English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

KitFox

12:15 AM

eats peanuts with dark chocolate sea salt caramel sauce

user19161

@KitFox Yo! It sounds like a Sneakers bar.

Cerberus

eats pancake with bacon

Cerberus

12:45 AM

techdirt.com/articles/20120803/04544719927/…

> The partnership between Apple, the main litigant in the global “thermonuclear war” against Android, and Intellectual Ventures, the king of the patent trolls, is particularly troubling for many reasons: two of which are explored here.

Apple. Is. Evil.

tchrist

12:55 AM

@JasperLoy Most bars don’t mind if you’re in gymshoes.

Cerberus

> Some – admittedly clever – companies, such as Apple, recognized that they could acquire patents, take a perpetual license to them, and then sell them off to NPEs [Patent Trolls] such as Intellectual Ventures (or as they have already done with Digitude), who are then incentivized to attack the original purchasers' competitors (because the purchasers have a license and its competitors don’t).
This strategy allows the original purchaser to attack their competitors and make money off of the patent sale to the NPE (and often they take a cut of the litigation and settlement revenue as well) all…

@tchrist I believe it is sometimes used as an excuse to discriminate against certain groups.

ΜετάEd

1:10 AM

0

A: Why can't I flag a question as "offensive"?

To answer your specific question: you can flag a question as offensive: click flag check it is not welcome in our community click Flag Question You identified the last phrase in this sentence¹ as very offensive and struck it out²: It's not merely supernatural which has a connotation of be...

As promised, I waded in.

ΜετάEd

1:23 AM

@simchona As promised, I waded in.

and now, g'nite all.

Cerberus

@ΜετάEd +1

simchona

Ugh. It's still Monday.

Mahnax

@Luke We are not known for summer sports.

Cerberus

Is that bad?

Mahnax

Although we jump a mean trampoline, apparently.

simchona

1:30 AM

Monday is the epitome of bad.

Cerberus

I guess Friday is better.

Mahnax

For me, any day that I don't have work is the best.

So tomorrow is the new Friday.

Cerberus

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday have always been dark coloured for me.

@Mahnax Yay! When do you work in summer?

Luke

I like Thursday.

Mahnax

@Cerberus All the gosh-darned time.

Five or six days a week.

Cerberus

1:35 AM

That is a lot. Who so much?

@Luke Why?

Mahnax

My shifts change every week, too.

Cerberus

Is all this for your trip to Europe several years into the future?

Mahnax

@Cerberus According to my manager, I work hard, and I'm the best of the part-timers. So I get a lot of hours.

@Cerberus ~~Peut-être.~~ Yes.

Cerberus

Or do you want the money for undisclosed or indeterminate purposes?

Mahnax

I'm going to buy a saloon.

Luke

1:38 AM

@Cerberus It has a nice name

Cerberus

@Mahnax Interesting.

Mahnax

I will then sell the saloon for the exact price at which I bought it.

Cerberus

@Luke Why do you like Thor so much?

Mahnax

What does a sad llama do?

Cerberus

@Mahnax Very...interesting.

Spit?

Mahnax

1:40 AM

Llament.

Luke

@Cerberus It has a nice ring to it

Cerberus

Noted.

@Mahnax Hah. Hah.

Mahnax

@Cerberus chortles

Cerberus

Here, an aspirin.

Mahnax

No thanks, you've probably laced it with marijuana.

Cerberus

1:42 AM

Maybe.

Mahnax

Aha. You've been found out!

Cerberus

But what you don't know can't hurt you, can it?

Luke

Do you always stay up this late? @Cerberus

Mahnax

@Cerberus It can.

I wouldn't want to overdose!

simchona

@Luke He's a night owl.

Mahnax

1:44 AM

@simchona I thought that was Reg? Huh.

Cerberus

@Luke Yeah, I suck at going to bed early.

simchona

@Mahnax Maybe they're the same person. Animal.

Cerberus

You appear to be better at it than I am?

Mahnax

@simchona I merely jest.

Cerberus

@Mahnax That is unlikely with weed.

