English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I was looking at Finnish for the nom/acc thing, and found this interesting bit: The Finnish language does not support gender-specific pronouns. The main division in the third person singular pronoun is between humans ("hän") and animal/inanimate ("se").

Also in Finnish, re nom/acc: The accusative is identical either to the nominative or the genitive, except for personal pronouns and the personal interrogative pronoun kuka/ken, which have a special accusative form ending in -t, kenet.

Finnish for sun is aurinko. Reminds me of aurum.

Sun is anar, ancale, or úrin in what mystery language related to Finnish?

Cerberus

Estonian?

Hungarian?

tchrist

Quenya. :)

Cerberus

@tchrist This is somewhat similar to IE. It could be due to convergent development, the hypothetical common Nostratic proto-proto-language, or influence from IE.

@tchrist Haha, and how is that related?

Valinor is quite far away.

Farther than it used to be.

tchrist

Ok fine, it is Anor in Sindarin, which is closer.

Cerberus

Much closer, thanks.

tchrist

3:20 AM

Quenya has lots of Finnishy-sounding bits. You find various common elements from Tolkien’s languages in European languages.

Think of mor- for dark/black/death.

Cerberus

Black is not exactly death...

tchrist

Think of Quenta meaning a tale. Consider cuento/cuenta in Spanish.

No, not exactly.

Cerberus

I guess Tolkien was a bit of a moralist.

tchrist

(cuento is tale, cuenta is account)

Cerberus

Right.

La cuenta, por favor.

tchrist

3:22 AM

Reckoning. :)

Cerberus

Bill.

tchrist

Check, queerly enough.

Cerberus

That's what it says in booklets for tourists.

Yes, or check.

tchrist

For tourists visiting which country?

Cerberus

In restaurants I guess it would be check.

Spain?

tchrist

3:23 AM

I meant your "that what it says" thing.

cuenta is Spanish. Never ask for el cheque. They will think you are insane.

Cerberus

Oh, well, Europeans visit Spain often, but Latin America rarely.

I didn't even know cheque was a word in Spanish.

Unless it means what it means in French.

tchrist

I said they would call you insane. :)

Cerberus

They would call you the same.

tchrist

Yes, cheque is like French.

But it has nothing to do with bills.

Cerberus

Well, "nothing"...

I believe French cheque is the same as Dutch cheque.

tchrist

3:25 AM

If you asked a waiter for his checkbook, (book of cheques), he would think you nuts.

Cerberus

And so I would never ask for that, problem solved.

In fact, cheques are all but dead here.

I have never used one ever in my life.

tchrist

You can also just ask ¿Me cobra? (or cobras if you are tu'ing him)

It's slang for charging you.

Cerberus

I would never use slang, let alone tutoyer foreign waiters!

tchrist

Cóbrame is charge me, so how much do I owe you.

Then cóbreme in the formal.

It’s more polite to ask things as a question than to make commands.

Of course.

Would you open the door VS open the door.

Mahnax

returns

tchrist

3:29 AM

heard MM’s door

Who is MM?

michael myers

Makes sense.

Michael Myers (character)

Michael Myers is a fictional character from the Halloween series of slasher films. He first appears in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) as a young boy who murders his older sister, then fifteen years later returns home to murder more teenagers. In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film, with Tony Moran and Tommy Lee Wallace substituting in during the final scenes. He was created by Debra Hill and John Carpenter. Michael Myers has appeared in ten films, as well as novels, a video g...

mmyers, United States

3.5k 3 14 35

Mahnax

I have heard of both people.

tchrist

3:32 AM

I for the longest time was using too small a font. I thought Mahnax was Malmax. I cannot stop thinking of him that way.

Shog9

@Mahnax Those are two people?

Mahnax

@Shog9 Oh dear.

tchrist

Or one? :)

Mahnax

@tchrist Wow… I was wondering why you kept @Mahmaxing me.

tchrist

It looked like an m.

Plus I could make you into bad-boy Max that way.

As a mnemonic device.

Shog9

3:34 AM

Sounds like you could start a support group with mmeyers and ccornet

tchrist

Fat lotta good that did me.

I guess I have to think of you as Mein Axe, now.

Mahnax

@tchrist Interesting.

tchrist

Maybe you are a wereaxe.

When the moon is full, you cannot help axing people questions.

Mahnax

@tchrist thwack

tchrist

ouch!

Never tease a man with an axe.

Tease him with a mirror.

@Shog9 What brings you round these parts?

Cerberus

3:40 AM

@tchrist Selbstverständlich!

tchrist

@Cerberus He delights in scintillating convos you mean?

Cerberus

No, commands are uiteraard impolite.

Naturellement.

tchrist

Commands are what you use on children and other servants and beasts.

Cerberus

And machines.

tchrist

You never have to say please to a computer.

And in return, Unix never says sorry.

Sometimes I wish SE profiles had a slot for gender.

Yes, I know some people would lie, but that's true for everything.

Shog9

3:47 AM

@tchrist You're not the only one. Are you creepy and lonely too?

tchrist

I can also see why some women would not like that.

