, we’re aiming to satisfy the general public while still appealing to those who played JRPG’s back in the ‘90s.   EDIT II: Wow. Every almost answer here contained a wealth of information, and I'd like to formally thank all that contributed. I will be using the information from just about all of these answers, and I'm sure may others facing this issue may as well.  EDIT III: If you have comments that aren’t answers or you’d like to further discuss this, please refer to the  as opposed to commenting. Thanks!
16112
You're too clever a man to imagine this.   The above sentence was , a man of excellent rhetorical skills.   Since he said it, I doubt it's wrong, grammatically. But, I wonder if there is an explanation for this. Because adjectives always come after the article not before it. e.g. You're a clever man.   How could this be, grammatically?
119388
In a parallel universe when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, he found it to be inhabited by a tribe of humanoids. He discovered that:   they were all married   the husbands of 10 of the wives were unfaithful   Each wife knew whether or not any other wife's husband was a cheater, but did not know whether or not her own husband was a cheater   No wife was allowed to tell any other wife that her husband was unfaithful or otherwise. Husbands also did not discuss this but otherwise gossip was gossip …    If a wife discovered her husband was unfaithful she had to throw him out of the house and onto the street at precisely 10am the following day, where he would be visible to all others in the tribe.     Foolishly Neil informed the entire tribe at 11am on the day that he landed that at least one of the husbands was unfaithful. What happened next?
70919
I noticed that the  was deleted.   When the  came out, I tried to look for my old answer as well as others for comparison.  Why not just mark the old one superseded by [insert link]?  Note: I don't care about lost rep. There were a lot of useful links in answers and comments there (and some less-than-useful ones too).     Old CoC FAQ may be available  and . Source: (, ).
23318
My college-age son and his friends use the terms &quot;retarded&quot; and &quot;gay&quot; pretty much interchangeably to mean substandard, bad, lame (in the sense of ineffectual or weak) or just plain wrong. I've suggested that he might want to be careful about where he uses such language, but he clearly isn't worried about being offensive with those terms. Now add this to the equation: Last night we watched a recorded version of Comedy Central's &quot;A Tribute to Sam Kinison.&quot; Comedy Central censors a lot of words, including names of body parts (although, curiously, they let &quot;dick&quot; remain unbleeped), terms for sex acts, and so on. And we could clearly see that the word &quot;retarded&quot; had been bleeped (it's a very easy word to lip-read). Note that Comedy Central does not censor the word &quot;nigger&quot; on the Dave Chapelle show, although this is a word Jon Stewart goes to great lengths to avoid saying on his own show (also, of course, on Comedy Central). So I wonder: is the word &quot;retarded&quot; really that offensive? How about &quot;gay&quot; in the context described above? UPDATE From an Associated Press story ( reported in the Boston Globe today (Sept. 21, 2011):  WASHINGTON - Young people immersed in the online world see racist and sexist slurs and other name-calling that probably would appall their parents and teachers. And most consider it no big deal, a poll says. ... When the question is asked broadly, half of young people surveyed say using discriminatory words is wrong. But 54 percent think it’s OK to use them within their own circle of friends, because “I know we don’t mean it.’’ And they don’t worry much about whether the things they tap into their cellphones and laptops could reach a wider audience and get them into trouble. ... Demeaning something with “that’s so gay’’ is so common that two-thirds of young people see it used, and the majority aren’t offended at all, despite a public-service ad campaign that tried to stamp out the anti-gay slang. A similar effort by the Special Olympics and others to persuade kids not to use “retard’’ hasn’t hit home with half of those surveyed, who don’t find the word even moderately bothersome. Twenty-seven percent are seriously offended, however. Some teens just text the way they talk. Calling each other “gay’’ and “retarded’’ is routine in high school, says Robert Leader, 17, a senior in Voorhees, N.J. So teens text it, too.
104359
Two of my friends are getting married. They're both huge Doctor Who geeks, and actually met through a DW RPG. Their wedding invitation contained a very subtle DW reference (you wouldn't have been able to tell unless you were very familiar with the show yourself.)   Doctor Who's been running long enough that there are quite a few nice quotes for basically every occasion in life. I was hoping someone would know a nice wedding-related one, or maybe one about love, that I could include in a wedding card?
63455
How is this possible that the user with  question only has that little reputation? I've checked his site and he doesn't have a lot of downvotes or bounties.