Mahnax

1:44 AM

@Cerberus Jesting, again.

Cerberus

Oh, really.

simchona

Jousting?

Cerberus

I thought you seriously thought the pill I gave you was lined with weed.

Luke

There should be a Night Owl badge for more than X posts during 12:00-4:00 AM local time.

Cerberus

Yay!

Mahnax

1:46 AM

Hey, I could get that one too.

Cerberus

It should be iron.

For it would be the easiest badge ever.

Luke

The class is plastic

Is anyone awake or did guilt overtake the chatroom for staying up late?

Mahnax

It's not even 20:00 here.

Luke

It's only about nine here, but I was aiming that one at Cerberus.

Mahnax

Oh, OK.

Cerberus

1:50 AM

@Luke Haha, that is the best material.

tchrist

@Mahnax What’s that in English?

Luke

Cheap. Made in China

Cerberus

@tchrist Early.

@Luke Perfect.

Mahnax

@tchrist Oh, that's a toughie. Six?

Cerberus

By the way, have you noticed how "made in Japan" does not connote "cheap" any more?

I'm sure it did thirty years ago.

Mahnax

1:52 AM

Oh, Luke is a minor too.

Cerberus

Is he? Surely not?

Mahnax

According to his user profile he is.

Luke

I am

Mahnax

He's the same age as I am.

Cerberus

Funny.

Luke

1:53 AM

I just got my permit though

tchrist

@Luke Kids shouldn’t need guns.

Luke

driving permit

tchrist

Drive-by shootings don’t need permits.

Mahnax

Oh, I've had mine for almost two years.

Luke

You can get them at 13 in Colorado?!! I should have moved!

tchrist

1:55 AM

@Mahnax Laid.

It’s allowed at 13 in Colorado.

Luke

@Mahnax If you're fifteen now, and you got it two years ago, you got it when you were 13. You can't get them until you're 15 here.

Mahnax

@Luke Almost two years ago. I'll be sixteen shortly, and I do not live in Colorado.

Luke

What was I thinking? I just looked at your profile.

Too many people on ELU SE from CO

Mahnax

I live in Alberta, Canada, where you can get the learner's permit at 14 years of age.

Cerberus

@Mahnax But it's close.

You also have C and ad.

Mahnax

1:59 AM

@Cerberus A little.

Cerberus

So did you play an instrument, Bob?

(Bob = Mahnax.)

Mahnax

I used to play guitar, a little.

Cerberus

Cool.

Luke

I play cornet, recorder, and a little piano

Cerberus

What's (a) recorder?

Mahnax

2:00 AM

IMO recorders are way too obnoxious to be considered actual instruments.

But that's just me.

Luke

It's a woodwind instrument from the baroque period.

Mahnax

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It is distinguished from other members of the family by having holes for seven fingers (the lower one or two often doubled to facilitate the production of semitones) and one for the thumb of the uppermost hand. The bore of the recorder is tapered slightly, being widest at the mouthpiece end and narrowest towa...

Luke

A cheap plastic soprano, yes.

Cerberus

Ah, they are called block flutes in Dutch.

Luke

Listen to the recordings on this page: http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.5,_Op.67_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van)

markdown's not working

Mahnax

2:03 AM

No space.

simchona

0

Q: Verb form of statistics

May I ask what is the verb form of statistics or is there any replacement word with the meaning of "the act of doing statistics"?

Oh, that is funny.

Erm.

I know that piece very well.

Just not with those instruments.

Isn't it normally keyboard?

Luke

Not all recorders are one-dollar cheapos from china used to fill wall space at dollar tree

Cerberus

2:04 AM

And lots of strong strings.

Mahnax

You're right, my recorder for grade school cost me fifteen dollars.

Cerberus

@Luke I know they can be respectable instruments.

Luke

It was originally written for an orchestra

Mahnax

I think I'm so bitter about the recorder because I was forced to play it for years.

Cerberus

Yeah, it is a symphony.

@Mahnax I have heard that before.

Luke

2:06 AM

@Cerberus They were originally made of wood. Alas, now, wooden ones are in the minority, although they will always be better in quality.

