ELL's Cabin

Catija

7:00 PM

@Jolenealaska It's a lot easier to self publish now than it was back then.

Jolenealaska

On Amazon it is stupid simple.

Even in print, not just Kindle.

I came up with the marketing plan before the concept of the book, so I'm fairly confident.

Even if it gets crappy reviews I'll make some money.

Anonymous

> In 1996 the manuscript of her first Harry Potter book was turned down by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury picked it up for an advance of just £1,500. The series went on to sell more than 450 million copies worldwide.

Anonymous

telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10178960/…

Jolenealaska

See? What did I tell you? :-)

Catija

Yeah, I'd heard it before, just wasn't sure if it was true.

Jolenealaska

7:03 PM

It's funny how related that statement is to the earlier question of true versus fact.

Catija

@Jolenealaska yep. Snopes is one of my favorite sites... to be honest. I love being able to say "you're wrong... please stop claiming this is true".

Jolenealaska

LOL!

I love Snopes.

Damn Dragon even spelled that correctly. Capitalized and everything.

Catija

Dragon?

Oh, you use the voice to text program?

Jolenealaska

That's the voice to text dictation software that I just bought today.

It's incredible.

Catija

It forgot the comma after "damn".

Jolenealaska

7:06 PM

I have to tell it punctuation. So that mistake is mine.

I would probably use an exclamation point.

But that's just me.

Catija

Yes, that would work, too. :) That is pretty impressive.

Jolenealaska

I've been using Dragon all night, and I've barely had to edit anything.

Catija

Do you add your emoticons manually?

Jolenealaska

Believe it or not, the smiley happened the first time I said it.

It also does LOL and YMMV.

Anonymous

I couldn't get my iPhone to make smileys out of voice input.

Jolenealaska

7:08 PM

Damnedest thing.

Do you use Dragon for iPhone?

I plan to install it on my android just so I can pace and talk at the same time.

Anonymous

I don't want to buy it

Anonymous

I use the built-in voice input

Jolenealaska

I tried a freebie once and it was laughable.

It was good for a night of entertainment on the cooking chat.

So that makes Dragon even more impressive to me.

Catija

@Jolenealaska I use Siri for texting, which usually works pretty well, though I do have to do punctuation, too.

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska Do you get support for multiple languages with one purchase?

Jolenealaska

7:11 PM

Although, I have to admit, Dad bought it for me.

No. It seems to do well with foreign words that English speakers know,

but this version is only English.

Anonymous

I use Japanese voice input more than English

Jolenealaska

I find that really impressive. I spent a year in Korea and learned to say 10 or so phrases very well. That's it.

Well that is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

Want to hear a funny story about that?

I think it's funny anyway.

Koreans in Alaska are almost universal in being shocked when I native English speaker says hello, goodbye, please, thank you, whatever - in the Korean language.

I find it very amusing.

So I do it often.

One night after work I went to a bar.

In the bar was a young Korean couple. I could only pick up enough of what they were saying to tell they were being "naughty".

When I left I said, "goodbye" to the bartender.

I turned to the couple and said "Ahn Nyeung Yi Ga Se Yo".

The looks on their faces were priceless.

(I=a...note to self)

That may not even be completely "correct" (Ahn Nyeung Yi Ga Se Yo), but it got the intended reaction in Spades.

idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+spades

Catija

7:37 PM

0

Q: How to politely say to sellers in stores that you don't need help?

This happens quite often. You're at a store, and while looking for clothes sellers come over and ask if you need any help. And since my English is far away from normal English I just use what I know might work in similar cases. What do natives use to say politely (or why not just informally), th...

ELU is being picky today...

Again.

Jolenealaska

I hardly go there because they're too grumpy.

I've had more downvotes there than all other stacks combined.

Anonymous

There are certain users on ELU who downvote frequently but don't really seem qualified to judge answers

Anonymous

So I wouldn't sweat a downvote or three

Catija

They're trying to bully someone into moving their question to ELL... but that would delete the answers that are already there.

Jolenealaska

If it weren't for @Cerberus, I'd probably never go there.

I read it.

Catija

7:42 PM

@Jolenealaska They are so picky. And they go a bit comment batty.

Jolenealaska

Yes

Even Cerby cops to it!

Anonymous

@Catija Answers should get migrated along with questions.

