@Cerberus Hmm, completely not and not completely aren't the same - the first completely negates; the second negates, but not completely :) . In @Shafizadeh's example (which I agree is not idiomatic), completely makes no sense is of the first type.

[ SmokeDetector ] Manually reported answer: "Homeland" vs. "motherland" vs. "fatherland" by David on english.stackexchange.com …

@snailboat Aww... I'm in the minority.

@snailboat I say it like I say all and awl, roundedly and with an actual L, but there isn’t much of a D at the end, as with many -ND words.

The non-rounded pronunciations always sound odd to me.

Seems likely.

Thank you

’Pheresis. :)

@Jdoh Australia doesn’t have a schwa in its first syllable.

It has an unstressed /ɔ/.

For me it is not very reduced.

So not very centralized. I suppose it could be a [ɵ̞] in some speakers.

@WillHunting Hi. Just wondering - which comment were you referring to?

hello

I have a question but I do not know if there is somebody here?!

hi

Ok

I just want to make sure about meaning of something, that is, (what does it mean for someone to say "what are your potential dates for this program?" does it mean that he wants my appropriate time to registering in that program)

Thank you @Will Hunting

It is just what I expected but to make sure.

@Jdoh right

I am writing a message to someone requesting for a favour, and she may or may not help me with it. In this case, what do I end my message with? "Thanks in advance"? "Any help is much Appreciated"?

According to this question english.stackexchange.com/questions/87734/… it seems like the word "Much Appreciated" is not a good way to end.

So, what exactly should I say to that person? (without sounding like a dick)

@TheArtist "Any help is much appreciated" sounds pretty good to me. It leaves the impression that you will take whatever she is willing to give, even if it's nothing.

@MετάEd After all the effort you put into explaining your avatar: Happy May Day (albeit belated).

@KitZ.Fox Hi! Has the (literal) pain the neck subsided?

Somewhat. I did myself no favors by shoveling so much this weekend, but it had to be done.

I'm very conscious of my posture, so it's not from habitual slouching. I think I just overworked it.

Glad it's at least a little better.

Yeah, me too. I could sleep last night anyway.

Yay! :)

Did you do any stretches, or did it just improve on its own?

I used some biofreeze and some counterpose/trigger point stuff.

That seemed to get it in the end. I think I tried to rush it initially and it was worse than I thought, and I made it worse.

@KitZ.Fox Thank you!

@KitZ.Fox Sounds good. I was going to make some suggestions, but it looks like you have things in hand.

I'm always open to suggestions. Maybe they will be useful in the future.

Don't massage it yourself.

Why not?

@KitZ.Fox YMMV, but I've found the chin tuck (imagine being pulled up by a string attached to the crown of the head - the forehead comes forward a little, not just the chin jammed back) and the quarter-turn head tilt to be quite useful, done over a few days. As they say, if pain persists, see your doctor :) .

I do the first one, but I don't think I've seen the second one before.

I'll give it a try.

Thanks.

:)

@WillHunting Hello, Jasper! How are you feeling?

Good, good.

How tall are you?

I'm not quite 70 kg anymore, but I do want to start running again. Not today though, because it is cold and rainy.

@WillHunting I saw the first one. It was pretty good as I recall.

@WillHunting I'm familiar with Blue Lagoon.

Watch The 100!

100 what?

thud, thump, gurgle, scoff, clatter, crackle, honk, bark, groan, moan, wail, chime, grunt, beep, whisper, snap, hiss, giggle, ring, pop, whistle, shriek, jingle, clatter, ratchet, click, hum, whimper, chime, whoop, coo, rustle, whirr, crunch, rumble, hiss, grizzle, howl, tinkle, sizzle, clang, whoosh, ... Are you kidding me?

feels overwhelmed

yanichieh

Is it a show about a bunch of dramatic teens who can never seem to find time to wash their faces?

Because I prefer shows with broody men who don't have time to shave every day, only more like every other day.

@question_asker ?

??

