English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

3:30 AM

This one is just great.

8:17 AM

@Cerberus hahahaha that's a good one. I like the way the cats keep trying to get back on :)

Q: "Initialising" is to "initialisation" as "enabling" is to what?

10:04 AM

2

Is there a valid word for the act of enabling? I want to say "enablement". It is listed in the dictionary, but is it in common use? I've never heard it before. Is there a more apt word?

single-word-requests

this question has been changed to be a normal single-word-request. I think that it should be reopened, insofar as there are similar SWRs. I can understand the argument that it's just saying "I don't like this word, pick me a nicer one" as a reason to keep it closed, so I won't mind if it stays closed.

10:24 AM

yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/28/0145245/…

ACTA to be signed this weekend

welcome to the new age of unenlightenment, where information is restricted and sharing is bad.

Well, we'd best get on with creating the zombification formula, that way all these things we can't learn or experience won't matter any more.

12:13 PM

good morning

hello

Hi! I want to check the on-topicness for a question. Could you help me, please?

sure

I want to ask for good online resources for Shakespeare Sonnets analysis. There are a lot out there, and it is difficult for me to find the better ones. Is that on-topic.

?

@belisarius Not here. You would probably get a good response in the writer.se chat room, though.

12:19 PM

Ok! I was not aware of its existence. I will check there. Thanks!

@belisarius you can find that room here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/168/the-overlook-hotel

no problem

12:32 PM

geez

like a sauna in here.

it's meant to be transitioning to Autumn

I know what you mean, although we have air conditioning, so it's nice here

where

It's weird to have such nice weather

Oxford

ah

You're in Northampton, right?

I wonder if the solar flare has anything to do with it

extra heat coming our way or something

12:37 PM

I think that might be armchair science

:D quite probably

gawd, this morning needs coffee

hello @JSBngs

hi @Matt

Just woken up?

12:43 PM

i've been up for an hour, but i had a bad night's sleep

oh dear. nothing disastrous I hope?

meh. toddlers and babies.

fair enough. sounds tiring!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

whoo! toddlers! as much fun as you can cram into 25 pounds

1:04 PM

Hey SQL people!

Hey @Kit

hi @Kit. sorry i'm not SQL peeplz

@JSBᾶngs Hi! Sorry about your crappy night.

((HUG))

@JSBngs - I like your answer on capital letters. Especially that you wrote a programme to get the answer :D

@MattЭллен thanks

1:28 PM

@Kitḫ I'll offer my help in lieu of Mr Shiny and New

2:12 PM

@JSBᾶngs shares coffee

@aediaλ thanks. i had a mocha this morning and now i feel better

@JSBᾶngs That's good... I hope you're able to get a better night's sleep tonight.

Oh, I like your answer on the capital letters question as well! I was just thinking about names being capitalized more, when I saw the question this morning, so it's good to have Hamlet in there as a comparison :)

user19161

2:59 PM

@grace Did you see my meta question? I just managed to come into chat after waiting more than a day.

Grace Note

I do not know

user19161

@matt Just emailed you, but you can ignore the part about chat since I already posted on meta.

user19161

@GraceNote OK nvm, thanks and have a nice day!

@Jasper No worries. I saw your meta question. I was wondering where you were!

user19161

@MattЭллен Ya, that plus one was probably from you, according to my divination powers.

3:03 PM

I could well have been <_<

user19161

It seems that I am the only one with the problem, at least in this room. Never heard others mention it.

user19161

Hence probably location dependent.

Probably

user19161

I deleted the question the last time after resolution, but I'll leave it there since this is happening more often than I thought.

I have been having weird connection issues at home, but to the whole 'net - not the chat rooms

user19161

3:05 PM

My usual answer to that - maybe an earthquake somewhere in the world, really.

I'm gonna blame students in my area blocking up the exchange by torrenting stuff

stealing all my bandwidth

Q: Distinguish the "Naming" and "Telling" part of a Simple Setence with a Compound Predicate

1

Dad caught fish and cooked them for supper. This is a question from a test that my son missed; he is in the second grade. The instructions for the test are as follows: Put one line under the naming part of the sentence, and two lines under the telling part. My B average from High Sc...

grammar terminology

shakes fist

^ this question seems hopelessly confused. not the OP's question, but the question that the OP's kid has been given as homework

user19161

@JSBᾶngs There is much confusion in this world, in our minds and outside of it.

user19161

3:08 PM

@MattЭллен Have a break.

