English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-08-25 (page 1 of 2)

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1:20 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm that's annoying. What does Better Battery Stats and/or Wakelock Detector say?

@Robusto Ok good.

@tchrist I know that. But what is this about aspiration?

You mean st first turned into aspirated t?

Who knows.

S often turned into h in proto-Greek, but only at the beginning of a word (or possibly morpheme).

1:34 AM

@Mitch That's lovely. The Dutch are known for their delicate taste.

1:51 AM

@Cerberus No.

In certain Spanish accents, an s in the coda turns into an /h/ or nothing, and there is simultaneous opening of the vowel it follows so that one can still hear a different "phoneme" if one is so attuned. I say "phoneme" because open and close e are allophones in standard Spanish, not phonemes. But in s-dropping dialects, they need to signal it somehow.

Of course, Romance dislikes closed syllables in general, and is apt to reduce any syllable-final consonant before another one that starts the next syllable. So too do we, at least often enough, although not so much. Actor swallows the c somewhat.

This s-dropping was confusing Rob at first in the Argentine movies he was watching.

Spanish doesn’t have an /h/ phoneme either. It has an /x/ phoneme.

But most Americans say [h] instead.

So the question is whether finestra went through the same process.

Did finestra /finestra/ becomes /finɛhtra/ and finally /finɛtrə/, at which point it became spelled finêtre?

Notice the vowel opening.

Italian of course did not do that, although they have yod in the stressed position, so finiestra.

Western Romance has lots of yod.

bien

vienne

2 hours later…

4:10 AM

@tchrist Which language are you talking about here? Surely finêtre isn't Spanish? Some Spanish dialect?

@tchrist Finiestra is Spanish, not Italian, right?

You keep confusing me.

Finiestra is Italian. I meant to type fenêtre for French.

Finestra is Catalan.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finiestra I think you are mistaken.

Hah.

Noun: finestra f ‎(plural finestres)

window
finestra f ‎(plural finestre)
finestra f (plural finestri)

Catalan and Italian.

That's funny.

Finiestra is not the normal word in Spanish; ventana is.

4:25 AM

But it is not Italian.

Meaning the regular, everyday word.

So it appears.

Need to read more Inferno and less Çid.

I still want to know if the circumflex for the deleted s isn't a vowel-opener too. Well, or once was.

But I am sleeping.

Spanish (like Gascon) does not have any words from Latin that begin with f unless it diphthonged like fuego. The rest turned to h or were loanwords reborrowed later. So hiniestra is archaic while finiestra is long obsolete.

@tchrist Sure, it kind of is/was.

For ê is open, like ô.

I hate that PT and FR reverse their diacritics.

Those are close in PT, and the acute versions are open.

So just backwards.

4:41 AM

Are they?

Yes!!

Yes, the accents in Portuguese always seem odd.

I remember now that I had to stop reading the ê as open in Portuguese.

The acute marks an open vowel and the circumflex a close(d) one there.

Yeah, that.

In Dutch, the acute merely indicated emphasis.

You mean phonemic stress?

4:44 AM

No, it is more or less aequivalent to italics.

Odd.

Except that you also indicate which syllable has to be stressed in the word.

So I guess the answer is "yes and" rather than "no".

Yes, the acute and circumfles also do that in Portuguese.

Ik heb hém niet gezien =~ ik heb hem niet gezien.

Both, even?

Versus a Spanish acute that only marks stress on an unchanged vowel and the French one that only marks it close on an unchanged stress.

4:47 AM

The acute is also used to disambiguate homographs.

Like in Spanish.

user image

I remember this from some time ago.

Chrome magic brokenness.

It seems to happen only to you, and only rarely.

Maybe I have a virus not a bug. :)

4:50 AM

I thought viruses were bugs.

Brazil has econômico but Portugal económico, respectively close and open.

Viruses are malware.

Spanish has only close vowels save for in those non-standard dialects with their s-dropping.

I thought viruses were little critters.

They are weird.

5:32 AM

I'm off to bed.

