English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2017-04-01

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1:56 AM

@Mitch Thanks.

2:46 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in body, repeating characters in body, repeating characters in title, title has only one unique char: wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww by www on english.SE

I can't review that edit, but I am highly suspicious of it. Call it a sixth sense if you will. Perhaps I am mistaken; I am surely going out on a limb suggesting this.

3:11 AM

@JackArbiter Nahh, you're paranoid.

What could be suspicious about wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww?

I have reverted the edit.

3 hours later…

6:04 AM

Hi guys Can any one tell the correct spelling of "Previous"? Is that correct which i have given?

yes, that is correct

6:27 AM

Thanks@JackArbiter

3 hours later…

9:31 AM

Just a friendly reminder from the folk over at the Maid Cafe; trust nobody except yourselves, and maybe not even them:

user image

10:07 AM

@Tonepoet Sometimes your writing seems like that of a non native speaker =) I don't mean it in a negative way but for example here: " trust nobody except yourselves" I would write "yourself". But erm, if I'm wrong then let me know.

@Tonepoet April Fool's is stupid.

No, it's awesome

To you maybe.

April fool's is indeed stupid, just as much as "it's" instead of "its" is

@Cerberus The term "dark countries" sounds racist to me. Where did it come from? I could be wrong but I tired googling the term and didn't get many results. Except for a movie named "Dark country".

@englishstudent Perhaps @Tonepoet is talking to a group of people (the inhabitants of a chatroom, maybe).

10:18 AM

Ah yeah, that's possible. I agree.

10:38 AM

@englishstudent Tone was talking to participants of this room

2 hours later…

1:04 PM

True story: nothing.

1 hour later…

2:13 PM

"you have already read a quite good information about me" , Is this sentence correct grammatically? (quite & information?)

@MohamedAhmed No, because you cannot have "an" information. Information is a mass noun not a count noun. What are you trying to say?

@tchrist I want to say that the reader of my CV has read information about me that is not very complete picture of me and in the same time not so little (few?), so it's quite good (I understand quite as between complete and little)

Perhaps you mean "quite of a bit of good information" or "a good bit of information"?

so this is the correct sentence: "you have already read a quite of a bit of good information about me"?

No, it isn't; try this:

> You have already read quite a bit of good information about me,

2:26 PM

Is there a nicer wording? (if it was a fault from the beginning) ?

I'm not sure; what I wrote in the previous line seems "nice" enough, as these things go. I presume this is part of a cover letter?

@englishstudent Why does it sound racist to you?

@tchrist No, it's a part of a web page that the reader gets its link from my CV

@MohamedAhmed I see. Yes, that makes sense.

@tchrist Thanks for the help.. are you native?

2:34 PM

@MohamedAhmed I have spoken English for more than two score years and ten.

@englishstudent I think @Cerberus was simply referring to those countries that were shown in a dark color on the map he posted. Nothing to do with race or anything like that.

@tchrist Excuse me for that stupid question :D

@terdon Svartálfaheim, apparently.

@terdon Shh, shh, I wanted to investigate the issue first.

@terdon Oh, I see. If that's the case then it makes sense. =)

Oh hey @Cerberus. how is it going?

2:35 PM

@Cerberus Ah. Sorry :/

@MohamedAhmed No, it's not a stupid question. I had thought these matters in my profile, but perhaps it depends on where you look.

Even if I had called countries dark where people have dark skins, would that have been a problem?

@tchrist Is that the definition of a native then?

@tchrist It's a matter of curiosity

@terdon I don't think so. But I'm not sure it matters at that point, either.

2:38 PM

It can. My father has spoken Greek for more than three score years now and isn't anywhere near a native speaker. Still has a strong accent and still makes grammatical mistakes. it's kind of impressive how he's managed that, really. Especially given that he also works as a translator and is even quite good at it.

@Cerberus haha. Yeah terdon is right. I was thinking you were referring to people with the dark skin. I misread I guess, pardon me. Well, some color countries like "black countries", I don't know perhaps "dark countries" too? I was kind of curious and was taken aback basically but it is clear now sir :P

@MohamedAhmed You can read my profile here, here, here, or here.

