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1:24 AM
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Hey.
 
1:46 AM
@Robusto Hey.
 
Olives! Holy shit!
There I said it. Somebody has to.
 
Oh, thank god.
What'd you do today, @Mitch?
 
Apple picking!
Thankfully no one cried
Kickass cider donuts.
 
Ugh. We need to go to the local cider mill.
No one cried?
Did you get any Honeycrisps?
 
Haha. All the two year olds in the other groups were crying. I can laugh because they're not mine.
 
Sincerely, the crying two year olds are very cute.
But if you're holding them... Not cute
 
So...anything happen to you today?
 
I went to a writers' conference.
Got a paycheck from my second job.
 
Nice...for both
 
1:57 AM
It was my first writers' conference.
 
What kind? Short stories? Novels? Nonfiction?
 
Well, there were a lot of breakout sessions. I signed up for three: Description & Setting, Character Motivations, and Plotting is Fun.
There was some keynote I did not stay for.
The presentations were only slightly flavored by the presenting author.
One lady writes historical romance (vomit), but I learned a lot from her.
BBL
 
Elizabeth I and her crypto suitors from around the world
 
2:28 AM
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You have a second job?
That would be two too many for me.
 
2:48 AM
@Robusto yes, writing for Hackaday.
 
3:02 AM
Ah, right.
I knew that.
 
 
2 hours later…
4:57 AM
@Chris'ssistheartist It's part of a set construction, "if [clause using present tense form], [then] [clause using "will" + plain verb form].
The [then] is optional.
 
 
6 hours later…
10:36 AM
Which is better: "keep this letter carefully", or "preserve this letter carefully"?
 
10:52 AM
Would anyone who visits this chat happen to have a subscription to the New York Times? I'd really like to read this article from the archives, which contains some really interesting quotes from Tesla. Any help would be much appreciated.
 
 
1 hour later…
11:52 AM
@Danu Does bugmenot not have anything that works?
Stylistic question: if I have a quote and want to clarify what something in the quote means, should I add something inside the quote (say in italics) or add something below the quote in footnote style?
 
12:11 PM
@FaheemMitha Never heard of that site, and now that I checked it: No, they don't.
 
@Danu Ok
 
crl
 
I don't understand
 
Finish flag
as in finishing a race
@tchrist I hope you realize that that is, in fact, German and not Dutch
the Dutch would be "arbeid maakt vrij"
 
12:29 PM
@Danu oh :)
 
1:15 PM
@Danu The two comments weren't meant to be connected; I was commenting on Freedom Fries in the second one.
 
1:39 PM
@tchrist Alright :)
 
@tchrist: So would Caitlynn Jenner say Soy una mujer or Estoy una mujer?
 
Who the hell is she, and why would anyone be girly?
And it probably doesn't take an article, unless there's more to the sentence.
Soy una mujer que llora.
 
Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949), formerly Bruce Jenner, is a television personality and retired American athlete. In 1976, Jenner won the gold medal for decathlon at the Montreal Summer Olympics. Since 2007, Jenner has been appearing on E!'s reality television program Keeping Up with the Kardashians and is currently starring in the reality show I Am Cait, which focuses on her gender transition. Jenner was a college football player for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee injury requiring surgery. Coach L.D. Weldon, who had coached Olympic decathlete...
Transgendered.
 
Gracias a Dios que soy mujer.
You wouldn't use estar.
 
I didn't think so, but I wasn't sure.
 
1:50 PM
Nació un hombre, pero ya es mujer.
 
Also, is there any basis to your claim that English without French is Dutch?
 
@Danu You don't come here much, do you? :)
 
@Danu The claim is humor in pursuit of an epigram.
 
@Danu There is some truth in it.
 
As in all humor.
@tchrist: Is Real Academia Española as strict as Académie française in pursuit of a "pure" language?
 
2:00 PM
@Robusto No.
There are many more Spanish speakers than French ones. They have to have reasonable goals.
 
> Its aristocratic founder, Juan Manuel Fernández Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and Duke of Escalona, described its aims as "to assure that Spanish speakers will always be able to read Cervantes" – by exercising a progressive up-to-date maintenance of the formal language.
Hmm, I wonder what that entails.
Can modern-day Spaniards read Cervantes in the original without difficulty?
 
