The Upper Room

Bruce Alderman

4:26 AM

@TRiG What the good folks of Bradford County don't realize is that by entwining their religion with their politics, they are taking the first steps toward undermining the faith they think they are defending.

Here's something I wrote on the subject several years ago, back when I had a blog. I discussed three church/state issues, including one brought to my attention by Hemant Mehta's blog.

TRiG

5:04 PM

@BruceAlderman I like that blog post. It reminds me of Fred Clark's Vampires and Crosses, to which I linked in my post on the cross on a water tower.

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Could a moderator please remove this discussion

This question has a long discussion that has the potential to be medically dangerous. Please could a moderator remove the entire discussion, including contributions from me.

discussion

TRiG

@BruceAlderman And re: brucealderman.info/blog/2010/04/end-of-line.html. WordPress (self-hosted WordPress.org, or SAAS WordPress.com) can import archives from Blogger.

TRiG

5:59 PM

@BruceAlderman Is there something in the water at the moment? At least this inanity is on private land.

Bruce Alderman

6:24 PM

@TRiG Yeah, I've been thinking of migrating my posts and blogging again, but I just haven't worked up the enthusiasm for it that I used to have.

TRiG

6:55 PM

Ha very ha.

Why conservatives do not verbally abuse those who verbally abuse us: "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return."

Tweeted by BryanJFischer on May 21, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Pfft!

What should we do with the lying bigot?

Flimzy

7:17 PM

@ElendiaStarman: Sorry, I just had to do an even more trivial edit... to YOUR post :P

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy [chuckle] Actually, I meant it as originally typed. For the last couple years, I've put periods and the like inside quotation marks if it was part of the quotation.

Flimzy

hehe... I know that's common, especially among computer programmer types where quotes are taken more literally. But in literature, it's not proper form. In fact, in U.S. literature, the ? should go inside the quote mark as the only ending punctuation.

But across the pond, the ? usually goes outside the quote mark if the quotation was not a question.

so I erred in favor of that standard :P

If you really want the . there, please revert my edit. I won't start an edit war (only because I know I'd lose against the mods! :P)

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy That's actually basically the reason I started doing it that way. I'm a computer programmer...and it's less ambiguous.

Flimzy

Indeed.

Life would be much easier if people spoke the same way computers do.

ACK?

El'endia Starman

Lol.

@djclayworth: [Bonks self in head repeatedly] So, I've been the one approving and rejecting your tag wiki edits...and I just now noticed that you were editing *tag wiki*s AND *tag wiki excerpt*s... >.<

Fixing my errors now...

Okay, they're all fixed now. -_-

Flimzy

7:40 PM

Is it possible to review rejected edits and un-reject them?

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy Not that I know of. I fixed my errors by copying his text and editing it myself.

Flimzy

ah

way to steal +2 rep from a poor unsuspecting user!

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy Actually, DJClayworth has almost 4k rep. You stop getting those +2 rep points after 2k. :P

Flimzy

well then, you're just denying him the Copy Editor badge, I suppose... :)

El'endia Starman

[looks at his rep gains]...wait, he WAS getting +2s. Okay, now I'm confused.

Flimzy

7:43 PM

I think that wiki edits have a higher rep cap than regular post edits

but I don't know what that cap is

wax eagle

@Flimzy won't be higher than 4k though

Flimzy

Yeah, that would seem odd. Especially on a beta site.

wax eagle

@ElendiaStarman its 4k for tag wikis

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle Ahhh, okay.

wax eagle

20k on a launched site I think...

El'endia Starman

7:44 PM

In the meantime, I'm gonna go find an answer or two questions to upvote... :P

Flimzy

haha

El'endia Starman

Done. And the answer merited it! ^_^

Flimzy

If the answer merited an up-vote, then you haven't really compensated for his denied rep on the edits... better upvote a low quality answer :P

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy LOL.

Flimzy

Or you could start a "Sorry for ruining your edit rep" bounty.

El'endia Starman

7:46 PM

...a bounty worth 10 rep? Yeah right... :P

Also, I'm this close to 3k! :P

TRiG

8:02 PM

@Flimzy I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that (and many other things ;)).

Flimzy

@TRiG: Wrong about which? I think I made a number of (psuedo-)claims in the last while that any number of people could (and probably should) disagree with :)

TRiG

@Flimzy Punctuation.

Flimzy

@TRiG: I guess about where punctuation ought to live relative to quote marks?

@TRiG: What I know is that I once corrected someone's quotation on SE, and got scolded because I was apparently obvlivious to the U.S./UK differences, and I ought to respect the OP's regional preference on the matter.

TRiG

@Flimzy Aye. The positioning of terminal punctuation relative to closing quotation marks does not differ between British and American English unless the punctuation mark in question is a full stop (period).

Or, to phrase that in a less circuitous way: For question marks and exclamation marks, there's no difference between British and American usage. For full stops, there is.

Both British and American usage is logical for question marks and exclamation marks. British usage is also logical for full stops. American usage is to always put full stops (periods) inside closing quotation marks, because this looks neater on the printed page. It's a typographical convention.

Flimzy

The American convention is to always put closing punctuation inside the quotation mark.

Is that the same for British question marks and exclamations?

If so, I ought to apply another trivial edit to @ElendiaStarman's post :)

TRiG

8:09 PM

@Flimzy I'm pretty sure you're wrong there. It's a typographical convention for the sake of neatness on the printed page, so there's no reason why it should apply to tall punctuation such as question marks and exclamation marks.

It applies to full stops and, I think, to commas.

