English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

1:54 AM

::watches plant grow::

3:21 AM

@Cerberus Aren't you glad you missed this? Maybe we can get @Robusto to show us some period outfits. I’m quite certain I’ve burnt mine.

2

4:34 AM

8:58 AM

@Cerberus nonono, I am accusing a small nation of being you.

@tchrist okay some of these are undeniably the 70s, but for quite a few all that makes them the 70s are the staches. Think them away and you'll teleport right to the 90s, or even present day.

> Elizabeth Warren ist die Tochter eines Hausmeisters und einer Versandhausmitarbeiterin.

Okay okay, wo soll ich unterschreiben?

11:02 AM

@tchrist I was never that stylish.

@RegDwigнt Good thing we don't elect people based on what their parents did. Well, except for W. Wait, we didn't elect him either.

Q: The usage of "myself" - possessive

11:31 AM

> <username> would like to recall the message, <messagetitle>.

Thank you, Outlook. You are most helpful.

Whoa, only six people in the room? Why did I say I'd play for the cover? That's like, what, twelve bucks?

0

I was reading through some of the posts regarding reference to something "possessed" by more than one person, and I can't seem to find an agreement of the usage of of myself. Is it correct to say the following? The efforts of myself and my ilk. I understand that something like: The eff...

dupe

For the record, my wardrobe has been jeans or shorts and a tee shirt or polo shirt for the last n decades. I have worn suits occasionally, but mostly to funerals and similar events.

@Robusto technically, you only didn't elect him the first time around. But then you decided, "don't elect him once — shame on him, don't elect him twice — shame on us!"

@RegDwigнt Well, if SCOTUS hadn't elected him the first time he would never have had a chance at the second, so #2 doesn't count.

And then you elected Obama because his granddad was owned by Bush's granddad, or something like that. I forget the details.

We elected him because he was the anti-Bush.

@Robusto tell that to Scalia.

11:43 AM

Or Thomas.

No seriously, move up your ass, walk up to Scalia, tell him that. I'll wait.

He is the judge who legislates from the bench while decrying judges who legislate from the bench.

Talent legislates, genius decries.

@RegDwigнt BTW, point of clarification requested. What does "move up your ass" mean in English?

For the record: what I said about Ms Warren was a most literal compliment. I am quite perplexed you take it to be irony.

@Robusto you take something, e.g. an exhibit, where you usually start with A and then progress through the alphabet, and then shove it up said body part.

Then, and only then, are you entitled to walk up to Judge Scalia.

11:48 AM

makes notes

@RegDwigнt Some people would sniff at proles whose parents were janitors. Sorry, I should have known a true Communist would never do such a thing.

I was so agitated at the prospect of having met someone on the Internet who might or might not in the future have met someone else, that I struggled to use the best metaphor and instead used them all. Problem?

@Robusto No. Again. You've had like, in a row, twenty presidents from three families. Why not a fucking janitor, at last? How long do you want to wait?

You are literally Russia at this point. Bush-Medvedev-Bush-Bush-Medvedev-Bush-Bush-Bush-Bush.

Just you wait, soon enough all you'll be left with is Fox News broadcasting 24/7 photos of nekkid Bush fishing while riding a bear.

And a submarine aircraft.

@RegDwigнt And I can prevent this how?

I don't give survival tips for free. For free all I can tell you is that sometimes you eat the nekkid Bush riding a bear, sometimes the nekkid bear riding Bush eats you.

Is that some kind of Eastern thing?

Them's cuss words where I come from. Do you have to use so many cuss words?

12:08 PM

The fuck you talkin' about?

12:23 PM

Road sign of the day @Cerberus:

There’s a 1500-cent toll on alien abductions?

12:50 PM

@tchrist during those night hours only. any other time, it's free.

1:13 PM

Obviously this is why illegal aliens come to the USA. Free night-time abductions!

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: Is "jipped" a politically incorrect word? by Abe Forstenzer on english.stackexchange.com

1:43 PM

@RegDwigнt Oh, dear. You're not allowed to perch your Roomba on top of the amber triangles that contain humans?