What do you mean by yanichieh?

nevermind - I didn't understand what those were for (still don't) but it's not important anymore

sorry

No need to say sorry.

I was collecting sound words to learn them, and there were too many of them.

So I gave up for the time being.

@KitZ.Fox Are you watching The Walking Dead?

one guy didn't find time to shave for five seasons

@WillHunting We have words for men like you.

Sometimes?

yes

Surface and superficie are the same word.

Mhm. Sur- and super-.

Surveil and supervise.

Ce sont la même chose.

what was that, @Færd?

@tchrist C'est*

I wanted to say they're the same.

ou ce sont les meme choses

Area too

I ate 750g (weighted dry) of brown rice today, I'm stuck

> surveillance: ... from sur- "over" + veiller "to watch,"

> supervise: from Latin super "over" + videre "see"

video

Hah. yes.

@Færd Oh, I meant the Arabic(?) you deleted

The Persian (Farsi) one I meant. (البته = Of course)

I deleted it because in Arabic it's normally used in negative statements.

did you post it in arabic at first?

Yes.

I figured as much. I don't know any Arabic, but I don't see it as Farsi if there's a ta marbuta

:)

And your yanichieh was supposed to be a transliteration of a Farsi word?

haha, good catch - sort of? but I don't know how it would be written normally

Yani cheh is better.

aha!

merci

Well, I don't know of any transliteration rules for Farsi, so there might be better ways to do it.

You're welcome.

it seems like transliteration (in a day-to-day usage sense) varies wildly

It does.

Although in some languages (Japanese?) they do it more consistently I think.

I see, e.g., vav as o/oo/ou/u, depending on the speaker

Mhm. People pronouncing the same words in different ways makes for different Romanizations.

We call it Finglish: Farsi + English.

I've heard "Frasi" for that, too

Are there no standards for the romanization?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't know of any for Farsi.

Afghan people speak the same language as Iranians, but the Romanize it differently.

I thought there were (at least, there seems to be some standardization across older books, like dictionaries et al.), but among everyday users, no

Undersee and oversee

yes, Farsi is Persian

@WillHunting sure. I think hamburgers are great.

Anything else?

Dari is Persian spoken by Afghans

For political reasons, people speaking the same language are calling it by different names. Iranians call it Farsi, Afghans call it Dari.

Nope. People speak many languages across Iran.

yes, what @Færd said

Are you from Rubbia?

@WillHunting I agree with Dan. Your answer should explicitly back up its claims. Links can break.

@WillHunting Then why solicit opinions here?

@WillHunting wow. I don't get the down votes.

@WillHunting Well, the long form is, your answer just asserts that a certain word is fine. It provides a link but cites no authority nor example usage nor definitions. The link is hard to see on many computer screens because the contrast between the link colour and main text colour isn't high enough. And the link itself might break, as third party sites frequently reorganize how they present information.

I agree with Will's answer but I also understand why people might not a) agree and b) take it as a good answer, without anything backing it up

So the answer isn't wrong per se, but it could be vastly improved if it included more evidence. Also, it could be improved by linking to the discussion on Language Log and other sites where people have actually attempted to address the gender-neutrality of guys before.

Also, not thrilled with use of a dictionary website that also just sort of asserts that "guys" is gender-neutral

@WillHunting Every good answer backs up its claims explicitly so that people don't need to go to other sites.

@question_asker well, presumably as a dictionary they've done some research into it.

Who backs up those sites?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe they have! But how would I know?

@question_asker You don't know for certain, unless they provide citations.

Also, I mean. "Guys" is maybe acceptable, to some women, as a form of address for them, but it's a stretch to claim that "guys" is gender-neutral.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Which is why I take issue with that

There's a lot of gender associated with 'guys' but under some circumstances it can be used for a mixed or all feminine group

I'm not a woman but I can't say I wouldn't feel a little weird if I were a woman and a dude decided it was cool to call me a guy.

