English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

4:57 AM

There is something almost touching to learn of someone who has not yet heard of meth. But perhaps he knows of it as kakuseizai （覚醒剤・かくせいざい） instead.

11:13 AM

@tchrist That's just a generic term for stimulant, IIRC. Stimulants have long been important in a culture that places such harsh requirements on students and, later, people in business. The old saying for students wishing to get into the best universities is, regarding sleep: "Five hours, fail; four hours, succeed."

11:53 AM

@tchrist Under desert-monotheist law, everything is punishable by death.

Never trust desert religions!

12:22 PM

@Cerberus But would you trust a dessert religion?

@Robusto Absolutely!

Some people are quite fanatical about their chocolate cakes.

I knew it. So you're not a committed atheist if there will literally be pie in the sky.

or pie r squared!

One pie in the hand is worth more than ten in the sky.

The same applies to math. And cats.

But literal pie in the sky would include airplane meals, presumably.

12:25 PM

cats?

Air France 1st class service used to have really, really good food. Not sure how it is these days.

they used to have the concord

Of course, it's a French airline. Why would they not take pride in their food?

I've literally never had a bad meal in France. Never.

And I'm talking probably hundreds of meals.

Hah.

Neither have I!

Full disclosure: I never ate at McDonald's there.

12:29 PM

But I don't think I've ever flown with Air France.

Nor I!

Just getting a sandwich at a shop is a remarkable experience.

they are #1 in fashion too

Or breakfast at a middling hotel, where they bring you baskets of fresh, flaky croissants and brioche with fresh creamery butter, with pot after pot of excellent coffee and thick cream . . .

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I read that the average French citizen spends 1/3 of their income on food, and 1/3 of their domestic work is devoted to food preparation. In America, I'd be surprised if that proportion was over 1/10 in either category.

is that the highest?

I just had a thought: wouldn't it be funny if we got some NNS who spoke very little English yet somehow managed to get enough rep to vote to close every single post as "not clear what you're asking"?

12:37 PM

Ouch!

Poor pineapples.

But it would take him a loooong time to accrue enough reps...

@Robusto There is something about mediterranean countries...

Reading some of these questions, I sometimes wonder if I'm losing my faculties.

Or perhaps about cultures originating in warmer regions.

They are more hospitable and have better food.

Comparatively.

France isn't what I would necessarily call a "warmer" climate. It has a range of climates.

I don't know about the various Indian cultures in the Americas, do they have good food?

If you like Indian food. Me, I'm indifferent.

12:39 PM

@Robusto It is warmer than northern Europe, in which our cultures were born. And food is much worse already in northern France...

@Robusto Hmm but is it appreciated in general?

Well, Paris is pretty far north.

Paris is still good.

But Picardy and such...

@Cerberus By Indians, no doubt. The rest of us here are indifferent like me.

Hmm okay.

But isn't your cajun cuisine strongly influenced by Indian culture?

Q: How does 'together + to bear' cause 'confer' to mean 'grant something'?

0

What's an intuitive derivation behind ODO's definition that helps to remember its meaning? confer = 1. [with object] [with object] Grant (a title, degree, benefit, or right): Etymonline: 1530s, from Middle French conférer (14c.) "to give, converse, compare," from Latin conferre "to br...

etymology

12:41 PM

Or did I make that up?

I don't get this question.

@Cerberus Hell no! Cajun is a direct descendant of French culture!

He wants to know how the English word came to mean what it means based on its Latin parts.

@Robusto But it uses lots of peppers and such that we lack here?

Laissez les bons temps rouler !

Shell?

An advertisement?

There. That one is better.

►

@Cerberus That is an artifact of your fevered Dutch imagination.

12:51 PM

The Dutch are hardly known for their imagination!

Now I'm hungry too...

BTW, in case you don't know, "Cajun" is from "Acadian"—French colonists in North America who were transported by the British to Louisiana.

Ah, I think I once read that somewhere.

@Cerberus I don't think of them as being particularly fervid, either. I just said that for the humor value.

It is these kinds of factoids that I can forget an unlimited number of times.

@Robusto I know.

The Dutch Volksart is fishermen and petit-bourgeois.

So like German + fishermen.

Cajun

Acadian-Creoles or Cajuns (/ˈkeɪdʒən/; French: les Cadiens or Les Cadiens or les Acadiens, [le kadjɛ̃, lez‿akadjɛ̃]) are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles (French-speakers from Acadia in what are now The Maritimes). Today, the Acadian Creoles or Cajuns make up a significant portion of south Louisiana's population and have exerted an enormous impact on the state's culture. While Lower Louisiana had been settled by French colonists since the late 17th century, the Cajuns trace their roots to the influx of Acadian settlers...

