Language Overflow - 2016-08-29 (page 1 of 2)

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3:44 AM

1984: the year when COMPARED TO took the lead

Good morning, @Snails! Sawasdee khrap all!

2 hours later…

5:15 AM

Etymology of the day: gasket

> 1620s, caskette, originally nautical, "small rope or plaited coil" used to secure a furled sail, of uncertain origin, perhaps from French garcette "a gasket," literally "little girl, maidservant," diminutive of Old French garce "young woman, young girl; whore, harlot, concubine" (13c.), fem. of garçon (see garcon).

> Century Dictionary notes Spanish garcette "a gasket," also "hair which falls in locks." Machinery sense of "packing (originally of braided hemp) to seal metal joints and pistons" first recorded 1829.

Is any of you gonna take an IELTS test?

5:31 AM

Nope

It's interesting: in "hydraulic head", the word "head" refers to the height of the water column above the examined object.

@snailplane - you've frozen the Cabin! There's a pattern of creating and freezing chatrooms. (0:

Morning @CowperKettle

@snailplane So we can use days with or without a time preposition. Preposition is totally optional, right?

Anonymous

5:50 AM

In this case, I can't think of any differences between the two.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Well, we seem to be doing fine with all our chat in this room :-)

user227867

6:06 AM

@snailplane Excellent. Now I can say this is the main ELL chat to all users and come here knowing that it is so.

6:16 AM

@JimReynolds I think so, too.

@MingWang Why are you wondering, Ming?

@snailplane Indeed. Thanks for the renovation! :)

Hi, @Jim!

Kiss me! I voted!

@DEAD I guess I'd better leave that to the mods after the election.

Sigh. Lesser of the numerous evils, you know.

6:20 AM

@JimReynolds o_O

The moderator candidates have promised me nothing!

Oh! LOL

They only do things for the big corporate donors.

I read somewhere that @snailplane and @DEAD and @Cat, etc have been promised not only ELL t-shirts, but full ELL pajama suits.

Of course they'll just be mouthpieces for wealthy SE officials.

Szia!

Szia!

(Looks like it's trending.)

6:28 AM

Lol! Ninja knows what it means

But he has to be bit Crazy for that

@JimReynolds I just wanna ask for some experience for IELTS test.

@JimReynolds The voices in your head work

@Jude You two are the same person, or just related?

@JimReynolds I did.

@DamkerngT. There isn't much RO's can do, but that much is important.

As the most respected guy in this chat, you wield the power of silencing dramas fast.

@ShadowWizard Not an RO here.

@MingWang Hello, welcome to LO!

6:44 AM

Hello

That rhymes. It's slightly annoying but fun.

@DEAD Fortunately, there is no urgent need to do that, so far!

Yay

But they are inevitable, and you know that.

nods

That said, I'm pretty sure that we're going to see our mods after the election more often.

(in chat, I mean)

@DEAD I have just merge :D

6:58 AM

Oh.

@DamkerngT. Whether I get elected or not, I would dust off meta and get some work done.

@DEAD Yay!

It seems P.E.D. really wants something done, but he keeps getting struck by our humongous apathy.

Hmm, first, I'd ask people what they think a tag is.

If we have a vision of what we expect tags to be, it'll be easier to approach.

4.2k 8

discussion feature-request

Hmm, I wonder what he means by Thorn.

@DEAD Didn't we have some consensus the last time?

@DamkerngT. Some consensus on what?

As far as I can see, the only agreement here is that something should be done about tags.

@DEAD Our ideas on tags.

7:02 AM

And even some people disagree with that.

@DEAD Þ

@DamkerngT. Where are our ideas on tags?

I can't remember that meta post, but I think you wrote one before we started the retagging event.

@DamkerngT. Oh. That'd make smileys much easier, but what is he referencing? Is the letter called Thorn?

One more flag accepted, i will get a silver batch :)

7:03 AM

@DEAD Yes! Something from older English.

@DamkerngT. Oh. That was momentary consensus about getting rid of grammar.

@Jude Badge. Also yay!

@Jude Congrats in advance! :D

my spellings.... uuurgh

:)

@Jude No, my spelling uuurgh.

