English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

It would not be normal to use salpicar instead of echar for the common act of adding milk to one’s cereal. If you did, though, it means it spilled/splashed somewhere wrong/accidental/inopportune and now you have a mess to clean up.

Salpicar is a compound word.

It stains things, too.

Thing sal as in jump, and picar as in um hm poke?

A salient point jumps out at you.

And piquant food pokes your tongue.

salpicar: Saltar un líquido esparcido en gotas menudas por choque o movimiento brusco. Mojar o manchar con un líquido que salpica.

gotas are drops

Mojar is to wet.

Manchar is to stain.

Tienes que echar un poco de sal a la sopa para que su sabor salga mejor.

sal is salt.

salir/salga is to come/go out.

You need to sprinkle a bit of salt on the soup to bring out its flavor.

I think you are right that it is a casual unmeasured thing.

When you sauté something, that has the same root in French as saltar does in Spanish: jump.

A grasshopper is un saltamontes: a mountain-leaper.

Robusto

I keep wanting to harden the "ch" as in archaic, but I have to shed that habit for Spanish.

tchrist

arcaico

antiguo

No h.

Robusto

I know.

tchrist

máquina

Robusto

What I'm saying is, I see echo and I think Echo.

tchrist

12:10 PM

Oh.

Maybe this is why the Brits cannot pronounce makizmo.

Un eco es un sonido que resuena.

Does that make sense?

An echo is a sound that resounds, so to speak.

Robusto

An echo is a sound that rebounds.

tchrist

Rebound is rebotar.

So que rebota.

Hm.

Robusto

Momento. I must restart my computer to finish installing software.

tchrist

12:27 PM

When you first hear a Brit or Kiwi say [mæˈkɪzmɵʊ] where an American or Canadian would say [mɐˈtʃiːsmoʊ], you might not even know they were saying machismo. I know I certainly did not. Similarly their [ˈmætʃɵʊ] for [ˈmɑtʃoʊ] makes macho comes off as bizarre in the extreme. My transatlantic rule is to bidirectionally swap [æ] for [ɑ] between British and American, so tr[æɑ][ɑæ] in both directions.

Robusto

@tchrist I used to say machismo when I thought the word was Italian.

Back when I was in high school, or earlier.

tchrist

That a nation whose raspberries are the überposh [ˈɹɑːzbɹiz] instead of pedestrian [ˈɹæzbeɹiz] should also order [ˈnætʃɵʊz] and [ˌkʷeɪzɚˈdɪlɚz] cracks me up Every. Single. Time.

And yes, I have honest-to-Claude heard them order them that way.

I wonder if the Brits’ unaccountably odd [ɑ] –> [æ] swap on words from Spanish, Italian, Portuguese is some unconscious class-related attempt to avoid sounding posh, lest it drift to [ɒ]. Or maybe it is a holdover from Anglo-Latin. Ask @AndrewLeach and @MattE.Эллен

It might also be that in natural(ized) English words, graphemic ‹a› in stressed position is simply [æ] (cat, batch, scab, last, path, have, algebra), and only becomes [ɑ] under other phonetic situations like with ball, call, thrall.

I feel like they are following some rule I don’t know about.

But I cannot begin to explain [ˈɹɒːzbɹiz], try though I may.

I wonder whether both Andrew and Matt each have the TRAP–BATH merger like we do, or whether they’re splitters. Splitting sounds posh southern, merging sounds northern/Scottish/American.

So help me if it snows I am going to cry.

Robusto

12:48 PM

@tchrist Lágrimas de nieve?

tchrist

I’m the red stickpin. Green is rain, yellow to orange is heavy rain / thunderstorms. Rose is sleet and ice. Cyan is snow.

Robusto

I see turquoise, not cyan.

tchrist

Really?

Oh, I think it is because in the north part there is some green bleed-through. Look to the south.

Robusto

Pic is too small

tchrist

I see what you mean now.

Click it.

