English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-04-19

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12:17 AM

By the way, if anything can think of a suggestion for my little problem:

0

Q: Userscript: prevent Google Images from scrolling to the top when I drag an image (Firefox)

In Google Images, you can drag an image up into a "Drop image here" area to search for the image. An example page. When you start dragging the image, the page automatically scrolls to the top. If you stop dragging the image without reaching the designated area, the page scrolls back to wh...

javascript firefox scroll userscripts google-image-search

4 hours later…

4:10 AM

Guys, I have a question about possessive. If a singular noun ends with s or es, like Moses, Isis or Charles, how do you add 's?

or describe possessive of those words?

3 hours later…

6:57 AM

@Rob a nice one

5 hours later…

11:38 AM

@EnglishMaster You just add s. Moses's, Isis's, Charles's.

@LuizBerti I voted to reopen.

@Robusto I also voted to reopen but why are the dates relevant? Closing an older question in favor of a new one is perfectly fine if the new one is a better question or has better answers.

@terdon If the latter gets better answers than the former, and the questions are equivalent, IMO the answers should be merged into the former.

@Robusto Not really. Order is irrelevant, only the relative quality counts. We should always close in favor of the better question.

Merging takes a mod so we can't really deal with that short of flagging.

You and I will have to agree to disagree on that point.

In any case, the questions are just not duplicates, so the issue is moot.

@Robusto Really? You feel that the newer should always be closed in favor of the older?

11:53 AM

@terdon Absent any compelling evidence, yes.

Well, yes, if they're equivalent, keep the old one but if the new one is better, keep that one.

I've had it happen to me on SO where the latter question got more votes even though it was decidedly inferior.

I'm not saying more votes, just better. Clearer, better explained or with better answers. The target should always be the best question on the subject available on the site.

36

A: Should I vote to close a duplicate question, even though it's much newer, and has more up to date answers?

If the new question is a better question or has better answers, then vote to close the old one as a duplicate of the new one. You can flag and ask a moderator to merge after closure if they're exactly the same. If they differ based on the versions of the relevant systems, then they're not real...

I feel like this is a duplicate, but I can’t really find a good suitable original:

1

Q: send something to someone|somewhere

Background: I am writing a computer application which can understand English sentence. For that purpose, I was preparing frames of each word. For example: send something to recipient|place Since to can be defined as separate frame; to recipient|place So the frame for send can be defi...

word-order indirect-object prepositional-objects

Perhaps the barrier to finding one for me is the “good” constraint I am attempting to apply.

I think I should expend more effort in finding exact duplicates so people don’t complain about things not answering their question.

12:26 PM

@tchrist: I think I finally get why Spanish puts a plural article in front of an expression of hours. They take the hours as a quantity, not a point in time. So Yo como la cena a las nueve points to "the nine hours" and not the number the big hand points to.

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive body detected, offensive title detected: Has 'Shit' Become De-Curse-ified? by user3306356 on english.stackexchange.com

@Robusto I’m not sure of that. Compare Spanish “¿Qué hora es?” with French “Quelle heure est-il?” The Frenchman answers “Il est sept heures” but the Spaniard with “Son las siete”.

@tchrist But the Spaniard seems to be referring to the nine hours taken as a quantity.

The plural son makes me think that even more than the plural las.

But a Frenchman will say “Je me lève à 5 heures du matin” in the plural, just as a Spaniard would say “Me levanto a 5 horas de la mañana” (or more likely, “de la tarde” :).

¿A qué hora está el reloj? Está a una hora. Está a cinco horas.

We no longer say five hours of the clock in English.

Also, and I suppose you know this, don’t go over twelve in Spanish.

The Germans and even the French have things at 17. Like the English, the Spanish have them a las cinco de la tarde.

Timetables for trains and planes excepted.

I don't see how French has any bearing on what Spanish does. Me levanto a 5 horas de la mañana is talking about quantity of hours, not point in time.

12:36 PM

You couldn’t really use a if it were a period.

I’m just showing that Romance uses plural hours.