Flimzy

@TRiG: grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation.htm

TRiG

I really must move to a bigger house. Then I could have all my books to hand instead of having most of them in storage at my parents'.

@Flimzy > In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic

Flimzy

that seems to agree with you

TRiG

That's what I said.

Flimzy

Which means my grammar text books were wrong in 4th grade!

or more likely, my dad was wrong...

which I can believe now.

In 4th grade, I wouldn't have had any of it!

TRiG

8:11 PM

:D

Flimzy

:P

El'endia Starman

This reminds me of the double-space after sentences thing. My mom does that, I don't.

I was actually never taught to do that in school..

Flimzy

I was taught to do that.

Although it's a style that is diminishing.

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Again, it's a typographical convention rather than anything to do with grammar. I was never taught it and don't do it.

Flimzy

I think it used to be common in books, and not in magazines and newspapers (where space is at a premium)

El'endia Starman

8:13 PM

@TRiG Yep, typographical convention.

Flimzy

and I think HTML is helping to reduce it's usage, too (which collapses whitespaces typically)

TRiG

I believe some word processors have ways of automatically doing a 1.5em space after full stops.

@Flimzy I really should learn TeX.

Flimzy

I learned a very tiny bit of TeX

We write the manual for our product in LaTeX.. which is, I guess, a superset of TeX

TRiG

@Flimzy It looks like it was built by people who obsess over the same things I do.

Flimzy

It's pretty ugly, IMO

But functional

and much easier to read a LaTeX diff in a web browser than a .doc or RTF diff :)

El'endia Starman

8:15 PM

I love LaTeX. :P

Flimzy

That's what she said

wax eagle

@ElendiaStarman I enjoyed the bit of it I learned for Physics lab reports...

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy [facepalm] D'oh, should've seen that coming. ;P

TRiG

In school, I went through my geography textbook with a pencil correcting all the grammar (the most common error was missing the second comma of a pair). I never found a single error in my maths textbook.

Flimzy

:P

TRiG

8:16 PM

@Flimzy I really dislike that line. The British version is better and more versatile.

Flimzy

TRiG: the second comma of a pair?

@TRiG: What is the British version?

TRiG

@Flimzy ... as the actress said to the bishop.

Flimzy

Hrm... I don't think that line would work over here.

Maybe I'll try it, though, and see what happens...

TRiG

You can swap it around with ... as the bishop said to the actress, or, if you're Terry Pratchett, with ... as the High Priest said to the vestal virgin.

Flimzy

Although I strongly suspect it will get the same reaction that "That's what she said" gets in Mexico

"that's what who said?"

El'endia Starman

8:18 PM

@Flimzy LOL.

TRiG

@Flimzy ... or, if you're Terry Pratchett , with ....

El'endia Starman

Relevant:

TRiG

A pair of commas may be used to delimit an interjection or clarification. It's a common error to omit the second comma of the pair.

Flimzy

@ElendiaStarman: cute

TRiG

I have loads of sloganed T-shirts. I want one that reads You are here.

Flimzy

8:20 PM

@TRiG: Ah. I was thinking a simple list... one, two, three and four... (the oxford comma)... thus my confusion.

TRiG

My favourite T-shirt: *I haven't lost my mind: It's backed up on a disk somewhere.*
My T-shirt that gets the most comments: *Normal People Scare Me*.
My T-shirt I brought into Toastmasters and forced someone to talk about: *This is not the life I ordered.*

Flimzy

@ElendiaStarman: Also related... cute concept, somewhat weak execution, IMO...

►

TRiG

Must read that one day.

El'endia Starman

@Flimzy Lawl.

TRiG

@Flimzy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_the_actress_to_the_bishop

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_the_actress_to_the_bishop

Hmm. No oneboxing.

Said the actress to the bishop

"Said the actress to the bishop", sometimes "as the actress said to the bishop", or simply "that's what she said" is an informal (and usually vulgar) exclamation, usually said for humour after an inadvertent use of a double entendre. It is said in the style of a punch line, comically implying that the original double entendre was spoken by a woman in a risqué manner. On occasion, the term is swapped when appropriate to "said the bishop to the actress", or "that's what he said". The phrase is an example of a Wellerism, a literal "turn" of a phrase, changing its meaning. The versatility o...

I thought that bug was fixed.

El'endia Starman

8:27 PM

Weird.

TRiG

3

Q: Add support for secure Wikipedia pages to Onebox

I use HTTPS Everywhere in Firefox, and so all of my requests to Wikipedia (among other sites) get automatically re-directed by the browser to their secure site. This gives me headache when I want to post an article to chat, and have it Oneboxed. Onebox works fine for me on regular Wikipedia lin...

feature-request status-completed chat onebox

It's marked status-completed. shrug

TRiG

8:41 PM

I keep asking this question, don't I?

Why do conservative Christians lie all the time?

I really should corral together all of these comments I make, not about individual Christian liars, but about Christians celebrating and fêting known liars, and turn it into a blog post.

TRiG

9:32 PM

Yikes. My edits are going through immediately, without review.

christianity.stackexchange.com/posts/6128/revisions

Let's see. What mischief can I get up to now? Rubs hands gleefully.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG Hey, I'm watching ya. =.=

TRiG

@ElendiaStarman Probably a good thing I'm constitutionally incapable of holding grudges.

Stack Exchange

10:46 PM

0

Q: Can tag wikis disappear?

I'm certain I created a tag wiki for jehovahs-witnesses, but there isn't one now. Is my memory deceiving me, or did someone delete it? And, if so, why?

discussion tag-wiki

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