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Salagatle!


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Monday, November 27, 2006

In a previous post...

I got this comment from a regular reader:-

Solomonster said...
Who the hell is Seaman R/Bay - the friggin encyclopedia britannica?And yes, that is a RHETORICAL question.

he is refering to the fact that Seaman R/Bay very often will research and post information about various subjects as they are raised in everyday conversation / posts. His motivation is a) he wants to confirm that his understanding / knowledge of a certain subject is correct, and then b) share this with any other readers who might want to know, but are not apt to looking it up, or think they know, and can now confirm their knowlegde. No harm no foul. I enjoy it at times, other times he may post a bit too much info. But, hey, the space is cheap / free......

Salagatle!

6 comments:

Seaman R/Bay said...

Hi
Hope this helps your friend !!

Seaman is the third lowest enlisted rank in the U.S. Navy and other navies. For the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard the rank is just above Seaman Apprentice and below Petty Officer Third Class; this rank was formerly known as Seaman First Class.

The actual title for an E-3 in the U.S. Navy varies based on the community to which the sailor belongs. Likewise, the color of their group rate marks also depends on their community.

Those in the general deck and administrative community are Seamen. They wear White stripes on navy blue uniforms, and navy blue (black) stripes on white uniforms.
Hospital Corpsmen are Hospitalmen. They are the only rate in this community. They wear White stripes on navy blue uniforms, and navy blue stripes on white uniforms.
Those in the engineering and hull community are called Firemen and wear red strips on both navy blue and white uniforms.
Those in the aviation community are called Airmen and wear green stripes on both navy blue and white uniforms.
Seabees are called Constructionmen and wear light blue stripes on both navy blue and white uniforms.
No stripes are worn on the working uniforms - coveralls or utilities.

In October, 2005, the Dental Technician rating was merged with the Hospital Corpsman rating, eliminating the Dentalman Recruit title. Those who once held the rank of Dentalman have instead become Hospitalmen.

Sailors who have completed the requirements to be assigned a rating and have been accepted by the Bureau of Naval Personnel as holding that rating (a process called "striking") are called Designated Strikers, and are called by their full rate and rating in formal communications (ie, Machinist's Mate Fireman, as opposed to simply Fireman), though the rating is often left off in informal communication. Those who have not officially been assigned to a rating are officially referred to as "Undesignated" or "Non-rates."

U.S. Coast Guard seamen wear white/silver insignia.

Wreckless Euroafrican said...

I cant believe this is happening...... LOL

Solomonster said...

Seaman r/bay - check out "Rhetorical" - what the heck, I'll save you some time:

A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer. For example - "How many times do I have to tell you to stop walking into the house with mud on your shoes?"

Also, see "Who the hell is Seaman R/Bay - the friggin encyclopedia britannica?"

A rhetorical question seeks to encourage reflection within the listener as to what the answer to the question (at least, the answer implied by the questioner) must be. When a speaker declaims, "How much longer must our people endure this injustice?" or "Will our company grow or shrink?", no formal answer is expected. Rather, it is a device used by the speaker to assert or deny something.

Examples

* "How can people have hope when we tell them that they have no recourse, if they run afoul of the state justice system?" Edward Kennedy, Senate debate on the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 1968.
* "Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?" William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2.

Some rhetorical questions become idiomatic English expressions:

* "What's the matter with you?"
* "Don't you know any better?"
* "Have you no shame?"
* "Is the Pope Catholic?" and "Does a bear shit in the woods?"
* "Do fish swim?"
* "Are you crazy?"
* "Who cares?"
* "How should I know?"
* "Are you kidding me?"
* "Do you expect me to do it for you?"
* "Do pigs fly?"
* "What are you gay?"

A rhetorical question typically ends in a question mark (?), but occasionally may end with an exclamation mark (!) or even a period (.) according to some writing style guides[citation needed]. For example:

* "What's the point of going on."
* "Isn't that ironic!"

As with much of other American slang, these commonly used phrases may be sometimes confusing to people who may be fluent in English but unfamiliar with the localized meaning. For example, an American English speaker may be likewise befuddled if asked "Are you coming the raw prawn?" which in Australian English is used to mean "Are you kidding me?".

Occasionally, non-native speakers may thoroughly confuse some of these phrases and mangle them in various ways such as asking "Does the Pope shit in the woods?" which is humorous to a native speaker but puzzling and embarrassing to themselves.

Some TV shows have had rhetorical questions as titles, such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" contains a series of rhetorical questions. This is spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons, in which Homer attempts to quantitatively answer "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?"

On the BBC comedy quiz show QI, host Stephen Fry once asked panellist Alan Davies, "Is this a rhetorical question?" to which Davies correctly answered "No".

Someone even went so far as to provide answers to certain rhetorical questions:

People commonly ask empty rhetorical questions that rarely receive any sort of sensible answer. When you have had your surfeit of poetical whimsy and are ready for some good, hard facts, come here to be set straight.