@terdon Interesting.

@englishstudent Even so, how would you describe "all countries populated predominantly by black people"? Granted, there are not many cases where you would want to lump such a diverse set together to utter something devoid of racism, but it is possible.

@tchrist He completely lacks a musical ear. That is very relevant when it comes to accents.

@terdon I don't know that I've ever made that connection. Interesting.

I've noticed it very clearly. People who sing/play music tend to develop decent accents much faster than those who don't since their ears are better at detecting the differences.

2:42 PM

@terdon Yeah I see your point. I'm not black myself but terms like "dark countries" or "black countries" makes one sound a bit 'white supremacist' or whatever if you know what I mean. It's not like I'm carrying any chips regarding that matter on my shoulder, hell I'm kind of fair skinned guy myself but those terms I find offensive to be honest.

@tchrist Wow, interesting profile O.O

There is also an obvious age limit. I'm sure you've also met people who, while they speak the foreign language in question perfectly, or almost so, still can't get rid of their accents.

@englishstudent I know. But I wonder what your definition of racism is. Although I prefer not to use this 19th-century division of races myself, is any mention of skin colour always racist?

Well it is just a thought. I'm cool with whatever is discussed here by the way @terdon =) Totally, I love it.

@terdon I have indeed observed great discrepancies between people's command of grammar and idiom on the one hand, and accent on the other.

Some people have a great accent but poor grammar.

2:44 PM

Some people also just don't care about the accent.

Others the other way around.

@Cerberus I'll bet you most of them will be musical.

But your father seems to be different yet.

@terdon That is how it appears. But how could they not?

@terdon It's quite possible that singing has a positive effect on accent.

@terdon Funny you should mention that. I've been dawdling around with Stephen Malinowski’s animated scores all morning. Some of them are quite inventive, and he's clearly come a long ways in his animations over time. Pick a score of a piece you play yourself or know well as a musician: he does a nice job of illustrating some of the underlying cognitive processes that occur in a musician's mind that the immusical are blind to.

Well, he has a great grasp of vocabulary and is perfectly capable of having any conversation in Greek. Nevertheless, bad accent and the occasional mistake. Nobody would ever think of him as a native speaker.

2:45 PM

It's just odd.

Have you ever talked to him about it, how he perceives his Greek?

@tchrist Oh wow. That's really cool!

@Cerberus He is well aware of his level, yes. For one thing, my sister, my mother and myself never let him forget it >:)

The main reason for this, I think, is that he never reads Greek for pleasure.

@tchrist Interesting!

@terdon Haha I can imagine. So how does he respond? Can he hear his own defective accent? Does he care? Does he have an explanation?

@terdon Hmm why doesn't he, and why does that have to do with his accent?

@AndrewLeach @Robusto @RegDwigнt See the Malinowski link I just posted above.

@Cerberus Accent, no. But grammar yes. The accent comes down to his being very unmusical. One of those people who can sort of sing on key of there's someone singing correctly next to them but are hopeless otherwise.

@Cerberus Well yeah, to me it is. I guess the world is still way behind in how it views people. Coloring people or referring to them with respect to their color should be a thing of the past. Well human race will learn eventually. What if you were a black person and I called you 'black guy/black girl' every time I referred to you? Well my perceptions are different, odd even. So feel free to disagree. I mean "colors" carry a 'dog whistle' sometimes. And that dog whistling is quite abhorrent.

2:50 PM

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody 2

But I digress I guess. Well you asked =)

@terdon Hmm OK.

Damn but I would love to see the same animation built from this one instead:

Rachmaninoff plays Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

@terdon Liszt? How courageous! :) I stumbled upon these with some simple Bach stuff, proceeded through the complex ultra-polyphonic Bach stuff, then checked out what he did with Mozart and Beethoven. But Liszt and Rocky are just something else, aren't they?

@terdon He can only use recordings he can license as need be, or for the simpler stuff record himself.

