English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

BTW, I was watching a couple of MMA fighters (can't remember their names) playing on Poker After Dark. I was struck by their ears. The term "cauliflower" comes to mind as wholly inadequate to describe the appendages.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Russell Wilson once in a while.

See, I don't understand that. It's easily preventable.

Robusto

Maybe it's sort of a badge of honor.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Look at Robbie Lawler.

Robusto

You know ... scars.

How would you avoid that?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Cauliflower ear? By draining them when it happens.

Robusto

2:29 AM

What, when they swell?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Yeah.

Robusto

Hmm.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

It's like literally all that's required.

IIRC.

Robusto

Then either they're too dumb or careless to do that, or else they look on that as somehow an addition to their persona.

They all have broken noses as well, which I don't think can be drained away.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Oh, I totally accept the badge-of-honor reasoning. I just wouldn't do it, myself.

Robusto

2:31 AM

Me either. I value my ears too much for listening to music.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I would think that at some point, you would block off your hearing.

Right?!

Robusto

Yup.

I'm guessing they can still hear death metal, though.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Norwegian?

Brazilian?

Robusto

Norwegian black.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Isn't it wack? Norwegian black.

Robusto

2:33 AM

Nice segue to John Lennon.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hold on, 'busto; 'busto hold on

Robusto

See? I knew when I saw you in here that there would be something in it for me.

Puns and obscure music references. What could be more satisfying?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

So after twentyish years of seeing their name and figuring they sounded like Bread or maybe Sweet, I bought a Nektar album.

Robusto

And? Your verdict?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Shit, then they'll know you were here.

If I star it.

Robusto

2:36 AM

They'll know anyway. Go ahead, Fuck Da Police.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Nektar is great! Nektar might be better than Yes. There, I said it. :x

Robusto

Whoa. That's a bold statement.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Well . . .

I haven't heard enough of either to say that. But I do tire of Jon Anderson's voice sometimes.

And they seem versatile so far.

Robusto

I seem never to tire of Steve Howe and Chris Squire ...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Is it Anderson's voice that I'm thinking of?

Anyway, maybe it's wrong to compare the two.

Robusto

2:38 AM

Falsettoish and strident at the same time? That's Anderson.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

~~LOL~~ Funny.

Robusto

Haha. I almost wrote ~~LOL~~ twice tonight. Saved myself at the last instant.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Not that time, you didn't.

Robusto

Look again.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Dammit.

You like pinball?

Robusto

2:42 AM

Feb 3 '11 at 20:07, by Robusto

See, that's why we go over this stuff.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I used to, in the student center as an undergrad when there was nothing else to do or I was waiting to play ping pong or something.

Haven't played in literally decades.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

:(

Robusto

You?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You've listened to Fragile of course, right?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I do. Always have. One of the many coffeehouses I went to long ago had a machine in one of the bathrooms. They would change it out every once in a while.

Of course. Fragile is fantastic.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Weird place to have a pinball machine. Only one sex can play at a time?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Nektar - That's Life (1974)

►

@Robusto both 'rooms were unisex.

Unisex one-seaters.

Robusto

2:46 AM

ah

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Anyway.

I got a Pinbox 3000 for Christmas. It's a cardboard pinball machine that you can customize.

Robusto

Pix or it didn't happen ...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Please hold.

So, okay. So you get two playing fields with the kit. Blank ones. And the flippers and the plunger are built into the playfield.

So I have only made prototypes so far.

Robusto

That looks ... awesome!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I'm uploading a video.

I haven't taken as many pictures as I thought.

Robusto

2:53 AM

Cool.

Thanks. I will give that a listen.

But I thought you were uploading videos of your pinbox3000 ...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I was.

Erm, it's all wiggy.

Is it wiggy for you?

Robusto

Yep, it's wiggly.

But cool!

Did I mention cool?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

That was hard to watch.

They give you marbles with the kit. The bearing is really fast.

Weighs a little over 3x as much as the marble.

Robusto

3:01 AM

Sweet.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I bought some velostat to make sensors.

Robusto

Oh? How does that work?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

It senses pressure.

adafruit.com/product/1361

Robusto

Definitely cool.

Anonymous

3:14 AM

@Robusto I can only bring myself to say "LOL" in scare quotes. If I say it out loud, they're air quotes.

Robusto

@snailplane It's a slippery slope.

Anonymous

I tried to use SE's search again today. I searched for ŋ. That got me results for n instead, so I searched for "ŋ" in quotes, which . . . also got me results for n.

Anonymous

I've long been in the habit of simply ignoring the existence of SE's search feature, since for most of Japanese.SE's existence, it was useless for searching in Japanese. Now it's just useful enough to forget, from time to time, that it still isn't terribly useful.

Robusto

@snailplane At least it didn't give you π.

@snailplane I get very weird results when searching for Japanese, even in Google.

Færd

I didn't know you should move them like this when air quoting.

Robusto

3:25 AM

@Færd That is absolutely required. Where do you think the air is?

Færd

I bend them once.

Yashas Samaga

I have a doubt about subject-verb agreement rules.

Ripe tomatoes, leafy Brussels sprouts, and a handy orange [WHat goes here?] rich in Vitamin C.

is or are

Færd

@Robusto The air?