The world would be much improved if those engaging in windy musings were more often brought up short by a nice, sharp definition or a pointed rebuke. Even the fantastical William Shakespeare, asking himself "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?" goes on (admittedly at excessive length) to list a number of reasons for answering in the negative.

Of course, some questions are so ill-framed as to admit of no sensible answer. Example: Where have you been all my life? It so happens that this question has never been addressed to me; but if it were I should be at a loss to detail the many addresses at which I have resided and worked during the span of existence of some other person, even if I knew that person's precise date of birth. Such idle musings are best ignored.

However, one can learn much by discovering facts that provide satisfactory answers to questions one might suppose at first glance to be pointless. This page is devoted to the pursuit of such answers.

What is so rare as a day in June?

June having 30 days, it is clear that days in April, September, and November are precisely as "rare,"or as common, though they are slightly less common than days in January, March, May, July, August, October, and December. Days in February are the least common, of course, so it is nonsensical to consider June days as particularly rare.

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

If the question refers to the melted product of last winter's snowfall, the answer can sometimes be derived by analyzing the volume of water in the catch basins of dams located on streams downhill from the point of original snowfall. More precise measures may be taken of those snows that contribute to glaciers which move at regular rates ranging from a few centimeters to a hundred meters per year. The easiest place to locate such snow, however, is in the extreme arctic and antarctic regions, where, although snow is very rare and sparse, it remains satisfactorily frozen and fixed in place indefinitely.

How high the moon?

It varies between 356,000 and 407,000 km in distance from the surface of the earth, its average distance being 384,400 km.

What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

D. Kolb and E.K.E. Gunderson's study, "Alcoholism in the United States Navy" reports that attempts to prevent, diagnose and rehabilitate sailors suffering from alcohol-related problems are to a measurable degree superior to the older approach of simple hospitalization (published in Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 183-194).

Who wrote the Book of Love?

René of Anjou, King of Naples 1435-1480, wrote and illustrated his Book of Love (Le cueur d'amours espris) some time after 1473 while living idly in Provence.

Tell me why the ivy twines.

Not all ivies do twine, of course: some are mere creeping vines. However, climbing ivies such as are commonly seen covering academic buildings maximize their exposure to light by using twining tendrils to affix themselves to other plants and objects in order to gain altitude and escape their shade.

Would you like to swing on a star?

There has been a good deal of research into the use of long tethers linking space probes which could use the gravitational differential between linked units closer to and farther from a massive object to generate both electrical and kinetic energy (see L. Johnson, B. Gilchrist, R. D. Estes and E. Lorenzini: Advances in Space Research, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 1055-1063 (1999). However, problems of scale and temperature make it unlikely that this technique will be applied to interstellar navigation any time in the near future; so you would be wise to limit your wishes to swinging from a planet.

How long has this been going on?

Data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe produce an estimated age for the universe of 13.7 billion years, plus or minus a 1% margin of error.

What is to be done?

I find that the Filofax A5 System Organizer efficiently tracks my appointments with a minimum of fuss and is generally superior to the personal information management software products so widely touted by computer enthusiasts.

What's up, Doc?

Presuming that the doctor addressed is a physician, one must assume that the question refers to the identity of the topmost parts of the human body, in which case the short answer is the frontal lobe of the brain, the skull, the scalp, and--if any--the hair.

How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paris?

Administered commodity prices resulting in an average profit per farmer of no more than $50,000 per annum should be adequate to discourage profligate trips to France.

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

No one well informed, of course, since the writer in question died in 1941; but during her lifetime she was known to have a sharp tongue, and many persons had reason to fear her wit.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Generally the petals of the flowering parts of plants wither and fall off to decay in the surrounding soil while the remainder is converted into fruiting bodies. However, the blossoms of early-flowering fruit trees such as plums and cherries are particularly subject to the destructive effects of spring rains.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Though the poet neglects to enumerate them, providing instead a mere list, a simple inventory establishes that--if we omit the purely hypothetical posthumous final one--Elizabeth Barrett loved Robert Browning in precisely seven ways.

Divemaster GranDad said...

Methinks the Solomonsters should populate their blog site (listed on the profile but with no content) so that thye keep us in the picture with what's going on down there. It'll be a damn site easier than sending out emails to the world, as they currently do...

Seaman R/Bay said...

Great to see you have some brains, just a pity you left South Africa as I can see you are sad and down. I guess that's what happens when you go down under. Get your own blogg going then comment on others.

Wreckless Euroafrican said...

Hey, whoa.... Solomonster is a dear friend of mine... no need to slag anyone here.
Seamn r/bay is my brother, nearer and dearer....
The comments which have been posted recently were all in jest.
Lets keep this clean, or I will institute a comment edit function.
Thanx all for reading and commenting here...