English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Færd

8:00 PM

Why is the left in Europe so focused on the I/P issue? Do they feel threatened in any way?

Don't intend to over-generalize.

Cerberus

@Færd The common people, but I can't find a source now.

Færd

Maybe because the right depends on the money of those who support Israel?

Cerberus

@terdon Because almost all countries in the region are.

@Færd I don't think so.

It's entirely a moral issue, I think.

And also like, they're causing so many problems in the Near East, they're trouble-makers.

terdon

@Cerberus Yes, but that doesn't support your very bold statement of "I know" especially when contradicting someone who probably has more hands on experience with the broader region and certainly the muslim world than you do.

Færd

Is SA on that list? I can't find it.

terdon

8:06 PM

No

Færd

Oh no, it isn't.

I think many people in Saudi Arabia feel more threatened by the Iranians than by the Israel, or Jews in general.

The same sentiments exist in Iran too.

I think more strongly towards Israel, on average.

Cerberus

@terdon It's impossible to find an opinion poll.

But all polls from Muslim countries that I can find are very negative about Israel.

And from what I have read over the years, Saudi Arabia is no exception.

@Færd Oh, I do not doubt it. But that doesn't mean they don't still feel very negatively about Israel.

Færd

- Are you for them or against them?

- OK, against them.

Cerberus

Let's say very negative.

Færd

I don't remember what we were pursuing with this conversation.

But I can imagine many Saudis gladly ally with Israel to oppose Iran.

terdon

8:19 PM

@Cerberus I don't disagree. I think you're quite right. I just found your reaction a bit too strong, that's all.

Cerberus

I was trying to investigate why the relatively minor conflict in Palestine received so much attention, and why people criticise Israel so much more than various other countries whose governments are no better.

@terdon My reaction? To what?

terdon

22 mins ago, by Færd

@Cerberus I honestly don't know if they do or don't.

22 mins ago, by Cerberus

I do!

That one

Cerberus

@Færd Sure, just as capitalists and communists allied against Germany...

@terdon Well, I'm sure enough that I don't really doubt it, that Saudi public opinion is very negative of Israel.

Færd

@Cerberus OK, then I think in the Middle East there's other older disputes that makes the I/P issue relevant.

Cerberus

Oh?

Like Shia–Sunni?

Færd

8:22 PM

There are rivals who side with or against Israel to compete with each other. E.g., Saudi vs Iran.

@Cerberus No, Palestinians are themselves mostly Sunnis, I think.

Cerberus

1 min ago, by Cerberus

@Færd Sure, just as capitalists and communists allied against Germany...

Færd

Those who are Muslim.

Cerberus

@Færd They are.

terdon

@Færd No, he meant that as an example of an older dispute.

Right?

Færd

Not that old.

terdon

8:23 PM

@Færd What would be an older dispute then?

Færd

Racial disputes, for example, between Arabs and Persians.

Well, maybe that's older.

terdon

@Færd They can't be all that older. The Sunni-Shia split was somewhere around the 7th century, wasn't it?

Færd

I retract old. Not a good word.

terdon

fair enough

Cerberus

The split between Sunnites and Shiites happened after the Arabs conquered Persia, so...

Færd

8:26 PM

That's another matter. And it happened sooner than that.

Cerberus

Earlier?

> Arab Muslims first attacked the Sassanid territory in 633, when general Khalid ibn Walid invaded Mesopotamia (Sassanid province of Asōristān; what is now Iraq), which was the political and economic center of the Sassanid state.

terdon

> Sunni Islam and Shia Islam are the two major denominations of Islam. Their division traces back to a Sunni–Shia schism following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the year 632. A dispute over succession to Muhammad as a caliph of the Islamic community spread across various parts of the world, which led to the Battle of Jamal and Battle of Siffin.
The dispute intensified greatly after the Battle of Karbala, in which Hussein ibn Ali and his household were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the outcry for revenge divided the early Islamic community.

So spake Wikipedia

Færd

@Cerberus What does the invasion of Iran have to do with the Sunni-Shiite dispute? It's totally based on who was supposed to be the Khalifa after the death of the prophet.

Cerberus

Yeah, so Faerd has won, by 1 year.

Congratulations.

grumbles

@Færd Your conflict was indeed older than mine, while I thought it was the other way around.

terdon

Huh?

Oh that. Sheesh, same difference.

