English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2014-07-06

« first day (1333 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3593 days later) »

12:49 AM

@tchrist Children is not a topic he wishes to discuss.

As I said, English can be funny with agreement, and it proves nothing. I see you ignored my other example altogether.

@Mitch I couldn't care less! But it is just Oranje, no article.

@tchrist A particular branch of Anglo-Saxon linguistics claims its own terminology is universal.

@Mitch Opaa!

@Cerberus What rhymes with Oranje?

Franje.

Poor Vanya?

Sore Tanya?

Well, there is no -a...

Oh, it's a j sound?

12:55 AM

/j/, so as in Tanya/Vanya.

/o.'ran.jə/

So I was right. Why did you tell me there is no -a? I didn't mean a literal -a, I meant the sound.

feels gypped

You pronounce Tanya with a schwa?

Mostly, ya.

It's not an accented syllable, so it gets a shwa.

How do you pronounce it? Tanyaaa?

I suppose the vowel is reduced a bit, but I wouldn't say it is quite a schwa yet...but w'evs.

@Robusto More like a weak, short a.

@Cerberus Maybe in your mouth(s). In mine, and other Americans', it's a schwa.

12:58 AM

Poor Tanya.

Also Tonya.

As in Tonya Harding.

And others.

As well.

The -e in oranje is a bit more like /ɜ/ when pronounced properly.

Mar 17 at 23:49, by Robusto

@RegDwigнt Interesting tidbit: a reporter from the Boston Herald interviewed me at the time about what I thought of the Tonya Harding Incident. It got in the paper.

Tonya Maxene Harding (born November 12, 1970) is an American figure skating champion, a two-time Olympian, and a two-time Skate America Champion. In 1991, she won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and placed second in the World Championships. Known for strong athleticism, Harding was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition. She later found herself in the international spotlight after her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, conspired with Shawn Eckhardt and Shane Stant to physically assault her skating competitor Nancy Kerrigan at a practic...

But schwa and /ɜ/ sound similar to us...

Wel, congratulations...

I guess oranje also rhymes with champagne. In Dutch.

None necessary. It was a bizarre incident, made more bizarre by the fact that a reporter wanted to print what I thought of it. Which was not much, and I had no professional qualifications, legal or figure-skating-related, to comment on it anyway.

@Cerberus Or French.

1:01 AM

Yes.

Certain words are very difficult to rhyme with, come St Nicholas' Day.

Meanwhile, I'm getting a ton of weird football jokes from friends in a certain Whatsapp group.

Expect those to continue until Holland is defeated in the World Cup.

If...

The city was pretty crowded despite the rain.

Everyone in orange.

So annoying.

Do the canals ever freeze in winter?

1:19 AM

Yes! Some years.

Last year, we had only a handful of days below zero.

The year before, the canals froze over and everybody was skating.

user image

user image

Do the rivers near you freeze?

1:36 AM

> Post Date: June 28, 1999 8:36 AM ET
Updated: July 6, 1999 5:37 PM ET

Instant messaging is going mobile. Web directory and software developer InfoSpace.com is developing a version of so-called "buddy list" services that will let users send and receive instant messages via digital cellular telephones and handheld computers.

Such an application could significantly broaden the usage of buddy list services, essentially enabling individuals to exchange text messages whether they are sitting at computers or carrying wireless communication devices.

1 hour later…

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

2:37 AM

Houdoe!

@Robusto What did you say?

@Cerberus Seldom.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I said I thought it was bizarre, the act of someone who wasn't very bright.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

There you have it.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

3:39 AM

Ronda's not a one-trick pony after all.

4:20 AM

Hellllloo.

6 hours later…

10:22 AM

Is it suitable to put an arrow to mean and abbreviate "*until* 2010"?

⇥ 2010
↱ 2010
↳ 2010
↪ 2010

hmm no it sucks

11:04 AM

Yep, doesn't really work.

11:35 AM

room topic changed to English Language & Usage: Of all the words in all the languages in the world, you had to walk in here (no tags)

2 hours later…

1:58 PM

Limerick Machine: There once was a woman of Stow Who said she had no place to go She looked on a map Decided …

posted on July 06, 2014 by sgdi

There once was a woman of Stow Who said she had no place to go She looked on a map Decided it crap And said “better the devil you know”

3 hours later…

4:36 PM

nihil hic est

5:15 PM

0

A: 50 question per month limit?

