Am I going crazy? Like 1/3rd of the article is about the preparation and work that went into averting Y2k. They don't downplay the serious nature of the problem at all and even rattle off a few examples of major institutions efforts to avert disaster. What are we mad about here?

Night before? I'm rattling off some of the language in my head and it feels like 1600-1800s brand of English, and I know Dickens was writing in the Victorian period.

Night Before Christmas, final answer.

I believe this is the first usage of gifted that OED is referring to. Originally published around 1550 from

"A merry Ieste of a shrewde and curst Wyfe" (also called "A wife in Morel's Skin" in later printings, I think?)

If you're going to call it a fad, then you've got to at least go back to the 1990s with Seinfeld (that's about where my chart starts to tick up - it was the subject of an epsidoe). So at this point it's a 30 year old fad. OED disagrees though - apparently it's been in as a verb since the 1500s

Let's not be rude here, this is just a discussion of prescriptivism. "Giving gifts" has been transformed to gifting because enough people see a meaningful distinction. A distinction they've been seeing since at least the 1800s. Let me gift you a chart on the topic.

You're right, a random pencil isn't a gift. That's why I can give it, buy i can't gift it. If the words are so close in meaning to be redundant, why isn't there reciprocity in their usage? Shouldn't I be able to gift you a bag of flaming dog poop?

Bzzt. I give people pencils, their mail, advice, chlamydia- gifts are much more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful, and to gift something implies a higher level of importance in its transfer. Strangers give you things, but family members, friends, etc. Gift things. English has no synonyms.

Fair enough. None of that affects the positive optics a right wing government would benefit from. Even if it doesn't actually work, it's still a positive in the minds of people who simply don't care to investigate these details. When prices stay high, they'll just switch to blaming corporate greed.

This is one problem I'm not worried about. Prison labor will be contracted to do this work long before we face any consequences of the worker shortage. People will probably cheer it on as character building and repaying their debt to society to frame it as an added benefit of the deportations

The art of war is an essential text to read if you weren't aware that you need to bring enough rice to feed your men on a campaign, or that you shouldn't try and fight up close in a muddy field. Crucial advice for any middle manager.

It's a shame so many people get traumatized by restaurant work. It's my answer to "what will you do on the commune/in a socialist utopia". I loved working with food, feeding people - although I did it all with paper tickets and not this techy mess designed to turn teenagers into burger robots.