English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

KitFox

8:00 PM

Coffee will help me. I don't know about you. brb

Cerberus

@MετάEd A big problem with prisons is that you don't have consumers that are free agents, and very little transparency.

David Wallace

But no, I don't suffer from schadenfreude. And even if I did, I don't think it works if the people that the bad things happen to are fictional.

user19161

@KitFox Have a big one!

user19161

@DavidWallace Schadenfreude is a pretentious word. Who would know what it means?

MετάEd

@Cerberus I am familiar with the history of the American food regulation. There was a time when you could not avoid buying unhealthy milk. Reputation was not an issue: people bought what they could get, and what they could get often made them sick. Regulation made everything different.

Matt Эллен

8:01 PM

@WillHunting Germans and English people

David Wallace

@WillHunting Anyone with access to the Internet, or a good dictionary?

tchrist

@WillHunting Anyone.

user19161

@KitFox In a way it does, because you know you are not the only one suffering.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Right, but you are continuing to argue about what prisons are today. They clearly need to be changed, but nationalizing isn't going to help: regulating (whether as a part of nationalizing, or not) is what will help.

user19161

@MattЭллен Or people who are German and English at once!

David Wallace

8:02 PM

@WillHunting I completely don't understand that attitude. The world does not become a better place if more people are suffering.

Matt Эллен

!! mutants!

Cerberus

@MετάEd Why won't nationalisation help?

tchrist

@WillHunting Them we call Dutch.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Because nationalized prisons operating under the same rules will do the same bad things.

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace but knowing one's not alone make people feel better

Cerberus

8:02 PM

With nationalisation, you know what you're getting into. With regulations, who knows how well it would work?

Matt Эллен

that's why support groups work

tchrist

“Nationalization” means something different in a country the size of continent than it means in one the size of a county.

user19161

@tchrist Aka Cerberus.

Cerberus

@MετάEd I mean they should basically not be able to make any profit.

The main incentive to treat prisoners badly (money) should be removed.

Of course governments have limited budgets too, but that's different.

tchrist

You’d be more likely to get a single-payer health-care system.

Too many fingers in that pie.

Cerberus

8:05 PM

I didn't say it was easy.

tchrist

It’s why I called it a racket.

MετάEd

@Cerberus By that argument, again the food industry should be nationalized. The main incentive to feed people bad food (money) would be removed.

David Wallace

@MattЭллен Oh, it wouldn't for me. Being around other depressed people would make me more depressed. I cannot delight in the misery of others.

Cerberus

@MετάEd But the food industry seems to have enough incentives to the contrary.

MετάEd

@Cerberus By all means make arguments for nationalizing prisons, but make them so I can see why prisons should be nationalized but the food industry should not.

Matt Эллен

8:06 PM

@DavidWallace that's not what it is at all. it's not delight in the misery of others, it's problem shared being a problem halved.

Cerberus

What incentive do prisons have to treat their prisoners well?

MετάEd

@Cerberus Then show me why that type of contrary incentives should be applied to the food industry and not to the prison industry.

Cerberus

Food stores have reasons to treat their customers well.

David Wallace

@MattЭллен No, it's n problems divided by n still being at least one each.

Matt Эллен

it's why writing a novel during nanowrimo is so much easier than writing one alone

David Wallace

8:07 PM

@MattЭллен No, that is mankind's competitive spirit.

Cerberus

@MετάEd As I said, customers can choose what to buy, basically.

tchrist

@Cerberus Repeat customers? :)

David Wallace

Knowing that lots of your friends will be writing 50000 words means that you expect yourself to be able to do so too.

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace it's not competition. it's support.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yay, I want to go to that same little prison again, the one with the haute cuisine!

David Wallace

8:08 PM

@MattЭллен Maybe it's some of both. But I would contend that sad people are no better at supporting other sad people than happy people are.

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace well, luckily for them, you're wrong

Mitch

@WillHunting taking a poop in French is pretentious.

sorry, giving a shit.

Cerberus

@MετάEd But if you can come up with some very invasive rules that have effects similar to nationalisation, then that would probably be okay too.

Nationalisation is not a magic word.

Mitch

holy crap you guys are talking serious shit.

