English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2011-05-25 (page 1 of 3)

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7:02 AM

is there any english leaning for making the correct sentences?

7:22 AM

@RegDwight: what's the rule for when 15k users can protect questions?

46

Q: A word for a person with only one head

Reading this article by the fantastic Douglas Adams I came across this interesting quote: ‘[I]nteractivity’ is one of those neologisms that Mr Humphrys likes to dangle between a pair of verbal tweezers, but the reason we suddenly need such a word is that during this century we have for the fi...

word-choice etymology construction word-games

Looking at the above, it apparently gathers "not-an-answer" answers, has high views and votes, so I thought maybe it was worth protecting. Then I realized, the "protect" link doesn't appear on it anyway (while it does appear on some other questions of the site).

Do you know what's the rule? I can't find it discussed anywhere on Meta…

1 hour later…

8:34 AM

Hey there! I don't care if people downvote me with no explanation... I won't go on an indiscriminate downvote revenge spree because I'm bigger than that. You getting any of this grumble fingers?

8:50 AM

@Cerberus: Halp! Someone's waging a war against us!

Hello.

Good that you're finally here, I have to fix typos and some formatting, and that's one more edit :P

@Reg: OK it says 11 versions (and therefore 10 edits), but it didn't get converted into CW immediately

9:08 AM

@Vitaly Hm. I dunno. Just flag it when/if it does.

9:19 AM

1 hour ago, by F'x

@RegDwight: what's the rule for when 15k users can protect questions?

@RegDwight: ping

@Fx But you have protected it, haven't you?

So if the link wasn't there right away, it must've been a glitch or something.

@RegDwight no, it happens very often

Hm. Okay...

this one, for example, has no protect link right now:

12

Q: Suffixes for verbification: -ify, -icise, -ificate

The suffixes -ise/-ize -ify -ificate are all used for verbifying nouns and adjectives. What are the differences in meaning/connotation/usage between them? (This is generalising from the sinification/sinicisation question, and is partially answered by @Garet Claborn’s answer there — an expa...

Then perhaps there's a 24-hour threshold.

This one's 23 hours old. Let's have a look in an hour.

MSO doesn't have anything.

The threshold could also be X answers already posted.

This one here has exactly one answer, so perhaps the system is smart enough to figure out that it's not "garnering lots of views and newbies are adding 'me too!', 'thanks!' and possibly even spam non-answers."

9:43 AM

user image

if only the query syntax of the COCA and BNC allowed me to make a legit graph…

10:04 AM

@Vitaly that's kind of hard to read if you don't normalize by the average of each suffix

I know, I am playing with colours and transparency there

No point in making a legit graph if the data is wrong in the first place

I dunno how to exclude words like rise and rate in the ‎COCA/BNC

the authors of the Longman Grammar drew their data from the Bank of English, but I don't think I am paying for that subscription

10:52 AM

No rep points for editing? I thought you got rep for editing? :(

I mean I don't care of course. I don't do it for the points. Who cares about some pretend internet points? I do it because... um.... I must be very bored?

And alone... so very alone... anybody there?

Anyone?

Just talking to myself here... best company I've had all week.

@z7sg You're over 2k already. Your edits no longer have to be approved.

Hup.

@RegDwight I thought you got 2 points for editing a post for some reason... maybe I am just losing it.

@z7sg You do, but you can only get 1000 points that way. Right, Reg?

You got 2 points for edits that got approved. At 2k, your edits no longer have to be approved. So you don't get the 2 points anymore.

11:00 AM

@z7sg Once you are over 2K, you don't get those 2 points anymore.

@kiamlaluno Ah ok. Makes sense I guess. Editing posts is kinda fun anyway, without the points.

Kids these days. I haven't got a single point for my edits, ever.

@RegDwight You have other sorts of perks though I guess? All that power... must be intoxicating.

@RegDwight Looks like there's a feud bubbling over man-whore...

@z7sg Sure. All I'm saying is that I had to get to 2k, uphill, both ways, barefoot in the snow, long before this petty tip jar got introduced.

11:04 AM

@z7sg Ahh, but with great power there must also come great responsibility.

Huh wha? I didn't sign up for that!

This was never more true than with Reg.

