English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

2:02 AM

It there a phonetician in the house?

0

I am looking for a minimal triple for a particular set of phonemes. By minimal triple, I mean three actual English words that differ in one and only phoneme between them. Examples therefore include: phony, tony, pony swim, swam, swum bad, bat, bath The three phonemes that must appear one ap...

It’s only my second question ever.

Well ok, fifth, but the other three were on SO.

Cerberus

Hello.

tchrist

Hi.

I scanned back since pre-announcement.

I cannot say I am in any way displeased with the results, although I am a teensy-weensy bit surprised.

The lesson of “Gimme ASCII or gimme DEATH!” is a hard one to swallow.

Cerberus

The election, you mean?

tchrist

Aye.

Am kidding about ASCII.

Cerberus

Matt seemed to be ahead of Kit during the primaries.

tchrist

2:06 AM

Yes, he was.

That is the surprise.

Cerberus

And Sim didn't seem to have such an advantage.

C'est la vie.

tchrist

STV is a different beastie.

Ed ed you editor you!

Wouldn't a style sheet be easier? :(

Cerberus

STV?

tchrist

Single Transferable Vote

user19161

I think EC will run in the next election as well.

Cerberus

2:07 AM

By the way, have you tried searching the OED for IPA?

ΜετάEd

ASCII was nice because it was almost universal. I think it would be nice if UTF-8 became the next ASCII.

tchrist

thwaps self

ΜετάEd

The ghost is pressing buttons on the microwave again.

user19161

@Cerberus What's there to look for?

tchrist

Yes, I can search the OED for IPA.

However, finding minimal triples is harder.

Cerberus

2:08 AM

6 mins ago, by tchrist

0

Q: Looking for a minimal triple

I am looking for a minimal triple for a particular set of phonemes. By minimal triple, I mean three actual English words that differ in one and only phoneme between them. Examples therefore include: phony, tony, pony swim, swam, swum bad, bat, bath The three phonemes that must appear one ap...

pronunciation phonology phonemes rhotic minimal-pairs

ΜετάEd

The microwave keeps beeping and repeating the words: chicken, seafood, oriental. I feel it is trying to tell me something.

Cerberus

It is trying to resist extraterrestrial take-over.

user19161

I wonder how many actually have a copy of the OED with magnifying glass.

tchrist

I guess I could search for [ɑɒɔ] and then sort.

ΜετάEd

How do you make that out from chicken, seafood, oriental?

Cerberus

2:09 AM

It is crying for your help, but in code, lest the aliens find out.

tchrist

@JasperLoy I do.

ΜετάEd

@tchrist I do think we should have a house style.

tchrist

@ΜετάEd Dragon and Phoenix.

Cerberus

@tchrist Or just search for the missing member of your pairs, and it might turn up an archaic word you didn't think of.

user19161

@tchrist I wanted to get a copy of the ODE but stopped in time when I realized it did not contain IPA for all words. Note ODE and not OED.

ΜετάEd

2:10 AM

@tchrist Is that random?

tchrist

@JasperLoy I also have an electronic version, thank goodness.

@Cerberus Well, obsolete words don’t get IPA.

ΜετάEd

@tchrist Sucks to be an obsolete word.

Have to put up with the old American pronunciation guide.

tchrist

@ΜετάEd No, this is random:

perl -le 'print rand'
0.492363675105484

Cerberus

@tchrist Not exactly obsolete, but rare.

tchrist

Dragon and Phoenix is the name of a chicken and seafood oriental dish.

Usually lobster.

Cerberus

2:12 AM

I forgot how to search for IPA. It won't accept my IPA characters.

I think it has some other system with capitals and such, what was it called again...

tchrist

I wrote my own searcher.

Mahnax

Good evening, folks.

user19161

@Mahnax KFC!

Mahnax

Oh, @Cerb, currently 90 % and 6:53. Weird.

My laptop was shut for the past while though.

ΜετάEd

@tchrist I'm guessing that's only pseudorandom. This is random: random.org/integers/…

tchrist

2:14 AM

Have you noticed how there is a nontrivially large set of people hereabouts who label obsolete any word that you’re not apt to hear uttered by a drunken truck driver?

@ΜετάEd cat /dev/random is random.

ΜετάEd

@tchrist So your theory is it's ... a dinner recommendation?