Anonymous

Answers get deleted when a migration is rejected, though. That is to say, the answers on the migrated-to site don't move back with the question when the migration is rejected.

Jolenealaska

The "that's a better question for ELL" thing drives me nuts, but I'm done bad-mouthing for now.

Anonymous

I don't think there's really a need for separate sites

Anonymous

7:45 PM

The attitude toward non-native speakers on ELU makes me a little uncomfortable

Catija

@snailboat Ah... I was confused... I thought I saw something on SE.Meta about answers being deleted when something got migrated.

Anonymous

I think ELL was created because ELU was trying to get rid of questions asked by non-native speakers, but I don't really see why

Catija

@snailboat They're so... erudite ?... but in a negative way.

Jolenealaska

@snailboat I don't either, but even with two sites, there is no need to be rude about it!

Anonymous

Most of the users on ELU can't answer most of the questions ELLers ask

Anonymous

7:47 PM

@Jolenealaska That's true

Anonymous

Some ELU users see ELL as a sort of dumping ground for questions they don't want

Catija

@snailboat Yes, exactly.

Jolenealaska

@snailboat That's what it looks like to me!

Anonymous

But the problem on ELU isn't the quality of the questions as much as the quality of the answers

Catija

Over on M&TV, we have to put up with "identify this movie/TV show" questions constantly... they're annoying but they also make up half of our question content... that doesn't mean we're going to go and shunt them off to another site, though.

Jolenealaska

7:49 PM

And I really like the mission of this stack, even though I don't play much anymore.

Anonymous

Well, to be honest

Anonymous

I don't really like 99% of single word requests

Catija

Isn't there a third English site? Linguistics specific?

Jolenealaska

??

Anonymous

There is a Linguistics site, but it's not English-specific

Jolenealaska

7:49 PM

Maybe?

Ah

Anonymous

It's for linguistics in general

Anonymous

I go there on occasion

Anonymous

Ling.SE is a bit dysfunctional as a Q&A site, but it works okay as a discussion forum

Catija

@snailboat No... most of them are pointless... I don't understand why people are so convinced that they need one word to explain something.

Anonymous

Which is to say it's not really functioning as designed, but some people manage to have useful or informative discussions there anyway

Jolenealaska

7:51 PM

I have one answer on ELU that I am proud of.

Catija

Actually... it's really funny... I've been told at least once that "we shouldn't seek to move questions away from our site" on M&TV... but that's exactly what ELU does.

Jolenealaska

18

A: How long can you say "the late so and so"?

There is no limit, it's just a matter of style. It kind of seems superfluous at some point, especially if you're speaking of somebody everybody you're speaking to knows is dead and has long stopped grieving. EDIT: This is a point of style, not correctness. The one time I might use "the late" w...

Catija

WTF... now they've closed it as "too broad"?

Jolenealaska

FFS

This comment to the "late so and so" question cracks me up.

"Only for as long as the subject remains dead."

Catija

I'm tempted to ask "I'm looking for a word that means someone who thinks they're so erudite that they're above questions being asked of them so they regularly pawn them off on someone else they deem to be of lesser intellect?"

HA HA HA

Jolenealaska

7:56 PM

!! LOL!

You should!

I double dog dare you!

Catija

Ok, but I'm going to hedge it by talking about a professor who makes all of his TAs answer questions because he doesn't want to.

Jolenealaska

<snort>

(singing) I'm going to tell Cerby!

Anonymous

What's interesting about ELU is that when it started, Jeff Atwood had this idea that ELU would fail if the questions were "too basic" (read: uninteresting)

Jolenealaska

That's a hoot.

Anonymous

And that developed into the General Reference close reason, which I think ideally should be "ELU is not designed to duplicate the work of a dictionary" (which I think is a good reason to close something)

Anonymous

8:00 PM

But that close reason was pretty widely used as "I don't think this question is very interesting, let's get rid of it"

Jolenealaska

Big improvement.

Anonymous

In fact, just lots of questions got closed on ELU more or less with that attitude in mind, sometimes with GR, sometimes with other close reasons

Anonymous

But the weird thing about that

Anonymous

Is that Stack Overflow is built on a flood of basic questions

Anonymous

Most questions on SO are asked by beginners

Anonymous

8:01 PM

They aren't necessarily all easy to answer. Sometimes beginners ask things that are tricky.

