English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I forgot happy.

Five people light on their feet waltz merrily into the bar. Five gay people strut into the bar. Five gays walk into a bar.

But sometimes you just have to do this.

If you are at a writers convention, then you would expect to have five writers showing up at your bar.

Just because they are “people who write” doesn’t mean that calling them writers is stigmatizing them.

Five people from China walk into the bar. Five Chinese people walk into the bar. Five Chinamen walk into the bar. Five Chinese walk into the bar.

By which time, the fire marshal has doubtless been alerted to a maximum occupancy violation.

@tchrist Which rests on a confused understanding of language.

Whether something is a noun or an adjective is only a syntactic matter; it has nothing per se to do with the higher levels, such as semantics.

I.e. you can do the same things with nouns and adjectives.

10:16 PM

The thing about a “does-a” circumlocution is that it is descriptive, whereas the “is-a” one can be perceived as a restrictive way of referring to a human being.

I’m not saying this makes sense.

@tchrist The problem there is stupid PC-ness, not anything in the words themselves.

It seems to be related to people easily offended dictating PC crap.

jinx

Matt Эллен

@tchrist bloody writers and their words. always making us regular folk feel inferior. should be laws against it.

Writers write; people merely are.

@tchrist It does so only to those with a limited mind, unable to grasp the true workings on language.

10:19 PM

But the writers always win, for nonwriters’ names are written in water.

@Cerberus It’s a bunch of weird feel-good fuzziness.

Of course, I may be imagining the whole thing.

I cannot tell from the question as asked.

c c

!!wiki vantablack

Jarvis the Bot

Vantablack

Vantablack is a substance made of carbon nanotubes. It is the blackest substance known, absorbing a maximum of 99.965% of radiation. The substances comprises a forest of vertical tubes which are "grown". When light strikes the substance, instead of bouncing off, it gets trapped between the tubes, bouncing around, eventually converting into heat. Etymology Its name comes from the term Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays. Development The substance was developed by British firm Surrey NanoSystems. They first demonstrated the substance by coating a sheet of wrinkled tinfoil with it. The uncoat...

!!wiki vanna white

Jarvis the Bot

Vanna White

Vanna White (born February 18, 1957) is an American television personality and film actress best known as the hostess of Wheel of Fortune since 1982. Early life White was born Vanna Marie Rosich in Conway, South Carolina, the daughter of Joan Marie and Miguel Angel Rosich. Her father was Puerto Rican. He abandoned the family and White took the name of her stepfather, Herbert Stackley White Jr., a former real estate agent in what is now North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Television career White's first appearance in a game show was on the June 20, 1980 episode of The Price Is Right, in...

@tchrist Some of it is even penetrating our dikes.

But it is fortunately still a foreign disease, mostly.

10:22 PM

Five persons of faith walked into a bar. Five religious people walked into the bar. Five believers walked into the bar.

Believers.

Well ok. A religious is presumably someone who has taken holy orders of some sort.

It is nothing.

Eh?

Just as "a gay" is not really a word.

10:25 PM

> religious /rɪˈlɪdʒəs/, a. and sb.

B. sb. 1. a. As pl. Those bound by monastic vows or devoted to a religious life according to the principles of the Church of Rome.

A. 1225 Ancr. R. 10 ― Gode religiuse beoð i þe worlde, summe nomeliche prelaz & treowe prechures.
1303 R. Brunne Handl. Synne 8639 ― Also relygyous are to wyte, þat for maystry wyl gladly smyte.
C. 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 2 ― Ȝif oure newe religious bee in þese same synnys··þei ben cursid of god.
C. 1420 Sir Amadace (Camden) xxiv, ― Go, pray alle the religius of this cite, To morne that thay wold dyne with me.

It is and always has been “a real word” used substantively.

It merely sounds odd in contemporary English.

In plural, of course.

It still sounds like a calque, even though I don’t think it actually is.

The religious = plural. That is normal. ?A religious, however, sounds dubious.

I had no idea that Rohan and France were at war.

> 2. a. A person given up to a religious or monastic life, esp. in the Church of Rome. †In ME. with pl. in -es.

C. 1330 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 136 ― To þo religiouses þat were in Gascoyne, He gaf a þousand mark.
1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 1888 ― Dede wil na frendshepe do··til na religiouse, ne til na seculere.
1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. x. 317 ― Þere shal come a kyng, and confesse ȝow religiouses.
C. 1400 Hylton Scala Perf. (W. de W. 1494) i. lxi, ― Ryght soo shalte thou stonde as··a religyous in the sorte of relygyon.

@Cerberus As I said, it rings odd to the contemporary ear. But it has no short pedigree.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Home of the free. A free fell down and hurt me.

10:33 PM

Three persons with lifetime indentureships walked into the bar. Three enslaved people walked into the bar. Three slaves walked into the bar.

@Cerberus No, religious is a noun. It's particular and technical, if not actually jargon. But it certainly can be a noun.

Its plural is also religious.

Oh. @tchrist has already demonstrated.

