English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

anybody in here follows up any specific serial? Actually I watch Big Bang Theory, that's pretty good to me. and I'm trying to choose another serial .. is there any suggestion?

TIPS

3:15 PM

@Shafizadeh What kind of serials do you like?

Shafizadeh

emm, there isn't any particular field .. Just I hate "Military" and "imaginary" serials

TIPS

Imaginary? Sci-fi, you mean?

Shafizadeh

@TIPS yes almost .. I meant was those kind of animations which people can fly

tchrist

In North America, we call these programs series, but in the British Isles, it is more common to use the term series to indicate what in North America is meant by season.

TIPS

@tchrist For some reason, they're called "serial" in Persian.

Who knows? Maybe "cereal" :P

tchrist

3:23 PM

Um, no. :)

Those are different words, of course.

Shafizadeh

@tchrist Do you mean you use "series" instead of "serial" ?

TIPS

Series and series?

Wow

@Shafizadeh Yes

tchrist

@Shafizadeh Yes, they are usually called series not serials in American English.

But daytime serials has some traction.

Shafizadeh

@tchrist why really? where is the "L"? "series" is a math subject ..!

TIPS

@Shafizadeh Are you questioning why something is called the way its called in language?

Shafizadeh

3:25 PM

@TIPS no I'm just wonder ..

tchrist

> series ‎(plural series)
A number of things that follow on one after the other or are connected one after the other. [quotations ▼]
A series of seemingly inconsequential events led cumulatively to the fall of the company.‎
(US, Canada) A television or radio program which consists of several episodes that are broadcast in regular intervals
Friends was one of the most successful television series in recent years.
(Britain) A group of episodes of a television or radio program broadcast in regular intervals with a long break between each group, usually with one year between the beginning of e…

> In the United Kingdom, television and radio programs (spelt in Commonwealth English as "programmes") are divided into series, which are usually a year long. In North America, the word "series" is a synonym of "program", and programs are divided into year-long seasons.

> Noun[edit]
serial ‎(plural serials)
A work, such as a work of fiction, published in installments, often numbered and without a specified end.
A publication issued in successive parts, often numbered and with no predetermined end.
(computing, slang) A serial number required to activate software.
Go to these sites for serials, cracks and keygens.

We really don't use serial as a noun for a recurring television program.

It is possible, particularly in writing, but not really in film so much.

Shafizadeh

I see

TIPS

I read

Cerberus

@tchrist I really think this is unnecessarily restrictive.

The urge to categorise and limit the meanings of words is all too human.

But it is often a desire rather than the exact description it purports to be.

Lawrence

@Shafizadeh Unless it's really bad, in which case, you might say it's done for.

tchrist

3:34 PM

@Cerberus I’m explaining the two common ways that the word series is used with respect to episodic TV programs. And do please note that I was citing another source, not making it up.

The only use of serial I know of for that in English is about soap operas, which I would not normally think of The Big Bang Theory as being one of.

Soap opera

A soap opera, soapie, or soap is a serial drama on television or radio which features related story lines about the lives of many characters, usually focusing on emotional relationships to the point of melodrama. The term soap opera originated from such dramas being typically sponsored by soap manufacturers in the past. == Origin of the genre == The first serial considered to be a "soap opera" was Painted Dreams, which debuted on October 20, 1930 on Chicago radio station WGN. Early radio series such as Painted Dreams were broadcast in weekday daytime slots, usually five days a week, when most of...

The term feels about fifty years out of date.

Shafizadeh

@Lawrence good to know

tchrist

> In many soap operas, in particular daytime serials in the United States, the characters are frequently attractive, seductive, glamorous and wealthy.

TIPS

@tchrist I love soapy operas though.

tchrist

The point is that in the US, these are normally called series not serials.

With the occasional exception of soap operas.

It's not a wrong use. It's just not the first one that springs to mind.

@TIPS Space operas are nice, too. :)

> Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer define as "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes."

Lawrence

@tchrist Throw in metalepsis with reference to sponsorship, and just about all commercial TV programs could technically be called soap operas. Completely different connotation, of course :) .

tchrist

3:46 PM

@Cerberus You may, or may not, wish to chime in on this:

0

Q: Why isn't the 'progressive' a tense?

Why aren't the 'progressive' verbal constructions (such as 'I am talking') regarded as tenses in traditional grammar? "There is no consensus, not even among linguists, about what constitutes a tense."--yeah, okay, fair enough, but that is hardly an answer. "I have worked"--a tense, apparently. ...

@Lawrence Here is better.