Anonymous

Sometimes learners of English ask things that are actually pretty challenging to answer, too. Questions from learners aren't necessarily "too basic"...

Jolenealaska

The cooking stack is like that too. My line is that I'm all over questions like that like white on rice.

Anonymous

What ELU should have done is build up a set of basic answers so it could close basic questions as duplicates

Anonymous

It did that to some extent purely because it got so many questions, but many other questions were just ignored and closed

Anonymous

I don't see a justification for a separate ELL site―the only reason it exists is because of the broken premise of ELU

Anonymous

8:02 PM

That said,

Anonymous

There are times when you can clearly see a difference in the intended audiences

Anonymous

On ELU, there's a question about whether you should write ' or 's

Jolenealaska

Yes.

Anonymous

And the answer is "If you pronounce the extra sound at the end, write 's, otherwise write ' and that's it"

Anonymous

And it's got a zillion upvotes

Anonymous

8:04 PM

Which is fine for native speakers. They don't need to be told the actual answer, because when you rephrase it in terms of that question, you get a 99% accurate answer indirectly

Anonymous

But for non-native speakers, all you've done is given them an equivalent question

Anonymous

"Okay, now when do I pronounce it?"

Anonymous

Of course, the actual answer is much more complicated!

Jolenealaska

I'm pretty good at deciphering cooking questions in broken English. I learned that here.

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska It's a skill! :-)

Jolenealaska

8:04 PM

Yes :)

I occasionally have questions about proper punctuation or grammar. I ask Cerby!

In the cooking chat.

Anonymous

I usually just look things up, since I've been accumulating references

Jolenealaska

(For those who don't know, Cerby is AKA Cerberus. He is Dutch.)

Anonymous

Ah! I've talked to him before :-)

Jolenealaska

Damnedest thing

It pisses me off :)

Anonymous

Sorry, what does?

Jolenealaska

8:09 PM

I'm joking, but that someone from Amsterdam speaks better English than I do.

Anonymous

I really like Dutch. I only know a few words.

Anonymous

Een slak!

Jolenealaska

That's more than I know!

Catija

Is this too transparent:

Anonymous

It means "a snail"!

Catija

8:10 PM

Anonymous

You should not actually post flame bait on Stack Exchange :-)

Jolenealaska

Tulips, wooden shoes, legalized pot before pot legalization was cool, and fingers in Dikes. That is about it.

Catija

But now I actually do want to know what a good word would be.

Anonymous

If you're frustrated with a site, you can take a break.

Jolenealaska

!!!

Anonymous

8:11 PM

I'm currently taking a break from both ELL and ELU.

Jolenealaska

Nice!

I'll be keeping my eye on it!

Catija

I haven't actually posted it. I'm still contemplating.

Anonymous

Well, I hardly ever used ELU to begin with.

Jolenealaska

You have enough rep that you will away with it!

Catija

@Jolenealaska How do you mean?

Jolenealaska

8:13 PM

OH the double dog dare still stands :)

Anonymous

I don't mean to imply that ELL doesn't have its own issues, by the way. Clearly it does...

Jolenealaska

It was a bit of a joke but, higher rep users can get away with more... usually.

Anonymous

That's really not supposed to be the case

Jolenealaska

And I've been watching you :)

Anonymous

I've suspended users with tens of thousands of rep

Jolenealaska

8:14 PM

I know, but it is.

Catija

@Jolenealaska Watching me? How so? You mean on Cooking?

Jolenealaska

I'm sure!

Yes.

You're ahead of me for the week!

But who's counting?

Catija

@Jolenealaska I'm wary of answering on Cooking because I don't actually have a educated background in food prep or any sort of restaurant experience... and I didn't realize I'd earned much rep this week over there... I've been sort of quiet, I thought.

Jolenealaska

Do you know the term "rep whore"?

That would be me, not you.

Anonymous

The other day I decided to get to 20k rep on ELL, and I churned out answers for like 10 days straight

Catija

8:17 PM

@Jolenealaska Yes, you mentioned that before when you offered that bounty on the question I asked about dying powdered sugar.

Jolenealaska

It's kind of a standing joke in chat because I am relatively new yet...

Anonymous

Then I went back on hiatus :-)

Anonymous

See, I only care about precious, precious reputation points.

Catija

@snailboat Trying to prepare for graduation?

@snailboat There's a reason I nearly never downvote.