Mahnax

@Cerberus From me?

Cerberus

I believe everyone had wooden ones when I was in school.

@Mahnax No.

Mahnax

@Cerberus OK.

Cerberus

Hmm, that very loud note sounded a bit weird.

In the 2nd movement.

Otherwise it sounds nice.

tchrist

@simchona stat("readme.txt") — there, I statted the file.

Cerberus

2:08 AM

What are you doing?

Why aren't you busy learning Greek?

3

Luke

@Cerberus It is a bass recorder playing marcato.

Cerberus

So larger, lower notes?

tchrist

@Cerberus I am rhapsodizing.

0

A: Using 'she' with gender-neutral nouns

If a mother bird needed to fly off her nest, no one would begrudge her the pronoun. If love were that mother bird, then love, too, would merit the same considered treatment as our mother bird. By saying that love is that bird, then love deserves the same pronoun. English reserves it for unthin...

Cerberus

@tchrist In Greek?

At least it's a Greek word.

tchrist

A poet works with what he knows.

Of the first declension.

Despite its gender.

Yes, I know.

Cerberus

2:09 AM

I know you know.

Luke

@Mahnax I've taught myself, and I very much enjoy it. I see how it is, though.

Cerberus

My God.

Avast is possibly the scariest thing ever to have inhabited my computer.

It talks!

Thank God I installed it only in a virtual machine.

tchrist

PAIN: poeta, agricola, incola, nauta.

Leave it to poets and sailors to be gender-confusticated.

Cerberus

They taught those words to you like that?

tchrist

Does like apply to taught or words?

Cerberus

2:13 AM

The verb.

tchrist

Well, it’s a common refrain for remembering such things for beginning Latin students, yes.

Cerberus

Funny.

Greek has many more where those came from.

The declensions are more of a mess anyway.

As are the conjugations.

tchrist

Seemingly all of which Latin is also cursed with.

Cerberus

With all of what?

tchrist

-a words in the 1st declension, but masculines.

Cerberus

2:16 AM

But only a few.

tchrist

And there are some messed-up 2nd declensions, too: cetus, pelagus, virus.

Cerberus

Not too many of those, and two of them are Greek.

tchrist

I think cetus might even be irregular, going to cetes or some such in the plural.

Luke

I've gotta go. Good night all

Cerberus

Cete.

Greek neuter plural < ketea.

@Luke Night!

Similarly pelage.

tchrist

2:20 AM

Write, cetus goes to cete. I knew it was weird.

Spanish students are taught to watch out for -ma/pa/ta words deriving from Greek as likely masculines.

There really are quite a huge whole lot of these, including such common and easily translated words as anagrama, analema, anatema, aroma, atleta, axioma, bigrama, carcinoma, carisma, cinema, clima, cometa, crucigrama, diagrama, dilema, diploma, dogma, drama, eccema, emblema, enema, enfisema, enigma, esmegma, esquema,

estigma, fantasma, fibroma, fonema, glaucoma, hematoma, idioma, idiota, indígena, israelita, lema, lexema, magma, mapa, melisma, morfema, panorama, papiloma, pijama,pirata, planeta, plasma, poema, poeta, problema, profeta, programa, quiasma, reuma, sema,síntoma, sistema, sofisma, telegrama, tema, teorema, trigrama, and zeugma (also written
ceugma) are all masculine in Spanish, as too are tranvía, día, and mediodía.

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

That’s too many for a new student of Spanish to remember as unexplained exceptions, so the Greek thing is usually tossed to them, this even though
they almost never have any Greek at all, nor probably any Latin, either.

Oh well.

Cerberus

They are neuter in Latin.

tchrist

The weird one is planeta.

Do you remember it in French?

It’s la planète.

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

2:22 AM

Yet Spanish has el planeta.

The neuters they had to flip for.

Cerberus

It is similar to nauta and poeta.

tchrist

That really is a huge whole lot of masculine -a words.

simchona

0

Q: Is ‘Specialist’ lower in rank than noncommissioned or petty officer in military term?