Lawrence

@tchrist I don't suppose there's a way to delete rooms created accidentally?

TIPS

@Lawrence Leave it without messages.

Lawrence

@TIPS The messages were already imported on clicking the 'move to discussion' link.

TIPS

Shoot. Then there isn't.

Mods can manually delete rooms IIRC, and there's nothing mortals can do.

tchrist

Well, I could delete it, but it will go away soon enough.

Lawrence

4:01 PM

@tchrist Deletion would be tidier. :)

TIPS

@Lawrence Click "show frozen rooms" and show me something tidy.

Lawrence

@tchrist Importing the relevant comment from that room - One of your comments disappeared when I tried to upvote it.

tchrist

Yes, I was cleaning up.

Of comments.

Not rooms.

Lawrence

@TIPS I can't show you the rooms that have been deleted :P . If deletion of rooms by mods just freezes a room, we might as well leave it to the automatic process.

TIPS

WOULD YOU STOP EDITING THAT

Please

Lawrence

4:05 PM

As it so happens, the edit window has closed :) .

TIPS

I think it's different from just freezing though.

Lawrence

@tchrist Can you shed any light on mod-deletion of rooms compared to age-freezing?

Cerberus

@ColinFine: That depends entirely on your definition of tense. @ everyone and Dunsanist (nice name, btw.): it only makes sense to have any opinion at all on whether something should be considered a tense if you pick a definition of tense. I feel that most people debating tenses fail to do so are are talking in the air. There are many definitions to pick from, and several have some merit. — Cerberus 1 min ago

TIPS

Cerberus

@tchrist I was criticising the absoluteness of the source.

tchrist

4:14 PM

@Lawrence Well. pretty much nothing really ever goes away. Rooms that have nothing said in them for a while get frozen, whereas rooms that never have enough messages in them by more than one person get deleted. You can still find these.

Lawrence

@tchrist What about rooms deleted by mods?

tchrist

For certain values of "you".

They can still be found.

Normally it takes just 10k network rep to see them.

Lawrence

@tchrist Ok, we'll leave it to age gracefully, then.

tchrist

There are ways of changing that, but a site diamond will always see them.

If anything needs harder deletion than that, it can be done but it is extremely rare and virtually never used.

@Cerberus Ok, thought it was me.

Lawrence

@tchrist Actually, I was wondering whether a mod-deleted room is simply frozen, or whether it is more deeply deleted.

tchrist

4:22 PM

@Lawrence It is not more deeply deleted.

But deleted and frozen aren't the same, either.

Lawrence

@tchrist Ok, thanks.

@tchrist Nice double-layered effect.

tchrist

@KitZ.Fox A galactophobe.

TIPS

Cerberus

4:39 PM

@tchrist How the hell does that work?

TIPS

tchrist

@Cerberus I wish I knew. It seems to be gaining energy, so I'm wondering if there's a slope. Yet no home is built slanty.

Cerberus

Lots of pent-up kinetic energy in the flexible elements?

So potential energy.

tchrist

I’ve found the original, but I still have no explanation.

TIPS

These things are usually explained physically rather than chemically.

It's gotta be a smart and simple trick.

Cerberus

4:50 PM

As I said, I think it works like a spring.

tchrist

But nothing looks bendy.

Cerberus

It does to me?

The wooden pieces.

Or plastic.

tchrist

Maybe stretching them flat does that.

Cerberus

You can see that they are bent before the energy is released.

tchrist

I'm sorry, but I can't see the bend.

They look flat as popsicle sticks both before and after to me. I may be wrong.

Cerberus

4:54 PM

Look at the green sticks, for example.

It's less visible in the "fuse".

tchrist

Thank you.

Cerberus

GIFs are displayed as still images in my browser.

I have to click "open in Chrome" in order to see the animation.

Færd

6:56 PM

To alight (from a buss) ...

has a formal register?

belongs to the formal register?

is of the formal register?

?

I know I could say is formal, but I want to know how to use register in that type of sentence.

tchrist

hmms

> Like birds alighting for a while on a newly seeded lawn, they will peck away at all the possibilities until they have exhausted this area and then move on to another form.

> His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of a Cabinet minister.

> Passengers alighting from trains at the city railway station have no easy access to the two bus stations; the subway is of little help and has been vandalised.

@Færd It’s a verb you’re more apt to encounter in formal or literary registers than in casual ones.

Færd

7:15 PM

@tchrist Thanks. I wondered if a shorter version was possible.

tchrist

It’s a literary term.

It’s a bit formal.

Færd

With register!

tchrist

It doesn't feel comfortable to me.

Færd