English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:05 AM

What if the invisible barrier is hard as stone?

Or electrical?

What does it feel like to run into the shields of the USS Enterprise?

Is it like gravity?

Like a viscous something?

What do you think this is, and how far away is it?

Hint: it is not the sun.

Mitch

Moon? that would be too easy.

what town is it? It's hard to see in the picture/

Cerberus

It is Honolulu.

And it is not the moon.

Mitch

Oh..then it is the sun. Despite your hint. You are wrong.

Cerberus

Haha.

Mitch

No really, what is it?

Everybody gives up.

Cerberus

12:15 AM

Your answer gets 2 points for originality, but it is not the sun.

It is 1,445 km away.

It is a nuclear bomb.

Mitch

HFS. (that was profanity)

rcently?

Cerberus

I know.

No.

Sixties.

Starfish Prime

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (which became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place above a point southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yi...

An American experiment.

Detonated a few hundred km up in the air.

Mitch

oh blame everything on the Americans, eh?

Cerberus

It's big, but it is not everything.

Mitch

too easy a target.

Cerberus

12:18 AM

This bomb could disable electronic equipment across the entire United States. One bomb.

Mitch

by the way, aare there any nuclear weapons that are not 'thermo' nuclear?

Cerberus

Hmm I don't even know what it means.

Perhaps a dirty bomb?

You just spread radio-active particles across a certain region with a conventional explosion.

Mitch

@Cerberus there are so many way low-tech things that bad guys can do that don't need all the resources behing a nuclear bomb that would disrupt things terribly.

Even worse, you don't need bad people to do it. Blackout over half of India.

Cerberus

Yes, but disabling all electronic equipment across thousands of km with a single, regular atomic bomb?

@Mitch Yes, but here you would need to repair trillions of damages.

Mitch

I'm guessin gyou'd have to get it way up in the air. I can't do that. too heavy.

Cerberus

12:21 AM

Yes.

300 km seems to be the "sweet" spot.

Tim

gaaaaaaaaaaaa

Cerberus

I am just amazed at the idea that you can cause such strong electronic disruption across such a large region. I had no idea.

Mitch

see..its happening already.

Cerberus

I rather thought it was a few hundred metres or something, with a special device.

@Tim Hello, disruption.

Tim

@Cerberus howdy @Cerberus, it's cornbread

I can't log Tim out of chat

Cerberus

12:23 AM

Oh!

You little hydra...

Tim

but liek, there's no reason why it should still be entering as him

Cerberus

Weird.

Tim

imma try other things

Cerberus

Clear history, site data, cookies, cache, all at once?

cornbread ninja

ahhhh

Mitch

12:26 AM

there we go.

that's weird

Vitaly

@Mitch What do you mean? The thermo- part of thermonuclear refers to the method of inducing a nuclear reaction (high temperatures). It can as well be induced by, for example, blast pressures, I believe.

Mitch

Who TH is Tim?

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus 0_0

Mitch

@Vitaly well here you go. I -don't- know what I mean. If I did... I'd...

well I'd know already.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch hey now

Cerberus

12:27 AM

@cornbreadninja Welcome back.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch he is my significant other

Cerberus

Hello Vitaly.

Mitch

alt what?

Vitaly

In Russian the term thermonuclear is usually used to refer to hydrogen (fusion) bombs, while nuclear is for atomic (fission) bombs. In English the history behind the usage of the term is more complicated I believe (something to do with secrecy).

Mitch

alt sock?

Vitaly

12:27 AM

Hi?

cornbread ninja

@Mitch -_-

Mitch

ok..that's cool then. sorta. why are you letting him use your computer? So you can blame him for things you say?

Cerberus

Were any major bombs tested whose explosions were triggered mainly by pressure?

Mitch

The 'thermo' part is just a distraction to me. just 'nuclear' gets the point across.

Vitaly

@Cerberus Pressure has always been a major factor in the early nuclear weapon designs.

Cerberus

12:31 AM

But not later?

cornbread ninja

@Mitch glad I could satisfy your conditions. It's his computer, but I've been logged into main. For some reason, when I went into chat, it was as him, though.

Cerberus

So there is an actual Tim?

Vitaly

Temperature was quite significant, so I don't know if it could be described as “mainly by pressure”, but the term thermonuclear was invented precisely because the Americans wanted to keep it secret how important pressure was in their designs.

@Cerberus I don't know a lot about modern designs.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja exactly. Gigili may be awesome, but I have conditions.

Cerberus

@Vitaly Oh, that is funny.

OK.

