English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Kit

3:00 PM

Right. I've got to get these users created and get out of Dodge.

tchrist

Matt Эллен

@Kit safe travelling!

Kit

Thx, I haven't left yet.

tchrist

May you live in interesting places.

Nevada sure has big counties.

MετάEd

@Kit Matt did it ... short and sweet.

I'm trying to think, isn't Reg the one who really knows these statistics?

Robusto

3:08 PM

@tchrist Any place on earth can get "interesting"; all you need is one little locomotive-sized meteor strike.

Kit

@MετάEd Yes, but there's a meta post he wrote with them.

tchrist

So does New Mexico. Seems to be by population density: notice Big Bend.

01100001

Please help me correct this sentence: Tansen lived during Akbar's the Great reign.

tchrist

Misplaced possessivenessity.

Matt Эллен

@Kit yes. If @MετάEd hasn't already done something, I will write a blog post about it.

@01100001 no need for the

01100001

3:11 PM

@tchrist Tansen lived during Akbar the Great's reign. ?/

tchrist

Yes.

Of course.

Matt Эллен

oh!

tchrist

The apostrophe-s goes on the entire NP, not on the head noun.

Matt Эллен

yeah, that make much more sense

01100001

@MattЭллен :)

Matt Эллен

3:11 PM

sorry, I misread the thing

01100001

I thought to :)

@tchrist what's NP?

tchrist

In this regard, the English possessive works quite differently from the genitive in say, German or Latin. The Queen of England’s lifetime, not the *Queen’s of England lifetime.

NP=noun phrase

oh, ok

I smell binary.

I smell in color.

3:14 PM

@MattЭллен What are the stats compared to other sites nowadays?

01100001

I smell books

tchrist

@Novice That comes from hacking too late; a shower fixes it.

Kit

I smell winter.

tchrist

Is it come?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I don't know. I am going to find out! it will be an adventure

Robusto

3:15 PM

Winter is coming. Eventually.

Kit

►

Cerberus

You know what I also hate about the Game of Thrones? They don't explain this Winter thing at all, at least not in the TV series. And they don't explain what's behind the wall or why it was erected.

@MattЭллен Oh, dear.

Robusto

Actually winter is here if you live in Massachusetts. If you live in The Song of Ice and Fire, winter isn't coming yet, and it isn't even breathing hard. Even after five books.

Cerberus

Really?

But I saw the zombies march?

In a stupidly unrealistic way btw.

Robusto

The Zombie March is a Disney attraction, similar to "It's a Small World."

Cerberus

3:17 PM

It is.

tchrist

@Robusto Stannis’s summer knights think they are stuck in a winter storm, rather than an autumn squall.

Cerberus

Even having zombies is very silly.

tchrist

Agreed.

Robusto

@tchrist North of the wall it's different.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus why oh dear? It will be enlightening

Robusto

3:18 PM

There are zombies in TSoIaF.

Only they don't call them that.

Cerberus

If you enjoy stat-hunting, sure!

tchrist

@Robusto Stannis is south of the Wall (well, barely), trying to get to Winterfell. Very. Very. Slowly.

Cerberus

ebay.nl/itm/…

Shall I buy this thermometer?

Robusto

Well, he was north of the wall, no?

I can't keep that whole mess straight.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I cannot predict the future

tchrist

3:19 PM

@Cerberus Link doesn’t open: oral, rectal, or digital?

Cerberus

Doesn't open? How odd. A meat thermometer.

€ 6.

That's very cheap for a digital one.

It is also sold on Amazon and gets OK reviews.

Kit

snerkles I read it as "For butt function"

tchrist

@Robusto Not sure. He routed the invading wildlings who were attacking the Wall at the end of Book 3, the last worth-reading book. He was snowed-in outside the walls of Winterfell at the end of Book 5. There is another chapter with him from the start of the next book — The Winds of Winter — that was released two Christmases ago.

Cerberus

amazon.co.uk/DIGIFLEX-Digital-Thermometer-Cooking-Probe/dp/…

This is the same one.

tchrist

I don’t know why people want to measure their fingers’ temperature.

Cerberus

3:21 PM

@Kit Haha. No wonder you seem...preoccupied.

Robusto

@tchrist It's impossible to keep all the characters and threads together. I half gave up, but am current on the reading. I will probably read the next two if they ever get here, but only because I am a completionist.

tchrist

@Robusto Same.

