Language Overflow - 2016-02-25

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12:39 AM

> To return to the usual type of collectives. According as the idea of plurality is more or less prominent in the mind of the speaker, there is in all languages and at all times a tendency to forget the fact that collectives are grammatically singular, and we often find plural constructions, partial or total.

> A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles: Volume 2, Otto Jespersen

5 hours later…

5:51 AM

6

Q: Stack Exchange iOS app is getting new question nav

tl;dr I'm making question listings more useful with custom views similar to new-nav. It's currently in beta. Screenshots below. There are a fair number of the outstanding iOS app bugs/feature requests revolving around better question sorting and filtering (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). In the past I've tri...

discussion ios-app

CC @Dam @Snail

Tanks!

Jets!

> Once upon a time, yesterday, I had this conversation with a colleague of mine which went terribly wrong, He said one thing and I'm the absolute opposite.

-4

Q: Outdated content on Stack Overflow

Since the beginning of my youth just when I wrote my first line of code I can remember Stack Overflow always had and will be my main source of information, per se top quality information, community support and what not. Once upon a time, yesterday, I had this conversation with a colleague of min...

discussion stackoverflow suggested-edits

> He then goes on how content on the site is being outdated and misleading from time to time and you should check twice, whenever.

That is correct.

-17

Q: No answers on meta questions, only votes!

I am a new participant on meta.stackoverflow.com. I've observed that typically all questions on meta site have a lot of upvotes or downvotes, but don't have answers. Few that do have answers, have like 1 or 2 answers. Interestingly most people comment. I am worried and anxious to understand w...

discussion questions answers meta

Haha poor guy got stolen in the UI.

6:09 AM

> == วากยสัมพันธ์ == ยูอาร์แอลทุกชื่อประกอบขึ้นจาก แผนของตัวระบุแหล่งทรัพยากรสากล (URI scheme) (โดยทั่วไปเรียกว่าโพรโทคอล), ตามด้วยทวิภาค (:) และอื่น ๆ ขึ้นอยู่กับแผนที่ใช้งาน, ชื่อแม่ข่าย (hostname) หรือที่อยู่ไอพี, หมายเลขพอร์ต, ชื่อเส้นทางไปยังไฟล์ที่จะดึงข้อมูลมาหรือโปรแกรมที่จะทำงาน, และสุดท้ายคือสายอักขระสอบถาม (query string) โดยเฉพาะเมื่อทำงานกับโปรแกรมต่อประสานร่วมสำหรับเกตเวย์ (CGI) [6][7] สำหรับการเรียกไฟล์เอชทีเอ็มแอล สามารถใส่จุดตรึง (anchor) เป็นทางเลือก เพื่อเลื่อนเว็บเพจไปยังจุดที่ต้องการได้ด้วย [8] ดังนั้นรูปแบบโดยทั่วไปของยูอาร์แอลก็คือ

> th.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Hmm... I can't find exactly the same text in English on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator

But I laughed again and again, reading through that paragraph!

Why?

It sounds funny because the way we (they? or whoever did that) translate these technical terms makes most of these terms sound funny in Thai.

Some makes sense, but some just, well, sound funny!

I see.

For example, instead of just calling it path, or choosing to transliterate it as พาธ, they chose to write ชื่อเส้นทางไปยังไฟล์ที่จะดึงข้อมูลมาหรือโปรแกรมที่จะทำงาน (for a single word, "path").

And I laughed a lot when I read สายอักขระสอบถาม!

Translation is a "tricky" business sometimes :-)

6:16 AM

I guess it's kinda like when you hear someone say "on the line" when they mean "online".

@skullpetrol Indeed!

> Thai: สำหรับการเรียกไฟล์เอชทีเอ็มแอล สามารถใส่จุดตรึง (anchor) เป็นทางเลือก ...

> Rough back translation: For calling an HTML file, we can put an "anchor" as an option ...

But when we use an anchor, it's not an option!

I think what they wanted to write is: "anchor" is optional.

Good point.

(Or in full, When we write a URL, we can optionally put an "anchor" ...)

@skullpetrol See, that's why I sigh often enough when I review some papers and theses written in Thai.

Sigh

Indeed, the intended meaning gets lost in the translation...

...::sigh::

:D

6:26 AM

SIGH

better than a GAAASP!!!???

9 hours later…

3:42 PM

I don't know why in formal letters govt officials tend to write English heavily influenced by translations, for example - "your good name" or "your kind self's" etc. And they consider it a good English, and very kind words. I find it very exasperating, and think they are not at all very courteous. Does this thing only happen in India? Or any other country also have the same thing?☺

(That smiley is unintentional, a slip of my fingre, I guess) 😜

4:38 PM

aaaaa

The design has changed!

Congrats!

Anonymous

4:50 PM

Wow, it did!