Jolenealaska

HA!

Anonymous

8:18 PM

@Catija Yeah, it's entirely selfish. If ELL ever graduates, I want to be able to read deleted posts.

Jolenealaska

That is a very fun privilege.

Catija

@snailboat Would you run for mod?

Anonymous

Not a chance

Catija

@snailboat one site is enough?

Jolenealaska

Vote counts are cool too.

Anonymous

8:19 PM

Well, I'm not a very good mod :-)

Jolenealaska

They all say that.

Catija

@Jolenealaska Yes. I get so frustrated when I'm on a site I can't see vote counts on.

Anonymous

And I think the way I'd do things here on ELL would be significantly different, and I think I'd end up clashing with the existing mods

Anonymous

Rather than working well together

Jolenealaska

I keep trying.

I forget.

Catija

8:20 PM

@snailboat There's really only one active mod though, right?

Anonymous

WendiKidd is here sometimes, but J.R. is much more active

Jolenealaska

I remember JR very fondly.

Catija

Considering ELU has 8, I'd guess ELL would get at least 4-5.

Anonymous

Matt is basically MIA and waiwai is officially absent with no intent to return

Anonymous

@Catija Most likely just three.

Anonymous

8:20 PM

But who knows?

Anonymous

It's very unusual in having 4 right now.

Catija

@snailboat It's based on traffic, though... right?

Anonymous

Um, could be? I think it's based on whatever the Stack Exchange folks feel like

Anonymous

So they can use their best judgment and do whatever they think works for the site

Jolenealaska

Huh... I always thought it was up to the moderators of the stack in question.

Anonymous

8:22 PM

Well, moderators can talk to SE staff.

Anonymous

They can be like, "Hey! We need more mods up in here!"

Catija

SO has 17 :P

Jolenealaska

I got very into the election on sci-fi because I was so rooting for Richard.

Anonymous

Yeah, SO is very much an exception.

Jolenealaska

Damn but that man knows his shit.

Anonymous

8:24 PM

ELL could be an exception when it graduates too.

Anonymous

(I have no idea!)

Catija

I think three is the minimum but they'll give more if necessary.

Jolenealaska

I get a kick out of his gender bending avatar too.

Catija

Buffy?

Jolenealaska

Yes

Anonymous

8:25 PM

The other thing is that there enough users on ELL who are already not fond of me ;-)

Jolenealaska

That cracks me up.

Catija

@snailboat But you're magical. How can they not like you?

Anonymous

And I'm just not really excited about that whole conflict thing

Anonymous

I don't want to be put into a position where I have to interact with users I know actively dislike me

Jolenealaska

That is kind of why I don't come here much anymore. Not this chat room, but main.

Anonymous

8:26 PM

Right now I can more or less avoid that sort of conflict.

Jolenealaska

Me too if I keep my mouth shut. But I suck at that.

Catija

Ugh... I don't like conflict at all. My pool team just made me captain because our old captain didn't want to be in the position any more and I'm already having to deal with one team mate who thinks he needs to tell me how to be a captain... because "he's been playing for 15 years, of which he was a captain for 5".

Jolenealaska

FFS.

That's kind of like the argument I have with a user here.

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska You know what? I do too.

Jolenealaska

Please don't say to me that you know better because you speak a dialect not spoken in an English speaking country.

Anonymous

8:28 PM

I'm just like, very slowly learning when to keep my mouth shut.

Jolenealaska

Maybe I'll learn in my 50s.

As of now, I still suck at it. :)

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska Well, I say that, but I really do mean very slowly :-)

Anonymous

@Catija Oh, that sucks :-(

Anonymous

I feel like being a moderator on Japanese.SE means I get to help out with the site that I've found so helpful, but on the other hand, I feel more distant from a lot of the users now because I have to get in the middle of conflicts and make judgment calls some people don't like

Jolenealaska

JR has intervened in that particular debate. It was a good intervention.

Anonymous

8:31 PM

So sometimes I end up hanging out here in ELL chat and not in Japanese.SE chat because I feel a sort of cloud of grumpiness

Jolenealaska

LOL! Me too.

(not Japanese, but you get the idea)

How long have you been speaking Japanese?

Anonymous

18 years

Anonymous

Which is not to say that I'm any good at it

Jolenealaska

What caused you to choose Japanese over another language?