I would like to please renominate enabling the limit on ELU the way it is on some of the other higher-traffic sites. The reason why is simple: the help vampires are gaining on us. Limiting them to 50 questions in any consecutive 30-day period does seems only prudent.

And everyone here will know just whom I’m thinking of.

5:26 PM

@tchrist vere

@tchrist +1 (on both question and your re-nomination). Some users can be exhausting to clear up after, with the effect that some bits get missed, and the missed bits only serve to encourage.

In fact I'd lower the limit to 30 per month.

Agreed. Also, I know this is a duplicate, but it is virtually impossible to find:

1

Q: 1607 writ by Edward Coke - Relative pronouns?

(Sir Edward) Coke further noted that legal disputes about such matters as inheritance of goods: are not to be decided by natural reason but by the artificial reason and judgment of law, which law is an art which requires long study and experience, before that a man can atta...

meaning-in-context

It is an odd old construct, which question I know has been previously asked.

But searching for it is dangnabbitly tough.

Well, it certainly isn’t marked with the relative-pronouns tag.

There’s simply no way to search for a comma followed by which followed by an arbitrary noun.

5:43 PM

8

Q: Why does legal English sometimes repeat the antecedent noun after "which"?

Here's a standard English sentence: The folder which is missing from the principal's office contained the answers to today's exam. (Separate question, discussed elsewhere I'm sure, whether it should really be "which" or "that".) But simpler is usually better, so I would actually just write...

Ahah!

Easy as pie.

Thank you so muh.

Now to retag that puppy. :)

Yeah they should totally have legal.

Indeed that's the first thing I searched for.

Aha indeed. I just found that one too. Too late.

5:45 PM

Down to one close-vote today.

Added two tags to orig: legal, relative-pronouns.

There's an awful rainstorm here right now.

Hail?

Had to bring in all the tomatoes.

Or just horizontal rain?

@tchrist no, but rain the size of hail the size of a baseball.

5:46 PM

I now wish I had done mine in pots this year.

The thing is I like to have indeterminate climbers, especially for the cherry tomatoes.

Seriously, I almost got killed by the raindrops in the three seconds I was out.

That’s kinda weird.

Yeah, out of nowhere, too.

But I do know what you mean. You notice it more driving.

But I have skylights.

Supercell.

It’s the time of the year for them. But I didn’t know it happened where you live.

Supercells bring extreme precipitation: heavy rain, hail; sometimes tornadoes, almost always lightning.

Gale-force winds.

There's some lightning and thunder now, too, but nothing special. Just the rain itself is horrific, and the wind.

I came back from a walk just half an hour ago. Nothing. Sunshine, actually.

5:49 PM

Ah, just like the Sixth.

It was hot and sticky as hell, but not that kind of hot and sticky that says, "a thunderstorm will be here by the minute".

Can’t you see them a-comin’?

That's what I'm saying. 100 times out of 100 I can.

Well, or hear?

But the thousandth man...

This is the first time ever that I couldn't. Or anyone, I would bet.

And it seems like it's almost over.

5:51 PM

Dunno if you know this, but it is normal for this to happen to us Every Single Afternoon once the triple-digit part of the summer gets busted up by the incoming monsoon season out of the Sea of Cortez.

It’s like no day is without its 10–15 minute squall.

Some can be terribly fierce.

Very destructive. I’ve had 6" of hail before.

I've not experienced monsoons, or tropical-forest rain or anything. But I have countless continental summer thunderstorms under my belt.

Are you subject to the Föhn or the Mistral, or however those are called?

That’s why we get ours.

Nope and nope.

I've been to the Föhn area once when they had it. But I don't retain a memory of it.

Moisture from the high mountains evaporates into supercells every day, which spills over into the plains due east.

Yeah no mountains here.

5:54 PM

And you still didn’t see it coming? Hm.

Yeah. Tell me about it.

Our canyons all have prominent signs about “In case of flash flood, climb to safety.”

And I think it's officially over now.