Bye!

Lazy? <Filler characters. To Stack Exachange admins: I am a Trusted User, for God's sake; why do I need filler characters?> — Cerberus 22 secs ago

3 hours later…

8:58 AM

Never was I more sure that there is no difference. — tchrist 5 hours ago

@tchrist: for me personally, the subtle difference is that "I never was a good cook" helps me maintain my cover as a native speaker, while "I was never a good cook" helps me come across as the KGB spy that I am.

But that's just my personal subtle experience.

@Robusto it's worse than that. At this point, coming out of offices is a natural part of my gaily routine.

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3 hours later…

11:43 AM

Looks like a soft-drink can.

@RegDwigнt: I guess Russia's ban on Wikipedia really showed them, yeah?

Russia banned Wikipedia? Or Wikipedia banned Russia?

Instructions unclear.

@RegDwigнt Russia cancels Wikipedia ban.

Oh I see, just like they cancelled the stock market crash yesterday. Before anyone noticed, cared, or gave a fraction of a shit.

11:59 AM

Easy, I'm just jokin' wit' ye.

> It just tackles on some words that mean nothing -> It just tacks on some words that mean nothing

@RegDwigнt: ^^ FYI.

Yeah inorite.

I always get them confused.

And not even confused, just misspolen.

Slip of the fingers. It happens.

I say it right in my head, then type some shit.

jinx

More curious is why that question is still open, given what a steam pile of caca it appears to be.

@Robusto I wasn't even attacking you. Or anyone, for that matter. Just a mundane observation.

You seem to be very thin-skinned as of late. This job is ruining your life OMG OMG OMG.

12:03 PM

No. You just seem vituperantly cynical lately, even for you.

0

Q: "Everyone, put your dice in the middle"

A few days ago I was playing a board game with some family members and we had the following situation: Each person had several dice in their posession Each person had to place one die in the center of the table One person at the table had to instruct everyone else to do this The phrase that w...

grammatical-number

Oh. Hurry and sort this out, a lot of game points depend on the answer here.

@Robusto it's called aging. Or ageing. Or tackleing on. I forget.

user image

Google search for "open question coke".

I done learn today.

I done learn too gay.

12:22 PM

@Cerberus Delicate? Gastronomically, that calls for a bold red, woody, sharp, more tannin than usual. Any sommelier worth their title would suggest a Cabernet, or better a Shiraz. Merlot is way out. Wait... do you eat the people first and then swim in their blood? That's just wrong.

@Cerberus :(

Note that they are not yet sure whether they will be able to use real blood (spoiler alert: They won't)

My reaction as I read the article.

I have an idea. Let’s have all questions by new users closed by default, and let it take five votes to open them.

3

It would save us work.

At the very least close outright anything that has "correct" or "grammatical" in the title, as we discussed before.

Like this one:

-2

Q: I just wanted to be sure the sentece below is correct. Can anybody help me?

While FOB terms are used only for sea freight I have quoted you FCA terms that is equivalent for air freight. Likewise FOB terms, FCA terms does not include pick up nor customs clearance, but if in case you need any additional service other than FCA terms, please let me know.

I know. Millions of those shitpieces.

and redirect to Yahoo answers

12:36 PM

Or YouTube comments.

@tchrist the close queue is ~200 the past month, but the reopen queue has never been proportional, hardly ever above 2.

That’s because I only prey upon the reöpen queue.

@Robusto and ruin the quality of Youtube comments? You sir go too far.

Whereas all my prayers are devoted to the close queue.

I changed my filter on the close queue to duplicates because those are easy to check (yes, it's always a duplicate)

12:38 PM

I am also tired of having but 24 close votes. It is never enough. I want 40.

@tchrist er. Copyright infringer!

Mar 19 '12 at 16:08, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

The default should be, your question is closed, and you have to find at least five people who think it should be opened.

I want 24 donut holes. That's healthier than the hole donut.

rimshot

Wait..where did everybody go?