@AndrewLeach He’s not very familiar with the various Catholic orders or their customary nomenclature or practices.

Just become Catholic. You get a crash course in it all.

mumbles something about catachrestic catechisms

There may be unforeseen or undesirable consequences of that course of action. But one could do the RCIA course without actually becoming Catholic at the end of it.

Or maybe even just chat here. We've demonstrated how religious is used as a count noun.

10:43 PM

I don’t think he’s even read The Name of the Rose.

I enjoyed that. And the film.

Looks as though I lent my copy to someone :-(

Do you have the Key?

amazon.com/The-Key-Name-Rose-Translations/dp/0472086219

No, haven't seen that. I don't remember thinking that such a thing would be useful, though.

I wonder why Google misses some of our penalty boxes.

Although explaining why the story is a palimpsest might be good.

10:54 PM

If you are familiar with the matters discussed say, in the first hundred pages, and your Latin is still reasonably intact, then you would not have “needed” it.

But not many people today are familiar with the forces that were tearing the Church apart in those times.

I can see I'm going to have to get another copy!

@tchrist OK... let's change the subject. What penalty boxes?

ELU penalty boxes.

SO penalty boxes.

It finds some but misses others. Curious.

Something to do with the frequency with which the user page changes, I expect. A low-frequency user might get missed because Google won't update their indexes very often. A high-activity user would get re-indexed before their activity dropped off and indexing stopped.

That would be what I'd expect as a general case, anyway. I'm sure there are exceptions in both camps.

I see.

By the way, we all seem to have misread the there are a lot of question. The OP has a new comment.

That's to do with counting one "lot" or many items within the lot. It must be a duplicate.

"There are a lot" is just as correct as "There are lots"

11:06 PM

Of course.

Well, except for mass-nouns.

I think he thinks you need lots of with plural (count) nouns and a lot of with singular nouns.

So it depends whether lot is a measure of quantity, or a single auction-type "lot".

So it wasn’t numeric agreement between subject and verb, but with the premodifying phrase.

I'm sure you can knock it into shape. It's mdnight here, and I've driven 300 miles and sung at three cathedral services today. I'm off to bed.

I don’t like the 300-mile drive, but the singing sounds nice.

Good night.

I enjoy driving, and I have a couple of MGs to do it in :-) I enjoy singing too, but it's good to enjoy getting there as well.

11:11 PM

@tchrist By contemporary, you mean modern?

I.e. the opposite!

@Cerberus No, I mean today’s.

Modern English started around 1600.

So I do not mean modern.

Today is not contemporary with the linguistic phenomenon you were talking about.

I mean the language of our times.

That is Modern English, not modern.

OFFS

11:18 PM

Let alone the modern ear.

Just as older English is not Old English.

(OFFS)²

You know damn well what I am talking about.

Yes, which is why I pointed out what I consider an error.

Stop pretending that "contemporary English" does not mean the English of today. It is annoying as hell.

It was indeed a rhetorical question.

It is just not right.

Do not make me get out the Big Stick.

No, you are.

And I can prove it.

Shall I?

11:20 PM

When talking about things of the present, contemporary means "of the present age". When talking about something of the past, it means "of that same time in the past".

RTFD

It is a relative word, but much abused.

> contemporary /kənˈtɛmpərərɪ/, a. and sb.
4. a. Modern; of or characteristic of the present period; esp. up-to-date, ultra-modern; spec. designating art of a markedly avant-garde quality, or furniture, building, decoration, etc., having modern characteristics (opp. period sb. 15).

1866 (title) ― The Contemporary Review.
1924 C. Gray (title) ― A survey of contemporary music.
1925 A. Huxley Barren Leaves i. i. 4 ― A frock that was at once old-fashioned and tremendously contemporary.
1930 London Mercury XXII. 424 ― These great poetical prizes tend··to become the perquisites of conservative-m…

Bullshit.

RTFD && weep.

But I see you are not in the right mood.

To swallow lies?

Never.

There is no “abuse” here.

At least, not of the word.

11:24 PM

I love watching you two talk. It's the clash of the pedants.

And it's not often I feel myself outclassed in pedantry.

Haha yay!

I was hoping for or expecting Tom to agree.

It is just too confusing to use it for "modern". And unnecessarily long.

Oh, no, you're not pulling me into this. I'm out-pedanted and out-sesquipedaliated by you both.

@Cerberus I do not deny that contemporaneous can mean what you would have it only and ever mean. I simply deny it cannot mean modern.

It has more than one sense.

Nothing more, nor less.

@Cerberus i refuse to let case distinguish two modern englishes because there is no case in speaking

Dead men talking.

11:30 PM

Ooooh, "proper meaning", that's just asking for trouble.

Give me a word that means the current vernacular and I might use it. But even if I were to do so, contemporary language is still what gets used in contemporary language, and you cannot get around that fact.

You can merely dislike it.

Modern is fine.

As are many other words, like current.

You’re tilting at hopefullies.

Water under the bridge.