Cerberus

But new regulation tends to be underwhelming.

MετάEd

8:10 PM

@Cerberus This is exactly what I am saying.

Mitch

pardon the potty talk. isn't there a brain lesion for that (@KitFox?)?

Cerberus

I do agree that nationalisation will only change things if all incentive to make money by exploiting prisoners is removed on the lower levels too.

Take for example our largest bank. It was nationalised a few years ago.

But did anything change?

Probably not that much.

They just have a different owner now.

KitFox

@Mitch For what now?

Cerberus

They used to be the world's 12th-largest bank or so.

Now they are much lower, if at any place at all.

2nd-largest bank is now number 16, still way too big for us, too much risk.

Mitch

for poopy talk. like huntington's disease.

lesion in the amygdala or the hippocampus? or is it the thalamus?

KitFox

8:14 PM

@Mitch Oh. Social propriety. Um...seems like prefrontal. Let me think.

David Wallace

@MattЭллен Hmm, people are disagreeing with me all over the Internet today. I'm starting to wonder if it's me!

KitFox

@Mitch Probably not any of these.

Mitch

yeah, not in anger, just socailly inappropriate stuff.

David Wallace

Are you thinking of Tourette's syndrome?

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace meh. the internet's full or ornary varmints.

Mitch

8:15 PM

no not tourett's, not uncontrollable expletives.

KitFox

Huntington's disease is genetic though, not lesion.

I can't think of an actual syndrome, although it is a common early symptom of Alzheimer's and other dementias.

Mitch

just as a goddamn matter of fact you fucking fucker of a nice person...you.

KitFox

I can't really remember, but it seems like a prefrontal "executive" type of control. And my brain is telling me that it is basal prefrontal, not too far medially from some of the areas we discussed last time.

"Empathy" regions.

Mitch

or maybe that's not right. maybe it is releasing a stream of expletives, but at least when provoked. as opposed to holding back.

KitFox

But it all vague notion, and I might be completely wrong.

@Mitch What I'm thinking of is the social filter that most of us have.

Mitch

8:17 PM

@KitFox right. there's a total locality principle going on, except when it isn't.

David Wallace

Oh, like in the Golden Girls?

Cerberus

Where can I buy this filter?

Do I push people through the filter, or what?

How does it work?

That would be nice.

Mitch

@KitFox there's different kinds of filters..stigma language...

David Wallace

Can I send one overseas in time for Christmas?

Cerberus

Do send me one.

David Wallace

8:19 PM

I wasn't thinking of you.

Mitch

@Cerberus you can get it at the local pharmacy, but behind the counter (Not on any prescription list)

KitFox

@Mitch True, but Tourette's for instance. That's got amygdalar involvement, I'm pretty sure.

Cerberus

@Mitch Not under the counter?

Mitch

@KitFox OK...I'm mixing up stuff then.

KitFox

Sense of social propriety is different.

@Mitch Or maybe I am.

Mitch

8:19 PM

@Cerberus ha ha! I guess. I'm having lesionnaire's disease.

Cerberus

Yeah people with Tourette's know very well what they're doing, but they just can hold it back any longer.

They do try. All the time.

An itch is a good metaphor.

And perhaps what happens in your brain is the same as what happens when you can't stop yourself from scratching.

Cerberus

8:36 PM

@Reg Is green "zyloni" or something?

►

RegDwighт

Zelyonyy in this awful broken English.

Cerberus

I understood "dobrye outro" too.

RegDwighт

Зелёный in proper.

Cerberus

Ahh.

Mitch

@Cerberus like stuttering.

Cerberus

8:37 PM

@Mitch Hmm could be?

Mitch

the kind of poopy talk I'm thinking of is were the talker is not conscious that it is inappropriate.

RegDwighт

[zʲɪˈlʲɵnɨj] in IPA

@Cerberus that is an awesome cartoon.

All three parts.

Cerberus

They do have funny voices.

RegDwighт

Everyone loves it. It's awesome.

They do have funny everything.

Cerberus

It was in the papers today.

Because the creator died.

RegDwighт

8:38 PM

Funny songs, witty dialogue.

Cerberus

Or animator.

