English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2014-12-21

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12:07 AM

> Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

@tchrist Will you be spending Christmas alone?

@Daniel I have not talked to you for so many years!

12:23 AM

@JasperLoy Hi Jasper - I'm glad you aren't deleting yourself anymore!

I am waffles now.

Now

@Daniel Well, I might be. I break promises all the time. I still have your email address!

@JasperLoy Yeah - it's off my profile at this point!

@JasperLoy That's fine. I see how you're blue now.

@Daniel I believe I told you my current email, jasperloy at outlook dot com. I deleted a few email accounts too!

@Daniel Why did you remove it from your profile? Did too many people email you?

No I just got tired of having a big about me!

Plus there's always chat if anyone really needs to talk to me, which is unlikely!

I see. Well, maybe I will send you an email soon to tell you some secrets.

I see you have removed the delta from your name.

12:29 AM

All those wore off, I noticed. :)

Well, you are not much active on Eng anymore.

No, I work now!

You must be working at your family business.

Yep, you remember

Do you have a job?

No, I am still the same. Still trying to get better and then go to grad school. I know it's been years.

12:32 AM

Well, I wish thee the best!

Why does it say Celebrating Hanukkah: now 37% more like Christmas! up there?

Yes. Maybe one day, I will try to apply for a job at your company.

@Daniel Well, they change the subtitle of the room very often these days, to meaningless trivia.

Hey I need to be up and about ... it's nice seeing you still around!

@Daniel Keep in touch, bye!

12:46 AM

@Hugo It strikes me that there have been a bunch of questions on this site along the lines of "someone I know once said something; what does it mean?", to which the obvious answer is "ask them what they meant".

Hats are a good excuse for voting fraud, lol.

@TRiG So you still hang out in the Christianity room?

@JasperLoy I do. I'm there right now, actually.

11 hours later…

11:29 AM

It's quiet in this chat. It must be a Sunday morning in America.

11:50 AM

@JasperLoy Only just. It's currently 06:50 ET and 03:50 on the west coast.

Keep it down, you two. Can't you see America is trying to sleep?

2

1 hour later…

1:23 PM

2 hours later…

3:00 PM

@skullpatrol Robin Williams signing out with The Wizard Of Oz :-)

@Jez you got it pal :-)

I'm wearing a sun hat on the darkest day of the year!

3:30 PM

It only gets better from now on :-)

Yes, but slowly. It will seem stagnant for the next month or so, then accelerate around mid-February, and the change will be greatest at the equinox, when it will begin again to slow.

Such is the nature of elliptic integrals.

And sine waves.

yes, them too :-)

Amplitude transit is greatest when the wave intersects the midpoint and least when it touches crest or trough.

Ellie Kesselman

3:38 PM

Most excellent lol's! This english.stackexchange.com/questions/216129/… in response to my notation inquiry about this english.stackexchange.com/questions/216129/…

So did you "get" the reference to LISP?

2

Ellie Kesselman

@DanielRHicks Is that you, HotLicks? I am laughing so hard! That was wonderful!

Yep, `tis I.

(Actually, I thought that one was just average.)

Ellie Kesselman

@DanielRHicks Very witty and cute! Perhaps I am too easily amused ;o)

@DanielRHicks I was very eager to share the joy chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/19193293#19193293

You can kind of figure out his notation. "(S ..." begins a sentence, "(NP " begins a noun phrase. But I lose it from there.

Anyway Happy Hanukkah or Merry Christmas or whatever!

Ellie Kesselman

3:45 PM

@DanielRHicks It looks so appalling giggle! Happy Channukah to you too! Thank you!

Pencilveinea ...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

3:59 PM

Let's see, there's some kind of hat today.

I turned hats off.

user116848

It's solstice related hat I guess.

Yay! Days get longer now. Why does it get colder?

Because of the angle of the earth's axis.

@Robusto You can't be too careful. Use sunscreen too.

user116848

4:07 PM

I like winters here. Summers suck here.

@Mitch It's cold here in Antarctica all year round.