Opening the windows again.

But you are also warned that you can be subject to a flash flood when the sky is completely clear.

I shut mine and turned on the AC. We’re heading up towards triple-digit territory today. Even the kitties prefer staying inside in that kind of weather.

We call them mushroom rains in Russia.

5:55 PM

The clear-sky flash-flood is because mountains.

And you are caught in the run-off path.

But this ain't no mushroom rain cause clouds.

Ever heard the term sun showers?

Like, solar-eclipse.

@tchrist I suppose...

Might be one word or hyphenated.

For when it rains on you on a sunny day.

Yeah, shroom rain.

Cause shrooms start growing like mad.

5:57 PM

Then there is the opposite problem: virga, which is rain that never reaches the ground because it is so hot.

You can see it when you see the Portuguese man-o’-war tentacles hanging down from the big purple swollen supercell’s bottom.

I didn't know Chtulhu was Portuguese.

I think I may have just committed an adjective-ordering foul.

It's okay. Greek fat weddings happen, too.

My tomatoes are sometimes ripped up by our 80-mph winds and all the hail we get.

I lost some tomatoes to wind before.

Not this year.

6:02 PM

Because you can’t grow them under an overhang, and I am completely open to the west and the north, whence cometh our torment.

They are strapped like madmen.

That reminds me, I need to restrap mine today.

Last year I lost a plant even though it was strapped, because the wind simply carried it away, pot and all, like it was Dorothy.

So this year's strapping is more elaborate and I don't place the pots that high anymore.

@Andrew I keep thinking the LQ/too-many-closed thing will get’m, but it doesn’t. Well, or hasn’t. That would be a throttler. But I still think we should get it flipped on for ELU.

That’s more than one per day.

Oh, no it isn’t. I sorted wrong.

We have a user named legork. Somehow I have trouble conceiving of the offspring of Legolas and an orc chick. Then again, he did hang out with Gimli a whole lot.

And there goes my last close vote for the day. Again.

6:37 PM

@tchrist that's because it actually stands for LEGO remote kontrol.

@tchrist I think that's a function of the number not cleared up. Anyway, I agree that your nominee answers the question.

@AndrewLeach People never clean up closed questions, because we don’t have a nice Review Queue option for questions with delete votes on them. And you don’t generally want a moderator to do it lest it be perceived as too unilateral. But I assure you that I have cast a delete vote on those ones that I’m able to.

Hopefully Mr Hen's Meta question will help, then.

I clean up closed questions quite regularly. But it's one giant bore, yes.

Also, if I do it too soon, people lose rep and will complain. And if I do it too late, people get to keep rep from rubbish quesitons. Sucks either way.

So it's definitely better if it's deleted from within the community.

The people giveth, the people taketh. Fairer that way.

6:57 PM

0

Q: Requests for Reopening

In view of and pursuant to the multitudinous requests here for reopenings, I thought about adapting a modality from Math Meta SE (http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/q/6424) : Would it help amalgamate, coalesce, and keep them all into one thread? I'm happy to rewrite this to enact and institute...

discussion feature-request

@Cerberus see. QED.

One reason I didn't put in my answer to that question is that a composite question also hides the number of re-open requests for a particular user's questions. I'd actually rather the community gets to see all of these requests.

yesterday, by RegDwigнt

In fact now you'll hear back from them even sooner because they've seen that it works.

Anyway, back to Inspector Montalbano on BBC iPlayer...

I really can't handle that writing anymore.

To the extent that I finally commented on it. So far I resisted.

(Complaining to Rob doesn't count.)

Jun 30 at 23:31, by RegDwigнt

@Robusto that particular OP sure elucidates gargantuan conversation interspersed with ah screw it I can't write like that even when I try.

Actually I wonder if he's Elberich's alter ego.

7:16 PM

@RegDwigнt You mean the dwarf from Der Ring des Nibelungen?

@RegDwigнt Lulz. I am sure the tenor of your comment will be apparent to any but the OP. You have amalgamated and coalesced all of my thoughts on the matter.

