Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending.

In these experiments it is necessary to take account not only of the food eaten, but of the actual amount of this food which is used by the body. […] Estimates of the solids, liquids, and gases given off from his body must be obtained, for to carry out the experiment an exact balance must be made between the income and the outgo.

To use Austin’s distinction, these are ‘serious’ uses of speech, as opposed to parasitical, play-acting, quotational, or other non-literal uses.

Finally, the minimum time needed to reach a steady-state population of z_2 librators is about 90 My, which allows to impose another, independent constraint on the group age..