Mitch

12:32 AM

@Vitaly I think the secret is out now.

cornbread ninja

@Mitch whatever.

tchrist

boggles that anybody thought the opposite of abjure was merely confirm, when objure was ripe and hanging low for the plucking

:)

Cerberus

Agreed.

tchrist

@Cerberus Today I learned that Old Portuguese used h as a vowel!! sabha > sabia; mha > mia

Cerberus

Hmm...

tchrist

12:38 AM

Haven’t seen H as a vowel since, well you know.

Cerberus

That is probably some compensation for a lost vowel?

tchrist

They weren’t using it for anything else. The one from Latin was silent.

Cerberus

I'm not sure I would call any letter that causes a vowel to be heard when pronounced in combination with certain other letters a vowel.

tchrist

No, they simple pronounced it i.

Let me dig the ref.

Cerberus

Was the hi also used in other words, and was it always pronounced with a vowel sound there?

Mitch

12:40 AM

@tchrist yeah, since nhvhr.

tchrist

From here: De notar ainda, na ortografia arcaica, o singular uso do h depois de certas consoantes com o valor de i semivocálico (sabha por sabia, mha por mia) e o amplo uso de vogais duplas, inicialmente provocado pela perda de uma consoante intermédia, mas depois recurso gráfico para indicar uma vogal tónica.

Dom Denis (the king) in his Cantigas d’Amor wrote this:

Proençaes soen mui ben trobar
e dizen eles que é con amor;
mais os que troban no tempo da frol
e non en outro, sei eu ben que non
an tan gran coita no seu coraçon
qual m'eu por mha senhor vejo levar.

That’s the same thing that Alfonso X wrote as "mia Sennor".

Gigili

@Mitch It was ahahalways like thahahat.

tchrist

There was no standardization, of course, as they evolved from VL.

It reminds me of using h after l or n to indicate palatalization, which they borrowed from Provençal.

So today nh is what the Castilans spell ñ, lh what the Castilians spell ll.

But is was a "semi-vowel", and would come to be written with i.

You might call it a digraph, I suppose.

Mitch

@Gigili hands tissue to someone about to sneeze

user19161

@Mitch This reminds me I can't sneeze too hard.

Mitch

12:49 AM

I hesitate to ask...why not?

user19161

@Mitch Pain in perineum. QED.

Gigili

@Mitch pretends to be asleep

tchrist

@Mitch Er, since Ήλιος and Ἡρακλέους and all thems.

KitFox

@tchrist Bless you.

Gigili

Oh, look who is here.

Happy day!

KitFox

12:51 AM

Hello, sweetie.

Hello, nemesis.

Hello, Jasper and Mitch.

user19161

Who is nemesis?

simchona

@mitch I actually just sneezed.

tchrist

@JasperLoy Ego

In several senses.

Cerberus

@tchrist Semi-vowel sounds appropriate.

user19161

No sneezing in this chat.

simchona

12:53 AM

@tchrist did I tween you?

tchrist

My chat just sneezed.

@simchona No, I mismoused.

Gigili

My sneeze just chatted.

simchona

@gig might want to get that checked out

Cerberus

@tchrist And in archaic Greek and some dialects, the eta was the consonant /h/. That is why the Greeks in Magna Graecia used it as such, I believe, from whom the Romands adapted their h.

@KitFox Hmm...

tchrist

That would make sense.

Cerberus

12:55 AM

What would I be?

tchrist

I never understood how it went from eta to H.

Cerberus

@tchrist And the spiritus asper is a stylised h.

KitFox

@tchrist Charming the pants off of everybody else wasn't enough, was it? You just had to ingratiate yourself to Vitaly too. Are you bosom buddies with Kosmonaut yet?

Oh and hi! I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Looks like I need to catch up on the transcript reading.

Exciting things going on these days.

tchrist

Me, a pantscharmer?

I think not.

KitFox

Don't play dumb with me.

Gigili

12:57 AM

@simchona Nonono, don't even think about it.

Cerberus

@tchrist The /h/ sound was not very common in archaic Greek, probably only in first position; then at some point letters were "needed" to distinguish the two kinds of e's and o's, and they took h, for some reason.

KitFox

I know for a fact that most of the people in this chat are pantsless.

simchona

looks down

@Kit, where'd you hide the cameras?

KitFox

And I don't think they did that on their own.

Cerberus

@KitFox guilty

KitFox

12:58 AM

And I certainly had nothing to do with it.

Cerberus

Clothes on animals are tacky.

KitFox

So where does that leave us, @tchrist? Hmm?

user19161

A person who does not pant and does not wear pants is pantless and pantsless.

tchrist

In a photo op.