I think the answer is transparentaneous, especially ever since Sartre suggested the use of nationalism to read and modify language. Basically you are faced with a choice: either reject structuralist discourse or conclude that government is capable of significance. This subject is interpolated into a textual libertarianism that includes narrativity as a totality. Therefore, any number of dematerialisms concerning the paradigm, and some would say the dialectic, of subtextual class exist. Derrida uses the term ‘predialectic deconstruction’ to denote this, and other things. Hope that ellucidates! — RegDwigнt ♦ 15 mins ago

This is a nice welcome.

Straight from the Pomo Generator?

Or your own work?

tomato machine?

@Cerberus I think he was working from memory. Or thesaurus.

@JohanLarsson Where do you think tomatoes come from? Do you think they just grow on vines?

:)

Quite possibly.

@JohanLarsson elsewhere.org/pomo

7:24 PM

The poster in question uses words like shotgun pellets. They may not be precise, or even hit the mark, but pain is the inevitable result nevertheless.

5

Quite so.

Really?

What did you do?

yeah accident

managed to poke the pellet out with a knife, rambo that

To the OP: If you are using words to form an impenetrable thatch that hinders communication, congratulations. Short of that, you might want to simply say what you mean. Trust me: nobody here is impressed by thesaurus mining. — Robusto 31 secs ago

@JohanLarsson You are my hero.

Yikes.

not giving more details for reasons :)

7:35 PM

Was it stuck in an awkward place?

Or were you not supposed to have that gun?

shoulder

Ah OK.

Any permanent damage?

dunno why I started :)

Greetings, as a non native speaker I need some help deciphering the output of a program that is supposed to analyze sentences and give information about each word. I'm not entirely sure whether the information is the type of the word (noun, verb, etc) or its function (subject, predicate, etc) - or something else - I thought it was supposed to be the function, but seeing the output I'm not sure at all.

The problem is in that the software is a uni project someone abandoned and has practically no documentation. However the output seems like it would instantly click with someone with a better …

@Cerberus none that I know of, don't even think the scar is visible

7:38 PM

OK good.

@jco You can always try us, but no guarantees.

This is how it looks:

INPUT:
this
is
an
example
sentence

OUTPUT:
this DT
is VBZ - I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but it looks like "verb"
an DT - it seems to be inconsistent, as far as I know 'this' is a pronoun and 'an' is an article
example NN - looks like it's signaling that this is a noun?
sentence NN - this too

going for a bikeride with the dogs now, afk

I can give you more examples if you want:

lets VBZ
test NN
this DT
out RP

DT=determiner.

@Cerberus Woo, progress! :D Thanks

7:42 PM

NN must be noun, but that abbreviation I am not familiar with.

Looking at "test NN", I think the software is weak.

@Cerberus Yes, could be. I'm just getting familiar with the theory behind it, so I wouldn't know if that type of mistakes is supposed to be expected...

Infinitives are not primarily nouns, they are called verbs.

There is no software that can automatically analyse sophisticated language. Perhaps this algorism can't even distinguish between different uses of the same word (verb v. noun)?

@Cerberus Yes, but neither can humans ;)

This is based on probability mainly

I don't think it's just mapping words to their types according to a dictionary - there's definitely something smarter going on - but as I said I have no idea at the moment.

Humans do not need automated analysis: they actually understand the world, which is necessary for understanding language, which in turn is necessary to analyse it.

OK, so what do you need it for?

I have no idea what RP could be.

It should be a particle, an adverb, or a preposition.

Well I'm not quite sure myself ;_;

Essentially I'm at an internship where a group wants to make a product that they might need this kind of software for, and they tasked me with playing with it and learning how it works as a start...

7:48 PM

But I think perhaps the algorism is not so stupid: if you say "lets test", then test would have to be a noun. I.e. you made a typo that put it off track.

OK I see.

BRB

I'll try to come up with examples to test its consistency I suppose.

i FW
will MD
give VB
the DT
ball NN
to TO
you PRP
now RB

OK so the only thing I'm certain about now is that NN = noun...

I've found all the answers it would seem! ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/penn_treebank_pos.html

8:06 PM

Ah, there you go.

Now it's time to do some googling, should've listened in my English classes because I have no idea what half those things are haha...

Anyways thanks!

Good luck!

