English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwighт

3:00 PM

Lolita really is a stupid name in Russian. And Lo-li-ta makes you sound like something you don't want to sound like.

tchrist

You seem to write a lot of English yourself.

user19161

@RegDwighт It is a Russian name? Hmm.

RegDwighт

I don't write a lot of Russian, that much's for sure.

tchrist

I get crosstalk thinking about the name Lola, from the song.

RegDwighт

@JasperLoy no, which is the whole point.

user19161

3:01 PM

@RegDwighт First whoosh of the day.

RegDwighт

A new record!

You outwhooshed yourself.

Matt Эллен

when you whoosh upon a star...

tchrist

Better than the reverse.

user19161

I think Mina is the Malay equivalent. It is a somewhat derogatory name for a Malay girl.

RegDwighт

Whoosh, little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.

tchrist

3:02 PM

Mina Harker?

Mina Harker

Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is a fictional character and the protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. In the novel She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young school mistress who is engaged to Jonathan Harker, and best friends with Lucy Westenra. She visits Lucy in Whitby on July 24 of that year, when schools would have closed for the summer. After her fiancé Jonathan escapes from Count Dracula's castle, Mina travels to Budapest and joins him there. Mina cares for him during his recovery from his traumatic encounter with the vampire and his brides,...

Mitch

@RegDwighт What does it make you sound like? Also, was it a popular name in the early 20th c?

oh it isn't a Russian name. Well then what does it make you sound like in Russian?

tchrist

Sorry, Reg, but I couldn't resist. All this talk about gender roils my hormones and I begin to blog and roll. I'll try to keep myself under better control, but it's hard when one's having fun. :-) — Bill Franke 9 mins ago

@Jay: I grok this point and deny that I'm a crusader rabbit. — Bill Franke 8 mins ago

Fucking rabbits.

Mitch

@tchrist I can't tell if he was facetious or not.

RegDwighт

@Mitch for starters, Lo-li-ta in Russian would be /lʌ'lʲitə/. That really ruins the whole point of that central passage.

user19161

@tchrist Wait, is rabbit slang for something?

RegDwighт

3:06 PM

No idea how popular it was or is or will be. But it's not a Russian name. Naming your girl Lolita in Russian is like naming her Vysotka in English.

tchrist

@JasperLoy FIIK.

Mitch

But that's the Russian ear's take, it just sounds dumb? I'm totally looking for 'oh it sounds like a rude gesture for a body part' kind of answer.

tchrist

Energizer Bunny, maybe.

RegDwighт

@tchrist Harker is German for raker. One who rakes using a bow rake.

Mitch

@RegDwighт so it's an English sounding name?

RegDwighт

3:07 PM

@Mitch more like Italian.

Cerberus

OMG harker would mean the same in Dutch. Except that it is barely a word.

Mitch

OK.

tchrist

What’s a bow rake? A rake shaped like a bow?

RegDwighт

Or Mediterranean.

tchrist

Lolita sounds Spanish.

Oh, is that what you call those?

I had no idea.

RegDwighт

3:08 PM

@tchrist not necessarily to Russians.

tchrist

I just call ’em metal rakes.

RegDwighт

Or Englishmen, for that matter. You are biased.

Everything sounds Spanish to you.

user19161

@RegDwighт Looks like the female sex organ.

RegDwighт

Which, funnily enough, is a German idiom for "that's Greek to me".

Mitch

@RegDwighт I had heard that the very common Spanish diminutive 'Conchita' sounds a bit risque to Russians.

tchrist

3:09 PM

@RegDwighт Mutatis mutandis in re Jasper’s female sex organs.

Mitch

@JasperLoy What? Which one? Please don't answer that.

RegDwighт

"Konchit" is "(s)he will cum".

With the stress on the first syllable, though.

user19161

@Mitch Oh, you should know. It is obvious. QED.

Mitch

@JasperLoy A hair scrunchie?

@BillFranke: I sympathize and feel your pain! You know, some people in my country are advocating abandoning semicolons altogether! How dare they. — Cerberus 11 hours ago

@Cerberus you anti-semi-colonizer!