Robusto

12:51 PM

Yeah, my Chrome doesn't like to do that.

tchrist

Really?

Robusto

Even when I copy the link and view it it's not very large.

tchrist

That seems strange.

Robusto

Yeah, it broke about six months ago and they never fixed it.

Whoever they may be.

Works OK in Firefox, etc.

tchrist

Link is small for you?

Robusto

12:52 PM

Yes.

tchrist

Is that an SO bug or a Google one?

Robusto

Not really sure.

tchrist

The "light blue" (whatever it is called) is currently under a winter storm alert.

Robusto

Can't see: http://i.stack.imgur.com/CcgnK.jpg
Can see: http://i.stack.imgur.com/LLwl2.jpg

Not sure what the difference would be.

tchrist

So weird.

Robusto

12:54 PM

But if I click the "can see" link it gets translated to i.stack.imgur.com/LLwl2.jpg

tchrist

Full map is here. As you see, @Cerb is getting snowed on.

Robusto

I have to translate it myself to i.stack.imgur.com/LLwl2.jpg

I don't get it.

tchrist

Sounds bug.

Robusto

Same link but one I can't see and the other I can. Same URL.

tchrist

Oh, the full map is not zoomed.

Robusto

12:55 PM

@tchrist Ya think?

tchrist

Uh oh.

The sisters of my friend with all the burn grafts really need to go back to Grand Junction today for work in the morning. This may not be possible.

Robusto

Think 70 will close?

tchrist

That’s what I’m checking now.

Either at the Eisenhower Tunnel or at Vail Pass, or both.

Robusto

Still awfully early in the season to be planning trans-Rockies trips.

tchrist

Family emergency.

Ok, it is still open, but only very very barely.

The live camera views are grim.

Robusto

1:01 PM

But they clear that in a day, normally, no?

tchrist

But it’s just getting started. It’s not at all done.

Cameras all along I-70 available for viewing here.

Okay, Vail looks alright; it’s just the Eisenhower that’s a mess.

I’ve driven it in those conditions far, far too often.

But it may close. Can’t predict.

Robusto

What do drivers do when it closes? Turn around? Look for accommodations?

Freeze?

tchrist

Depends where they are.

I’ve done all three of those.

If you are still on the eastern side of the Tunnel, you turn around.

If you are on the western side, then you may well be stuck in Silverthorne for the night.

Robusto

Also, Martin is not a particularly careful writer, so don't put too much weight on his word choice. — Robusto 10 secs ago

tchrist

Occasionally you are stuck at a pullover and had best have brought a winter kit.

First year coming back from Burning Man, 2001, by way of Bryce and Zion and Moab and the North Rim on the road back, I was stranded in a gas station parking lot due to a blizzard closing I-70. It was so incredibly cold because my body was in hot-hot-desert mode. Without the sleeping bags I don’t know what I would have done.

I did have trousers and coats and hats and gloves packed in the car, because you simply have to, but your vehicle is so packed that it is superhard to get to them; you don’t imagine you will go from hottest summer to coldest winter in one day’s drive, so fail to keep them at ready.

I should text my friend and make sure his sisters know that I-70 is shit right now.

It says it will warm up to 40 way down in Silverthorne at like 8500'. That won’t help the passes.

> ... Winter Storm Warning in effect from noon today to noon MDT
Monday...

The National Weather Service in Denver has issued a Winter Storm
Warning for heavy snow... which is in effect from noon today to
noon MDT Monday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.

* Timing... widespread snow is expected to develop late this
morning and early afternoon. Snow will continue tonight and
decrease Monday morning.

* Snow accumulations... 6 to 16 inches possible... with the heaviest
amounts east of the Continental Divide along the Front Range

The good news is that they’ve cancelled the Winter Storm Watch.

The bad news is that they’ve upgraded it to a Winter Storm Warning.

