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AIQ
12:49 AM
@userr2684291 On the contrary, I think "yourself" is just pretentious and nonsensical. It makes no sense. And just because people say it, doesn't mean it makes sense or is correct. People say a lot of things. "And you?" is short for "And how are you?". And of course, after the first question there is always the answer, which is followed by "Yourself?" or something of that sort. I didn't clearly state "I am fine. Thanks!" here because that is just implied. "How are yourself?" - Really?
That is outrageous.
I never heard any native speaker say "And, how are yourself?", because that is crazy. If that is crazy, then it's short form "And, yourself?" is crazy too. No, blasphemous!
 
 
1 hour later…
2:19 AM
@AIQ And yourself? doesn't expand into How are yourself?. I never said that, and there's no reason to assume that's what it expands into. How are you, yourself? would work. When I said people say it, I meant "people often say it"; "it's an established thing people frequently say and/or recognize".
Regarding the issue of it making sense: language is different from some strict, formal, in-all-respects consistent logic. It makes sense, but this characteristic might only hold within the range of possible usages of a particular idiom. Sometimes it's just difficult to say what these rules are. I think, actually, that there's a pretty strict, though exception-ridden, idiosyncratic logic behind everything in language, but whatever.
 
2:39 AM
At any rate, it sounds like you're trying to "herd cats". You're fighting a losing battle.
Oh, and, you could say (I'm good, etc.) How's yourself? as a reply to How are you?. Probably even How is yourself? in some non-standard variants. That (the former) might be bordering on non-standard, but I've heard it a couple of times, so it's probably established in some present-day dialects.
Word of the day: the lay of the land
Kind of intuitive, but whatever, I like it.
 
AIQ
3:00 AM
@userr2684291 I disagree with yourself. I don't know what battle you are referring to. There isn't one. It's often used, yes, but so is How you doin'? But I, for one, would never use that. If I want to be friendly and informal, I would say "How's it going?" or "How is your day going so far?" but never "How is yourself?". And about language being all bendy like a snake, yes, but that doesn't mean I can just make anything up.
 
@AIQ Yeah, so why are you making up that ... And yourself? doesn't work?
 
AIQ
language is different from some strict, formal, in-all-respects consistent logic. - Sure, but that doesn't justify "How is yourself?" to mean "How are you?".
 
Why doesn't it? You just said it yourself, it's all serpentine and slithery and Harry Pottery.
People who reply with ... And yourself? to How are you? aren't making anything up. It's a common expression.
 
AIQ
Because myself think that "How are/is yourself?" is not bendy, but broken. Have you used that term in that way though? It works because people understand what it is supposed to mean. I can say "Wasssup?" and yourself would know what myself mean. But "Wasssup?" is just, really, terrible.
 
@AIQ That's just your opinion. Those are all fine, unremarkable, informal expressions.
Sanctioned by usage.
No one says How are yourself?, though, do they?
 
AIQ
3:16 AM
@userr2684291 Not really. If you are going to mention "usage", then it needs to be in comparison to something. That something in this case is "How are you?" or "And you?", both of which have significantly greater frequency. I have seen only few people use "And yourself?" or any other variation of those. And most of those times, they seem to be trying to be cool.
"And yourself?" is short for "And how are yourself", which is the long version - avoided because it is just sounds awful.The "And yourself?" is logically developed/came to being in line with "And you?" (which is short for "And how are you?") to make it sound more fancy.
I guess ourselves have to agree to disagree on this.
 
There's no such thing as "broken" or "incorrect" language in common usage. People make mistakes alright, but if the majority of people do use a certain expression, it's part of their common language.
 
AIQ
Majority of people say "And you?" and not "And yourself?" - at least that's what I hear all the time.
 
And yourself? is a completely unremarkable reply. Whether it carries any whimsical sort of overtones is a horse of a different color.
I assure you I've heard it plenty of times, and if you ask people whether they think it's strange or odd, they'll answer in the negative.
 
