Spinney is a nice word for a smallish gathering of trees, alongside copse, coppice, etc. I’m not aware of a term for one specifically in an open field, though.

Apart from the hole, that could be chicken on a raft, an old Royal Navy dish.

I haven’t tried it myself yet, but you can get yeast improvers , a powdered ‘mother yeast’ that claims similar results to sourdough.

I have a starter in the fridge that I only use once every two or three weeks, and have not had any mould problems; perhaps you just have to be only a little less lazy to keep a viable one, and feed on that sort of a schedule?

I agree though, that making sourdough bread can be a nuisance time-management-wise until you find some sort of rhythm that suits you.

I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

(Samuel Beckett)

I think it’s a very good idea, and I can’t see any obvious disadvantages except, perhaps, the loss of posting and comment history from the currently existing communities.

Maybe also consider merging !foodporn@lemmy.world ? That one seems to be quite general too, and posts often become discussions of how to cook the showcased dish (plus I really dislike the name of the community).

I don’t think I’ve come across that before, but I’d say it depends on what is meant:

• I don’t know what that thing is.
• There is a thing, but I don’t know what it is.
• There is a thing such that I don’t know what it is. I.e., I do not know what all things are.

There may well be some other ones, but I don’t know what they might be.

Yes, it is a famously polarizing taste, but a small amount in something hefty like a ragout adds umami without adding too much of the marmite flavour. I’m vegetarian, and find it’s really handy for adding meatiness to such things.

If you try it and like it, do try marmite spaghetti.

Miso, Marmite, MSG, and Maggi are all good.

Not all at once, though.

Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature by C C Bombaugh, one of my favourite reads, feels like it might be an obscure book.

Swot is a venerable and frequently used word, derived from the word sweat. Neek is what’s current with my children’s generation (South London): it’s a portmanteau of nerd and geek, apparently. Spod may well be regionally and temporally specific, as it’s what I used to be called in SW England in the 1980s.

These kinds of insults definitely exist here in the UK too, e.g., swot, spod, as well as geek, neek, nerd, etc. I don’t think these are imported from the US, as they’ve been around for a long time. Perhaps a manifestation of anglo-saxon anti-intellectualism?

This opinion looks a little question-begging to me: do all businesses who declare these kinds of things do so as branding? I myself, don’t believe they do as many would be doing so for advocacy for minority groups, for example.

But wouldn’t ‘leery’ make sense there? It means something close to ‘suspicious’ after all.

Ian’s Shoelace Site has 25 different ways to tie your laces. I’ve been using the eponymous Ian knot for years.