At 6” they would never close the passes. At only 16” they probably won’t but it depends on ice and on blowing. Certainly the Chain Law is in effect. The “Chain Law” means legally mandated tire-chains for all trucks or buses or passenger vans but not private cars. A private car without one or more of tire-chains, snow tires, and four/all-wheel drive is a fool and should get the fuck off the road.

The winter storm is all the way from here to there, starting the second you get a bit of elevation on you. Even if it isn’t closed, it’s dangerous. They grew up in the mountains so aren’t idiot-flatlanders, but dangerous is dangerous. People die. ALSO: avalanche danger is way up.

The very pale overlays are the Winter Storm Warning areas. I am just barely east of it; I may or may not get snow, but I won’t get a blizzard like the areas west of me.

If they can get past the Divide, they should be ok.

That’s the key problem right there.

East of Genesee and West of Eagle, it’s wet but not horrid. The worst is the snow-packed, but the fog is its own trouble.

No, I would never schedule a trip across the Divide this early in the season unless at great need.

Cerberus

1:28 PM

Hello, wall.

Snow again, eh?

@Robusto Can't argue with that...

George Pompidou

was bedeutet lange voorhout

auf Niederländisch

ah, es ist eine Straße

facepalms

Cerberus

1:44 PM

Correct!

Lang = long

Voor = for/before

Hout = wood

It is a street in the Hague that no doubt once was near the woods.

George Pompidou

haha

danke!

or as they say in Swedish, 2014 winner of the coveted most useless language in the world award, Takk!

Cerberus

Hey, Swedish is pretty cool.

In Dutch, it's dank, by the way.

George Pompidou

so is this weed I'm smokin'

giggles

Cerberus

Are you in Holland already?

George Pompidou

no, haha, May 15th

I just booked my hotel though for one of the nights.

Cerberus

1:47 PM

Ah, okay.

George Pompidou

I bet you can guess on which street it is.

Cerberus

Gee, no idea.

George Pompidou

I've never been to the Hague before so I decided to sleep there, but I realized that it's only like 45 minutes by train from Amsterdam.

so I can just stay there both nights and go as I please

Cerberus

Sure, you could.

There are night trains.

George Pompidou

^.^

Cerberus

1:49 PM

And you can walk from the station to your hotel.

George Pompidou

I see on my Reisplanner app

which in German means rice planner!

Cerberus

Very good!

Hmm I think that is spelled differently in German?

Reiß?

George Pompidou

Reiseplaner

but Reis = rice

Reismilch!

in the Hague I can also go to P. W. Akkerman

and spend all my money and not get a ticket home and be homeless in the Netherlands

it's gonna be greeeeeat

Cerberus

Ah, so rice is actually spelled Reis, I didn't know that.

P.W. Akkerman? Who is that?

George Pompidou

it's a nice store with pens.

huh. I've never been on a Dutch train before.

which is surprising because I'm a huge train nerd.

tchrist

1:58 PM

@Mitch Spiny lobsters are completely common in California and the Caribbean.

It is too cold for them in Maine.

George Pompidou

are you a spiny lobster tchrist?

crl

only after midnight

George Pompidou

cute!

with little chompy claws

Robusto

2:40 PM

@Cerberus Can't argue with what?

Cerberus

That fundamentalists are fundamentalists.

Robusto

I can't argue with that either.

I thought you might have been talking about this:

2 hours ago, by Robusto

Also, Martin is not a particularly careful writer, so don't put too much weight on his word choice. — Robusto 10 secs ago

Nov 6 '12 at 12:59, by Robusto

Well, we can all rest assured that Martin is off in his hobbit hole (or whatever he calls his office) sweating out another big tub of prose for us.

Cerberus

2:58 PM

@Robusto I keep telling people this.

Because you and Tom said so.

Only yesterday I told my friend to not worry about reading the Dutch Martin she already owned, because the English wouldn't add much.

terdon

4:03 PM

@tchrist What's up?

crl

5:21 PM

clouds

tchrist

@terdon bio confusion

3

Q: "Boston" lobster vs. Italian "aragosta"

This live crustacean is called astice in Italian. The one on the right is aragosta They look very different from one another. The Italian dictionary describes the astice as having a deep (intense) blue colour (turchino) with yellow splotches and large claws, whereas the aragosta has a reddish...