Your spellings should try really hard to be uuurgh.

Dam's typos are slightly uuurgh too.

7:06 AM

I have actually put my real details in my profile, in case that HR people see my community involvement

@DEAD That was what my :) was for!

@DEAD You are 100% attentive to the details

@Jude You should actually get 30 rep to vote in the election before it ends.

@Jude Only when I'm awake.

And feeling like nitpicking.

I think I have missed the Last one too :)

Dam be careful.

I might reach your number of chat messages these days.

7:09 AM

@DEAD Congratz in advance

you will be in safe house

user image

Oh wait, hell.

Dam is actually 192k chat messages.

I have a long way to go.

I have only 1 answer provided :(

@DEAD :)

@DEAD Oh! Approaching 200k already! What's your number?

A measly 96k.

@Jude Then add more answers!

You'll get to 100k in no time!

7:26 AM

@DEAD so become one! ;-)

@DEAD pity that not 69k... :P

8:07 AM

@CowperKettle, IMHO,* the* belongs to both of them.

Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ) is a letter in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th, except in Iceland, where it survives. The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fuþark and was called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs (a category of beings in Germanic paganism) in the Scandinavian rune poems. Its reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is Thurisaz. It is pronounced as either a voiceless dental fricative [θ] or the voiced counterpart...

@V.V. Good morning! You mean "during the period of the fermentation"?

0

Q: "During period of fermentation" vs. "during the period of fermentation" - can we use the definite article?

From a book published by Cambridge University Press: In a batch operation, all necessary medium components and the inoculum are added at the beginning and not during period of fermentation. Therefore, their concentrations are not controlled but are allowed to vary as the living cells take the...

8:25 AM

> Maybe here it's okay to either use or omit "the"?

@CowperKettle I think so.

9:14 AM

@CowperKettle, it's left out to avoid repetition. The beginning and (the) period of fermentation.

9:38 AM

@V.V. I see! I did not think of that

2 hours later…

11:28 AM

@V.V. @Cow That doesn't work here. But I see your reasoning!

We need the before period here.

But we don't need to repeat the in Please read the first and second pages.

Period is a noun here, requiring an introductory determiner.

12:10 PM

Because of different prepositions?

12:36 PM

@CowperKettle I like it with the before period. I guess that's a misprint.

1:12 PM

@V.V. I don't know! Sometimes nouns need determiners, and sometimes not. But I don't know the rules that describe when.

Or because of negation. You feel there should be the.

Hmm... At the beginning and not the during period of fermentation. That looks logical, but I think we don't say the during period.

Bad connection.

Thanks, I think they can't be connected because of different prepositions.

Anonymous

2:14 PM

Good morning :-)

Anonymous

@JimReynolds During is a preposition, not an adjective.

@snailplane Morning!

2:31 PM

This answer made me curious to know about the POS of more than in more than 10 people. I however don't agree with the analysis of more than demonstrated in the answer.

3

A: Determiner, Adjective

Rather than trying to split a sentence directly into words, it's often more instructive to break it down into phrases, each of which breaks down further. This lets us see the overall structure better. For example, consider something like "tenth birthday card". Tenth is an adjective, and birthday...

I thought it's just an adverb and that functions as a quantifier.

Anonymous

3:09 PM

@Man_From_India I don't think more than has a part of speech. I think it's two words.

I can't wait for the election to end.

We gotta get some tag cleaning done.

Before my hype goes away

@snailplane Hmph

I guess Man studied prepositions too much.

@snailplane hmmm good point. But how to show it in tree diagram? Do you think the answer says it correctly?

@DEAD it gives a lot of pain to learners :(

And to men from India.

Btw enjoying Monster House at home :-)

@DEAD I'm one of the learners.

Anonymous

Yes, I think more is the head of a determinative phrase in determiner function, with more in this case being the comparative form of the determinative much rather than the degree adverb more.

Anonymous

3:18 PM

Typing from my phone :-)

@snailplane How typical :0)

Good evening!

I'll lurk some.

@snailplane Still faster than Usain

@snailplane aa always :-)

There should be some fast-entry mobile device.