Catija

That's too bad. Maybe they should make people mods who don't actually interact with that community.... that sounds odd but it would give them a bit of distance.

Anonymous

8:33 PM

So when I was like 15 I was really depressed, and it seemed like it'd be a challenge and sort of take my mind off of things

Jolenealaska

I'm curious, because the very difference seems to make it extra hard.

Well in that case, it makes sense!

Anonymous

I was in French class, and French wasn't that exciting

Anonymous

And I'd already stopped taking Spanish

Anonymous

And the Latin courses at our school ended. I guess there was too little demand, so they ended up with just German, French, and Spanish

Jolenealaska

I spoke Spanish well as a young child, but I have forgotten most of it. If I'm immersed for a while, I start to pick up more than I realized I knew.

Anonymous

8:35 PM

And they only started experimentally offering Mandarin my senior year

Anonymous

Which I'm also interested in but I've spent much less time on

Jolenealaska

Holy crap please tell me they don't teach how to write it!

Catija

@Jolenealaska That's actually why I chose Japanese as my foreign language in college. I'd taken French and didn't really want to go any further with it... being from Texas had no interest in learning Spanish, didn't like the gruffness of German... I wanted a language I had to learn whole-cloth, writing and everything.

Anonymous

I think that learning Mandarin is something English speakers should probably do in spoken form first

Jolenealaska

@Catija How fluent are you?

Catija

8:36 PM

@Jolenealaska Two years of college fluent... which means "not at all".

Anonymous

The actual Chinese writing system isn't phonetic enough for you to really go the other direction very effectively, and Pinyin is confusing for English speakers

Anonymous

pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

Anonymous

Because of the extensive language influence from Chinese on Japanese, there's a fair bit of crossover in knowledge between the two, even though the languages are very unlike one another :-)

Jolenealaska

I never learned any Hangul, but I was told that it is pretty easy.

Anonymous

Hangul is really very regular though it's not perfect

Catija

8:38 PM

I remember comparing the Mandarin classes to Japanese... we didn't learn our first kanji until about 4-6 weeks in, using Latin letters for a while followed by hiragana and katakana... the Mandarin people had had to memorize something like 200 characters by that point in time.

Jolenealaska

It's funny how all of "those" languages kind of sound the same to me.

Anonymous

@Catija That's kind of silly.

Anonymous

If you learn 200 hanzi in the first 4-6 weeks, you're spending a lot of time doing something other than learning to speak Mandarin

Catija

@Jolenealaska If you know one, they all sound incredibly different. Now, I can never understand how people confuse Mandarin for Japanese.

Jolenealaska

I only know a tiny bit of Korean, none of any other Asian language.

Catija

8:40 PM

@snailboat I may be mis-stating it. But by the end of the semester, we'd only learned about 50 kanji and they'd learned at least 200 characters.

Anonymous

I think the Japanese writing system is considerably more difficult, actually

Anonymous

It's true you only need to know like 3500-4000 kanji to read Japanese

Anonymous

Versus like 6000+ hanzi for Mandarin

Catija

@snailboat Because it's actually like... four different writing systems?

Jolenealaska

Except uni and tobiko ect...

Anonymous

8:41 PM

@Catija The actual kana are very easy, they're almost an accurate transcription of the sound

Jolenealaska

But I don't think it counts if you learn it from a menu.

Anonymous

But the kanji have a many-to-many mapping.

Jolenealaska

Jeff Dunham - Peanut - "NYEWM"

►

Anonymous

生粋（きっすい）
生意気（なまいき）
生じる（しょうじる）
生毛（うぶげ）
生える（はえる）
生まれ（うまれ）
生す（むす・なす）
生い立ち（おいたち）
生産（せいさん）
生字引（いきじびき）

Catija

@snailboat Yeah... one kanji can be read 3-4 different ways... which is why people often have to explain how to pronounce their names if it's only seen in Kanji.

Anonymous

8:43 PM

There's a sampling of words written with 生

Anonymous

Is it きっ or なま or しょう or うぶ or は or う or む or な or お or せい or いき or...

Anonymous

Whereas in Mandarin, the large majority of characters have one reading

Anonymous

Not all, but most.

Catija

先生 was always one of the easiest to remember...

Jolenealaska

At what age does a typical child learn to write in Mandarin? I mean fluently.

