English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@MattЭллен shrugs

user19161

@KitFox Yo yo! How's the writing?

I've not written so much as a sentence on the novel today. I was just sitting down to write a little bit before bed.

Have I missed anything interesting?

user19161

@KitFox Nothing. Except that someone serial upvoted me.

user19161

It will likely be removed at UTC 0300.

2:09 AM

@WillHunting I read that as 'someone serial, they upvoted me'.

user19161

@Mitch Your ping summoned me from my new favourite room.

which is?

Math?

user19161

Yes! I get 5 stars there every day!

oh. in chat? on 5 different things you say or 5 star on one thing you say.

user19161

Well, either way. On average that is.

user19161

2:12 AM

Here, I get one star in 5 days...

you know, if you only had 4 items but 5 stars, you're guaranteed to have one item with at least 2 stars.

user19161

Also, I share lots of secrets with various people there, over email. =)

user19161

@Mitch Yes, simple application of the pigeonhole principle.

I think it is our duty now to help Kit and the other outhors out by providing sentences for them.

That was not one of them.

Nor was that.

user19161

Yes, they can just use the lines we say in chat.

2:14 AM

Well, they have to at least have a good chance of fitting.

user19161

What story is she writing, a sex story?

For example, sample starting lines of a novel.

user19161

"It is a beautiful morning in August. A child is born. His name is Will Hunting."

user19161

Note I have used the present tense here for past events to fit a novel.

"The sun was shining, the air was clear, the birds were singing, when the aliens landed"

or final sentence:

"And that's why your mother is like that."

Not from the same novel of course.

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2:17 AM

"Finally, Will gets his miracle. QED."

user19161

That would be the ending line in my novel.

@KitFox: One for the middle: "What the hell is that thing on my...did you just take a crap on my couch?" (that's for a romance. would not work in a detective novel, at least not the one I'm thinking of.)

user19161

@mitch You may wish to cast delete votes on Nortonn's questions, I just did on them all.

@WillHunting If you're going to use 'QED', you should start the novel with that, and then trace how you got there backwards. The last line would be "Prove that every even number is the sum of two primes". Now -that- is literature.

user19161

@Mitch Actually, I should start the novel with "There can be miracles when you believe." =)

2:23 AM

It's not a sex story, but I can see why you might think so.

Trouble is, I can't figure out what to do with this next scene.

But I guess none of y'all care about that.

sulks

It's all fun and games until KitFox needs some help.

user19161

@KitFox Hmm but we can't help you unless we have been following all along.

user19161

@KitFox No way!

My protagonist is going on a double date with the girl she has a crush on.

user19161

Shit, what is a double date? Two couples?

@KitFox I think you're projecting. We gave absolutely no indication that we were thinking that (and at least I can say for myself I was not).

2:30 AM

@WillHunting Yes.

user19161

@Mitch I think she is talking about me.

@Mitch Well, Will did just ask that.

@MετάEd Happens to me all the time. Believe, there is no closed NS question without a delete vote from me: most of them I’ve tried half a dozen times by now, because the dumb interface doesn’t say whether I’ve already tried. And some of his questions that claim there are no close votes on it won’t let me vote for because it says I already votes, which I did, but it evaporated.

user19161

@KitFox OK, the next scene will be their conversation at the restaurant of course.

@WillHunting you need to watch more 1950's sitcoms.

2:31 AM

@WillHunting Actually, it is between the two of them at the protagonist's apartment.

@KitFox Oh.

user19161

@KitFox Geezis!

I just can't figure out how the other girl feels about her.

You're expecting reading comprehension?

@KitFox Obviously jealous.

@WillHunting She came to pick her up to meet the guys.

user19161

2:32 AM

@KitFox OK, the scene will be how A confesses how deeply she likes B, and after that they make out on the couch.

@Mitch Not the protag. The other girl.

@WillHunting Boring!

thats the whole point to double dates. to have your friend get close to the other guy, who will obviously notice you're better.

@KitFox Oh. again.

user19161

@Mitch HAHAHAHA

To be serious, a double date is to reduce the pressure on everybody. being alone with one other person and all those demands/expectations. too much. But you shouldn't just talk to the same sex as you. and it's kinda weird to talk to the other date. but at least you have two outlets.

Hmm. Maybe that's it. Ada (the protag) goes out on this double date, heartbroken because she's really into Susan. But secretly Susan likes Ada but wasn't sure how to ask her out, so she came up with this double date idea.