In business and academic fields, ‘specialists’ are regarded and respected as persons with special knowledge and skill about their own professions, like medical specialist, research specialist and computer specialist. However, I was amused to find the following lines of today’s Washington Post r...

usage

This seems off topic.

Cerberus

You would enjoy learning the Greek declensions. It would give you many missing pieces of the puzzle.

tchrist

@Cerberus I already wrote about all this here. You may find it interesting.

Mitch

2:24 AM

it seems gen ref like awiki article wil say it.

tchrist

Greek only has 3, not 5, right?

Is the 3rd still a mess?

@simchona Smells like General Reference would have those specialists’ stripes — not that they have any.

Cerberus

Hmm.

@tchrist 3 declensions?

tchrist

Yes, that was my question.

Cerberus

Well, depends on how you look at it. It has 3 just as Latin has 3, you could say.

tchrist

But Latin has 5.

Cerberus

2:27 AM

The 4th being a variation on the 3rd, and the 5th being a mixture of 1/2 and 3.

tchrist

And domus moved around as history progressed.

Cerberus

In Greek, you would need many more declensions than 3 if you wanted to end up with declensions as tight as the Latin 5.

tchrist

The 3rd is a whole bunch of variations on the 3rd. Yes, I meant it that way.

Cerberus

@tchrist I just mean that what we conventionally call the 3rd, 4th, and 5th in Latin can't really be compared with the conventional Greek declensions very well.

You will learn many more paradigms.

Sadly.

Unless you enjoy more paradigms, yay!

tchrist

planēta, planētae was feminine in Latin. πλανήτης, πλάνητου was masculine in Greek. How French got Latin’s feminine but Spanish went back to Greek’s masculine, I do not understand.

Cerberus

2:30 AM

Why do you say planeta was feminine?

tchrist

Wasn't it?

Cerberus

I believe it is mainly masculine.

tchrist

Now you make me search Perseus.

Cerberus

Better use Archimedes.

archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/…

tchrist

Hm.

Oh.

Cerberus

2:31 AM

It is faster.

Though Perseus has better formatting.

It is the same dictionary (Lewis and Short).

tchrist

Well, there you have it.

Maybe I looked in a French etymological dictionary and believed it. Dumb me.

Cerberus

So why did you say comma was feminine in Latin?

@tchrist I may be treated as feminine by some authors.

It isn't always clear cut.

I don't know.

tchrist

Weren't there comma feminine and coma masculine?

Cerberus

That would seem unlikely, and L&S doesn't say so...

tchrist

Very odd then that Spanish uses la coma for punctuation and el coma for the other kind.

I thought it just inherited the genders.

Now you make me go dig up my dictionaries. I know I thought what I thought from actual sources, not just memory. I only trust myself that way with Spanish, maybe French and Portuguese, not the others, which I always look up.

Cerberus

2:35 AM

@tchrist Nothing is ever 100 % regular.

As to French sexes for -eur from Latin m. -or, do you know when they picked feminine, and why?

Mitch

why aren't we discussing the differnce in gender between Old English and AHG?

Cerberus

Althochdeutsch?

Mitch

Genau

does Dutch have gender?

Cerberus

I don't know enough about the barbarian tribes.

Mitch

noch genau.

nobody does.

bunch a saxons.

Cerberus

2:37 AM

@Mitch Yes; we have three, though m. and f. have all but fused in inanimate nouns.

Mitch

that sounds like not having gender.

Cerberus

N. is still going strong.

tchrist

@Cerberus No, do you?

Mitch

"N."?

neuter?

Cerberus

Although many Moroccans and Turks seem to have great trouble ever learning the sexes properly, and so street language has been influenced.

@Mitch Yup.

tchrist

2:39 AM

Did you know that OE mona was always masculine until the Norman conquest, and then from influence from luna it waxed feminine for a while before it got spayed?

Cerberus

Het ~ it = neuter; de ~ the = m/f.

Mitch

but most nouns -are- inanimate in all languages.

Cerberus

@tchrist No, alas.

@tchrist Before it waned, you mean? I had no idea. I think it is der Mond?

