English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-12-20 (page 5 of 8)

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4:00 PM

oh right. well my assertion is that the ambiguity is resolved because yes/no can be distinguished from anything else, rather than either/or being special in some way

that paragraph supports my assertion, while not proving it

Matt Эллен

OK. fair enough

there is the odd exception but as a rule it's true.

when asking a yes/no question in a very grudging way you might not raise the intonation at the end; i'd probably represent this as ending the sentence with a full stop: "Would you like a cup of tea. :-("

> Félix Marquis-Poulin

This has to be the most elegant name in existence.

Matt Эллен

cat chicken

oh, that would be poulet

And noble one at that.

Poulin may be related to poule(t).

By the way, remember the eagle snatching a baby from the ground?

Surprise surprise: it was fake.

Matt Эллен

4:05 PM

@Cerberus not necessarily

lol @ that paper

"This sort of thing is not possible in French."

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus oh, well, that's good.

@MattЭллен You don't remember necessarily?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yes, in fact I necessarily don't remember

Ah.

In any case, should the video turn out to be real after all, this is what you'd need:

user image

Matt Эллен

4:07 PM

lol

I remember there was this Chinese woman who worked in our university

that i went to

she'd usually end the sentence ", Jeremy"

Matt Эллен

EL&UU

"please do that, Jeremy" or "I have put the papers there, Jeremy"

> However, it is notable that all three of the utility patents Apple used to win its case are now having their validity seriously questioned. In addition to the questions raised today about the '915 patent, the patent office ruled in October that the '381 patent ("rubber banding" or "bounce back" feature) should never have issued. At a key post-trial hearing two weeks ago, Koh herself said that the '163 ("tap to zoom") patent was looking like it might be invalid.

but, she didn't pause for the comma, and her intonation was all wrong. it went from high to low, rather than low to low

Matt Эллен

4:09 PM

@Cerberus yay!

@tchrist Shouldn't that read "differences in stress and pitch that occur"?

> US Patent No. 7,844,915, the patent covering Apple's "pinch to zoom" smartphone navigation feature, may be invalidated. In a patent reexam, examiners discovered multiple pieces of prior art that they found should reject Apple's claims.

@MattЭллен Indeed!

@Robusto Good question.

I just got suckered. Damn it.

It was because of a bad answer.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/…

@Cerberus Anyway I think you should delete your comment in that question. you've shown me no good evidence that my contention is wrong and you won't record yourself saying it some other way that sounds non-weird :-)

4:11 PM

Why would I need any of those things?

You just post a reference.

i did, wikipedia

Matt Эллен

which is a spoonerism for the Latin name for "gardener"

Pikiweedia

> Representatives from Google, Firefox developer Mozilla, and Opera, along with Nokia, Zynga, jQuery, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, are all working with Microsoft to refine and improve Pointer Events. As with Touch Events, Apple is deciding not to get involved.

Apple is a leech, a profiteer.

0

Q: Is 'ain't' slang or colloquial?

Does using the word 'ain't' in a song make it slang. Whereas using it in a speech make it colloquial.

Bah. Culpa mea.

She might be able to edit it into a workable question, though. Maybe.

Matt Эллен

I'm doing an English Language investigation and trying to pick out slang, "homie", and colloquial, "bunch of" from a song — Teresa 9 mins ago

what has this to do with ain't?

and how does it define slang or colloquial?

@MετάEd ain't that the truth? Sorry I mean "Isn't that the truth?"

4:24 PM

@MattЭллен You might could be right.

@Robusto I didn't originally think the "inversion" was relevant, and said as much in the first line of my answer. The same ambiguity arises both ways round. But I had to call it something, in order to reference the different "variations" so I could quote Tolkien's early "version" which I was quite taken with. I wasn't aware I'd filched it from you, sorry.

4:38 PM

I see. Kit is not alphabetically hatgifted after all:

5

Q: What order are hats displayed on the leader board?

In what order are the hats displayed on the right side of the Winter Bash leaderboard? It obviously isn't random as you can see from the image below, several hats are always placed before/after others. But what exactly is the ordering?

support winterbash

Or maybe she is.

I think roughly about 89.7350131% of your postings here in the last two days have been about hats.

Where is the harry-effing-potter tag?

2

Q: Is using the last name of a person without a title an accepted way of addressing?

I always heard people use Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms before people's names and that is how, I thought, it was done until I watched one of those Harry Potter films in which Malfoy (Sr) addresses Albus Dumbledore as just Dumbledore. I noticed later that even Rubeus Hagrid was addressed as only Hagrid. (I have ...

formality usage

@Robusto There has been a lot of madhattery, eh.

Anything over 11 hats is in poor taste anyway. Simply gauche.

There’s a basic question attached to that number.

Where base = (my current hatcount) + 1

Matt Эллен

4:53 PM

is there a simple equation for hat count -> pH?