Pretty much.
The orthography is somewhat different.
 
Nice! I am going to put that on my bucket list.
 
It is common to read it with the letters switched, so Quijote for Quixote, but little else.
And they use the vos form with plural verbs for formal singular. There is no usted.
 
> En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.
 
2:05 PM
Yup.
 
I wouldn't be able to tell if that had been modernized.
 
"No ha mucho tiempo" is the old way to say "no hace mucho tiempo".
They used haber not hacer, as Portuguese still does.
 
Ah.
 
So there are little things like that.
 
Otherwise seems easier than understanding Shakespeare, perhaps, for native speakers.
 
2:07 PM
That's my feeling. I can even read El Çid, but I cannot read Beowulf without an OE lexicon and grammar in hand.
 
Or Chaucer without frequent look-ups.
 
El Çid is easier to read than Chaucer.
Sadly.
> De los sos oios tan fuerte mientre lorando
Tornaua la cabeça e estaua los catando:
Vio puertas abiertas e vços sin cannados,
Alcandaras uazias sin pielles e sin mantos,
E sin falcones e sin adtores mudados.
Mostly it's letters: i for j, u for v, ç for z.
 
So ç becomes z in modern?
 
Yes.
And "fuerte mientre" is now "fuertemente" etc.
 
Interesting.
 
2:11 PM
But that is pretty simple, and obvious to a competent speaker.
And the word for and was still spelled e not y as in modern.
Again, like Portuguese still is.
> Language Old Spanish
Date Composed sometime between 1140 and 1207
> De sus ojos fuertemente llorando,
De un lado a otro volvía la cabeza mirándolos;
Vio las puertas abiertas y contrapuertas sin candados,
La perchas vacías, sin pieles y sin mantos
Y sin halcones y sin azores ya pelechados.
That’s Modern Spanish.
Updating both spelling and vocabulary.
That's much harder than the Quijote, but still infinitely easier than Beowulf, and probably easier than Chaucer.
 
Probably about the level of First Folio Shakespeare, I would guess.
 
That sounds about right.
 
Not a great speller, that one.
 
Heh. Spelling wasn't important in them days. I think they viewed it the way modern jazz musicians view melody.
Doesn't have to be exact, just enough to express the meaning.
 
2:23 PM
> Willm Shakp
William Shaksper
Wm Shakspe
William Shakspere
Willm Shakspere
By me William Shakspeare
A man who couldn't spell his own name the same way twice.
Too much breviography.
 
Yes. There's a funny scene in the beginning of Shakespeare in Love that has the Bard attempting to write his name to insert into a love-charm bracelet, and having a hard time deciding which spelling would be recognized by the divine powers.
 
> The name of Sir Walter Raleigh was written by his contemporaries either Raleigh, Raliegh, Ralegh, Raghley, Rawley, Rawly, Rawlie, Rawleigh, Raulighe, Raughlie, or Rayly. The name of Thomas Dekker was written either Dekker, Decker, Deckar, Deckers, Dicker, Dickers, Dyckers, or (interestingly enough) Dickens.
The spelling of William Shakespeare's name has varied over time. It was not consistently spelled any single way during his lifetime, in manuscript or in printed form. After his death the name was spelled variously by editors of his work, and the spelling was not fixed until well into the 20th century. The standard spelling of the surname as "Shakespeare" was the most common published form in Shakespeare's lifetime, but it was not one used in his own handwritten signatures. It was, however, the spelling used by the author as a printed signature to the dedications of the first editions of his poems...
 
Salutem!
Or: hail!
 
Wes Þu hal!
 
@Cerberus Salutem? I hardly know 'em!
 
2:34 PM
Hah.
@tchrist Does that mean "be whole"?
I didn't know English had wees, but it makes sense (not even German has it).
 
Be thou hale/whole/healthy.
 
Yeah that's what I meant.
I modernised the construction.
Did English also have an infinitive of the same stem?
 
wesan
 
Mostly they used -an infinitives.
 
Dutch has wezen, which is, oddly, informal as an infinitive, but not as a noun ("being, creature".)
 
2:37 PM
Jinx.
 
Right.
 
I presume wes and was and were are related.
 