AIQ
ELU is doing what you suggested, snailcar
 
@AIQ I'm not sure why you keep repeating this claim. Because no one would say And how are yourself?, And yourself? can't possibly expand into that.
It's possible that for some people it expands into And how are you (, yourself)(?)? and for others perhaps And what about yourself?, but I leave that judgment for someone else to make.
 
AIQ
3:29 AM
Queen Holds Royal Summit On Harry & Meghan Split youtube.com/watch?v=yi28K9je-6Y
 
english.stackexchange.com/questions/293797/… seems to imply it's what I think it is, but the first expansion might be okay as well.
 
 
3 hours later…
6:50 AM
Word of the day: molar pregnancy
 
 
2 hours later…
8:56 AM
@AIQ There are few things I hate this much in the world
If there is a God, after so many rehashes of these petty 1st world problems, while people are dying out there, he would pretty much have forsaken us.
 
AIQ
9:15 AM
Yes, it's really funny. By that I mean disgusting. Problems of the ultra rich.
 
 
3 hours later…
12:19 PM
 
 
2 hours later…
2:33 PM
Word of the day: ipseity disturbance
 
 
1 hour later…
3:58 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, repeating characters in answer (168): Which is correct, "their name" or "their names"? by user107590 on ell.SE
 
 
2 hours later…
5:37 PM
@It'sOver God: I am busy fixing the edges of the Universe. Did you the Universe was expanding all along? I had no idea. Why didn't you say something?
God: I am busy fixing the edges of the Universe. Did you know the Universe was expanding all along? I had no idea. Why didn't you say something?
 
6:02 PM
@EddieKal Lol, are you gonna do that every time?
 
6:19 PM
I am praying to Jesus this be changed soon. If Jesus doesn't answer me I will try Muhammad
 
We got all the good stuff
Join the dark/light/beige side, and together, we will rule this chat
 
 
2 hours later…
7:58 PM
There are around 20 religions with more than a million followers according to this.
Obama has around 100 million followers on Twitter. Does that count as a religion?
People used to say Thanks, Obama, right? Haha.
Wait a minute, there's also this, the Prince Philip Movement.
 
reminds me of my favorite Louis CK gag
 
Yeah. Kinda funny how everyone tolerates everyone (and that's okay, we shouldn't interfere with what others believe in), but not once do they ask themselves, "Wait a second. So among all these religions mine is the only one that's right?". The absurdity of there being a large number of religions should lead one to an obvious conclusion.
Everyone thinks they're right. Even I think I'm right, haha.
They have other sorts of calendars in other parts of the world, though, so I don't find that performance very funny.
 
8:19 PM
That is because everybody is right. We all live in our own consciousness. Truth is, there is nothing outside of our consciousness. userr is nothing but a figment of my imagination
 
Well, true to an extent. You wouldn't believe in something if you thought it was wrong. However, this thought I just employed might not mean just that, because thinking is a rational process.
 
To put it in a half-facetious way, I don't really believe in reason.
The big question. Free will. ugh
 
Haha.
 
To be honest, I've had something of a frustrating day (with the court system in the US), so to be able to banter with y'all here so lightheartedly does feel unreal (or at least surreal) to me
 
Well, do you think you'd have done everything the same way if we turned the clock back an hour? How about (your age) years?
 
8:26 PM
yes probably
I am on the deterministic side of things
the world is unpredictable yet deterministic
 
Yeah. Thinking about it, that still doesn't invalidate free will...
That's why I'm not even sure what that is.
Particles just go where they go according to these forces and stuff.
You always have an illusion of choosing something, but it's just that. It's an illusion, like hunger.
 
exactly. And every choice has its own causality. "Oh you think I am going to go with the red ball? No, black ball for me." That thinking itself is causality
 
Yep. But even that was predetermined somehow, if we choose to believe that everything is deterministic...
There are those uncertainty theorems and whatnot, but in my opinion it's just things we haven't yet figured out fully (we might never).
 
So science is the answer, you think?
 
The answer to what? Science is a study of the universe. Trying to figure out how it works, in its (science's) own abstract way.
 
8:37 PM
Science requires too much faith, more than I have left. I am not sure science will tell us if the world is deterministic.
 