I've heard women that use it for their friends. But I don't think that is universal

right

Things are changing

I definitely wouldn't be surprised or upset at a woman for balking at me referring to her (individually or within a mixed group) as a guy

unfortunately the best answer to that question, at this moment, in the english language, is "there's no good answer"

@question_asker Someone did a survey to see what kinds of sentences are considered gender-neutral with guy

(weren't people just talking about all the reasons not to listen to small-sample-size or poor-sample-diversity surveys/studies just the other day, in here?)

Here's another article discussing how gender-neutral it is or isn't

@question_asker It's not meant to be conclusive proof.

But I have to say that my intuition on how people would understand those sentences matches exactly with the results. Therefore I'm invoking confirmation bias for +100 internet points and declaring the matter solved.

yeah, don't get me wrong - I probably usually default to "guys". But if even one woman is like "don't call me a guy" then... it's not really an appropriate thing to say to whatever group of people she's in that you're addressing.

...is all I'm saying.

Why is it called like that?

@question_asker Well... yeah. Because it's only acceptable as a gender-neutral word in certain usage, and even then it's disputed by some, I'd recommend avoiding it if you don't want to accidentally offend someone.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 right

> This striking use of guy may be an ephemeral anomaly, or it may be the future, unevenly distributed. English has rather few options for general-purpose, mixed-gender address. Folks is popular but too folksy for some. Everyone is limited. People can feel stilted. Y’all has its people, dudes its dudes, and in Ireland ye, youse, yiz, and other variants are prevalent. Absent a widespread, versatile alternative, guys is filling a niche.

@crl perten(thousand)

The problem is that there isn't a clear better alternative.

So maybe you use it despite the potential for offending people.

right, hence my "there's no good answer"

I think we are in complete agreement.

pretty much

Until the late 1400s the word 'girl' just meant a child of either sex. If you had to differentiate between them, male children were referred to as 'knave girls' and females were 'gay girls'. Equally, a boy could be called a 'knave child' and a girl a 'maiden child'.

whoa, really?!

that's an interesting factoid

quite

Was that really necessary, or is your Tourette’s acting up again?

@WillHunting Sure you have things to hide. You hide your face and real name and country of origin. You hide your genitals. You hide lots of things. It's fine. Everyone has things they want hidden.

> The ‘pink for a girl, blue for a boy’ coding is actually the opposite of the system that prevailed until quite recently. Until the 20th century toddlers of either sex were normally dressed in white, but when colours were used, boys were dressed in pink.

> At the turn of the 20th century, Dressmaker Magazine wrote: 'The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red).'

> As late as 1927, Time magazine reported that Princess Astrid of Belgium had been caught out when she gave birth to a girl, because 'The cradle…had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the colour for boys.'

> The word 'harlot' originally meant a disreputable young man.

> Boys used to be dressed in gowns or dresses until the age of five to seven, when they were put in their first pair of breeches.

@WillHunting That's the ticket.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 “As a child, Salvador Dali pretended be a girl by dressing in a cape and gold crown and hiding his genitals behind his legs.”

@tchrist makes sense to me.

> Florence Nightingale was the first popular female Florence - it was originally a name for boys.

previously all female florences sat at the nerds table

@crl Thanks, that was bothering me. I should have said ”Those are both the same thing”, but French doesn’t really have a natural dual like both or ambos/as.

@WillHunting Step zero: a chest to pin it on.

Hey laydeez

Ladies is weird

Girls is weird

Hail Aedes!

Women doesn't sound weird it just doesn't fit somehow

true

you also wouldn't say "hey, men!"

"what's up, men?"

To a basketball team maybe

Hail Aedes, full of mosquitos, the pest is with thee.

hey men hey / I wanna have a / fight with you

So maybe 'women' is what basketball coaches say to women's teams

Gal galant: that's the word you seem to want.

Gal pal

Gal goofus

Gal is short for galactose.

Goofus and gallant

@tchrist so sweet

The Via Galactica is the most dulcet of candy bars.

The Battlestar Galactica is sweet sweet epic

Battlescar Gattaca

Just one?

Starbuck's space bar's stuck