@snailplane any reason to not consider it as a degree adverb? And going in favour of more as a determinitive?

Anonymous

3:21 PM

Good evening, Kettle o' Cowper!

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Morphologically no, but functionally yes – the phrase as a whole functions as a determiner, which suggests it's the determinative rather than the adverb.

Good evening kettle.

Namaste, Man ji!

Anonymous

My bus is fifteen minutes late and I'm cold :-(

@snailplane right. more than ten is a determinitive phrase. I thought ten is the head determiner and more than a quantifier/modifier of the head determinative. Often adverbs modifies determinatives.

@snailplane it's too hot here :( exchange place :-) come here and let me be there :P

Anonymous

3:28 PM

Ah well, the cold is hormetic :-)

@snailplane I'm very sorry! Hugs Snails It's cold here too, only +11C

Anonymous

My phone really didn't want to let me type that word. I don't think my phone believes in hormesis.

I had to look it up

Anonymous

Aww, thanks :-)

(0:

3:29 PM

@CowperKettle same here hehe

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Oh, that's a plausible analysis too. I guess then you'd consider more than a compound.

@snailplane yes.

Anonymous

Now I see why you asked.

Anonymous

So how do we distinguish between these two analyses?

But problem is we can't consider it as an AdvP.

@snailplane tough question. Functionally I don't think there is any difference.

Anonymous

3:34 PM

My bus arrived! O frabjous day!

:-)

Btw got any weight?

Anonymous

Ahahaha, I plead the fifth.

My brain works best when cold.

Anonymous

The snailbus is about to connect to the snailtrain.

I've gained some weight since the past few months.

My BMI is now 24.5.

I've been doing less and less physical activity.

And study more.

Anonymous

3:39 PM

Oh, watch out! The WHO defines 25 as overweight, although many people are better off with lower numbers.

@snailplane got it :-) what if you could take 1000 cal in one shot?

@snailplane Yah, 25 to 29 is overweight IIRC.

BMI isn't really accurate anyway.

It's really general.

No wonder. The way this kid gobbles ice cream :-) this chemical is overweight :-)

For someone like me with heavy, strong bones, BMI is misleading.

@Man_From_India I ate much more ice cream when I used to do a lot of different sports.

It's true, BMI is a bit misleading. But doctors still calculate it. Don't know why!

Anonymous

3:42 PM

@DEAD Right, you can have more body fat than is healthy even in the "healthy" range. And a very small percentage of the population actually manages a healthy body fat percent while in the overweight range.

Anonymous

But usually it errs the other way. It rarely tells people they're overweight when they're not.

@Man_From_India It's a good enough indication

It's not as precise as some people take it to be, but it's a very useful rough estimation

Anonymous

BMI is a pretty good indicator if you combine it with using your eyes.

Anonymous

If you're The Rock, you can tell it by looking, and you don't need BMI :-)

I'm The Pebble.

3:44 PM

Hehe

Anonymous

You can get a DEXA scan instead.

Anonymous

It costs more but gives you a better indication of your body composition.

It's not that serious for me.

I estimate that until Konkur, I'm gonna gain a couple of more kilos.

This is the damnedest exam in history.

Anonymous

What exam?

Konkur.

It's our university entrance exam, which got way more prominent than it should be.

Anonymous

3:48 PM

Oh, I see.

Basically, without Konkur, I have no future.

Anonymous

@DEAD By the way, there's only room for a couple pounds' variation in bone weight.

Anonymous

Your skeleton doesn't make up a large portion of your body weight.

@snailplane There was a time these couple of pounds mattered for me.

Not just bone matter, you get what I'm saying.

Anonymous

But that's why the healthy BMI range is so huge, to allow for these variations :-)

3:50 PM

Word of the evening: ampholyte (looks like acolyte)

But there's always dispute on the edges.

Anonymous

The epidemiological evidence, when you correct for confounders, tends to point toward a BMI around 20–21 being healthiest.

Anonymous

But the risks at 25 aren't much higher.

Anonymous

The go up very rapidly at 30, 35…

@snailplane Mhm

Anonymous

3:53 PM

In my country, we're rapidly approaching 30 as a typical BMI.