83271
One of my advisor's students asked me how frequently I have meetings with him. And since at that time we had very few meetings I replied:      "We have a very few meetings and the advisor does not allocate time to me."    The advisor heard it and has started retaliating by reducing those few meetings to zero and complaining about me to other faculty, etc. Do you have suggestions about what I should do now?
110446
Someone introduced himself to us.  After that, when we look back and say what he said, which is right to say?     What did he say his name is?      What did he say his name was?   I think the first one is plausible because his name is always XX, but I'm not sure. Please tell me which is allowed.
95075
I have a question about the following text:     Last week Alex Knapp at Forbes published an article criticizing my Nikola Tesla comic. I don't normally respond to these kinds of thing, but since it's' Forbes I figured a proper response was in order.    I would rather say "this kind of things" rather than the version in the text above.
16332
Like always I hang around in Stack Overflow's chatrooms. Today, someone posted a link to his new "reloaded" user profile.  Along the lines I read in Arabic "god is a pig". So I asked him to remove it:     Me: I have a lot of respect towards you because of your knowledge but what you wrote there in Arabic is offensive. Could you remove it please?   OP: if it were in English, would it be equally offensive?   I will write it in Dutch because you ask it so kindly.   Me: yeah, I mean what's your goal? You're just seeding hatred   OP: It is an experiment.   After that, the user changed it to Dutch.  My question is: are such statements acceptable by Stack Exchange's standards? If not, should I flag one of his posts like stated ? If yes, could you state why?  My answers to possible questions:   This happened on SO, why don't you post it on MSO?   This happened on SO but I think it's applicable to all SE sites.  Why didn't you link the user or the chat conversation?   I want the user to remain anonymous unless he or she chooses to reveal him/her self. I will give the user a link to this question  Why do you care?   I find it offensive, not only to my religion but to any religion that believes in god. I posted this question to know what you guys and girls think about this. I live by the rules, so if it's acceptable by SE then so be it and I won't bother you again.  If you don't like it then move on.   I know that this is not a mosque/church/temple and that swearing  to a certain degree. But I don't see the point in insulting god, a religion or a race in a public profile. More over, it's not even built on arguments.
18067
I came across  and at the time there were no suggested answers. After reading Mark Hubbart's comment (at the time with four upvotes), which was the correct answer, and seeing that it had been over 30 minutes since his comment, I figured I would provide that answer in my own words, which I did. My answer is longer, and I think more rounded and more useful, but the core of the answer came from the comment. I have no idea if I'd have thought up the answer on my own--a definite maybe to that.  Now had I tried to be "honorable" or something, such as instead of answering, suggesting to the commenter that he make his comment an answer, I would only have accomplished giving away easy rep to some other user not as into gratuitous self-denial.  The commenter had merely to enter his comment into an answer box instead of a comment box! It was his choice! Whether he was too lazy or didn't think his answer worthwhile or some other reason is not my responsibility. Must I bend over backward to help him earn points that he so carelessly left lying around for another person to take? It just took a tiny bit of non-laziness on my part to get my text typed into the box that would reward me instead of the box that wouldn't.  If my perspective is incorrect and the community would rather see such answers-as-comments rewarded and supported, I will gladly accept that. In the meantime, I just want to shake off the tiny bit of guilt my overly-nice and overly-concerned-with-propriety self is feeling. :)
77117
I have only recently heard about philosophical ideas of Michel Foucault from a friend of mine. His claims, those concerning madness for example, sound iconoclastic to me. After looking up some relevant facts I found that a significant proportion of historical claims he made were based on biased material, which presented information that was only partially accurate. That is to say, some of his assumptions -- assumptions underpinning his historiographical (or genealogical) method -- were NOT true, or, at least, not based on solid enough evidence.    Then why should we pay attention to him? Is it forgivable in philosophy to make statements based on biased premises? (It is not in mathematics, which is my field of study.) If this is not the case then what part of Foucault's work is still relevant to us today?  Note: If this question is deemed inappropriate or in need of appropriation, moderators please do so. I am no expert in philosophy or this website.
46081
When for the first time A new question I answer This haiku appears:     Little slab of meat   In a wash of clear jelly   Now I heat the pan   Such a message is Very strange; is anyone Seeing the same thing?  Have not seen again. Came and went like the wind does! Why I am so blessed?