Cerberus

@Mahnax Hmm...very weird!

tchrist

I’ll let others plug at my question. It doesn’t seem fitting for me to go running my custom little OED searcher to find answers to my own question.

Cerberus

@tchrist Not yet...

@tchrist Why do you use a custom searcher, by the way?

Mahnax

@Cerberus Yep! At any rate, we just went out and bought an inverter so we can charge computers in the car when we drive to British Columbia.

Cerberus

2:16 AM

Very good.

tchrist

@Cerberus Because I can.

Cerberus

Ah.

Mahnax

Oh, by the way, we're going to British Columbia for eight days.

@JasperLoy sighs

tchrist

And then they pull these N-Grams out of their butts claiming that if something appears behind by a mere 2:1, that this somehow means one should never use it.

Mahnax

Personally, I would never trust a rectal Ngram. But that's just me.

tchrist

2:18 AM

@Mahnax Hi, wereaxe!

Mahnax

@tchrist Hello, Perl-man!

ΜετάEd

@tchrist My random is more random than your random.

tchrist

It’s as though there is no place left for heightened speech.

Or for literature.

Or for poetry!

Alas for the death of poetry!

Cerberus

Yes, people are barbarians.

tchrist

So I um couldn’t help myself...

1

A: Do thence/whence linger only as rhetorical variants for there/where?

No, whence and thence are not “rhetorical variants” on where and there. They mean something slightly different. And yes, they are still used — in literature. In speech, not so much. Although they have certainly lost currency with respect to their cousin hence, whence and thence are easily fou...

Cerberus

2:20 AM

But it has always been a minority who appreciate good art.

ΜετάEd

@Mahnax Oral's the one to trust.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

tchrist

However, this is coming from Have-a-Beer, so one must be careful of one’s instructions.

ΜετάEd

Oooh. Beer. I left my beer in the car.

Thanks!

Mahnax

I left my beer in the— oh wait.

tchrist

I keep waiting for his brother Walk-In to show up.

You know, the Mexican guys with their names on their dorm-room door: Walk-in and Have-a-Beer (Joaquín y Xavier)

ΜετάEd

2:22 AM

0

Q: How many flags can I cast per day?

I know there are limits on the number of flags one can cast in a day. I found this in the FAQ: How many flags do I have? When you start out you are alloted 10 flags per-day. This number may increase to up to 100 flags per-day: You get one bonus flag per 2000 reputation. You are...

discussion flagging

Oh, crap.

Cerberus

> But if do use them, remember to use them correctly!

ΜετάEd

"What are the original flag limits for each type of flag per day? How many must I flag to receive additional bonus flags?"

Cerberus

@tchrist +1

ΜετάEd

Mmmmm. Beer.

hands out beer

tchrist

dances his myriapuntal victory dance!

Cerberus

2:23 AM

Yay!

@tchrist What is this word?

Mahnax

@tchrist +1 from me too.

tchrist

A myriad of points, of course.

Cerberus

Doesn't sound properly formed...

tchrist

A myriagramme is 10,000 grams.

Contrapuntal is counterpoint.

Mix, shake, stir.

Speaking of which.

There, better.

@ΜετάEd You said porn — twice!

Cerberus

Mixing a Greek word with an Italian. You're no shy boy, are you?

ΜετάEd

2:27 AM

I did not say porn.

tchrist

resizes his fonts

ΜετάEd

I said pom.

Porn's good, though.

tchrist

Damn if that ain’t samey-lookie

What’s a pom? You mean as in pommie bastard?

ΜετάEd

Yeah.

tchrist

Or a pompom. Ok.

ΜετάEd

2:29 AM

I think there is a difference in pr0nunciation between "pom-pom" and "Pommie".

tchrist

If you say so. I have some weird things in my own speech. Palm has the same vowel as Paul does for me, plus an L and an M.

Calm is just call with an m, for me.

It must be some weird accent variant.

cornbread ninja

@ΜετάEd SCIENCE!

@tchrist same

Mahnax

Yecch. You guys pronounce the l?

ΜετάEd

@cornbreadninja Iverywun iss thair oan accent varyunt.

tchrist

Yep.

Also in gulf, golf, wolf.

Mahnax

2:32 AM

I just tried saying it with the l and was thoroughly appalled.