@RegDwight (elbow) Just go with it.

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in Hub of Reason, Jan 26 at 17:38, by Josiah

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@Vitaly We can all use a little Venn diagram humor in the morning. Thanks for that.

11:14 AM

user image

:(

Mr. Disappointment

11:30 AM

Ay.

Hello Mr Pirate.

Mr. Disappointment

I'm a different kind of Mr everyday - such a novelty.

11:46 AM

@Reg: russos.livejournal.com/833113.html (warning, many pictures) anything like that in Germany? :D

12:00 PM

@Vit: What is that site about?

@Reg: I have humiliated those fools a bit more.

@Cerberus just a general-purpose blog on a popular blogging platform

Oh, ok.

I saw pictures of old women in white vests, or whatever those are called.

In the Moscow underground, I think?

Yeah

Cool.

12:14 PM

Рожайте means what?

give birth? huh?

Like an order.

Ah, sort of like 'Go forth and multiply!'

Yup.

Yes, very low birth rate... then who is going to look after the old folks?

Hey all, is asking for the name of a certain type of logical fallacy on-topic?

12:29 PM

If you can frame it as a single-word-request, sure.

What!

When Atheism.SE was still alive, we were frustrated that there was no Psychology.SE to ask for the names of cognitive biases

Ah, it's good to be back in Russian.SE chat.

And thought it would have been off-topic for English.SE

Does it really have to be a single word, Reg?

Most logical fallacies and cognitive biases aren't named in one word

@Vitaly — Rubbish.

List of cognitive biases

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations. Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable facts. The existence of some of these cognitive biases has been verified empirically in the field of psychology. Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions w...

12:32 PM

What type of logical fallacy is "rubbish"?

@Robusto They won't start up Russian.SE so this is the next best thing.... it's sad I know.

@RegDwight — I suppose you want me to give you the Latin term now?

List of fallacies

This is a list of fallacies in logic and rhetoric. Formal fallacies A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument's form without an understanding of the argument's content. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequiturs. * Appeal to probability: assumes that because something could happen, it is inevitable that it will happen. This is the premise on which Murphy's law is based. * Argument from fallacy: assumes that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion itself is false. * Base rate fallacy: making a probability judgement ...

List of memory biases

In psychology and cognitive science, a memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many types of memory bias, including: * Choice-supportive bias: remembering chosen options as having been better than rejected options (Mather, Shafir & Johnson, 2000) * Change bias: after an investment of effort in producing change, remembering one's past performance as more difficult...

@RegDwight I can add that to my question if you want.

I think it's something like defecatio in os.

12:33 PM

Category:Lists of lists

This category contains pages which list other lists. This generally includes any article which is entitled "List(s) of..." fiu-vro:Katõgooria:Nimekiräq

I win!

BTW, "fiu-vro:Katõgooria:Nimekiräq" is Mongolian and means "RegDwight is cooler than Genghis Khan".

Hmm, I wonder why someone downvoted me for "Panglossian" meaning optimistic.

Okay, who the hell is starring everything.

Me. Every post you make is star-worthy, right?

Star me damn it I want a badge. I said something really funny yesterday as well.

9

After "BTW ... cooler than Genghis Khan" got starred, I felt some guerilla action was required. It's a satire on this whole "starring in chat" sock puppet thing.

12:38 PM

@z7sg Starred, because I want that badge too!

Clarification: you only get the Outspoken badge for getting starred by 10 different people, not for starring the same person ten times in a row. Do note the subtle difference.

2

This whole thing is like so 7th grade.

Everyone is in the 7th grade on the Internet. Relax.

Have another star.

@RegDwight Dude, I don't even have the talkative badge.

12:42 PM

You do now.

Well yeah :D the system hasn't actually realised that though I am refreshing furiously.

A little-known fact about the Internet: refreshing you browser on continent X won't affect a totally unrelated cron job on continent Y.

Yes you know I am aware of that, Mr Dwight...? This is my 7th grade internet persona. In real life I'm not such a tit, honestly.

Yeah well, I'm not addressing you — or anyone else, for that matter. I'm just spewing random facts.

