English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

1:10 AM

@JSBձոգչ I'll do that.

3:44 AM

mmm ... passes around spiced roasted pumpkin seeds

4:04 AM

So ... a new tab just appeared in my FF window. The URL being chrome://adblockplus/content/ui/firstRun.xhtml and the content being "Thank you for installing Adblock Plus".

FF != Chrome. confused

4:53 AM

God help me, I'm trying again to make a good pie crust.

6:57 AM

This year's pie baking experience. Might add a couple of photos later.

7:43 AM

What a funny font.

It's old.

Let me find you a reference on it.

google.com/webfonts/specimen/IM+Fell+English

google.com/webfonts/specimen/IM+Fell+DW+Pica

It's the second one that I actually use (except for headlines).

@MετάEd It does look old.

I like how EL&U uses older looking fonts.

Only for the title, right?

@MετάEd Nice.

In the ampersand of the title you can clearly see that the & is "et".

And the pies are cooling.

7:59 AM

Yes, there are several types of ampersand.

So how's the crust look?

And why does that recipe choose a crust without sugar and without egg?

Just took the photo ... should be posted in a bit.

Oh!

Great.

@Cerberus The ampersand I handwrite is very et-like.

Hmm.

I like et.

8:06 AM

I hardly ever write it.

Probably because en is actually easier to write than &.

Sure.

There's another et sign. Some kind of shorthand.

Yes.

It looks a bit like pi.

Then there are many subtle variations on the ampersand.

The Tironian et.

Tironian notes

Tironian notes (') is a system of shorthand said to have been invented by Cicero's scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro. Tiro's system consisted of about 4,000 signs, somewhat extended in classical times to 5,000 signs. In the European Medieval period, Tironian notes were taught in monasteries and the system was extended to about 13,000 signs (see scribal abbreviations). The use of Tironian notes declined after 1100 but some use can still be seen through the 17th century. Note on sign counts Tironian notes can be themselves composites (ligatures) of simpler Tironian notes, the resulting ...

@Cerberus This didn't work. "Remote Linking Forbidden"

Yes, Tironian notes.

That's the one.

⁊

8:15 AM

Yes.

There are many variantions on it too.

I like that it's used with Gaelic.

Yeah. A bit...artificial, though.

8:32 AM

I suppose ... artifice being a good description of writing.

I mean in the 19th-century way.

9:12 AM

1

Q: Follow Around The Suspect

Could the verb phrase "follow around" have some usage restriction about the placement of its direct object? Undercover police followed the suspect around. Undercover police followed around the suspect. Is the second sentence ambiguous or easily misinterpreted? EDIT: EXAMPLE OF WRONG...

grammar

This one looks like a Nortonn.

9:24 AM

The worm in the apple, eh.

Or the serpent.

Even Adam and Eve eventually found out the apple was bad news.

And the other infamous apple was the source of great grief and war.

Shiny, but trollish.

Eris knew all there was to know.

69. I mean 42. I mean 23.

9:53 AM

What?

What are these wicked, cryptic numbers?

The Illuminatus! Trilogy

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third and first person perspectives and jumps around in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology, and Discordianism. The trilogy comprises The Eye ...

hmm

hi hmm.

there seem to be some dresses that make girls' asses look bigger and curvier.

there's this girl whose ass is nice normally in trousers but in pencil skirts, god DAMN she's so sexy

it's not fair. how can she push my buttons so much?!?

10:09 AM

@Jez You have big buttons maybe.

mmm

she'd like em if she tried em.

10:23 AM

This deleted answer is hilarious.

Yeah, I remember that one.

Great advice.

Hallu.

Is it correct to say thank you for following up my case through someone?

Meaning to phone that person to find out what should be done and do it.

Really? Umm.

Are you always this slow on the uptake?

10:51 AM

@Gigili Um I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

"Thank you for following up on my case"?

Yes, I know that part is correct.

I don't know what you mean by the other part.

But what's the correct preposition to use? Through?

I don't understand it.

For example, I ask you to call Mr.Something to ask what has happened to my project.

10:53 AM

@Gigili do you mean you talked to someone who phoned someone else, and you want to thank the first person for making the phone call?

In that case I would use with, not through

@MattЭллен I want to thank the one who made the phone call but I also would like to point out that there was someone else who helped him. Umm or something...

@MattЭллен OK, "with". Thank you.

no problem :)

11:39 AM

developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

That's Google/Android's own graph.