2:34 AM

@Mitch That isn’t necessarily always possible. :)

user19161

@Mitch That makes for more weirdness! I rather go on a single date than a double date anytime.

Q: Can "quarry" mean "notebook"?

Isn’t this, well, stunning?

2

I am looking for this definition because of the book Quarry for Middlemarch, which my lit professor said was George Eliot's notebook for all her research for her novel, but all of the definitions I have found so far don't really talk about quarry meaning anything like notebook.

meaning

user19161

@KitFox Susan seems a popular name in this chat!

@WillHunting a gang of friends is best. then later you go on single dates.

@WillHunting That's why I picked it.

2:36 AM

@WillHunting If a regular data is two people, and a double date is four people, then what is three people? I know the answer, BTW.

user19161

@Mitch That is for wusses. Then again I am a wuss.

@KitFox what about the other two? it's not like they're nobodies.

It is of course, a sesquidate.

user19161

@tchrist menage a trois

Tsk!

2:36 AM

@tchrist 'awkward'

@Mitch For the story's purpose they are.

OH! But what if the guy Susan picked is gay, and she was hoping that he would attract away the guy who asked her out and leave her with Ada?

user19161

@KitFox This is too complicated, now I need to draw a diagram.

Does anybody here give their notebooks proper names, as though they were pets or cars or liquor bottles?

Yeah, I get it. Did you read the story that cornbread linked too, the one that won the hugo, nebula and looper awards? about the boy with the mom who made origami?

I just can’t imagine a notebook whose name was Quarry.

2:38 AM

@Mitch Yeah, I read it this summer.

@tchrist Cars I've heard of but liquor bottles?

And I cannot fathom how anyone else could either.

@Mitch ♬ Captain Jack will get me high tonight. ♬

@KitFox I thought a very good part about that was just the slightest touch where the narrator mentioned that he didn't even know what to say to his dad either. And then left it at that.

And don’t tell me you don’t know Jack, because nobody will ever believe you.

so the dad was somebody but you didn't have to spend time thinking about, you recognize that he wasn't not there.

@tchrist Oh...I thought that was the brand.

2:40 AM

Hmm. Yes. I could do the pick up and drop off and just allude to the actual date.

@Mitch That, too. But everybody calls him Jack.

I had a friend who named her vibrator Captain Jack.

user19161

Jack Sparrow?

And then you're in the minds of Ada and Susan afterwards. that's fine. The other two's presence is necessary for the situation, so you can't ignore them entirely. mostly but not entirely.

Well done.

You can bet there will never be a whisky named Shiela, though.

user19161

2:41 AM

@KitFox I only learnt there was a male equivalent a few years ago.

@Mitch Thank you for that. I think it will work nicely.

user19161

@tchrist Ah you spell whisky as whisky!

@WillHunting Either you know far too little of the world, or far too much. And I’m not even sure those are mutually exclusive.

Of course I spell whisky as whisky. I also spell whiskey as whiskey. But I never spell them as each other. That would be Wrong.

I owe you another sentence for your novel. No nonsense words. I'll try to keep profanity out but no guarantees. I need to think though. Think Think Think...

woohoo. 'Homeland' calls! gotsta run. sometimes there are messages in the dialog.

user19161

I memorised the first paragraph of Great Expectations. I don't know why.

2:43 AM

whiskay

I normally drink whisky.

Not whiskey.

But any port in a storm.

user19161

I normally drink water, tea, coffee, pepsi, coca-cola.

There is no e in Scotch.

user19161

I drink alcohol maybe once a year. =)

I drink pop maybe a couple of times a month, alcohol less often still.

user19161

2:46 AM

I am waiting for UTC 0300 to see if the serial upvotes would be reversed.

American and Irish varieties are whiskey; Scotch varieties are whisky.

user19161

Cats have whiskers.

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Cooks whisk eggs.

And roses have raindrops.

user19161

That is completely random.

user19161

2:47 AM

Oh Mitch is gone!

♬ Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens ♬

In no fashion random.

user19161

Oh!

user19161

The very first musical I heard is probably Phantom of the Opera.

Mine was Danny Kaye’s Hans Christian Andersen.

Which I mention only because it’s nearly bedtime, and I’m prone to ear worms, so I replaced your disturbing songs in my head with some more playful and comforting ones.

user19161

Actually I only heard it on tape. Never watched it. I think I only watched two operas live, Tosca and La Bohemia.

user19161

2:53 AM

Wow, Barrie rarely comes to chat and he has 7 stars for one line!