English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Robusto Thank you for all your wonderful ideas about Jenny and Jerry! I have put them to a truly wicked use that will surely undelight and unamuse you to unends:

0

A: Pluralization of proper nouns

First, let’s name a Companies/Companys example. It turns out that one always writes Ford Motor Companies, never Ford Motor Companys, as this Google N-Gram proves: Next, we’ll go to country names. You will have heard of Sicily. It turns out that there was once a Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. ...

prime

12:28 AM

"You all people are ignominious here" is it ok?

@Cerberus ^

Cerberus

@prime Okay, then it still isn't grammatical: you probably mean all you people here are ignominious. Then the syntax is correct, however:

The word ignominious is a rather heavy, formal word.

You should only use it in a fitting context.

tchrist

@Cerberus I don’t think she knows what it means.

Cerberus

@tchrist Prime quoted some correct dictionary definitions.

prime

Deserving or causing public disgrace or shame

tchrist

Then why does she keep using it so infelicitously?

Cerberus

12:30 AM

Are you a he or a she, Prime?

@tchrist Prime doesn't have a feel for how the word is normally used, but he/she does know its general meaning.

prime

Exactly, i know the general meaning

tchrist

She has an OED subscription; there should be no shortation of citages.

prime

But i need to know how to use it

Cerberus

In a grave, formal context.

prime

Is there any difference between inappropriate and improper ?

tchrist

12:32 AM

Common nouns are improper.

misses Reg

Cerberus

No two words are the same.

prime

I learned a new word today from here, and it is = infelicit , from @tchrist

infelicity / infelicitious

tchrist

@prime That is not a word.

@WMD Reread my sentence.

WMD

Oh, sorry.

prime

@tchrist, infelicity , infelicitious are words, i got these from google

WMD

12:37 AM

I only read the first and last word of every sentence of yours, @tchrist. It saves time.

12

tchrist

waxes infacilitous

WMD

grows uneasy?

prime

@tchrist, what do you mean?

tchrist

@prime No, those are not both words. However, infelicific, infelicitate, infelicitous, infelicitously, infelicity are words.

@prime v.s.

prime

thefreedictionary.com/infelicitous

tchrist

12:41 AM

Your what hurts?

prime

ops, again typo

infelicity, infelicitous, infelicitously

Can i use infelicitously instead of improperly everywhere?

Cerberus

Look, it is better not to use a word you don't understand 100 % yet.

Because you are likely to go wrong.

Only use a new word after ample contemplation, and lots of reading, most of all.

Robusto

@tchrist Hey! Jenny was a friend of mine!

►

Jerry was not.

WMD

@Cerberus Isn't an ample a unit of electrical currency?

Cerberus

@WMD You're confusing ample with apple.

prime

12:53 AM

@Cerberus, lots of reading what?

Cerberus

Literature, and other texts written by competent writers.

WMD

Books!

Cerberus

That is one of the best ways to improve your English and get a feel for more subtle words and features.

@WMD Literature usually comes in books, yes.

WMD

I get mine directly in my mailbox.

prime

How do you get in mailbox?

If i read english newspaper, will it do?

like latimes.com or nytimes.com ?

Nile

12:56 AM

Who faults upon the "faulted"? The "faultee", "faulter"?

WMD

According to OED, "faulter". But this is very uncommon. Can you use a different verb instead?

Nile

Not sure.

> Can anybody – anything – really be blamed and accused as the faulter?

prime

"You people were irreverent to POP's speech" , is it correct sentence?

WMD

@Nile I would say "culprit".

Nile

@WMD Nice, thanks.

WMD

1:02 AM

0

Q: How much more time will it take to finish the filling the pool?

The question is: An empty pool being filled with water at a constant rate takes 8 hours to fill to \frac{3}{5} of its capacity.How much more time will it take to finish the filling the pool? (Ans 5 hr 20min) Now here is how I am solving it: The entire time required to fill the pool...

algebra-precalculus

I'm soon not going to have any hair left.

Nile

@WMD Psh, you should see some of the questions on SO.

WMD

@Nile Oh I do.

Nile

haha. here let me pull a good one

-5

Q: Select random file using OPENDIR()

I have tried: function random_pic($dir = '../myfolder') { $files = opendir($dir . '/*.*'); $file = array_rand($files); return $files[$file]; } This function works using glob() but not opendir. This returns a failed to open directory error. I guess opendir cannot accept things like...

php opendir

Cerberus

@prime Those newspapers are usually written by competent writers, yes.

