English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

every room has a different color scheme

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But: "I walked to school just now."

Damkerng T.

Just helps!

Anonymous

12:04 AM

I don't actually feel like my intuitive judgments are very good right now. I feel kind of like my brain is on backwards.

are you tired?

Anonymous

A bit. I can't sleep yet, though.

Anonymous

I was up very early.

Anonymous

@IceBoy I mostly use chat rooms that use the beta colors, and they're all the same.

Anonymous

They aren't all fancy like ELU's.

12:15 AM

Listening to the BBC last week right after the Caledonian plebiscite scotched the schismatics, I heard one business guy chattering with delight about bringing /ˈɪnvətəv/ products to market. Any guesses what he meant by that weird "invitive" bit?

Anonymous

@tchrist Innovative?

Yeah.

How the hell did that happen?

It’s weird having a four-syllable word stressed on the first syllable.

Without any “secondary stress” two syllables down the road, everything gets squished up.

So instead of /ˈɪnoʊˌveɪtɪv/ or /ɪnˈnɒvətɪv/, he just (thought he) said /ˈɪn(ə)vətɪv/, but he seems to have eaten a syllable in the process.

It’s like STRONG-weak-weak-weak is not a stable pattern in English.

Laboratory.

Disciplinary.

Anonymous

@Cerberus Compression happens easily when a schwa is followed by /l/ or /r/ and a weak vowel, not so much /v/

@Cerberus That one’s ˈdisciplinˌary, so you never have three unstressed syllables in a row there.

Which I’m thinking is the problem.

Labratories are where they send labrador retrievers for higher education.

Words that aren’t stressed on any of the last three syllables seem to get swallowed a bit.

12:25 AM

@snailboat I took a tour from room to room to check out all the different color schemes.

@snailboat Inevitability?

@tchrist Just saying syllables get eaten.

And you are right that weak-weak-weak tends to be reduced. It is the same in many languages.

inˌevitaˈbility

I wouldn't be surprised to hear inftəbilty.

Anonymous

@Cerberus You don't think it sounds strange reducing that?

I think it might happen?

In quick speech?

12:28 AM

@Cerberus That one’s just two dactyls with an unstressed syllable lead-in.

Secondary stress is not immune to reduction.

Syncopation. Call it what you will.

quick speech is quite a bit different than slow

Anonymous

Well, I won't go on record as saying it wouldn't ever happen. I'm just having trouble imagining it.

Anonymous

It's easy for me to imagine the initial vowel dropping, turning the /n/ syllabic

I am untroubled. My imagination is boundless!

12:29 AM

English poetic feet are only binary or trinary, and all longer words are just some combination of those pasted together.

Or at least, so it seems to work out best for me.

@snailboat That's probably more common...

@tchrist Naturally.

unless you are a poet, then you get to make the rules :-)

@tchrist English is no exception.

English has some very strange patterns.

Pious, impious.

I don't think many languages have that.

Anonymous

@Cerberus What is the pattern you're pointing out?

Per Edmund Wilson’s letter to Vladimir Nabokov of 1942-09-01: “Now about the metrics: the terminology you use—of amphibrachs, pyrrhics etc.—is obsolete in English. We now speak of these feet only in analyzing choruses from Greek plays—because Greek verse is quantitative [...] we have simplified our metrics to five kinds of feet [...] trochee, iambus, anapest, dactyl, spondee. We do not need any more.”

@Cerberus Not following.

@Cerberus Oh right, so primary stress moves due to affixes rather than remaining where it started.

ˈphotograph > phoˈtographer

It’s still on the antepenult.

Anonymous

12:38 AM

Macmillan lists /ˈɪmpiəs/ and /ɪmˈpaɪəs/. I've always used the latter

@snailboat Me, too.

That’s why I didn’t know what he was talking about.

So I guess to use innovative in poetry, you have to choose either the /ˈɪnoʊˌveɪtɪv/ or /ɪnˈnɒvətɪv/ version, not the weirdo /ˈɪn(ə)vətɪv/ one. Hm.

By the way, I discovered something quite surprising about that word.

It’s brand new.

It exploded from 1960 onwards.

I wonder what people used before then?

