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Re:Ha-ha wall by twic on Saturday August 24, 2019 @09:01PM (#20790701)
See also the 'Punic ditch'. I can't find a good description online ([1] is the most specific), but basically it's a fortification comprising a human-scale haha with the wall on the outward side, and the slope on the inward side. The idea is that attackers can cross it easily, by jumping down the wall, then charging up the slope, at which point you open fire on them, then when they turn to run way, they have to climb up the wall to escape, at which point they are sitting ducks.

These ditches are called Punic not because they were invented by the Carthaginians (Punic is the adjective for things from Carthage, don't ask me why), but because they were incredibly brutal, and Rome's early wars with Carthage were so horrific, they became a byword for anything eye-wateringly cruel like this.

[1] https://luntfort.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/punic-ditches/

Re:Ha-ha wall by barrkel on Saturday August 24, 2019 @09:44PM (#20790836)
Punic derives from the same etymology as Phoenicians, Carthage was founded by Phoenicians.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/punicus

Basically, Latin version of Greek version of Phoenician.

Re:Ha-ha wall by orpheline on Saturday August 24, 2019 @09:27PM (#20790779)
Punic refers to the people. Carthage was the name of their city, so they're also referred to as Carthaginians (see also: New Yorkers, Londoners, Dubliners, Parisians, etc.).
Re:Ha-ha wall by wyldfire on Saturday August 24, 2019 @11:31PM (#20791184)
You chose some relatively ordinary demonyms, these are some fun ones: Mancunian, Muscovite, Liverpudlian, Glaswegian, Munsonian, Buddies.
Re:Ha-ha wall by esrauch on Sunday August 25, 2019 @04:40AM (#20791997)
People from Cambridge are Cantabrigians.
Re:Ha-ha wall by gjm11 on Sunday August 25, 2019 @05:31AM (#20792114)
And their perennial rivals from Oxford are Oxonians. The English class and education systems being what they are, many in both categories will have been students at Winchester College (a "public school", which is to say an old, prestigious, expensive private school), which makes them Wykehamists. If not, perhaps they went to another public school, Shrewsbury School; its students, and people from the county of Shropshire, are of course Salopians.

England is particularly good (if that's the right word) at these but it's not alone. If you're from Buenos Aires then you're a Porteño (because it's a _port_). If you're from Christchurch then you're a Cantabrian (because of a historical association with Canterbury in the UK). If you come from Rio de Janeiro then you're a Carioca (from the name of a tribe that lived there before the Portuguese invaded).

Re:Ha-ha wall by orpheline on Sunday August 25, 2019 @12:10AM (#20791309)
I know the rest of these, but Buddies is a new one; to whom does it refer?
Re:Ha-ha wall by NeedMoreTea on Sunday August 25, 2019 @12:36AM (#20791387)
Re:Ha-ha wall by orpheline on Sunday August 25, 2019 @01:42AM (#20791549)
Many thanks!
Re:Ha-ha wall by tdy721 on Sunday August 25, 2019 @12:12PM (#20793730)
I was _almost_ sure it goes right alongside “fwiend” and referred to Canadians... Facts FTW
Re:Ha-ha wall by aasasd on Sunday August 25, 2019 @09:31AM (#20792845)
‘Muscovite’ is from ‘Muscovy’, denoting the Middle-Ages' Duchy of Moscow and in turn descending from Latin ‘Moscoviae’.

Since English has chronic trouble mapping sounds, especially vowels, that are fundamental for Russian, ‘Muscovy’ is in fact a rather reasonable approximation. ‘Moscovia’ would be better, but alas. It's like we're seeing different fundamental colors―which we sort of do with English ‘indigo’ and Russian ‘light-blue’ (the latter being close to Newton's ‘blue’).

Re:Ha-ha wall by derefr on Sunday August 25, 2019 @12:43PM (#20793913)
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROYGBIV (emphasis mine):

> Newton divided his color circle, which he constructed to explain additive color mixing, into seven colors. His color sequence including the tertiary color indigo is kept alive today by the Roy G. Biv mnemonic. Originally he used only five colors, but later he added orange and indigo to match the number of musical notes in the major scale.

So, the concept of there being uniquely-important indigo (and orange!) points on the hue spectrum were just, kinda... made up, as a bit of numerological whimsy, by Isaac Newton. And everyone else in the Western world just followed his lead, because he seemed to know what he was talking about.

I would note that no English-speaker actually seems to describe anything as “indigo” in practice. People do tend to describe plenty of things as “light blue”, though! We get taught “ROY G BIV” in kindergarten, but we basically ignore it, because it doesn’t actually fit anything else we get taught. (I don’t even recall any children’s picture books that bother with examples of “indigo” objects.)