Nile

read comments, answer and answers comments

prime

1:05 AM

@Cerberus, you meant, competent = skilled writers ?

Cerberus

Yes.

Writers that will use proper grammar and a decent vocabulary.

prime

Those writers are native speakers, so why does vocabulary matter here?

Nile

@prime How is that which you just sent relevant to anything?

Why would a being "native speaker" negate the matter of vocabulary?

WMD

There exist native speakers with poor vocabulary.

prime

native speakers = people with English as their native language

How vocabulary matter there to write articles for them

Nile

1:09 AM

@prime I've met plenty of people who cant properly use an (English) word with English as a first language.

prime

So?

Nile

@prime I'm confused as to what you're asking.

prime

I was talking about the writers or nytimes.com

Nile

You're not being very clear and the ~~relevance~~ irrelevance of your statements makes following you very hard

prime

You don't need to know much vocabulary to write articles if English is your first langauge

That's my point ^

WMD

1:12 AM

almost bald

Nile

@prime That seems like a reckless and potentially damaging or sickening point...

Consider rethinking

prime

Is English your native/first language?

Hello all people here, Raise your hand if English your first langauge.

WMD

watches last tuft of hair drift to the ground

prime

You people are contentious.

Cerberus

an owl poops on your head

it grabs some of the hair lying on the ground around you and reattaches it

WMD

1:16 AM

What a kind owl!

prime

Do you people know Spanish or Brazillian or Portugese or French or German?

Nile

/me no...

Cerberus

French and German, yes.

Though not well enough to write proper sentences in.

But well enough for reading novels.

Why?

user19161

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

user19161

Pourquoi me reveiller o souffle du printemps

tchrist

1:19 AM

@Nile Yes.

Nile

@Cerberus Wow, you can read a novel but can't write a proper sentence? I know some Hebrew and can easily construct grammatically correct sentences but definitely cannot read a novel and understand it.

tchrist

@Cerberus Remember the Italian incident? :)

Nile

Amazing how different some languages can be

user19161

@Nile Writing is more diff than reading, ain't it?

WMD

Drei kleine Mädchen. Je ne sais quoi.

Nile

1:20 AM

@WillHunting Oh, I thought by "write" he meant anything between the lines of constructing and actually taking a pencil and writing the letters =/

Cerberus

@Nile Then...how can you be sure that your sentences are proper?

@tchrist Which?

tchrist

Sep 3 at 19:42, by tchrist

Doesn’t matter. Anybody who doesn’t want their gender known is a girl.

@Cerberus When I had just met you and you were so tickled to be muttering at me in Italian. :)

Nile

@Cerberus Huh? I can understand the language, but there's a more advanced form thats used regularly and I only know basic sentence structures. Enough for conversation but not for novel-literature.

Cerberus

@Nile I meant sentences that I could be reasonably sure native speakers wouldn't find jarring.

Nile

@Cerberus Okay,

Cerberus

1:23 AM

@tchrist Uh I have no idea what you're talking about.

WMD

¿Puedo usar el baño? Boa noite. Ich bin Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil. Une table pour deux, s'il vous plaît?

Cerberus

@Nile Yes, I can have a conversation in French or German, but it won't be pretty! I think it also helps if you practise speaking and writing a lot; I have always focused more on reading. And listening: I can probably follow a German film. A French film would be hard.

I may be able to understand most of a speech in French if the speaker articulates carefully, like a politician or something.

How about you? Can you understand Netanyahu?

@WMD Yayy Schnappi!

> You people were irreverent to POP's speech.

So how do you guys feels about this?

I don't like it, for some reason.

WMD

Can one be irreverent to a speech?

Cerberus

Probably because irreverent to is too old fashioned or something?

@WMD Hmm yes, that could be the problem.

WMD

One can be irreverent to a person, certainly. But to a speech?

Cerberus

1:27 AM

I...

Would say no.

WMD

On first reading, my mind substituted "irrelevant"; probably because it made more sense.

Cerberus

Heh.

prime

How can you type Spanish characters like, Á

using keyboard

Cerberus

The OP is not known for the brilliance of his examples.

@prime I use Autohotkey.

prime

What is that autohotkey?