Vide supra.
 
Vidi.
I also presume am and are are related to is and sindon?
 
2:39 PM
That's what it looks like, yes.
 
Does it?
The table is not etymological.
 
am from eom
I’m sure the OED has a few volumes on this.
 
I do seem to recall the r from are's being a rhotacised s.
I think this is all well known.
 
There was Þu eart.
 
Dutch has ben, bent, is; zijn, zijn, zijn, nowadays. Infinitive zijn, imperative wees.
The thou form was gij zijt (gij = very old-fashioned for jij, "you" singular).
 
2:42 PM
> the modern verb 'to be' is a single verb which takes its present indicative forms from sindon, its past indicative forms from wesan, its present subjunctive forms from bēon, its past subjunctive forms from wesan, and its imperative and participle forms from bēon.
 
OK as expected.
Presumably, the root of sindon was something like es-.
As in the other languages.
Only that could lead to all of am/are/is/sindon.
Latin is far more regular, except its perfect stem.
 
Pretty much.
 
I think fui is related to physical, from phuô "grow, become"?
Not sure.
 
But sum, eram, fui are all different.
 
The first two are from the same root.
All non-perfect forms are from the same root.
 
2:47 PM
sum/sumus/sunt are from the same place as es/est/estis?
 
99% sure.
Just as in English.
The e- is dropped.
-(vowel)-m is a common (and, I believe, the original) ending for the first person.
Often vocalised into -o.
 
It may have only a two-stem suppletion instead of three as in English, but it still seems highly irregular.
 
@tchrist That is what I mean. And the suppletion does not cross any tenses.
 
One thing I've been wondering. Where did Spanish and Italian get el and il, respectively, where French got le? How were those articles derived from Latin?
 
ille
 
2:49 PM
nods
"That, those".
 
So French just took the last half where the others took the first.
 
Masculine singular demonstrative.
 
Uhuh.
 
@Cerberus Do you mean uh-huh or uh-uh?
 
The former.
 
2:51 PM
I never know which he means.
 
I don't think I would ever write the latter.
Do you?
 
Of course.
Uh-huh means "yes" while uh-uh means "no" . . .
 
Yes, they are two different things, and with opposite polarity no less.
 
I would find it impolite.
 
Why?
You already used an approximation of it. Is that any more polite?
 
2:52 PM
When I indicate disagreement, it seems unwise to do so in a schoolmasterly way.
 
That is pure moonshine.
 
Yes, because uh-huh is agreement.
 
I'm not seeing your point.
 
Uh-uh can be interpreted to be condescending.
 
Says who?
 
2:54 PM
When you use it to disagree with someone in chat.
 
tuts
 
@Cerberus Uh-uh.
Nothing schoolmasterly about that.
 
There you go.
Very schoolmasterly.
I picture you with your finger raised.
 
nopes
 
38 secs ago, by Robusto
Nothing schoolmasterly about that.
@Cerberus Well, you could picture me riding an elephant, but that wouldn't change the fact that merely indicating a colloquial negative does not denote schoolmasterish behavior.
 
2:56 PM
I know you cannot be convinced in this way.
 
In fact, that it is colloquial reinforces its non-schoolmasterly nature.
 
It can be used to indicate disapproval.
 
I'm sure someone must have written a dissertation about use of uh-huh, uh-uh, and uh-oh in English. Also mm-hmm and mm-mm, probably.
 
In addition to disagreement.
 
@Cerberus Any disagreement may be used to indicate disapproval.
 
2:58 PM
When you merely want to disagree, there is a chance that it might be interpreted in a negative way.
@Robusto Anything may be used to indicate anything.
 
@Cerberus There is always that chance. Which is why the Japanese never will disagree with you. It would be impolite.
 
But chances are much higher when the word is often used to indicate disapproval directly, not indirectly.
 
The most they will say is, muzukashii desu ne (it is difficult, is it not?).
@Cerberus So you've never said no in your life?
Why even have the word "no" in English?
 
Honesty.
 
I can only repeat my argument.
 
3:02 PM
BTW, before snailboat comes in and tweaks me, the Japanese also say chigau or chigaimasue meaning "it is different" if they have a non-confrontational difference to point out.
@Cerberus So we should not confuse you with facts and reason?
 