@JSBᾶngs Yeah, I didn't really understand the kid's test question - nobody gets named and nobody is told anything.

user19161

@MattЭллен Having heard of subject and predicate, what comes to my mind immediately is what the others wrote as answers.

Well, I figured that out when the questioner said it

user19161

@jsb I saw your "Jew" question. Very interesting. simchona thinks "Jew" is potentially offensive too, though both dictionaries I checked don't list it as such.

but I don't think it makes much sense to call the subject "the naming part" or the predicate the "telling part"

user19161

3:17 PM

@MattЭллен Probably simpliefied terminology for kids, since the subject is the person whom you have to name and the predicate is what the subject does which you have to tell.

if you're teaching kids grammar, call things what they are.

@Jasper maybe, but that seems a counter-intuitive way of thinking - kids are smarter than teachers think

user19161

@MattЭллен Hmm, perhaps. But "subject" and "predicate" might not go well with them.

we will agree to differ

user19161

@MattЭллен I am not disagreeing with you, hence "perhaps" and "might". My standpoint is neutral. But perhaps neutrality is already disagreement in this case!

indeed :)

3:31 PM

@MattЭллен I didn't understand this question either. Maybe it's meant to help kids figure out who did something and what happened? I think they can probably figure that out without made-up sentence analysis though.

user19161

@aediaλ I think the kids who have been taught that way by the teacher in class will figure it out; it's just local terminology.

@aediaλ I would think so. I think I had to. (my memory is a bit fuzzy when I try to go that far back!)

@MattЭллен So is mine... I try to remember whether I learned any sort of sentence diagramming, but I really don't recall. I remember circling parts of speech like nouns and that's it. Other people I know say it was common in the curriculum of our state so maybe I just learned and forgot it.

user19161

@MattЭллен I don't recall having been taught "subject", "predicate", "naming" or "telling". It's just a "sentence".

user19161

@aediaλ I think I only learned sentence diagramming in uni.

3:43 PM

@Jasper That doesn't make it helpful :P I was a great student as I could memorize all kinds of useless things and follow asinine directions just for the sake of grades, but that doesn't mean I learned anything.

user19161

@aediaλ Well, half the things we learn in school are useless, but interesting nonetheless. They are useful in as far as they are interesting.

user19161

Similarly, half the food we eat is junk food. But they are delicious nonetheless.

half the eyes we have are on the left, but they still see

unless they're glass eyes

user19161

Or eyes of a blind man.

user19161

@aedia Now you are also on the second page of all time rep, like Matt. Yay!

3:53 PM

or the eyes of someone with apperceptive agnosia

user19161

@MattЭллен I will not google that.

ok, so my analogy doesn't hold much water. it's the thought that counts

@Jasper Apperceptive agnosics cannot discern one object from another.

user19161

@MattЭллен That sounds very serious.

@Jasper it is

it's normally the result of some sort of brain lesion

Mirror agnosia is way funnier.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1688417/?tool=pmcentrez

3:56 PM

@aediaλ hehehehe - that does sound funny

> When shown a candy or pen on their left, the patients kept banging their hand into the mirror or groped behind it attempting to grab the reflection; they did not reach for the real object on the left, even though they were mentally quite lucid and knew they were looking into a mirror. Remarkably, all four patients kept complaining that the object was 'in the mirror', 'outside my reach' or 'behind the mirror'.

user19161

@MattЭллен Perhaps I should get a physical examination of my brain done soon. There might be severe physical damage done already.

Have you had head trauma, @Jasper?

user19161

@Kitḫ No, but mind affects brain and brain in turn affects mind, if you know what I mean.

@Jasper Nope.

Are you referring to a chemical imbalance?

user19161

4:00 PM

@Kitḫ That is one of the possibilities, but there are also other ways which thinking can affect brain structures I read a while ago.

So you think your persistent negative thoughts are physically damaging your brain?

user19161

@Kitḫ That is possible, and the other way round too. It goes both ways. But honestly, no scientist can tell for sure.

user19161

In fact, the chemical imbalance theory is just a theory. To date, there is no instrument to measure these chemicals in the brain.

Do you know that I studied neuroscience for many years?

And was an examination short of my PhD in it?

user19161

@Kitḫ Yes, I recall.

user19161

4:03 PM

@Kitḫ Sorry to hear that.

@Jasper Why is that?

user19161

@Kitḫ Er, I thought it was self-explanatory.