Maybe just new.

Or inventions, but that’s a noun.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think I rather prefer new ideas to innovative conceptualizations.

I really had thought the guy on the Beeb had said invitive, and that he had bungled inviting.

@snailboat Oh, I didn't know some people didn't change the stress.

@tchrist Are you surprised? It is a stupid commercial buzz word.

12:54 AM

@tchrist you are old-fashioned :-)

Anonymous

@Cerberus Oh, that's okay. I didn't know some people did!

Funny.

It's a famous case from The Chaos.

Words that stress their last               syllable are stressed oxytonically.
Words that stress their penultimate        syllable are stressed paroxytonically.
Words that stress their antepenultimate    syllable are stressed proparoxytonically.
Words that stress their preäntepenultimate syllable are stressed ??????????????????????.

Answer: “poorly”.

non-innovative

Anonymous

@Cerberus How about: finite, infinite?

1:03 AM

@snailboat Exactly!

stay away from infinity

But: ending, unending.

Anonymous

I really liked calling Japanese.SE "JLU".

@tchrist I do not believe this is possible in Greek.

Anonymous

It has this nice ring to it. JLU!

Anonymous

1:04 AM

But I can't bring myself to call it JL.

Anonymous

I miss our 'U'.

Never is any syllable farther back than the third accented.

Anonymous

People suggested JLSE, but I worry that's non-obvious for new users.

@Cerberus I too thought not, but apparently a quaternary foot called the “first paeon” was LONG-short-short-short.

never?

Anonymous

1:05 AM

ELU got to be a special case and keep its 'U'.

EL&A

@Cerberus Would that it were so in English. But we have things like questionable which compress (somehow) into three syllables in rapid speech.

@tchrist Feet are not related to accents...

Oh, right.

At least not directly.

1:07 AM

It could be more than one word.

@snailboat English Language and Abusage

2 mins ago, by Ice Boy

EL&A

@tchrist Not sure what you mean.

I still don’t understand why even Greek should have needed quaternary feet instead of pairs of binary ones.

I have never heard of this ¯˘˘˘.

So an "ionic major" foot should to my meagre mind just be spondee+pyrrhic, like bad policy or John Kennedy.

1:10 AM

But you cannot have a foot without a long syllable, and you cannot have a foot of a single syllable.

˘	˘	˘	˘	tetrabrach, proceleusmatic

¯	˘	˘	˘	primus paeon
˘	¯	˘	˘	secundus paeon
˘	˘	¯	˘	tertius paeon
˘	˘	˘	¯	quartus paeon

¯	¯	˘	˘	major ionic, triple trochee
˘	˘	¯	¯	minor ionic, double iamb
¯	˘	¯	˘	ditrochee
˘	¯	˘	¯	diiamb

¯	˘	˘	¯	choriamb
˘	¯	¯	˘	antispast

˘	¯	¯	¯	first epitrite
¯	˘	¯	¯	second epitrite
¯	¯	˘	¯	third epitrite
¯	¯	¯	˘	fourth epitrite

¯	¯	¯	¯	dispondee

So there is no way to analyse |¯˘˘˘| as something other than a single foot, is it is used.

I am surprised that that should call ˘˘˘˘ a foot.

The despondent one would be like "long time no see" or "YMCA".

@Cerberus Me, too.

For an English example of a tetrabrach, Fry proposes the example of “or isn’t it”, but I just don’t see it.

Not that he actually uses those terms. He just uses the five that Wilson espoused. He was trying to give an idea of an accentuated equivalent for the quantitative term.

I hear stress on isn.

Exactly.

1:16 AM

Or perhaps ri is more correct.

Yeah.

ris

> o-RI-zen-tit.

Open syllables are best.

Try imagining saying this very slowly and emphatically on the rhythm of shaking a baby.

Or perhaps a teenager.

You may not want to harm the hapless creature.

in lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks, 4 mins ago, by hippietrail

Stephen Fry has a new documentary series on language:

Look who's also talking about Fry.

It’s not new, and it’s not that good.

It’s ok.

He filmed quite a bit of material that got edited out, and I wish had not been.

I have used *Is he or isn’t he?” as a line in a double-dactyl before.