@Mitch Yes.

tchrist

Germanic languages have sun f. and moon m. Latinate ones, the other way around. Odd. Because they really were from a common PIE root.

Yes, der Mond.

die Sonne

Cerberus

In educated speech, one still has to get the sexes right with pronouns: the government apologized for her mistake is mandatory there, but many people make atrocious hypercorrect mistakes, like the state and her laws, which should be his laws.

tchrist

2:42 AM

Sun in PIE was *sowilō or *sæwelō, and both Germanic and Latin languages derive from that. But the genders went different ways.

Cerberus

Yeah, that happened in many other words too.

Could it be due to a certain suffix?

Suffixes mess up sexes.

tchrist

Tolkien made his sun feminine and moon masculine, because of the spirit of the north thing he was doing.

simchona

@Cerberus That's what happens when one gender finishes first.

Cerberus

@simchona Hmm what do you mean?

Mitch

@tchrist really? luna, mond; solis, sonne?

Cerberus

2:44 AM

*sol

simchona

@Cerberus Horrible attempt at a joke

Cerberus

<= horrible lack of comprehension

tchrist

Well, OE sun=sigel(f) and OE jewel=sigle(n) got confused a bit because of the influence of Latin sigilla (f).

@Mitch For sun, yes, and most definitely. For moon, I haven't tracked it yet.

Cerberus

@Tchrist: Why do you say cetus is masculine?

tchrist

I don't.

Cerberus

2:45 AM

It is neuter, I believe.

tchrist

It was neuter.

Yes, quite.

But it is a -us neuter, like pelagus and virus.

Those are annoying.

Cerberus

> Its cētus, cētī for sea monster (whence English cetacean) was usually construed as a second declension masculine

tchrist

Lemme look it up.

Allen and Greenough say: The nominative plural neuter cete, sea monsters, occurs; the nominative singular cetus occurs in Vitruvius.

Dang, link is dead.

But look here for my original notes.

If cete was a plural neuter, I suppose it is possible that cetus was a masculine singular, but I would have thought it neuter as well.

Perhaps it flipped when being made plural.

Cerberus

Again, why do you say masculine?

It is neuter as far as I know.

> ll I can think is that perhaps the Romans may have kept using planēta, planētes in imitation of the Greek in some portions of the Empire, instead of the more normal planēta, planētae,

tchrist

Wait.

Cerberus

2:49 AM

Are you suggesting Latin or Greek ever used planetes as a genitive?

I do not believe that is the case, certainly not in Greek.

tchrist

Eek.

Ok, my original notes have cetus neuter.

Cerberus

But you can change that bit anyway, since masculine planets in Spanish and Italian simply came from the Latin masculine, in all probability.

Mahnax

Je suis retourné.

Cerberus

I have no more corrections on offer about your Latin, hehe.

@Mahnax Ah, bien revenu!

tchrist

cetus, pelagus, virus, and vulgus are all 2nd declension neuters.

I don't know what drugs I was on when I wrote otherwise last year, since obviously 20 years ago I knew better.

And no, they are not all attested in all possible cases, which makes it hard to know how the Romans thought of them.

We have no vocative instances of virus, for example. O slime where is thy sleekness?

"Lewis-&-Short actually call cetus masculine, but acknowledge the neuter Greek form cetos, with nominative /accusative plural cete, which they say is common."

"Glare’s conceptualization is that cetus is usually masculine in the singular (and by implication, neuter in the plural). "

"Vitruvius has pelagum as the accusative singular (in a context that tells us nothing about gender)."

Cerberus

2:54 AM

@tchrist Mixed declension, I would say.

tchrist

Vulgus was 2/4 mixed declension. Aeneid ii:99 has vulgum as accusative singular.

Ammianus wrote "qui ut coluber copia virus exuberans natorum." He seems to have construed it to be 4th decl.

But he was Greek, and may have been using some Greek notion on it.

Mahnax

BRB, AFK.

tchrist

These sorts of things are so amusing. I can’t believe they’re doing a Latin Vicipaedia.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…