English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

So I was thinking of picking some up.

@KitFox But you're rescuing the Little Sisters!

Wikipedia has the answer in the second paragraph.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Duly noted, duly voted.

1:54 PM

Hmm. What's a good, natural way of requesting help from a bank clerk? At the moment I have "Good day. Could you help me, perchance?", but I'm not sure; usually, THEY'd start the conversation with YOU.

How about "Hello, are you available?"

@Jez Usually you toss them a bag and tell them you want the big bills, nothing with sequential serial numbers, nothing off the bottom of the tray. Oh wait ... not that kind of withdrawal.

heh

@KitFox sounds too sexual

That was my thinking.

@Robusto Yes, this is what I'm getting at. Then he won't hog it until I've lost interest anyway.

@Robusto what is wrong with that kind of withdrawal?

@Cerberus was defending it just the other day.

1:57 PM

It is a really gorgeous game, btw. All Art Deco &c.

@Robusto It's okay, even my grandma knows it by now.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Nothing. Except the FBI gets involved, and then it gets messy.

@RegDwightѬſ道 If Wikipedia has the answer in the second paragraph, do you know why the word abbreviation is too long? See at the third paragraph.

@Carlo_R Who says the word abbreviation is too long? You have not seen many words in your life, have you?

Either way, the third paragraph reads "Abbreviations can also be used to give a different context to the word itself, such as "PIN Number" (wherein if the abbreviation were removed the context would be invalid)." Not sure what that has to do with anything.

@RegDwight - In my words I go where no man has gone before.

2:00 PM

National Organization of Matrimonial Attorneys, Nationwide?

NOMA acronym

Noman has put my eye out with a spear.

Nice. Let NOMAN put asunder. I like it.

And at Caesar's Palace. Classy.

I should have sexual relations with every last one of them.

I see N.O.M.A.N., not NOMAN

2:03 PM

@KitFox There's only one Caesar's Palace.

Ah well.

So every one of them is indeed also the last.

user19161

@Robusto I was thinking it could mean "I need a tanned lover".

@WillHunting Yeah, I thought of that. But if the OP can't be troubled to make that clear, who are we to encumber him with help?

Yeah that's what I was thinking...

user19161

2:09 PM

Jinxes for both of you.

So many people ask, what does "bla, blee blupp" mean, and then they leave out the comma, or the bla, or the blee.

I've got no traction against LHS.

Yeah.

We fought them before many times, I always struggle.

Plus Atlanta has pumped a couple hundred points.

So let's drop LHS and get ready for the next active war.

I'm surprise. Anything is happened at 400 reputations. Do you have a badge for me?

MetaEd

Badges? We ... somebody stop me.

2:17 PM

Anything is happened? Wow. Have a Zombo badge.

Anything can happen with a Zombo badge. Anything at all.

Is this a site create just for me?

Yes.

Oh! You are so kind, as always

Welcome to Zombo com! Welcome.

2:19 PM

I wrote it in ActionScript just a minute ago.

It's so soothing.

I had my janitor do the dubbing.

But now my wife is rebelling. She says, "I'd rather listen to the chicken".

I hate web pages that can't be bothered to encode their curly quotes & apostrophes. Youâ€d hate them too.

Or may they're vending their pages with no BOM.

> The tedious pipe-puzzle hacking elements have been replaced with an equally tedious swinging needle â€œgameâ€ (which incidentally could end up being nigh on impossible if youâ€™re colourblind).

I vend a bom. BOOM!

I wouldn't even know to do that.

But I don't think I use curlies. Now I know to encode them.

2:32 PM

> My advice is to play the game like there was no first one, don't compare. This way you will see how much better of a game Bio 2 is.

Umm, he refutes his advice in the very next sentence.

as well as saying "better of a..."

2:44 PM

Well just don't read that crap. If you liked BioShock, you'll like BioShock 2 as well. Period.

3:01 PM

@RegDwight you able to try your hand at some more DE-EN translation?

3:24 PM

@RegDwightѬſ道 Mmmmmm ... chicken.

Nooooooooooooooooo, please no chicken! Better carbonara

So Carlo. Shall we work on your search skillz?

You keep putting quite an amount of work into questions that get closed within a minute of them getting posted.

Mr Bean is he!

Q: expression "stuck in a barb wire snare"

@Jez it depends on how much work it is. I sure am able, but I'm lazy and get bored or disctracted rather qu hey look that dog has a fluffy tail!

user19161

0

What is the meaning of the expression "stuck in a barb wire snare"? I heard it in a song but I can't find the explanation and I can't figure out what it means.

expressions

user19161

3:28 PM

GR

I thought they meant the snare drum?

user19161

There are a number of "What is X?" questions which should be answered with "X is X". QED.

I would imagine it to be quite unpleasant to be stuck in a barb-wire one.

@RegDwight It's here: pastebin.com/jbGfKAJE

@RegDwightѬſ道 - YOU KNOW - My work has the scope to learn English. On the point your answer in this room are the best.

3:30 PM

Any stringENs left blank will cause the stringDE to be used, so not all need translating at once. I'm particularly keen to get the stuff translated from "Um Speichern zu können, müssen sich alle Netzspieler im Büro aufhalten" onwards...

user19161

I have been trying to understand completely the difference between the i sound in "sit" and "happy" and also the u sound in "put" and "actual". I hope I have succeeded. The difference is subtle.

what i sound in "happy"?

hippie, maybe

user19161

i ɪ u ʊ

user19161

These two pairs.

@Jez well, love movie, erotic/adult/softcore/whatever-you-wanna-call-it movie, action flick, comedy/drama, Western, crime thriller/detective story/murder mystery, sci-fi/phantasy. cultural entertainment, show, live broadcast, crime series, Western series, sci-fi series, soap/sitcom, live series (whatever that is, first time I hear that), other series, politics, sports, mixed news, suspense, action, erotics, information, sports, gossip, music, does this ever end?

It kind of keeps repeating all the time.

3:36 PM

there are a few repetitions but not many once you get past the first short ones

it's just quite a wordy game

So gossip, music, culture, male, female...

What is male/female?

string ID?

73198b1e-176b-4454-8f61-21883d80cb12, 123df400-e8a4-449e-82a2-a01a2ac5bfdb

ah

Haha, dig this: male, female, alien, animal, show host, actor, star guest, singer.

3:38 PM

so those would be ones i'll tag with TODO: and then play the game through and figure out the context

Quite a hierarchy. Reminds me of Futurama.

though in that case i'd bet the correct translation is male and female :-)

@Reg so in French we have la Seine and le Rhin, which contradicts the hypothesis suggested by The Cambridge History of the English Language that the definite article before river names comes from a null noun as in the Thames (river). How does French compare with German (and other articled languages) in that respect? Der Rhein and …?

oh yeah, that's probably when you're producing a show and you're getting props and actors, actresses, etc.

@RegDwight do you have a UTF8-capable text editor? it might be easier for you to edit the XML in that and then paste it

@Vitaly all rivers have articles in German. Die Seine.

3:40 PM

So just like French then.

Q: Does "not that you would know" make sense in English?

1

Today I was teasing a colleague of mine who keeps forgetting things. I said "You forgot because it's Friday today... Well, not that you would not forget any other day". I am not sure if it was correct. Also, would past tense be here, e.g. "not that you would not remember if it was Tuesday"?

grammaticality past-tense negation

In modern Greek though, they invariably use the masculine definite article: o Axios, o Kifissos... Naturally enough, the modern Greek word for river is masculine.

Could be a fascinating question...except probably not... too localized (is asking for the idiosyncratic "is what I said correct?")

Yeah.

@Vitaly English too?

3:43 PM

@Vitaly German has that with cars and other things.

Just not with rivers.

I think all mountains are masculine...

@Mitch Present-day English doesn't have grammatical gender. So it's impossible to figure out whether we say the Thames because of the null noun river in English without involving other languages.

Gender in English? No way, man.

@Vitaly sure, but the point was about articles before rivers names, not about their gender.

Well, La Seine est la riviere, n'est-ce pas?

@KitFox and le Rhin?

3:45 PM

@Vitaly le fleuve, duh.

the Hudson. The Rhine. The Yang-tze.

C'est un flux peut-etre?

or that.

Mar 31 at 12:16, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Meysam Love is a bird, she needs to fly.

> La Seine est un fleuve français, long de 777 kilomètres3, qui coule dans le Bassin parisien et arrose Troyes, Paris, Rouen et Le Havre.

Fleuve. That's what I meant.

3:46 PM

See, you have to use la to counterbalance the un.

1 min ago, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Vitaly le fleuve, duh.

3 mins ago, by Vitaly

@Mitch Present-day English doesn't have grammatical gender. So it's impossible to figure out whether we say the Thames because of the null noun river in English without involving other languages.

7 mins ago, by Vitaly

@Reg so in French we have la Seine and le Rhin, which contradicts the hypothesis suggested by The Cambridge History of the English Language that the definite article before river names comes from a null noun as in the Thames (river). How does French compare with German (and other articled languages) in that respect? Der Rhein and …?

Hey cool, a quoting party!

Well, and also "seine" is already feminine.

Brilliant!

That's why sound is masculine in French!

@RegDwight so ... can you do any of the translation? :-)

3:49 PM

@RegDwightѬſ道 I mean the word, not the river. Seine meaning breast or heart or bosom or whatever the hell it is. That word is feminine. So you name the river that, and even though a river is masculine, a bosom is not.

@Vitaly 'whether'? 'null noun'?

@Jez I am already distracted as you can see, but I guess I could do a couple more. It's just that the ones above are very basic and to be found in any dictionary (LEO is great). Let me scroll down and see what the longer ones look like.

@KitFox y so series?

@KitFox le sein?

@RegDwightѬſ道 i thot u mist my point

so confusing.

3:51 PM

@Mitch jedem die Seine!

Jedem das Seine

Jedem das Seine, lateinisch suum cuique, ist seit antiken philosophischen Theorien der Moral und Politik ein für die Fassung von Begriffen des Rechts und der Gerechtigkeit, insb. der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, vielfach ins Spiel gebrachtes Prinzip, das abstrakt besagt, dass jedem Bürger eines Gemeinwesens das zugeteilt wird (bzw. werden soll), was ihm gebührt, durch gerechte Güterverteilung etwa. Je nach praktischer bzw. politischer Theorie werden unterschiedliche Präzisierungen vorgeschlagen und wird der Status eines solchen Prinzips unterschiedlich bewertet. Im Konzentrationslager Buche...

@RegDwightѬſ道 de gustibus...

La Seine! La seine de Paris est clavé par La Seine.

You talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded.

@RegDwightѬſ道 You shit like a fag and your talk's all retarded.

Sarkozy admits French language a hoax after Wikileaks exposé

►

Apr 28 '11 at 20:19, by RegDwight

Awww they took it down!

I guess it's to do with his campaign.

3:54 PM

@Mitch River names weren't preceded by definite articles in Middle English and (often enough) in Early Modern English. E.g. John Stow, a 16th-century English historian wrote “This yeare, all the Weares in Thamis…” So the hypothesis is that the definite article traces back to an Early Modern English expression the river Thames by ellipsis, in which case river becomes a null noun.

Carla Bruni has been talking all retarded shit as of late as well.

@KitFox la poitrine.

Can we pretend, for my ego's sake, that I have said something simultaneously interesting, intelligent, and humorous?

pretends

Thank you.

3:55 PM

stops pretending

@Vitaly Oh. I didn't know that. What about 'the Thames river' which is also a viable English option. Then what would be the explanation?

@Mitch This is what I am trying to figure out. The comparison with French and German kind of falsifies that hypothesis, and I have no idea how to propose a falsification for English proper given the absence of grammatical gender in English.

@KitFox Yes, it was clever.

I have improved my closed question regarding a word to express hopes, dreams, and cynicism all at the same time. Could you so kind to revise the question in order to reopen it. Thanks in advance. english.stackexchange.com/questions/63326/…

Does the gender of rivers in Fr /Ger/whatever gendered language change for each river, or does it match the gender of 'river' in those languages?

3:58 PM

It doesn't match the gender of 'river' in German and French.

But it does in Greek (which admittedly is more distant from English).

Oh. 1- that's cool, 2 - what a pain to remember. 3- so is there are some masculine rivers and some feminine, some neuter.

"Talkmaster" in German = Talk host?

@Jez yeah.

Like, Jerry Springer.

k

Similarly, I think I saw Showmaster in there...

4:00 PM

yeah, i put "show host"

@Mitch Can't think of a neuter river right now.

how about: ABBRUCH ZURÜCK VERWERFEN

these im guessing are common things in German computer programs like "abort/cancel/etc."

Abort, Back, Discard.

discard?

Yeah sorry.

4:04 PM

"JA, SICHER"?

Yes, certainly; for sure.

it's definitely not "yes, save"?

No.

That would be "ja, sicherN".

ah ok

@RegDwight did you get anywhere with the longer ones?

I'm just browsing them in-between closing questions.

4:09 PM

okey

I feel like I'm still missing context at times. For example, for 0f3a55de-0256-428a-bbd3-fbed355bd305, I'd put in "Your enemy's programme could not be fetched. I really tried hard. I hope to serve you again despite this little mishap", but I am not really sure if they mean programme or schedule, and fetch or steal or whatever, or who's talking there to whom in the first place.

Oh, and not sure about "enemy", either.

Opponent, I guess.

yes opponent

but when missing context, prefix the string with TODO:

(i use that as my keyword for things to fix)

Heh.

and translate it as well as possible with ambiguous words together/like/this

and i'll play it and figure out the correct context :-)

@RegDwightѬſ道 I really think skimming is more interesting than robbery, and easier...

4:19 PM

@Cerberus interesting for sure. But easier? I would say it's interesting precisely because it's rather technical.

You can buy a skimming device.

Well that's boring.

You can buy money, too.

I suppose.

Just go to an ATM.

But that money is more expensive.

4:20 PM

Not if you use someone else's card!

I feel like we're getting somewhere...

@Cerberus Got any time on you for some DE-EN translation? :-)

Haha. Jez, der Sklaventreiber.

@Jez Sure! Though Reg's German is a thousand times better...

freundlich Sklaventreiber

@RegDwightѬſ道 Ah, you're beginning to appreciate the art of skimming.

Freundlicher.

Right, Reg?

4:22 PM

Yes.

Woohoo!

@Cerberus pastebin.com/jbGfKAJE

that's the translations file at the moment

Damn. I only just downloaded the original file.

ive got down to e18d8e29-50d5-4cdb-81d3-9101db708f12

it's the same one

i linked before

Oh frigg.

Now I've deleted it only to download the new one.

4:25 PM

had you modified the original one then?

And I'm on a machine that's slow as arse.

@Jez Only here in chat.

I don't see any translation.

Obviously I'm not dumb enough to throw away a modified version.

@Cerberus Right, i've done it locally

Hilarious.

4:25 PM

actually i'll post it

Ja was denn nun? Rein in die Kartoffeln, raus aus den Kartoffeln.

My machine cannot handle more than 1/2 download a month.

@Cerberus pastebin.com/aMa2r6dC

user19161

Just cast 12 deletion votes. Yay!

I wonder whether "suspense" should be "thriller" or something.

MetaEd

Avec!

user19161

4:28 PM

@MetaEd Long time no see!

@Jez nobody knows that.

Thriller would be Thriller.

user19161

A thriller thrills. Does a suspense suspend?

Spannung could be anything. Including American Football, if you ask me.

heh

Once the movies themselves are translated, this Art will become clearer

user19161

Watching a suspense movie makes one sweat and lose weight. This perhaps has the same effect as suspenders.

4:30 PM

Do want!!!

omfg no

user19161

@Vitaly Unparsable!

My wife would demand divorce.

I'd be trying to squish my feet all the time

also, spiders don't have 2 eyes

Those are just the big eyes.

But the pupils are a bit odd, yes.

4:35 PM

This is strange: Startwerte falsch, konnte nicht in Büro verzweigen

any idea what that could be about?

@Jez BTW I see things like ManMale, without a slash. Also the TODOs are not followed by a colon. I double-checked that I'm on UTF-8 and all. So just checking back with you that that's not a bug in my editor or something.

Initial value is incorrect; could not [verzweigen: branch out?] into the office.

nope not a bug. the colon is optional. ;-)

Something like that?

The sentence does not really make sense.

4:37 PM

yeah, i dunno what that's about.

it's gonna be a TODO

The in indicates that it's a location, not a direction.

it's gonna be highly contextual

So someone was not able to branch out while at the office or something.

Or it could be just a typo.

Oh, right, or it would be ins?

Yes.

4:38 PM

OK.

Well, technically, it should be im otherwise. With an M.

But the N kind of does work as well.

Right.

But it's weird.

I ginge nie mehr ins Büro.

Kind of like omitting the article in English when you go to school.

4:39 PM

Ich wollt' ich wär' ein Hahn.

Dann würde nichts getan.

Huhn.

Ah!

Ich legte überhaupt kein Ei.

Und wär' die ganze Woche frei.

That should be wär', right?

Startwerte is initial value or values?

And lege?

@Jez Plural.

4:40 PM

Hmm.

ok

@Cerberus No.

I can sing the song but I don't know the exact words.

I only know the original.

Not familiar with this parody.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hmm right. I didn't think lege sounded right.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Parody? I thought the original included the Hahn part too?

Isn't the original where they walk around in a kitchen?

I think I have listened to another version more often, so I must have mixed them up.

Brilliant song anyway.

4:42 PM

Ich wünsch, ich wär ein Huhn, dann hätt ich viel zu tun, ich legte jeden Tag ein Ei und samstags auch mal zwei.

I wonder what Bank is

Could be a bank. Or a bench.

Something tells me it's likely the former.

►

This is the version I know best.

With the Hahn.

I may have mixed up the lyrics too.

It has " Huhn" right there in the title.

@RegDwightѬſ道 yep.

4:44 PM

Yes, the last part is about the Hahn.

Ah.

Monster-Shop?

Too bad there is no video recording.

Monster-Shop? A place when you can buy monsters?

Or a monstrously large shop?

heh

Likely the former.

4:46 PM

how about Requisiten-Laden

Requisiten = props.

At least Dutch requisieten.

Werbeagentur

As in objects used in a play or film.

yeah

Advertising agency?

4:48 PM

agency.. or agent?

Agency, I'd say.

It should be a company.

Advertising company?

ah, it's Advertising agency in madtv1

(which was translated to English)

so i guess it stays as that

Ah.

Yes.

Headhunter

now that seems to be a loanword from English

Yup.

It is used in Dutch as well.

4:52 PM

Geheiminfos besorgen

"get details secretly"?

The stupidest words from English are the first ones to be borrowed, alas. All due to stupid business people.

heh

@Jez Hmm convery/deliver confidential/secret information?

or 'Procure' it?

@Cerberus Do you have a list of these stupidest words, so that we may avoid them?

4:53 PM

@Robusto Not yet, but I can make a list if you wish?

Office manager.

Headhunter.

Social media.

@Cerberus For the good of humanity, I think you should make one.

eh? Office manager is loaned?

Praps I ought to do that.

@Jez That would be Innenleiter in German, I think.

@Jez Most job titles in commercial companies are English nowadays. It's said.

Human resources.

CEO

People don't even know what it stands for.

Managing director.

4:55 PM

lol

Sales [department].

yeah in the UK, Manager has become CEO oftentimes

All sucky words.

Educated people here absolutely hate managers and everything about them.

Usually what is meant is not the top people.

Life style / leefstijl (an extremely ugly word-by-word translation, preferably even written with a space, oh horror!).

@Cerberus I wish they would borrow CEO here. I hate гендиректор.

@Vitaly That would be Directeur Generaal here, a perfectly good word. It is still in use too.

Isn't there a better word in Russian?

Like generalski director?

4:58 PM

@Cerberus гендиректор is short for генеральный директор.

And no, no other words. It's an official job title.

CEO sounds so much better. :(