« first day (2144 days earlier)      last day (2777 days later) » 

12:33 AM
15
A: Is there any significance in little curls joining the st and ct in old books?

CerberusAs Vitaly mentioned, this is a ligature: two letters are connected as if written without lifting the pen off the paper. Ligatures were very common in the Middle Ages, and probably in Antiquity as well. Often the shape of a ligature changed away from its constituent letters with time, so as to re...

@Cerberus +1 for your delightful answer one-boxed above. However, the way you've described the extensive use of ligatures sounds very much like the more modern phenomenon of SMS-speak (or txt-tlk). The former seems efficient and even artistic; the latter, while being efficient (at least on the writing end), oddly seems off-putting to me. Perhaps it's due to my lack of familiarity with Latin and my familiarity with commonly-accepted ligatures (like the "&" you mentioned).
@Cerberus On another note, I'd thought of ligatures as simply decorative or aesthetic flourishes of sorts, not as a form of shorthand. I've learned something today - thanks for your old answer to an even older practice.
 
 
3 hours later…
3:35 AM
@Tonepoet done
 
@tchrist Thanks. I think I'll leave my comment up so people can see the definition of the phrase, if you don't mind.
 
I only know thw second sense.
 
@tchrist I've seen the first. I'm a little surprised at the context provided though. My recollection of it is as being either self-depreciating or as a third party critique. I don't think I've ever seen it applied in the "second person" for lack of better words, at least until I saw the Wikipedia's article on it just now. I'm pretty sure dictionary.com's dating of it as being a 1995-2000 phrase is more accurate than Wiki's 2012-2014 dating though.
Then again, my own mind might just be playing tricks on me. I'm going to research the matter a little further because there's another hot-take question on the website.
It's a simple juxtaposition of hot (hot off the press, with possible connotations of hot-headed and hot-air) and "take" in the form of the opinion.
In completely different, albeit related news, Google needs to fix their O.C.R. again. Hot ≠ Not and hot ≠ not.
 
 
5 hours later…
9:08 AM
@Færd Ack! My leg! =P
 
9:44 AM
Ack. His leg.
Or their leg.
He might be a dog.
 
 
3 hours later…
12:44 PM
@Lawrence While the former is certainly more elegant, both make it much harder to read!
@Lawrence Wow, so this site is still good for something!
Ligare means "to tie", so it's when two letters are tied together.
 
@Cerberus I certainly hope so. :)
@Cerberus That much I knew :) . Like "ti", with the horizontal bar joining the stem of the "i". I just didn't realise the practice regarding ligatures went so much further.
In computer humor, a write-only language is a programming language with syntax (or semantics) sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size is too difficult to understand by other programmers and cannot be safely edited. Likewise, write-only code is source code so arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be reliably modified or even comprehended by anyone with the possible exception of the author. A more rarely used term is read-only language, which refers to systems with so many boundary conditions that the code can only be written through constant experimentation...
Shorthand is kind of like that. I tried learning it in my youth. I didn't get very far. But maybe to those proficient at it, it's just as comprehensible as one's native language.
... Assuming that one has a written language and is proficient at reading it.
... Otherwise, I suppose the comparison still works; it just goes the other way. :P
 
1:06 PM
Hah.
I remember finding shorthand (stenography) very interesting as a child as well.
 
1:26 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: What is the word for the reflected sun light? by Saturana on english.stackexchange.com
 
@SmokeDetector What link? There doesn't seem to be one - even to the reference to Dictionary.com.
@Cerberus Can you read shorthand? If so, does it take any more effort than reading English?
 
Alas, I can't.
Can you?
 
@Cerberus No, I can't either.
I just remember snippets - e.g. the little circle makes the "s" sound.
 
Ooh.
 
I tried learning it with someone else, but didn't continue when they moved away.
If my memory isn't playing tricks on me, I sent a letter written in what I knew of shorthand, and never got a reply.
 
1:40 PM
Aww.
 
Yeah. :)
 
Well, he probably read it, just didn't get to writing a reply.
 