Well yeah, it might not. But we're getting closer, are we not?
Most of the things on the macro scale have been described as following some rules. You know how everything works, basically. And even on the micro scale. If we had a large enough microscope I'd say we'd discover more.
The proof by induction is left as an exercise to the reader, haha.
 
8:53 PM
@userr2684291 Obama phthagn
@userr2684291 Well, I have a theology exam tomorrow, and I was just reciting a verse from Quran that said "people with faith and those of Jews and Christians and [this other religion I can't anglicize] who do good things will be rewarded in kind in the afterlife".
There's also this thing that who knows if the verses are contradictory, maybe our dogmatic interpretations are.
That's a worm of cans I'm not willing to . . . do wormy things about.
 
@It'sOver Yeah, that's also a nice trick. Pronounce everyone Muslim / Christian / etc. by definition.
 
@EddieKal Say you have a function that oscillates above and below a certain path but in larger scales it looks simply straight. Something like y = 2000 + 0.001sinx. Is it definitely a straight line? No. Does that matter on a big enough scale? No.
That's free will right there for you.
@userr2684291 I didn't get that. You're saying the labels are arbitrary, right?
 
@It'sOver Why the cutoff at y = 2000?
 
For that, we have to establish whether there's absolute truth that no one actually might know or not.
@userr2684291 No it was just an example
 
@It'sOver No, I'm saying it's just a way of bringing people together and making your religion more appealing to everyone.
 
9:02 PM
If you zoom out, it looks sure like y= 2000. But it's not.
@userr2684291 Well, I wasn't around at that time but these kind of arguments lead to weird places.
 
But why not just y = 0.001 * sin(x)?
 
You can't determine intentions. So whether I'm being nice to you as some sort of smart gimmick or I just mean it or whether those two are the same thing, who cares.
I know for a fact that taking it too far isn't helpful. To bang our heads against the wall that we're being selfish when we're being selfless doesn't help anything
@userr2684291 OK jeez you can have it
 
I mean, okay, whatever the intent was, it seems like one of those things Christians say, "We all really believe in the same god.". Except one of these gods says you can't eat cow meat, the other one says you can't eat pork. The third one lets you eat whatever you want.
So I think there is a conflict. I know the example is a little stupid, but it's superficial things like that that people latch on quickly and prove their loyalty to their tribe with.
Then you also have these polytheistic religions... etc. There is obviously a conflict.
And not everyone can be right. But everyone thinks their ways are right.
 
@userr2684291 agree
@userr2684291 Of course, doesn't mean there wasn't an origin
And whether that origin relates to some supernatural entity is another matter.
It actually doesn't prove it either. Everything is confusing.
 
Right. But do you think that supernatural entity would dictate to one group of people what they're supposed to eat, and something else to another?
 
9:15 PM
I think you missed my point
The origin would say one thing, it's what people derived from it and added to that makes the difference
Again, if an origin is proven
The original thing wouldn't call Earth flat or chemtrails dangerous
 
@It'sOver You think some kind of "origin" spoke to people in their languages?
 
BTW I still don't understand their line of reasoning for flat Earth. Maybe it was the case of an ego, not really a line of thought from the Bible
1 min ago, by It's Over
Again, if an origin is proven
If you need to prove your presuppositions for a religious argument, then I guess you won't have any
There's already like four or five things we need to prove before we get to simple practical matter
 
I'm of the belief that the simplest solution is the best here, is all.
There's a pattern throughout history of assigning to preternatural that which is as yet unexplained, haha.
 
That there is an origin, and that this origin is from a supernatural force, and that that supernatural force is at least one of those three omni-s (and BTW, that's a concept put forward by the Greek and expanded and explained by Muslims and Christians, although there have been enough rebuttals of it anyway in both religions at least AFAIK)
I lost me
 
AIQ
Morning.
 
9:22 PM
What I do know is that, to be fair, often the most outrageous beliefs of a group in any religion are handpicked and mocked. I'm not a particularly religious person myself, but I don't throw it out either.
@AIQ Morning!
 
