English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Grace Note

1:00 PM

I'd rather pants were kept up

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@WillHunting If my daughter were here she'd insist that you also mention underwear and socks.

ЯegDwight

Matt Эллен

meetg. bbl

Gigili

@ЯegDwight Is that Jasper?

ЯegDwight

That's Mr Pants.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:00 PM

It should be

user19161

@Gigili Looks like me, true.

ЯegDwight

Of Rareware fame.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

there you go, jasper, you have a new avatar

it's even blue!

Grace Note

Meetg is a weird way to abbreviate meeting. Wow, I just souped that sentence three times before getting it right

Typoing, backspacing, and then repeating the same typo is as perturbing as it is perplexing

ЯegDwight

It's Mr. Pants

It's Mr. Pants (originally Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers) is a video game for the Game Boy Advance. The starring character, Mr. Pants, is the result of a poorly drawn image from Rare's website, who was used as a mascot for the site survey. Gameplay The basic idea of the game is to create rectangles which have to be 2x3 blocks or larger to clear them from the grid. Blocks cannot be placed on top of blocks of the same color that are already on the grid, but they can be placed on top of blocks of any other color which causes the different blocks on the grid to disappear. The game incorpo...

Gigili

1:02 PM

Mr.Pants = Jasper. QED.

Now Mitch is going to read the whole transcript. Good luck.

user19161

Pants mean underwear in BrE.

user19161

But trousers has one more syllable.

Grace Note

Not if you skip the E!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@GraceNote Trous'rs?

Gigili

@WillHunting Woher weißt du das alles.

Grace Note

1:06 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I end up saying something that sounds liker "trowers" every time

ЯegDwight

f'''c''tl'

user19161

@GraceNote That is skipping the S!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@GraceNote doesn't that skip the "S"? anyway I'd still call it two syllables

Grace Note

Except at one syllable, so I guess trours

ЯegDwight

Just call everything muh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:07 PM

@GraceNote trours are what trourists do in other countries

user19161

Well, I don't know the definition of a syllable actually.

ЯegDwight

It worked for our ancestors, so why not for us.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ЯegDwight it worked so well they stopped doing it

ЯegDwight

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 wrong. They died using it.

They got muh or died muhing.

Jez

wow, i forgot just how bad Windows 7 search is.

I want to find files with "user" in the name. I search for *user* and it gives me....... all files.

Why? Because I'm searching in C:\Users\jez\...

user19161

1:13 PM

@Jez LOL

user19161

I think maybe you can reconfigure the search.

Jez

not easily. usually the Microsoft way would be to at least offer a GUI to construct an advanced search

in win 7 it's a definite downgrade from XP imho

and looking at screenshots of windows 8 search, that's just as bad

if not worse

Mitch

@WillHunting there are (in many american universities). sometimes called a 'concentration'.

user19161

@Mitch I know, I was referring to the army ranks.

Gigili

This question is ambiguous, vague and rhetorical. However, you could improve it changing the example sentences: husbands are not a property of wives. — Carlo_R. 17 mins ago

That's Carlo.

And that's why I said there are definitely two people who are being Carlo.

user19161

1:16 PM

@Gigili Well, let's cut him some slack. He is a grandfather after all.

ЯegDwight

I am not willing to cut anyone slack solely on the grounds of them being able to reproduce.

Mitch

@Robusto but not loose stools.

Grace Note

Aren't the merits of a grandparent less on their own ability to reproduce?

I guess siring a siring offspring is an achievement on its own but that's still not their own work. Typically.

Mitch

@WillHunting ohhh.. see? it takes me a bit to get through the backlog of comments.

@Gigili how is that evidence of two?

ЯegDwight

@GraceNote I don't care whose merit it is if I am about to question its very meritness.

Grace Note

1:19 PM

@ЯegDwight Punto

user19161

@Mitch Perhaps the similarity to Xavier?

user19161

@Mitch Well, to be fair that one was ambiguous on its own.

tchrist

@GraceNote "Typically"?

Mitch

@tchrist Ick.

Gigili

@Mitch He is speaking English quite well there.

ЯegDwight

1:20 PM

@Gigili much of it is copypasted.

Grace Note

@tchrist I have a bad tendency to cover spots that even I won't think of.

tchrist

@Gigili I honestly haven’t seen that. His chat is different because it is extemporaneous.

Mitch

Oh, right. His quality of English jumps from perfect/fluent to word by word translation.

tchrist

I don’t really think so.

Grace Note

Great, now I need to pick up a dictionary

Gigili

1:21 PM

@Mitch Now your turn, who's WMD?

tchrist

I am ready to be convinced otherwise.

Grace Note

@Gigili Someone who I doubt to be under investigation here

user19161

@GraceNote For extemporaneous? Well, I don't bother checking anymore.

tchrist

Sorry, Grace.