They interviewed him two months ago.

RegDwighт

This movie in particular had many creators. They used actual children's drawings for the backgrounds.

Cerberus

Fjodor Chitroek?

RegDwighт

Khitruk.

I can't even read yours.

You had me stumped there for a second.

Cerberus

That's Dutch translitteration.

RegDwighт

8:40 PM

I fugured as much. Get a proper language.

Oe is so not /u/.

Cerberus

It's properder than English.

RegDwighт

That's not hard.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Yes it is.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus not when you cheesers pronounce it, no.

Cerberus

See, we can say properder in Dutch, which English cannot.

It does sound a little Flemish.

RegDwighт

8:41 PM

I can say bastgkl;hs in English.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Yes it does. Oe = /u/.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus perhaps Beatrix should inform the people, then. That's not the sound they use on the Dutch television.

Mitch

cheeser?

Cerberus

@RegDwighт For what?

Dutch oe = /u/.

RegDwighт

Yes. French = cheese. Dutch = cheeser.

Cerberus

8:42 PM

Book = boek.

Mitch

scotch = do not touch that . it's not cheese

Cerberus

Pronounced almost the same as in English.

RegDwighт

Boek != бук, however. And that is what we're discussing here.

@Cerberus exactly. Not an U.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт But almost.

Mitch

I thought we were discussing sex?

or poopy talk.

Cerberus

8:43 PM

@RegDwighт What?

We are taught to pronounce Russian y as Dutch oe.

RegDwighт

The English oo is NOWHERE near the Russian у.

David Wallace

Do you accidentaly have a baloon? Priceless!

Mitch

the German 'oe' is very like 'oo' in 'book'

RegDwighт

@Mitch nope, that one is completely different.

Cerberus

In boon, I believe it is rendered as /u/.

RegDwighт

8:44 PM

The German oe is like the i in girl.

Mitch

@Cerberus i think you mean the Russian backwards upside down N.

Cerberus

In book, it is a bit different.

@Mitch Uh no.

RegDwighт

Anyway, I have matters to attend.

Mitch

@RegDwighт oh. that's like the oo in book for me.

RegDwighт

BBL

Cerberus

8:45 PM

@RegDwighт And German oe has nothing whatsoever to do with Dutch oe, completely different.

RegDwighт

@Mitch so you from the South of England?

Apr 8 '11 at 18:07, by psmears

@Kosmonaut It was a source of much hilarity to us as children (growing up in the south of England) when my sister asked my father how to spell "furry", and he (from Liverpool) responded by asking, "Do you mean furry like a teddy bear, or a furry that grants wishes?"

AFK

@Cerberus so why do you have to bring it in?

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I still have no idea what your point is here btw. We always translitterate Russian y as Dutch oe, and I don't see the problem?

@RegDwighт I never did?

RegDwighт

It. Is. Not. The. Same. Sound. Not. Even. Close.

AFK

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I don't understand what you're saying. Russian y is /u/, right? Dutch oe is also /u/, so how can they be that different? Sure, they won't be exactly identical, but vowels from different languages rarely are; they should be close enough?

Matt Эллен

piglet is called picachu!

Cerberus

8:50 PM

I really don't understand Reg.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I really don't understand Random House; they make an app for the "Game of Thrones" books but only on iphone and nook. WTF? Why not Android? yeesh

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, that's silly.

What does it do?

Would it be hard to convert to Android?

What OS does the Nook run?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's some kind of database or something.

@Cerberus I thought it ran android!

Cerberus

That should be very easy.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That was my first thought too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

apparently they don't care about 75% of the phone market

Cerberus

8:53 PM

Silly.

Run it in an IOS simulator?

Do they have those on Android?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hah I doubt it

Cerberus

android.appstorm.net/general/app-news/irom-ios-on-your-android

You could presumably install the application file (.apk? What does IOS use?) in the emulator?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah I wonder how practical and performant THAT is

Cerberus

Who knows? My phone has about half the CPU power my desktop has...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hm, I think that article might be an april fool's joke

Cerberus

8:56 PM

Oh shi...

Damn, April 1.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway it is possible in theory.

But the effort required to get an app that should really just be a website is not worth it.