The goalposts have been shifting, is what I'm saying. Right now we're at "who lit the match for the big bang" or something like that.
 
When you read a text, be it of a Hindu, Islamic, Christian etc. POV, they are on to something and it's an appeal to modernity that we're sometimes too ignorant of the truth in the opinions of the previous generations.
I mean, sure, it changes nothing. Flat Earths and the discrepancies in the teachings are still "wrong".
@userr2684291 Well this conversation has been unfocused general remarks, no?
We're not debating anything specific
 
@It'sOver Interesting example. I was thinking of the butterfly effect in a multi pendulum system. Doesn't the butterfly effect tell us every little bit adds up however small it it? If we assume the world is a chaotic system with absolute causality, like a double pendulum, it is 100% deterministic
 
@EddieKal I guess that depends on how you looked at the line. If we expected it to be constant and it ended up being linear.
 
@It'sOver Well, I was just saying how absurd the goalpost moving is in today's religions.
By we I meant today's state of religions.
 
9:29 PM
And I was just saying
I dunno what I was saying
But I was saying something
 
I don't think you need any sort of philosophy to see that. Maybe I'm wrong.
 
shrug it was just small-ish medium talk
I guess, for the most part and for most people, in the modern world, religions, political affiliations and football teams are nothing more than sides to pick.
In a conversation of whats, whys get forgotten.
 
True. I was waiting for the store to open the other day, and some guy started preaching some BS to me. It was actually nice because I had 30 mins to kill.
 
That was a cool remark. I'm gonna attribute it to Einstein and use it everywhere.
@userr2684291 Heh, don't get me started on that
I take the bus back home from the university and there's a lot of people with enough sad stories to keep you busy all day
 
When I started asking him questions, he said "God doesn't care about that," so I said "Well I do," and then he told me being rational is wrong, and that I should be more spiritual because that's the most important type of intelligence.
 
9:35 PM
And I'm often stuck between showing concern and checking outside if it's my stop already
 
@It'sOver I suggest investing in large headphones.
 
Way ahead of ya
I'm saving for one
 
@It'sOver But the problem is "who is doing the looking?" "it looks like y=2000 to whom?" You'd have to have a subjective entity to be able to say "it looks like". This comes down to the old "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound? Does it even happen?"
 
@userr2684291 To me, whenever someone starts a conversation like that, whether or not I agree with them, I see that I have given some things some thought that they seem not to have given any, so there's simultaneously a lot that I can and may want to say and that I don't want to spend the next 20 minutes discussing things with a total stranger, so it gets weird and awkward for me and I just mostly confirm what they say and move along.
@EddieKal Do we really need to know what the path looks like to make our decisions?
 
@It'sOver You can just ask questions and help them paint themselves into a corner.
 
9:42 PM
We're going to make it oscillate very slightly back or forth. What's "bound" to happen will, and we'd have to cope with it
@userr2684291 I'm not that combative IRL; I dunno if I come off like that here
I have a friend who is, and he's not any happier for it
 
Not sure what's "combative" about asking questions. That's how I teach my younger brother math.
 
It's not my job to correct the beliefs of every random person, only if I feel they're willing to listen. And then I wouldn't be using rhetoric, just talking till my jaw drops off
Well, the paint part.
I don't wanna see it happen.
 
They paint themselves into a corner.
I actually just now realized what that literally means.
 
Maybe, if they were like this one guy that I met at the transplant ward, that went "Trump"ing their opinions for three bloody hours and wouldn't shut up, then I would. But someone like that would rather yell and jump around like a monkey than let some light be shed on their idiotic beliefs.
Why is to "Trump" opinions not a new sense of the verb already, BTW. It sounds so fitting.
To spew enough garbage that the people's head spin and the lies warp themselves into a truth.
 
AIQ
@It'sOver When you say "It's not my job to correct the beliefs of every random person" what do you mean by "correct the beliefs"?
 
9:50 PM
@It'sOver By "Trump" do you mean just being loud and stupid?
 