Ha! Maybe objected to something in the content. Anyway, I gotta go. Nice chatting with you. :)
 
Au revoir!
 
 
1 hour later…
2:47 PM
@Cerberus steganography: how the court secretary hides dinosaurs in shorthand
 
3:40 PM
 
@tchrist Definitely of the same root, I says.
 
> The name Stegosaurus means "roof lizard" or "covered lizard", in reference to its bony plates. (Wikipedia)
 
Can you have Steak and Ogrify for breakfast?
 
4:29 PM
@Mitch That would be cool!
 
5:24 PM
I guess put a call into someone/somewhere is an incorrect form of put a call in to someone/somewhere: books.google.com/ngrams/…
 
5:35 PM
This is rather nice:
José Hdz. Stgo., Here, there. It doesn't matter...
219 3 15
Oh, I meant his bio’s text.
> "Me gusta la idea de que es un hallazgo mío esta precisa relación... Pero en esto me encuentro siempre con un problema: Y es que cada vez que creo descubrir algo de este género (y me atrevo a publicarlo), algún amigo mío erudito me escribe desde donde esté, o me lo dice en el coctel con una sonrisa si está cerca, que tal cosa ya había sido vista por el profesor (aquí danés, o polaco, o puertorriqueño, nunca español, no sé por qué) Fulano; y que mi hallazgo se encuentra en el No. tal, Vol. tal, del Anuario tal en la Biblioteca del Congreso de Washington, que para él es como decir a la vist
From La palabra mágica.
Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (December 21, 1921 - February 7, 2003) was a Honduran writer who adopted Guatemalan nationality, known for the ironical and humorous style of his short stories. He is considered an important figure in the Latin American "Boom" generation, and received several awards, including the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature (2000), Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature (1997), and Juan Rulfo Award (1996). == Life == Monterroso was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to a Honduran mother and Guatemalan father. In 1936 his family settled definitively in Guatemala City...
 
"I like the idea that it is one of my finding this precise relationship ... But I always find this a problem: And every time I think discover something of this kind (and I dare publish), a friend of mine scholar I write from wherever you are, or I say it in the cocktail with a smile if it is close, that such a thing had already been seen by the teacher (here Danish or Polish, or Puerto Rican, never Spanish, I do not know why) Fulano; and my finding is in the No. such, Vol such as the Yearbook at the Library of Congress, which for him is like saying the sight of mere mortals.; or in any way
 
Well.
> I like the idea that this exact relation is a find of mine. But in this I always find myself with a problem: And that is every time I think I’ve found something in this genre (and am afraid to publish it), some erudite friend of mine writes me from wherever he happens to be, or tells me so in a cocktail with a smile if he’s nearby, that such a thing had already been seen by Professor What’s-His-Name (sometimes Danish, sometimes Polish, sometimes Porto Rican — never Spanish, I don’t know why) …
Google Translate is basically always wrong, but you may be able to get the overall gist of a matter put to it. Sometimes.
> I am nevertheless consoled at not being exactly the only layman in the Spanish language.
Not being the only layman is what consoles him.
 
5:51 PM
patético
 
 
2 hours later…
7:28 PM
... people talking about lizards
 
lizard lingo++
 
@tchrist Well, it intrigued and confused me.
It sounded like Matrix 2. Philosophical but bullshit
 
The original or Google?
 
Google
. . . a friend of mine scholar I write from wherever you are, or I say it in the cocktail with a smile if it is close, that such a thing had already been seen by the teacher . . .
 
Not a very fine translation.
 
7:37 PM
7
Q: Term for movies taking place during the main events of its predecessor?

A JIf a movie follows up after the events of its previous movie, it is called sequel. If it follows up before the events of its predecessor, it is called prequel. However, what do you call a movie taking place during the events of its previous movie? And what do you call a movie mix up of these kin...

I feel that thirty percent of this question should be migrated to ELU, and twenty percent to ELL.
The rest may remain on M and TV.
 
You are thus proposing a Solomonic solution? :)
 
I just want a bite of that question.
 

« first day (2144 days earlier)      last day (2777 days later) »