[Mongoose]

How many HLP nerds does it take to screw in a light bulb?

No one knows, because they're still arguing about how rain works.

[Nuke]

we created a race of robots to change lightbulbs for us.

[Luis Dias]

Oi. There's a difference between inaccurate explanation and insufficient one.

An explanation to how a light bulb works can be sufficient on qualitative level without involving any talk of quantum mechanics (much less the hypothetical candidates for unified field theories).

Even on qualitative level of understanding, classical electromagnetics is actually sufficient for understanding the basic mechanism of how the hot wire produces light, although you do need some quantum mechanics (Planck's law of black-body radiation, or a special case called Wien's displacement law) to understand why the temperature affects the quality of light being produced (spectral distribution).

Moreover, even an inaccurate explanation of some natural phenomenon can be accurate enough to be useful (see Newton's laws of motion and gravity). Insufficient models on the other hand only cause confusion.

You do realise of the glaring contradiction between your first and last paragraph? This mess you made with the english semantics here is unexcusable and an insult to education in all parts of the world!!! I hereby protest vehemently against this clear abuse of the Geneva Convention and request an immediate judging on the matter in the Hague tribunal. Either that or we will launch preemptive humanitarian missiles, you know the "saving lifes" version.

[haloboy100]

How many HLP nerds does it take to screw in a light bulb?

No one knows, because they're still arguing about how rain works.

Someone frakking siggify this.

[Wobble73]

You do realise of the glaring contradiction between your first and last paragraph? This mess you made with the english semantics here is unexcusable and an insult to education in all parts of the world!!! I hereby protest vehemently against this clear abuse of the Geneva Convention and request an immediate judging on the matter in the Hague tribunal. Either that or we will launch preemptive humanitarian missiles, you know the "saving lifes" version.

Inexcusable 

[Luis Dias]

English is such a ****ty language.

[MP-Ryan]

English is such a ****ty language.

Indeed - well, to learn at any rate.  Unfortunately it's also the closest thing to a truly international language we've got, at least until the Chinese [economically] conquer the planet.

[Rodo]

I don't see myself learning Mandarin.

[Luis Dias]

English is indeed mandatory if one is interested in any international conversation. It's still ****ty!

[BloodEagle]

Don't worry, no one in the advertising and teaching world gives a damn about English standards anymore.  The language will probably either fall out of popular use or be radically transformed within the next hundred years.

[deathfun]

I highly doubt something like the English language will drop out of popular use

It'd take assimilation and a hostile takeover of North America for that to ever happen

[Nuke]

to consider a particular language a static entity is somewhat folly. a few hundred years is more than enough time for a language to mutate into something drastically different.

[AdmiralRalwood]

to consider a particular language a static entity is somewhat folly. a few hundred years is more than enough time for a language to mutate into something drastically different.

On the other hand, we have so much written/recorded data in English that the language will probably remain at least understandable as-is for another several hundred years, even as words change meaning and new words get added.

[Nuke]

the difference nowadays is that languages are no longer being spoken in isolated pockets, but instead at a global scale. this will slow the rate of divergence away from what we would consider normal use of the language.

[MP-Ryan]

We already have significant examples of this.  There is a much greater difference in English writing between the year 1700 and 1850 than between 1850 and today.  If anything, we're seeing small dialect pockets of English emerge, but the core rules have remained much the same for the last 150 years.

Read the original text of Gulliver's Travels if you don't believe me =)