English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

The longer an administration holds office, the more it seems to them like an entitlement, and the more the power takes hold, and the more likely there will be a scandal.

Cerberus

5:56 AM

Hmm.

MετάEd

Romney has called Obama to concede.

He's now speaking.

tchrist

I hear.

MετάEd

Too bad he didn't write the speech.

Cerberus

Such a sport he is.

tchrist

I turned NPR on at 7pm when coverage began.

This dorkus really is asking for it:

I put a question mark at the end of each of the sentences as if to ask which one was correct. I thought of them on the spot; I was more interested in which construction of 'be they' or 'be them' is grammatically correct. 'Lollies' does not always mean 'lollipops', but means hard candy (including lollipops), soft sweets such as jubes, but not chocolate. So when I asked you what word that is not colloquial that could replace 'lollies', I was interested in what you would say. If you think 'candy' is a good choice, I would say that many people would say that sounds markedly American. — Free 3 hours ago

MετάEd

5:58 AM

How can you talk about ELU on the ELU chatroom when ... oh. Right. Never mind.

Cerberus

Crazy.

tchrist

And to an American, “lolly” sounds markedly infantile.

I don’t enjoy being trolled.

I think he has a perverse misunderstanding of inversion, but I don’t care enough to yank on his whiskers.

I’m going to bed with the new Iain Banks. Finally. Good night.

MετάEd

6:17 AM

@Robusto Yeah, I think that may be exactly what this election was about.

MετάEd

6:34 AM

Did I understand that right? New Hampshire now has a female governor and all-female House and Senate representatives?

David Wallace

7:56 AM

@tchrist Is the offensive language really necessary? He/she seems sincere to me. And in certain dialects, including mine, "lollies" is a perfectly standard, non-infantile word, for what Americans would call "candy". The word "candy" is really not in my active vocabulary, and I suspect the same is true of many other non-American native speakers of English.

RegDwighт

11:10 AM

Mkay, let's get the obvious out of the way.

►

Congrats on your loss, @Robusto. Next time spend it on LEGO or drugs. Or on Hillary in the primaries, so she doesn't get too comfortable too soon.

user19161

@RegDwighт I see me in the video.

RegDwighт

No, really. Just imagine $3 bn spent on LEGO. Or drugs. Or really anything other than helping Romney get from 0% to 49%. Heck, even a Michael Bay movie is a more sensible investment.

RegDwighт

11:41 AM

And we're back to business as usual.

0

Q: "He and I", "Him and me"

Possible Duplicate: “My friends and I” vs. “My friends and me” vs. “Me and my friends” Somebody taught me a rule of thumb how to discern if I should use "I" or "Me" when adding self to the end of a list of people in a sentence: Ignore the list, strip the rest and treat it only as if it...

One would think at 3k people would know better.

Noah

What's the difference between go with and go for, I would go with iPad vs. I would go for iPad.

Cerberus

Hmm not much.

Just different metaphors.

RegDwighт

Nothing of notice. In both cases the person recommends the iPad.

Sneaky Cerberus appearing out of nowhere.

Cerberus

Go with: you accompany someone, or follow his lead.

Noah

>Cerberus |ˈsərbərəs|Greek Mythology
a monstrous watchdog with three (or in some accounts fifty) heads that guarded the entrance to Hades.

Cerberus

11:47 AM

Go for: you decide to go after a certain goal.

Both can be used with Ipads.

Although both are equally inadvisable.

RegDwighт

Every time I choose not to answer a question in chat, the chat is dead for like three hours. Every time I choose to answer, someone else chooses to answer even faster. Stupid Murphy.

Cerberus

Go for a Nexus 7 or a Nexus 10, which are not only better, but also cheaper.

@RegDwighт You know those magical unicorns that always appear where you least expect them?

Noah

@Cerberus I wouldnt get into that.

Cerberus

And how they sometimes have other physical mutations instead?