12:54 PM

The English Volksart is barbarian + fishermen?

I don't think of the English as being fishermen, Izaak Walton notwisthstanding.

Then how would your characterise their Volksart?

1:43 PM

@Cerberus I think Oxford must be a close second for bikes stolen per person

:O rly?

yarly

whatever happened to the ivory tower integrity?

@MattЭллен I am very confused about the difference between GCE O Level, GCSE and iGCSE, lol.

I haven't heard of iGCSE

'O' Levels were what my parents took. GCSEs were what I took

"General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level" vs "General Certificate of Secondary Education"

1:50 PM

I am not sure what I took now, lol.

Then after that there were 'A' Levels (GCE Advanced Level)

there are AS Levels now too, but I can't remember what those are

they sit between GCSE and A levels

It seems that O Level came first, then GCSE whose international version is iGCSE.

Also, it seems that A Level came first, then Cambridge now offers Pre-U as well.

ah, that makes sense.

AS levels are "Advanced Subsidiary" levels

So O Level, GCSE, iGCSE are equivalent and A Level, Pre-U are equivalent, more or less.

probably, yeah. I've not studied Pre-U, so I don't know, but the rest are equivalent

1:56 PM

I was just browsing the CUP website for school level books and got confused by these different terms.

do the private schools in the UK use their own textbooks?

I don't know. I don't think they have to follow the curriculum like state schools, but the examining bodies are the same, so I guess they'll teach similar things

maybe out of more up to date books

@MattЭллен Fun!

It seems that CIE offers O Level, iGCSE, A Level and Pre-U. Very confusing!

I just learnt that there are 5 examining boards in the UK, even more confusing!

> according to the Telegraaf, 450,000 bikes were officially nicked last year.

Holland ^.

> How many cycles are stolen in England and Wales? — Last year over 462,000 cycles were stolen

So @MattЭллен, it appears as many bikes are stolen in Holland each year as in Britain.

I'm assuming the highlands are too steep to cycle much.

2:10 PM

I guess :D

> Location

% who cycle 3+ days/week

Cambridge

43%

Oxford

17%

Gosport

15%

York

15%

Vale of the White Horse (Oxon)

11%

Southwark

11%

Hackney

11%

Norwich

11%

South Cambridgeshire

11%

Bristol

10%

Lambeth

10%

Taunton Deane

9%

Havant

9%

Wandsworth

9%

Richmond upon Thames

9%

Rutland

9%

North East Lincolnshire

8%

Worthing

8%

Chichester

8%

Arun

8%

I'm afraid Cambridge wins...

weird

Is that because it is a smaller town?

probably

"Women's nose hairs don't grow long, while men's do." Is this correct?

2:11 PM

ctc.org.uk/resources/ctc-cycling-statistics

OK.

but apparently Oxford has the worst bike theft in the UK

@user4550 Yes.

The research covers 92,508 bike thefts reported to police between May 2013 and April this year in England and Wales.

Nobody can steal my bike. Do you know why?

"Covers"?

@JasperLoy Because you do not have one.

2:12 PM

@Cerberus Ding!

Just as the King of France cannot be killed.

I meant to post the link!

@user4550 Yes!

telegraph.co.uk/men/active/recreational-cycling/11180315/…

So correct?

factually, too?

2:13 PM

@user4550 Yes.

Thanks.

@user4550 You tell me!

@MattЭллен So per postcode...

Thank you

@Cerberus yeah

I'm one of those statistics :(

@MattЭллен Okay, I'm getting conflicting numbers.

Poor you! This year?

2:16 PM

no, last year.

Some sources say 50k–80k bikes stolen per year in Holland, others 450k, yet others 800k.

or was it? I can't remember

Mine was stolen last year too.

it sucks

It does.

2:17 PM

Stooop!!! you guys are ruining my whole image of european sophication :(

I didn't have a bike for six months after that.

@IceBoy Umm there is nothing sophisticated about it!

> In Amsterdam worden jaarlijks 80.000 fietsen gestolen, tegenover 800.000 in de rest van Nederland.

This source says 80,000 bike thefts yearly in Amsterdam, 800,000 in the rest of the country. So 880,000 total?

is there "bike-jacking" just like "car-jacking"?

