Ran Out of Timeout

Good evening!

There is no opening position for this chess-tagged post, unfortunately.

Right.

My eyes and brain are seldomly hilarious.

This was my MISREADING on Lichess. Back then, it was simply "White / Black is victorious", no specific reason for the losing side. So they've updated that.

As such:

It is indeed grand, the update.

But my brain! Though I consciously KNEW it was "…ran out of time", my brain kept on spouting —

Hm, ran out of timeout.

Mate, what?!

It rhymes. Ran out of timeout.

Right. But it did not read that!

Read again, then.

(Read again. 👀 TWICE.) You goblin!

HABA-HABA-HABA. It rhymes, mate.

🤔

Hm. Ran out of timeout. Sir English should barge in and protest. Because "timeout" is… countable.

Oh, let's ignore Sir English momentarily and imagine how "ran out of timeout" would play.

(Playing online chess on Lichess.)

Almost run out of time!

(Premove happens. Mouse is unexpectedly thrown against the wall. 💥🖱️)

👀AAAARRRGH! MY MOUSE!

(Lost the game.)

I ran out of timeout! I… What?! 🤔 No more timeout for me! 🤦

🤷 Oh, well. Oblivion it is, then. Ta.

It does rather suggest "timeout" is a finite natural resource, mind you, like coal or tissue.

🤔

Tissue is the one resource that always runs out at the worst possible moment, which makes it a far more tragic commodity than coal. We don't use coal to wipe our… stuff. That often. "Coal, 3-ply, extra soft" sitting beside the lavender-scented… coal. Nobody is buying. Though the coal would at least burn rather nicely once the cold had run its course. Now with lavender scent! The other is extra soft!

Moving on.

So here's the comical bit. In blitz, the timeout is running out of time. In that snapshot above, White did NOT run out of timeout — White HAD the timeout, and it was the very thing that did them in. "Ran out of timeout" would mean running out of the running out of time, which is a bit like going bankrupt in the currency of bankruptcy.

Plus, "…out of timeout" is grammatically… questionable. It's akin to a marvellous KFC crispy chicken wing to a hungry me. The attraction of that. I mean, to Sir English, the attraction.

Let us let Sir English enter the chat.

Sir English: (Barges in. 💥 Looks around. 👀 Tidies his suit.) Good evening, gentleman.

Me: Good evening, Sir English. Thank you. I'm rather gentle, innit?

Sir English: 👀 Aside from that, gentleman. Nobody says "I ran out of T-shirt." Unless they were describing a rather unfortunate incident involving a very small garment.

Me: 🤔 Is this about that "zero is plural" rule? Tell me more about that very small garment, Sir English.

Sir English: (Wig quivers.) Gentleman, a very small garment was involved, and that is all I shall say. Some things cannot be conjugated.

Me: Wow. Conjugated. Is it because it is very small? Like an SMD component?

Sir English: Good evening, gentleman. (Vanishes.)

Come to think of it, isn't a "timeout" within the "time"? I mean, intrinsically?

But indeed, it's like saying "ran out of cars" and "ran out of bumpers". A bumper is a part of a car.

But! Setting aside the grammatically questionable "…out of timeout", now here's the but. Cars aren't time! Mm.

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To be clear, Lichess did nothing wrong — the update was perfectly clear. It was merely my brain that read "ran out of time" as "ran out of timeout".

Thanks for visiting! And good evening.