That particular recording of Rachmaninoff is just stunning. Shame about the quality but wow, does he interpret the piece!

2:53 PM

@englishstudent So what I think you're saying is this. When you're referring to someone by the colour of his skin all the time, it will remind this person of his different skin all the time. It emphasises difference. And it suggests that skin colour is somehow very important. It may make him feel 'different'. And that is to many people in many situations a negative experience.

@tchrist Pretty sure the Rachmaninoff one is in the public domain by now :)

And a possible definition of racism is this: placing an inordinate amount of importance in 'race', in a negative way.

^^

I think referring to someone by the colour of his skin all the time might very well fall under that definition.

I do feel that there are a few caveats, though.

@Cerberus Aren't all isms that way?

2:55 PM

@Cerberus Ah yeah, pretty much.

@tchrist: Did you get a lot of snow yesterday? We were in Durango and drove home through what passes for a blizzard in NM.

@Robusto We were supposed to get 4-12" but got only a half-inch because it didn't turn cold enough.

8500 feet and above got a foot.

@tchrist Well, I would define some -isms as "a lot of importance" rather than "an inordinate amount", i.e. in some it's not by definition negative. Cf. mysticism, liberalism.

I didn't see anything collecting on the ground, but it was unnverving to be driving in it, wondering when the road would become impassable.

@Cerberus Oh those. Right.

2:57 PM

Hello, Mr Snowman.

@Cerberus Let's not forget prism ...

@Cerberus Hola.

@Robusto I usually take 285, which is a bit east of there.

Yuck.

spits on prism

@Cerberus Hmm ... shall I infer that you are a closet racist where light is concerned? You only want the pure, white stuff?

I want its absence, darkness.

We don't like you surface supremacists down here.

2:59 PM

Down here? Where is "here"?

Hades.

Oh, right.

I thought you might mean the Netherlands.

Same thing.

So does Hades look much like Swart Peet?

We are suspicious of you people who stand on mountains basking in the sunlight all the time.

Zwarte Piet is mainly black because he enters houses through chimneys.

3:00 PM

You should try it sometime. You never know, you might like it.

Except that he was later turned into a black man...

@Robusto It's scary.

You might grow to like it.

Not much light reaches us here, behind our tall dikes, next to the north pole.

Look, it hasn't hurt @tchrist any, and he's been doing it longer than me.

Fair enough.

3:02 PM

Besides, what better place can there be for a pedant than a vantage point that looks down on nearly everybody?

Although technically his location is a colony separate from the motherland, but I suppose that doesn't matter.

Also a good point.

sexism, papism, purism, racism, typism, egoism, ageism, sectism, statism, tsarism, peonism, idolism, laddism, cultism, zelotism, tribalism, voyeurism, pauperism.

But what would Dutchmen do all day, if they couldn't complain about the rain and the darkness all the time?

@Cerberus You already complain about the light.

You could just keep that up.

Only with more justification.

You're suggesting one must know a thing before hating it?

How is that logical?

3:04 PM

Love and hate both require intimate knowledge of the subject.

Criticising from afar is more convenient.

Besides, as Saruman says, the best way to know a thing is by destroying it.

Well, you have a standing invitation to come stand in the light.

Or maybe it was Gandalf describing Saruman's attitude.

@Robusto Thank you.

I knew you'd turn to religion eventually...

Except it's raining here today. Go figure ...

That's the second day it's rained here this week. This is getting annoying. But at least the week ahead promises to be clear.

No snow?

3:07 PM

> ‘ “In which case it is no longer white,” said I. “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” ’

Raining the second day in a week? Oh, my, what a crisis.

The last time we had that was...almost every week.

@tchrist Ah, that was it.

Oops, spoke too soon. Tuesday there's a chance of rain.

It's funny how one remembers things one last read when one was 11 or so.

user image

A living Hell!

3:09 PM

@Cerberus That was the era when I remembered everything. I mean everything.

Yes, Severian.

I used to remember conversations word for word. Now I might not even remember having the conversation.

When people said they forgot something, I used to think they were lying. How could you forget something?