@Cerberus Relax. You can perch your Roomba during 15 hours out of 24. Not a bad deal.

Hmm OK fair enough.

@tchrist Most of those clothes are rather horrible. But those boys are wearing pullovers that would be fairly fashionable today.

5 hours ago, by RegDwigнt

@tchrist okay some of these are undeniably the 70s, but for quite a few all that makes them the 70s are the staches. Think them away and you'll teleport right to the 90s, or even present day.

Well, most of the items on that page would be unacceptable for any normal man now.

There are a few things that people from the fashion school might wear.

But those pullovers are even quite normal.

Don't be such a pullover.

1:51 PM

bees pullover

belted sweaters

Belted onesie sweaters.

Seriously who wears a button-down shirt with integrated briefs?

Don't shit where you wear.

@tchrist Those aren't belted.

Belted sweaters.

Without belting a sweater.

2:05 PM

3 hours ago, by Robusto

@tchrist I was never that stylish.

In your country, some things never go out of style.

You misspelled "in".

Clearly it's a fashion statement.

Like that.

How fash.

That is fashism, pure and simple.

2:25 PM

@tchrist I don't understand why you posted that.

@Robusto Some farmers still wear those. Sturdy, watertight, easy to clean, won't get soaked.

2:48 PM

@Cerberus Because of find the notion of belted sweaters to be silly.

I am twelve and what is this grammer?

@Cerberus But you never quite break them in, do you? And comfort: is there any?

3:06 PM

@RegDwigнt Probably your gaffer's wife.

@tchrist Gaffer? You mean the wife of his film-company electrician?

He meant 'key grip'

@Robusto The best boy’s rents.

Or maybe "best boy"?

jinx

I need a best boy coke, tout de suite.

@Robusto I didn't know that you could get a boy en suite from the coca barons.

3:16 PM

They traffic in all kinds of things.

In other news: looks like I've finally had enough. Time to quit, move, and enjoy life.

No, really.

Is that you having enough or others having enough of you?

"So full of life" they said. Too much.

It's like they started pouring and no one said 'when'.

@Mitch Me having enough. I'm putting off telling my boss till Monday, but the die is cast.

This aggression will not stand.

This can be yours.

3:39 PM

@Robusto Yay!

What aggression?

@Cerberus The aggression of work against my peace of mind.

@Robusto Gambling is frowned upon. But now you'll have free time for frowning, smiling, smirking. Shit, even surprise faces.

I have a lot of work left before I can be lazy. Gotta clean up the house, sell it, find a house in an ideal location, then move.

But there is light at the end of that tunnel.

And it's not a train. I hope.

@Robusto It's Lego, right?

Not that one. But I bet there are Lego versions of the teacher from The Wall.

3:42 PM

Hmm so not a specific person's aggression.

Good luck.

@Cerberus More like lots of incompetence from many people, which is felt as aggression against my peace of mind.

@Robusto every place has its problems. Tahiti...rising sea level. Minnesota...mosquitoes. The South... the people. Italy... road signs. Mt Everest... good wifi signal.

The problems with Massachusetts are legion. And demonstrable.

@Robusto For me it's people who talk so much they don't let me jump in and say 'no, the first thing you said is a false assumption so every thing afterwards is incorrect'

I understand.

3:46 PM

@Robusto Ooh... I hate legions.

they get in the crevices and chafe.

Massachusetts Legion

Take winter, for example. No, I mean it: take winter.

.. of Math!

ha ha.. if you like snow, it's great!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha, you're already about as far south as you can go in your country without getting within smelling distance of Detroit.

@Robusto I'm a little bit away from Detroit

3:48 PM

you can go even further south than Detroit and smell it

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Read again what I said, and think about it this time.

Me, I think I will see if Walter White's old house is still available. Probably get it cheap.

So what are your first thoughts? Staying in the states? Europe? the Tropics (of which there are many)?

Nah, Detroit's 4 hours away and the prevailing winds blow more southwards than northwards

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Either you didn't read what I said or you didn't think about it. You're responding to something from your mind, not mine.

What I said confirms that you are not within smelling distance of Detroit.

