Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Ha yeah same with MSG. It occurs naturally in like, tomatoes and soy sauce and things so anyone saying theyre allergic is likely talking bollox

uh, MSG is literally the main neurotransmitter used in the brain, and we have taste receptors (umami) evolved specifically to detect it because it signifies "good food here". That's why it gets added. Every culture has a high-natural-MSG additive - fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, konbu kelp, Vegemite, Parmesan / Grana Padano cheese, etc etc.
The one study that found it was dangerous was literally injecting MSG into the brain of a rat - guess what, if you inject a ton of neurotransmitter the brain goes crazy. MSG fear is pure myth.

I get annoyed with restaurants boasting about "No MSG" too. It will stop me eating there every time.

Nitrates, however, those do actually seem to be pretty unhealthy while being perfectly natural. You can get genuinely nitrate-free bacon in the UK now, bit expensive but not bad.

I remember the short films on chinese cooking that used to be used as filler on Channel 4 afternoon shows in the 80s where they used to pile on more and more MSG. Not sure if that's anything to go by for actual Asian cooking at the time but it did seem excessive.

I've just noticed the hearts on Morrissey's top in the Salford Lads Club picture.

MSG is literally the main neurotransmitter used in the brain

Some people report getting severe headaches when they eat food with MSG added. Seems like these two facts might somehow be related to one another.

I guess there is a chance that circulating glutamate could contract some blood vessels, which is the basis of headache (the brain itself has no pain receptors) but if glutamate got into the brain via the blood, you'd have a seizure after every meal.

I also had a quick look at a review of studies of MSG headache. Of all the available studies, those which reported headache used MSG concentrations so high (way higher than food addition) that the subjects could easily taste the MSG, so they were inadequately blinded - i.e. psychological belief could not be ruled out. In the studies which were blinded and used food levels of MSG, no evidence has been found.

Wasnt the other one people claiming it gave them asthma? Which has to be a bit bollocks.

There's a very good This Anwrican Life episode about the origins of the MSG panic

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/transcript

True fact, Melbourne, Australia has a higher proportion of people’s talking bollocks about food allergies than pretty much any city on the planet.

anyone else feel the compulsion to read interesting medical studies when a hypothesis is in play?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136011/

The blood-brain barrier and glutamate

The non-English lyrics in Lionel Richie's 'All Night Long' are a combination of actual words (http://bonvivantva.com/?p=4943) and total gibberish:

The song lyrics were written primarily in English, but Richie has admitted in at least one press interview that "African" lyrics in the song, such as "Tom bo li de say de moi ya," and "Jambo jumbo," were in fact made-up gibberish of his own invention.[3] Richie has described these portions of the song as a "wonderful joke," written when he discovered that he lacked the time to hire a translator to contribute the foreign-language lyrics he wished to include in the song.[4]

eh

i wouldnt be inviting close inspection of a lot of the gaeilge content of some of the websites of dept x i mean what even is language anyway right

Rejected lyric: frusen gladje haagen-dazs, fahrvergnugen jambo jambo!

Rejected lyric: Fremme neppe venette?

...gunter glieben glauten globen...

Richie has admitted in at least one press interview that "African" lyrics in the song, such as "Tom bo li de say de moi ya," and "Jambo jumbo," were in fact made-up gibberish of his own invention.

Cocaine is a...

xps that's a useful review mf - if anyone wants a tl;dr it's that the only way glutamate crosses the blood-brain barrier is being transported *out* of the brain environment into the blood, except at a few points where there are open walled blood vessels used to sample blood contents to e.g. decide if you need to eat. These spots are well policed and have zero to do with headache or asthma. Not to be a dick about it but I'm a working neuroscientist and I've given lectures on glutamate handling in the brain for the last decade, including one yesterday.

and thank you! mh for finding that review, as you can imagine it's a frequent question. Not sure why I wrote "mf" above but not on purpose!

That Blues Traveler aren't a blues band, also that they spell Traveller with one l

Ha, I always forget the US spellings of those words.

I wrote "levelling" on the UK politics thread earlier and couldn't remember if it was "levelling" (UK iirc) or "leveling" (US iirc) because at least the US has a rule whereas the British rule is "just remember it" afaik

(I think there is a rule in USEng, anyway - "aver" has the stress on -"er" so in the US it's averring but "waver" has the stress on "wav" so it's "wavering", iirc?)

same as there is no rule for -ent and -ant except "just remember it from all the books you've read, what do you mean you spend more time reading Joe Public's unedited thoughts on twitter than reading the classics" with a little dash of "just remember it from your knowledge of etymology and Latin verb conjugations"

and there is no rule for -er vs -or except "maybe it depends on when the word was imported and whether it came from French or Latin or just because people wanted to add -er to a word, oh hell, make it up already"

the truly galaxy brain people do the same with -ise/-ize except s/Latin/Greek/ of course (taps nose)

The rule in USE is the consonants are doubled when a suffix is in play if the accent of the word is on the last syllable. If the accent falls somewhere else, then no doubling is needed.

I decided long ago to let whatever version of benefitting or benefiting the writer was using to pass. I swear, at least in my region, there are at least two pronunciations of "benefit". BEN-e-fit if it's a noun and ben-e-FIT if it's a verb.

Also, since fit turns into fitting, most casual writers go for benefitting. My life is too short to judge anymore.

Wait, are there any words that would take a single "l" before "ing" in International English?

Er, or "er"?

if there is a vowel before the "l"?

caroling?

gamboling, imperiling.. but yes it doubles on "er" it seems..

I might use 2 "l"s for "carolling" and "imperilling", though I have never used the latter. Merriam Webster gives voth spellings. I don't know what "gamboling" means.

*both

https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/4771695/carolling-group-spreading-festive-cheer-helping-children-across-the-okanagan/amp/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/carolling-filipino-style-1.4958179

"Imperilling" in the caption here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3807349

Two ll's looks weird there.

What do UK papers use?

cancelling vs. canceling? I’ve seen both used.

Double ll's invariably in the UK.

Definitely the first in Canada and I think most places outside the US? xp

The rule is if there's a squiggly red line under it change the spelling until the line goes away.

This is probably better fodder for the 'grammar fiends' thread, but other than in formal writing, omitting to double the final consonant is rarely going to make a groat's worth of difference to anyone. Its major purpose seems to be to make the division between the root word and the suffix more prominent. But that's just a nicety.

that the string lines in kashmir are 3/4 but the drumming is in 4/4 !!? christ i am dim

The guitar riff is in 3 too, if you're not counting that as a string instrument.

Guitars are woodwinds iirc

Ha, it's just that sometimes people say "strings" to mean "bowed strings".

my instinct is to double the Ls, but the arkansas travelers bring me back to america

Its major purpose seems to be to make the division between the root word and the suffix more prominent.

I usually want to pronounce a long vowel sound when I see a single consonant between vowels.

in the american rule of spelling the single consonant only comes after an unstressed vowel, which is therefore unlikely to be sounding as a long vowel (at least i can't think of an example where pronouncing it as a long vowel wouldn't shift the stress onto that vowel, and hence switch the terms of the rule: travEEler etc)

Answer to thread question: that “Louie Louie” is a “chalypso.”

challopso

mark s go on challopso