RegDwighт

No. I totally expect unicorns to appear at all times. Thanks to @MετάEd's efforts.

Cerberus

11:48 AM

@Noah Too late. But I will say no more about it.

@RegDwighт Well there you go.

Now you can expect me too.

RegDwighт

Indeed there I go. Xblast time. Aureservoir.

Cerberus

Bye!

Noah

@Cerberus Not buying one. Was just an example/

Cerberus

Hehe.

Noah

”Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.“ – Mark Twain

Cerberus

11:54 AM

That works to some degree.

Noah

Right.

Cerberus

But seeing other people who are happy when you feel miserable can aggravate your misery.

Noah

@Cerberus Not always.

Cerberus

Not always.

The Facebook Effect.

Noah

And whats that?

KitFox

11:57 AM

w00000000000000000t!

Today is a good day.

Noah

Why is that?

KitFox

Same-sex marriage is legal in my state, and for the first time ever in the US voted in by the people.

And Obama got re-elected.

And "legitimate rape" guy lost.

It just kind of feels like everyone suddenly regained some sanity.

Alenanno

Hello everryboday!

lol

RegDwighт

@KitFox "Everyone" is a horrible misspelling of "around 50%", and "suddenly regained" of "always had".

Don't delude yourself. The glass is half empty.

2

user19161

@RegDwighт The glass is neither empty nor full. It is simply the glass.

Alenanno

12:07 PM

@RegDwighт The glass is always full.

KitFox

@RegDwighт I am so glad I have you here to keep my feet on the ground.

Alenanno

@RegDwighт By the way, 332 out of 538 is almost 62% (61.7%), not around 50%.

RegDwighт

@Alenanno those are members of the electoral college, silly. Of these, exactly 0% have any sanity at all, otherwise people wouldn't have to tell them who to vote for.

Alenanno

@RegDwighт Electoral college?

RegDwighт

Yes, electoral college. Or do you think the US has a total population of 538?

Electoral College (United States)

The Electoral College is the institution that officially elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. The electors are chosen by each state of the United States and by the District of Columbia, but not by other territorial possessions of the United States (such as Puerto Rico). The number of electors is 538, based on the total voting membership of the United States Congress (435 Representatives and 100 Senators) and three electors from the District of Columbia. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution specifies the number of electors to whic...

Alenanno

12:14 PM

@RegDwighт Save your sarcasm lol

RegDwighт

Who for?

Alenanno

@RegDwighт There are users more worthy of receiving it. :P

RegDwighт

@Kit's already had her share. And @Rob lies drunk in a puddle somewhere.

@Will wouldn't recognize sarcasm if I labeled it "Beware! Live sarcasm inside".

Alenanno

Even if those are members, doesn't it mean that they count towards Obama? I don't understand your statement there.

RegDwighт

The popular vote is split 50/50.

Very simply.

Also, we have long moved on to discuss more pressing, unsolved issues, such as choosing between "I" and "me".

Alenanno

12:18 PM

Where do you see that division?

RegDwighт

TV channel of your choice, news resort of your choice, Wikipedia.

user19161

@RegDwighт That's what you think!

RegDwighт

United States presidential election, 2012

The 2012 United States presidential election took place on November 6, 2012. It was the 57th presidential election in which presidential electors from each U.S. state, who officially elect the president and the vice president of the United States on December 17, 2012, were chosen. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and Democratic Vice President Joe Biden ran for a second term during this election, the former being constitutionally limited to only two terms. Their major challengers were the Republican Party nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running...

Alenanno

@RegDwighт If you've seen that in an article, I'd like to see it. Back up your statements! lol

RegDwighт

I am backing them up faster than you can question them.

Alenanno

12:20 PM

Lmao I was fixing a typo.

user19161

@RegDwighт He looks very good in that picture.

RegDwighт

@Alenanno it's easier to not misspell lol and lmao if you don't add it to every single statement.

Alenanno

@RegDwighт Again, save your sarcasm :P I mistyped "seen that" as "seent hat".