@tchrist I pronounce the l in those three.

Cerberus

@tchrist That is not so weird.

cornbread ninja

gull +f, gall +f, wool +f

tchrist

apauled.

No woofers amongst you?

ΜετάEd

I have successfully installed Java. Ridiculous. The day I manually link the damned thing into the OS is the day I have successfully installed it. I used the damned installer.

@tchrist Nobody here but us tweeters.

Cerberus

Congratulations!!

cornbread ninja

2:33 AM

@tchrist sure. The same guy who says mundee, toosdee, &c

ΜετάEd

And we warsh onct a week, if'n we need it er not.

Unicode is shite. There's no ligature ct.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist cat, cut, cot?

amidoinitrite?

oh crap, I just saw Beadles' answer.

ΜετάEd

I blame @tchrist.

tchrist

@cornbreadninja Wrong vowels.

I need the ones from RP cart, cot, caught — but in a rhotic accent, so you can’t do that.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist I just heard Peter Griffin say those three in my head.

tchrist

2:42 AM

cat is kæt, cut is kʌt, and cot is either kɑt or kɒt or maybe kɔt. I need all of ɒɔɑ in a minimal triple.

@ΜετάEd T’ain’t really supposed to be, you know.

It goes in the OpenType rules for special kerns.

And ligs.

[liga]

cornbread ninja

liga

@tchrist I wish I knew what those sounded like.

Time for some Speedballin'.

Mahnax

@Cerb 80 %, and 3:31.

Jumping all over the place.

Cerberus

It usen't to do that?

ΜετάEd

@tchrist I know. I just want you to know that I know.

Didn't there use to be Olympic kerning?

No, I'm probably thinking of italics. The thing with the stone and the brooms.

Cerberus

I've finished all my blogs and websites.

Now I'm bored.

Mahnax

2:51 AM

Now it's 79 % and 7:31!

Cerberus

Can you do something fun?

Mahnax

What the heck is going on?!

Cerberus

@Mahnax It is all over the place...

ΜετάEd

What is.

Cerberus

I would disregard those readings all together.

Mahnax

2:51 AM

My battery life.

Cerberus

At least you have a life.

Mahnax

Somewhat.

tchrist

@ΜετάEd Limbic curling?

ΜετάEd

@tchrist Yeah, exactly. Italics.

Mahnax

I drove in the big city today, for the first time.

Cerberus

2:52 AM

Did you hit any children?

cornbread ninja

@Mahnax !

Mahnax

Nope, I hit no children.

Cerberus

Well done.

Mahnax

It went very smoothly, I would say that it was one of my best drives.

It was raining, too.

Quite hard.

Cerberus

Cool.

tchrist

2:53 AM

Why are there all gazillions of questions with 2 out of 3 delete votes just sitting there clogging things up? You guys aren’t doin’ yer jobs!

Cerberus

Like which?

Mahnax

Oh, congrats on 10k, @tchrist.

Cerberus

Oh, yes!

Mahnax

I wonder if I'm allowed to give you the gift basket that Reg gave to Mr. Shiny.

Cerberus

Go on, porn and drugs are by all means appropriate.

Mahnax

2:55 AM

Ah, why not. Just one moment, please.

Cerberus

I'd rather you took out the guns, though.

Mahnax

May 10 at 15:12, by RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6656//11620#11620, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10260//10264#10264, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2035//9898#9898, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7469//7473#7473, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7468//7471#7471, http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4241//7359#7359
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/5831//7138#7138

There you go, have a blast.

tchrist

@Cerberus Go to the tools page, go to delete votes, switch to 30d view. There are a bunch with 2 votes.

Cerberus

By the way, I had been thinking Canada had 50M souls for ages, until I found out you had only 33M last week.

Mahnax

Haha. We are very sparsely populated.

Cerberus

2:56 AM

Where is the tools page again?

tchrist

@Mahnax Thanks. I’ve been 10k on SO for aeons (>30k now), so know the toolset.

Cerberus

@Mahnax You are less than twice us.

Mahnax

@tchrist You earned it.

@Cerberus Indeed. And to think that we could probably fit you into Saskatchewan.

tchrist

@Cerberus Here.

Cerberus

@Mahnax No doubt!

Mahnax

2:57 AM

Oh, easily.

