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It was one of my 2014 resolutions not to inflict severe bodily harm on people who say exorb.
Trying to learn the difference between absorbtion and adsorption nearly caused my head to explode when taking Physical Chemistry in college. If you have a solid, absorbing a gas, absorbtion has the gas being soaked up by the solid, while adsorption has the gas coating the outside. When you are using paper towels, though, does the quicker picker-upper absorb that spilt milk or adsorb it? Spilt milk, on a pchem test is worth crying over. And is carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans or is it adsorbed? (I keep wondering how I can ask how the greenhouse effect caused 2014 to be the coldest year on record without being accused of being a "denier" and wonder why "inconvenient truths" are socially acceptable, while inconvenient questions are not.)
In any case, trying to ask people whether they mean absorb or adsorb when they say exorb invariably leads to "Huh? What the difference?" and I'm back in Chem-301 hell. There are laws against making terroristic threats; how do I gently warn people never to say exorb around me without running afoul of those laws?
deaconB said
I keep wondering how I can ask how the greenhouse effect caused 2014 to be the coldest year on record without being accused of being a "denier" and wonder why "inconvenient truths" are socially acceptable, while inconvenient questions are not.)
The first few sites I've looked at (searching <2014 the coldest year on record>) scoff at global warming while only citing statistics for the US. That's not science.
"Globally, 2014 is the hottest year ever recorded, but in the United States it's the coldest year since 1997." Published December 10th 2014, 12:04 pm NBC News
"Driving the temperature rise in 2014 were the oceans -- the Pacific, the polar and subtropical north Atlantic, parts of the south Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean all experienced the warmest temperatures ever recorded"- ClimateWire, December 2014
All that from switching from Yankee Clippers to nuclear subs? How long is "ever" when it comes to record keeping in mid-ocean, anyway?
But the definition of science seems to have changed over the years. These days, it's deciding what you want in the way of government regulations and funding, then concocting a theory to support it and promoting it until it meets the approval of those who stand to benefit from those changes. A half century ago, science consisted of observing changes as a result of different conditions until one was able to predict the consequence of changes in conditions. Of the top 30-some mathematical models drug out to support climate change theory, there's not one that even successfully predicts the past; that is, starting at, say, 1800 and walking the model, year by year, and arriving at something like current conditions.
It's part of our constantly changing language, like drunk driving replacing drunken driving. We have met the enemy and they are us. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Damn, Tromboniator, you start your days early. 
I'm not exactly sure what deacobB's question is. There seems to be two, one of which was answered in Tromboniator's post. And I agree with his response. I wrote a 3-part series on the difference between weather and climate, since I think that's the main confusion (both with deniers and non-deniers). If you want to read that, it starts here.
Regarding "exorb" ... not sure in what context deaconB refers to that usage. Are people using it as shorthand for "exhorbitant" (my guess) or are they using it to mean the reverse of "absorb" (which I've never heard anyone do). If the former, it's the same as people using "phenom" as short for "phenomenal." And I have no problem with that, since that type of shorthand transformation has happened to many words in our language.
And to go back to Chem 301, porous solids can adsorb gases (or liquids) onto their exterior and interior surfaces. Even though the adsorbed substance "goes inside" the solid, it's still adsorption. This is one of the ways hydrogen gas is stored for vehicle propulsion. Turns out a tank of metal hydrides properly adsorbed holds MORE hydrogen than a similar-sized tank with just hydrogen gas at normal tank storage pressures. It all comes down to the total surface area inside all the pores, which increases as the inverse-square of the particle/pore diameter.
The total surface area of a rock crushed into sand-sized particles can be thousands of times more than that of the original rock.
I leave discussion of "absorption" to Chem 101.
Heimhenge said
Damn, Tromboniator, you start your days early.
Actually, I was still up, building a poster for my son and his fiancée.
the difference between weather and climate
I would have added a sentence or two on that subject if I hadn't shut down my computer before I thought of it.
It’s part of our constantly changing language, like drunk driving replacing drunken driving.
According to M-W, drunk has been replacing drunken for about 700 years.
It’s part of our constantly changing language, like drunk driving replacing drunken driving.
According to M-W, drunk has been replacing drunken for about 700 years.
I was surprised that neither drunk driving, nor drunken driving didn't enter the lexicon until about 1920.
There are arguments about who invented the automobile, but according to family lore, my paternal grandfather, born in 1888, supposedly rode with his father in that first car in 1892 in Cavett, Ohio (about 5 miles north of Van Wert, and it's pronounced "Cavette" rather than like Dick Cavett pronounces his surname.) There was no other motorcar known to exist to them, but this solitary car was was destroyed when a tree jumped out in front of the inebriated inventor/driver. Seems odd that they'd take 28 years to figure out what "drunk driving" or "drunken driving" should be called. Maybe everybody was busy trying to figure oout what to do with a drunken sailor.
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