I wish the justice system would put all the resources they now spend on fighting drugs to work on preventing bike thefts!

@IceBoy That is extremely rare, at least here. I've never heard of its happening to anyone.

Now car-jacking.

Once bitten by power; the poison will stay in your blood for life...

2:39 PM

Yes.

And the problem is that, in a system that is too competitive, only those who want power the most get it; and those who want power are the ones who should not have it.

2:52 PM

Yes, one of the nasty consequences of Darwin's survival of the "fittest."

user116848

3:11 PM

@IceBoy Very nice saying.

thanks pal :D

user116848

It is very true too.

nice avatar

I baked two different pies yesterday.

apple and ...cherry?

user116848

3:12 PM

@IceBoy Thanks!

I’m trying to tempt company this afternoon.

3:24 PM

tempt them into what?

Raspberry pie.

Golden custard.

The raspberry pie is to surprisingly to-die-for tasty.

I wish I could remember what all I did to it. :)

j/k, I know.

@DonBranson No, not craftsmanship. Maybe you were thinking of manacle, maneuver, manichord, manicure, maniform, manilla, maniple, manitrunk, manufacture, manure, manuscript, manutergium, mortmain, pedimane, or Quadrumana — but not craftsmanship. There are also things like emancipate, but there you have to reach back even further than Caesar. The good news is this means we’ve no need of words like womaneuver, womanicure, womanufacture, or womanure. However, that still leaves huwomanity, womanducks, womandrills, and Womancuniennes in the running as words we desperately need. — tchrist 11 hours ago

The last and third-to-last are intentionally obscure.

That’s not a complete list. Just one I cut down to fit in the space while still allowing for other licks.

Reg’s answer has reached its sesquicentennial net-positive point. Good thing they don’t hand out multiple Great Answer badges — nobody wants half a badge, it just falls off.

@Robusto Which explains all the Acadian accordions on Bourbon Street. Prolly head-sucking crawdad boils, too. The jello shots, though, I blame on Texas.

"it is not for you guys to choose the best model, but for us!"

is this correct?

Could be improved.

but grammatically?

3:40 PM

I would say: “It’s not up to you guys to choose the best model; it’s up to us!”

There is a register clash otherwise.

I’m not even absolutely sure your version is right, but this may be semantic satiety disorienting me.

@IceBoy Always trip the main breaker before engaging in electrical work.

@tchrist yes, a nasty shock is in store otherwise

How about: it is not for you guys to choose the best model, that's our job @user4550

@Cerberus The only way around Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem is a return to that time-honored way of electing our sacrificial leaders called sortition.

4:10 PM

But it is for the sessions and not for us to draw the conclusion from the evidence given, and they having done so, I think their decision ought not to be disturbed."

i found this

@IceBoy It's the height of sophistication to steal a bike. But not in a smoking jacket...before dinner. After dinner would be fine.

@Cerberus bunch of hippies

@Mitch :D

Bikes aren't stolen as much in the US because there are just not that many.

Or maybe Europeans are dumb and they don't lock them up.

yep, car-jackin' is where it's at in Cali

@Mitch About a half-a-million bucks worth of bikies are stolen each year here in Boulder.

4:14 PM

@tchrist That's like, what, 200 bikes?

Zing!

(price of bikes is crazy)

bouldercolorado.gov/goboulder/bike-parking

Suspect stole 43 bikes worth $147,000.

I always wondered who is doing the stealing and what are they doing with it. Is it an organized ring of bike parts resellers, stripping the bikes of all resusables... or is it just a lot of teenagers who are out there still riding my bike...hey there it goes now!

> The bikes are worth a total of $147,000, according to Boulder police, and range in price from $700 to $9,000.

Boulder woman steals bike back

I too had this experience, albeit without the face-to-face.

Found my weeks-previous stolen bike parked on some random property. I took it home with me where it belonged.

@Mitch when my bike got stolen I looked out for it, but I haven't seen it. It's not like Oxford is a big place

who spends $9,000 on a bike?

4:18 PM

> A Boulder woman found her stolen bike on Craigslist, met the seller for a test ride and stole her bike back.

@IceBoy People who don’t believe in paying for windshield wipers.

except the Tour de France :D

They have windshield wipers?

The reason bikes get stolen is that people use thin cables to leash them.

Bikes with U-locks are nearly never stolen.

Wait... those don't have windshield wipers. They really should.

@MattЭллен Right...it just seems so brazen to steal a bike then ride it around the area in which you stole it. But it does happen.