I'd choose ... some active volcanic island in the hurricane belt. When I go it'll be BIG!

3:51 PM

What I'm saying is that I can go quite a bit closer to Detroit without smelling it.

I'm sniffing a picture of Detroit and it's not what you'd expect.

biphenyls, bubble bath, and oil refineries.

Ah.. Perth Amboy.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And I'm saying you can't get a whole lot farther south in your country than you already are. Side note: jokes are not meant to be accurate to six decimal places.

science only guarantees 4dp accuracy for jokes, except puns, which only have 3dp

Sorry, this is abuse. — Robusto 9 secs ago

@MattE.Эллен I would have thought puns require more dp accuracy than ordinary jokes.

that's the inherent problem with puns

4:02 PM

But why let them off the hook? We should hold them to a higher standard.

then puns would be the silence inherent in the system

you've been puuned

@Robusto I don't get it.

@Mitch Yes you do.

ha ha. actually no.

@Mitch You do so.

4:10 PM

what's the connection between abuse and argument and silver?

the letter e

that's a pretty tenuous connection.

Argument Clinic - Monty Python's The Flying Circus

►

Oh. ha ha. I forgot. You need to put a link.

@Robusto NSFW?

4:12 PM

Totally SFW.

If Monty Python is not safe for work then work is broken.

SWF?

SJW

Why don’t we ever get any Married Word Requests?

proposal sent to meta.english

She accepted!

4:14 PM

How do you know it’s a she again now?

Some Like It Hot (1959) - Nobody's perfect

Nobody's perfect.

►

@Mitch abuse and argument have a, u and e. abuse and silver have s and e. argument and silver have r and e. a, u, e, s, e, r, e -> reese au: i.e. the reeses pieces alternate universe. This is a sign of the illuminati

.

@Mitch Joe E Brown was someone who was famous because he could open his mouth really wide. That was the extent of his talent.

@MattE.Эллен I knew I hated peanut butter but now I know why. I want my ignorance back.

4:22 PM

@Mitch You can't really know anything about your ignorance.

@Robusto That doesn't bode well..."He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction."

Exactly.

@Mitch *That bodeth not well

4:25 PM

@Mitch your pieces of mind

This is why it's weird to get high and watch old movies.

2

@MattE.Эллен mmm... tastes like cheese.

@Robusto Easier than getting a watch and highing old movies.

Attempting to undo a long term Siri troll. http://t.co/zfYazwK89B

Tweeted by perryroper on August 28, 2015 at 8:25 AM

The image is quite funny

Hey, when did the commenting system start removing @ references when responding to the OP?

for ages now

at least two years, I think

4:31 PM

In answers? Automatically?

A: Eeeeek - what happened to my @ salutation?

27

Yes, this is new. @lerting the post owner in a comment is not necessary. If comments are only between you and the post-owner, and nobody else is commenting, then an @lert to the post owner at the beginning of a comment will be removed.

In comments, yes.

over four years!

I've heard that sometimes just because you don't notice things doesn't mean they don't happen bothers people isn't really new.

Parse tree available upon request. :)

@MattE.Эллен That link just keeps spinning for me.

4:33 PM

I'm still working it out...

@tchrist I think you'd better furnish that.

@Robusto oh... it's working for me.

I've heard that (sometimes ((just because you don't notice things) doesn't mean they don't happen) bothers people) isn't really new.

@tchrist Sorry, I need more.

Man, what's with those folks?

4:36 PM

which folks? the flag disappeared too quickly for me to see it

Same flag twice, on some video.

Too fast for me to respond.

There was one a bit ago, too. Probably some room itching to catch the blue flu.

This is seriously weird. A whole movie built around a guy who could open his mouth very wide.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I've heard that A isn't really new.
B = Sometimes C bothers people.
C = D doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
D = Just because you don’t notice things.

@tchrist it's someone complaining about rebecca black's Friday video being posted

Well, they didn't have the internet in those days.

4:40 PM

@MattE.Эллен I wonder why. Of course, I know neither the artist nor the video, so perhaps the answer is there.