@Jasper I'm not sure why you would offer sympathy for that.

If that's what you were doing.

(Sorry that you didn't finish your degree, if you had wanted to.)

(Is I think what Jasper meant.)

Oh. It was my choice not to finish.

user19161

4:05 PM

@aediaλ For once, sb agrees with me.

So no sympathy is necessary.

@aediaλ (I was trying to say something like that!)

user19161

Anyway, I am trying to take my mind now to new dimensions, and hopefully that will repair both mind and brain.

@Kitḫ Well then, congratulations on not getting shut up in an ivory tower ;)

@aediaλ Thank you. I was very proud of my decision.

user19161

4:07 PM

@aediaλ There are many stupid people with PhDs. I don't think much of it.

user19161

Well, I just watched Good Will Hunting again.

user19161

I had to install vlc on Ubuntu to play it, somehow totem and mplayer couldn't play my vcd.

hasta luego todo

user19161

And I had to use open disc instead of open file, for those who are curious.

user19161

I think I will watch A Beautiful Mind tonight.

4:12 PM

@MattЭллен Later, alligator!

user19161

@aediaλ Btw, what is "alligator"?

user19161

@aedia Have you fixed your codec problem?

@Jasper "See you later, alligator" is just something people say (at least in the US).

user19161

@aediaλ So it does not refer to a particular kind of person?

user19161

Well, maybe "later" rhymes with "alligator".

4:20 PM

@Jasper I gave up fussing with my work computer after only a few minutes since it wasn't important. At home I have all manner of computers and I can install what I want, like vlc, so I usually bother there.

@Jasper Not really. A possible response is "In a while, crocodile!"

It's something you would say to friends, though, not to a boss or something.

user19161

@aediaλ There is no need to install vlc on windows, just get the codecs, and just click try to play even if there is error message. I recommend windows essential media codec pack.

user19161

@aediaλ "Buaya" is "crocodile" in Malay. Here it is used to refer to an extremely flirtatious man.

user19161

And I also recommend Microsoft Security Essentials over AVG, Avast or Avira antiviruses.

user19161

And the new LibreOffice over OpenOffice, in case you don't know and don't use Microsoft Office.

@Jasper Install non-Microsoft provided codecs on my work computer? Blasphemy!

user19161

4:26 PM

@aediaλ Not really. Microsoft doesn't provide them, and when you use vlc you are essentially installing the codecs but in a different location.

@Jasper If it were not for Microsoft Office being such a confusing and hard to use piece of junk, they probably wouldn't need to employ me.

@Jasper Yeah but I'm not allowed vlc on this computer either.

Hi.

user19161

@Cerberus Boo!

@Jasper I didn't know that!

@Cerberus Hola!

By contrast, here is a cat that is unwilling to exercise:

@Jasper Welcome back!

@aediaλ You think my cat videos are becoming too much?

4:30 PM

@Cerberus in tears laughing at lazy cat

@Cerberus wipes eyes Okay okay. Um. No. They're just right.

user19161

Anyway, with the top Linux distros all switching to LibreOffice, I think OpenOffice can consider closing shop.

user19161

@Cerberus It's OK, better than my boring stories.

@aediaλ Haha good!

@Jasper I see no boring.

user19161

4:43 PM

Haha, grace wrote this when she edited my meta question: Extra tags help ♪

user19161

She ended off on a high note!

drɱ65 δ

6:54 PM

This is seriously impossible.

Sonic The Hedgehog

7:16 PM

@dr65 Not entirely, if you think about it. Artifictial intellegences are increasing by day, from fiction novels to real life. For example, did you know that Google translator does not make computer learn every aspect of the language, but rather use sources from other human translators to learn the language itself?

related!

but also, far cuter than watson

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:39 PM

it looks like a mogwai

better not feed it after midnight

Its hands are frightening

It's cute and scary at the same time

It's coming for your cookies!

howdy people ! may I join the ongoing conversation and ask few n00b'ish[sic] questions?

@Sudhi Yes, you may.

thank you for your permission, (I will get straight to the point) do we (as in the english.SE community) have questions/set of community questions which can help students who want to excel at GRE (the dreaded Graduate Record Examination)

7:54 PM

No, not specifically.

If you want to collect some questions that would be helpful for GRE takers, we could tag them as such.

I think we have a gre tag.

well thats great ! at least I can keep myself subscribed to that tag, if I may, ask another question?

