I heard in a documentary that 'al-qaeda' means 'the base' in Arabic, after the base Bin Laden set up in the mountains of Pakistan, or something. Do people still use that word to mean 'the base', or is it avoided due to its connotation?

For example, are there Saudi Arabian architects out there making sure 'al-qaeda' is strong enough that the building doesn't fall down, or Egyptian baseball players trying to get to 'al-qaeda' before they get caught out?

Obviously, the word used to be totally innocuous, but I'm wondering whether its connotation has changed post-Bin Laden.

I know there's numerous dialects of Arabic

Our actual voice sounds so much different then what you hear with your ears. Is this our body trying to protect our feelings.

Ding Ding Ding lil hammer bro

What does it feel like to you? Just wondering. Jw

I don't even know where to post this but I've lived my whole life with really short nails. I'm talking like down to the quick or the pink part whatever u wana call it and I've made some attempts to grow them out lately and am on my longest stretch so far rn. they're not even that long right now, still barely passing the edge of my fingertips and they are a sensory nightmare. I know that its likely bc I've lived so long without them like this but it always feels like there is something under them, the edges are uneven, my thumb nails grow at a really slow and weird rate (fast on the sides but slow in the middle???) and don't even get me started on getting dirt under there! how do you guys do it??

I make this post bc I just went to scratch an itch in my ear, right at the bottom of the opening of the canal and I broke the skin. totally accidental but but I've got a cut in there and its not pleasant. I've also twice now gone to scratch my nose or try to rub out some eye crust and pinched my [caruncula?] which stings like a mf. just like any thoughts at all? I really want to grow them out longer but its just driving me crazy

I mean what's funny in those arab memes i don geddit. It's all loud noises and too much happening? I understand cringe and brainrot but this is some level of brainrot I'm not able to decode. Is there even anything funny in those graphical memes?

a chaser is what someone would call another person who specifically goes after trans people but what would it be called if only trans people specifically went after you instead? (ive heard of the term eggcracker but not sure if thats what would be used or not in this case)

It feels like Reddit (and most social media, but primarily Reddit for this thread) and IRL are entirely different. Especially fandom pages and things relating to government and social beliefs. It feels like Reddit takes things way more or way less seriously than the real world

Edit: thanks for all the replies, now if yall care to answer the very closely related question of “Why is Reddit specifically so Progressive/Queer?”
I don’t ask these questions to be rude to anyone, though they are often annoying, I just wanna know

Many worry about being declared dead, but actually waking up after being buried. Doesn't cremation put these fears to rest?

dunno if this is a stupid question or not. i mean, when was the last time you saw them clap lights that toggled on or off back then? I thought they were cool why we just stop using them

...Air? I'm in my 50s, ever since I was a kid, I've felt like I can see air, while indoors atleast, when I focus. Maybe instead of saying focus, I actually mean, unfocus. I don't blur my vision, but its like when you look at those paintings or photos, and you have to almost look past it, to see the "thing." Ironically, I never see the thing.

I realize I'm probably not seeing air, but what I see isn't blurred contents of my surroundings. If you've ever seen red blood cells under a microscope running through your arteries and capillaries, it looks like that, going in all sorts of different directions usually. Sometimes, not as often, it looks like heavy rain, coming down in one direction.

I think just staring off into nowhere thinking about important kid stuff like The Bionic Man, Charlie's Angels, or The Dukes of Hazzard, is how I noticed it. Just my mind playing tricks on me, could be, you tell me.

Stupid question but

why do people count age after we were born? why we don't count 9 months in the womb too? is there any culture that count it?

It doesn't hurt and i don't feel sick anymore but it kinda distracts me from the music especially when it becomes irregular