Anonymous

Well, I guess it's a good thing I made that push for 20k reputation :-)

Anonymous

@CopperKettle I think it's a little buggy, though. The side bar is appearing below the main content, at least for me!

Yes it's changed. The logo looks nice.

Anonymous

Ah, Martha beat me to reporting the sidebar. I guess they didn't test it in Firefox.

Anonymous

The sidebar's in the right spot in Chrome.

5:06 PM

Oh! Where am I?

Anonymous

You're in the new ELL chat, with different colors and little orange thingies in circles!

Anonymous

Orange thingies are now ELL's main theme.

Good evening, what are orange things?

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

Does it look more red or orange to you? It's somewhere in between. e86441

5:11 PM

Orange, but there aren't many

Anonymous

It's the new favicon, and it shows up in the 'achievements' drop-down on the top bar when you get reputation on ELL.

Anonymous

So it'll show up as the symbol for ELL on browser tabs, too.

Anonymous

A similar thingy, but thinner and colored differently, is used for our badges.

But everything is beautiful!!! Congratulations, everyone!

Anonymous

Yay!

Anonymous

5:15 PM

I'm still getting used to our new colors.

It's like a birthday, right?

Anonymous

From now on, we'll always know we're in ELL chat at a glance, just by looking at the color scheme :-)

Anonymous

@V.V. It's the last step of site graduation.

Anonymous

As part of 'graduating' from beta to a full site, ELL got moderator elections, reputation requirements for privileges went up, and it got its own custom visual design.

Anonymous

This is the design! :-)

Anonymous

5:16 PM

Before, ELL was using the beta site theme, shared by all the other beta sites.

Anonymous

You can see the new privilege levels here: ell.stackexchange.com/help/privileges

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hey, you made it to 20k before the privilege levels changed! :-) Congratulations!

Anonymous

Ooh, a high resolution orange thingy:

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

From J.R.'s meta post:

Anonymous

5:24 PM

0

A: New site design!

Not really a bug report, just expressing my surprise. I'm surprised the tour page shows only the bookmark, with no dictionaries. That is, I thought the artwork would resemble the button on the right, but instead it shows the button on the left: I think it would be nice to get that E on the To...

I'll have a look at the main site.

Anonymous

Anonymous

Oh, I guess that doesn't do anything special.

Anonymous

It looks a better design than ELU.

Anonymous

5:29 PM

Rathony said the same thing.

😃

5:42 PM

This site looks fresh and young, perhaps because of colours, green, yellow, white.

5:57 PM

@snailboat It looks all spiffy and design-ified to me. There's probably caching involved.

I've never chatted at ELL before: what's with ELL's Cabin vs. Language Overflow?

Anonymous

@Marthaª Well, in theory the cabin is for general discussion including meta discussion about the site, and also for people who want quick help with English stuff. LO is supposed to be for more technical discussion for people who like that sort of thing, and other languages besides English are on-topic there too.

Anonymous

But in practice, a lot of people just join whichever room people are currently talking in.

OK, thanks!

Oooh, looks like the sidebar thing has been fixed.

Anonymous

Yay! Yeah, it's fixed for me now too.

I still think that orange thingy looks like a snake's tongue. Or perhaps a snake puppet's tongue.

But whatever. Pretty colors!

2 hours later…

7:49 PM

Looks around in amazement Uh, @Dam

Where's are we? I'm scared.

good evening.. and good night (yawns)

\o

BTW, can you guess offhand what will form in AL2(SO4)3+NaOH (over-abundance)?

I failed.

Hmm

My first guess is they don't react.

(I don't know what they write in English for "overabundance", in Russian we write "изб")

Na3[Al(OH)6]

7:55 PM

@CopperKettle We don't write such thing. We just say "X is abundant".

Oh huh

hydrohoxehoalluminate!

(0:

Or whatever its name is.

But if the NaOH is not abundant, the reaction will yield just unsolvable Al(OH)3

good night once more, Muhammad!

Nighty night!

?*

hey.
Anyone there/

No

Maybe

For once, i don't here to rid me of my doubts.

:p

What's up?

8:03 PM

I looked up; it seems to be my glasses.

._.) That awkward moment when someone makes a joke you don't get, and you just sit there like, "Yeah, i know what you're talking about."

Are you into stand up comedy?

I'm not even outside stand up comedy.

Might i go as far as to try to interest you in a youtube video where the greatest stand up artist of all time, in my opinion, shares his take on religion?

Of course, but I can't click on it right now.

George Carlin --- Religion is Bullshit

okay. :p

8:09 PM

@lekonchekon Seeing its title, I see that he is yet another person that didn't understand religion.

His points are quite valid.
I'd say religion has its significance, but on a side note, i'd like to add, it would have been better for the world had it been replaced by art and culture.

Heh, but it never would have.