It feels gratuitously complicated. Like too little butter spread across the toast.

Cerberus

@Robusto I thought you hated it!

Robusto

@Cerberus I didn't say that. I said I wished I'd never started it.

Cerberus

I remember your complaining about several things, like the cliffhangers...

tchrist

3:25 PM

Don’t read Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle; it does that to you, too.

Cerberus

I do hate unfinished threads.

tchrist

Talking past each other, you are.

Robusto

No. Cerberus can talk past everyone all by himself.

Cerberus

No, no, we're just in different threads. Our characters are not supposed to clash too soon.

tchrist

Well, yes.

Robusto

3:25 PM

Have at thee, sir!

Let's bring these threads together.

Cerberus

turns to different wave length

Robusto

Seriously, though, George R. R. Martin writes way too long. Compared to The Song of Ice and Fire, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings feels like a novella.

Cerberus

Heh.

TRiG

The 87654-B convention is often used if a house (for example) is letting some rooms as an apartment. For example, I live at 16473, and the in-law apartment over the garage, which I let, has the address 16473-A. — Roddy of the Frozen Peas 2 hours ago

Robusto

TLotR has focus, it has direction, it has meaningful, intelligible conflict on many levels, and it has characters you don't get tired of. The only thing it lacks that Martin supplies is sex.

TRiG

3:29 PM

Is in-law apartment a standard phrase?

Cerberus

An apartment where the in-laws live?

Kit

Yes.

Cerberus

Holy mother of God.

tchrist

Martin’s writing is also of seriously lower calibre. Too many clumsy constructs, hackneyed refrains, and predicable dialogue.

Cerberus

Anybody's worst nightmare, live-in in-laws!

TRiG

3:30 PM

@Cerberus Looks like it's not "an apartment where the in-laws live". He lets it out.

Robusto

@tchrist Yes. There's that.

TRiG

I suspect this is something similar to what we call a "granny flat".

Kit

@TRiG Yes, same thing.

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

And what is that?

tchrist

@Robusto Plus it is all populist-type sex, for all he would have you believe otherwise.

Cerberus

3:31 PM

Populist?

Kit

@Cerberus It's a small flat, usually one bedroom, generally attached to a residence.

TRiG

@Kit Usually a converted garrage.

Kit

Often, or in the case of my MiL, the ell.

Cerberus

I like how filthy and harsh certain scenes and characters are in Martin's books; but I strongly dislike how they are describe in crude language, nor how they are often not very functional, at least not in the series.

tchrist

@Cerberus The kind of dead-boring white-bread American straight men who believe they’re open-minded because they get off on girl-on-girl action, or have met a gay person once or twice in their lives. It doesn’t speak to anyone else, including women.

Kit

3:32 PM

It's theoretically where the in-laws or grandmother might stay when they come to visit.

Cerberus

@Kit Okay, and what is a residence? And what counts as "attached" in an apartment building?

Kit

But it is also used to refer to that type of configuration, regardless of tenacy.

@Cerberus A house plus a little apartment.

Over the garage or in the basement or attic or something.

Cerberus

@tchrist Okay, so you mean to say the sex scenes are aimed at simple American men?

tchrist

@Cerberus Exactly.

TRiG

@Kit It's where granny lives after granddad dies. She still wants her independence, but she's a little too doddery to live entirely alone.

Kit

3:34 PM

@TRiG Yes. Here, "in-law" is actually a shortening of "mpther-in-law," same reasoning.

tchrist

Mass-market appeal.

@TRiG The stairs can be a problem. I’ve seen those new-fangled lift-y chair-climber things installed for just such a person.

Or stair-climber, might should be.

Kit

@tchrist That reminds me of an awkward party moment.

TRiG

@tchrist Stannah Stair-Lift.

Cerberus

@Kit Oh okay, so it has something to do with being a small compartment within or an attachment to a clearly marked one-family house.

Kit

Yes.

tchrist

3:36 PM

@Kit Only one? :(

Cerberus

Noted.

TRiG

@Cerberus "Granny Flat" is a standard term here in Ireland. You'll see it on applications for planning permission and suchlike.

Cerberus

Funny.

I don't get the high numbers, though.

tchrist

Definitely a mother-in-law apartment here.

Cerberus

If it's not in a huge apartment building.

Kit

3:37 PM

So I was at a friend's birthday party and she was giggling and telling us/reminding her husband playfully about how this one time she kissed a girl for his birthday.

