Huh.

The etymology of "dean" has to do with being the leader of a group of ten. Next time somebody pulls out the "ugh, nobody uses decimate correctly" line, never mind that using decimate in its original sense would mean that we never got to use the word ever (thankfully, we do not use the execution of 1/10 of the population as a form of punishment in our society) I'm going to ask why they hold the line on that but not on dean.

If their objection is anything like the objection to literally but not really, I know I can expect dead silence as a response.

It's snowing right now.

Not much of a surprise, given that its been a pretty snowy winter so far. My mother once worked with somebody who didn't believe in the null subject. Literally, she would edit sentences like "it's snowing" to say "snow is coming down from the sky" and the like. My mother would then quietly re-edit, because it wasn't worth the fight.

So my mother was calling up the stairs to me, and I responded "it's started coming down, you'd better get going", and that got me thinking. What is coming down? Obviously snow, look out the window. Okay, that's pretty straightforwardly null, right? But without any context I might have meant any form of precipitation, right?

Except that as soon as I thought that, it occurred to me that really, I couldn't. I would never say "it's really coming down" and mean hail or sleet or freezing rain or snowmelt from the roofs or frogs or cats and dogs or meteorites or slime or anything else that might conceivably fall down from the sky (or up above, anyway) in great numbers. My options here are fairly limited to snow and rain, and maybe a godawful conglomeration of the two that somehow isn't freezing rain. But maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe I would use it that way, I just haven't? Quick, I want your gut opinion. Could you, when speaking English, use the phrase "it's coming down out there" or any variations thereof for anything besides snow or rain?

Articles?

School teachers and caregivers could soon have more power to spank children, if a bill makes it out of the Kansas legislature.

http://bit.ly/1gzC1QU

Capital One says it can show up at cardholders' homes, workplaces

http://lat.ms/M7RETI

1% Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

I imagine the whole thing running like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZI_aEalijE

http://nym.ag/1nJ2pbf

Obama wants to spend $1 billion on climate adaptation

http://grist.org/news/obama-wants-to-spend-1-billion-on-climate-adaptation/

How Asperger's reignited a passion for art

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-26193704

North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un himself should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, UN investigators said on Monday.

http://bit.ly/1gw6G1m

Alchemy May Not Have Been the Pseudoscience We All Thought It Was

http://bit.ly/KNlnS1

There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written

http://bit.ly/1cUOD0k

U.S. Navy to deploy laser for 1st time

http://on.wtsp.com/1mqLfnq

Researchers grow human lungs in lab for first time

http://fxn.ws/1fviVqZ

Sexual Assault at God's Harvard

Patrick Henry College was supposed to be a safe place. For these young women, it wasn't.

http://bit.ly/1bGJMoC

A mysterious cluster of severe birth defects in rural Washington state is confounding health experts, who say they can find no cause, even as reports of new cases continue to climb.

http://nbcnews.to/1hpKadz

More military families used food stamps to buy milk, cheese, meat and bread at military grocers last year.

http://cnnmon.ie/O3wzvL