Cerberus

1:29 AM

I type A//, and it automatically turns into Á.

prime

I tried pressing ALT+ , but it didn't work

Cerberus

Autohotkey is a program that allows you to set hotkeys and hotstrings for everything.

WMD

spanishdict.com/answers/100808/…

Cerberus

If you install Autohotkey_L Unicode (the latest version), I can give you my hotkey script, if you like (it's a fairly small script, and you can change it however you like.

I type n~~ for ñ.

prime

It's not windows, its linux

Cerberus

1:31 AM

Oh.

I don't think there is an Autohotkey version for Linux, alas.

tchrist

I type Opt-e a and it automatically turns into an á.

˙ɐ̗ uɐ oʇuᴉ suɹnʇ ʎןןɐɔᴉʇɐɯoʇnɐ ʇᴉ puɐ ɐ ə-ʇdO ədʎʇ I

Gosh, that doesn’t look so hot in this font.

Cerberus

You need to hold down a key, and you need to remember a seemingly random combination.

prime

What is Opt ?

tchrist

I type Opt-n n for an ñ.

Cerberus

I think it's a Mac key?

tchrist

1:32 AM

˙ṵ uɐ ɹoɟ u u-ʇdO ədʎʇ I

Opt is Alt.

It actually say "option", with "alt" in the top outside corner.

˙ɹəuɹoɔ əpᴉsʇno doʇ əɥʇ uᴉ ʇןɐ ɥʇᴉʍ ʻuoᴉʇdo ʎɐs ʎןןɐnʇɔɐ ʇI

Interesting.

Aug 1 at 1:58, by Cerberus

Mi piace che possiamo parlare Italiano aqui.

WMD

Quel mazzolin di fiori, che vien dalla montagna.

tchrist

¿Viste?

I like fiery mandolins, too.

@WMD Buona sera, Salvatore.

WMD

Il dio d'amore sempre ferisce il cuore.

Cerberus

@tchrist What about it?

prime

It looks good, spanish.typeit.org

tchrist

1:38 AM

@Cerberus You said you had no idea what I was referring to. Do you now have one?

Cerberus

What, yes; why, no.

tchrist

@WMD Qui gladio ferit, gladio perit.

@Cerberus You didn’t list Italian amongst your muttertongues.

Cerberus

@tchrist Well, I don't consider myself a speaker of Italian.

tchrist

:)

Cerberus

I can't utter a single proper sentence.

I can read an academic article, but not a novel.

tchrist

1:40 AM

The improper ones may be more useful on certain occasions.

Cerberus

Well, I could, but I would absolutely need lots of dictionaries and grammars.

WMD

O dolce vita mia, non mi far guerra!

Cerberus

I am not like that.

tchrist

Yes, I know what you mean. I need a dictionary handy to read more than academic stuff. Newspapers, maybe, are ok.

Cerberus

Yes, if I already know something about the subject; however, if there happens to be some important word that I just can't guess at, I'm lost.

WMD

1:42 AM

Thank you. Much appreciated.

tchrist

I cannot imagine the drama that pursues you. Aren’t you too old for those games?

I am sure you have your reasons, of course.

WMD

Yes, but the other player is less old than I.

tchrist

It just would drive me bazonkers.

user19161

@wmd I was thinking that the "she" might not be a user after all.

Cerberus

@tchrist You can behold it.

tchrist

1:43 AM

@Cerberus Oh?

user19161

@tchrist Perhaps the drama is only imaginary.

WMD

Sep 3 at 19:42, by tchrist

Doesn’t matter. Anybody who doesn’t want their gender known is a girl.

tchrist

@WillHunting They all are.

user19161

@tchrist No, some are real.

tchrist

@WMD Yes, maam.

user19161

1:45 AM

@cerb Do you still confuse me now with tc?

Cerberus

No!

WMD

tc confuses me all by himself.

Cerberus

That too.

tchrist

> L’Anticristo può nascere dalla stressa pietà, dall’eccessivo amor di Dio o della verità, come l’eretico nasce dal santo e l’indemoniato dal veggente. Temi, Adso, i profeti e coloro disposti a morire per la verità, ché di solito fan morire moltissimi con loro, spesso prima di loro, talvolta al posto loro.

Those crazy loros!

prime

You can behold it = you can see it ?

Or you can comprehend it?

tchrist

1:47 AM

mutters something Salvadoran.

