The Reading Room

bobble

00:01

Should I cite the sources that QI has?

Or just QI itself?

Tsundoku

If you actually go to those sources, you can quote them. Otherwise, you write something, "According to X, quoted on QI, ..."

bobble

@Randal'Thor I did exactly this :)

Next answer-milestone for me is 20, I'll ask more questions once I get there

Tsundoku

00:26

Of course, those nice round 3,000 reps are no longer there.

bobble

01:12

@verbose if you turn this into an answer I'd upvote it

Are you asking just about "Well done!"? It's quite a common expression—why would it suggest a Biblical reference? Also, while "Well done!" is the most common translation of those words in Matthew, several others are also used: "Excellent!," "Good job!," "Wonderful!," etc. So unless there's something in the larger context that would suggest a Biblical allusion, this parallel doesn't seem like enough to claim a deliberate reference. — verbose Apr 21 at 22:13

Bookworm

01:55

0

Q: Who speculated that the sin for which there is no forgiveness is destroying love in another person?

I remember reading a work of fiction, possibly by a Russian writer (translated into English), in which a character says that the Jesuits (?) write of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness and that he/she thinks it is destroying love in another person. I'm normally good at finding thi...

identification-request

bobble

03:34

@bobble this milestone's setting is in no way related to the fact I had exactly the required amount of answers saved up for posting soon

hoping I can help the Unanswered statistic, we're getting dangerously close to 1100 again

Bookworm

03:54

0

Q: Charles Guy-Cros quoted by Dazai

In No Longer Human Osamu Dazai attributes the quote below to Guy-Charles Cros: …et puis on recommence encore le lendemain avec seulement la même règle que la veille et qui est d'éviter les grandes joies barbares de même que les grandes douleurs comme un crapaud contourne une pierre sur son chemi...

french-literature japanese-literature

0

Q: Are Tigris and Tigris the same person?

In Mockingjay, the third book in The Hunger Games series, there is a minor character named Tigris. She is the owner of a shop in which Katniss and her team of soldiers take refuge during the assault on the Capitol. In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the subsequently published prequel, there i...

name-significance suzanne-collins the-hunger-games

bobble

04:52

Went through some low-voted Unanswered questions and promoted some comment-answers to answer-answers

woo, that's a fast upvote :)

though that one I just answered might be not literature-terminology, really, but people can close it if they think so

Rand al'Thor

09:15

Schemers with ears attentive
If I err do not be vindictive
Save the poet embarrassment
Say, if possible, a word of encouragement
Don't be amazed at errors and faults
And don't interpret like zealots.

> Literature SE: where we interpret like zealots.

(quote is from Mem and Zin)

Bookworm

11:59

0

Q: Where is the Kurdish principality of Botan?

The classical Kurdish story of Mem and Zin (which I'm reading online in Salah Saadalla's translation) appears to be set in a principality called Botan, whose prince (Zin's brother) rules from the town of Jizir: His throne was in Jizir19 and his star was rising His luck was strong and his positio...

setting ahmad-khani kurmanji-kurdish-literature mem-and-zin

Rand al'Thor

12:56

@Bookworm HNQ.

bobble

16:04

This question I VTC'ed, and in review it accrued two Close votes and then a single mod-Leave Open vote, kicking it out of the queue.

bobble

16:20

line - tag for a one-act play

Rand al'Thor

Heh, I thought you were proposing that as a tag name: a play so short that it's not a play but just a line.

bobble

Nah, just brought it up because I think there was a discussion about what kind of tags to use for very short plays

Still going through low-voted Unanswereds, seeing if any are off-topic (VTC) or answerable by me

'ere is one that got answered in the comments, and the entire problem seems to have been visualizing the imagery... is that on-topic?

1

Q: What does "advertisements in mother-of-pearl letters upon the glass-covered back" mean here?

I would like to know what "advertisements in mother-of-pearl letters upon the glass-covered back" means in the following sentences: She glanced through the fly-specked windows of the most pretentious building in sight, the one place which welcomed strangers and determined their opinion of...

meaning sinclair-lewis main-street

bobble

16:40

Wow, this is a confusing copy-paste gone wrong (?)