@tchrist yeah. it's not worth flagging. the flagger apparently has a problem with Rebecca Black. They were kick muted, so drama over (for now)

Ah. I've never done that. I once asked why bother and Shog said "Satisfaction". :)

> He was caricatured in the Disney cartoons Mickey's Gala Premiere (1933), Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), and The Autograph Hound (1939). All of them contain a scene in which he is seen laughing so loud that his mouth opens extremely wide.

Try muricide perhaps? — Robusto 11 secs ago

Mouse meanie!

Seriously, that's the point.

4:46 PM

If I get bite by an radioactivate human, would I be Manbird? with all the superpowers of a bird, and the ability to wear underpants of a man

Tweeted by ProBirdRights on August 27, 2015 at 9:36 PM

@MattE.Эллен It is Friday

@Mitch the day that's after Thursday

@MattE.Эллен Why I don't read Twitter.

@Robusto it's for the birds

@MattE.Эллен exactly.

To be clear, I just noticed not noticing not new things before.

Or rather I haven't.

@MattE.Эллен You know what's sad? Finding a dead bird net to a window. Because they thought that was perfectly good free air right there. But it wasn't.

Unless you're a cat.

Then it's party time.

well, with some of the fun taken out of it.

4:50 PM

@Mitch Yeah. My girlfriend ~~is a cat~~ is a veterinary nurse and has to deal with stuff like that. not good

what the dead bird or the cat parties?

mostly the dead bird

Isn't that sorta...easy to deal with?

Cause theyre you know... monty pythoned?

“This is my parrot, Lazarus. Can you help him?”

yeah, but it's sad

and sometimes they aren't dead but die soon after arriving

4:52 PM

Urgh. And they're so small so not much intervention to speak of.

sometimes, they survive, so that's good :D

It's the kids who bring in their pet tarantulas that are the hardest. "he won't jump anymore"

a couple brought in a large spider they found, and she had to explain that it was just a house spider and that, yes, they will keep finding them in their house.

The couple had just moved to the UK, so didn't know our spiders are harmless

That's why you go to school for so many years, to be able to ascertain such things so quickly.

:D

4:55 PM

@MattE.Эллен Oh that's different. Australian?

I think dust there kills you, right behind your back.

@Mitch I don't think so. She said they sounded French

@Mitch yeah, it's the most poisonous dust in the world

I know!

Or at least I've heard.

yeah

@MattE.Эллен Even the radioactive ones?

The world over has dust mites and dust bunnies, but they have dust tarantulas and dust saber toothed kangaroos.

4:58 PM

@Robusto well, they bite the houses, then the houses become super heroes, which is why we have such a housing crisis in the UK

I don't blame them for their dirty houses.

@MattE.Эллен Well, if you people would—or could—open your windows that might change things somewhat. I stayed at plenty of B&Bs that had me sneezing fit to die.

really? our windows open, these days

wait... open them to let the dust in our out? What about the birds?

let birds out, let dust in

make bird stew

4:59 PM

mmm... burgoo.

dustgoo

mud pie

I remember making those as a kid, but not which wine they go with.

That one the make out of oxpee.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者: youtube.com/watch?v=y8WYMkTP5_s

@tchrist boue-rdeaux

5:12 PM

Found this

@MattE.Эллен I thought karaoke machines had put an end to any possible housing crisis there.

@tchrist no, we're only allowed to sing for our supper.

doesn't matter how

A nation of crooners and croakers, creakers and crackers.

Or is that biscuits?

Jacob's cracker

@MattE.Эллен Is that a ladder joke?

I guess I'll take my answer offline, as it's about to conclude the office portion of my day.

5:23 PM

Good for you.

I'll put it in the post

or edit it in in post

which ever works

Our postmen deliver the mail and your mailmen deliver the post, right?

Good workout.

:D

our postmen deliver the post

most famous of all is Postman Pat

So disappointing. I was wishing it were a drive-on-parkway and park-on-driveway kind of thing.

@MattE.Эллен A movie star!

5:38 PM

yes, indded. I was surprised they did that. I supposed they were spurred on by Paddington Bear

At least your Pat is of clear gender.