11:53 AM

@Cerberus my cyanogenmod says android 2.3.7

Abomination!

abominates you

joker13

12:20 PM

anybody here up for some speaking exercise?

12:57 PM

My candidate for worst answer ever on EL&U.

I like @Reg's comment especially.

user19161

1:09 PM

@Robusto Geezis.

user19161

@mahnax You are up early today!

user19161

@MετάEd Looks delicious! You must be a great cook!

@Robusto I don't even remember which question it was on. And yet the answer does answer it most perfectly. So looks like my comment was very apropos. As always.

user19161

Mint 14 is out, grab it while fresh!

Mahnax

@WillHunting Yes indeed!

I had to call a potential employer back to talk about an interview.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:23 PM

2

1:52 PM

haha

the last slide is unrealistic tho

Q: Usage of "many" vs "many a"?

@RegDwighт I like his clever introduction of the "endorsed and excused words" trope. Linguists, take notice: possible dissertation material!

BTW, that was in answer to this question:

6

Can someone please elucidate the difference between "many" and "many a". In what context of usage should we add an extra "a" beside the word "many"? For example: Many times, I had seen that..... vs Many a times, I had seen that.... I do not know if the example is accurate enough to...

word-usage

I only noticed it because someone made a comment on my answer.

BTW, @Reg, a question about German. The Bach Chorale Prelude BWV 646, entitled "Wo soll ich fliehen hin" — is that an archaic construction? Would a modern German be more likely to say "Wohin soll ich fliehen"? Or is it just another way to phrase that?

(I vote for archaic. Note that wo soll ich hinfliehen may also be a possibility.)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nice.

3:07 PM

@Robusto yeah, archaic or poetic license. You're right about your rephrasing, too. Cerberus's is kind of in-between, actually. It's normal but just a tad not normal enough.

Would be perfectly normal with a different verb, I guess. Hinfliehen is not as common as hingehen, say.

3:31 PM

@RegDwighт Yeah, good point about the poetic or lyrical license. Wohin soll ich fliehen wouldn't scan the same. Wo soll ich fliehen hin gives you iambs to work with.

Only in China.

This guy and his wife refused to move out. So the highway was built around their home.

@RegDwighт Makes getting the mail an adventure, I guess.

Similar stuff does happen in Russia; all the time, in fact. But on a much smaller scale.

The Chinese are breaking our records!

Direct comparison:

Russia: OVER 9000, China: OVER 9000 times OVER 9000.

Great.

That'll teach those peasants progress.

3:52 PM

CSS2 is, once again, evil.

it's amazing how when I think "vertical alignment", i know i'm going to spend the next few hours probably fruitfully searching for a solution

getting from here:

to here:

ought to be trivial.

With CSS, it's impossible.

4:10 PM

@RegDwighт The UK highway authorities can do similar things with roads...

...but at least they use huge amounts of paint in the process.

@AndrewLeach nice try, UK highway authorities.

Nov 14 at 16:11, by RegDwighт

We don't even need paint for that. We have nobler uses for it.

I'm strangely comforted by the knowledge of what the Russians can do. But there is always this...

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204630/…

4:29 PM

Meh. Three-foot letters are the absolute minimum size for misspellings in Russia.

But I gotta run.

4:41 PM

@AndrewLeach I predict major chain crashes from people trying to read that.

5:18 PM

@RegDwighт I don't see the funny.

@Jez It looks like a job for an inline-block.

@AndrewLeach My favorite response: "Now why does this NOT suprise me."

23 hours ago, by MετάEd

24 Nortonn S questions remain open.

Why has this number not changed.

6:22 PM

@MετάEd This morning's question was closed and deleted.

@Cerberus so they can't make graphs either!

I'd like to know when Nortonn's going to have his access cut off. There must be a way of doing it.

Although my helpful flag count is going up.

6:38 PM

@MετάEd inline-block? how would an inline-block help?

7:23 PM

howdy @Matt

halloo

lol

the end of podcast 37 is funny

the last 5 minutes or so

SE?

aye

7:25 PM

I've only listened to one of those

soundcloud won't let me comment on it, which is annoying enough to whinge about, but not annoying enough to actually do anything about

@cornbreadninja yeah, I only listen occasionally

I wonder what the Sandy one is like.

I didn't listen to that one.

8:01 PM

@MattЭллен Or perhaps someone else can't...

@Cerberus :Þ

Haha.

That's the way the world goes round.

Si