> If it's a real Bukowski quote it would have to come from an interview somewhere.That sounds right, paraphrased and then wrongly attributed. I'll try to get to it soon. Discuss the workings and policies of this site Literature Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled He has some decent poems and books. Anybody can answer Free Daily Quotes. It's oversized and my copy is fragile. site design / logo © 2020 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under

e.g.

What even is this ??

> Opt-in alpha test for a new Stacks editor, Visual design changes to the review queues. Poodle Coat Color Calculator, Dorami Gd Texture Pack, German Shepherd In Phoenix Craigslist, For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. The awesome Book Review: Charles Bukowski Cutting Edge Law digital photography below, is other parts of 11+ Awesome Charles Bukowski Quotes write-up which is classed as within Creative,

seems like an attempt to stick a bunch of keywords together? but also has some Featured On Meta post-titles that I remember?

weird

Rand al'Thor

17:01

There's lots of sites scraping content from SE. Some of them are ... better at it than others.

Often I've been searching the internet for something while trying to answer an SE question and ended up finding another site with an identical version of that question and a bunch of others.

I assume you know there's an option on the Contact form for reporting sites that are scraping SE content without attribution.

bobble

I'm not sure if there is or isn't attribution for that second one

the giant block of text makes my eyes turn away

Mithical

no

any copied content needs a direct link back to the original content and the OP

Rand al'Thor

@bobble You can always report it anyway, even if you aren't sure. They'd probably rather have false positives than miss a bad scraper.

bobble

Submitted both through the form

quote-source or identification-request? literature.stackexchange.com/q/18445/11259 (it originally had both and I removed quote-source but I'm doubting myself)

Rand al'Thor

I was wondering the same thing.

Kate Gregory continuing her trend of posting answers that relate to windows in one way or another :-)

bobble

17:17

Why are the review queues listed in a different order for here and Puzzling?

Is it because I have the 2k/10k tools?

Alex

9

Q: Review queues are in a different order on different sites

This is Politics’ review queues order in the dropdown: This is Science Fiction & Fantasy’s: The order is the same on Mi Yodeya. Why are they in a different order? Is this a bug?

support review user-interface beta-sites

bobble

ah, thanks

Rand al'Thor

17:31

If someone took out 10 Unanswered questions right now, we'd hit 77% answered.

Getting closer ...

Alex

Nearly 20% of unanswered questions are identification-request.

If you factor those out the total answered percentage would be above 80%.

bobble

@Randal'Thor one more down :)

well, someone has to upvote the answer first hint hint

One more CV needed here

Rand al'Thor

18:05

@bobble Now it's auto-flagged as closed without comment.

Any close-voter care to leave a comment to inform the OP why they voted to close and what could be done to make it reopenable?

bobble

I had a vague idea that it was "too broad", because asking to say how someone is described throughout the entire novel is a bit much, especially as there's likely some character changes.

Not anything that I could put into good enough words for a comment. I was hoping someone else in the CV queue would be able to explain it better

> With these keywords they are on first page of search engines like: <long list of jewelry keywords>

not exactly trying to hide your spamming, are you?

Rand al'Thor

@bobble Hmm. It's a good answer and I want to upvote it, but you've got the wrong definition of "fail": in both sentences ("failed us", "failed them"), fail is a transitive verb, but the "fall short" definition that you've cited is intransitive.

bobble

cries in grammar

what does that even mean

why can't I say that "failed" means "has fallen short for"

Rand al'Thor

A transitive verb is one that takes an object. In "History has failed us", the object is "us". In "rulers had failed them", the object is "them".

Rulers can fall short, but can't fall them short - that's not grammatical.

bobble

aggh

Rand al'Thor

18:15

The sense of "fail" that you need is #1 as a transitive verb in your link.

bobble

it made sense to me, and the grammar part of meaning answers is the worst

Rand al'Thor

> a : to disappoint the expectations or trust of
b : to miss performing an expected service or function for

bobble

cries some more

Rand al'Thor

The "fall short" meaning would fit if the sentence was "History has failed for us" or "History has failed in its duties to us" or "History has failed from our point of view", but the sentence has "failed" as a transitive verb.

bobble

I've never formally learned grammar rules, or at least any attempt to formally teach me grammar rules has failed

Rand al'Thor

18:17

Sorry to be the grammar killjoy :-( It's still a good answer; you just need to reword a few sentences and quote the other definition instead.

bobble

> intransitive vs transitive and my brain is broken for the day, thanks grammar

the most fun edit reason

goes off to look for spam users

Rand al'Thor

@bobble Most fun edit reasons, did you say? :-)

bobble

I have the distinct impression you have linked me there before

Rand al'Thor

Sorry to be a bore.