Færd

8:33 PM

And Iranians were mostly Sunnis themselves before the rule of Safavid dynasty.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

Religions.

Split, split, split is what they like to do.

It is joked that in the Dutch Bible Belt, each village is its own denomination; and in the worst parts, each house.

tchrist

of course

Cerberus

I suppose Protestants are the worst.

Unruly lot.

tchrist

protesters

Cerberus

Indeed.

terdon

8:35 PM

Meh. Organized religion, no matter what form it happens to have taken, tends to be distasteful.

Færd

Anyways, I think in Middle East the I/P issue is emphasized because some of the states feel threatened by Israel. I don't know about the reason in Europe.

Cerberus

@terdon Is it still organised when it's only 1 family?

tchrist

All countries with the same first Initial are destined to be united into one.

Cerberus

@Færd Indeed, a few do. But most don't.

I think there is more to it.

tchrist

This means of course that Israel will soon conquer Iceland and India.

terdon

8:37 PM

@tchrist That'll be fun when we have the United Arab States of Great Britain.

tchrist

And Jordan will conquer Japan.

Cerberus

Maybe Israel is also seen in some ways as a vestige of European Western colonialism?

Færd

@Cerberus Some of those who don't feel threatened by Israel hate those who do, and so they ally with Israel to gain a foothold.

terdon

@tchrist Sounds like a Cohen song.

tchrist

Jakko

Cerberus

8:38 PM

@Færd Umm that's a complicated sentence.

tchrist

Afghanistan as always has its eyes on Andorra and Aruba.

@terdon Is that a Jewish Joke?

Egypt and Ecuador will finally be reunited.

terdon

@tchrist Not at all. Just made me think of First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

Cerberus

@Færd Do you mean "happen to hate"?

terdon

Not entirely sure why, I'll grant you.

tchrist

Lebanon takes Latvia and Liechtenstein.

Cerberus

8:40 PM

Of course the enemy of your enemy is your friend, even if he is your enemy.

But what does that prove?

tchrist

Saudi is drilling for Samoa isles of Babylon.

Færd

@Cerberus That the attention given to the I/P issue in the Middle East is with good cause.

tchrist

And the reason they're all doing this is to make Yemen feel bad.

Having no one to conquer.

#MiddleEasternTroubles

Færd

So nobody gets Yemen?

tchrist

Nobody wants it.

It's a Y-country.

terdon

8:42 PM

@tchrist Maybe she can team up with Jamaica. Ya man and Yemen.

rimshot!

tchrist

Oman and Qatar have the same problem. What is it with those guys?

Cerberus

@Færd What do you mean by that?

@tchrist I do think Yemen has worse problems...

Færd

@tchrist Maybe Quebec will secede to get together with Qatar.

tchrist

And Ontario with Oman.

Yemen is still a problem.

Færd

@Cerberus You were questioning the attention given to that issue, asking why we don't see other worse problems.

Cerberus

8:46 PM

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "with good cause".

tchrist

I wonder what people would argue about if they'd didn't have religion to argue about.

Cerberus

Commas.

skull petrol

Sex.

terdon

@Cerberus It seems reasonable to be attentive of something happening in your back yard.

Cerberus

Or does that fall under religion.

tchrist

8:47 PM

> “For want of a comma, we have this case.” So begins a ruling this month by David Barron, a US Court of Appeals judge, deciding in favour of five Maine truck drivers who claimed they had been wrongly denied overtime payments by a dairy company with an inadequate grasp of English punctuation.

Færd

People would have been united if it weren't for religion.

Cerberus

@terdon I still couldn't follow the reasoning used.

tchrist

> At the heart of the dispute was the Oxford, or serial, comma, which comes before the “and” or “or” at the end of a list — although not in the piece of legislation that dictated how much overtime the truckers could earn.

skull petrol

Perhaps the Oxford comma falls under religion @Cerberus

Cerberus

@Færd How about fascism, communism, and other rather extreme ideologies?

@skullpetrol It might as well.

Færd

8:49 PM

2 hours ago, by Cerberus

That is, why does everyone always criticise Israel so much more than other countries?

terdon

@Cerberus I'm sure @Færd can explain better, but I understood it to mean that since the I/P conflict has a much more direct effect on the countries of the broader region, the people of those countries have good cause to be interested in it.

Cerberus

@Færd I didn't really understand what you exact answer to that was, in those lines.

Færd

@Cerberus I didn't mean that to be an accurate statement. But many of those feed on religious differences as well.

