Do you think Alan Alda could still serve a 4-year term? On the one hand, he’s even older than Biden. On the other, with inspiring lines like this, we can’t afford not to elect him:
It’s time to turn off that war machine, and turn on our children.
-Allen Alda
I like it! I sure hope he really said that.
I always try to start off a new year by confusing quotations and speakers.
I am hoping that making one big mistake at the beginning will help me avoid all the rest for the year (sort of like various carpet weavers who demonstrate humility by including one deliberate error in their carpets).
Does one speak in the familiar with the enemy?
Given that, in languages with both familiar and formal second person forms, the familiar can be meant and used as an insult/putdown - yes, you might. But it depends on circumstances. If you’re doing the ‘honourable opponents/fellow soldiers’ thing, you probably would use the formal.
Is there a legend that a sufficiently brave man, jumping from said platform, will fly, or something of that sort? Or is it just considered an honorable way to commit suicide?
*The popular expression “to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu” is the Japanese translation of the English expression “to take the plunge”.[6] This refers to an Edo-period tradition that held that if one were to survive a 13-meter (43-foot) jump from the stage, one’s wish would be granted. During the Edo period, 234 jumps were recorded, and of those, 85.4% survived.[6] The practice was prohibited in 1872.[6]
Many of these things belong in the category of ‘what-I-would-have-said-if-I-had-thought-of-it-at-the-time-instead-of-two-hours-after’.
“Turn back, turn back, O Time, in your flight
I just thought of a comeback I needed last night”
Nitpick: “shall not”
The belief was that the petitioner would pray to Kannon, (the Japanese version or name of Guanyin, The bodhisattva of compassion, venerated by Buddhists in East and Southeast Asia and then jump.
If the goddess likes you and you survive, you get your wish. If not, well too bad, and it sucks to be you as one of the frequent posters here often says.
The usuage in the case is similar to “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”
You cannot favor dialog of the movies over that of the books. This cannot pass.
To quote the irascible General Beringer of NORAD when the situation was dire, “I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good!”