@DEAD You can jog and count your carbs.

Not at the same time.

(0:

@snailplane I read the other day that one third of Americans are at least overweight

Anonymous

And if your BMI is 20, you're thinner than 95% of the people around you.

Anonymous

@DEAD 70%. One third is obese.

One big downside to MacDonald's existence.

I suddenly don't regret not having eaten an American hamburger.

Anonymous

3:56 PM

McDonald's is everywhere now, all around the world.

Not in Iran.

Is to come, I've heard.

Anonymous

Almost everywhere. :-)

That's an insane number though.

I wonder how fast Iranians will beat y'all

@Færd Eh? I can't trust anything I hear these days.

@snailplane Are the obese from the comparatively wealthy stratum that can afford to be consuming all the time?

@DEAD Yeah. It would be no surprise though.

Anonymous

4:01 PM

No, the correlation goes the other way. Most Americans can afford to eat all the time

Anonymous

Oops, I hit enter early.

Maybe because they cannot afford to eat healthy food.

@DEAD corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/franchising/…

> McDonald's has responded by posting a "franchise application for Iran" on its website so Iranians can apply to open a restaurant there. But the company is clear that nothing is happening yet.

(from here)

@Færd I get an error.

Iran apparently isn't a country

That means they don't franchise Iranians, which probably means they're not about to come so soon.

@Færd The media has implanted fear of Iran on people's heads for decades. It's still doing it more or less. No surprise shaking hands won't win us anything.

I wonder what the heck our officials were thinking.

We should still be wielding torches.

4:09 PM

To be honest, I'm not really sure what the real problem is.

@Færd Yah, the same ethics they've been murmuring into our ears for years they violate.

We already have corrupt officials to worry about, and the world is still holding grudges against us.

Sigh.

What's the main problem that is hindering trade between us and the West? Their fear of us?

0

Q: English teacher or teacehr of English

What is understood if I say "I'm an English teacher? I teach English or I'm a teacher coming from England?

Anonymous

@DEAD I've had McDonald's before, but I think the last time was at least fifteen years ago.

That typo is super weird.

@snailplane How many people there are like you?

Anonymous

4:12 PM

Umm, I'm somewhat atypical :-)

@Færd Dunno. It's like how citizens are to each other. Open faces and greetings and artificial smiles, but they'll stab you in the back.

Anonymous

Foreign relations is a depressing topic. And something I feel like I have no control over as a citizen.

@DEAD I think part of the problem is that they don't want to do fair trade yet. Misusing the opportunities in their favor.

We're not like China.

@snailplane Mhm, and who's gonna benefit anyway? On our side at least, it's only that the corrupt leaders.

Anonymous

But I like how we have people from across the globe here on ELL :-)

4:16 PM

I like how we discuss religion, politics etc. without jumping on each other.

@DEAD - why do we use HOAc designation for acetic acid? Whence the "HO"?

I wish the whole west was like GreatBigBore.

Anonymous

It breaks down the "us vs. them" mentality when you get people from everywhere together on the internet.

Does it mean the "HO" group (hydrogen + oxygen)?

Yep

4:17 PM

Yay! I just twigged it.

They could've equally said AcOH.

And they sometimes do.

nods

Anonymous

AcOH is more fun to say.

But the oxygen is always imagined to be connected more closely to the acetate.

@snailplane Chem is always fun. Some chemicals are more fun than others.

Anonymous

I like to say dysprosium.

4:19 PM

More obscure elements always intrigue me

Especially lanthanides and actinides.

Some of the transition metals are cryptic too.

Have you seen molybdenum compounds? So frigging cool

Anonymous

I don't think so

I bet I won't find them cool. Let's see.

@Færd The weather is really hot these days.

Rudimentary physics. They'd get hot too.

Hafnium also has really cool complexes.

> "Na acetate trihydrate 0.436 mg/ml, acetic acid up to pH 5.0" (Can I write this if I want to say that the acetic acid is added until the buffer solution has the pH 5.0?)

It sounds really weird.

4:23 PM

D'oh.

Anonymous

We have a high of 24°C here today.