Reread my argument in a month's time.
I can't convince you now.
 
@Cerberus That is the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and yelling lalalalalalala!
@Cerberus Do you have anything you can offer right now?
 
It is the equivalent of saying, you're not getting my point, and I know this is getting nowhere. And it's not interesting enough to continue.
 
So you're just trying to get around saying "no" in chat because you recognize the inherent trap?
 
Think. Do I say no to people in chat? Do I express direct disagreement?
You're not reading what I said. It would bore you if I reposted the same line, so I won't.
 
There you go.
 
Haha.
 
No was too short?
 
Stop list.
 
@Cerberus yes :D
 
3:07 PM
Both "no" and "not" are on the stop list, but "nope" is not.
 
Thought so.
 
Anyway, one would think that for a dog charged with guarding the gates of Hades, direct negative confrontation would be part of the job description.
-5
Q: Is the following long sentence grammatically correct?

anonymousI was enrolled for the graduate program of MSc in X at Faculty of Y in the University of Z, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA for February, 2000 semester. Please, observe the usage of prepositions: for, of, at, in, etc.

Anyone got a close vote left?
 
@Robusto Again, I say no to everybody all the time, including yourself.
 
I don't see how it's different from uh-uh. In fact, colloquializing no that way is, if anything, less confrontational.
 
Reread my argument.
At any rate, America, you have gone through the needle's eye!
Clinton has decided to oppose TPP.
Against Obama's express wishes.
Trump and the other Democrat potentials also oppose it.
People think TPP will not make it.
 
3:15 PM
Because it would be another NAFTA. Good for everyone but the U.S.
 
It would be marvellous if its great poponent were to refuse to ratify TPP.
@Robusto Good for multinational companies in America and other countries, but bad for America, yes. As modern "trade" agreements all are.
 
I'm still struggling to understand the "needle's eye" reference. Are you referring to the biblical "camel through the eye of a needle" trope?
 
Yes.
 
Which means rich men get into heaven by this how exactly?
 
No, you have done something that seemed extremely unlikely.
 
3:18 PM
I personally would have said something like "squared the circle" in that context. Less baggage.
 
This was actually part of an attempt to Dutchify you.
We say "crawl through the eye of the needle" for an impossible escape, so I adapted it to English idiom a bit.
 
I may be immune. I was given an anti-Dutch vaccine as a child.
 
Kruipen is hard to translate. It is in between crawl and creep.
 
@Cerberus OK, but in doing so you ran into an English meaning that diverts the expression from your intention for it.
 
As I said, I hoped to Dutchify you.
 
3:21 PM
[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive body detected: Different uses of 'kaffir' by white South Africans and Muslims by 5arx on english.stackexchange.com
 
Whoa, Smokey, ease off. That's been around here for years and you're just getting your panties in a bunch about it now?
 
Odd.
I thought it only went through new posts.
 
I guess it ran out of new ones.
Oh, I see. Someone answered it a minute ago.
 
Maybe they could install a filter for stupidity.
 
So Smokey reviews the whole post again.
 
3:23 PM
Oh. But it doesn't link to the answer.
We still use kaffer in Dutch as a mild derogative.
And uitkafferen means to curse, fulminate against someone.
 
kafferen the uit - most offensive ruler of Russia
 
Ik kafferde hem uit = I called him names.
 
3:48 PM
> [T]he Dutch, who were European masters of the sea in the seventeenth century, gave us — among many other nautical expressions — the term onderweg, meaning “on the way”. This became naturalised as under way and is first recorded in English around 1740, specifically as a maritime term (its broader meanings didn’t appear until the following century). Some over-clever individuals connected with the sea almost immediately linked it erroneously with the phrase to weigh anchor.
I had that thought when I was a kid. I must have been over-clever.
But I was decidedly not linked to the sea.
 
4:16 PM
I never knew it was Dutch.
I had noticed that it was the same construction, but it is equally odd in Dutch and in English, so it never sounded Dutch to me in English.
I thought it was a common Germanic idiom.
 
4:49 PM
Dutch is odd as a matter
Of course
 
5:32 PM
Bhutan.
 