RegDwighт

@WillHunting yeah I have no idea what Huntsman is doing there.

Alenanno

@RegDwighт Why aren't you on Russian SE?

RegDwighт

12:27 PM

I am.

RegDwight, Europe, GMT+1

117 5

Alenanno

Let me rephrase... Why aren't you so active?

RegDwighт

I dunno. There are not many questions that are of interest to me.

Alenanno

It isn't getting that much traffic. :(

RegDwighт

Same as with GLU, and probably other sites. Too many Englishmen who ask very basic questions, rather than native speakers discussing finer points.

Robusto

@KitFox I think it is going to be business as usual for the House, though. Expect more obstructionism from the Tea Baggers.

Cerberus

12:36 PM

@KitFox Congrats!

Not bad.

Robusto

@RegDwighт: So Putin fired defense chief Serdyukov for corruption? How fucking corrupt do you have to be to get fired from a government post in Russia?

3

RegDwighт

It's business lingo for "not corrupt enough, or not in our favor".

Cerberus

This.

Just like "tax fraud".

RegDwighт

He wanted to downsize the military. Too sensible a thing to propose.

Robusto

I see.

RegDwighт

12:40 PM

Not on this planet, not in our lifetimes.

Robusto

On the plus side, Colorado and Washington totally legalized marijuana. The dam is breaking.

Alenanno

Really?

Robusto

Really. Amsterdam is now officially dead as a recreational weed-user's vacation destination.

RegDwighт

What a difference 70 years make. Serdyukov wanted just a couple thousand less soldiers. Stalin would have, and has, downsized the military by executing a million officers.

Alenanno

@Robusto Tell Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega about that.

Robusto

12:42 PM

@RegDwighт Stalin invented the binge-and-purge diet.

@Alenanno Vincent Vega is dead, and Jules Winfield is walking the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu.

Alenanno

@Robusto Ahahah! True that! lol

Robusto

If @tchrist was ~~smart~~ an entrepreneur, he'd open up a pot bar in Boulder.

tchrist

@KitFox And Colorado and Washington voted in — or who knows? perhaps with — recreational marijuana, the first time this has ever been done in North America. Good thing O’bama was elected; otherwise the Feds might come down even harder on our ass for our contumacious temerity than they are now apt to. But the Chief’s an old stoner.

Robusto

BTW, one of the best things about Obama winning the election is now my email in-box volume will be reduced by 90%. At least I hope so.

user19161

@RegDwighт They need you to help them then.

tchrist

12:48 PM

@Robusto I have no idea about that one. I don’t keep many more finely-grained statistics of the 45-70 thousand pieces of spam that get pointed at me daily.

And yes, that number is real, not random or invented or both.

RegDwighт

Aug 27 at 9:30, by ЯegDwight

@tchrist you're one lucky man. I get 70–80% as many at work, and my address is only mentioned in two and a half places on our rather tiny site only a couple embedded engineers have ever heard of.

And I am not entitled to vote in the US elections, either.

tchrist

I don’t think that’s very fair.

Canadians should be allowed to vote for president.

RegDwighт

It's very fair and very balanced.

@tchrist save on the infrastructure — let Her Majesty shoot the wrong candidate directly.

Robusto

@tchrist What, and give up their health care?

tchrist

Bloody fox hunts always end bad.

She should give them a head start.

RegDwighт

12:53 PM

@tchrist not to mention quail hunts.

KitFox

Excuse me?

Robusto

Not to mention witch hunts.

tchrist

Must I?

RegDwighт

@Robusto which hunts?

Robusto

No, which is on third.

RegDwighт

12:54 PM

I'm a witch, I'm a witch, yes the witch is back.

tchrist

Wicked.

If Obama’s 303 electoral college score were an HTTP status code, it would be HTTP_SEE_OTHER.

I have a terrible confession to make.

If you look at the red–blue map, I pretty much like most all of the blue states a great deal more than I like any of the red states. Is that so wrong? Is this a cultural gap?