Fourteen of you, in fact.

tchrist

Same with close votes. It’s good to find out all the 4/5 ones and zap them so they can be deleted.

Mahnax

Maybe I should go for 10k so I can use all the neat tools.

I'm going to drop off of the second page very soon.

simchona

@Mahnax 10k tools are spiffy

cornbread ninja

@simchona indeed

Mahnax

Well, I'm off for now. Bye all.

cornbread ninja

3:01 AM

@Mahnax bye!

Cerberus

@tchrist I have voted to delete one, that's all I can do.

I disagree with all of this too much to be of any more use.

Bye Bob!

tchrist

Oh missed him.

Cerberus

Should have thrown harder.

Or not like a girl.

tchrist

Not much of a pitcher.

I am not sure, but I think that delete/undelete votes stick around, but I think close votes evaporate after 3 or 5 days or some such.

Cerberus

So few?

tchrist

3:05 AM

There are very high rep questions on SO with dozens and dozens of delete votes.

I don't remember the time frame. But close votes aren't forever.

Lemme check.

Oh. It's complicated now.

13

Q: What Happened Here? Voted to Close 4 Days Ago, but No Close Votes Today?

Today I saw "Test to see if User/Pass entered for a WebService are correct or not", realized it was a duplicate and voted to close it. I then saw in the comments that I had voted to close it four days ago! How did that happen? There were no close votes listed at all, and I was permitted to vote...

bug status-completed specific-question vote-to-close

Or rather:

13

A: What Happened Here? Voted to Close 4 Days Ago, but No Close Votes Today?

We now use a form of sliding expiration, so as long as close/reopen votes keep arriving at the rate of at least one every 4 days, they will not expire. Once the votes do expire, vote aging happens every 24 hours, so you can expect the remaining very old close/reopen votes to expire at the rate o...

And the same policy applies to reopen votes.

Cerberus

Oh, I see.

So votes do not expire on questions that nobody has ever seen?

tchrist

Ah: "Votes to delete or undelete never expire."

39

A: How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean?

How can a post be deleted? You can typically delete your own posts at will; for exceptions, see "When can't I delete my own post?" below. Moderators can delete any post. Users with reputation >= 10k (more precisely, the “moderator tools” privilege; 2k on beta sites) can vote to delete questions...

@Cerberus Apparently.

Cerberus

Does your mother often come to your house?

Mine does not, but she is coming over tomorrow.

So I feel I should clean and stuff.

grumbles

tchrist

No, not often anymore, as she lives 1,000 miles away.

But she was here a coupla weeks ago, yeah.

And yes, I cleaned.

Cerberus

Huh? I thought she lived in the same town?

Now I am confused.

tchrist

3:18 AM

I live in Boulder, Colorado. I grew up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where my mom and stepfather live, and where my grandparents until recently lived. My sister lives a few miles away from mom.

Cerberus

Oh...

So you talk to them often on the phone and on Skype or something?

tchrist

On the phone.

Cerberus

OK.

tchrist

3:30 AM

Wow, a red badge. I had forgotten topic badges even existed.

Cerberus

Congratulations!

tchrist

Thanks. It’s for the single-word-requests badge, which I find gets asked a lot.

ΜετάEd

@tchrist Indeed.

cornbread ninja

I'm subjecting Tim to all three movements of Karn Evil #9

:D

on LP, no less

@tchrist have you been to the Hamilton Wood Type Museum?

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh noes, the Badge of Evil!

@cornbreadninja Wow, your QR really works!

Cool.

My phone got it in an instant.

Too bad I was already on the site.

cornbread ninja

3:45 AM

@Cerberus mwahahaha

@Cerberus the addition of the border made it scan really fast.

@Cerberus I has badge of evil.

Cerberus

Oh, I didn't know borders had that effect?

@cornbreadninja So do I...

Is that you in your picture, btw?

BRB

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus QRs are all about contrast, and a light border will help any of them be more scannable.

@Cerberus no, it's some picture I found on bighappyfunhouse.com a long time ago. It looks a lot like me, though.

tchrist

@cornbreadninja No I have not.

@Cerberus It usually means I was wasting time answering instead of closing. :(

@Mahnax Would you believe that now in Unicode v6.1, there is — mirabile visu — a TWO-EM DASH at U+2E3A (⸺) and a THREE-EM DASH at U+2E3B (⸻)?