Grace Note

You don't need to apologize, tchrist. I like learning new words

user19161

1:22 PM

@Gigili You may ask WMD yourself.

ЯegDwight

Extemporaneous? Seriously? That's not too strange of a word. And somewhat self-explanatory, too.

user19161

@GraceNote I gave up learning new words when I knew there were too many to learn.

tchrist

I was always in extemp in Forensics.

Grace Note

@ЯegDwight Normally I can, like, root derive or some other actual term for the process of backcrawling the etymological origins. But somehow the particular combination of affixes is throwing me off.

user19161

@GraceNote You can also create many words, like Hejudas.

ЯegDwight

1:23 PM

@GraceNote I'm just saying that's a word even Dubya would use, and probably has. Is all.

Tchrist taught me some real strange stuff here. Extemporaneous doesn't compare.

tchrist

ex- out of. -tempor- < tempus/-oris, time. -aneous < anus, talking out of your ass.

Grace Note

@ЯegDwight This would imply I actually listened to words those years

Gigili

@Mitch WTH.

Mitch

@Gigili look quick!

Grace Note

Let me know when I can delete your message, @Mitch

user19161

1:24 PM

@tchrist I just saw an anus in this chat.

Mitch

@GraceNote now please. I thought removal was alllowed forever.

Grace Note

@tchrist Huh. So is as it is

ЯegDwight

Sep 9 at 22:19, by cornbread ninja

Walrus Mustache Degreaser?

Mitch

@WillHunting you got some butt issues dude.

Grace Note

@Mitch Nope, only for... 2 minutes, I think?

tchrist

1:25 PM

You have seen nonomillienial [sic] ones.

Mitch

@GraceNote as long as editing?

user19161

@Mitch Yes.

tchrist

Probably too deep.

user19161

I misspelled "millennium" until recently.

user19161

I used "millenium" instead.

tchrist

1:27 PM

A thousand anuses cannot be wrong.

Mitch

how about alumi...um?

tchrist

annum != anus

@Mitch alumnorum

Mitch

@tchrist they are all rings.

Grace Note

@Mitch Aye aye

user19161

@Mitch That is certainly "aluminium" in BrE or "aluminum" in AmE.

Mitch

1:28 PM

@WillHunting I try not to write milli...um. instead I say 'a thousand years' or 'a long time ago' or 'way back when'

@WillHunting No. England doesn't even have aluminum.

user19161

@Mitch I would like to ask you if you would use "after very long" to mean "after a very long time".

ЯegDwight

I try not to write "millennium". I just use "Backstreet Boys' third album".

Mitch

OK. Go Ahead. Ask.

user19161

@Mitch So what is your answer?

Mitch

@WillHunting To what?

tchrist

1:30 PM

What about condominium?

user19161

@Mitch Would you use "after very long" to mean "after a very long time"?

Mitch

Oh. Can you give a sentence then? depends on context, innit?

user19161

Well, some others here told me they would not.

user19161

For example, "he succeeded after very long".

Mitch

They would not what?

Oh. Yeah, that sounds wrong.

user19161

1:32 PM

Would not use it.

tchrist

@WillHunting That is not right.

Mitch

Yeah, don't use that.

tchrist

But "before very long" can be ok.

user19161

@tchrist Yes, you were one of those I asked in the past.

Mitch

Say "He succeeded after a very long time."

tchrist

1:32 PM

Didn’t we just go through this a few days ago?

Right.

user19161

@tchrist Yes, I just want to conduct a mini survey.

Mitch

@tchrist I wasn't there then, so maybe Jasper is trying to get independent confirmation. Which I am doing.

tchrist

So ’twould appear.

user19161

It's kind of weird that "before long" is used.

Mitch

"He succeeded before very long" is right. It's an idiom 'before very long' is not a small bit of litote.

simchona

1:35 PM

@Andrew hello, glad to hear from you. I entirely agree with you on the fact that the question remains rhetorical. — Carlo_R. 5 mins ago

Mitch

no it is not weird. if you think of it as a reversal. "He succeeded after a long time" = "a long time passed from the start . then after that, he succeeded"

user19161

@simchona Sounds a little like Xavier.

user19161

I am actually beginning to think that they are one!

Mitch

"He succeded before long" = " he started trying. A long time passed. Before the end of that long time, he succeeded. So It probably didn't take him a full long time to do it." = litote

user19161

@Mitch Yes, there is the asymmetry in "before long" and "after a while".

Mitch

1:38 PM

@simchona collective, commiserating sigh: sigh

@WillHunting No they are quite different. CR has an italian accent in his fractured English. XVH has a highly learn-ed academic vocabulary and discourse pattern that is vague and word-salad-ish.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…