Certainly. You may speak freely.

how much politeness should one show (if one should show in such a case) regarding a professional conversation which crosses the boundaries of technical expertise ?

*once technical expertise

*the boundaries of once (his or her) technical expertise ?

(please rectify if the usage of word once is inappropriate/wrong)

one's *

third person singular with a possessive apostrophe and s

@Matt : thanks :) if I may trouble you more, how different is once from one's ?

ohhkk, that goes way beyond my upper limit

8:01 PM

once is a frequency, like twice or three times
"I only saw the play once"

(of understanding third person singular )

ohhhk, i get that, so how different is one's ?

you could (these days) substitute one's with their

First person = I, second person = you, third person = he/she/it

@Kit : thanks, I believe I know that much

"one" can be used to represent a gender neutral third person

So "one's" is a gender neutral equivalent of "his/hers/its"

8:03 PM

one's is a gender neutral third person form of representing what one feels/felt at that time?

I am not sure I understand the question.

thanks, both @Kit and @Matt , I am getting a feeling that I lack basic understanding of English grammar, could you be so kind as to point me to appropriate to instructive (and easy to understand and learn) URIs ?

@Sudhi In your original example you could substitute it for "his or her": you would say "which crosses the boundaries of his or her technical expertise" or "which crosses the boundaries of one's technical expertise".

@Sudhi you can say "It's their right to choose apples over oranges" which means almost the same as "It's one's right to choose apples over oranges" except that their tends to be applied to groups of people, where as one applies to some general individual

You're just making one possessive, as with his.

8:08 PM

@all : I am sorry, may be this might seem to basic to you, but I feel that I really need to get my basics right (well, I can certainly talk with fluent fake accent with others, but I need to know the correct grammar) , would you guys be so kind and point me to a (free/open source) URI for the same ?

too* (and not to* basic to you)

I'm sorry; I don't know any.

@Sudhi well, I can't say I've used one. Grammar Girl is all about grammar! it might be helpful

@Matt : thanks, I will check it out (@others , and all, if applicable : I believe my desire to learn the language used and understood by the most on this planet will remain unsatisfied :( )

@Sudhi But you may at least still learn English!

@Sudhi I can't think of a good one either... Wikibooks has some but I haven't checked on the state of the project lately so I'm sorry I cannot tell you how complete they are.

8:12 PM

sorry, I should not say this, but my last chat message was more about my self desire than a comment/reaction to you guys

myself* and NOT my self

You can edit your previous message by pressing the up arrow.

If you would like.

can I rant some few lines and went out my frustration about GRE?

Oh sure. I used to tutor for the GRE.

(disclaimer : extremely sorry if I use any abusive language) :

what the fuck is this GRE??

I mean

what the heck is wrong with these people?

@Sudhi you seem to be doing alright. I have a book that I use as a grammar reference from time to time: English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy, published by Cambridge University Press

8:14 PM

@Sudhi One of the articles I was reading lately also linked to englishgrammar.org which seems to have some useful practice exercises, though I haven't looked in depth.

how do you calibre a person's intelligent on a particular stream of knowledge (science/arts/commerce) just by testing his/her vocabulary ?

You don't.

who gives you (the fucking) right to judge people by counting the number of (rote) words they know

GREs don't measure your intelligence.

GREs measure whether you have sufficient vocabulary to perform adequately in a graduate program.

Also whether you meet the bare minimum for maths and problem solving abilities.

It has nothing to do with intelligence.

and how does my vocabulary be a measure of that granularity of performance?

(@Kit : lets leave maths and problem solving skills aside for the moment)

8:18 PM

If you don't have sufficient vocabulary to read and understand academic articles, you will fail in graduate school.

Granted, the ability to read scholarly articles does not guarantee success, but without that ability, you will certainly be screwed. You won't have a chance.

I agree, it has nothing to do with intelligence, it only works when you by heart (or byheart or remember by rote learning) those 3000 words

You don't need to know them by heart, but you must be able to figure them out.

So Greek and Latin can be very helpful.

Don't get me wrong; I empathize with you. The GRE is a difficult test, and most standardized tests are so broad as to be nearly useless.

I disagree, if you give a scholarly article (random) to any particular individual above the (12th or 10+2 level) student, s/he will not understand it

It's not the best measure ever. Standardized tests are often used for way more than they were designed for. They should only be used as one aspect of assessing someone.

hmm

8:21 PM

I do sympathize. The GRE is one obstacle in my path as well because I don't feel like practicing the math parts I haven't used in years.