If Romney’s 206 electoral college score were an HTTP status code, it would be HTTP_PARTIAL_CONTENT.

Matt Эллен

Is my understanding right, that the popular vote makes not a bit of difference, and it's all down to the electoral colleges?

tchrist

The county picture is less red and blue. In the black and white sense, not the lollipopper sense.

KitFox

@MattЭллен Yes.

tchrist

@MattЭллен Some states have laws binding their electoral college votes to their popular vote. Some are winner-take-all. Some are not.

Matt Эллен

1:04 PM

I see. Thanks

KitFox

Only two divide the electoral vote. My state is one of them.

I'm pretty sure they've never actually split it.

Matt Эллен

so there is half a vote to the college and half to the population?

tchrist

No.

Their college must allot its votes in the same proportion as their population did.

KitFox

No.

tchrist

Then?

KitFox

1:07 PM

Two votes go to the popular candidate, and one each for the popular candidate by congressional district.

So 3/1 split.

tchrist

Ah, so you still have firewalls then.

The electoral college can be thought of as erecting safety firewalls between the states.

KitFox

There are huge amounts of politics that revolve around the congressional districts here. Huge.

tchrist

Without it, candidates would only pay attention to the main population centers and screw everybody else. Which happens a bit anyway, but rather less so than it would in a blind all-popular-vote tyranny.

Imagine if the EU were set up in a way other than each country having one vote.

People would just vote away pesky little problems like Iceland by simple majority.

Matt Эллен

I see. sort of.

tchrist

It is not an immediately obvious result, or insight.

But it cannot be ignored.

Matt Эллен

1:12 PM

but since the electoral vote is often tied to the popular vote, how does that make it different?

tchrist

First past the post.

Winner take all.

Matt Эллен

I think I get it

tchrist

The electoral vote is not tied to the popular vote in the sense you may think. Or Gore would have won.

Matt Эллен

> The electors generally cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their respective states.

tchrist

Heh.

Matt Эллен

1:14 PM

so it is different, I can't quite articulate how, to winner takes all on a country wide scale.

tchrist

It is different.

Yes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен because of voting districts

Matt Эллен

that's just breaking it down further?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

two districts with the same population and number of college votes: one votes 51% red, the other votes 100% blue; the total popular vote is 75% blue but the college votes are split 50/50 red/blue

tchrist

Here's something else: look at the country map I just posted above. It is clear that the majority of that map is red. But red lost.

Matt Эллен

1:16 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 right, yes. that makes sense.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist well, the map is not to scale, population-wise

Matt Эллен

@tchrist I was thinking that

tchrist

A state pools its votes for president.

No matter how densely populated its counties. @Kit possibly excepted.

Matt Эллен

it's a kind of lossy compression of opinion

tchrist

@MattЭллен How come the French let you keep using the word “county”? You’d think they’d’ve forbidden it the way they did chez eux/ew/ewe.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:21 PM

@tchrist I don't see how that makes the presidential election better though. If the whole US was just one big district, there wouldn't be any gerrymandering

Matt Эллен

@tchrist I've no idea

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Your "firewalls between states" argument makes sense for having something like the Senate, with equal representation, to balance the congress that has proportional representation.

But for President? The whole nation is one district. Splitting it up by state or by college-vote just makes it possible to rig.

tchrist

Ok, so Wyoming and Alaska and Montana and such shouldn’t count then? That’s a great way to have a Union, now isn’t it? Let’s all vote that hotel stays be free in Iceland.

The tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist What? I never said they shouldn't count.

tchrist

Sure you did.

I’ll be sure to tell them you said so.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:27 PM

By artificially pooling votes in a winner-takes-all system, the minority voters in those states are the ones who don't count.

If the whole US was one district voting for president, every vote would carry equal weight.