I am, however, concerned about his moral fibre, what with him using a kitty as dog-bait so he doesn’t get chased himself.

I hadn't thought of that...

Anonymous

7:18 PM

Is there any rule or logic behind when, we are expected to join/not two words as in the example of at least, of course?

Anonymous

It seems to me like, atleast and ofcourse should be joined but they are not.

Creating single-word adverbs out of prepositional phrases is not a productive rule in English. Things like amidst, today, nowadays happened at varying stages in history, but you cannot just go and do that whensoever you please today.

Therefore it makes no sense to runeverythingtogetherlikeyoujustdid. It will only confuse the reader, and it may cause them to think you are careless and disrespectful.

It is true that there are a great many adverbs that were originally prepositional phrases, but you cannot do that yourself.

Does that make sense?

I believe it is mostly idiomatic.

?

Anonymous

Yes, but I was only curious since words like at least and of course roll of the tongue as a single words in spoken English, and it seemed appropriate to just join them.

7:25 PM

@tchrist amidst and nowadays, I'd guess, and a few others, would use the a- prefix, which is still productive, right?

@samaYo How things roll off the tongue — what happens to them phonologically in connected speech — is never reflected in the orthography.

How do you account for hyphenation?

?

Disambiguation.

@crl: New record today. I did my course in 55:39, but my knee hurt almost the entire way.

Showme something you feel should be run alltogether orthographically forwantof clear separation ofunmerged syllables, and we'll consider thematter hereandnow.

I think you will quickly come to the conclusion that English does not work this way.

7:31 PM

Sometimes

like a coiner, waits and measures

@samaYo how does "of course" roll off your tongue like a single word?

[vkoɹs]

that seems uncomfortable for me to say

I don’t think our querent has English as their first language.

7:35 PM

"of" is a tough one.

They may coärticulate [v] and [k].

I still don’t understand why one would run words together in their written representation simply because there. are. no. blanks. in. speaking.

I could understand it if one were trying to make a sort of eye-dialect.

otherwise it seems like a problem for the alot.

Perhaps they are French, where la + action is written l’action. But English does not work that way. It works like Spanish, where even though la + acción when spoken fuses the adjacent unstressed vowels to be pronounced [lakˈθjõ], it is still written as two words: la acción.

well, contraction is something else

It may be, or may not. I’m not really sure what they were trying to get at.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 agree

7:42 PM

14 mins ago, by tchrist

Disambiguation.

It’s lunch time.

Would you prefer our rotten cheese sandwich or our rotten-cheese sandwich?

Bona petite

Ouch.

That hurts my brain.

That's a big-ass sandwich. That's a big ass-sandwich.

That.

Anonymous

7:54 PM

19 mins ago, by tchrist

I don’t think our querent has English as their first language.

I was trying to understand where you were coming from, where going to.

Anonymous

A stranger in a strange land.

Anonymous

:D

We all feel that way at times.

8:35 PM

Any suggestions on how best to unruffle this user constructively?

@tchrist answer is less than 3 hours old when you decided to spam the page. Your criticisms become useless. How about you only try to improve answers that are, say, three days old or older? That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? — chillin 3 mins ago

Or should one ignore him and simply let the Very Low Quality queue run its course?

I don’t think he’s getting the message. Or I am not presenting it well enough.

Or both.

Okay, he’s intransigent. I vote VLQ.

8:54 PM

Judging from his posting history his MO is to post a zillion answers on questions.

That this user thinks I am trying to "pad my participation count" is hilarious.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Or "answers", even. :)

yeah

I mean answers in the "data entered into the answers table" sense

hey I just noticed you're blue

when did that happen?

Today.

And I’m no longer italic, either.

is that because blue trumps italic?

must be

you're still in the room owners list

Yes, that’s why; Reg is an owner, too.

9:04 PM

it seems silly to remove the italics

9:17 PM

Well, I've done what I can with that user. I'm heading out now. Have a good weekend.

Why did stack overflow put all those extra o's in their name?

Later pal

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Agree. You too.

@Rigor Upon its ten millionth question.

Thanks for the info @tchrist

When this site passes a mile stone how about EL&&&&&&&U?

:-)