Izzio-Rizzinty
Aegon Targaryen
Claims that he’s really Prince
Rhaegar’s dead son.

Despite this dubious
Chronobiology
Swift he comes conquering:
Storm’s End’s undone.

1:24 AM

in lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks, 4 mins ago, by Cerberus

I watched part of it once with a friend.

@tchrist I agree.

We watched it years ago and found it slow and boring.

I wanted to like it.

Far too basic for anyone remotely interested in language.

So did we. We like Fry.

Desire alone was not enough.

My friend always watches QI.

As do I.

Plus I have rather enjoyed some of Fry’s other documentaries.

Last Chance to See was worth seeing.

1:26 AM

Most documentaries in general are too low on info content, too slow and basic.

Alas for David Attenborough.

@Cerberus Drink wine from lead goblets for a few decades and then rewatch them.

Did you just see those two sneak off together again? So obvious! :)

?

Icy and Snail both fell off the rogues’ gallery in perfectly synchronized tandem.

Anonymous

2:00 AM

@Cerberus My friend also always watches QI!

Could it be the same friend!

Anonymous

It is suspicious.

She is a lawyer.

Isn't she?

3:10 AM

@Cerberus Because our PM is just a stooge for the oil industry. That's just one of the crimes he's committed against Canada over the last decade.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So Canadian oil companies profit from the new pipe?

And they would profit less without the new treaty?

Why?

China won't invest in it unless they ratify the treaty?

mathh

7:23 AM

Is it grammatical to say, 'Sure enough it wasn't actually that bad.'? The phrase 'sure enough' comes to my mind automatically (non-native English speaker), so I think I've seen it somewhere.

Alraxite

@mathh Sure enough is indeed used fairly often.

idioms.thefreedictionary.com/sure+enough

You can google to find more definitions.

7:48 AM

@mathh you need to put a comma after sure enough as it is parenthetical to the statement.

but otherwise, it is fine.

user08742

8:05 AM

hey

Matt

@MattЭллен

You say bedraggled to mean besheveled right?

dishevelled

?

you can, yes.

8:29 AM

Hello? I have a question.

I want to respond to someone in the comments of a question that I've asked, but my response is very large. I know such large responses (which little pertain to the content of the question itself) are discouraged in the comments, but I don't think it can necessarily be posed as a question to be posted in the meta.

What do?

Q: Feminine equivalent for Casanova

@MattЭллен - two questions for you. Do you have a minute?

15

Is there a feminine equivalent for "Casanova" without negative connotations?

This question has an answer to which a bounty has been awarded. Is it still deletable (the answer doesn't quite fit the OP's criteria.

@NiteCyper - Hello, I suspect your question has something to do with me. Can I help you in any way? (And, no, I had no idea you were here; I was conversing with a different user about another answer.)

@medica Yes, my question does have to do with you. I guess you can help me by chatting with me directly.

@NiteCyper -sounds good. what can I do for you?

@NiteCyper (I wasn't being sarcastic.)

@medica I'm trying to simplify my response.

@NiteCyper ok. I'll wait.

8:37 AM

@medica How about this: Why did you make that comment on my question when there are other questions that seem to lack research (if lacking-research means mentioning what objective forms of research the asker has conducted and not philosophization) as well that I don't think that you've made similar comments on?

@NiteCyper That is a good, and painful, question.

I assume convenience?

@NiteCyper I would be happy to remove it as I have offended you.

No, not convenience. I was frustrated by what seemed to be a simple answer to me.

But you no longer think that the answer is simple?

I wasn't singling you out. I don't even know you, and when I checked your user profile here, I actually was the person who upvoted your last question, so it's not personal.

8:40 AM

Hm, if it pleases you (to remove it, then I suppose it would quench the issue). I don't like to burn bridges so if you're asking me if I'd like you to remove it, I'd have to give it some more thought to see if leaving it there would be more productive for others.

@NiteCyper No, I do think it's simple. At least it was for me. But I will remove it because it offends you.

I guess when you have seen so many people who try to get us to do ESL homework (it really does happen), one gets jaded, which doesn't make it right, but it happens.