8:37 PM

Well here I am with a totally unrelated question that has been bugging me for a while, but is probably too unimportant to ask in the main section

What is the explanation of that "X is all but Y"? To me it sounds that X is, well, everything except Y. However I see G.R.R. Martin and many others on the Internet use it to stress that X is Y.

What's the logic behind that?

@jco Everything except Y is correct.

But you can interpret that in two ways.

@jco Could you give an example of that usage?

@jco In a list of things, John has all but the best item. That means he has the worst item, the second-worst item, ..., and the second-best item. The second-best item is what is relevant, so he has the second best item. So he almost has the best item, but not quite.

@AndrewLeach John is all but my nemesis. He all but lost the war.

OIC. So close to being your nemesis that he might as well be that.

Yes.

8:52 PM

@Cerberus well, who do you think writes PoMo's output?

Which reminds me, the PoMo generator will be down for the next 93 minutes, as I am off to watch a movie.

@RegDwigнt That explains...ELU.

@Cerberus Ah, thanks, seems like I understood it. I don't know why I was confused while reading though, I'll try to research it later...

Well all the instances of it seem to make sense now... I guess I just wasn't reading patiently

@jco It is exactly a "part of speech tagger". Every word gets a part of speech (that reflects its function) in the sentence. 'tagging' just means 'determination'. They seem unfathomable because they are abbreviations of much more refined set of parts of speech.

You probably won't find them all in some English class, more likely in a computational linguistics class, or really more likely in the docs for the software.

@jco Oh. Yeah. That's it.

9:09 PM

I believe we should say "a USA adult", not "an USA adult" right?

correct

sort of.

yes!

@Mitch Ah, so that's the English term for it, thank you.

right. at least I added something.

We say "species of words" :)

9:10 PM

a utopia, a uterus, an OVNI, a USA soldier?

yeah there are more parts of speech for these programs than the traditional 8

@cc nope. both 'a'

@cc No. Both of those are a because the words start with a y- sound.

the rule is not by spelling but by sound. and starting with 'y' is like a consonant.

correct now?

@cc I believe it only depends on the pronunciation, not on whether the letter itself is a consonant or not.

9:11 PM

The magic of editing :-)

haha, you should probably not edit but post again so the transcript makes sense!

but about 'a USA soldier'... the 'a' is right, but you just don't use 'USA' as an adjective

well, yep, I just went full an first

@Mitch ok

@Mitch, is there anything special about these categories though? Why them? I learned about parts of speech but we didn't have all those types - usually the rule was that a word belong to exactly one category, but here it seems to have some overlap.

an American scientist?

In the US you say 'an American soldier'

9:13 PM

ok

or scientist.

Also, the categories like "determinator" seem to be odd. They're a function of the word, not its type.

At least function and type were the two primary classifications of words I've learned about.

Outside of the US, because it may by not politically correct, I'm not sure how to say it in English. Obviously in Spanish it is something different altogether.

@jco part of speech is an attempt at function.

@Mitch Damn it, I've mixed it up :S

Howevee!

Wow

No

They mixed it up.

'like' can have many parts of speech: I like butter, He is like his father. He is child-like. But those are different parts of speech too.

9:16 PM

Yeah, I was wondering why everything felt strange - it has classes from both classifications.

It's probably only using the most likely part of speech, rather than entirely parsing a sentence, especially if it gets confused.

Test in Let's test is definitely a verb.

I think we misunderstood - when I say function, I mean things like predicate, subject, direct/indirect object.

Verbs, nouns, adverbs - this is what I call "types".

@jco You can have labels for functions of more than one word together: prepositional phrase, noun phrase, constituent, modifier, clause (the first two are part-of speech like, the rest not)

"Function in sentence" is the full name

@jco yes there is a distinction, but part of speech is a kind of function.

a noun (one kind of part of speech) can have many sentence functions (subject, indirect object, etc).

Verbs are usually considered the 'head' of a verb phrase, which is usually what you called a 'predicate'

9:24 PM

Yeah, but "noun" is not a function, it is a type. It's probably hard to communicate this way because those are not formal names in English it would seem, but they are in mine, and the material is pretty strict about the definition.