Cerberus

Yeah.

What does it do anyway?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It has facts about the characters and settings and plots in the books.

There's one app for each book

I don't actually want the app. I'm just annoyed that I can't get it.

Cerberus

Haha.

Yes.

Stupid.

But there are tons of applications that IOS doesn't have and will never get.

Like PGM Nexus.

Hey, didn't you say you had rooted your GN?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

no, I rooted my tablet

Cerberus

9:05 PM

Oh.

Why not take the next step?

You're practically already there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, for one, my wife uses the GN. For two, I don't need root on it.

The only thing I use root for on the tablet is backups.

And the only thing I back up is games.

What do you use?

Titanium backup

I mean what phone.

oh, Nexus S for now

I will probably buy a Nexus 4

Cerberus

9:09 PM

I touched a Nexus S yesterday.

It was pleasant enough.

Yay, Nexus 4!

May I congratulate you on your success in getting your wife hooked on the GN?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I really really like the Nexus S. It's so much more pocket and hand-friendly than the GN.

Cerberus

Wow.

You're such a simple soul: you'll like whatever they give you!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus haha, ironically, this is how the conversation went: Her: "Is your old phone slower?" Me: "Yes" Her: "Oh." And then, like 5 days later, I asked her "Do you want to keep the GN? or what?" and she said "Well.... I don't want a slow phone"

@Cerberus It's not that at all! I like the GN's screen and horsepower etc. But the NS had such a nice feel.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha. She thinks slow means "slow", like my father.

Because will she even notice?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So even though she probably wouldn't notice the difference between the Nexus S and the GN, software-wise, she doesn't want a "slow" phone, whatever that means.

Cerberus

9:12 PM

The speed, I mean.

RegDwighт

@robusto can you tell me which five categories make up the final score here? I am most interested in the one that cost him 2 points.

Thank you.

And AFK again.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm sure there might be some cases where she'd notice? But only if she was familiar with both.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, my father gets sold "faster" computers every time.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Right, so fairly marginal, just as I thought.

I must say my 500-MB laptop is positively slow.

And my previous phone was also a lot slower at certain things. But it was a WiMo from 2007.

But my mother's Dell from 2003 or so (XP) still seems pretty fast.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwighт It's "story quality"

I think

@Cerberus Well, it's just that she barely uses the phone at all. The GN is much much faster than the NS.

Cerberus

Hmm.

The menus seemed fast.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:19 PM

But she has no data plan and doesn't have wifi access at work so she never uses the browser.

Cerberus

Oh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And she only plays angry birds, or simple games like that.

Cerberus

Heh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

She basically uses it for texting.

and an address book and calendar.

Cerberus

Angry Birds is something.

And the address book and the calendar.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:20 PM

None of those stress this phone.

Cerberus

Applications I use most are dialler, texting, calendar, alarms, browser, home screen.

And Tasker.

Well, it operates in the background.

Same for LBE.

Oh, and camera.

And gallery.

And Tune In (internet radio).

None of those should stress the phone.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

For me it's Google Reader, Google+, K9 mail, Facebook, maps, calendar, camera, gallery, youtube, browser, Talk, SMS, and a note app

Cerberus

And yet I like super fast menus in all of them.

Google+? Facebook? Really?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, camera, youtube, browser, etc, can all benefit from faster cpu or dual core.

Cerberus

I didn't know you were such an attention junkie...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:23 PM

@Cerberus yes, sure.

Cerberus

ducks

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Attention junkie? I didn't say I was posting on those.

I almost never post on G+.

G+ is like an alternate blog universe.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Browser, most probably. As to the camera, I don't know, my 2007 phone had a pretty fast camera.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's well populated but not by individuals like Facebook is.

Cerberus

Then what do you do there?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:24 PM

@Cerberus read stuff.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

On Facebook I occasionally post. Usually a funny story about my kids.

Cerberus

Oh, I forgot one application: Maps!!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You social tiger!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Like yesterday: My daughter was sitting at the table naming opposites: "Up, Down. Left, Right. Loud, Quiet." Me: "Fork, knife". "Dad, those aren't opposites!" Me: "Why not?" "Because look: Fork, Knife, Spoon, chopsticks!"

