English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

4:02 AM

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Can you guess which one is the Austrian?

indieroyale.com/blog

David Wallace

The one with the funny accent?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, I guessed that the guy with the tie is the German, but then the video shows a title for the other guy at 1:22 which I think says he's from Osterreich, so that's that

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Which one?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But I could not have told you that they weren't both from Austria.

David Wallace

@Cerberus Which part of "funny accent" don't you understand?

Cerberus

4:07 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You were correct!

And the title applied to the tieless guy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And in fact I can't even say that they have different accents and not just different ways of speaking. Eg. my sister-in-law speaks really really fast. Does she have a different accent than me?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Well, it does sound funny to me. The intonation, mainly.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That is absolutely true.

I mean, different ways of speaking and different accents resemble each other to a significant degree.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Essentially what I'm saying is that given a choice of two people, one of which is guaranteed to be Austrian and one not, I maybe stand a better than 50% chance of getting it right. But given a handful of speakers and being asked to sort into buckets, I highly doubt I could get it.

Cerberus

The only thing I wanted to test was whether you could clearly hear that they sounded different, in whatever way.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Perhaps...so what struck you as different, between these two guys?

Austrian clearly uses more intonation.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The non-Austrian (German? I guess?) guy seemed to speak more sharply and quickly. But I have no information that suggests that that isn't also a feature of Austrian german.

Cerberus

4:10 AM

Yes.

Sharp v. mellow/round is very characteristic of the difference.

So now that you know this is indeed something to watch out for, you will do even better next time.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Hm. well, I had to struggle to hear it, mainly because I can't really understand a single word they're saying.

Cerberus

I know.

Although you probably picked up a few words here and there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's a big mishmash of foreign syllables.

Not really? were they saying "dialect"?

Cerberus

Yes.

I heard that word.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that was another unfortunate clue

Cerberus

4:12 AM

Why unfortunate?

So intonation is important, and certain consonants, like the r.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the title of the video suggests that a person is going to talk about their dialect. And one guy appears to be the guest and the other the host, and I would expect the host of a show about dialects to be speaking the more standard accent/dialect.

Cerberus

The northern r is like the French r, while the southern r is more like the Italian r.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm not even sure I know the difference between those.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, it could have been a German in an Austrian programme.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Yes, I couldn't rule that out entirely.

Cerberus

4:13 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 French r is guttural, Italian dental.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus hm.

Cerberus

Anyway, an important caveat: southern Germany speaks a kind of German that sounds like Austrian, mainly Bayrisch, in Bavaria.

And parts of the north speak something in between Hochdeutsch and Dutch.

But Hochdeutsch and Austrian are quite distinct one on one.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Distinct in more than just accent?

Cerberus

No...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

like BrE and AmE? or like northern US AmE and Sourthern US AmE?

Cerberus

4:16 AM

They use some different words, but not much that I can hear.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

frickin' languages.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ehm I would be hard pressed to say whether the former pair or the latter pair were closer or less close.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace yes

David Wallace

My goodness!

Cerberus

I'd say RP and standard American are farther apart than Hochdeutsch and standard Austrian.

@DavidWallace Shocking indeed.

That must be, what, 10 Mm?

David Wallace

4:19 AM

Well, not quite.

Cerberus

6 Mm?

David Wallace

I'm trying to think what would be a similar distance from Italy, so I can draw an accurate parallel. The rock of Gibraltar maybe?

Two hours in a canoe. Thanks Mahnax.

Cerberus

Two hours. Yes. Of course.

Italy happens to be about 2 hours from here as well, by donkey.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2,250 km is the avg distance from Australia to NZ according to answers.com

Cerberus

Oh, that's closer than I thought.

That's from here to Italy, I think.

David Wallace

4:21 AM

Umm, I don't think any part of New Zealand is within 2250km of Sydney. I'll have to get out Google Earth and do some measuring.

Cerberus

Umm Italy is closer than that, I was mistaken.

1670.12 km between Australia and NZ.

David Wallace

And how big does he think the Opera House is?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace I didn't say sydney

Cerberus

The south-western tip of the South Island.

David Wallace

I know YOU didn't. But Carlo did.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:23 AM

But according to google maps Gibraltar is 1700-odd km from Rome.

So that's probably a meaningful comparison.

Cerberus

2155.85 km from Sydney to Auckland.