For example: the test in "Let's test" is a verb by its type, and a predicate by its function. The test in "I took a test" is a noun by its type, and a direct object by its function. We look at them as completely different words that just happen to have the same form - in English, they're different in my language - which is probably the reason why this difference…

But anyways I understand what the program does now

instead of 'type' you want to use 'part of speech'. 'type' is too vague; POS tells you exactly what is being done, you are correct that it is not the 'function' (as direct object is).

@Mitch Yes, now I know better :)

subject/object/etc 'functions' are really useful for German and Latin, but only really are that important in English for pronouns.

@Mitch Um, no. You’re thinking of case inflections only, not of syntactic analysis, in which they most certainly are important in English.

@tchrist Sure.

9:35 PM

I give up. What is the question here?

0

Q: Question about the usage of have

I have asked before and have been told that along with the usage of have there shouldn't be any other words like be or get, as the have already conveys the meaning on its own. Examples: She never had it easy, always working with no breaks. She never had it BE easy, always working with no bre...

I think there is a germ of a question comparing a couple of sentences :--

She never had it BE easy, always working with no breaks.

You never have the guy be the one wrapping his legs around the girl.

That is, why be is wrong in the first and right in the second, when the structure appears to be the same.

rereads

I guess the answer is that "have it easy" is an idiomatic expression, whereas the other one uses have in a "causative" sense ("I'll have the boy bring the car round").

Saying had my laces undo doesn’t seem right. Maybe my laces got undone or had my laced get undone on me or something.

Yes, that part of the question is rather confused.

9:42 PM

Well, I’ll fix the posting for use–mention. I was partly confused on first reading because of those being in roman not italic.

And the differences between > quoting and comment.

He lots of sentence no verb.

You have to read it out loud.

Rescue edit applied.

Very similar prior question:

3

Q: "I had my house [be] burned down"

I have found out that using the verb be in passive constructions such as: I had my house be burned down is incorrect, therefore it should be I had my house burned down. But is it possible instead of be to use get? E.g. The wire is passed through the pliers in a specific way t...

grammaticality past-participle passive-voice auxiliary-verbs

In fact JBJ's answer probably covers the most recent question too.

9:59 PM

Yes, probably.

I now have two more canned comments.

> A barebones dictionary citation, even attributed, is seldom a good answer. It needs some further text elaborating your take on it and how it relates to the question at hand. We’re looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don’t just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don’t include explanations may be removed.

!!define passive voice

@JohanLarsson passive voice (grammar) The form of a transitive verb in which its subject receives the action.

> Unattributed citations are considered plagiarism; attributed ones, research. We encourage research but delete plagiarism on sight. Do please do the right thing here.

I know which answers those are directed at.

Well, not entirely.

10:01 PM

Attribution is probably something we need a Meta post on.

Unattributed citations are considered plagiarism; attributed ones, research. We encourage research but delete plagiarism on sight. Do please do the right thing here. However, a barebones dictionary citation, even attributed, is seldom a good answer. It needs some further text elaborating your take on it and how it relates to the question at hand. — tchrist 31 mins ago

That’s somebody else.

But it goes for all the list-answers we get, too.

There are many answers which attribute by link, without a real attribution like "[ODO]" which can be picked up by parsers/search engines and the like. That's been accepted, but I'm not sure it's right.

There should definitely be some commentary explaining why something is the answer.

However, that we have some extra hands on board, the mods are looking at this.

@AndrewLeach This one the guy took my first advice, but hasn’t gotten to the second yet.

0

A: Is there a polite way of saying "people like you"?

Your contemporaries: contemporary noun plural noun: contemporaries: a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another. "he was a contemporary of Darwin" synonyms: peer, fellow; More a person of roughly the same age as another. I've rarely heard it used in negative cont...

This is not actually an attribution, just a link. Please clearly name in plain text the origin of the cited definition. Please do not rely on hovery-covery, which is not even supported in all interfaces (think: cell phablets and the like). — tchrist 1 min ago

Some 40k user whose screen name starts with J (but which otherwise escapes me) recently made a very good comment about this issue.

Hm, what do you think of his answer?

I don't know the attribution. I googled it to get a definition and google doesn't tell me where they got it from. — Daniel 42 secs ago

I’m wondering whether it doesn’t suggest there may be other issues going on here.