Mar 23 at 13:35, by Robusto

The fact is, when someone begins a sentence with "the fact is," that sentence will probably contain not a single provable fact.

On the plus side, the down-vote made my rep end in 666. So I get to be evil for the foreseeable future.

12:53 PM

Wow, you can't foresee more than three seconds?

Still 666. Deal with it.

I can turn it into a 664 any time. :P

What do you call the bits that make up a logical argument?

Not axioms...ergh!

Was just typing axioms... why ergh?

Steps?

12:57 PM

There's a name for the statements. You might use an axiom as part of the proof, but each step is a...something.

Premise? Proposition?

Argument?

Synthesis?

@RegDwight Well, the whole thing is the argument.

So you say that every word has exactly one meaning? :P

Seriously though, I can only think of line of reasoning.

Premises?

Now what is a line comprised of?

1:00 PM

Ah you have that already.

@RegDwight blush No. But I'm trying to describe the parts in relation to the whole, so I can't say "the argument in the argument"

I think "premise" is right. Or maybe "assumption."

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for what? I'm still thinking...

In fact, why don't you go ask this on the main site?

Looks like an interesting question.

syllogisms?

Postulate?

@RegDwight Ok, maybe after I finish the question I need it for. :)

@RegDwight Postulations! Yes.

1:04 PM

Okay, now you are friggin obliged to give me at least very many mighty preciousss.

And then some!

@RegDwight Er, huh?

Tögrög I demand.

On a tangentially related note, I have just found out that they have neat Venn diagrams for syllogisms on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism#Table_of_all_syllogisms

@Vitaly Oh Vitaly. I'm touched in a deeply personal way that you have just made that connection for me.

In syllogisms the correct term is premise.

1:08 PM

Well a syllogism is a logical argument in itself, but it's a simple one, so it can be deemed a step in a major logical argument

I thought @Kit was referring to the bits of the process called logical argument

@RegDwight I traded all my tögrög for rubles. Will you accept doubloons?

Screw doubloons, gimme ze rubles.

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@RegDwight Can we chat privately?

You can create a private room, yes.

@RegDwight Which, btw, apparently appears on our front page?

1:21 PM

I don't think it's private. Anybody can enter it.

@RegDwight Um, how do I create a private room?

@MrHen That's my inexperience, MrHen.

@RegDwight Ah. Well, in any case, the Alennano/Boob love nest is quite visible from english.stackexchange.com

@Kit If you clicke on @Reg's name it has an option to "Start new room with this user"

OK, I am not a native speaker©, but I am struggling to understand that question… If the statement is used as a preposition, there would be infinitely many ways to construct arguments including that preposition… The only limiting factor that I see is the natural language ambiguity, and that's usually referred to as equivocation. Am I missing something?

@MrHen Thanks, MrHen. I think maybe I don't have privileges for privacy.

@Vitaly I don't think so. Maybe equivocation is the right answer.

Or something like the fallacy of division, if the limiting factor is dividing all men into separate men (which results from the ambiguity of English anyway)

1:31 PM

@Vitaly Yes, that's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Even closer: ecological fallacy.

@Vitaly — Is there any language besides math (and symbolic logic) which does not contain any ambiguity with respect to logic?

@Vitaly preposition → proposition

@Robusto Lojban? :)

@Vitaly Vitaly, I'm so in love with you this morning!

Hmm, I wonder how many native speakers Lojban has ...

And do native speakers of Lojban all live in Lojbania?

1:35 PM

@Robusto I'm pretty sure there's just that one kid who was raised bilingual.

Bilingual in Lojban and Toki Pona?

@Robusto Nearly every single computer language.

@Kit — The problem for Lojban speakers is that they can never insinuate anything. Their meaning must always be unambiguous, so they tend to get beat up a lot. I wonder how many survive into adulthood.

@MrHen — Maybe the ones that don't overload operators and the like.

@Robusto You can still lie in lojban.

@Robusto Confusing != ambiguous

@MrHen — Joke != literal statement

1:38 PM

Speaking of being beaten up, should I fall back on my logical fallacy question?

Category:User jbo

Well, no jbo-5. Too bad.

Every language that has a logo deserves to die in a huge ball of nuclear fire.

@RegDwight — Are there any small balls of nuclear fire? Just curious.