Shog9

@tchrist I forget; flags, I suspect.

tchrist

@Shog9 I'm not that sort of guy.

Shog9

I tend to enter these rooms and forget to leave

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah it would be easier.

@Shog9 How flattering.

At least you're not staying because you hate it here.

tchrist

3:49 AM

Somebody called someone here a he the other day, and really surprised me.

Shog9

I'm an incorrigible flatterer. Just ask all the women I've offended.

tchrist

Because everyone else had always called them a she.

So I checked the profile, thinking to resolve it.

@Shog9 Men, however, seem to take it well, eh?

I know, I know. I shouldn't incorrige you.

Cerberus

@tchrist Whom?

tchrist

Youm.

Shog9

@tchrist Indeed. I'm frustrated by the discrepancy!

tchrist

3:52 AM

whistles Lola

Cerberus

Who called me a she?

tchrist

Oh, I cannot recall. The heing was today. The sheing may have been my confusing somebody talking about sim or kit when you seemed the more logical referent

Please don't tell me kit is a boy.

It will completely ruin my image of him as a funny flouncy sort.

Mahnax

Kit is not a boy.

Not in this room, at any rate.

tchrist

Hah!

I think of Kit as a boy’s name: Kit Carson.

Cerberus

@tchrist You really thought of me as a bitch?

tchrist

3:56 AM

And I once new a guy named Kit.

One does not say that in English.

But I couldn't understand why you chose an inherently masculine-looking name.

I have a Dutch friend named Abigail. He is happily married.

But he always goes by Abigail online.

And I knew you were Dutch.

So I thought you were crossdressing.

:)

Cerberus

Haha.

A male Abigail—I would be very surprised.

tchrist

Everyone always is.

He said he first took the name back pre-web on Dutch BBS systems.

He's about my age, maybe a touch older. Works for Booking.COM, lives I think in Amsterdam.

Cerberus

So his parents were ehm ignorant?

tchrist

Met him in real life almost 20 years, when he had a ponytail. Now he looks like a regular businessman, and his wife has the ponytail.

No, he has a Dutch name.

Cerberus

Didn't think looking up the sex of their newborn's name was worth the trouble?

Huh?

tchrist

4:01 AM

He used Abigail because of how women are thought of online.

It is not his real name.

Cerberus

Ohh.

I see.

tchrist

But that is his professional name, believe it or not.

Cerberus

Professional?

confused

tchrist

Amongst the Perl programming community. He has always been Abigail.

If you Google for "Perl Abigail" you will find him.

Cerberus

Is this he?

tchrist

4:04 AM

Hee-hee!

Cerberus

She is whom I found.

tchrist

I hate google.

It weights things according to your own previous patterns.

It’s this Abigail.

Finding his picture might be harder.

Cerberus

He Belgian?

tchrist

No, Dutch not Flemish.

I am pretty sure.

This is what I mean by professional.

Cerberus

His domain is Abigail.be.

tchrist

4:08 AM

Yes, I know. I saw his drivers licence once. It had a huge long Dutch name on it that I couldn’t keep in my head for long.

Cerberus

@tchrist Nice evasion of pronouns.

@tchrist How do you know it wasn't Belgian?

tchrist

I don’t know.

But when you have known someone for as long as this, you get ideas about them early on, and these remain long after you have forgotten how you came to think this thing.

Cerberus

I can't imagine why anyone would register a Belgian domain who was Dutch and lived in Amsterdam.

tchrist

He and his wife visited me here in Boulder a few years ago. I somewhere have pictures of them.

Cerberus

If you have a sound recording of him, I will know.

tchrist

4:12 AM

"The undisputed kingor perhaps, queenof JAPHdom is the Dutch hacker Abigail, who has contributed some of the most surprising JAPHs to the Perl community."

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

I know him as Dutch because he is known as Dutch.

Cerberus

Perhaps the domain is a joke, then.

Or his nationality is like his sex.

tchrist

His English is accented, but very good.

When he says that this or that is said blah in Dutch, he always says it is in Dutch, never Flemish.

Cerberus

Flemish is not a language.

tchrist

4:14 AM

It's just Dutch with rolled r's, right? :)

Cerberus

It is like American.

A dialect/accent.

tchrist

Granted.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh, don't get me started on r's. We have all r's here.

You would have a hard time distinguishing southern Netherlands from Flanders.

tchrist

Dialect continuum?

Cerberus

Not entirely, but in many ways, yes.

To me, anything south of the Rhine sounds "southern".

tchrist

4:17 AM

It is interesting that there are different accents so very very close together.

Cerberus

East/north of the IJssel is eastern or northern, which is Saxon.

We have tons of accent within a few km of Amsterdam.

tchrist

It is because you have been there so long.

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

There are multiple accents in London, too.

Most of the American West is the same accent. People have not been here long.

Cerberus

No downtown-SF accent?

tchrist

4:19 AM

And as Robusto was saying, the south side of Chicago has a very different accent than from where I grew up less than a 100 miles away. But that is due to class and immigration.

Downtown SF?

Cerberus

San Francisco.

tchrist

Yes, I know.