2

A: How are hats for the Community user selected?

Moderators have the ability to choose the Community♦ user's hats. You should be able to find your friendly local moderator in your site's chatroom!

user image

My point.

So what's your question?

Why (my current hatcount) is a variable, not a constant.

user image

4:57 PM

OK, you win. You've officially wrestled my attempt at humor to the ground.

3

drags it over to the gutter

In 1996, Sydney decided to restrict gun ownership.

(Semi-)automatic weapons were forbidden.

Provinces were no longer allowed to make their own gun laws.

And the government spent ca. € 300 million on buying back ca. 700,000 guns from people.

> Tussen 1978 en 1996 waren er 13 massaschietpartijen. Tussen 1996 en 2012 geen één.

Matt Эллен

bai

1978–1996: 13 mass shootings.

1996–2012: zero.

So in all probability it had a significant effect.

So America, get your rednecks under control already!

5:26 PM

+1, Cerberus.

5:40 PM

Gracias.

I really think I like old people more than young children.

I find the elderly...moving.

@Cerberus Umm, OK. I don't know what prompted that.

This song I was listening to.

Think of young children as future old people.

Completely unrelated to the guns.

No, you cannot become old before your time.

No matter how hard you try!

5:42 PM

Do I?

@Cerb i doubt whether your sample size is statistically significant here

Well...

You could calculate the significance.

in any case, strong gun control is a dead letter in the US. the Supreme Court ruled against it. twice.

How about what the Australians did?

which was?

5:44 PM

37 mins ago, by Cerberus

(Semi-)automatic weapons were forbidden.

Read on from there.

I don't see the point of letting people have guns. Their only purpose is to kill people.

Yeah...

I guess the same applies to cigarettes.

But there is defence.

And cigarettes only kill the willing.

Alcohol, on the other hand...

@DavidWallace and animals. don't forget killing delicious animals.

5:45 PM

@JSBձոգչ One doesn't need a gun to eat meat.

@Cerberus fully automatic weapons are banned here. banning semi-automatic weapons might be legal... i'm not an expert on it

Right.

And if that isn't possible, change your constitution.

What made sense in 1777 may not make sense now any more.

(The same applies to 4000 BC btw.)

Dixi.

@Cerberus Are you taking a crack at some religion or other?

You're all missing the important point that...

Some? All!

5:48 PM

some of them are older than 4000 BC! and some are newer

Although many followers are of course more pragmatic.

...how will the children be able to defend themselves with out supreme retaliatory force?

islam goes back to only 600 AD, after all

also concealed.

@Mitch ...gun point? Okay, okay, you're right! I'll do whatever you say.

5:48 PM

@JSBձոգչ Sort of yes. Sort of no.

@JSBձոգչ some are timeless.

@JSBձոգչ Not exactly...they have many older precepts.

@Cerberus a five year old with a concealed weapon. "now how do you like me?"

Ones that were codified then not because they were practical at the time, but rather because they were part of a tradition.

atheism in its modern incarnation only goes back to about the 17th century

5:49 PM

@Mitch Yay!

i keep trying to tell them that what worked 300 years ago doesn't work now, but they don't listen

@JSBձոգչ You could say that.

> Another way to put it: of approximately 44 million gun owners in the US, 99.97% of them do not murder anyone. It is not surprising that their owners resist being accused of abetting murder.

@JSBձոգչ If you can point out specific precepts...

@Cerberus tradition smadition. Wicca, the ancient Druid religion, is not actual an ancient Druid religion. Invented 1930 by some dude.

5:50 PM

sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2012/09/…

who was hot for some librarian types.

@JSBձոգչ Of course.

@JSBձոգչ Socrates never believed in that atheism bullshit.

Similarly, 99.99 % of all people who drive 200 km/h where only 80 is allowed don't kill anyone.

@DavidWallace Why would people want to kill cigarettes? That's just hurtful.

5:52 PM

And many of them may in fact be capable of driving 200 without any chance of hitting anyone.

Or not.

You never know.

@Mitch Yes, of course.

merely owning a firearm doesn't endanger anyone in the same way that driving 200 km/h does

Why not?

The risk is increased in both cases.

@Jez OK I'll bite. Is it always Jeremy or does it change depending on who she's talking to?

The owner/driver thinks he can handle the risk, he is more capable than others. And this may in fact even be true for many owners/drivers.

But even gun owners / 200-drivers are fallible.

And the law cannot tell the good ones apart from the bad ones.

i really don't see those as equivalent at all

5:55 PM

Then lower the speed.

Did you get a speeding ticket, Cerby?

Make it 150 on a straight road.

@Cerberus Judaism... some dude went up a mountain to get away from it all, thought 'eff it, I'm setting down some rules' - circa... well ~ 4K years ago?

@DavidWallace Nope.