Of the present day, recent, up to date, avant garde...

Ships that sailed long ago.

11:33 PM

There are plenty of words that are not unnecessarily long and confusing.

But anyway, case closed.

Contemporary is not confusing.

Context is king.

Contretemporary, now that is confusing.

There are plenty of cases where it is confusing.

Pathology is of little consequence here.

I do wonder why people do not use shorter, less "sophisticated" words to mean recent or modern.

@tchrist tries to think of synonym for wank that begins with sh-

@tchrist Don't forget, though it may be the middle of the night where you are, that Vivaldi still loves you.

11:37 PM

@Robusto shag

Ah. But that's not a synonym for wank.

@Cerberus i see you are not a coca aficionado

@Robusto It’s what I was thinking of to go along with shave.

Yes, but in this particular case does that word really apply?

Ooh, COCA leaves!

11:39 PM

@Robusto He wishes.

If wishes were seahorses . . .

@Cerberus Just which part of “THE CORPUS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH (COCA) 450 MILLION WORDS, 1990–2012” was it that you were failing to understand again?

@Cerberus Contemporary just means "occurring at the same time as." It doesn't have to mean modern, though it can.

"Goethe was a contemporary of Beethoven."

starts mining collocations

@Robusto Exactly.

Try telling Tom that.

@tchrist Why would I care about that?

I take it you watch soap operas, too, because that is what hoi polloi watch?

Tsk, tsk.

11:43 PM

Well, to be fair, in the COCA case, it does mean "at the same time as . . . YOU!" I.e., right now or modern.

@tchrist What are you, a cultural egalitarian?

 Top ten collocations for nouns following "contemporary":

art           1825
artists        419
music          379
culture        327
life           321
society        309
world          289
arts           217
issues         213
theory         159

@Cerberus Let's not say things we can't take back. Tom would hate to be called an egalitarian of any stripe.

@Robusto Yes, well, if something like you is mentioned, and nothing of the past is mentioned, then, sure, it's fine.

@Robusto Just trying to boil his blood a little more.

@Cerberus But the point appears to be that in references intended for those people living today, contemporary is a synonym of modern.

11:44 PM

@tchrist Just people who like fancy words...

@Cerberus Oh, c'mon. You like fancy words too. gives doggy three biscuits

@Robusto It should only be used when something modern has just been mentioned, is my position; otherwise, just use modern. What's wrong with modern or recent or current anyway?

@Robusto Only where appropriate!

I notice you took the biscuits, though.

Well. I am only canine.

@Cerberus Curse COCA and let slip the dogs of bore.

11:47 PM

OK.

curses COCA

All ten of the top ten noun collocations following contemporary are almost certainly used to mean the versions of those things that are those of our own times. It is how we use that word.

I'm COCA and I don't like how this is going.

Anybody got any COCAine?

God has not seen fit to tell me I am making too much money.

If you're trying to tell me that many people use it that way, you can save yourself the trouble!

11:51 PM

Are any of you LaTeX gurus by any chance?

Many people also use prepositions with which to end sentences.

Sorry.

@terdon I'm not into fetishism, sorry.

No everybody here is a COCA hater

Except the police.

@Robusto Aww, there's my bubble all popped.

11:53 PM

I know. I shouldn't have led you on.

No, not bubble-wrap fetishism either, sorry.

It's a form of entrapment is what it is.

Indeed.

@Robusto A form of enwrapment perhaps?

Or enjambement.

11:54 PM

@terdon I said no fetishes. Please. We've been over this.

@Cerberus Or enjambonment.

Yum!

@Robusto Ah, so foot fetishes are all right then?

@terdon Not in Europe. You guys use the metric system.

11:55 PM

I made a lemon tarte today.

Con jamon

@terdon Somebody say LaTeX?

@Robusto Our fetish.

Homer: We had to shoot our dog today.
Jethro: Was he mad?
Homer: Well, he wasn't any too pleased.

@Cerberus It’s a rather stupid drug that can make some people do exceptionally stupid things.

11:56 PM

Yeah?

Many people here use it.

@Robusto No, Britain uses normal shoe sizes.

@KitFox Yes. Though Bibtex expertise is what I'm really looking for.

Stupid drug and stupid people

@Cerberus I stand by my words.

@terdon Whatcha looking for? I know some BibTeX too.

11:57 PM

@tchrist Somali pirates too, I think.

@tchrist They also use yards instead of meters on golf courses, strangely enough.

Then again, alcohol is probably the worst drug...

@Robusto Most golf courses use gages not meters.

@KitFox I need to format my list of references as "foo et al. " as opposed to "foo, bar, baz, and another 12 names"

But they say, for example, hole #5 is a 456-yard par 5.

11:58 PM

All the bst styles I try automatically include the full list of authors and the paper's title.

Ah. Yes.

I have a format for that I used for my master's thesis.

@KitFox Yes, I've found a post on tex.se that explains how to do it but since this is for a journal submission, I need to use basic styles.

Which style are you using?