I was trying to remember if I had or not.

I've definitely linked there before, just couldn't remember if it was to you or not.

@bobble and upvoted

bobble

you're fine

bobble is being sad in lack of grammar knowledge

Rand al'Thor

18:34

@bobble I'll leave the flag for @Tsundoku then; maybe he'll be able to explain the closure better than I.

Alex

@Randal'Thor This just reminded me of the time my revision summary for a Mi Yodeya post was a link to a comment of yours from a Literature post.

Tsundoku

20:17

@bobble I have left a comment below the Black Prince question. I am tempted to reread it after the Rabelais challenge.

@bobble That's interesting. I have never been taught any language (Dutch, French, Latin, English, German, Spanish, Standard Chinese) without grammar rules. The test-obsessed education system in the USA has probably not noticed how easy it is to test grammar rules ;-)

bobble

I think there were some lessons to teach formal grammar, but I never had to learn from them. I just chose whichever sentence "looked right". Extensive reading gave me a good grasp of grammar, but not one that I can explain or use terminology for.

Tsundoku

That works well for your native language, but it wouldn't work so well for Latin.

Or for that matter, any language with a case system. Latin isn't so bad. There are language with more elaborate case systems, e.g. Lithuanian, Finnish and Hungarian.

bobble

I got by in my required foreign-language class (Japanese) because the particle system and tenses made enough sense to let me make basic sentences, and the teacher was so chronically late that I never had to learn more than that.

Tsundoku

How many hours was that required foreign-language class?

bobble

270, over two classes (Japanese 1 and Japanese 2)

The tests are easy multiple-choice or "essays" where you got a prompt (that was easy to guess ahead of time) and could write with whatever sentence structure you wanted, so I always went with easy and formulaic.

The most verbal we had to do were short scripted conversations

Tsundoku

20:32

I see.

We had oral exams in French and English (at least in last two years).

bobble

I've also been in Cantonese school, but that was even worse. I don't remember learning any grammar, just memorizing endless lists of words.

So I am an ignorant monolingual American

Tsundoku

Based on what I have learnt from Chinese teachers and students, the Chinese school system must be atrocious.

By "atrocious" I mean tough but didactically antiquated.

bobble

We didn't have much choice for schools; most only teach Mandarin.

Tsundoku

And they continue to call it Mandarin instead of Standard Chinese (i.e. what they actually teach), even though Mandarin is not a language but a dialect group.

Unless they were teaching Cantonese, which belongs to a different dialect group.

Have I told you yet that I sign some of my e-mails with "the grammar nazi"?

bobble

I do believe so

Tsundoku

20:40

Hmm, can't find it through the chat search, though.

bobble

Either search is broken at the moment or I inferred it at some point

bobble

21:42

There are five "answered" events visible under my All Actions tab. That's a first for me, I think.

Usually comments or edits keep many of my posting events from being on the same page.

On the "Moderators" tab of the "Users" page, why does it say the mods are appointed? I thought there were elections.

Tsundoku

22:03

@bobble I don't know why it says "appointed" below the profiles. Perhaps they are still "appointed" by a CM after the community has elected them?

bobble

Maybe because we're still in beta, and the system assumes that all beta mods are appointed?

Tsundoku

More likely it is a remnant from actual appointments on beta sites. On SFFSE, it says "elected".

For example, I became a mod on Language Learning SE without an election. Another mod had gone AWOL so a CM contacted me to ask if I wanted to become a mod.

bobble

Do you have room for more spam, dear Tsundoku?

Tsundoku

You managed to find more spammers? Bring them on!

bobble

9796, 9825, 9862, 9900, 9906, 9921, 9947, 9959, 10892, 10977, 12766

Tsundoku

22:25

That spam is now gone. I can't take another byte now.

bobble

how many spam-destroying puns do you have?

Tsundoku

You can only find out by ferreting out more spammers.

Byte was an obvious one. Nibble is also a computing term.

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