@Mitch Ain't that how it always goes?

@Cerberus No.

!! I had to answer like that.

@Cerberus ambulances and the military. I can tell those from the speedsters and 'recreational' idiots.

5:58 PM

I have to go to work. See you all another time.

@JSBձոգչ holy crap. %.03 o 44mil gun owners murder? How many is that...

@Mitch Yes. Although even some soldiers will occasionally run amok and kill people...but then you can make them keep their guns in camp in a locker, don't let them take the guns home.

@DavidWallace Bye!

@Mitch 13,200.

@JSBձոգչ Gah! 13,000 murders -a year-? closes shades hides in basement

@Cerberus OK, I hear you. But consider Switzerland, in which every citizen is required to serve in the active military and a lengthy reserve period afterwards, keeping fully automatic assault rifles in their homes.

it's a big country. that's not so many

6:02 PM

BRB

6:17 PM

@Robusto My husband was just telling me how this is oft cited and is also incorrect.

@JSBձոգչ I think preventing a significant percentage of those 13,200 would be nice.

If possible.

Depends on who they are.

Good day.

@KitFox You call Robusto's internet meme? I call hearsay from your husband. And follow with a random taboo word and a questionable factoid...Dammit, with 3-D printers we'll all be able to download and assemble an AK-47.

...made out of glucose. I couldn't find the goop that hardens to plastic.

Indeed I do call it.

I call shenanigans.

6:24 PM

OK then.

@KitFox Right, I suppose criminals killing criminals is (slightly) less reason to limit the freedom of others.

@Mitch That is indeed a problem in the medium future.

Then explain how them Switzerlanders don't end up shooting each other in the face, hunh?

Perhaps they do?

@Cerberus They -are- ugly.

Or perhaps, as Kit says, the situation was not described accurately?

6:26 PM

as a whole

Or there is some other, compensating factor at work?

First of all, only the men are conscripted.

Women are volunteer service members.

But I bet most murders will always be men...

@KitFox then I want references. skopes? My lovable but ultra-right uncle uses them too ya know.

I know. I'm asking him to send me his info.

6:27 PM

First fact...where do holes in their cheese come from? Am I right?

Farts. I thought everyone knew that.

snopes.com/politics/guns/switzerland.asp

Some people in my family hunt.

But why would you need a semi-automatic gun?

@Cerberus To kill a lot of people quickly.

@Cerberus um...why -medium- future? are you implying that the problems of the far future will be vastly different because there won't be a far future once the 3-D printers automatically work (and are manned by the skynet robots)?

6:29 PM

Right!

@KitFox That sounds nice.

@Mitch Haha.

@KitFox touche.

I wasn't implying anything.

or rather, please don't touche.

Mind your accents.

@Cerberus seriously, people think it is for defense.

@Cerberus I have none (or I will when my 3-D printer prints out a keyboard with them).

6:31 PM

@Mahnax Doesn't mean their murder rate wouldn't be even lower without those guns.

Nor does it mean that there isn't some other compensating factor.

@Mahnax What disturbs me about that is...

Nobody says gun murders and gun ownership are 100 % correlated.

...you can't cut and paste from the snopes website.

@Mitch Why not? What do you mean?

@Cerberus you mean people are stealing guns to shoot people?

6:32 PM

@Mitch That is one factor, yes.

@FumbleFingers Hey dude, like, didn’t you get the memo, like?

@tchrist link?

@Mitch I am being a bit cheeky-tongued.

@Cerberus I went to Matt's link and wanted to paste the well-substatntiated data about how @KitFox's husband is wrong here and it wouldn't let me.

@FumbleFingers Whoa there, Scrooge! Per Marthaª’s featured meta request, we non-♦-mods are trying to withhold our close votes and down votes during these Twelve Days of Christmas. The mods are doing a good job at closing true dupes and truly unsalvageable genrefs by themselves. Still use flags as needed of course, and certainly delete-vote You Know Whose Postings, but otherwise try to work to salvage a post if you can, or keep mum otherwise. Hippocrates says first do no harm. Remember: Marthaª knows if you’ve been bad or good.... — tchrist 5 mins ago

One more try.

My avatar has turned into a blue question mark. Say what?

6:35 PM

@tchrist "delete-vote You Know Whose Postings"? Voldemort's? NortonS? Sauron?

Nordieses.

Which reminds me, you guys are slackin on that account.

@tchrist bug? I still see the jester.

No, in chat.

@tchrist In chat you're just normal you. without a hat.

@Mitch Ohh...I could copy it, so perhaps it is some Javascript thing?

6:38 PM

user image

@Mitch Um, you mean where it says that he is right.

For instance, it is not every citizen.

And they aren't all given weapons forever.

It is only men between 20 and 30, and they surrender their automatic weapons at the end of service.

