Well, that’s not gonna win him any votes.

Very nice.

How about those Epstein files?

Do your iPhones usually take oil?

What do you think plastic is made from?

Packaging, no. But manufacturing it into something else, yes.

Do you think a tariff on copper would apply to an iPhone? Or a tariff on oil?

That’s generally how tariffs work. A tariff on grain is not a tariff on bread. A tariff on steel is not a tariff on knives. A tariff on cotton is not a tariff on clothing.

It can be, of course. A tariff can be on steel and items made with steel. But that’s not usually the case, and it’s usually called out as such. Of course, Trump is not what you’d call the most precise communicator in the world, but all we can do is work with what he says.

Right, but this tariff, at least as I understand it, is on chips imported as chips, not on products that contain chips. An iPhone will, of course, be subject to some other damn fool tariff, but not this specific one.

Of course, my understanding of this specific tariff may be wrong.

What he means is, if I buy an iPhone built in China, this tariff won’t affect the price I pay.

But if I buy a phone built in America, with an imported processer, this tariff will make that phone more expensive.

Sure they can write laws making it illegal to claim the king of Thailand is a doddering old fool anywhere in the world. Good for them.

They have no legal right to enforce it on me, though. If I visit their country, of course, I will be subject to their laws. But they can’t apply it to me until then.

They can write whatever they like, but in practical terms, they can only enforce their laws inside their borders.

No European law applies outside Europe. That’s kind of the nature of laws.

Context is as important to language as syntax.

Context is important to the message, yes. But if I need the context to understand a particular word, I would understand the message just as well without that word.

Yea. Not helpful.

I’m aware of the existence of contranyms. None of the examples you gave apply, as they just have different meanings, or the same leaving with different connotations.

Wasn’t he introduced with a story of pulling off a miracle to escape the Gorn? Or am I not remembering properly?

Right, that’s “speaking figuratively.” There are rules for that.

But a word that means the opposite of what it means is not a useful word.

I’d hate to find a box in my lab marked “inflammable.”

The current administration is making Humphrey Appleby seem a much better option.

Maybe there’s a reason we prefer tenure civil servants who don’t have financial interest at odds with their job?

Indeed it is so.

Nevertheless, assholes.

If the employers are using computers to read my resume, why shouldn’t I used a computer to write it?

Assholes to the lot of them.

Well, that’s technically a more reputable source.

Can we move a few notches up the ladder, though?