@Robusto My balls come in all shapes and sizes.

@RegDwight — I should like to hit them with a tennis racket then.

1:42 PM

Nuclear tennis rackets? Fine with me.

1:53 PM

@Robusto Thanks for the note on "philanderer."

@Kit — De nada.

Hey, question for all you Russkies: Does Russian's Greek influence come solely via Christian sources, or are there secular Greek influences as well? @Vitaly? @RegDwight?

Ugh. I wish I still remembered anything they taught me in school.

I have no idea.

Though if you interpret loanwords as part of “Greek influence,” then of course there are lots of sciencey words of Greek origin in Russian. :P

For what it's worth, I have never heard of any secular Greek influences on the Church Slavonic alphabet, but then I have never tried to study it in depth either.

Love Yoichi and all, but can this question be reasonably answered?

4

Q: How many of top 10 favorite British words are understood by, or pass as English among American English speakers?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary online shows “Top 10 Favorite British Words”. I’m interested in knowing how many of the listed words are understood or accepted by Americans as English, whichever British English or English slang. The words listed as the top 10 Favorite English are: prat meaning “a s...

meaning american-english british-english

I think maybe....but it would require a very strenous search of the COCA or something like that.

2:13 PM

Can anyone offer a little help on my logical fallacy question? I'm getting hammered, and I can't think of how to clarify my question. Maybe I shouldn't have labeled it a logical fallacy?

Huh wha? Sorry, hanging out on German L&U way too much...

Lemme see...

Oh. I see.

Hm.

Well, I do tend to agree with PLL and Colin.

That was my first thought as well, "wait, simply saying this isn't a fallacy in and of itself".

@Kit Can't you just reword "I would be guilty of a logical fallacy because this statement implies X and Y" into "What logical fallacy would I be guilty of if I took this statement to imply X and Y"?

Or is this not quite what you're after?

@RegDwight Hmm, let me think.

@RegDwight Well, that is still an interesting question, so I might do that, but really it is the ambiguity in the original statement that's in my mind as the issue.

I see.

I don't think the statement is ambiguous as it is stated.

Yes, you could say "well, I mean on average", but that's not what you've actually said, now is it?

Yeah well, you know yourself that that's not how language works.

Context is everything.

A simple word like go could mean anything and everything.

2:22 PM

Right. Yes, maybe that's it.

Context is important for interpreting the statement.

Steven Pinker has a nice example in his book.

Lemme see if I remember...

Imagine the following dialogue: "My wife left me!" - "Who is he?"

It is only from context that it can be clear at all what the heck the question is asking.

And that context is cultural.

Not linguistic.

You have to know how the world/society/relationships work.

Simply knowing how language works won't suffice.

So context isn't even the best word, I guess.

More like background.

Cultural background.

I'm still not sure how to clarify my question...Maybe the statement requires disambiguation before it can be considered acceptable in an argument?

Otherwise, it's (insert word I am after).

Well, if a statement requires disambiguation, then it's ambiguous.)))

@RegDwight q.e.d.

But really I mean in the context of a logical argument.

It's a faulty premise.

Well then. How about asking just that, "How do you call a statement that requires disambiguation before it can be considered acceptable in an argument?"

And perhaps choosing a different example, so that nobody gets hung up on this one anymore.

2:30 PM

@RegDwight Yes, maybe. It's close, but there's something niggling. It's further the exploitation of that kind of statement to make assertions that are false.

I'll edit, and see what happens. Thanks for your input, Reg.

Жe‍нщи‍ны caми н‍e знaют‍,‍ чeгo xo‍тя‍т…

@RegDwight How goes the German site?

@Billare A mixed bag.

Some really good questions, some really crap questions, and pretty much a free-for-all in terms of what is acceptable as an answer.

So basically, nothing unusual for a two-day old site.

I am editing and retagging like there's no tomorrow, trying to establish some conventions that have proven useful on ELU.

People format everything as code.

And nobody has any idea which tags to use.

So I'm trying to lend a helping hand.

@RegDwight Maybe they are taking ELU as an example. Or is it just me who started noticing lots of code formatting on ELU when German.SE went live?

@RegDwight What are some examples of the really good questions?