So, I will remove both of my comments, and hope you can forgive me my bad behavior.

Is there something you would like to ask in meta?

@medica No, but I'm curious why you think it's simple. Though now that I've specifically Googled "Christo- 'combining form'" the answer may seem to be simple, but other commentators bring up a good point that there is a difference between "Christ" and "Christian(ity)".

@NiteCyper No, it won't deter many people, and I made an erroneous assumption that you didn't do any research. So I should remove it.

Hm, well I'm rather neutral on it now. If you think it should be done, then so be it, as they say.

Well, the thing that makes it seem like a simple question is that you had the form there, in the Judeo- part. It kind of makes sense to think Christo-, does it not?

8:46 AM

Yes.

But maybe it doesn't.

sorry :)

Will you please forgive me for being rude to you? I am sorry.

Yes, now that we've had this conversation,...I've warmed up to you more.

Thank you, you are more gracious than I am.

You can post anything in meta; that's what it's for. I'll be off, now, to erase my comments. Thanks again.

9:09 AM

@medica sorry, I was in a meeting. what's up?

@MattЭллен oh, no, I was daydreaming. There's a question above about deleting an answer with a bounty on it. Is that possible?

I will find out...

Q: How was my use of english rude?

My second question is about this question:

0

Could someone tell me how I was rude during this exchange? I would say I was being unapologetic and defiant but not rude.

cultural-correctness

Is there a chance that it could be deleted?

This person is a known Troll on SE (see how many sites have suspended him/her) and it's not about English, it's trolling, and names Jolene, who is really a nice person. Should it even be here?

it will be auto deleted, but I suppose there's no harm in getting rid of it sooner.

@MattЭллен - I was going to edit out jolene's name but I dare not. He will come after me (already has on other sites).

9:15 AM

@medica mods can delete answers with bounties awarded. 20K users cannot

Hm. OK. It accepted my delete vote; I wonder why. But thanks. You decide.

Yeah. I don't know why it would accept your vote if it's not going to delete the post

but I can see it there, so... it's a mystery!

Good day to you, then! :) Thanks again.

no probs :)

Hello!

9:23 AM

Hi, Jasper :)

I am going to see the psychologist tmr morning. I will try out a couple of sessions to see if it helps.

I find CBT taxing, but it has been very helpfull over the course of the past year

I didn't know you are having CBT. I don't know what to expect tmr. I will just go there and say whatever I feel would help.

I hope you have a good session

@WillHunting yes to help with my anxiety

I feel more in control of myself these days

@MattЭллен How many sessions do you think I should try before deciding to contonue or drop it?

9:33 AM

@WillHunting I don't know. It's a process. Since we are trying to solve different problems, I don't know what you will be doing exactly. I found the sessions very intense, because I had to tell a stranger (i.e. my counsellor) about myself, which is something that makes me anxious. If you're willing to explore your thought processes openly, you will be able to make progress, I think. But it is difficult and requires presistence.

It took me a couple of months to feel like I was making progress.

@MattЭллен I think I have already told many strangers my problems in this chat, lol.

:D aye

9:59 AM

Hi @Matt long time no see buddy :-)

Hi

I suppose I was not here much this weekend

How are you?

I'm OK, ta. how are you?

Fine, thanks.

@medica don't be afraid of trolls because they feed off of emotions, just invite them in here and let the professionals deal with them ;-)

10:51 AM

Well, except for one tiny detail: you certainly don't get muscle memory without "actively practicing the skill." As a musician I can attest to that. — Robusto 1 min ago

This whole question and its answers are an abomination.

Five simple words would answer it.

Your Raiders didn't win, but they surprised the Patriots by playing tough.

Pats are soft this year. They need to get their shit together.

We covered :D

What's the call for Monday night?

Yeah, I'd have taken the points myself, had I been a betting man.

Who's playing?

Da bears

11:02 AM

Against?

@ the jets -2.5

At the Jets? Hmm.

I think the Bears may surprise people. Look what they did against SF.

The bears are strong at the beginning of almost every season.

2.5 makes it a tight one.

I'd take the Bears and the points.

Yep, me too.