@YashasSamaga That's a question, not a doubt. :)

Yashas Samaga

usually when the subject consists of multiple objects joined by the 'and' conjunction, we consider the subject to be pural overall

@Færd coming to the doubt

but in the above example I stated, the sentence is actually trying to say that each of the item has Vitamin C

the last item in the list is singular

I am actually mixing OR rules with AND here

is sounds more pleasing for my ears

but if I'd have to strictly follow the rules, it should be 'are' I guess?

are sounds good too :/

I am confused now

Robusto

@Færd Your fingers need to move in the air. That's why they're air quotes.

Færd

3:29 AM

Right.

Robusto

@Færd That's the British way. Americans use double quotes, so they do them twice.

Actually, just kidding. Do them however you wish. You'll likely be understood.

Færd

It's not the movement that makes it double, is it?

Ah, OK.

@YashasSamaga They have vitamin C.

They each have vitamin C.

Each of them has vitamin C.

Robusto

Prince Charles makes "heir" quotes.

Anonymous

@YashasSamaga An en dash!

Færd

And by bending them once I make err quotes.

Anonymous

3:32 AM

@Færd I agree with Robusto on the absoluteness of the requiredness.

Anonymous

@Færd "LOL"

Færd

@snailplane Too much effort.

@YashasSamaga Get my point there?

Yashas Samaga

yea

Færd

When each is the subject, the verb is singular.

Anonymous

I just can't make myself say it earnestly. I ran across it in the early 90s when I came across people from AOL, where "LOL" was apparently running rampant. I guess I associated it, at the time, with their lack of netiquette, and I distanced myself from it without really realizing it.

Yashas Samaga

3:35 AM

so the answer to the question is 'are'

Færd

True.

There are exceptions though:

> Two hours is not a long time.

Anonymous

@YashasSamaga Yes

Anonymous

@Færd Yes. That's a measure expression.

Anonymous

> Peanut butter and jelly is my favorite kind of sandwich.

Anonymous

> Peanut butter and jelly are both very good flavors.

Anonymous

3:36 AM

Whether something is singular or plural can depend on how we're thinking about it.

Anonymous

Is it conceptualized as a single unit? Or are you thinking about the things that make it up individually?

Anonymous

When you say two hours in Two hours is not a long time, you're thinking about the length of time as a whole. You aren't thinking about each of the two hours individually, although it is technically possible to do so, in which case you could use a plural verb form.

Robusto

@snailplane Same for "two kilometers" or "two gallons of gas" ... It's not about individual units considered separately.

Færd

If you're going to be technical about the air quotation gesture, you have to hold one hand upside down, because one pair of the commas are inverted.

You'd be miming orangutans.

Yashas Samaga

Unfortunately, dishonest politics (was, were) used to win the election.

dishonest politics...

Robusto

3:52 AM

@Færd Not in English. And if you make that gesture upside-down it can be construed as obscene.

Yashas Samaga

both sound right

how do I determine the number in dishonest politics?

Robusto

2. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
a. The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party: "Our politics has been corrupted by money and suffused with meanness" (Peter Edelman)."Politics have appealed to me since I was at Oxford because they are exciting morning, noon, and night" (Jeffrey Archer).
b. The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government: The politics of the former regime were rejected by the new government leadership. If the politics of the conservative government now borders on the repressive, what can be expected when the econo…

It's your choice. But I'd go with plural. When in doubt, go with what sounds right.

Yashas Samaga

both sounded alright for me

I'd go with plural too

Robusto

And that's it for me tonight. Laterz, people.

Yashas Samaga

6:24 AM

The ghostly remains of the ship [lies/lie] in a lonely berth more than two miles deep in the North Atlantic.

ghostly remains

I can consider it as a single wreck

or as a collection of wreck

the above two types will yield two different answers for the aforementioned question

how do I answer it?

sumelic

1:17 PM

@YashasSamaga "lie" is correct. It isn't really based in this case on how you conceptualize it. Rather, "remains" is generally plural at all times, even when referring to something that is conceptually singular.

Færd

4:51 PM

@Robusto With regard to the obscenity of the gesture, as well it might be. I'm not aware of any specific meaning, though.

But do you mean there are no inverted commas in quotation marks in English?

terdon

It sounded like you were describing this kind of quotation:

> "this„

Or maybe

> „this"

Some languages use that style but English doesn't as far as I know.

Andrew Leach

That's right. It doesn't. Nor the French guillemets, even though it has an English name, apparently ("duckfoot quote").

Guillemots, on the other hand, we do have.

terdon

5:09 PM

Is that the << >> ?

Andrew Leach

5:40 PM

Yes. «» ASCII 171 and 187.

terdon

6:05 PM

I wonder if they're French. Greek uses them too but I very much doubt they're ancient. Most likely modern Greek took them from the French but, alas, Greek.se isn't up yet :(

Færd

Well, I meant that both hands be level with the head, one of them upside down.

But doesn't matter. Never mind.

terdon

Well, let's just assume that we "speak" in a monospaced, simple font like the one I am writing in :)

"foo"

Nice and simple :)