@tchrist Proving that Spanish is a more civilized language than those of the two countries who featured most prominently in the internecine struggles of the 20th century.

You cannot do something “at” three days.

Maybe I am not making myself clear. I thought it was a simple point I was making.

It may be.

But it eludes me.

I just know that all the Romance tongues use plural hours.

So it hardly started in Spanish.

I don't care where it started.

I just am trying to wrap my head around why "at seven" becomes "las siete" in Spanish.

Now you're trying to talk me out of my epiphany, it seems.

12:40 PM

It becomes that because it is seven hours.

Or one hour.

No puedo comer antes de la una a causa de mi trabajo.

It’s just that one is singular and two through twelve are plural.

Granted. That is in line with my supposition.

@terdon: I think my main issue is that if the second question is asked without reference to, or drawing distinction with, the first, then it means the asker of the second has not done sufficient research and, therefore, should not be rewarded.

They treat them just like any other number. Los siete enanos El niño único

@Robusto It's not a matter of rewarding the OP, it's for the next poor sap who does search and deserves to be pointed to the best Q&A we have.

Plus, searching for dupes is really not that easy. I see no reason to penalize the OP of an otherwise decent question just because they failed to work magic with the shitty SE search.

@terdon enanos?

dwarves

Hmm.

12:47 PM

Y Blancanieves, la niña única que los conoce.

La zorra.

Sé bueno tú.

Hmm, Count Bosco is treading on my bladder.

Era un lobo no una zorra. :)

That one is also interesting, by the way, why Blancanieves and not _Blancanieve?

12:48 PM

Yeah.

Maybe it’s because of the pattern of compound words taking plural forms?

Like?

Sacacorchos.

But then there’s parabrisa and parasol.

And corchos makes sense since there will be many. At least if I have a say in the matter.

Las nieves, on the other hand is quite rare.

Vanishingly so, in fact.

Rompecabezas, calientalibros, rascacielos, abrelatas, quebrapelotas.

@terdon De antaño. :)

Calientapollas.

=cocktease

secamanos

But quemarropa.

Maybe it’s using plurals there for the zero-article type case.

tocadiscos

tocacojones, yes, OK, I see the trend.

But nieves? Can you force nieves into another sentence? It's not really countable as far as I can tell.

12:55 PM

But a snowmobile is una motonieve.

En tiempo de nieves, nos quedamas adentro.

="Tiempo en que nieva con frecuencia"

@tchrist Hmm, as in temporada de lluvias?

Fair enough.

Exactly!

> nieves eternas, o nieves perpetuas.
1. f. pl. Las que, en la alta montaña, subsisten de un invierno a otro.

But yeah, not common.

Huh, OK, I would have called that nieve eterna but I'm not about to argue with RAE.

Nor with Villon. :)

SO what's the plural of blancanieves? He visto 5 blancanieveses? blancanieves? :P

12:59 PM

Those ones are invariant.

Se me cayó el sacacorchos. Me hacen falta tres sacacorchos nuevos.

I know, I know but blancanieveses or blancasnieves sound funnier.

@terdon If it's so hard, why do we bother to close dupes at all?

That all roads might lead to the same place.

@Robusto We should close, I just don't think that failing to find a dupe is reason to castigate a good OP.

It's not always that clear cut.

1:01 PM

I myself have posted dupes on various sites even after searching for them.

The SE search leaves something to be desired.

It leaves a lot to be desired. I never use it if I'm looking for information. I use Google instead.

Google finds stuff on SO way faster and better than SO search does.

@Robusto Exactly, you can hardly expect your new user to be aware of this even if they did take the time to search.

I find the whole business of dupes on SE sites murky and unpleasant.

It seems capricious and unfair, in large part.

You think we should answer the same question howsoever many times it should be asked?

@Robusto Which is why I don't consider posting a dupe any kind of offense. We just close them to keep the sites tidy.

1:07 PM

How does it keep the site tidy? And the process of closing doesn't really always close the inferior question, IMO. In fact, I'd say it doesn't even do so in a majority of cases.

@Robusto That's up to us. We should always strive to close in favor of the better thread.

All I'm saying is that the date of posting is irrelevant.