IMHO, there’s also a much more fundamental distinction made in English-in-practice, between three kinds of green: yellow-green (“spring green”, “olive green” when desaturated), “green green”†, and blue-green (“sea blue”, cyan, turquoise.) Many people will insist that, if orange is a separate color from yellow or red, then yellow-green and green-blue are separate colors as well.

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrastive_focus_reduplicatio...

Re:Ha-ha wall by bookofjoe on Sunday August 25, 2019 @01:09PM (#20794060)
ROY G BIV... I still use that about once a year (I'm 71).
Re:Ha-ha wall by benj111 on Sunday August 25, 2019 @04:38AM (#20791987)
Geordie

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordie

Quote of the day:

"poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede translate more successfully into Geordie than into Standard English"

The Venerable Bede will for evermore have a Geordie accent.

I also like to call people for Norfolk, Norfolk (as in folk), I don't think that's standard though.

Re:Ha-ha wall by twic on Sunday August 25, 2019 @05:10AM (#20792074)
And let us not forget their neighbouring tribe, the Mackems!
Re:Ha-ha wall by jcrawfordor on Sunday August 25, 2019 @01:12AM (#20791483)
Burqueño, which comes from both the Spanish convention and a slang term (with some history grounding), but is extremely widely used.
Re:Ha-ha wall by csswizardry on Sunday August 25, 2019 @08:10AM (#20792518)
I’m a proud Loiner.
Re:Ha-ha wall by kevin_thibedeau on Saturday August 24, 2019 @11:43PM (#20791233)
Equatoguinean
Re:Ha-ha wall by asdff on Sunday August 25, 2019 @03:41AM (#20791860)
loa angeleno
Re:Ha-ha wall by stygiansonic on Saturday August 24, 2019 @10:29PM (#20790985)
Punic can also mean “treacherous”, presumably because of the Roman opinion of their adversary.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Punic

Re:Ha-ha wall by twic on Sunday August 25, 2019 @05:11AM (#20792080)
Oh, maybe it's called a Punic ditch because it's treacherous, rather than brutal? My memory of this is dim.
Re:Ha-ha wall by ad404b8a372f2b9 on Sunday August 25, 2019 @09:34AM (#20792868)
It made me wonder whether "punic" was the root of words like "punish" and "punitive". But there seems to be no connection. http://www.fantasy-writers.org/forum/question-about-word-pun...
Re:Ha-ha wall by asdff on Sunday August 25, 2019 @03:44AM (#20791866)
Seems pretty irrelevant if you've got the numbers on the defenders. Just don't retreat and throw bodies into the wide open breach. You'd drive right over just fine like a spike strip facing the wrong way.
Re:Ha-ha wall by pharke on Sunday August 25, 2019 @10:28AM (#20793150)
The ditch itself is also filled with caltrops and ankle breaking traps. The fortifications behind the ditch usually involved a wooden palisade or stone walls. Even so, these defenses were generally for defending against small groups of loosely organized attackers. If a large force attacked, infantry and cavalry would deploy to the field to oppose the enemy with the fort perhaps protecting a flank or offering other strategic support.
Re:Ha-ha wall by simonh on Sunday August 25, 2019 @04:07AM (#20791919)
Typically a Punic Ditch would be used in front of the walls of a fortification.
Re:Ha-ha wall by dannyw on Saturday August 24, 2019 @10:24PM (#20790971)
The ancient world’s dark pattern.
Re:Ha-ha wall by replyguy912 on Sunday August 25, 2019 @01:01PM (#20794005)
Yes, likely the inventors' ancestors now work for Facebook or EA.
Re:Ha-ha wall by SteveNuts on Sunday August 25, 2019 @02:06PM (#20794468)
Maybe IKEA, since they make it so difficult to leave.
Re:Ha-ha wall by Doubl on Sunday August 25, 2019 @02:00PM (#20794432)
If the inventors were from the ancient world, then to have ancestors of theirs working at Facebook is the bomb, dude!
Re:Ha-ha wall by chinhodado on Saturday August 24, 2019 @10:31PM (#20790993)
I have a hard time understanding this. Do you have a simple drawing for this?
Re:Ha-ha wall by nyc_pizzadev on Saturday August 24, 2019 @11:05PM (#20791107)
Re:Ha-ha wall by Sharlin on Sunday August 25, 2019 @03:27AM (#20791829)
Basically just a ha-ha but reversed so that it’s easy to get in but difficult to get out.
Re:Ha-ha wall by amelius on Sunday August 25, 2019 @05:28AM (#20792109)
Always bring ladders.