@aedia : I am getting your point, but the facts are far from reality :(

for you its math, for me its English !

even though, (some if not all) might consider me as one who can communicate (decently) well in English

I know it can be very competitive, because if colleges don't have a chance to know much about you, they're going to look at a number, or at least use that as a cutoff.

aye

some (if not all) *

I feel this whole thing to be too sad :(

I had a dream, that I dreamt for so long... (yeah, that's dreamt the UK English version of dreamed(

)*

there?

Being not just literate and numerate, but being able to communicate well and quickly, and solve problems quickly, are good enough predictors of school success that tests like this are still used. But you have to think about what it's measuring. It's measuring your ability to do those kinds of problems, or know those words.

8:27 PM

but I must say that it completely fails to measure participants/students on those fronts

where?

lets take a hypothetical example

suppose a Chinese and Indian developer are working at (lets say) Google

It doesn't know if you're stupid but great at memorizing, or brilliant but can't read English. But if your only chance to show people is the test, then, you've got to try to be good at test-taking.

@aedia : will come back to you later

now, both of them are very smart, and know a common programming language say (and this may be true most of the times) maths

Q: What are your favorite English learning podcasts?

@Sudhi - this question has some other pod casts you might find usefull

6

Do you listen to podcasts to improve your English? Share your favorite podcasts with us. One podcast per answer please so that we can vote on them easily.

learning

8:31 PM

so if C (the chinese guy says C-#%#$) and translates that into maths language of a - b > c

sorry

lemme check that link

@Matt : the question is closed ! (because its off topic ?? )

anyways, I think I said too much that others will not gasp

@Sudhi No prob, was just trying to say that with these kinds of things you sometimes have to get past it in whatever manner is helpful to you. Be mad at the stupid test, or resign yourself to it; whichever helps you remember that it doesn't measure your whole self. And then study and do your best, and try not to expend too much energy comparing yourself against people with different strengths or advantages, as long as you do better or make progress toward your goals.

and I express too much that I (myself) do not understand

@Sudhi Indeed, but it still has some links that you might find interesting

indeed it has, I think I shall (should?) come back to this ICR(chat ?) channel

it's not IRC :D but you're welcome back anytime

8:37 PM

(but I shall not, until you confirm if either shall or should (and IRC or chat) is correct usage)

It's better than IRC!

I don't have enough experience with IRC to know ;)

indeed it is (way lot) better than IRC

@Sudhi Either are correct. "I think I should come back" implies you think coming back will benefit you. "I think I shall come back" means that you are planning on coming back.

/me is amused by @aedia 's presence in this group

8:39 PM

What, am I too young? Do I have something stuck in my mane? looks around

darn the /me doesn't work on SE it works great on IRC(obviously and on), GChat

Yeah, I usually just use italics.

/me points at *lambda ?? :-?

*(damn the IRC use cases !)

@Sudhi I'm not the only one with a funny letter!

hehe, no (lambda) is NOT a funny letter at all (at least to a M.S. in Science - Chemistry) to me

8:43 PM

@Sudhi And to add to what @Matt said about shall/should, in American English at least, "I think I shall come back" sounds funny or archaic, even though it's understandable. I'd say "I think I will come back" here.

darn, I am forgetting all the brackets and spaces

Q: What's up with the strange characters in some display names?

12

I assume it's not just me: Why have some users added special characters to their usernames? The list includes: Kit (now KitΘδς) z7sg (now z7sg Ѫ) JSBangs (now JSBᾶngs) Martha (now Marthaª) aedia (now aedia λ) Alain Pannetier (now Alain Pannetier Φ) RegDwight ♦ (now RegDwight Ѭſ道 ♦) Matt Ellen (...

discussion users

@aedia : thanks, I will try and stick to the latter, can you point (or others) about URIs which will fetch the latest documentation/release version on gvim

@aediaλ good point!

@Sudhi It has a lot of uses in the sciences :) I studied computer science and some chemistry.

@Sudhi I'm not sure I understand your question.

@Sudhi You're asking about vim? It has pretty extensive documentation.

Hauser

9:13 PM

are some latin lovers here? is it ok to "spam" the latin language proposal here, it did already on german.SE. Would be perfect format to refresh my/your latin. area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/21061/… Remenber a accepted on/off topic question needs max. 20 votes, so plz vote some questions <20 thx