@JasperLoy On the north coast in summer, the beach is real nice.

If you're a seal.

I hope my bout of bad thoughts stop this week, because I am supposed to start studying next week. I have been trying to get out of the current round for a while already.

@Mitch It is well known that I am a banana.

4:23 PM

Bananas are the unit of measure for radiation dose

Oops. That's two units.

4:48 PM

-1

Q: What does a hyphenated "big-company" mean?

What does "big-company" mean in this sentence? As well as location, try complementary SIC codes, similar turnovers, or employee numbers. (Companies of 250 employees are often about to hit big-company growth upswings.) — Marketing Professionals website

meaning-in-context

-1

Q: What does "twice as many" mean?

In the paragraph below, what does Twice as many campaigns... and turn customers off mean? Twice as many campaigns are for lead gen as customer retention (84% vs. 43%), so make sure you start with the audience, on every campaign. Approaching longtime friends as if you're perfect strangers can ...

meaning-in-context

0

Q: What does "gets your message in front" mean?

In the paragraph below, what does "gets your message in front means" mean? Because data's harder to get a grip on than logos, it can be tough to "shape" your database in a way that gets your message in front of the people it's most suited to. So here's a 12-item checklist of questions to ask ...

meaning-in-context

Clearly a spammer in my book.

And even if not, it's gen-ref.

I am surprised that not one person has voted to close on either grounds.

OIC, it's our very own @AndrewLeach who's been spamming us.

Well fair enough on that count. Still gen-ref though.

Off to stuff my face with potatoes.

1 hour later…

5:53 PM

#begin RANT

I am sick

and I am tired

of listening to Ed’s pretentious and

What happened?

anti-linguistic bickering about

just what the #!$%@#$%^^& a word is.

I’m past my limit.

He won’t shut up.

He won’t write his own answer.

All he does is bicker and snipe.

He provides no evidence.

What he says is unsound from a linguistic perspective, and I am tired of his digging.

6

A: Can one ever say for certain a word does not exist?

Words are things people say or write As Lewis Caroll so famously wrote: ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Or as another English don would later pen to everlasting f...

It's OK. It's just one person on the internet about language, not important.

So FOAD! HTH & HAND. And may God have mercy on his soul.

#end RANT

My charity is exhausted.

then rest

5:57 PM

I choose life.

2 hours later…

8:19 PM

Limerick Machine: There once was a horse on a lawn The lawn owner found in the morn They shooed it away But then th…

posted on December 21, 2014 by sgdi

There once was a horse on a lawn The lawn owner found in the morn They shooed it away But then the next day The horse was back looking forlorn

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

:)

user116848

:)

8:37 PM

:)

What are we smiling about?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

9:07 PM

english.stackexchange.com/users/18399/…

I wish that would box.

The way the Solstice hat fits my face.

there are some really over-specific QA sites now

look at this:

what about it?

especially considering there is already a History one

also, its over-specificity seems to be reflected in the stats:

oh

77 visitors/day

9:15 PM

what's this place get?

dunno

9:40 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Did I miss something exciting?

Anonymous

9:57 PM

@Jez I'd like to see more natural language sites, but most of the proposals aren't doing very well at the moment

@snailboat What's a natural language?

Anonymous

Latin - Korean - Portuguese

Oh I see.

Anonymous

@JasperLoy A language. Not a constructed language (generally speaking) or a programming language

@snailboat well, one can get too specific

there's only so many Qs and As for any given topic

Anonymous

10:01 PM

There's also a ConLang proposal

@snailboat Do you have a favourite series to learn languages from?

Anonymous

@JasperLoy Series?

an well ordered program to learn languages

Anonymous

I don't think that sort of thing matters very much

Anonymous

You just have to put the time in and use the language

10:05 PM

I was thinking of book series like Teach Yourself, Routledge Colloquial, etc.

Anonymous

I've never used anything like that

Anonymous

So I'm the wrong person to ask

OK. I read up on about ten such series, lol.