3076.87 km between Newfoundland and Ireland.

David Wallace

OK, now I need to know the SIZE of the Rock of Gibraltar, and the SIZE of the Sydney Opera House.

Cerberus

5400.39 km from Lisbon to New York.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace I'm sure you don't.

We asked him if he could see Africa. That made the point already.

0

Q: usage of "feared drowned"

What is the precise meaning of "feared drowned" in http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/south/6-gitam-students-feared-drowned-rushukonda-326 I got the intended meaning, but I am confused in spotting the main verb. whether "fear" is the main verb and "drown" is the past participle or the...

Kick-ass answer that explains all the grammer in action? Or close as GR?

Not that I'm volunteering. It's my bed time.

David Wallace

Oh silly me. Sardinia is kind of in the way.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:30 AM

But I can vote.

okay. I guess I'll vote tomorrow. I'm off!

David Wallace

Bye.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

guten nacht.

David Wallace

Sorry, @Cerberus, I ruined your conversation about different accents in which to speak German.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Nah you didn't.

We said all there was to say.

David Wallace

How could you have?

and I didn't listen to that video at all, I'm afraid.

But I think you knew that.

Hey, I've picked up this terrible habit since I've been using these chat rooms, and other online chat facilities. I seem to begin about 3/4 of my written sentences with a co-ordinating conjunction. I never used to do that. It's like I finish talking, then think of something else to say; so I trot out "and", or "but" or "so". Help me @Cerberus, make it stop!

Cerberus

4:41 AM

@DavidWallace I did not, but you weren't suppose to, so es ist egal.

@DavidWallace Do you mean you use those in chat, or in speech?

David Wallace

Both in chat, and in written documents.

I don't think my speech patterns have changed.

Or maybe they have.

Bother, I just did it again.

Cerberus

You shouldn't overuse them in written documents, but they are fine in moderation.

David Wallace

Yes, I know. So how do I stop?

Cerberus

In chat, they are even finer, because we often post afterthought after afterthought here.

Mahnax

Hi.

Cerberus

4:46 AM

Review your documents before you send them out.

Hi!

Mahnax

@DavidWallace Pardon?

Did we win a boat race?

Cerberus

hands Mahnax brand-new wooden paddle

David Wallace

@Mahnax Yes, you paddled very fast.

Mahnax

Haha.

Sep 15 at 21:19, by Mahnax

NZ is pretty close to Australia, right? A couple hours in a canoe and you'll be there.

So how are all of you?

David Wallace

Very well, Matthew, yourself?

Mahnax

4:50 AM

I'd say the same, thanks.

David Wallace

Keeping busy?

Mahnax

Quite. I have a large assignment due on the 19th.

David Wallace

Which is why you're here, of course.

What's the topic?

Mahnax

Well, it's almost done.

Full IB lab report on an experiment I did in Biology.

David Wallace

Hmm, those were the days.

Mahnax

4:52 AM

Heh. Also, @Cerb, it might interest you to know that I won't be trying to tutor that girl anymore.

@DavidWallace I'm enjoying these days.

David Wallace

@Mahnax Did you have a fight?

Mahnax

@DavidWallace She hasn't an inkling of common sense, and a practically nonexistent work ethic.

David Wallace

@Mahnax I'll read that as a yes.

Mahnax

@DavidWallace It wasn't a fight so much as a mutual agreement to not do it again.

David Wallace

Did she ask you to do her assignments for her or something?

Mahnax

4:57 AM

She was whining about how hard Physics is for most of the time.

I'd try to explain something, and she'd have none of it.

Very strange for someone who wanted to be tutored.

David Wallace

Probably she did badly in one test and her parents told her to find a tutor or something.

Mahnax

That's very likely.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Ah yes, those can be difficult.

Yeah, if they really don't want to be tutored, then it's not going to happen.

Mahnax

It wasn't even anything overly difficult, just vector conversion/addition.

Cerberus

Tutoring whiners is exhausting.

Even if you sympathise with their plight.

Mahnax

5:02 AM

Right.

Meysam

7:07 AM

Hello

What's the meaning of "read past something"? like "you need to read past the first paragraph"

warl0ck

7:29 AM

Hi, is it right to say "tmux eclipsed the colorized output of ls" ?

Trying to edit the title of that question,

2

Q: tmux with color ls

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