It takes tchrist three years to copy Reg's ideas. That's because Reg's ideas use Microsoft™ DRM™ powered by SONY™. Use Microsoft™ DRM™ powered by SONY™, and you can be safe from tchrist, too!

Oct 6 '12 at 0:45, by tchrist

Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.

Mar 27 '11 at 1:29, by RegDwight

Nobody may post any additional Latin sentences until everybody's memorized those already posted.

12:43 PM

QED

0

Q: Converting sentences to different forms

I am working on past papers for ready my exam . but i don't know how to convert this sentences into following forms. If someone can help me with i will be great. Human brains recives 100 million messages a second ( change into plural ) We won a gold medal last year ( change into future progress...

grammar sentence passive-voice active-voice

WHERE ARE MY CODEZ!?!?!?!?!

@Robusto "grammatical" is a fair word to use. My personal filter would ಠ_ಠ at "sentece", though.

There, I just verbed an emoji.

Suck it, English.

Grammatical just means “sounds ok to a native speaker”. I wish they would f’ing say that.

Actually they often do say that. Except in that case in 100% of cases the answer is "yes, it sounds ok to a native speaker, it just doesn't mean remotely the thing you are trying to express, or any other thing for that matter".

"I wear car with prideful bubbles" is grammatical and sounds okay. But that is not your actual question, dummy. Your actual question is, "how on Earth can I figure out what my actual question is?"

And that one's off-topic here, alas.

That is not a new phenomenon, though.

Jul 26 '11 at 14:02, by RegDwight

"What does 'cheese' mean? For example, in the sentence 'I like asparagus'."

Four years of asparagus diet and I've not even begun barfing. Whodathunk!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwigнt It's a word you use to indicate that you're ready to take the picture and post it on instagram, in this case the picture is of a plate of asparagus.

12:51 PM

Instagram? Okay, now I have begun barfing.

Thank you, Mr Used To Be Shiny Before Reg Barfed.

There aren't enough pictures of asparagus on Instagram yet?

Asper guts grow never old.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwigнt ew

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, you started it.

Without even invading Poland a little bit.

Mad skillz.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You should have mentioned you were instagram-mentioning-intolerant.

12:53 PM

I think the barf speaks volumes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

little late for that

Well, it's not like it would have helped.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto There are enough pictures of everything on Instagram already, but that doesn't stop people from posting more.

Just how many times over 9000 have I mentioned being XKCD-mentioning-intolerant?

How did that help with anything?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think that helped encourage us to post more xkcd

12:54 PM

Exactly.

And now asparagus.

And instagram.

barfs

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

dodges

1 min ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

little late for that

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So I caved to Rob's constant harping and started watching Community, I'm on season 3. They managed to troll the FOL community: youtube.com/watch?v=yVCOAFKjaoY

I thought that was pretty funny. Community satirizes everything, and nails it.

@tchrist "Member since today"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto I was actually disappointed that they didn't go further with it.

1:05 PM

Let's also close all questions by people who are "Member since today"!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have a friend who is very thin-skinned about the paintball episodes. He comes at it from a purist angle, and dislikes the show because they don't portray paintball accurately to six decimal places.

I tell him to lighten up. It's not a documentary.

@Robusto that's my reaction to the LEGO bit. It is completely and awfully wrong on all levels.

I wish they'd have Amy clarify it, she did raise her hand.

@RegDwigнt Lighten up. It's not a documentary.

WHAT????

inorite

Oh fuck that man, you telling me now?

1:08 PM

Didn't want to spoil it for you.

And there I was complaining all over the Internet how few windmills I could find that featured spinning swastikas.

Frig.

@RegDwigнt Those are banned in your country.

If you want windmills with swastikas, you have to go to @Cerb's country.

Actually in my country they were more than welcome. I drew more swastikas as a child than all of Nazi Germany did between 1939 and 1945.

Every child in my kindergarden did that.

Pfft, how long since you've been in your country?

@RegDwigнt every child everywhere

1:11 PM

Something like this.