Basically, the Mediterranean peoples have many words for things that in English we have few words for.

And the silly Spanish call crayfish/freshwater lobster "river crabs", too. :)

Mari-Lou wanted to know why in the world English calls both (translating here) langostas and bogovantes "lobster". Then again there are also the Norwegian lobsters and squat lobsters and slipper lobsters and rock lobsters. I figure that Greek must have many words for each of "lobster" and "shrimp", but I don't know. I do know that the French have fewer words than the Spanish do but more than the English.

And we haven’t even made it to cigalas yet.

What’s worse in South American Spanish they reassign these randomly, so that they don’t match up.

crl

crevette, ecrevisse, homard

tchrist

See, fewer than Spanish.

But which homard is that?

crl

the big one, lobster

tchrist

Ah, the bogovante then not the langosta?

The bogovante has two giant claws, the langosta does not.

crl

5:32 PM

oh there's langouste, langoustine, too, 'gambas' is used also

tchrist

Yeah.

> Le homard se distingue facilement de la langouste par la présence de pinces imposantes et par une carapace moins épineuse. Les écrevisses, vivant dans les eaux douces, sont les espèces qui lui ressemblent le plus, mais plus petites (bien qu'il existe en zone tropicale des écrevisses assez grandes pouvant évoquer la couleur et la forme d'un jeune homard).

Oh.

It’s that part in parens that gives trouble.

Because where do you draw the line?

crl

hard to tell, I've never been too interested in crustaceans (have only eaten shrimps)

tchrist

With non-Spanish-speaking Americans I’ve eaten paellas de mariscos in Spain with like a dozen different crustaceans and molluscs in them, and they would ask what each thing was and I never knew the translation, even though I knew each creature.

Is an écrevisse only the kind that live in fresh (="sweet") water?

And crevettes are the other kind?

You know the thing I just cannot understand people eating?

Sea urchins.

Erizos u oricios.

Oursins perhaps?

That has to be cognate.

> El celebre escritor pontevedrés Julio Camba decía: El erizo es un extracto de mar, un hálito de borrascas, una esencia de tempestades. Al primero que uno se toma, la boca no se le hace simplemente agua: se le hace agua de mar con todos los olores y sabores marinos. Y después de tomarse quince o veinte docenas - porque el tomar este marisco no es comer ni beber, sino respirar en pleno Oceano - , la langosta le sabrá a uno a galápago y las mejores almejas a neumático de automovil.

Well, clams always taste like tires.

terdon

6:01 PM

@tchrist I'm afraid I can't help much. I'm allergic to shellfish, so not very knowledgeable about them. We do have karavides (καραβίδες) and astakos (αστακός) which are small and large lobster species respectively, but I don't know about the gambas.

I think that all shrimp are called garides (γαρίδες), at least that's the only name I know of, but there may be more.

tchrist

Oh ok, thanks.

@terdon Are you allergic because you OD’d on them when you were a kid? :)

terdon

@tchrist Nah, I never could stand the stuff.

Makes me a cheap date :)

As long as we're not talking whisky anyway.

tchrist

Larry Wall grew up on the West Coast eating marine pescado and marisco constantly then in grad school developed a severe allergy to them. But only marine. He can eat freshwater trout, crayfish, mussels.

So it’s like he got his lifetime quota in early. :)

@terdon You sure you aren’t from Peoria?

terdon

Yes, my sister has the same thing. So does my Dad, he always hated them and eventually developed an allergy. I'm the same way, I've never actually had an allergic reaction but the very smell of them is abhorrent to me. I try every few years, just in case I've grown out of it but they just don't taste like food at all.