@Robusto True, one has a great memory at that age, and one is also easily impressed.

Although I've never remembered conversations word for word.

I could just play them back in my head. I would read school material once and score 100 on the test. That persisted well into university.

@Robusto It is my nature, my joy and my curse, to forget nothing. Every rattling chain and whistling wind, every sight, smell, and taste, remains changeless in my mind, and though I know it is not so with everyone, I cannot imagine what it can mean to be otherwise, as if one had slept when in fact an experience is merely remote.

3:13 PM

@tchrist And this has never changed?

Question: Did the author leave out an Oxford comma there?

I still remember most things, but they have to be things I am paying attention to.

@Cerberus I'm quoting literature.

Ah.

Answer: No: the first set is a pair of nouns in opposition, for we later see in just the next sentence that this is an Oxford-comma author.

From here.

One of the greatest works of science fiction of the past century.

3:15 PM

Ah.

It's the Cerberus guy.

I still have a book in that series stored on my phone.

I remember.

@Cerberus Hades gonna hade ...

Here, this is one you'll have played and is reasonably interesting:

Beethoven, Pathetique Sonata, 3rd mvt.

Here each color-line represents a voice.

is happily listening to Chopin

3:19 PM

@tchrist The 2nd movement has maybe the most beautiful, simple melody ever written.

Pathos.

And I've tried to play this one, with no success at all:

Moonlight Sonata 3rd Movement - Opus 27 No. 2 [Piano Tutorial] (Synthesia)

Here in contrast the different colors are different semitones. It's rather interesting what he's done with it:

Rimsky-Korsakov, Flight of the Bumblebee (arr. Rachmaninoff)

@Robusto The Moonlight's 3rd is definitely tough.

Manic.

You think the Moonlight is going to be easy after the first two movements, and then there's that.

@Cerberus For me, Chopin is a Romantic composer who reveled in Baroque ornamentation .

Ah, I suppose I understand the ornamentation bit.

It's probably also why he is so accessible, isn't it?

3:25 PM

@Robusto Or pre-Impressionist.

Except he abhorred a straight line.

suppresses witticism

Cool, some of this is at 720p60!

Smoover.

This one is, although you may not notice:

Bach, Fugue in A minor, WTC I, BWV 865

@tchrist I know that one, but never played it.

Same.

He's got all of WTC I, and a bit of II.

Sometimes several different animations for the same, I think.

BTW, you might enjoy these: npr.org/podcasts/381443927/performance-today-s-piano-puzzler

I usually get them all, though once in a while I get stumped.

3:34 PM

Oh no puzzle?

Look down the page.

You mean the one from 3/29?

GV, no?

Of course.

I didn't think it was a trick.

You'll get the quoted melody in a minute.

It cleaves very closely to the original.

I mean, you can't mistake the intro.

The one from the week before I had some trouble with at first.

Anyway, those are always fun.

I got the composer right away on the week before, but took me too long to get the interwoven melody.

3:40 PM

listens

The close harmony in the mid-bass/lower treble is a giveaway for the composer.

Can't hear the hidden melody.

It's hard.

Got the composer yet?

ues

Can't tell you why.

ues?

Did you mean yes?

3:52 PM

aye

4:15 PM

Here's something I have in common with Donald Trump: his wife, Melania, doesn't want to sleep with either one of us.

She's a prisoner.

(BTW, if you're still having trouble with insomnia, which you've mentioned in the past, go down to your local dispensary and get yourself some Gorilla Glue #4. You will sleep and wake refreshed.)

4:32 PM

Everybody ready for the final four today?

@skullpetrol I just hope the red states get beat. Go Ducks & Zags. /nod

:D

BTW, for all you folks who would like to hear a really good version of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, here it is:

Michele Campanella - (Liszt) Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Nice @Robusto thanks!

The one posted earlier is way too "player piano"-ish for my taste.

This one brings out the music. And contrary to what many believe, there is a lot of music in Liszt. He's not just an exercise for virtuosos.

4:42 PM

@Robusto Did you hear the Rachmaninoff one I posted earlier?