If people think using Google to define something counts as a citation, I’m not completely comfortable with that. They could at least say that "Google Define claims" or some such hedgery.

Yes. Google should provide a citation. But even if it doesn't, there should probably be a citation "I got this from Google".

I'll draw @KitFox's attention to it. I know it's at least on the agenda.

Google n’est pas un dictionnaire.

Now if I were only graphically oriented and could make a cute comic based on the pipe thing.

10:12 PM

:-)

Anyway, Google seem to have teamed up with OUP.

oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/contemporary

@AndrewLeach The thing is, you can get anything from Google. It is become the font of all hearsay.

@AndrewLeach That’s more reassuring. I know that new Macs come with some such tie-in, too, although I still use my own hand-rolled OED2 stuff in preference.

How does the review queue get so many on the 'close votes' list? Does someone have to vote once to get it on that queue or is there an automatic criterion for it?

@Mitch There can be close-flags.

but a human starts it off on the 'close' queue?

One would hope.

10:19 PM

(unlike the first time or low quality or late answer queues?)

10:52 PM

We have 1,231 SWRs without an accepted answer.

Got my IB marks today!

7 in Math, Chem, and Physics, 6 in History and French, 5 in English and Bio. Whee!

I was just two points away from a seven in French. Rats!

Or perhaps I should say merde!

Hi guys

Hello.

I have a question about a quote from the guy in following video.

Sure, which part?

11:04 PM

He says "I'm trying to give you guys view of different angles of wing situation". I am curious what does he mean by "wing situation".

At which point in the video?

He says this epic comment about wings he's currently holdings at @1:18 of the video.

What he means is that he's rotating the wings to give the viewers a better look. He wants everyone to be able to accurately assess the chicken.

Right, so he means "wing situation" by him currently rotating the wings in the video.

"Wing situation" refers to the wings. It's kind of hard to explain the nuances of using the word situation like that, though. In this context it means "the way things are, with reference to the wings".

11:14 PM

ok

It's informal.

Are you referring to Afro-USA English (Ghetto) as an "informal" English?

No. I don't think that particular use of the word situation is limited to AAVE—I've used it myself like that, and it's very common here among people who don't speak AAVE. I just wouldn't use it in a job interview or anything, but I am uncertain of its register within AAVE.

AAVE is not "informal", to be clear.

I thought you were talking about a disease when you said "AAVE" but soon I figured out it means African American English in short words. Anyway, I think he "ain't play no games" when he is reviewing his chicken wings and hamburgers, do you think he is speaking informally, considering that reviewing food on Youtube is his profession?

As a person who is neither a linguist nor a speaker of AAVE, I am not qualified to speak on the matter. However, I will say that AAVE is not informal in general, and common features thereof are also not informal.

11:31 PM

I think AAVE is currently accepted as a formal speech among people of USA. Barack Obama is an example of a person who has slight AAVE in his speech and still became a president of USA for two times.

@Mahnax Very fine.

@tchrist I'll take it :-)

I would, too.

facebook.com/photo.php?v=616039671827930&fref=nf

According to this girl, we should be appreciative to the president of USA. He gave us freedom and his speech is so clear to hear so AAVE is formal.

Do you like her parallel end of her eyebrows? I think they are "fabulous".

11:45 PM

@Mahnax 'Formal', as a matter of register, really is a social construct. And since AAVE is not considered a social standard anywhere (it is not a legal standard, or a standard written form for newspapers or media outlets), it would not normally be called formal. The 'V' in AAVE stands for Vernacular which is usually used in contrast to 'formal' or 'standard'. Compare with Modern Standard Arabic and the vernaculars spoken in each country

I understand that you are trying to inform Jason that it is not 'bad' English, that it is just as rule filled as General American English, just that the rules are slightly different.

@JasonMarsh Most people in the US would not consider AAVE to be formal or standard at all.

I get it, you mean AAVE is not "regular speech" as the woman in following video talk about "regular girlfriend".

@2:03

« first day (1333 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3593 days later) »

Transcript for

Jul '146

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

phrase-requests pronunciation single-word-requests synonyms

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile