English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Will anyone protest if I remove the pomposity?

is he a troll or what

@simchona I don’t know, but you have my cheer.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Take two, they’re small.

@simchona you mean delete that comment? I don't think it warrants deletion. Except that it's wrong. So... maybe just a comment to that effect?

He seems impervious to English.

9:11 PM

whoops

He’s trolling.

NO ONE can take that seriously.

That means he is posting in bad faith.

And trolls need no coddling.

Yes, we can argue with him.

You know where that leads.

No good can come of it.

I suppose

Hi.

@tchrist I deleted it because it doesn't fit the definition of a "good comment"--questions for clarifications, witty jokes(*), etc.

You’ll get no argument from me nor mine.

@Cerberus Have you recovered?

9:21 PM

Sure.

Went to see a film.

With a debate afterwards.

A documentary about lobbying in the EU.

Sounds parlous.

Obama is here speaking. The town’s traffic is messed up.

How so?

Oh, that sucks.

I meant it in the perilous or ticklish sense, but with the false cognate / folk etymology of chatty.

I see.

Well, it wasn't perilous...

It was somewhat informative, though not extremely so.

Sounds as dry and lively as a millennia-old mummy hidden in a forgotten pyramid.

9:33 PM

Well, one guy was actually shouting at some point, and calling bankers "bastards".

Pro forma activism without hope of change is, like mathematics, a young man’s game.

Zairja just mentioned a circle jerk.

Hope was expressed.

And action promised.

One of the panellists was a member of the European Parliament.

He is even actively doing something.

Of course it was. But nothing ever changes, not for the better, when you have a huge bureaucratic behemoth blocking your way. It’s exasperating. You’ll just get your hopes dashes. Yes, I know that’s defeatest talk. You will note I am not at the Obama talk.

> Some newcomers can have a negative perception of how SE operates. However, if you look at the "top users" it's clear that SE (specifically ELU) isn't a circle jerk but a community. I think there are niches in the community for all user types.

You forget things like the Treaty of Lisbon.

The EP now has to approve all EC proposals.

It has recently blocked ACTA, for example.

And the MEP in the panel had organised the block against this "commission of wise men" that the EC had appointed to advise them on regulating banks.

Because this commission included only bankers and former bankers.

I have grave fears about the EU ever pulling itself up out of the continuing crisis, and what effect this will have globally.

9:42 PM

People who have a strong reputation of opposing regulation.

Now the EP has frozen their budget unless the EC add other people to this commission.

The EU will pull itself up.

Outside Greece and Spain, it's not that severe.

And depressions always end sooner or later.

The cycle of Kondratiev, I think.

Sometimes they end in the suicide of war.

Kondratiev wave

Kondratiev waves (also called supercycles, great surges, long waves, K-waves or the long economic cycle) are described as sinusoidal-like cycles in the modern capitalist world economy. Averaging fifty and ranging from approximately forty to sixty years, the cycles consist of alternating periods between high sectoral growth and periods of relatively slow growth. Unlike the short-term business cycle, the long wave of this theory is not accepted by current mainstream economics. History of conception The Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev (also written Kondratieff) was the first to bring t...

@tchrist There is absolutely no chance of that happening to Europe now.

A: Is "of" necessary in "all of"

> What part of language is "of" in these examples? Is it necessary/optional/correct/incorrect?

0

The more formal construction is to omit 'of' and write, for instance, "All the attemps failed". Although 'all of' is more common in AmE than in 'BrE', it should generally avoided in formal writing. In two circumstance, though, 'all of' is the better choice. The first is when a pronoun follows 'al...

So, what part of language is "of"?

A preposition.

Yes, and I don't think that ever got answered.

9:48 PM

Right.

I can’t see how “all my friends” is somehow more formal that “all of my friends”. It’s just more parsimonious.

@simchona ... no I cannot, I'm not a grammarian! — Xavier Vidal Hernández 40 secs ago

FTN

He only has two friends on Facebook.

He doesn't look freaky.

@Cerberus Who's "he"?

9:53 PM

The person you quoted!

Of course we can't be absolutely sure it is the same guy.

Freaky?

Not freaky.

@simchona He seems to be enough of a grammarian to cite pronouns and possessive nouns. Plus I disbelieve. If we assume his native language is Spanish, and I believe we should, it’s not as though prepositions are different in Spanish. The word is the same.

Preposición

La preposición es la clase de palabra invariable que introduce el llamado sintagma preposicional. Las preposiciones generalmente tienen la función de introducir adjuntos, y en ocasiones también complementos obligatorios ligando el nombre o sintagma nominal al que preceden inmediatamente con un verbo u otro nombre que las antecede. En algunas lenguas las preposiciones pueden no encabezar un sintagma preposicional, como en inglés, donde incluso pueden aparecer al final de la frase. Considerando las distintas lenguas del mundo, la preposición es un tipo de adposición que se caracteriza por ...

Hmm.

So does anyone know how postpositional languages deal with long nominal phrases?

10:08 PM

No, I don’t know any. Well, except arguably German where you push the verbs of subordinate clauses on a stack as you go and pop them all off at the end.

English can push prepositions to the end of the clause in relative clauses.

Although the German infinitives are special, patterns like SOV are very common.

Sometimes the suspension caused by a late verb can be awkward or hard to parse.

I don’t see English pushing prepositions to the end of relatives. “That wasn’t something that I’d ever heard of.”

But I think prepositions are even more problematic.

What are you thinking?

The house that I secretly destroyed the roof of.

It is quite different, of course.

But still.

10:14 PM

Different from what? The German infinitive stack?

Of modifies governs that within the relative clause.

And in heard of.

Different from a true postposition, which comes straight after the nominal phrase.

I would say rather that the preposition wants to stick close to its verb.

When you put it next to the relative, it feels very unnatural, almost stranded.

It must come after whatever word governs it, be it verb or noun (as in my example).

But the parsing problems due to the distance between the preposition and its object are real.

10:18 PM

@tchrist On your comment here, can you post a quick translation?

> Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

They become more urgent as the clause gets longer, and especially as more prepositions are shifted to a late position in the same clause.

@simchona It mean “See the article”.

@tchrist Can you just put that in parens or something?

I’ll just delete it.

You don’t like it.

I’m trying to get through to the jerk.

10:20 PM

@tchrist You could consider that a postposition, in a way.

Since English doesn’t work . . . .

@tchrist I didn't say I didn't like it.

But try making its "object" longer and more complicated.

My reasoning is that, if someone flags it because it isn't English, I don't want to have to delete it.

I can’t edit comments 10 minutes old.

10:21 PM

Oh, who would flag that?

Spanish is not verboten.

@tchrist I'll do it then.

You spoke German!

No German in this chat!

Ich spreche was immer ich will!

Yes, now you’re just going to get banned again for speaking furry.

It's just impolite to have longer conversations in a foreign language when you are excluding people who might want to participate.

I agree that that should be dealt with.

10:22 PM

@tchrist He responded to you, by the way.

But only when it becomes excessive, since we have all kinds of other conversations about specialist subjects that exclude some user or other.

Like discussing a film I haven't seen.

Or balrog wings.

Or linguistics.

It’s a sad day when linguistics is off-topic at ESL&U.

Homo mensura.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.

> ... Windows 7 in augustus goed voor een marktaandeel van 42,8 procent, terwijl Windows XP uitkwam op 42,5 procent.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ^

It has happened at last!

I'm sure you can understand the gist of that quotation.

10:28 PM

Duh.

So one moves from one circle of hell to another. This is hardly an improvement.

It’s interesting that “all of X” can often be rephrased as “X all”.

In the predicative sense?

They all went home?

Batman!

Shh.

I'm incognito.

“Take all of us.” “Take us all.”

Yes.

Same with other similar words, like each.

10:42 PM

both

@Cerberus But how long does a conversation have to be to justify banning and/or deletion? It's not really possible to draw a line. You either allow everything non-English or forbid everything non-English.

Yes, it can be perceived as rude if two people come here and speak some language that nobody else understands; but I feel it's even ruder to make arbitrary distinctions about what is OK here.

@DavidWallace You don't need a rule, you just judge based on context. Then you ask them to stop. Then you ask again. Then you act.

@DavidWallace We can't have exact rules.

This is about people.

Not cubes.

Hehe.

Sometimes strict rules are good, sometimes they're not.

In this case, I believe they're not.

But having variable rules leaves room for inconsistency. Which leads to accusations of prejudice. What's sauce for the goose has to be sauce for the gander.

That is still better than the alternative

And we have such accusations about everything anyway.

Look at the rules in the FAQ.

Endless debates about those rules, which are supposed to be objective.

Sometimes guidelines are better than hard rules.

Strict rules are best when a.) you don't have the capacity to judge each case individually, or b.) more flexible rules have failed or have shown to be prone to abuse.

What alternative? Allowing people to use whatever language they like? Why do you think that prescribing what language to use is better than that?

10:53 PM

Then what is your alternative? I presumed you meant not allowing it at all.

(Which means you'd have to consider whether a few words count, a single line...)

@Cerberus ha!

No, my alternative is allowing everything.

@DavidWallace Ah, OK.

I don't know.

I don't see the harm.

Like, occasionally, you'd have to say "I don't understand - can you please include me?"

But I don't see why that's a problem.

What if two people talk in Chinese here for two hours, high frequency?

@DavidWallace I guess it only becomes a problem if it happens often, or if users refuse to include others when asked.

People talking in Chinese is almost as bad as spam to me, because I can't understand one word of it. If they even have words.

So I think we sort of agree.

Q: What does “Safety net in the coffin” mean?

10:59 PM

Anybody know the answer to Yoichi’s question?

2

There was the phrase “the safety net in the coffin” in reference to Mr. Paul Ryan, running mate of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Maureen Dowd’s article, titled “Cruel conservatives throw a masquerade ball” in the Time magazine (September 1st). It reads: “As the writer Dermot M...

expressions

@tchrist you disagree with ruakh?

@cornbreadninja No, I hadn’t read it.

@tchrist OIC.

@cornbreadninja That answer came after

OK, well let me give you an example. Suppose I am Russian, and weak in English. I have a question about English usage that I want to ask, but I don't know the best way to word it. So I come to this chat room, and notice that Reg Dwight and Vitaly are both here. So I discuss my question with them.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't do so in Russian?

11:10 PM

No.

No.

Well, there's the question of moderation: if Reg isn't here, who's to know that the person isn't swearing?

Who will be offended by it?

@cornbreadninja I read it the same way as Ruakh.

@DavidWallace Right.

11:11 PM

Umm, and "safety net in the coffin" is the same as "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff".

@DavidWallace It's fine, but it shouldn't take over the entire chat room for a long time while other are there, or something.

Do you know how many hits you get for f-bombs on SO?

@simchona Who cares?

Why can't I find a razor which doesn't have 5 million blades?

And if somebody DOES come along later and gets offended by something here in Russian, he/she can flag it at the time.

11:12 PM

Yes, people can flag if they are offended.

For all the founders pretend that profanity isn’t allowed, it happens nine thousand million billion times, unchallenged.

Of course.

And gets starred seven times; thanks Tom.

De rien.

@simchona why don't you want moar blades?

11:13 PM

We don't need to make everything "clean": we only need to do something if there is a problem that people are (legitimately and significantly) bothered by.

@simchona they come in bags of 10. If you just want one, go ask a hotel's front desk.

How can you discern “legitimately and significantly”?

The basis should be that users are adults who can deal with things themselves.

@tchrist That is sometimes problematic, yes.

I just added that because the mere fact someone is bothered is not enough.

For example.

Fuck the fucking fuckers.

11:15 PM

If two people come along and talk here in Chinese for two hours (yes, "talk in Chinese" makes sense online), either there are other people here who can talk in English at the same time, or there are not. If there are not, then why does it matter?

Plus one can ignore them.

It’s a better idea than flagging.

Kit knows morse code:

May 21 at 19:21, by KitFox

@Cerberus fuck fuck shit, fuck fuck shit, fuck fuck shit.

nzhistory.net.nz/media/video/shes-a-mod

English is popular world-wide:

Right, and washing instructions on Chinese clothes.

Washing instructions?

They spent a lot on signs.

11:21 PM

Apparently, there's a Chinese word that can be translated as "dry" or "f***". So occasionally, clothes that are made in China have instructions like "f*** outside in the shade" or even "do not tumble f***".

I should think that "dry" and "fuck" would be mutually exclusive.

I haven’t heard that tale before.

Hey, I don't speak Mandarin. I only spout second hand BS.

Do you get QI in Kiwivania yet?

Yes, we do. I've never watched it.

@DavidWallace "lie flat to f***"

11:25 PM

It can be rather amusing.

"hang to f***"

@cornbreadninja chzmemeanimals.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/…

To prove that I'm not making it up ...

Oh.

11:33 PM

You must get more of those than we do.

Probably, yes. Lots of stuff here comes from Eastern Asia.

@DavidWallace How would you feel if some spammers started posting spam links here?

You can ignore the spam links, but it gets annoying if it's more than two or three a day.

So I don't feel the "you can just ignore it" is 100 % applicable to all situations.

It is very uninviting to people if they enter a room where everyone is conversing in a language they don't speak.

They may be disinclined to start a conversation in English.

It's not so bad if that happens occasionally, but not all the time, right?

Japanese is not immune to this either.

Did some guy at Google Translate think he was funny or something?

Where?

11:47 PM

I can't believe someone whose English isn't good enough to notice that maybe fucking is a bad idea for the cover of a book is actually writing English course books.

Don't get me started on that.

Spam is different from Chinese. I would ban spam certainly.

All right, but Chinese would still be unfun, wouldn't it?

@Robusto You know, very fucking is an odd construct. I don’t think fucking admits modifiers of degree like that, because I don’t know what it means for one thing to be more fucking than another thing. Yes, I know you can say I’m really fucking sorry, but those are both applying to sorry.

Expletives are odd.

KitFox

There is more fucking in a van than in a compact car.

11:55 PM

Yes, but there fucking is a noun.

Speaking of fucking in a van, did you hear about my car being inhabited?

KitFox

No.

@tchrist No.

You have to wonder what they were thinking. Maybe they were just fucked up — you know, as in F•CUPs.

Somebody was in it night before last, and they left a bottle of water (or something) in the console cupholder. And left my wallet, untouched. And no, it was not me.

KitFox

Huh. Maybe they thought it was their car and then realized it wasn't when they couldn't start it.

I've actually done that before.