Anonymous

8:45 PM

There are more characters, but it's a fairly predictable system, usually one-to-one instead of many-to-many

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska Even college-educated adult native speakers always have characters they can't remember how to write

Anonymous

But in China they're taught Pinyin first, around ages 4-5

Anonymous

And then start the long process of learning hanzi :-)

Catija

@snailboat Same in Japan, though... That's why they have furigana for uncommon kanji usage.

Does Mandarin use Pinyin for the same purpose?

Anonymous

Furigana is all over, Pinyin is not really

Anonymous

8:48 PM

In Taiwan, they use bopomofo! :-)

Anonymous

Bopomofo

Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect. The first two are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the colloquial term, also used by the ISO and Unicode. Consisting of 37 characters and four tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade-Giles system, which used a modified Latin alphabet. The Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the People's Republic of...

Anonymous

It's kind of neat

Jolenealaska

I snorted coke over my keyboard when someone said on Seinfeld, "Why chopsticks? They've seen a fork!"

Anonymous

I like chopsticks! :-)

Jolenealaska

Me too.

Anonymous

8:50 PM

Have you ever used cooking chopsticks?

Catija

I'll use chopsticks even when they're not appropriate (sorry @DamkerngT. )

Anonymous

I think you can use them whenever you want! :-)

Jolenealaska

I used to have a stupid human trick for Letterman, but I never sent it in. (I'm not nearly limber enough anymore)

Anonymous

Just like you can eat everything with a fork if you want.

Jolenealaska

But I could put chopsticks in my toes, and eat.

Catija

8:51 PM

I mentioned Dam because in Thailand, there are special rules about when chopsticks are appropriate, from what I've heard, anyway.

Jolenealaska

That sooo would've gotten on the show!

Anonymous

@Catija Oh! I didn't know!

Anonymous

I know there's some chopstick etiquette in Japan but I'm mostly ignorant of it

Jolenealaska

What about that idea that it is rude in Japan to leave chopsticks sticking out of your food?

Catija

Well, maybe "rules" is a bit strong...

Anonymous

8:53 PM

I remember being told not to stick chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice!

Anonymous

Yeah! That one.

Jolenealaska

That like the only one I know, and I only think I know it.

Anonymous

My friends taught me how to fold a paper chopsticks wrapper at a restaurant into a little origami chopstick stand

Jolenealaska

I even remember the fourth grade teacher that told me.

Catija

@Jolenealaska I think that relates to not leaving your spoon in the bowl of your soup... if someone accidentally hit it, soup would go flying.

Anonymous

8:54 PM

@Catija Ah I think it's actually different from that

Jolenealaska

I thought it meant "death to the hostess"or something like that.

Catija

Oh, wow... that's a bit strong.

Anonymous

Rice with chopsticks straight up are supposed to be a funeral offering

Anonymous

That's just what I was told

Jolenealaska

Well, death seems to be a common theme.

Anonymous

8:55 PM

I don't know if that's right―like I said, I'm mostly ignorant about chopstick etiquette :-)

Jolenealaska

I must be getting tired, because I don't feel like Googling it.

Catija

Oh, I remember... it's that the chopstics sticking out of rice look like incense at a funeral offering shrine.

Jolenealaska

That makes sense.

Anonymous

Oh, that sounds like it

Jolenealaska

ding ding ding!

Anonymous

8:56 PM

I learned it so long ago I don't remember very clearly! :-)

Anonymous

(Sometimes I don't remember things very clearly I learned recently, but this time I have an excuse, so I'm going to use it!)

Catija

> 17. Tate bashi (立て箸) / Hotoke bashi (仏箸) : Stick chopsticks in the middle of the rice.

This is as well as 13. Utsushi bashi, comes from Japanese funeral. When someone dies, the family prepare a bowl of rice and leaves chopsticks stuck in the middle of it.

Jolenealaska

Well, look at that.