Shall wonders never cease?

ΜετάEd

4:23 AM

@tchrist Which don’t work …

Humbug.

tchrist

4:40 AM

@ΜετάEd What is “work”? Under Perl v5.16, which supports Unicode v6.1, those code points have the appropriate properties; for example, they count as having the Dash property in pattern matching. I play the numbers, man. Are you talking about fonts? That’s a mere implementational detail related to boring user-interface issues. It has nothing to do with programming. So for me, they work.

Let the rest of the world catch up as they may.

Or may not.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja Nice.

@tchrist You were abusing the site. Bad.

The rest of the world often takes an awfully long time.

Like NASA and me.

cornbread ninja

5:08 AM

@Cerberus by answering SWRs?

ΜετάEd

5:20 AM

@tchrist Look. As a long time (v4) Perl programmer, I share your joy. But as a user, I gotta say it only really counts when it works.

Another nice thing about ASCII is that it never, in my experience, changed.

No ASCII 2.5, ASCII 2.6, just ASCII. That's the nice things about standards. They're standard.

UNICODE is standard in a blessed by a consortium kind of way. ASCII is standard.

Cerberus

5:51 AM

@cornbreadninja By answering any questions.

The site is all about closing stuff, as Tchrist said.

Now it's bed time...

Bye guys!

Matt Эллен

8:47 AM

is this on topic word-choice or is it off topic?

0

Q: Where my employers/professionals at?

Can I use this in an banner advertisement? Where my employers at? or Where my entrepreneurs at? I was thinking that the usage is similiar to the notorious song lines like "Where my people at?", but I think they mean there mostly blacks ;). Is it OK to use that in an adverisement or just bla...

grammar

or just not constructive?

RegDwight АΑA

I think asking about the connotations of the original phrase is okay, but asking about the rewrite is too localized.

"Allowed"? By whom? And even if it were forbidden under penalty of death, how could anybody tell that the slogan was written by a Caucasian?

We are not a focus group. And if we were, we'd be a crappy one.

Matt Эллен

OK. I think I can edit it...

RegDwight АΑA

9:05 AM

Intelligent control appears as uncontrol or freedom.
And for that reason it is genuinely intelligent control.
Unintelligent control appears as external domination.
And for that reason it is really unintelligent control.
Intelligent control exerts influence without appearing to do so.
Unintelligent control tries to influence by making a show of force.

— Laozi

Matt Эллен

I've given it a go, but maybe I've ruined the question now

RegDwight АΑA

We'll see. Oh, and my condolences for not getting elected.

Matt Эллен

Thanks. I am a bit disappointed, but that's mostly because I let myself be misled by the primaries. I'm glad we've got new mods.

RegDwight АΑA

Bah, the gigolo got multicollidered. Of course.

Matt Эллен

Still the bane of this site. If only there were some sort of Batman to take it down

RegDwight АΑA

9:19 AM

And I got a Revolution badge for ELL. How fitting.

Matt Эллен

lol

RegDwight АΑA

9:53 AM

4

Q: Can I say "you are asking a wrong person"?

Can I say "you are asking a wrong person"? A quick google search seems to suggest that this is wrong and you should say "you are asking the wrong person", instead. I can't seem to get it. Why? There should be a lot of wrong persons to ask a specific question, right?

phrases

This is a dupe.

And is attracting some wild theories to boot.

Robusto

@RegDwightАΑA You are a wrong person. And you know it.

RegDwight АΑA

The accepted answer on the original is meh, though.

3

Q: "A wrong answer" vs "the wrong answer"

In English, when presented with a list (real or imagined) or answers that could be given to a question, and the correct one is not given, we will say that somebody has given "the wrong answer". However, doesn't "the" imply that there is only one wrong answer? Logically, it should be, "that's a ...

phrases saying

@Robusto if I am not the wrong person, then "the" has no meaning.

Robusto

@RegDwightАΑA One of many. Deal with it.

Still, now that I think on it a bit, I have seen the archaic usage "He's a wrong 'un" to describe a person who was very bad, e.g., an outlaw, but I've never seen "a wrong person" or "a wrong man" in my life. Not unusable, perhaps, just not used and therefore awkward-sounding. I'd say you could use it for emphasis, to make a point, and that's it.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…