@tchrist Quite :)

Mitch

6:17 PM

@tchrist Yeah, I've never been there or know much about there, which is why I limited myself to 'northeast'. I feel like in the US, it's all 'lobster' by default and anything different needs to be qualified or uses a foreign word (like languostine)

tchrist

@Mitch I thought you had never been there.

The lobsters served at the Red Lobster chain are usually spiny lobsters not clawed lobsters.

And they do not tell you that.

grubstreet.com/2012/04/…

This nonsense about “true” lobsters is just self-serving puffery from money-addicts from New England.

> Red Lobster already uses spiny lobster tails in many of its dishes, but still stocks Maine lobsters for their tanks and for serving customers who order whole lobsters

> if you ever wondered why the entrées during Lobsterfest were so cheap, now you know.

So, no.

@Mitch Would you seriously expect the Californian lobstermen to stop calling these giants lobsters?

Southern California Lobster Fishing Good

►

This is not the tail of a stingray:

The only people who would not call that a lobster are New Englanders with a tainted financial interest in promoting their brand.

IMHO

terdon

6:37 PM

I'd call that the mother of all lobsters. Wow.

tchrist

Until you learn it’s actually an alien space invader.

terdon

I'd never seen a yellow lobster before.

tchrist

@terdon You may be right: mothers that size can loose hundreds of thousands of eggs per season, and they live a very, very, very long time.

terdon

Heh, the shellfish Eve.

We always knew she was selfish.

tchrist

@terdon The problem with New Englanders is all the snooty bluebloods there:

terdon

6:41 PM

Wow, that thing's gorgeous!

tchrist

They are very pretty.

terdon

Must be the envious Eve.

tchrist

Isn’t that last one a real beauty?

terdon

@tchrist Gay Eve!

And yes, they both are. Shame I can't eat them, really.

tchrist

@terdon Naw, he’s just in fancy dress.

Why would you want to eat something so lovely?

When you see a beautiful kitten, do you think about eating it? :)

terdon

6:45 PM

I don't really, but the rest of you seem to get a lot of pleasure out of it.

tchrist

No, no. This is all marketing.

They used to be considered trash.

terdon

@tchrist Usually, yes. I'm strange that way. I avoid entering jewelery stores for that very reason. Diamonds wreak havoc with my digestive tract and the owner is none too pleased, either.

tchrist

How do you feel about bi lobsters?

And particolored ones.

terdon

Nice!

Wow, seriously?

Dr. Gianluigi Zane Zanettini, Ferrara, Italy

6 1

bash colors terminal

tchrist

Yes.

Not photoshopped.

terdon

6:47 PM

OK, you're a PhD, you wanna cookie?

tchrist

He’s European. They are utterly insane about titles.

terdon

@tchrist Um. Actually, as far as I know, it's the Americans who insist on using the Dr. I've never met a European who does.

I certainly don't.

tchrist

4

A: Is writing "Herr Prof. X" exaggerated/mandatory? Is it old-fashioned?

First, it is not correct to leave out the Herr or Frau. “Sehr geehrter Prof. X” sounds uncomplete. It is possible to leave out the academic title (Prof., Dr.), but it depends heavily on the context whether it is advisable. Generally, the need for including the Prof. increases the older and the m...

No, my friends and family with PhDs do not go by doctor. Or rather, we don’t let them.

terdon

> It is possible to leave out the academic title (Prof., Dr.), but it depends heavily on the context whether it is advisable. Generally, the need for including the Prof. increases the older and the more conservative the recipient is, the more hierarchical their field of study (think medicine), and the more distant your relationship to them is.

tchrist

Well, except for the physician.

He gets doctored, but he has earned it.

Neal Halsey

Neal A. Halsey, MD (born 1945), is a pediatrician, with subspecialty training in infectious diseases, international health and epidemiology. Currently, Dr. Halsey is a Professor of International Health and Director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland. He also has a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and serves as Co-Director of the Center for Disease Studies and Control in Guatemala. As part of a career largely dedicated to promoting vaccinations, in 1999 he ...