Matt Эллен

@Mitch Maybe fallopian tubes

user19161

3:11 PM

@Mitch Well, they can just be replaced by the full stop.

RegDwighт

@tchrist neither did I. But I looked Harke up on Wikipedia, whether it was some special rake.

Mitch

@MattЭллен she should see a doctor then. quickly.

Matt Эллен

yes, one shouldn't keep her tubes on a rake

tchrist

@RegDwighт Conchita is a minced oath, you do realize.

user19161

Hello @edg nice new pic there.

RegDwighт

3:12 PM

In Spanish? No I don't.

Cerberus

@Mitch That's my middle name.

tchrist

Concha is a minced oath for coño, the ubiquitous calque on fuck.

Ed Guiness

Nice of you to notice @Jas

RegDwighт

I see.

Cerberus

@Mitch I do hope you are on my side; or aren't you?

Mitch

3:13 PM

@Cerberus your parents must have been very tired when filling out your birth certificate then.

tchrist

Concha is of course shell, and shell is a girl’s name. Also.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Semicolons are worthless. It's a fact

Cerberus

@Mitch It's shorter than Georgepatrick-Fitsjames.

RegDwighт

@MattЭллен Nonsense. I will pay three roubles per semicolon.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Silence, you blasphemer!

tchrist

3:14 PM

But dainty women might (and do) say ¡Concha! to avoid saying ¡Coño!. And some will even soften it to ¡Conchita!. It is a silliness.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт And we all know roubles are worth a ton.

Mitch

@Cerberus sorry, I'm not actually paying attention. SO do you want to get rid of semicolons like everyone else in Dutchland, or are you the reactionary preservationist of all things semicolonic?

Cerberus

@Mitch The latter, of course.

Matt Эллен

More; semicolon?

Cerberus

Yes; more.

RegDwighт

3:15 PM

@Cerberus The amount doesn't matter. My failsafe is that I didn't say whom I will pay them to. That could well be myself.

Mitch

@tchrist I thought it is diminutive for 'Concepcion'.

Cerberus

Well, not more: just use then wherever appropriate, like always.

tchrist

@Mitch That, too.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Ohhh you are so clever!

RegDwighт

Thank you.

Cerberus

3:16 PM

@Mitch Can somebody tell me why Spanish has Conception as a first name? What sense of conception should I think of?

Mitch

@Cerberus sure...I like semicolons; even more so ellipses; but I fear the latter...is not so popular; ... ;

RegDwighт

@Cerberus because they didn't want to call their daughters Reception, duh.

Matt Эллен

semicolon need only appear in emoticons

0_0;

Mitch

@Cerberus the immaculate kind. they're not pervs or anything.

RegDwighт

Emoticons need only appear in hell.

Matt Эллен

3:17 PM

u_u;

tchrist

@Cerberus Inmaculada.

Cerberus

@Mitch ...

tchrist

Inmaculada Concepción

El dogma de la Inmaculada Concepción, también conocido como Purísima Concepción, es una creencia del catolicismo que sostiene que María, madre de Jesús, a diferencia de todos los demás seres humanos, no fue alcanzada por el pecado original sino que, desde el primer instante de su concepción, estuvo libre de todo pecado. No debe confundirse esta doctrina con la de la maternidad virginal de María, que sostiene que Jesús fue concebido sin intervención de varón y que María permaneció virgen antes, durante y después del embarazo. Al desarrollar la doctrina de la Inmaculada Concepción, la...

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Well. Conception follows receptions, doesn't it?

@Mitch So it is really named after that? That was the only thing I could think of, but it still makes no sense to me.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwighт says he who uses (^_^) frequently

RegDwighт

3:19 PM

@tchrist I wrote a whole Wikipedia article on that. It was selected a Good article, too.

@MattЭллен you're saying this is not hell?

tchrist

@RegDwighт ¿De veras?

Cerberus

Why would you name your daughter after the immaculate conception, then leave out the essential, chaste part?

RegDwighт

@tchrist Es cierto.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwighт I see. That explains a few things.

Mitch

@Cerberus really 'really'? English parents still name their children 'Richard'. I think.

Cerberus

3:19 PM

@RegDwighт Oh. I didn't you you had so much experienced with immaculate conceptions.