If religion isn't there to be a tool for powers that be to manipulate the minds of their people, they can just use something else.

Manipulating people doesn't sound like something positive, or good, does it now? :3

This world is ignoring what religion is more and more, and thus we drown in the mud pit that we make ourselves, more and more.

@lekonchekon It's not religion's fault.

A murderer kills someone else with his knife. The murder's not knife's fault.

Yes, but look at this way, what if the murderer didn't exist to begin with?

8:16 PM

Human craves for power.

Power hungry jerks are never nonexistent.

I don't think people look at religion the way religions were meant to be looked at, they just bend, and twist it to make money off of it, and stuff.

If religions weren't there to begin with, the world would be a better place.

And there would be more unity.
More people would get treated equally, for there are obviously a lot of countries out there where the people belonging to a religion minority don't get treated right.

Hmm, your POV is simplistic.

If religions weren't there to begin with, there would have been other beliefs to be gamed, other beliefs to be used for controlling people's minds.

It's just how you make someone else do something for you:

You have to make them believe that doing what you want them to do will be beneficial for them.

Now, that can be arranged by telling them they'll go to heaven.

Or it can be arranged by paying them.

A thousand other things.

Ah, how sick a place the world is.

So religion is only one of the ways you make people do what they otherwise won't, prolly.

I get that.
But i don't think i'd be as big a scheme as using religion to gain profits is.

8:26 PM

It obviously would be.

i doubt that.

Look.

The religion itself isn't relevant to the gist of misuse.

They are gonna misuse, aren't they?

Be it using Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, materialism, communism etc.

Ask @Copper; he'll tell you what it looks like if religion isn't being abused to control people.

how does he know what kinda place the world would be if religion wasn't being abused to control people's minds?

o_O

He lives in Russia, where communism rules/ruled.

Communism isn't a religion now, is it?

ah.

Nah, i know how communists prefer not to acknowledge the existence of religion.

8:32 PM

It isn't a religion.

Yet it's a tool, just like what religion has become.

in English Language & Usage, 2 days ago, by IͶΔ

Eats @Delta's religion

Relevant discussion there @Lekon. ^

thanks, i'll give it a look.

I don't wanna repeat what I said there.

What I believe in, how it should be.

Sure.
I'll go through the chat.

@snailboat Yay! (I barely made it!)

@Dam is trusted? No way

8:36 PM

Hehe!

Hah, I was lost in the site for 15 minutes. It looks so much different. — IͶΔ 15 mins ago

Haha!

Anonymous

@IͶΔ There's nine of us!

@snailboat 8.5. I'm not a whole person.

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/users?tab=Reputation&filter=all ← all nine

Anonymous

8:38 PM

You're going to have to earn some more rep, @IͶΔ :-)

@IͶΔ I think I have the same feeling right now!

:O This is . . . THIS IS . . . tinfoil

@snailboat I guess I probably haven't used site analytics.

@Snail still 8.5. The kettle is half-filled.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's not worth it.

Anonymous

8:40 PM

If you get 25k, get it for the sake of the site, not to see those graphs :-)

nods

@snailboat Got it!

Anonymous

They're sort of a watered down version of the graphs the mods can see.

I need to get some bees.

Anonymous

. . . which, to be honest, I haven't looked at in quite a while!

G'night all

8:41 PM

@snailboat Hah!

@IͶΔ Goodnight!

And damn the design looks cool; enough with the lizard tongue nitpick

It looks like it's still the same font in answers and questions.

Anonymous

I don't dislike the orange thingy.

Anonymous

I just like saying orange thingy.

@DamkerngT. The font won't change unless we ask them to change it.

8:43 PM

Ahh... I see.

Back at chem, we did request a new font; which I have been in love with since.

47

Q: Chemistry site design

I’m Kurtis, senior product designer at Stack Exchange. First, I wanted to congratulate you because this site is now starting the process of moving out of beta to become a fully-graduated site! Well done! Graduation and Your Site Design Graduation comes with a few perks. We have already started ...

discussion design

Hey, have you tried chat transcript pages? I think it's easier to read than before, probably because of the color change.

And hey, I still think Chem got the best design evar.

@IͶΔ I like those test tubes on Chem, too.

Anonymous

The transcripts do look nice.

Anonymous

8:45 PM

Links are kind of hard to read in the star area on the right, since they're low contrast.

Anonymous

And while I'm typing, the 'upload' button greys out, which makes it white on light grey, which is harder to see.

Anonymous

But there's nothing major enough for me to post about.

Anonymous

Overall, it's pretty easy on the eyes, I think.

nods

Anonymous

Anonymous

8:46 PM

I wonder when I'll stop seeing the beta thingy.

Anonymous

Clearing my cache didn't do it.

Oh! I hadn't refreshed the chat page (i.e. this page)!