Cerberus

> 87654-B

tchrist

@Cerberus It makes no sense in one of those condo congloms.

TRiG

@Cerberus Americans always have high numbers on houses. They skip loads of numbers. Dunno why.

tchrist

@Kit groan

Cerberus

But...

Kit

3:38 PM

And I was all like "yeah, and then?" interested, you know? And she just looked at me and there was this long pause while my brain slowly figured out that I was supposed to be shocked and titillated.

Cerberus

@TRiG Huh.

@Kit Haha, or she meant, I want to do it again, now, with you.

Kit

The high numbers are usually in large urban areas.

tchrist

@TRiG Because each new block has to start off with the last two house numbers at double-zero. 400 Washington St, 700 S Blaire Street, etc.

Cerberus

@tchrist Why?

Kit

@Cerberus No, she didn't mean that.

tchrist

3:39 PM

Each hundred is a block.

Cerberus

@Kit Hmm too bad.

tchrist

So you can see the street number and know how many blocks up it is.

Kit

@Cerberus Really not.

tchrist

Which I continue to remind you, means intersections and nothing else.

Cerberus

Mmm OK.

tchrist

3:40 PM

A new cross street means a new hundreds-block.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm but I can just count the hundreds, which tells me how far away it is too, in long streets.

tchrist

Even numbers on one side, odds on the other.

Cerberus

100 numbers is about 10 minutes on foot.

tchrist

I don’t know what that means.

Cerberus

?

Matt Эллен

3:41 PM

tchrist

The distance between 2500 Water Street and 2600 Water Street is by definition one block, meaning one crossstreet.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmm that's not exactly attached...

tchrist

Better that way.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus no, but they had the space

Cerberus

@tchrist But, if I am at Prinsengracht 100, and I need to get to number 250, I will know that it will be about 15 minutes on foot or so.

tchrist

3:42 PM

It means it is about a block and a half way.

Since you are 150 away.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен They had the space?

Kit

That's a mile?

tchrist

And 100 = one street.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus to give their gran a house to herself.

Cerberus

@Kit I...think so?

@MattЭллен But in a different building?

Matt Эллен

3:43 PM

@Cerberus yeah. luxurious

Cerberus

@tchrist Perhaps that works better if you have actual blocks and they are all about the same size.

Kit

That's why it is only urban areas.

Cerberus

I see.

What if villages are devoured by large cities?

Are they renumbered?

Kit

Dunno.

Cerberus

Is the even/uneven convention universal around the world?

I have never seen it otherwise.

I mean where even is on the opposite side of uneven.

It is very convenient.

Except on those occasions where the convention is violated.

Which are rare.

tchrist

3:48 PM

@Cerberus I do not know.

Cerberus

I seem to recall that Dol Guldur had uneven numbers on both sides.

Kit

OK, they've called it and are sending us home. Hooray. Later.

Yay!

CU

This cute piggy has a birth defect and can't use its hind legs.

►

And his vet has made him a little wheel chair!

TRiG

4:00 PM

@Cerberus Common in the UK; unusual in Ireland (sometimes found in city centres; rare elsewhere).

Cerberus

After this video, weights were added to the wheels to make them more stable.

@TRiG Seriously? Wow, I had no idea.

TRiG

@Cerberus Numbers go up one side, down the other. Or there are no numbers at all, quite a lot of the time.

tchrist

@Cerberus Does that improve the tastiness of the pork chop?

Cerberus

Oh, shut up.

TRiG

(I used to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses: I know these things.)

tchrist

4:04 PM

STONE HIM! HE SAID JEHOVAH!

Cerberus

@TRiG Oh, okay, so number 1 will be opposite to a high number in that system?

No numbers is weird. How can you deliver post?

RegDwighт

You can stop being a witness? Fascinating. How does that work?

Cerberus

Hmm?

Ah.

Perhaps if you just thought you saw it, but then it turns out you mislooked?

TRiG

@Cerberus The postman knows the names. Seriously.

Cerberus

I see.

So the houses have name plates?

TRiG

4:17 PM

If you check, on Google Street View, places like Charleville Road, Tullamore; or Clara Road, Tullamore, you'll see that they're definitely urban areas, but none of the houses there have numbers. And most of them don't have names, either. The postman actually knows people's name.

Robusto

Everybody knows everybody else in Ireland, right?

MετάEd

@Cerberus I've seen dogs with those.

Cerberus

@TRiG That's' sick!