@Mitch That just means rich heart!

Or do you mean dick?

tchrist

@Cerberus It would be too long. But you can bet there are some Purísimas out there.

Mitch

@Cerberus Reg has forgotten more about immaculate conception than ... well whatever.

Cerberus

Purísimas?

Mitch

@Cerberus this

tchrist

@Cerberus > El dogma de la Inmaculada Concepción, también conocido como Purísima Concepción, es una creencia del catolicismo . . .

Cerberus

3:21 PM

Ah, so very pure.

RegDwighт

@Mitch ...than about aculate reception.

Cerberus

See, at least Purísima sounds pure.

RegDwighт

It sounds like an impure prism.

Mitch

mac·u·late/ˈmakyəˌlāt/
Adjective:
Spotted or stained.
Verb:
Mark with a spot or spots; stain.
Synonyms:
adjective. stained - drossy
verb. stain - splotch

gross.

tchrist

Macchiato.

Machado.

Wait for your next stained coffee.

Mitch

3:22 PM

Horchata?

Cerberus

@Mitch That's religion for you.

Even the NT is gross.

RegDwighт

@Mitch if that is gross, you shouldn't ask about the aculation of Elton John's, or ej for short.

Mitch

@Cerberus 'Lives of the Saints'

NT realy? OT is pretty nasty going.

tchrist

@Mitch No. Horchata < Del lat. hordeāta, hecha con cebada, quizá por conducto mozár.

►

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, the OT doesn't mention the i.c., does it?

Mitch

3:26 PM

@tchrist OK what's 'mozar'? and what's 'machado'?

Cerberus

The NT is also gross because of, say, Paul's crude intolerance.

RegDwighт

@tchrist looks like a fun programme.

Mitch

@Cerberus Not that I know anything, but don't the OT prophets say that the messiah will be a virgin birth or something?

tchrist

mozár is the abbreviation for mozárabe.

Cerberus

Oh, I don't know.

Mitch

3:27 PM

@Cerberus that one dude! really uptight man!

Cerberus

I've never read the Bible.

@Mitch Yeah, so I heard.

Mitch

@Cerberus TL;DR

tchrist

machado is related to something chopped up, like from a machete.

Mitch

OT: Don't mess with God or Jews.
NT: Be nice, write letters

tchrist

> Mozárabes (del árabe musta'rab, 'arabizado'; en árabe: مستعرب‎), es el nombre con el que se conocía a los cristianos que vivían en el reino musulmán de Al-Ándalus.

@Cerberus Once a zealot. . . .

Mitch

3:30 PM

@tchrist the coffee beans or the chooclate? What's in a macchiato or a machado?

tchrist

A macchiato is stained.

Or is it?

Manchar is stain in Spanish, so manchado is stained. But machado is chopped, so maybe I am ordering the wrong coffee.

I always thought of macchiato as being stained, but I may have been thinking of the wrong cognate.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah...

tchrist

Then again, baristas have their own argot.

Cerberus

@Mitch Haha yes.

Mitch

@tchrist jargon too.

tchrist

3:32 PM

Blargon.

Cerberus

@Mitch NT: be unnice, write nasty letters insulting women etc. etc.

tchrist

unigenite?

Mitch

@Cerberus Jesus yelled at his mom once. Uncool dude.

Cerberus

@tchrist It does mean stained. It's just not Spanish.

@Mitch Wow. Who would ever do that?

tchrist

-ato is never Spanish.

Mitch

3:34 PM

@Cerberus Exactly. If his fiancee ever heard that kind of talk...

...he'd have to have some kind of really good explanation.

RegDwighт

@tchrist gato?

Mitch

Wait, this sounds like its veering off into a 'Life of Brian' skit. switching gears to...

Matt Эллен

plateau

RegDwighт

That's spelled Plato.

Cerberus

@tchrist Exactly. So why...

@Mitch Was she the lesbian?

MετάEd

3:36 PM

@RegDwighт On my wedding night, I did not sleep a wink. I spent the whole night chasing a cat that had come in over the balcony: wearing a sombrero and long pants!

tchrist

@RegDwighт For participles, I meant.

RegDwighт

@tchrist I know.