My name's not "Igor", though.

blocked

user image

There. Get a proper country where they don't block swastikas. Sheesh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwigнt That's what makes it such a successful trolling.

So @cornbreadninja麵包忍者 congrats on being linked on slashdot!

Ladders!

Also, me and my buddies used to send each other Mr.-Tourette-style postcards. Like, you take a regular postcard and then draw some doodles and speech bubbles over it to turn it into a Mr Tourette cartoon.

So, as an adult, I actually sent a postcard of the ~~Beautiful~~ sorry, of the Red Square where the Kremlin towers sported fylfots instead of stars or two-headed eagles.

Also, the mausoleum sign said not "Lenin" but "Bon Jovi's bog".

And I sent it to Germany. And it arrived.

So a) Russia actually let it out and b) Germany actually let it in. That is two levels of incredible.

1:18 PM

user image

Oh yeah right where's Unicode when nobody needs him.

0

A: Word for someone who acts like an expert but who has very little knowledge?

I believe the word you are looking for is ass, as in, "Jerry, don't be such an ass." You are welcome.

Ass not lest ye be assed.

Ass not for whom the dong tolls.

Ass not wiped his knows.

@tchrist Funny that the Hindu swastika has a Star of David around it. Cognitive dissonance, what?

Like.

@RegDwigнt Now they're just watching you.

1:24 PM

Which is why I'm posting nekkid.

@Robusto covering all bases.

@RegDwigнt It's got something for everybody!

Also, I think India is one of very few places where they don't really mind jews or nazis. They only mind pakistanis.

And there is a Jewish swastika! Who knew?

Hey you, person who looks exactly like me, from my own tribe, but standing on the other side of this imaginary line nobody can see: I hate you.

Isn't this a Star Trek episode?

1:27 PM

@RegDwigнt So true, so true.

So Canadian.

Canadians do have Celine and Alanis and Avril on their side. Sadly not always on their side of the imaginary line, but let's not lose ourselves in such technicalities.

They also have William Shatner and Keanu Reeves.

Matt E. Эллен

And Jim Carey

In fact, the only swastika missing from tchrist's pic is the Nazi one.

Three of the finest fifty-somethings in the history of somethings.

1:31 PM

Shatner is way older than fifty-something.

90 = 50 +40. 40 ≠ 0, thus 40 = something. QED.

Four score.

@RegDwigнt You can't talk or think that way unless you're French.

I can think that way in any free country. That might or might not include France, I dunno.

Quatre-vingt dix-huit indeed!

1:33 PM

I thought you had to buy tickets for The France.

That was for Anatole France.

But eff why eye, Shatner was almost 50-something before I was even born, so for that reason alone I need not be informed.

Which is why they don’t have any shekels left over for to get into The Isles.

I would go easy on those invitations to eff thy eye if I were you.

@RegDwigнt Pfft, you're not even a millennial. You don't have an excuse for being uninformed.

user image

So TIL that the typography in Hollywood is actually quite horrible.

1:38 PM

Stella nova?

What, no movie star for Bill?

And the casting in Hollywood is abysmal. Look at how horribly the TV icon is cast.

I've seen way more complex shit cast with more love.

The cobbler's children go shoeless.

We should impeach cobbler.

That’s because the cobbler was paying undue attention to matters above the sole of his profession.

user image

1:41 PM

@tchrist I thought it was because he was living on a shoestring budget.

@RegDwigнt Nice manhole cover.

Oh just how little do you know. Those same folks do manhole covers, too.

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Gary Gygax was the village cobbler for a spell, living in his sesquistoreyed home.

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Holey cows!

1:43 PM

user image

No more kine!

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They give you the coin of the realm on a manhole cover?

@RegDwigнt I didn't know there was a Cyrillic Comic Sans for manhole covers.

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1:44 PM

Very puzzling.

@Robusto pfft.

Everything is Comic Sans to you.

When everything is Comic Sans, nothing is.

NOU

Exactly, I am no Comic Sans then, either.

@RegDwigнt Should I stay or should I Go?

Comic Sans joke has no future.