@DEAD Why? Because usually the concentration of the ac.acid would be spelled out?

For one thing, change it to sodium acetate trihydrate.

It's like saying water is dihydrogen O.

@DEAD It is from a table, the authors tried to cram the sentence into a cell

I read that 'cram the sentence into a hell'

Anonymous

4:24 PM

Poor sentence!

They have much wisdom yet they are not wise,
They have much goodness yet they do not well,
(The fools we know have their own paradise,
The wicked also have their proper Hell);

@CowperKettle Then write the chemical formula.

nods

@CowperKettle My paradise is 35 degrees now and I'm melting.

I remember that I spent some time trying to decipher "they do not well"

It means "they do not do good things"

4:27 PM

It's not an auxiliary do.

Anonymous

I can't tell what that means.

That's what I thought at first.

@snailplane You have to, you're the native speaker!

And the linguist

Anonymous

@DEAD So you'd translate that to "They don't do well" in Standard English?

4:28 PM

I guess so.

Anonymous

Still kind of cryptic, at least without context.

Noo..

Or maybe they do [not well] ?

"They don't do well" would mean that they have poor health or something

@snailplane More like 'they don't do good things'

4:28 PM

the source text

> What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms,
And fill their living mouths with dust of death,
And make their habitations in the tombs,
And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath,
And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error
To reach that void of darkness and old terror
Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith?

> They have much wisdom yet they are not wise,
They have much goodness yet they do not well,
(The fools we know have their own paradise,
The wicked also have their proper Hell);
They have much strength but still their doom is stronger,
Much patience but their time endureth longer,
Much valour but life mocks it with some spell.

Are we deliberately distracting from the main question?

@DEAD about the chemical sentence?

Anonymous

Ah, then "They do no good"?

@CowperKettle No, about Scooby Doo

Yes, that's how I read it

4:31 PM

@CowperKettle Hmm, so this is stuff from cells in a table, and not a normal sentence?

@DEAD Yes, it's a compressed sentence

If there's a line between the reported concentration and compound name, I'm good.

> "Sodium acetate trihydrate - 0.436 mg/ml, acetic acid - up to pH 5.0"?

@CowperKettle Is acetic acid up to pH 5.0 contents of a cell?

Anonymous

I just heard someone say "Drive careful!"

4:33 PM

@DEAD The cell describes the composition of the buffer solution

@snailplane Indecisiveness, or too many nonnatives in the current America now?

Probably as you add more HOAc into the buffer solution, its pH changes

Yes.

Go read Henderson-Hasselbach

Also your extra apostrophe is killing me

So they want to say: "We started with this concentration of NAOc: 0.436. We next added HOAc until the overall pH reached 5.0"

Yup

4:35 PM

deapostrophization complete

apostrophes are hormetic

Also desultory moggies

@snailplane Akin to drive safe.

So when a sentence contains apostrophes, it would not kill you if it's apostrophe content is low.

(0:

I'm a shock-sensitive chemical

What would happen to you if shocked? Vaporize?

4:39 PM

Even low contents of it's's are dangerou . . . explodes

Cool.

TNT is like me too.

But it releases lots of gas upon degradation, and that's why that's TNT and I'm dead.

> Sodium acetate trihydrate 0.436 mg/ml and acetic acid to pH 5.0 (maybe this would be more idiomatic)

I can work better with 'up to'.

Although the addition lowers the pH, not increases.

yes, indeed, acid is low pH

Anonymous

4:44 PM

@DEAD Sounded like a native speaker to me :-)

@snailplane Where? WHERE? Freaks out

I mean, of course I did.

Word of the day: blindwormlike

> Yet in his marvellous fancy he must make
Quick wings for Time, and see it fly from us;
This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake,
Wounded and slow and very venomous;
Which creeps blindwormlike round the earth and ocean,
Distilling poison at each painful motion,
And seems condemned to circle ever thus.

That's gotta be a typo.

Google says it's not as common as I expected it to be.

With at least a couple of hyphens.

Although it's a pretty good way to twist word games.

> Like a blindwormlike desultory moggie,
My brain works best in the hormetic cold

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Transcript for

Aug '1629

Language Overflow

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