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New Meta Question

06:38

Q: Flagging the answers posted as comments

While using EEL (and other sites), I noticed that there is a lot of abuse - answers are posted as comments. And usually, it is not done by people with low reputation, which is even worse. I already read about these here and here, but there is nothing really helpful being done to discourage the p...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@NewMetaQuestion I'm not an EEL. I mostly consider myself catfish

Also, like, what the hell

> . . . I noticed that there is a lot of abuse - answers are posted as comments.

Did this all start because of Sam's post?

5 hours later…

It's about English

11:23

Is okay to use : I don't talk gibberish. ( I mean , colloquially, is the use of "talk" natural instead of "speak"?)

ColleenV

11:55

@It'saboutEnglish I misread that - you can say "Don't talk gibberish!" but if you're trying to say "I don't understand you because you're talking gibberish" you would say Sorry, I don't speak "gibberish".

Actually with more context it might be an interesting question for the main site, because now I'm second guessing myself about whether I would use "talk" or "speak" in different sentences, lol.

3 hours later…

userr2684291

15:18

I normally hear talk collocate with gibberish; Google Books Ngram Viewer chart shows that speak gibberish and its variants occur around half as often in writing.

ColleenV

@userr2684291 They have different meanings though which makes an Ngram hard to interpret

userr2684291

But in ColleenV's context, in speak gibberish, gibberish is used as if one were talking about a language.

ColleenV

I keep thinking of that line from the movie Airplane... “Excuse me stewardess, I speak Jive.”

userr2684291

I think that reply might be perceived as somewhat snide.

ColleenV

@userr2684291 It is quite snide

It’s similar to saying Excuse me could you translate that into English for me? But possibly more snarky because it uses “gibberish”

You could ask someone to “translate” very technical jargon into English as a joking way to explain you don’t understand it

Or could say “Sorry, I don’t speak Astro-physicist!”

userr2684291

15:33

If someone told you, or dismissed you with, Don't talk gibberish, you could reply with I'm not talking gibberish if you'd like to be taken seriously. You wouldn't normally say I don't talk gibberish, as that would be seen as overly confident.

I think that's what @It'saboutEnglish wanted to know.

1 hour later…

ColleenV

16:39

@userr2684291 well it’s plausible but hard to know for certain without more context.

2 hours later…

It's about English

18:19

Q: Don't talk gibberish, I don't talk gibberish

Someone replied to a question I asked( on a website). He wrote: Ajjdj skidid sksksko...... So I said: Sorry but I don't talk gibberish. Is the use of "talk gibberish" natural? Can it be: Please don't talk gibberish. Is it a natural alternative for "speak"(of course colloquially).

word-usage

I added it..

2 hours later…

ColleenV

19:51

@SamBC I hope you won’t mind me being nosy, but how did you find ELL?

New Meta Question

20:25

Q: Changes to the Hot Network Questions List

Updating the Hot Network Questions List - now with a bit more network and a little less "hotness"! There are some very nice new features around the HNQ list. I’m not going to repeat the contents of the official post here, but I wanted y’all to be aware of it and to give us a space to discuss any...

discussion featured

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

21:01

@ColleenV Tsk, questions like that should always be multiple choice

@NewMetaQuestion ELL-specific impacts?

Hmm . . .

ColleenV