1:46 PM

Meanwhile tchrist keeps getting stars for my unstarred idea.

I think I will give Scalia a call.

Scalia? Snot even takin calls from ya.

I didn't say he'd pick up. I only said I'd call.

There's a fine technical difference. Get an expert to help.

@Robusto for as long as you don't collect $2000...

Me, I personally never collect $3000...

I've tried and tried.

0

A: Tea for the Tillerman

I think the album cover art is the answer here. Cat did the cover art himself. Clearly a farmer. Not a boatman or fireman.

@Mitch E2MANYSOX

2:43 PM

Damn, another four hours spent trying to get the environment to work right. When I finally do get it I'll be too damn tired to do any real work.

Note to self: When you leave, make sure you give them the "It's not me, it's you" explanation.

Abhishek Bhatia

hi

Am stuck at this question. Please help:

0

Q: English Word Bank for list comments/conversation verbs

I wish to find all words that state if someone is saying a sentence. Such as 'reported', 'told', 'said','says','tells','tell','describe','described','report', 'reports' ,'reporting'. I am doing because I want to extract all comments from a given source of text. Note I do a POS(Part of Speech) t...

Just joined, looking for some help. :)

Interesting question.

Is there any verb that cannot be used to introduce a quote?

Why don't you just parse for the quotation marks instead?

> He phantasized, "why not have polar bears in black ties?"
He turned left, "no bears in black ties here".
He looked up, "no bears there, either".
He did a little dance, "o polar bears in black ties, where are you?"

3:00 PM

Yeah, and given that English can verb nouns and other parts of speech with abandon, you will see sentences like: "Get out of my bedroom!" she shrilled.

> She went red, "What the hell is up with your smacking while eating?"
He smacked back, "Take a banana and plug your ears".
He ate on, "some people..."

"My what lovely eyes you have," he drooled.

Identifying a quote is trivial. There's a special mark for that. And the writer does the job for you. You the reader have literally nothing to do, at all.

Except where quotes are not used, as in Joyce, Gaddis, and a few other writers. Also, sometimes quoted matter that is interior is set off with italics.

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So I got to SO and am presented with this logo.

Not to mention that you. should. join. the. club. of. people. who. hate. other. people. who. write. like. this.

3:09 PM

One. Word. Per. Sentence. Please.

user image

Holy crap. I only ever answered five questions, but I've already helped 7.5 billion developers!

That is more developers than there are developers!

I am amazed at my prowess.

I must have helped Robusto alone OVER 9000 times.

With only five lines of text.

That's what I call efficiency.

You are a prodigy. Unless prodigious things are tricks.

I am a pro something alright.

@RegDwigнt Why incredible? It sounds like fun.

@skillpatrol Perhaps it is not hygienic, but otherwise it doesn't seem too problematic.

@Cerberus incredible as in, the Russian post actually works. That was the first, and also last, instance in the history of mankind that that happened.

But yeah, in Germany that card is plain illegal I guess.

3:16 PM

Heh.

Illegal because you drew a swastika on it?

@RegDwigнt Pro phylactic?

Abhishek Bhatia

@Robusto @RegDwigнt Excellent points there! I can parsing text in news articles and want to get all comments in that are not quoted. Thus, I am compling a list of words like said,tell,report,described,quoted etc. Could I get a list in such a context?

Also, I am like comparing this on a scale. I mean, we've sent a few cards from quite a few countries.

Like, one friend sent a postcard from Spain, with that giant iconic bull silhouette standing in the pampa, and the bull had a speech bubble that said, I think, "fuck Spain here".

@AbhishekBhatia The point is, such a list is not possible.

That arrived no problem, but we had a laugh phantasizing how the post worker might well have been Basque.

Seeing the card and going "sí, sí, claro" in the most approving manner.

Abhishek Bhatia

3:20 PM

@Robusto That's a bummer then. What do you think is a good point to start?

@Cerberus I am not a constitutional attorney, but my understanding is that illegal symbols of illegal organizations are illegal, except for art and comedy purposes. You can't even buy an actual historical swastika produced back when it was still legal and put it up anywhere anyone can see it. It'd get confiscated.