11:07 AM

Oooh noo a NY jet fan?

me? nah. but this talk of bears reminded me of this

And what exactly is that?

it's the artwork for the magic: the gathering card "Savage Punch"

the bear's face makes me laugh

Ya, as if he could do that bare fisted :D

11:12 AM

That picture shows the bear about 10 seconds away from his first meal of the day.

There was a Darwin Award for an idiot who hopped a fence at some zoo's bear enclosure and decided it would be fun to kick a sleeping bear in the balls.

@Robusto aye, seems likely :D

@Robusto how he survived long enough to have the idea is a mystery

I've seen a grizzly in the wild, with nowhere for me to find safety, and I suddenly understood the idiom "Didn't know whether to shit or go blind."

@MattЭллен You'd think natural selection would have harvested him long before that. But nature works in strange ways.

sounds terrifying

Well, they're scary enough when you have bars and a moat between you. But when you realize there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent the bear from messing up your shit big time, it takes on a whole new dimension.

What did you do?

11:17 AM

Why, boys, I died.

So they do have the internet in heaven :-)

Just kidding. I watched him without moving for what seemed like a year. He didn't appear to see me, but he knew I was around. He got up on his hind legs and huffed the air a few times, then dropped onto all fours and lumbered off into the woods.

This was on a gravel road in British Columbia.

And for a few seconds I felt relieved. Then I realized that now I didn't know where he was.

He was maybe 50 yards away from where I was standing when he came out of the woods.

Just like those jungle drums that stop beating.

I never heard those.

How far is 50 yards?

Did he see you then?

11:22 AM

About 40-45 meters.

No, he didn't look my way.

As the saying goes: if your plane crashes in the jungle with head hunters and you hear the beat of their drums, the time to start worrying is when the drums stop!

I'd just turn the movie off.

Bears are real. Headhunters, not so much.

I'd probably rather crash in a jungle than in, say, northern Iraq.

They wanted to crash in NYC

/joke

11:37 AM

@SheldonLee: Be sure. It is the one-word term meaning someone "took time to appreciate the work as art." +1 for Jasper. — Robusto Aug 9 '12 at 21:56

See what I get for upvoting Jasper? He deletes his account.

Then don't.

Again??

No, that was from two years ago.

@Robusto I'd be scared to death.

I wouldn't go to such dangerous places, probably.

@Cerberus It was about the most terrified I've ever been in my life, actually.

11:40 AM

You were right to be.

But wrong to be there in the first place.

@IceBoy I was 20 years old and hitchhiking through Canada.

icic

Why would you hitch hike on a gravel road out in the middle of BC?

I said I was 20 years old, didn't I?

And I didn't realize it would be a gravel road.

google.com/maps/place/Glacier+National+Park+of+Canada/…

That's where it was.

Not at the arrow, but on Canadian Route 1.

And I got let off in the middle of the park by a guy who was going down one of the fire trails. So I stood there hitchhiking. A car came by about once every half hour.

You are lucky to be alive

Live & learn.

11:53 AM

It wasn't the dumbest thing I ever did.

Ignorance is infinite.

Only if you know nothing at all. If you know something -- anything at all -- then ignorance is limited.

Yes, if by ignorance you mean lack of knowledge

But, ignorance is not just restricted to knowledge or lack thereof.

Does it have another meaning? Rushes off to consult dictionary...

ignorance : The fact or condition of being ignorant; want of knowledge (general or special). [OED]

ignorant : Destitute of knowledge, either in general or with respect to a particular fact or subject; unknowing, uninformed, unlearned. [OED]

No need for a dictionary definition here, my friend, we're just chatting about doing dumb things :-)

All I'm saying is there is no limit to the number of ignorant acts one can do.

Personally, I tend to make every possible mistake before I finally get something's right.

I think that's one of the reasons why I like math so much...

... if you don't initially do it exactly the way it was taught to you, then you will continue to make "common errors."

This is not about a lack of information. It is more about seeing the logical connections between things.

That is the "other" meaning of ignorance that I'm referring to.

12:58 PM

But I think @Andrew's point is that dumb is not a synonym for ignorant.

When Einstein was a baby he was ignorant. But he sure wasn't dumb.