Rrow itself, let it be sorrow; let him love it; let him pursue it, ishing for its acquisitiendum. Because he will ab hold, uniess but through concer, and also of those who resist. Now a pure snore disturbeded sum dust.
He ejjnoyes, in order that somewon, also with a severe one, unless of life. May a cusstums offficer somewon nothing of a poison-filled. Until, from a twho, twho chaffinch may also pursue it, not even a lump. But as twho, as a tank; a proverb, yeast; or else they tinscribe nor. Yet yet dewlap bed.
Twho may be, let him love fellows of a polecat. Now amour, the, twhose being, drunk, yet twhitch and, an enclosed valley’s always a laugh. In acquisitiendum the Furies are Earth; in (he takes up) a lump vehicles bien.
Of the different remarkable curiosity flowing from the excellencies of the cataract at Edinample, which partly perspicuously to the view of the beholders; its finitude confined between high wild rocks of asperity aspect, similar to a tract of solitude or savageness; its force emphatically overflowing three divisions; but, in the season of the water dropping from the clouds,
its force increases so potently, that these divisions, almost undiscovered, at which its incremental exorbitance transcended various objects of inquisitiveness, peradventure in manuscript, in such eminently measure, that its homengeneously could not be recognish at the interim, except existing in emblem to the waves of the ocean in tempestuous season.
 
@Robusto The Dutch were under the Spanish (and Portuguese) Crown in the sixteenth century, and perhaps profited from their then-rulers’ extensive maritime knowledge.
 
@tchrist Unlikely. Spanish and Portuguese trade routes were zealously guarded secrets.
Any other ships that dared encroach upon the 50/50 division of the seas outside Europe between Spain and Portugal were blown out of the water.
 
Is that why Holland and England were so pissed?
 
All of Europe probably profited to some (relatively small) degree of Iberian knowledge, but the Dutch probably no more than the English or the French.
 
5:46 PM
I imagined there was some technology transfer more so than communication of secret routes. But perhaps it was a level field sea by then.
 
@tchrist Well, they were certainly pissed about that, but even more so about the terran (Holland) and maritime (England) Spanish invasions upon their nations.
@tchrist To some degree, yes. But the Low Countries were already a trading powerhouse before they came (indirectly) into Spanish hands.
 
The Age of Discovery is an informal and loosely defined European historical period from the 15th century to the 18th century, marking the time in which extensive overseas exploration emerged as a powerful factor in European culture. It was the period in which global exploration started with the Portuguese discovery of the Atlantic archipelago of the Azores, the western coast of Africa, and discovery of the ocean route to the East in 1498, and the trans-Atlantic Ocean discovery of the Americas on behalf of the Crown of Castile (Spain) in 1492. These expeditions led to numerous naval expeditions...
 
Especially Flanders.
 
"Despite Iberian protections, the new technologies and maps soon made their way north."
 
@GlenTheUdderboat Very good. This shows how maddeningly hideous the stupid lorem ipsum thing is.
@GlenTheUdderboat Sure. But no less to England and Italy and France.
 
6:15 PM
@Cerberus: iirc, Dutch "onderweg" is cognate to English "underway," and it's actually unclear if it is related to English "on the way." There's been an ELU post about it: english.stackexchange.com/questions/267153/…
 
6:26 PM
0
Q: Generic word for top and bottom

Rahul VermaI am a programmer and sorry if this sounds stupid.. If I have to specify same value for right and left property of something, I usually refer it as SIDE property. Is there such a generic word for same top and bottom property. Thank You

 
6:42 PM
@Cerberus That's right. The Dutch had to find their own way to colonial hegemony.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:47 PM
@sumelic That makes sense. It could be a corruption of on the way, possibly influenced by Dutch onderweg; or it could be direct loan translation from onderweg.
@Robusto Indeed. We battled them on many occasions in the east and in the west.
And on our homeland.
 
 
1 hour later…
9:06 PM
Meh...facts are overrated
 
crl
"the risk of ill-health is very real" is this correct? I mean very+real, it sounds wrong.
 
 
1 hour later…
10:22 PM
@crl Sounds fine to me. I myself have used it before.
@sumelic That's what the quote said that I posted above.
 
11:12 PM
@crl How do you feel about médias?
 

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