No.

I was just reading that he hated his own Prelude in C#-minor, which is to him what the HR #2 is to Liszt.

But he does bring a nicely musical interpretation to the Liszt, despite the primitive recording. Thanks for that.

That one just blew me away the first time I heard it. His control of tempo is just stunning. He manages to imbue the piece with so much character!

Did you listen to the Campanella version?

For me, that interpretation is definitive.

The cadinal sin committed by people who can play Liszt is to play it as if the fastest version is best. Like Valentina Lisitsa. Musicality goes right out the window in search of a Guinness world record for speed.

Whoa, Rachmaninoff puts his own cadenza in at the end. Interesting.

5:01 PM

@Robusto Yes, it's beautiful. Although I need to listen to it again paying more attention, I was also working at the same time.

5:19 PM

Thanks for sharing guys

2 hours later…

7:10 PM

user image

1 hour later…

8:22 PM

@englishstudent The others have explained the main point of my rationale, but it is probably worth note that yourselves is a well established word. Well enough that it has its own separate dictionary entry from yourself.

Also if I sound like I'm not speaking like a native speaker, it might be because I have contrived some sort of rule that dictates what I say differently. For instance, I'll always say "lewd" instead of "perverted" if what I mean is that something is overly salacious, and prefer perverted over corrupted in contexts of changing from good to bad.

@tchrist Thanks tchrist, going out of town tomorrow, found my next audiobook audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/… . Man rapgenius really took off, I kept hoping they'd get the genius.com domain and cover all of music and they finally did.

Now they even do books, whodathunk.

8:40 PM

An actual example of something I wrote that has an obvious inconsistency is this comment:

@FumbleFingers We may not have a problem with it, but my concern is for other people's sake. It is difficult for some people to learn what we may consider even the simplest of tasks on a computer, and expecting somebody to buy a new displayer just to read type that could have just as easily been full size, since no reduction in leading has been made, is somewhat unreasonable. With things as they are now, I think using (parenthesis in italics), or making a proper footnote is a better solution, unless you can reduce the total number of lines by cramming in a few extra letters on one of them. — Tonepoet Mar 22 at 0:53

I used the word displayer instead of monitor, or even just display because I felt it was more appropriate after I had done some dictionary analysis.

Or perhaps thought is better than felt. Sometimes it takes some effort to remember these things because it is contrary to my vernacular habits.

Finally, if I have a choice between elaboration that seems too verbose, or brevity that seems too brusque, I prefer being elaborate.

8:56 PM

@Tonepoet Morning Tonepoet. I meant that in a friendly way by the way. Your English is quite good, why do you think I'm always asking you queries? :-)

But yeah, with that sentence I'm used to seeing "yourself". "Yourselves" is perfectly fine too.

I looked for the etymology of "computer monitor", but it's not readily apparent whose idea it was on first google. I guess it makes sense in the case of old computers, you can "monitor" what is going on inside of the computer, and back then calling it a "screen" would imply that you could see moving pictures on it, which wasn't the case. I think they could have gone with displayer, but that word seems to be reserved for people who display things.

@Tonepoet Ok. Right. Like here: You wrote "but it is probably worth note that" in such instances I'm used to seeing "but it is probably worth noting that" see what I mean? If that's a typo the good but if it isn't then I'm confused.

I'm trying hard not to sound like I'm nitpicking.

Well I love to discuss those things.

*then (I wrote 'the')

@Tonepoet No, I don't mean vocabulary. Your vocabulary is good. I mean grammar, I'm mostly concentrating on the way native speakers write because well, I'm a learner myself, an advanced one but still.

See you later. I have to run. Feel free to ping.

9:12 PM

@englishstudent It's not something I've consciously considered before now, although I would suppose it has something to do with the ongoing implications of the suffix, and the nature of that as a complementizer.

@englishstudent Also coughsemanticsisapartgrammarcoughcoughcough. >_>

1 hour later…

10:21 PM

@Tonepoet haha that's funny. You might want to use some cough drops tonepoet. =)

@JackArbiter Enjoy!

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