@AIQ I mean if I meet someone random that wanted to explain to me how the government is poisoning kids by vaccinating them, I wouldn't show much of a reaction unless I know they're willing to listen.
@userr2684291 No, repeating a lie so often and with such intensity that truth itself gets out of the building
 
@It'sOver Wait, is anti-vaccination a thing in Iran too?
 
I mean, there doesn't seem to be a verb for it and we're in dire need of a way to express it adequately without being overly verbose or eloquent
 
I've never met such people here. That one guy I mentioned above was just some old guy selling some... Christian magazine or whatever.
 
@EddieKal Well, I guess a superstitious crowd will object to what they don't understand in a similar fashion, regardless of religion, region, or historical era.
We had this awesome PM, so awesome that Lincoln or any other humanist in history would envy him, called Amir Kabir. He reinforced vaccination against smallbox back at 1848 (Google). Back then, anti-vaxxers refrained, claiming they insert genies into the blood that possess the kid.
He imposed heavy fines for people that refrained, 5 tomans. Which was a lot back then, I think. People—often so poor they would only have seen one meal a day their whole life—still paid the fine and didn't vaccinate.
It is said that he then headed to a desert and cried for a day.
 
10:01 PM
Did things change from there?
 
Thanks to the efforts of famous colleges and scholars in Iran in the early twentieth century, the anti-vaccination superstitions almost vanished completely
 
I am reading Amir Kabir's wiki page. Very enlightening.
 
During my childhood, I never heard of any anti-vaxxers, and both my parents and our lives are kinda integrated into the healthcare system here.
When I was a teen, anti-vaxxers were cautionary tales of stupid people of an era blocking progress, in conservative families.
 
I don't see anything wrong with that. Not everyone has enough time to verify everything.
 
Now, with the advent of social media, and more and more Iranians spending their time there, especially older people, the anti-vaccination bullshit spread by paranoid westerners is gaining some following. I don't have the figures to know if it's serious or not, but I hear from anti-vaxxers every now and then these days.
 
10:05 PM
@It'sOver That is what I thought. I thought anti-vaccination would be an extremely minority concern in most countries. I thought only in the US can you find throngs of rednecks attacking vaccination as a transgression against their bodies.
 
@It'sOver "smallbox" LOL
 
We gotta make them boxes nice and big
 
They're not terribly consistent with their arguments, but I guess the most common argument is "vaccines have increased infertility rates"
 
@EddieKal Are we really talking about throngs?
Like, what percentage of people in the US are we talking here?
 
Good question. Let me find out
 
AIQ
10:08 PM
People who don't clean the snow or black ice from the sidewalk around their house are complete fucking garbage.
 
What about apartments
 
@EddieKal Never mind, I found it myself. You're not wrong, damn.
 
I mean, I do produce toxic organic waste
 
AIQ
that too
 
Well, don't get me wrong. It's kind of inside knowledge what I'm saying, and I don't think the anti-vaccination crowd here is of any significance.
But here, people are under pressure, and when people are stressed and afraid, they become superstitious.
 
AIQ
10:11 PM
I am breaking down a few doors today. Bloody lazy fuckers.
 
Now now, language
"B-word L-word F-words!"
 
You fat baby lover!
 
AIQ
Sorry ...
 
AIQ
10:28 PM
@It'sOver How is the situation there?
 
@AIQ What situation?
 
AIQ
I mean with the government and the people. The plane crash or bombing. That stuff.
 
Well, people are sad and . . . that's about it.
Nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Propaganda on TV, social and economical distress for everyone but the wealthy 1 percent, some funny squirrelhead abroad being an arsehole
Same old same old.
 
AIQ
So no one is trying to over throw the perpetrator. hmmmm ...
 
I need to study for an exam. Ciao
@AIQ Well, the US govt. accidentally shot a plane full of Iranians back then and nothing happened to them. Why would Iranian govt. accidentally shooting a plane full of Iranians cause anything to happen?
 
AIQ
10:36 PM
O.o
 
AIQ
10:59 PM
Is there a better way to say this: A worker with twelve 20-hour workweeks would ...
 
AIQ
11:19 PM
For the purposes of vs for the purpose of - reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/azx7ba/…
Is that explanation correct?
 

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