It looks, um, different.

Anonymous

Yeah. It sure does.

Anonymous

It'll take me a while to get used to it, probably.

Anonymous

The main site has some stuff that's kinda lower contrast than my eyes would like.

8:48 PM

nods -- I like the plain old colors in the chat more, at least for now, I think.

Anonymous

The time-construct tag never stops amusing me.

Anonymous

I hope we keep that tag forever.

Anonymous

To the Time Construct! We must connect 1947 to 2019!

@snailboat Looks like it's a mix of time-related questions ("What time is it?") and time expressions, with a bit of a touch of tense.

@snailboat Or even 2029!

(It may happen in 2029: science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/…)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Here on Stack Exchange, we sometimes use construct as an attempt at a technical term.

Anonymous

8:50 PM

Presumably it's meant to be construction, which is an actual technical term.

@snailboat Ah, I see!

I remember that I used to use construct for construction as well.

Anonymous

But we swing and miss, and the -ion ends up on the cutting room floor, if I may mix metaphors :-)

Anonymous

I wonder what @IͶΔ thinks of -ions.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. We learn it from each other, and it spreads memetically.

Hehe!

Anonymous

8:52 PM

It's the same way we here on Stack Exchange say noun adjunct all the time.

Anonymous

It's contagious!

Anonymous

I haven't seen any linguists use the term noun adjunct in this day and age to mean 'attributive noun', but I know it did appear in a reference book some decades back, so I imagine it must have had some currency at some point.

Anonymous

So I don't mean to say that's the same as construct.

Anonymous

Here's another example, different yet:

Anonymous

I talk about felicity conditions sometimes, which is not something most people on SE talk about.

Anonymous

8:55 PM

And y'all picked up felicitous from me. :-)

Anonymous

Contagious!

Anonymous

Language is viral.

@snailboat I found it used in some papers as well, so it should be common enough. It's a word that's common enough, right?

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sure, linguists use it.

Anonymous

It's a technical term.

8:56 PM

Phew!

By the way, I don't know how to get this screen:

in ELL's Cabin, 1 hour ago, by athlonusm

user image

Anonymous

It's from How to Do Things with Words.

Anonymous

By the way, Searle and Austin were philosophers of language.

Anonymous

John Searle, Speech Acts, and J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, seminal works on speech act theory.

Anonymous

Austin was, and Searle still is.

Anonymous

That's some more reading for you, if you like :-)

9:03 PM

Bookmarked! and thanks!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. On your profile, there's a little meter that says 'Next badge'.

Anonymous

To the right of that is a little gear icon, which you can click for that modal.

Ah, found it! Thanks!

9:20 PM

> (1) In traditional English grammar, an epicene noun is one that can refer to either sex without changing its form, such as student, teacher, and president. Also called common gender.
http://grammar.about.com/od/e/g/epiceneterm.htm

Does that imply that the term is only used in traditional (English) grammar?

Hello, @Marthaª!

@DamkerngT. Hi, Damkerng!

Oh, the sidebar looks like that on Firefox 44?

firing up Firefox 44...

It looks okay on my desktop. Maybe they've already fixed it.

Yes, they already fixed it.

(Someone responded to my bug post in about 20 seconds. It was pretty amazing.)

Hi, @MrTheWalrus!

Hello!

9:31 PM

Noticed the change? :-)

I don't know how anyone could not notice the change. Unless caching, of course.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, it's sort of the default state for English.

Anonymous

It's a more useful term when discussing other languages.

Indeed. Everything is shiny and new around here.

@Marthaª It took me like 15 minutes. :D

@snailboat Ahh

9:33 PM

It takes me like 15 minutes to realize that yes, I'm really on ELL, not some random other SE site.

@Marthaª Hehe!

Anonymous

Reputation requirements for privileges went up. You'll need 10k now, not 2k. — snailboat 1 min ago

Anonymous

Poor everyone except us, @DamkerngT.!

That's the downside of graduation.

How many of us are 10k or above?

Anonymous

ell.stackexchange.com/users?tab=Reputation&filter=all

Anonymous

9:39 PM

Twenty-two, some of whom are no longer active, I think.

Wow, I can count them!

Anonymous

So maybe 18-ish.

Anonymous

(I'm using Damkerng™ brand derivational morphology!)

@snailboat LOL

Everything can become adjective-ish by adding -ish!

I have to browse through page 4 on EL&U to find the first user who hasn't reached 10k yet.

Anonymous

Wow!

9:43 PM

"Damkerng Language Forge: Verbs nouned, nouns verbed, we adjective-ify anything!"

Love that!

2 hours later…

11:45 PM

Word of the Day: decadence

It looks like the worse meaning a word is, the better chance that it's a new word for me will be!

« first day (251 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3005 days later) »

Transcript for

Feb '1625

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