WMD

@prime "see"; or "look at", I suppose.

tchrist

Regard.

user19161

@prime You should check a dictionary first.

tchrist

Por esto se inventaron los diccionarios.

jinx

WMD

Why shouldn't he/she ask here?

Cerberus

1:49 AM

Yeah, I don't mind binary questions.

WMD

All right. What's 01010011 + 10000111 ?

Cerberus

Ehhh.

I don't consider that a binary question.

It is about numbers that happen to be in a binary format.

tchrist

macbook# perl -le 'print 01010011 + 10000111'
10266360

Cerberus

Uhh.

WMD

It's quicker to do it in your head, than to type all of that.

Cerberus

1:51 AM

Isn't that a bit much?

tchrist

If you consider a million a bit much, sure.

And that one is ten of them.

I can’t do octal in my head all that well.

Although perhaps in that case, I could.

Cerberus

Wait.

tchrist

waits

Cerberus

If you look at the first number, the rightmost 1 is decimal 1, yes?

And the next 1 is 2, right?

tchrist

No.

The next one is 8.

WMD

1:53 AM

Err, if it's binary, YES.

tchrist

I'm being wicked.

Cerberus

Huh.

How does it work, then?

Because your number seemed way too high.

WMD

Cerberus specifically requested a BINARY question. Not an octal one.

tchrist

macbook# perl -le 'printf "%#b\n", 0b01010011 + 0b10000111'
0b11011010

Cerberus

And, if it is 8, then how do you write decimal 3?

Look, I can't read anything that starts with "mac...".

Even Macaulay pains my eyes.

WMD

1:54 AM

The answer I was expecting was 11011010, yes. Which is MUCH less than ten million.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Decimal 3 in octal is just 3.

(I think).

tchrist

macbook# perl -le 'printf "%#o\n", 001010011 + 010000111'
011010122

Cerberus

@Mahnax Okay, so then Tchrist's number was just silly.

That is, there is nothing binary about it.

Mahnax

@Cerberus It appears to be binary.

Cerberus

And he didn't even mention that it was supposed to be read as octal either.

tchrist

1:55 AM

macbook# perl -le 'printf "%d\n", 0x01010011 + 0x10000111'
285278498

Cerberus

@Mahnax How? It doesn't, not to me.

prime

@WillHunting, dictionary won't say you why did you use behold here? to see or to comprehend

Mahnax

@Cerberus It's a string of 0s and 1s.

tchrist

In C notation, a leading 0 is octal.

Not binary.

prime

@WillHunting, dictionary doesn't know your context of using

Mahnax

1:56 AM

Ah, never mind. I should be homeworking.

Cerberus

@Mahnax How is that supposed to be binary, lacking any context?

WMD

Cerberus said he would like a binary question. I obliged.

Cerberus

5 mins ago, by tchrist

macbook# perl -le 'print 01010011 + 10000111'
10266360

tchrist

@WillHunting This is excruciating.

Cerberus

Nothing here says "octal".

tchrist

1:56 AM

Yes it does.

Cerberus

Not to me.

tchrist

0101 is octal. 0b0101 is binary. 101 is decimal. 0x0101 is hex.

WMD

Only in some obscure made-up computer notation.

tchrist

Made-up?

Let’s go with that one.

Cerberus

101 could be anything from binary to infinitiary.

WMD

1:57 AM

101 could be binary.

tchrist

Since any notation is by definition made-up.

WMD

jinx

Cerberus

You just can't tell.

tchrist

That sounds ridiculous.

Cerberus

And, since we were discussing binary numbers...

tchrist

1:58 AM

@Cerberus Tell that to your nearest compiler.

WMD

If I went to Cerberus' house and said "I wouldn't mind a glass of water", would he bring me coffee?

tchrist

He might.

He’s like that, you know.

user19161

I would not bring anything at all, unless you say I want water.

Cerberus

For you, I would bring you a glass of water and throw it at you.

Without the glass.

user19161

You would not mind water but maybe you don't want it.

Mahnax

1:59 AM

Aww, how sweet.

Cerberus

@WMD There would be a whole bar for you.

user19161

Let alone coffee.

prime

I need to go, bye

WMD

Maybe. But I am not. So when Cerberus said

Cerberus

Bye.

WMD

1:59 AM

10 mins ago, by Cerberus

Yeah, I don't mind binary questions.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…