2:40 PM

@Vitaly I haven't been noticing anything like that, but that could have to do with my not spending any time at all on our cuddly site today.

(Keeping in mind I don't know German whatsoever)

I do see a bunch of familiar faces (Kosmo, Eldros, Boob) and a bunch of usual suspects (Pekka, splattne), but all things considered, it's a very different crowd.

My point exactly.

@Vitaly sounds like it's just you, as i certainly haven't noticed that

And I can already feel a very different culture emerging.

2:41 PM

@Kosmo knows deutchesprache?

a different culture would be a good thing, methinks

@Billare The questions are mostly in English.

out of curiosity, what are the biggest differences in the culture? @RegDwight

What's the different culture? A bad different culture?

@Billare The top questions right now are:

What are good online dictionaries for translation between German and English?
How can a native English speaker know when it is appropriate to use the polite (Sie) or the familiar (Du)?
How can I learn noun genders better?
How rude is “Quatsch!”?
What is a good translation for “I wish!” ?
Polite alternatives to “Grüß Gott”?
Is it still good form to use a capital D for Du or Dir in a written letter?
What are the differences in punctuation between German and English?
When to use Perfekt and Präteritum?

As I said, a mixed bag.

Stefano Palazzo

Quick question for the experts: How do you pronounce 'pluperfect'?

2:44 PM

Are you getting questions like "What is the difference between genau and genug?"

@StefanoPalazzo ploo-PER-fect

@StefanoPalazzo — Ploo-perfect.

Jinx

Stefano Palazzo

thanks guys :-)

I thought it might've been "plʊ-"

@JSBangs: I've heard the stress on the first syllable mostly, but sometimes on the second.

Either that or the stress is more or less equal.

@JSBangs Nah, at this point it's more like a gut feeling. Different faces, different formatting, different kinds of errors people make. But to pick just one thing: answers are being accepted like within an hour or so, no matter how wrong/incomplete they are (or would be considered on our site).

2:45 PM

@StefanoPalazzo hint: the vowel [ʊ] only occurs in closed, stressed syllables

@Robusto Not yet, but I fail to see how "What is the German equivalent of 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.'?" is any better.

So are there any ultimate descriptive, theoretical, corpus-based 2000-page works on German grammar? (I am just curious about the odds of seeing a text wall of quote wall text as an answer on German.SE)

Stefano Palazzo

@JSBangs hey that makes a lot of sense, brilliant, you really are the experts :-)

Oh, and @JSBangs: there's no such thing as CW just yet (not surprising since there aren't any mods yet). So again, you can post pretty much anything and get points.

@RegDwight the biggest open question of the early days of our site, from my perspective, was where we would fall on the prescriptivist/descriptivist scale. fortunately, the forces of good won that battle in our case. do you have any kind of a similar struggle over there on german.se?

interestingly, i followed the Romanian L&U proposal yesterday. So far every example question save one is in Romanian

2:50 PM

@JSBangs No real struggles, there was only an occasion or two that almost made the alarm go off for me, but thankfully Pekka could fix it before it had any chance to turn into any issue at all.

@Reg: how major is the problem of Germans who fail at English but still try to answer English questions because they are, like, native speakers? How major do you expect it to turn out?

Well, if you ask me, that site has more problems with people failing at German than English.

So someone will provide an excellent answer that is 100% correct, but make all kinds of NNS mistakes while explaining it.

@RegDwight so you should correct that, right?

@JSBangs I am editing like mad.

here, we even allow ananas to be mods, but we require them to adhere to the highest standards

2:54 PM

The thing is, again, there are no pro-tem mods, so I guess it's balpha or some other dev who gets to approve all of my stuff.

pro-tem mods don't generally get appointed until some point in private beta

And I don't want to be too much of a nuisance. Just a little.

meh, if the site is about german, then it should be correct german. you're only doing your job

You mean public?

or they don't get appointed at all, as happened to Atheism.SE :X

2:55 PM

maybe they'll appoint you as pro-tem mod once it goes public

@JSBangs Nah, I'm just saying that the queue is only that long.

(Actually, I have no idea how long the edit queue is.)

(But I sure do help in filling it up.)

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May '1125

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

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