How could a new postman ever learn that?

And that neighbourhood isn't even old!

@MετάEd Cute, huh?

Robusto

4:32 PM

Used to be that cabbies in London were required to know every street and its addresses before they were granted a license. Not sure if that's the case still.

Matt Эллен

Sadly, no it is not the case. The Knowledge is gone

Robusto

It's the kids these days. They don't know nothin', and they don't wanna learn nothin'.

Cerberus

Yeah cabbies everywhere used to know their city very well.

Now they have Google Maps.

►

The mantis shrimp can crack a clam shell.

It carries a hammer-organ under its body.

Its punch is almost as strong as that of some pistols.

►

Here you can see the hammer itself.

Matt Эллен

The mantis shrimp is a dangerous mofo. he'll break your foot.

or she

Cerberus

Yeah!

You know him?

Or her?

Matt Эллен

4:39 PM

just his or her victims. The tortured souls of SCUBA divers past

past or passed?

too much time on EL&U makes you doubt your English

Robusto

Well, 1,000 cm/sec works out to 10 m/sec, which is slower than the slowest pitch in baseball, so I seriously doubt if it's comparable to any .22 caliber bullet.

Cerberus

Past as in "of the past". Passed...I don't think that would fit?

Matt Эллен

yeah, I don't think passed would fit either

good

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah 36 km/h is not that fast.

Matt Эллен

I'm not entirely sure what passed means any more

Robusto

4:42 PM

Kids throw wrocks faster. Wreally.

Cerberus

It's just from the verb?

Wreally?

Robusto

Wright.

Matt Эллен

yeah. oh right, like "he passed the ball left"

Cerberus

*write

Matt Эллен

ok. brain melt averted

Cerberus

4:42 PM

Heh.

Robusto

Or like Matt "passed up an opportunity" to distinguish himself.

He also passed, tense.

Matt Эллен

I am passed caring

Cerberus

Luckily, he has not passed yet.

Matt Эллен

I have a cold and I will revel in my convalescence

Cerberus

Same here.

Matt Эллен

4:44 PM

oh no!

Cerberus

I think I am already past the worst.

I.e. the worst has passed.

Robusto

Now he passed the wurst.

Matt Эллен

everyone in my office seems to have it, but I've decided they can keep working, I'm having a day off

Cerberus

Stop passing around your wurst.

@MattЭллен Good.

Robusto

It's worth passing.

And isn't that passing strange?

Cerberus

4:45 PM

Yesterday and ereyesterday, I really needed decongestant and paracetamol all day.

Passing strange? What's beyond strange?

Robusto

"Passing strange" is an idiom meaning peculiar.

It's BrE.

Matt could tell you, but he has a cold.

And he's contrary like that.

Cerberus

Sounds vaguely familiar...I may have heard it before without looking up what it meant exactly.

Matt Эллен

um. sorry. I don't know that one.

Robusto

randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000630

aedia λ

Maybe it's a castoff put in literature sent overseas for Americans.

Robusto

4:49 PM

Hmm, maybe it's AmE.

Wie soll ich das kennen?

Cerberus

Wissen?

Robusto

I don't want to be that familiar.

When I did speak of some distressful stroke,
That my youth suffer'd, My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful...

Shakespeare. Aha!

Cerberus

"How should I know this expression?" is what "kennen" means.

Robusto

@Cerberus I know what it means.

Cerberus

And you didn't mean "wissen"?

Robusto

4:52 PM

I mean "know" in the sense of be acquainted with.

Anyway, Shakespeare! Matt fails.

...

0

Q: Classification of vocabulary

I have been developing flash applications to teach vocabulary. For this purpose, I need to classify vocabulary into main categories. So far I came up with these nodes Basic Vocabulary Collocations Prefixes/Suffixes Business Vocabulary Academic Vocabulary Idioms Phrasals And , they m...

WTF?

Cerberus

Okay.

Matt Эллен

@Robusto I have a cold!

Robusto

@MattЭллен That's your excuse for everything lately.

Matt Эллен

28 secs ago, by Matt Эллен

@Robusto I have a cold!

Cerberus

Off topic.

Robusto

4:54 PM

Every Englishman is required to have all of Shakespeare committed to memory. Tell me, how does a cold interfere with that?

aedia λ

@MattЭллен write, write, a likely story

Matt Эллен

@Robusto I had a cold the day we were memorising Othello

Robusto

Lies!