Cerberus

@terdon OK that would apply to neighbouring countries, but not to Indonesia or Morocco.

@Færd I know, I was just compulsively trying to find counter-examples...

terdon

@Cerberus Sure, in those cases I would assume it's religious solidarity. Same reason the idiot Greeks were pro Milošević, for example.

Cerberus

8:54 PM

Yes, that must be a factor.

terdon

Yay found the spelling.

Cerberus

And I would almost aequate religious to semi-ethnic / cultural here.

But do you think anti-Semitism wasn't already widespread in the Muslim world before Israel?

Wasn't there already anti-Semitism all around those countries where there lived Jews?

terdon

I'm sure it was. I still object to the association of anti-Israel and anti-semitic though.

Cerberus

One might amplify the other to some degree.

I don't have the answer.

But it doesn't seem impossible to think it may be a factor for some people.

skull petrol

anti-Semitism

Noun: anti-Semitism (plural anti-Semitisms)

(narrower sense) Prejudice, discrimination or hostility directed against ethnic or religious Jews or against Judaism; antijudaism; judeophobia.
(broader sense, rare, nonstandard) Prejudice, discrimination or hostility directed against any Semitic people (ancient or modern), such as Samaritans, Palestinians, Arabs or Assyrians.

Cerberus

8:58 PM

Indeed, the term is strictly incorrect.

Tonepoet

0

Q: Is 'strawberry sweet laughter' something I could say in my writing?

do you find 'he let out a strawberry sweet laugher' a nice way to express the loveliness of the laugh? thank you!

terdon

@Cerberus Oh, yes. I'm sure it is. It's the equation of the two I object to. It would be silly to claim that antisemitism is never a factor.

Tonepoet

Gah! Sweet as a strawberry! =P

Cerberus

@terdon Oh, of course.

But no sane person would aequate the two.

I know a few insane people...

Færd

There certainly were conflicts between Muslims and Jews in the dawn of Islam. But some centuries after that, I don't know if Jews and for example Christians had different statuses in the eyes of Muslims.

terdon

9:00 PM

@Cerberus No argument there. However, sadly, you just described most of the ruling politicians of both Israel and the US as insane. Not that I find that particularly objectionable, mind you.

Cerberus

@Færd They were all people of the Book, no?

terdon

@Færd The Ottomans were certainly welcoming to both, anyway.

Cerberus

@terdon Of course they are insane.

Færd

@Cerberus Yeah, united under that term, treated with almost the same rules.

Cerberus

However, we must listen to the exact words they use.

terdon

9:01 PM

Right. I'm off to bed. Night, all!

Færd

Me too. Night.

Cerberus

When they say, "why does everyone harp of Israel all the time, while many other countries are as bad?", I think that should be seriously considered.

When they say, "you're against Israel, so you must be against Jews", I think that conclusion should be rejected out of hand.

It may apply to some people, but certainly not to others.

Sleep well, both!

skull petrol

Cya

M.A.R.

Oh great

I come in and everyone goes out

Cerberus

Story of your life?

M.A.R.

9:10 PM

Nah, just the past 55 seconds

Cerberus

How saddening.

How's the weather?

M.A.R.

No clouds, and the living room ceiling is awesome

Cerberus

Oh?

Does it have a window?

M.A.R.

Yeah, but also curtains

And it's 1:47 a.m., so at least we can say it's not sunny

skull petrol

So the "define:" feature works in all the chat rooms.

Cerberus

== Translingual == Wikispecies === Etymology === From Ancient Greek Κέρβερος (Kérberos), possibly cognate with Sanskrit शबल (śabala), कर्बुर (karbura), "speckled, spotted color," from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerberós (“spotted”). === Proper noun === Cerberus m A taxonomic genus within the family Colubridae – certain water snakes. == English == === Etymology === From Ancient Greek Κέρβερος (Kérberos) === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /ˈsɜɹbəɹəs/ === Proper noun === Cerberus (Greek mythology) The giant three-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades; and one of the many offspring ...

M.A.R.

9:30 PM

@skullpetrol Yeah, forgot about that already

0

Q: What's the rationale for not parsing HTML entities in chat?

It seems status-bydesign that HTML entities are not parsed in chat. What's the rationale for this? In my humble opinion, HTML entities can be very useful. I would be able to freely type "—" with — and "–" with – instead of looking up their Unicode, instead of the really short and ann...