KitFox

sighs

I don't know why I even bother.

Oh right. Fun.

tchrist

1:02 AM

Well, if you hadn’t been scoffing off, you could have answered Vitaly’s question instead.

KitFox

Nah, I don't bother with Perl. Besides, Vitaly does like me much.

He knows it just makes me try harder.

tchrist

@KitFox First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, they they fight you, then Perl wins.

KitFox

That's what they said about Apple too.

Vitaly

Today I learned that searching for pink flowered knickers using the SE chat search engine gives pages and pages of messages mentioning Steven Pinker in the results. How fitting.

Cerberus

Ante malum praefero margaritam, quaecumque est.

@Vitaly Glad it doesn't find me.

Vitaly

1:08 AM

Feb 23 at 16:01, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

in War Metal Tyrant, Sep 23 '11 at 13:51, by Vitaly

Cerberus

Exactly!

It was your idea.

KitFox

Oh, stupid typos. I meant that you don't like me much, Vitaly.

Vitaly

@Cerberus And yet:

in War Metal Tyrant, Sep 23 '11 at 13:57, by Cerberus

@Vitaly Hahaha, very fashionable!

tchrist

@Cerberus you just sent me into stitches!

Cerberus

@Vitaly I was accusing you of being a fashionista—I was surprised you took it so well.

tchrist

1:10 AM

@Vitaly Why, does Steven Pinker wear pink flowered knickers?

Cerberus

@tchrist Vitaly did, not I!

tchrist

No, your Perl comment cracked me up.

Vitaly

@tchrist I thought everyone knew that by now. You have a lot to catch up on.

Cerberus

Glad your Latin is up to par.

tchrist

margarīta < μαργαρίτης

Gigili

1:14 AM

@KitFox Anything I can do about that?

tchrist

I’ve always known about the odd connection between Spanish daisies and Latin pearls.

And tequila cocktails.

Cerberus

Yeah, how does that work?

KitFox

@Gigili About Vitaly? Oh, I don't think so. Someday I will possess his heart, but really it is all about the challenge. I haven't figured out what to do with it once it's mine.

tchrist

And Margaret.

Cerberus

Did it happen in Spanish?

I guess even the French Marguerite sounds Spanish.

tchrist

1:16 AM

I haven’t checked Italian. If it’s there, it is from somewhere earlier.

This tells you really not quite enough.

I don’t think the RAE lists senses in historical order the way the OED does.

I think they list in order a expectedness, or familiarity, or some such.

Gigili

@KitFox I have one bullet left, just in case.

tchrist

So sense 4 may be the oldest one there, and sense 1 the new sense.

If so, that would explain it.

Cerberus

I believe what you call daisy is divided in three different categories in Dutch: madeliefje, margriet, aster.

KitFox

@Gigili Thank you. duly noted

Vitaly

@KitFox Why do I suddenly have the urge to retract my agreement to donate my organs to science in case of an accident?

KitFox

1:19 AM

@Vitaly And um...are you suggesting that tchrist should be filled in on all the interesting factoids of this chat room?

Cerberus

@tchrist Is this the best source for Spanish etymology, btw?

KitFox

@Vitaly You flatter me.

tchrist

Daisies and asters are sometimes interchanged in common names. For example, the Alpine Daisy is Aster alpinus.

Well, it’s the quickest. The only one I keep handy electronically.

It isn’t very good.

But it is something.

The OED spoils us.

I believe Dutch also has a very good dictionary.

Cerberus

Yes.

Largest dictionary in the world, they say.

tchrist

I’ve heard that claim.

KitFox

1:21 AM

Funny that, given that you only have the one word.

tchrist

I believe it may be larger than OED2.

The current online OED3ish is unsized.

To my knowledge.

KitFox

Unsized, and unsanitized!

Cerberus

The WNT was never actually printed.

tchrist

There is a town a few miles away from me named Nederland.

Ironically, it is about a mile above me.

Cerberus

It just has the largest number of entries, I believe.

@tchrist Nice.

@KitFox Which is?

KitFox

1:23 AM

@Cerberus "Ananas" Duh. It's your mothertongue.

tchrist

Wow, 9 votes for Lowe and 1 for objure. Can’t win.

Cerberus

@KitFox Ah, yes. The despicable fruit.

@tchrist Link?

KitFox

OK, friends and relations. I must to bed to sleep off my drunk. Tomorrow.

Cerberus

Ahh you secret drunkard!

Good night.

I'm almost sober now.

tchrist

1

A: What is the antonym of "abjure"?