The main problem is that you cannot compare Switzerland and America so easily, it is not ceteris paribus by a long shot.

The Australian statistics come much closer in that regard.

And they are discussing changing the rule from keeping the rifles at home to keeping them in a deopt.

@tchrist: I was good as gold throughout 2011, but Martha never gave me a present last xmas. And Kitfox cruelly misled me about my chance of getting shagged by good-looking and/or famous people in the elections. Women? I don't trust 'em! :) — FumbleFingers 24 secs ago

O Cruelty, thy name is woman!

@tchrist Best way to code an en-dash and prevent line breaks on both sides?

6:43 PM

Both?

Yes. For example 10–20

@KitFox rather what Robusto said is pretty much on target and you as proxy for your husband are merely caviling.

Check the \p{dash} characters’ linebreak properties.

You probably can’t do it.

'forever' is questionable: they can keep it. Every citizen, OK the sorta leave out half of everybody in women.

You can suppress them on one side, but I do not know if there is one for both.

You may have to cheat.

6:44 PM

@tchrist I don't mind cheating.

And use some graphicky thing.

Oh.

THAT kind of cheating.

Or an HTML span.

@Mitch And all the men over 30. And no, they can't keep the automatic weapon. It has to be converted if they don't return it.

Which isn’t going to work here.

6:45 PM

> 17 % of autochthonous Dutchmen say they would consider it a "problem" if their child turned out to be homosexual.

Isn't that nice?

How did they define "problem"?

@tchrist I'm asking in context of ELU: probably can't do a span.

I think they didn't.

@KitFox so they keep all their guns usually just maybe not as dangerous...come on...that is still quite a bit more gun ownership than the US.

@KitFox I think they just asked "would you consider it a problem?", but the article is not entirely clear.

6:46 PM

@Mitch But a lot less automatic weapons owning than the US.

> Of Turks and Moroccans, 75 % say they would consider it a problem if theur child turned out to be homosexual.

@KitFox I couldn't figure out comparable rates from those facts. much smaller country, percentage people over 30, etc, etc.

@tchrist It seems the workaround might be U+2060.

> People from Surinam and the Antilles, 33 %.

@Cerberus 'autochthonous'. such hypocrites!

6:49 PM

Oops!

Ha ha! chatkillah!

That was 75 % of Turks and Moroccans. Typo.

@MετάEd That never seems to work for me. Try it.

Wait, can you live with a non-breaking hyphen at U+2011?

It isn’t really a dash, though.

Since Turks and Moroccans are about comparable to Surinamers and Antillians qua socio-economic class, I would say Muslims are really a lot less tolerant of homosexuality.

Because the majority of Turks and Moroccans will adhere to some form of Islam.

Maybe 75 %.

It is against their religion, so of course they are not tolerant of it.

6:50 PM

That is a silly statement.

That is the excuse that the fundies give at least.

Isn't it against Judaism and Christianity too?

That is what I just said.

Kinda.

And yet the latter are far more tolerant.

@tchrist I put one fore and aft of an en-dash and can't seem to get it to break anymore. So that worked for me.

6:51 PM

Not always, no, not at all.

@MετάEd I wonder what I was doing wrong.

What do you mean "not always"? These are averages.

@tchrist Maybe a different sort of dash in your case?

These stats mean that a hundred thousand people calling themselves Muslims have probably said a gay child was okay.

There is no "always".

You're being silly again, @Cerb.

2

I think most Antillians and Surinamers will be Christians.

But it is possible that a far larger percentage than among Muslims are irreligious.

@KitFox Can't you be more serious and less personal in a discussion?

I suppose I started it.

6:54 PM

You're making huge generalizations about religion based on your presumption of a population.

Tchrist's "of course" sparked my "silly", which was uncalled for.

It's offensive to me.

@KitFox How so?

What is the generalization exactly, and why is it wrong?

Turks and Moroccans might object to homosexuality for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with religion.

Yes.

6:55 PM

You don't know. You don't know that it has anything to do with Islam at all.

But I find that unlikely.

Well, you're being a jerk.

I have talked to many Muslims.

I know what and why many of them think as they do.

If you want to huff about Muslims objecting to homosexuality, then find those stats.

I don't have them.

6:56 PM

Don't go conflating citizenship with religion.

But I think Gallop polls show a similar pattern.

Citizenship?

@KitFox I don't appreciate this remark.

You are asserting that Turk = Muslim.

And the Surinamer = Christian.

Then pitting them against each other.

Not exactly. I gave you my estimates.

I said 75 % Muslim for Turks and Moroccans.

I base this of course on stats that I read a while ago, which linger in my subconscious.

It's spurious.

How?

6:58 PM

You can't use stats for one thing to make claims about a completely different thing that you've decided could possibly be correlated but with no actual evidence thereof.

Why not?

@tchrist did I get what "memo"?

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