My favorite uncle, and a great man in many ways.

terdon

6:50 PM

Well, yes, the Wikipedia page would, fair enough.

tchrist

MD, note.

terdon

I just find it pretentious to insist on people calling you Dr so-and-so.

Mitch

@tchrist Wow. I'd call those lobsters, too. My agenda is that the question "Why is there only one word for these things in English when Italian has two?" is unfair and tendentious as though Italian is 'better' (and I'm not saying English is either).

tchrist

@terdon In my old bio lab, it drove me crazy.

I’ll call you doctor if you can write me an Rx, and not otherwise.

terdon

@tchrist Yeah, in my (admittedly limited) experience, Americans tend to insist on it.

tchrist

6:51 PM

We had to wear fucking badges with our degrees on them.

terdon

@tchrist Seriously? That's absurd!

tchrist

Yes, seriously.

terdon

OK, everyone should call me Dr. terdon then.

I find this obsession with titles to be pathetic, really.

tchrist

They didn’t care what it was, but you had to list your “highest” degree: BA, BS, MA, MS, DDS, MD, PhD. If you were an MD PhD, you listed both.

Understand that this was a university research lab.

terdon

@tchrist Which makes it even worse.

tchrist

6:54 PM

I did notice that people didn’t treat me as well just because my badge said “only” MS.

terdon

@tchrist Well, that might be a good way of figuring out who you actually care to know.

I do add a Ph.D. after my name in my work email signature, but that's the only place I use it.

tchrist

> Title etiquette is sensitive in Germany. Listen carefully to which titles are used during introductions and be sure to use them, too. Germans use titles (Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc.) and last names for everyone except for closest friends who have mutually agreed to using first names. Failure to use the title with the name can be offensive to a German.

That drives me nuts.

telegraph.co.uk/expat/contributors/brianmelican/10024859/…

> Trust him he's a doctor... and a professor... and an engineer
Our guest columnist takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the German obsession with letters after your name

Obsession.

@Mitch I have a fun challenge for you: find something that Italian has only one word for but English has more than one. Use French if you prefer.

@Cerberus Latin for ya:

1

A: Adjective in "Ulysses" that means "existing in this world as opposed to an imagined one"

My first thought was that it could be sublunary, which Oxford Dictionaries Online defines as: Belonging to this world as contrasted with a better or more spiritual one That seems to be more or less exactly the meaning you are going for, and searching through the Gutenberg Project online ver...

Mitch

7:14 PM

@tchrist beef/cow, sheep/mutton? Almost all modern electronic vocabulary?

tchrist

This one goes out to the all our Canadian friends:

OED also has all three (or six) of supralunar(y), superlunar(y), and translunar(y) as English words, plus circumlunar, cis-lunar, interlunar, novilunar, semilunar(y), presemilunar(y) all more or less directly from Latin into English. It also has French-derived demilune, interlune, novilune, perilune, plenilune/plenilunar, semi-lune, and clair-de-lune. The verb dislune for uncrazying someone is a nonce-word. — tchrist 2 mins ago

Robusto

9:42 PM

@tchrist If a German has two doctorates, you're supposed to address him as Herr Doktor Doktor.

Mitch

9:54 PM

@Robusto in South Carilina, if you graduate from high school, they address them as Your Honor. But if you're heart transplant surgeon and black, they still say 'can you fetch the doctor'

terdon

@Mitch You forgot boy.

Mitch

I held back

Konformist Liberal

"yes all dictionaries are of class dict. ", I'm trying to understand this sentence, I don't know what is means something like ... are of ... means - if anybody could help, it would be really nice

Mitch

But that is for real, they really do still say that

terdon

@Mitch Not surprised.

@KonformistLiberal All dictionaries belong to the class "dict."

Mitch

9:57 PM

Or 'oh him... He's ok' when referring to a black guy

Konformist Liberal

@terdon thank you

terdon

You're welcome. Oh, by the way, you might be interested in English Language Learners, they're a better place for this sort of question.