@Cerberus roar

Cerberus

Ah, she's right!

So she is already smarter than you. No wonder.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:26 PM

@Cerberus I know, eh? 4 1/2 years old

Cerberus

Nice.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

She already has a more fundamental understanding of opposites than half the "what is the antonym of ..." questioners on this site

Cerberus

Hehe.

Good.

You think she will be good at languages? Science? Both?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

She's excellent at languages.

She could sing the whole alphabet song at 16 months.

She doesn't get enough other language exposure though.

But she's already writing stories.

She can do math too. Yesterday we were doing multiplication.

oh, gotta go.

Cerberus

Great!

Doesn't your wife speak Chinese with her?

She was Chinese, wasn't she?

It would be cool to have a doubly-wired brain, in Chinese and English.

MετάEd

9:35 PM

When my girl was little I played a game of opposites with her that really got her interested: Green, Not Green. Smooth, Not Smooth. Dog, Not Dog.

If this question is Not Constructive, Not A Real Question, Too Localized, and General Reference (closevotes so far), why the heck hasn't it been closed yet!

Em1

@MετάEd Because now it is.

tchrist

10:05 PM

-1

Q: Which is more correct: "more correct" or "correcter"?

Which is more correct: "more correct" or "correcter"? Does it depend from the context? or on where you are from?

GFR

Mahnax

sighs

close to votes

tchrist

Wow, just wow.

@Mahnax I do not have one in front of me, and google decided not to give me a useful answer.... — Neal 37 secs ago

I AM THE LORD THY GOOGLE: NO MAN COMETH UNTO KNOWLEDGE SAVE THROUGH ME!

FTN

Mahnax

Good lord.

Google decided no such thing.

tchrist

No, but he thinks they did.

Google is one-stop shopping for all knowledge that ever was or ever shall be.

Some questions really are too basic.

Mitch

@RegDwighт hm...no. GenAmE. German 'oe' = rounded midfront, 'English 'oo' in book = unrounded midback. hm... kinda different then. They feel the same to me except for the rounding, and even then big deal.

Mahnax

10:16 PM

> "Where is Japan?" Well, you could say it's located somewhere in the Milky Way. It would be more correct to say it's in Asia.

tchrist

@Mitch Book is rounded.

Mahnax

Is that a reasonable response, do you think?

tchrist

No.

Mahnax

That's what I thought.

Because they are both right.

But one feels more right.

tchrist

Really? I thought Japan was an island.

Several, in fact.

With no holdings on the continent of Asia.

But Russia might disagree.

Mahnax

10:18 PM

Good grief.

Mitch

@tchrist Oh. Really? I must be lazy.

tchrist

Then again, we call Greenland part of North America and Iceland part of Europe.

Mahnax

Er, a little bit.

tchrist

Wait, no. Greenland is part of Europe.

Ug.

And New Zealand part of Australia. :)

Mahnax

Greenland is Danish, innit?

tchrist

10:18 PM

Yep.

Mahnax

Yeah.

tchrist

Kinda.

Mahnax

Madagascar is part of Africa.

tchrist

It is . . . complicated.

Mahnax

I have to run.

My first shift is tonight. Eek.

Mahnax out

Mitch

10:20 PM

As part of that conversation, it really bugs me when English speakers are told to, when taught how to say the German 'oe', to make it sound like the u in 'turtle', because then they pronounce the mathematician 'Goedel' as 'Girdle'. makes my skin crawl and my fillings scream.

I think it is closer to reality for English speakers to pronounce it as 'book', 'Good-el'.

@tchrist geologically maybe.

@tchrist I thought they had just gotten independence.

not a particularly world shattering revolution.

tchrist

@Mitch It is the damned nonrhotic screwups again.

Mitch

probably like how Canada threw off the yoke of British imperialism.

@tchrist well, it would also be annoyingly wrong to pronounce it 'Guddle'

tchrist

English good is /gʊd/, which is clearly a rounded vowel.

The Spanish tend to mispronounce French u /y/ (as in tu sais?) as /i/ rather than /u/ the way Americans do, because they were told to make the /i/ sound and round their lips, but they forget to round.