Matt Эллен

cough cough

Robusto

Next you'll be telling us the dog ate your Timon of Athens.

Wait ... that one could be true.

Matt Эллен

4:57 PM

:D

Robusto

If the dog in question was @Cerberus, he certainly could have eaten your Timon of Athens.

Cerberus

Is that a play?

Robusto

Timon of Athens

Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare about the fortunes of an Athenian named Timon (and probably influenced by the philosopher of the same name, as well), generally regarded as one of his most obscure and difficult works. Originally grouped with the tragedies, it is generally considered such, but some scholars group it with the problem plays. Characters *Timon : a lord of Athens. *Alcibiades ): Captain of a military brigade and good friend to Timon. *Apemantus, sometimes spelled Apermantus, a philosopher and churl. *Flavius is Timon's chief Steward. *Flaminius is one o...

Seriously, I guess I was wrong. @Cerb can't eat things he doesn't know about.

Cerberus

You haven't seen me eat yet!

Matt Эллен

lol

Robusto

5:00 PM

Modesty forbids.

Cerberus

I don't need to know its name before eating it.

Robusto

*gnaw its name

Cerberus

You are a paragon of modesty.

Robusto

I am, quite literally, the most modest person in the history of the world.

Cerberus

You know about our St-Nick tradition, the chocolate letters?

Absolutely.

Robusto

5:01 PM

Everything is chocolate in your country.

Cerberus

And how great are your mendacious abilities?

Robusto

I never lie. And I'm always right.

I thought I made a mistake once, but I was in error thinking so.

Matt Эллен

bbl (hopefully, unless I die on my way to or from the shop)

Robusto

@MattЭллен Just don't let @Cerb eat you all up. He's like that.

Cerberus

@Robusto Sounds very...consistent.

Just as your modesty.

Robusto

5:12 PM

You're jealous of my modesty, aren't you?

Cerberus

I don't covet parvanimity.

Robusto

Yes you do.

Cerberus

Nequaquam!

Robusto

Nobody says "I insist you to do that." They might say "I insist that you do that." — Robusto 21 secs ago

Can't we send these pineapples straight to ELL?

@Cerberus Desine mentientes!

Kit

When is an ice crystal like a hydra?

Cerberus

5:23 PM

@Robusto Hmm? Stop the liars?

Robusto

@Kit I haven't the slightest idea.

@Cerberus You're the classical scholar, you tell me.

Kit

@Robusto When you try to suspend it.

Robusto

Oh, Snowflake. Haha, that's very logical.

►

Cerberus

@Robusto That's what it should mean...I just don't get it.

But no matter.

Robusto

Never mind.

aedia λ

5:41 PM

No mind? I'm there already.

Cerberus

Hello.

How is your blizzard coming along?

Have you sealed all cracks and nooks and crannies?

Mitch

0

Q: Classification of vocabulary

I have been developing flash applications to teach vocabulary. For this purpose, I need to classify vocabulary into main categories. So far I came up with these nodes Basic Vocabulary Collocations Prefixes/Suffixes Business Vocabulary Academic Vocabulary Idioms Phrasals And , they m...

vocabulary taxonomy

what a super great excellent question...

that has been deemed unproductive (or too productive) for SE.

tchrist

@Robusto No it isn’t.

Mitch

Where should it go?

Robusto

@tchrist Bill Shakespeare says it is.

tchrist

5:49 PM

He said a million other things that we say. So? That doesn’t make me a speaker of British English.

“Passing strange” is merely English, not British.

aedia λ

@Cerberus It's rather slow at the moment, actually. It started snowing a few hours ago, but it's still basically flurrying. Not that I'm complaining.

Cerberus

@Mitch Carlo said it all:

Mustafa, we don't challenge this kind of questions here, although this one shows some interesting profiles. — Carlo_R. 27 mins ago

@aediaλ Hmm OK. Let's hope most of the snow falls between 10 pm and 6 am.

I think by "challenge" he means "ask", and by "profiles" he means "categories".

Mitch

@Cerberus I challenge it.

Cerberus

We have challenged and rejected it.

Mitch

No I don't, but I'm still interested in the discussion. But the main site is (by culture) off limits, chat just wouldn't work, the blog is terrible for discussion...I want to go back to alt.usage.english!!

@Cerberus I reject your challenge and reject your rejection of the challenge.

hands on hips

stern face

Cerberus

5:59 PM

prances around room in order to distract Mitch

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…