Mitch

where are the /usr/dict/words for other than English? No, I have not yet tried google.

tchrist

Good luck with that.

RegDwighт

I'm just making the occasional remark to make people think I'm here and interested. Has worked for the last two-odd years.

tchrist

3:38 PM

It will only have citation forms, not inflected ones.

Mitch

@Cerberus hm... no just high maintenance.

tchrist

You have to get the word lists from aspell, I think.

RegDwighт

How is aspell different from Haskell?

Mitch

@tchrist the English version has 'inflected' ones (plurals, every imaginable suffixization)

Matt Эллен

they are spelled and pronounced quite differenlt

tchrist

3:39 PM

@Mitch No it doesn’t.

chthon(tchrist)% look triangle
triangle
triangled
triangler
triangleways
trianglewise
trianglework

No triangles.

RegDwighт

@MattЭллен No, only quite different is spelled and pronounced quite different. Neither aspell nor Haskell are.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwighт Aspall is a cider, Haskell was a logician

MετάEd

@tchrist It's going to hurt when NYT publishes that reply complete with typo.

Mitch

@tchrist mine does:

triangle
triangled
triangle-leaved
triangler
triangles
triangle-shaped
triangleways
trianglewise

Matt Эллен

no trianglest!

RegDwighт

3:42 PM

@MattЭллен yeah I liked Spider Man in The Aspall House Rules.

That’s queer.

lol

@Mitch Oh...

It is also missing triangle moth and triangle inequality.

RegDwighт

Interestingly, The Cider House Rules was one of the last movies to get a proper German title. God's Work and Devil's Contribution.

Pretty much all movies these days just keep the original English title.

tchrist

3:45 PM

I wish they did that for us.

They screwed up Habemus Papam.

RegDwighт

Oh most movies do keep the original title for English audiences, too. They only increment a number at the end.

Mitch

@tchrist then we wouldn't understand it, and it;d be all foreigny and shit.

tchrist

They idifuckmeottically translated it, which ruins it entirely.

RegDwighт

We've been there.

Or here, in fact.

tchrist

Then there was HP & the Philosopher’s Stone.

Mitch

3:47 PM

What was the movie where the Jewish kid got mistaken for 'regular' German and eventually joined the army just to get by? (during WWII)

tchrist

They thought Merkins would be too dumb to get the ref.

RegDwighт

@Mitch Hitlerjunge Salomon?

Mitch

@RegDwighт right, but the American label...

RegDwighт

imdb.com/title/tt0099776

Mitch

oh was 'Europa! Europa!'

RegDwighт

3:47 PM

Jinx.

Mitch

that's just dumb.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт But they do still dub them?

RegDwighт

@Cerberus well, how should I put it... they do find German equivalents for some of the words...

Cerberus

Oops, I meant dub.

Mitch

no. theater's are outfitted with google translate sound filter now. In the US. American's don't like to read subtitiles neither.

Cerberus

3:48 PM

Hahaha.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus I know. Plus the answer is the same either way.

Cerberus

So yes?

Dubbing is the most atrocious thing ever.

Mitch

No for real, dubbing is rare in the US. Either subtitles or it doesn't get shown. Foreign movies are pretty rare.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus not good dubbing, no.

It's just very hard.

Cerberus

No Dutchman would willingly watch a dubbed film or series.

tchrist

3:49 PM

-ly

RegDwighт

But so is translation in general.

tchrist

Fast work.

Mitch

But they have lots of dubbed films there?

Cerberus

I said "willingly" in my mind, but often things refuse to come out.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus is that so? I only knew of the Swedish.

tchrist

3:50 PM

My fingers often type diffident words than I am finking.

Cerberus

I think all smaller countries have subtitles always.

Except in cartoons for children.

RegDwighт

Apr 14 '11 at 8:34, by RegDwight

@JSBangs Swedes are the worst. If you give them the slightest hint that you're not a native speaker of Swedish, they will immediately switch to English, and no amount of money, pleading, or threats will make them switch back. Which makes it next to impossible to learn Swedish while in Sweden. (They can't be bothered translating American TV shows, either. Sometimes they will add Swedish subtitles, if they are in a really generous mood.)