Well, in actual practice what we "should" strive to do and what we actually do are very far apart most of the time.

> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

Such is life.

That's the theory.

1 hour later…

2:29 PM

Que hora son? mi corazon

Que horas son. :P

Manu Chao - Me Gustas Tu

@crl Yup, he says que horas son, you just don't hear it because it's joined with the son. Just like in French.

Only with no z sound.

@terdon right, I remember discussing that case in class

It's arranged for the rhymes, rhythm, etc

3:06 PM

Is there a minimal pair for tensed /or/ versus lax /ɔr/?

@JohanLarsson Why are they wearing shoes? That provides a lot of extraneous noise that harms the performance.

yeah agree, I did not love it. It was mildly interesting though.

Did you listen to Thirlwell?

Masterpiece imo.

Who?

8 hours ago, by Johan Larsson

@Rob a nice one

Did not see that.

3:13 PM

@tchrist A minimal pair of what, are you looking for?

@Robusto I thought it was a little strange when you replied to other stuff on the line below :)

@crl Two words whose only phonemic difference is /or/ in one word and /ɔr/ in the other.

Ah ok

@JohanLarsson Maybe I viewed it on my tablet and mistook one for the other.

You want over ear headphones or better for this one.

Now I just hope that you beat me with ten even better tracks as usual.

3:15 PM

I have good computer speakers in my office.

We have somebody claiming that broad and board rhyme, but those have very different vowels. The one in broad is lax but the one in board is tense.

He must speak some dialect.

a door / adore

@tchrist 'mentor' and .. um... 'mentor' pronounced wrong?

'shore' and 'sure' pronounced wrong

@Robusto I should remember that

3:20 PM

@crl Those are homophones for me.

sho'nuf

@Mitch You should in theory. But will you in practice?

@Robusto What are you talking about?

@JohanLarsson Not sure I can do that. But did I link this one yet?

01. Otis Spann - Pretty Girls Everywhere

2 hours ago, by Robusto

Well, in actual practice what we "should" strive to do and what we actually do are very far apart most of the time.

Your post was a link to that.

@Robusto So you liked it, I was not sure. That song is very much my cup.

@Robusto very nice, ty sir!

3:37 PM

@Robusto I apologize. I forgot to press return on 'Zing!'

hi all

hi

what's up?

3:57 PM

zings

4:12 PM

@Rob Found this in Youtube comments. Sounds good so far.

5:00 PM

@JohanLarsson Oh yeah, Tom Waits. Mos' def.

Captain Beefheart - Diddy Wah Diddy

@JohanLarsson: You must be a Beefheart fan, surely.

The Buggy Boogie Woogie - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe As Milk (1999 CD Version)

@tchrist British English, perhaps. Broad, board and bored are all the same vowel sound. Bawd is different.

5:19 PM

@Robusto never heard him until now

@JohanLarsson Friend of Zappa's, that should tell you something :)

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969) [Full Album]

pretty good, not a fan yet though

Crazy bugger.

Beefheart, I mean.

@AndrewLeach Peter found a couple of pairs that work for New England but not elsewhere: Lawrence, Lorentz and Taurus, torus. In most of North America those are all tense vowels.

I’m thinking that dropping the r is relaxing the vowel for you.

Simple due to what is or is not required for the tongue.

With a rhotic there is no chance to relax it.

Now I wonder about Southern American English, since they are also non-rhotic.

Or at least, can be.

3 hours later…

8:19 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive body detected: I'd been sent to kill him / I was sent to kill him. etc..? by Milo on english.stackexchange.com

2 hours later…

10:46 PM

Greetings, mortals.

user116848

Greetings :)

11:47 PM

Greetings!

Wait, how do you know we're mortal?

@Cerberus I mean, it's a pretty good guess. You just never know really who you're talking to.

@Mitch You look mortal!

See this knife? Muwahaha...

By the way, does anyone know what time SE chat displays in its message history?

chat.stackexchange.com/messages/21187027/history

What time do you see? It says 10:49 PM for me.

@arrowfar How about you, what do you see?

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