Anonymous

Oh hey, there's a whole Wikipedia page for things you shouldn't do with chopsticks

Anonymous

嫌い箸

嫌い箸（きらいばし）は、忌み箸（いみばし）、禁じ箸（きんじばし）とも言い、箸食文化圏においてマナー違反とされている箸の使い方である。 == 概説 == 地域文化や信仰宗教が違えば、心好く思われない所作（好き嫌いの基準で、嫌われる振る舞い）や忌むべき所作（習慣や教義によって禁じられている振る舞い）も異なるため、箸使いのマナーにも自ずと差異が見られる。例えば、中国・韓国・日本は同じ火食文化圏に属するが、箸と匙を併用する前2者の文化に取り箸（盛り合わせ料理や複数人で食べる鍋料理などから個に取り分けるために使われる、専用の箸）は存在せず、全てが直箸（じかばし）であり、箸のみを使う文化圏にある日本における直箸のタブーは、前2者では成り立たない。また、日本の忌み箸には、仏式の葬儀関連行事の場合に限って、通常時と区別する含意をもって敢えて忌むべき箸使いをする風習がある（「仏箸」にて詳述）。 == 日本における嫌い箸 == === 持ち方に関する嫌い箸 === 握り箸二本の箸を鷲づかみにして食事に使う所作。我流でもって指を操り、箸を動かすことになるが、箸をまだ持ち慣れない幼児にこそ多く見られる稚拙な使い方でもあるため、年長の子供や大人の所作としては他者に受け容れられない。また、古来、食事の途中で握り箸の形に持ち替える行為は攻撃の準備と見なされるものであったことから、今日...

Anonymous

8:58 PM

Oh my gosh, there's so many!

Catija

You'll have to translate it... it doesn't seem to have an English version... which is too bad.

Anonymous

Um, it's kind of long :-)

Catija

You could translate it and make it into an actual wikipedia page.

Anonymous

I could add that to my long history of fixing minor spelling errors!

Anonymous

My best friend is Thai

Anonymous

9:01 PM

And is telling me that in Thailand you don't use chopsticks as much as in Japan

Anonymous

(Even though we've been friends pretty much my whole life, I've never learned any Thai!)

Jolenealaska

But they have great food!

Catija

Love Thai food.

Anonymous

Oh, me too!

Anonymous

We have this place I like to go here called Krung Thai

Anonymous

9:03 PM

I can't remember if that's written as one word or two...

Catija

And I love to eat it with chopsticks, even though the waitresses always look at me funny.

Anonymous

There are actually lots of Thai places around here

Anonymous

My friend grows Thai peppers!!

Anonymous

Hot peppers are my favorite food :-)

Anonymous

Along with their close friends, onion and garlic.

Catija

9:05 PM

Shallots. Love those. Such subtle flavors.

Anonymous

Mmm, shallots.

Anonymous

I have a drawer half full of those right now :-)

Anonymous

I love scallions. Green onions.

Anonymous

Hey, you know how we call the white round ones "onions" and the long green ones "green onions"?

Anonymous

In Japan, they call the green ones "onions" and the white round ones "ball onions"

Jolenealaska

9:06 PM

I have been known to consult @DamkerngT. about Thai food.

Anonymous

negi and tama-negi

Anonymous

@Jolenealaska I started learning Korean about 15 years ago, but never put much time into it―I always figured I'd come back to it later!

Anonymous

And I learned hangul right away! I figured that was the best idea.

Anonymous

At least, I thought I learned it.

Anonymous

But it turns out it doesn't really make a lot of sense to learn the writing system until you can pronounce the sounds of the language.

Anonymous

9:09 PM

Because you can't really connect the writing system to the sounds until you do!

Anonymous

And I had a lot of trouble with distinguishing the sounds of Korean early on

Anonymous

So I think it was probably best you delayed hangul, to be honest!

Anonymous

Unless you had a natural gift for the sounds.

Anonymous

Which I certainly did not! :-)

Anonymous

I don't have a natural gift for the sounds of any language.

Catija

9:11 PM

Speaking of Thai food... @Jolenealaska did you see the new question on Cooking?

Jolenealaska

10:19 PM

Sorry! I didn't mean to disappear so abruptly!

I ran into an old friend.

Catija

I did not ask this but now I sort of have to wait to ask mine :(... guess it's better, anyway.

-1

Q: Words to describe a person who is arrogant

Looking for words to describe someone who is arrogant pompous ungrateful incorrigible

meaning

Anyway, I have to run off to pick up the spouse at work. Back later :D

Stack Exchange

10:46 PM

0

Q: Why can I not delete an accepted answer that would shame both the OP and me?

I tried to delete this accepted answer but I couldn't. Is there any reasonable explanation? Anyway I could delete its content but I cannot figure out why the answer once accepted cannot be deleted. It's really frustrating!

discussion

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