Cerberus

Same here.

I even switch to English with people speaking weird Dutch dialects.

Mitch

All the Jackie Chan movies (those produced in Hong Kong) are dubbed to English, which is funny because the dialog is all in English. They just wioe the sound of the dialog and dub into every language they'll sell to.

RegDwighт

Well I guess in a country of 82 million you can and have to afford localization.

Cerberus

3:51 PM

Have?

Matt Эллен

Yeah. I'll switch to English when ever I talk to non-natives

Cerberus

And dubbing ≠ localisation.

tchrist

Who has 82 million?

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Freak.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus How many Germans do you know who are fluent in English? Or German, for that matter?

Matt Эллен

3:52 PM

@Cerberus Someone has to talk to them

RegDwighт

@Cerberus it very much is. If nobody knows who [comedian X] or what [TV show Y] is, you have to localize the references for your local audiences.

tchrist

I should think that Monty Python would resist subtitling almost as much as it resists dubbing.

RegDwighт

@tchrist Germany.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт None. Zero. Zip. But that is irrelevant. Plenty of Dutchmen couldn't understand an English film without subtitles. And I can't understand all of a French film. And yet we would never consider watching a dubbed film, yuck. Subtitles are where it's at.

RegDwighт

I see.

Well I find subtitles immensely distracting.

Cerberus

3:54 PM

@RegDwighт Ehh you don't have to: people don't need to understand every little detail of a film. In any case, you can do exactly the same thing with subtitles.

RegDwighт

Because whenever I see text, I have to read it, even if I don't need to.

Cerberus

Subtitles are a bit distracting, yes.

But they are OK.

RegDwighт

When I'm watching an English show with Korean subtitles, I will be reading the subtitles all the time.

Matt Эллен

Me too! Like when news reports sub Liverpudlian

Cerberus

Dubbing is gross.

Mitch

3:54 PM

animateds are always dubbed.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Just get used to it.

Matt Эллен

subbed animé is the most popular form

tchrist

@RegDwighт Helps your Korean.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus again, not when done properly. And again, not every country can afford that.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I disagree.

Dubbing is like rape.

RegDwighт

3:55 PM

@Cerberus I have spent half my life without getting used to it. Why would the other half be any different?

Cerberus

I wouldn't want to watch a dubbed Japanese film. I want to hear their real voices!

tchrist

Go to Japan.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Try and you shall see.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus you are biased. That's like saying I don't like cheese without even trying. You remind me of that Lewis Carroll girl.

Cerberus

@tchrist Or go to a normal country where there is no dubbing.

Mitch

3:56 PM

@Cerberus You wouldn't like it. All whiny.

RegDwighт

Jul 26 '11 at 13:00, by RegDwight

Asparagus always reminds me of that one girl Lewis Carroll once interviewed. She hated asparagus, and when he asked her why, she answered "well, if I liked it, I would have to eat it, and I can't stand it!"

Cerberus

@Mitch Eh, I have never watched anything dubbed. Any Japanese films or documentaries I have ever seen were subtitled.

tchrist

@Cerberus Right, a country with only 17 speakers of their language.

Mitch

@RegDwighт she didn't like cheese? next thing you'll be saying that the French don't like french fries.

RegDwighт

If you think translation is possible at all, then so is movie dubbing. If you think movie dubbing is rape, then so is reading books in Dutch because only 1 book out of OVER 9000 was written in Dutch.

But I gotta run in a minute.

Cerberus

3:58 PM

I can't believe you people actually like dubbing. I thought it was deplored as a sad, pathetic feature to accommodate the illiterate masses all around the globe. Apparently I was wrong.

tchrist

How’s your Aramaic then?

Even the Bible is dubbed.

Mitch

@Cerberus well, then you've experienced the whininess. halfway between chewing on tinfoil and scraping nails across a blackboard.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus because, again, you were never exposed to good dubbing. We are going in circles.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Yes, a translated book is never to be preferred over the original. It is rape. But 1. there is no other option, if you don't speak the language; and 2. there is no discrepancy between the video and the sound. It's plastic.

@tchrist You can only dub video.

@Mitch It's just Japanese. I like it.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…