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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • Essentially as others said, because you need to invest heavily in your gut and metabolism to get enough energy out of grass alone. You don’t evolve into what you want, you evolve into what you can while you are pressured to do so. There is currently no pressure to rely solely on grass, that pressure hasn’t been on us for millions of years. Our foods may be trickier to find but on average they yield more energy compared to grass.

    But don’t get me wrong. It’s a valid strategy. Our ancestors did have the window of opportunity at some point, and they took it… We were something more like rats back then, the grass eaters niche had room. Grass was everywhere. And our cousins back then adapted and spent practically the whole day foraging for grass in order to get by. But you know what also was everywhere? Trees. And our ratlike ancestors that were more inclined to climb, jump, and spot predators from above found it easier to stick to the omnivore diet.

    Adapting to trees lets you move into places with less grass… Like jungles and swamps. And while you are there for a couple million years you will have other problems to solve, problems that require wits, sharp vision, and social skills. You don’t have time to forage 18hrs every day and grass isn’t as abundant here anyway.

    If you don’t rely solely on grass you will probably fare better during winter. Especially during those ice ages. By the time you have grass as an option again you are pretty much an ape and pivoting back to it makes no sense.






  • Fair conclusion, but don’t be so hard on yourself. Honestly as a native speaker these things don’t come across as “rules” for me even though of course they have rules. It’s just the natural and obvious way of using the language. And that’s something very hard to get right if you weren’t raised with that language. In other words, I’ve heard a gazillion people say so many examples of phrases in Spanish since before I have memory, that hearing or seeing something outside of the expected pattern stands out immediately, but I can’t always explain why.

    It’s unreasonable to expect ever having the same level of fluency with a language you weren’t raised with. I’ve been speaking English half my life and I still screw up sometimes.



  • Not the person you asked, but a native Spanish speaker myself. The formal way to say “excuse me” (for example to a teacher or boss, or to a stranger on the street if you wish to be polite) would be “disculpe señor/a”, or “discúlpeme señor/a”. You can also remove señor/a and simply say “disculpe” or “discúlpeme” to anyone and it will still carry the same meaning, since the verb in both cases already implies it’s about yourself.

    The informal way would be “disculpame” or “discúlpame”, although in this case adding señor/a sounds way off. You can definitely add a name though, ie, “discúlpame Shads” and that would be okay.

    Edit: as for your specific request of an adult teacher asking something to the students, that would depend a lot on the relationship they have, some teachers are distant while others get more familiar with time. I’ve seen both. By all means the formal one would always be correct. I’ve seen teachers with a usually more relaxed or casual approach revert to the formal when they are getting serious or upset.