1:29 PM

I just spent 2 hours packing some stuff with my mum. Now I am all sweaty.

what are you packing for?

Some army stuff, in case I get called. They gave me a list of items to get ready.

I see. More reservist training?

Yes, something like that.

1:52 PM

So I taught myself how to play the violin on the weekend.

wow! how long did it take?

about 5 minutes

that's sureprising! I imagined it would take a while

Turns out though that I'm not a very good violin teacher

But I was able to play a scale and a one-string rendition of "twinkle twinkle little star"

oh dear :D

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 nice

1:56 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You're almost there. Give it another five minutes.

My wife has a violin that she bought in 1997, played for like two months, and then put away. We finally rescued it from her parents' house.

@Robusto I know, eh? Next stop, Carnegie Hall

May 16 '13 at 13:48, by Robusto

The violin is the opposite of the harp. You can bang on a harp randomly and it just sounds like heavenly music. A violin requires perfection before it's even acceptable.

@Robusto yeah srsly.

It's pretty damn hard.

I'm used to "digital" instruments, like piano or clarinet, where there is one way to make a note.

You want a C? press the C key

Or cover the holes that result in C

harps on about banging
bangs on about harping

On the violin, every pitch is possible, and most of them are undesirable

2:00 PM

time to make atonal music!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, but on wind instruments there's also the matter of intonation.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And that's when the strings are tuned.

@AndrewLeach which these aren't, because as I mentioned it's been in a closet for 17 years almost

@Robusto Yeah but I never had a problem with clarinet of playing notes that were just slightly off-pitch

Oh. You taught yourself on an out-of-tune instrument. So now you will need that tuning every time.

@AndrewLeach dammit! that's 5 minutes of my life I'm never getting back!

2:02 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What? You were always in tune on the clarinet? You are the only one ever in the history of that instrument.

> The clarinet is an ill woodwind that nobody blows good.

@Robusto No, he said he never had a problem with playing notes that were out of tune.

@Robusto Well, let's just say that it was much easier to make pleasant-sounding music on it than on the violin.

Now that Scotland isn’t going to go sliding off towards the North Pole, Apple have announced a hot new product specifically designed to serve Scotland’s numerous but thinly populated and hard-to-reach isles, places where until now people who wanted telephone service could only afford shared party lines. They’re going to be offered wePhones™ instead.

GnomeSlice

Today's Listening | EDM / Chip

2:17 PM

I’ve met my creativity-quota for the day, so am off to $job now. Hasta.

3

A: Company Name as Verb

Turning a proprietary trademarked name into a generic word of common, everyday use in a way that extends to matters other than those sanctioned by the trademark holder is called a genericized trademark.1 Although is much more common to happen with nouns than with verbs, one need hardly look far ...

Some commentless hoho has dingdonged me.

If it was you, I shall have your liver for lunch.

@tchrist Will the smaller versions be weePhones™?

Hush, you’re telegraphing the press release for Eire!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 . . .

3:07 PM

@tchrist Then I won't mention that the French versions could be ouiPhones™.

3:19 PM

@Robusto I thought the soi-disant Académie ~~Royale~~ Nationale Française were still (w)ringing their hands between nosPhones™ et nonPhones™.

Mitch

@Robusto ha ha 'harvested'. ... ponders now I'm hungry.

Conversion (word formation)

Sometimes we make “new” words through derivational morphology, but sometimes we just *(recast) them into new parts(-of-speech). Given that, which would be the better tag: conversion or zero-derivation? It’s for when you coërce a word into fulfilling a different part-of-speech rôle than before/normal without changing one jot of its spelling. So nominalized adjectives and verbed nouns and such.

In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word (of a new word class) from an existing word (of a different word class) without any change in form. For example, the noun green in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived ultimately from the adjective green. Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a verb by converting a noun or other word (e.g., the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean). == Verbification... ==

Conversion is normally performed anent noun, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs only, in that function words are a pretty closed set, even if every now and again we import something like vis-à-vis or resurrect something like qua or toss something like modulo into the preposition bucket.

I am thinking that zero-derivation might be less confusing for some volxen.

3:42 PM

Ok, I went with zero-derivation.