The opposite of abjure is objure. Per the OED: Etymology: ad. L. objūrāre to bind by an oath, f. ob- (ob- 1) + jūrāre to swear. Cf. obs. Fr. objurer (1460 in Godef.). trans. To bind by, or charge under oath. 1613 R. Cawdrey Table Alph., ― Obiure, binde by oath. intr. To...

Cerberus

1:25 AM

Drank my last beer around 8.

tchrist

And it’s what, 3 there now?

Gigili

@KitFox Gute night.

Vitaly

The only other major dictionary to have that word is Chambers.

Impressive.

Cerberus

+1

KitFox

@tchrist That's a two year old question.

And answer.

tchrist

1:26 AM

I know. But it had a bad answer.

Cerberus

I am surprised that objure should be considered so uncommon.

KitFox

@Vitaly grumbles

tchrist

@Cerberus You don’t like piña coladas then?

KitFox

@Gigili Good night, sweetie.

simchona

@tchrist Or getting caught in the rain.

Cerberus

1:27 AM

@tchrist Um, what?

tchrist

And the feel of the ocean.

Cerberus

I have no idea what's in a piña colada.

simchona

@Cerberus Pina and colada.

tchrist

And the taste of champagne.

Cerberus

Ah.

Got it.

tchrist

1:27 AM

Ananas.

Cerberus

Pineapple and cola?

Vitaly

@tchrist The OED Online entry contains slightly different quotations and definitions, by the way.

simchona

@Cerberus Coconut and pineapple. Rum too, I think.

Cerberus

(If people know objurgate, then why should objure be so hard?)

simchona

drinksmixer.com/drink4300.html

Cerberus

1:28 AM

@simchona Ah, OK. I might like a coconut cocktail.

But I hate pineapples.

Is mint and coconut a good combination?

tchrist

No, colada doesn’t mean something with cola. It has a bunch of meanings.

simchona

@Cerberus Sounds interesting. Like a coconut mojito.

Cerberus

Yeah!

And coconut with lemon? Would that work?

@tchrist Does it come from colon?

tchrist

I'm not sure which that one is. It might be bleached.

No it comes from colar.

See the RAE.

Vitaly

@tchrist Do I have your permission to suggest an edit with the updated OED Online entry, or would you rather keep the CD-ROM version?

Cerberus

1:32 AM

> La palabra no está en el Diccionario.

tchrist

Here it is: colada

@Vitaly Yes of course. I didn’t check the online version.

Vitaly

All right.

Cerberus

Hmm, there's something wrong with my search bookmark: it does work when I fill it in by hand.

tchrist

Lejía is bleach, by the way.

Sense 6 is talking about um, livestock. That’s ganado. There’s a better word for it in English than livestock, but I'm spacing now.

I think we have to look to Cuba for this one.

Cerberus

Ah, I had to change val_auth into val.

tchrist

1:35 AM

Ah.

I think that in Cuba it may mean something more like colocada, which is kinda like plastered.

There's a Cuban sense of falling in a colada which is to see oneself compromised in an unpleasant situation.

And piña coladas are originally from the Caribbean, maybe Cuba.

Cerberus

@tchrist What's wrong with livestock? Dictionary gives livestock and cattle e.a.

tchrist

I keep thinking there's a better word.

It means the cows and sheep and whatever that the ranchers raise.

It's often just cattle, depending on where you are.

Cerberus

Herds?

Vitaly

Suggested the edit.

tchrist

I guess domesticated herds.

Cerberus

1:39 AM

This feels like a bad SWR...

Gigili

Ugh. Whatcha talking about?

Good night.

Cerberus

Night.

tchrist

@Vitaly Oh that's very good! I'm glad they found a 1993 objure.

Cerberus

Hey, I have a question.

tchrist

Is good night good bye, or good evening?

I agree with @Cerberus that it should be more common.

Cerberus

1:40 AM

How hard is it for the untrained ear of an Englishman or American to understand English opera?

tchrist

Um, you mean operetta?

Like Gilbert&Sullivan?

Vitaly

They also kind of antedated their first quotation.

simchona

I am the very model of a modern major general

tchrist

Right.

Cerberus

Because I was rather surprised that my friend who has lived in Germany for several years couldn't understand a word of the Zauberfläute, which sounded crystal clear.

@tchrist Purcell?

tchrist

1:41 AM

Handel?

You can understand Handel just fine, and G&S, too.

Cerberus

I find Dido's "When I am laid" a bit hard to understand, I must say.

@tchrist Someone who has never listened to operas before?

tchrist

@Gigili Did you just say "Good night" by way of greeting?

I really don't think of those as English operas, although I can see why you call them that.

Cerberus