Matt Эллен

oh good. we've some anonymous coward editing posts putting the word liberal everywhere.

tchrist

Wow.

bis

Again, let’s fix Europe so that it is no longer one country, one vote, which is of course an evil and undemocratic systems. Gee, that would go over like a lead balloon. And for the same reason. A republic does not work that way.

Matt Эллен

Liberals are like evil clowns with axes.

amazing

tchrist

Gone off a bit unhinged.

I don’t know many liberals.

Most of my friends are progressives.

“Liberal” has nearly become hate speech here — as you note.

Some people laugh at it, of course.

Matt Эллен

the idea of an evil clown with an axe brings a smile to my face

tchrist

1:34 PM

It’s like calling a gay man a cocksucker. It just doesn’t hold too much zing for the in-group themselves. It’s an exonym slur.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist You say "a republic does not work that way". Please explain why it must work the way it works and how the minority democrats in red-states still somehow "count" whereas in a nation-wide popular vote system all of Wyoming would somehow not count.

RegDwighт

@Alenanno there. Just for you. And @WillHunting.

0

Q: Usage patterns of "надо" vs. "нужно"

What are the mechanics behind using надо over нужно or vice versa? What governs when they are interchangeable and when not? To be perfectly clear: I have no problems simply using whichever sounds most natural in a given situation. So providing just a handful of examples won't do it for me; I can...

word-choice semantics

I'm surprised to see this hasn't been covered yet.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwighт good luck!

RegDwighт

I'm not holding my breath. So I can be surprised only pleasantly.

I know a linguist whose wife actually wrote a couple papers on the subject.

I have the bibtex entries right here.

It's certainly an interesting question, and an advanced one.

Matt Эллен

ah, so might you answer your own question?

RegDwighт

1:41 PM

As opposed to the умереть-vs.-умирать nonsense.

@MattЭллен no. I don't have access to the papers.

In fact I only found out the titles five minutes ago when I was composing the question.

He had only mentioned to me, once, that his wife was working on the subject.

Matt Эллен

ah. if only all articles were free to read!

RegDwighт

Dude. It's Russia we're talking about.

Matt Эллен

so they are?

or do they all belong to an oligarch?

RegDwighт

If they aren't, all you have to do is put them to a copyrighted tune or include them in a copyrighted videogame. Then they'll spread like wildfire.

Matt Эллен

interesting idea...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:44 PM

RegDwighт

I would actually pay for a videogame where the characters conversed about the finer points of Russian modal predicatives.

2

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 holy crap, it took me three glances to realize that's LEGO.

nice!

both from here

I can see a companion cube!

RegDwighт

1:46 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 excellent use of the pneumatic T.

Those look like actual pneumatic pumps in their own right.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the whole photostream is worth looking at

RegDwighт

Mkay, what the hell are those huge slope parts.

The fortune demon has them for epaulettes. This one for his forehead.

Robusto

Commute.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwighт ship hull

RegDwighт

Oh. Is that so. No wonder I can't find it on Bricklink. Looking in entirely wrong places.

Well okay. That's actually interesting. I never get such huge parts precisely because I can't see how they can possibly be reused.

Kudos to this guy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:56 PM

Maybe this one

RegDwighт

Yup. That must be it.

I converted my first MOC to LDD yesterday. Looking forward to converting some more and publishing them on Rebrickable/Flickr/Reddit/what have you.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah? How much work was that?

do you have a link?

RegDwighт

Slowly getting a hang of the LDD, too. Better than the first time around, a couple years ago, when I couldn't use the damn thing at all.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I love the wall in this one:

RegDwighт

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 it's a tiny one. A sheep made of 79 parts in two colors. But I spent half an hour — literally 20+ minutes — on trying to figure out how to rotate a damn headlight brick.

It got easier from there. Somewhat.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:59 PM

@RegDwighт Yeah, the last time I tried using lego cad tools, it just took so damn long that I figured it'd be faster to just build and photograph

RegDwighт

Now I'm actually looking forward to converting the two goats that I have.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…