@AbhishekBhatia the short answer is "no". The long answer is "no, sorry".

That is rather draconic...

The longer answer is "no, sorry, and not just in English but in no other language either".

But sorely yours was comedy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AbhishekBhatia For an approximation, just use a thesaurus to try to find the most common words, that's what I'd guess

otherwise, do it manually and read everything

Even manually there will be debatable cases

3:24 PM

@AbhishekBhatia you said you are looking at a specific source. In which case the best thing is just to go through it manually, or semi-manually by parsing it for all verbs, then checking.

Abhishek Bhatia

@RegDwigнt Too much text for any manual search, besides beats the idea of implement some something simple.

Of course the question I have is why you'd want to extract quotes from a text body.

Even Reg's quotation marks search fails because there exist other cases where quote marks are used without there being a case of reported speech.

That's like extracting, I dunno, all adverbs that have an A in them.

Abhishek Bhatia

@RegDwigнt Part of a research project extracting all comments of witness in disasters new articles.

3:26 PM

OIC

And that is going to cure cancer?

Well in that case, a false positive is probably worse than a false negative, so why not just start by collecting all the quotes using the list you already have?

Like, if you get 3156 quotes just by looking at "said" and "told", what does it matter that in reality there's 3165 if you looked at all the other verbs?

hello all

@Robusto goes without saying. I was too lazy to even mention that.

what's been happening?

3:30 PM

Nothing much. Or really just nothing.

If nothing is happening, why does time keep moving?

Lolwut? Time stands still. They constantly put people on the cover that nobody has seen since the 70s.

Is it that things can't not happen if time stops, just like they can't happen if time stops?

gawd im bored

Welcome. To. The. Club.

3:32 PM

Well, you came to the right place.

Ji. nx.

jinxish

still, better bored in a job that meant to be working on something and can't concentrate

parajynx.

although almost falling asleep is a bit of a problem

we don't have siestas here

3:32 PM

I'm not as good a programmer when I'm sleeping. It's a fact.

Jesus Christ. Google Images actually has some results for "parajynx coke". But I cannot post them for as long as anyone in here is at work.

hahaha

OIC, that's because of Jynx Maze.

never heard of that

I agree with Reg.

3:33 PM

She's a "star". In "porn".

@Cerberus When did you become @Reg's bitch?

Not a very popular star, I guess. I've only seen two movies.

Still, it's interesting to see that Google guesses that by "coke" I mean "cock".

I guess that's what happens if your search engine gets created by two Russians.

9

Q: How can I practice pronouncing "Coke" so it is not mistaken for another word?

I always fear my conversation sounds like this: — What would you like to drink, sir? — I will take some cock, thanks. — ROFL. Any tips on how to pronounce Coke so it is not mistaken for anything? :)

pronunciation diphthongs

@Robusto yeah what a strange comment that was. No context or anything. No idea what he's even agreeing to at all.

@Robusto Today, apparently.

@RegDwigнt I thought just one?

I don't know. I am constantly getting them confused. But they both look like Russians and sound like Russians, so same difference.

It's not like I use Google, either.

I just use a proper Russian engine. Where at least I know why the hell I am presented with images of not coke when searching for not cock.

Time to moot cumies!

4:13 PM

@RegDwigнt Which one?

Bai!

1 hour later…

5:38 PM

data.stackexchange.com/english/query/354578/…

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it doesn't count chat messages

6:06 PM

> „Mir ist nicht bekannt, dass ich abgehört wurde.“

@RegDwigнt Lovely quotation. Why have I only come across this just now? Everyone should be wearing this on t-shirts!

user116848

6:54 PM

Hi. I'm back I guess. One week changed my mind.

user116848

I was being childish.

user116848

It is midnight here. See ya!

user116848

G'night.

7:38 PM

@tchrist Not sure what that proves.

It proves I waste too much time.

@Arrowfar Haha that was fast.

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