Anonymous

You won't learn a language that way

Anonymous

I mean, I'm not saying not to use any of those books or whatnot.

Anonymous

10:09 PM

I'm just saying that reading about series after series isn't actually language learning

Anonymous

You can do it anyway, of course.

Anonymous

But if that's all you ever do, you're stuck at square one forever.

Anonymous

Analysis paralysis

Analysis paralysis or paralysis of analysis is an anti-pattern, the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome. A decision can be treated as over-complicated, with too many detailed options, so that a choice is never made, rather than try something and change if a major problem arises. A person might be seeking the optimal or "perfect" solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution. The phrase describes a situation where the opportunity...

Anonymous

And relative to that, taking any possible first step is better.

Anonymous

You can roll a die to pick.

Anonymous

10:10 PM

Doesn't matter.

it depends on your learning style too

so in that sense it does matter

Anonymous

Not really.

Anonymous

aft.org/periodical/american-educator/summer-2005/…

Anonymous

It's true that some methods are more effective than others and that people learn differently.

Anonymous

But if you don't pick something and do it, everything is of equal value―none

Anonymous

10:13 PM

'Sides, you can always move on to something more effective later.

Anonymous

You'll never know if you don't do it.

that's true in some ways

you learn by doing

Anonymous

In any case, having researched ten different series of language learning products is surely enough research.

I suspect the Stone wouldn't work.

Why all the stars for 'I don't know English'?

Anonymous

10:19 PM

Hats?

not my star

Mine. :D

Strange stars in many chats recently

how many rooms are you in at SO?

We have snow here now, so beautiful.

@skullpatrol ~10, mostly lurking

Anonymous

10:21 PM

You said it around when the "star messages by eight different people" hat appeared.

Anonymous

(At the same time the other hats appeared.)

Anonymous

There are other highly starred messages from around that time:

Anonymous

Dec 15 at 2:28, by Robusto

Heya, heya, step right up: just nine more favorites will earn me a badge and a hat.

Anonymous

This has eight stars.

@snailboat ah :)

Anonymous

10:24 PM

I suppose I do have some opinions on language learning methods … many of them specific to learning Japanese, though, so of no use here

Anonymous

Just because I run into problems learners have that can be traced back to how they learned

LOL: "If modality theory is so wrong, why does it feel so right?"

Anonymous

But I think everyone has problems of various sorts, and they learn to deal with them eventually

@snailboat thanks for the article :-)

@snailboat Beyond Corrections, I think. Maybe Rehabilitation. :D

I really like this hat. It makes me feel like I got a makeover. :-)

10:28 PM

It
is
cool
:D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. You're the Robo-Solstice!

And a smiling one at that!

Anonymous

Sure, a smiling robo-solstice.

Hee

Does the mod Caleb ever talk to anyone? I tried to engage him about ten times without success.

It's just that he comes to this room almost every day, but almost never talks. And that is strange.

Anonymous

10:31 PM

People can lurk. Lurking is okay.

4

I prefer it.

sometimes

you prefer lurkers to active participants?

yes

too many people talking gets confusing

imo

imo is redundant, because everything one says is his opinion.

redundancy is needed

everything is context dependent

Anonymous

10:47 PM

If we accept that everything someone says is their opinion, then we need to come up with another way of accounting for the infelicity of utterances like #In my opinion, two plus two equals four.

Also, #It is what it is

:-)

11:29 PM

Hey @cornbreadninja麵包忍者 you still around?

i am

Anonymous

@skullpatrol What makes you mark that as infelicitous?

@snailboat I don't like it.

Anonymous

Ah, you need a separate mark for "I don't like it"

11:45 PM

sorry

Anonymous

You don't have to apologize for not liking something

Anonymous

We just have to come up with the right symbol for it.

Anonymous

> ☹ It is what it is.

Or

It is what it is :(

:(It is what it is)

Anonymous

Now it looks like you're eating the sentence.

2

11:52 PM

Yes, trying to digest the meaning is giving me indigestion.

2

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