Well, they say the Castro district has an accent.

ducks

Cerberus

It doesn't have a downtown?

Oh...

tchrist

Sure.

And the Tender Loin.

And Haight-Ashbury.

But you won't really find distinct accents save from the subcultures.

I don't know the city all that well, actually.

It's been quite a while since I was there.

Cerberus

You won't find any here either, not within the same city.

tchrist

4:21 AM

I think only New York and Chicago does that happen. Maybe Boston.

Cerberus

But then what people count as "London" would count as several different cities here.

tchrist

Yes, exactly.

Different boroughs.

Cerberus

There are some villages that have become suburbs of Amsterdam where they speak a different accent.

tchrist

There is a distinct Bronx accent, for example. Or Harlem.

Cerberus

But they are not considered part of the city here.

If you took the urban area here as one city, there would be scores of accents.

tchrist

4:23 AM

I have this prosaic delusion of a city as something surrounded by countryside.

Cerberus

We have always carefully maintained thin bands of "countryside" between the cities.

tchrist

I should say that this satire is strong evidence that Abigail really is Dutch. He would never say such things if he were only Belgian. I hope.

Cerberus

He does seem Dutch, yes.

tchrist

Q. What’s a normal meal in Brussels? A. A coupla pork chops. Q. What’s a vegetarian meal in Brussels? A. Just one pork chop.

Cerberus

Haha, why?

Are Brusselaars supposed to be meat lovers?

tchrist

4:29 AM

I had a really hard time finding non-meat food there.

And every recipe seemed to start with "First, melt a couple of pounds of butter, then ..."

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

Which is wonderful for desserts.

But gets tiring for main courses.

Cerberus

I should think they were very French.

tchrist

They like to think so.

Weird to have a Francophone enclave like that.

Cerberus

It is hardly an enclave.

There are just a couple of inconsequential Flemish villages around the city.

tchrist

4:34 AM

0

A: How come 'ou' was reduced to 'o' in the US?

These are all good answers, but I think I have a more likely one. Scholars in America, the men who influenced politics and academics in the US after the American Revolution were heavily influenced themselves by Latin and Greek sources: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, for example, were well vers...

They have some funny ideas there.

Or she has, perhaps.

Like that Greek had letters œ and æ.

Other stuff is wrong, too.

French was the language of the nobility since 1066 for centuries and centuries. Lasted a long time in the law courts.

Cerberus

> honorus, colorus, and favorum

...

tchrist

In fact, nearly everything she says is wrong.

English does not have 24 letters.

Napkin/serviette is one of those U/non-U things.

It's not like oenophile is Latin and œnophile Greek.

And here I always thought it was color/coloris. Go figger.

Cerberus

Yeah, she is tragically wrong.

Tragicomically wrong.

tchrist

It is stultifying.

The medical stuff is wow. Orthopedist, gynecologist. Say what?

I don’t know what more Greek “glyphs” were kept in “scientific” words.

Greek glyphs? Really?

And the thing is, she is so self-assured of her correctness in all this.

That’s perhaps the worst of it.

Perhaps she is an American public school teacher.

I am not kidding, either.

Unfortunately.

Mahnax

4:52 AM

tchrist

WTF!?

Where is that from?

Mahnax

I've seen this on Reddit three or four times, I have it bookmarked.

tchrist

American public school teachers.

Cerberus

"Although he was correct"? How did she find the courage to even mention this whole episode if he got that wrong?

Mahnax

Hm, perhaps I shouldn't say that.

tchrist

4:58 AM

She thinks kids are supposed to silently accept what they know to be wrong.

Because she is power mad.

I must go to sleep.

Good night, gentles.

Mahnax

Nighty-night!

Vitaly

> School isn’t about learning “material,” school is about learning to accept workplace domination and ranking, and tolerating long hours of doing boring stuff exactly when and how you are told.

Night.

Cerberus

5:15 AM

Night!

Mahnax

0

Q: Usage of "An" or "The"

I am confused between the usage of "An","A" and "the" in the following sentence: Did you get the email? Did you get an email? Did you get a email? Please also tell about correct usage of "An" before vowel.

vowels consonants

sighs

Cerberus

What's all this self-censorship?

Mahnax

Oh, nothing.

I just said that I wasn't going to comment, but then decided to promote ELL.

Cerberus

5:32 AM

Good.

Mahnax

Thanks, @waiwai933.

Shog9

5:51 AM

This election's looking interesting...

Mahnax

I agree. Can't wait to see who gets elected.

-1

Q: Sentence using acquiesce - Is this correct?

Is this sentence correct In order to appease its thirst , the vampire rendered the victim into a state of acquisition.

sentence

> Sentence using acquiesce

ORLY

Cerberus

6:42 AM

@Mrshinyandnew: wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/mars-curiosity-windows-xp

> In a video captured by Boing Boing blogger Xeni Jardin, the Windows XP startup screen flashed in the background behind the scientists as they congratulated each other on the successful mission early Monday morning. Like so much of the world, NASA is still using a Microsoft OS that debuted more than a decade ago.

I am in good company.