Language Overflow

Anonymous

18:00

Sure, you can come up with an arbitrarily huge number that no one's ever used before, but is it really an invention?

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani I'm always interested in reading errors!

M.A.Ramezani

Yeah, it's a discovery, not an invention; and I don't think the OP of that question is a native Englisher.

@snailboat I've been studying about catalysts and kinetics lately. That's why I tend to misread stuff.

Anonymous

There are a lot of software patents for "inventions" that I don't think can be reasonably called inventions

Anonymous

@M.A.Ramezani Well, everyone misreads stuff.

Anonymous

And yeah, I have the same experience. If I read heavily about a topic, then I'm more likely to misread a word or phrase visually similar to a word or phrase used in the discussion of that topic as that word.

Anonymous

18:03

Man, somehow I feel like I should've come up with a much simpler way to phrase that...

CopperKettle

@snailboat it's called priming

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Yeah.

Anonymous

Why didn't I say that? :-)

CopperKettle

(0:

M.A.Ramezani

EVEN me.

CopperKettle

18:04

@snailboat You mercifully provided me with a chance to say that!

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Yay!

CopperKettle

It's a beautiful sunset here. There's a fast wind probably in the upper echelons, and you can see translucent whiffs of very high clouds strung along the red sky in lines

M.A.Ramezani

It was a beautiful sunset here. There was a lot of car exhaust smoke, and all I saw was dirty gutter water and people honking at each other to get to the iftar faster.

CopperKettle

@M.A.Ramezani heh

M.A.Ramezani

I mean a while ago.

Hey @Copper is it 22:37 there?

CopperKettle

18:08

@M.A.Ramezani 23:08

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm.

30-min difference.

CopperKettle

Now burst above the city's cold twilight
The piercing whistles and the tower-clocks:
For day is done. Along the frozen docks
The workmen set their ragged shirts aright.

M.A.Ramezani

Oh crud. Poems again. What's with these language site chats?

CopperKettle

(0:

It's Trumbull Stickney, who could've evolved into a very famous poet

If not for a brain tumour

M.A.Ramezani

:O I thought they'd get super-duper-famous if they're not normal humanoid species.

I need to reinstall my human understanding interface (HUI).

CopperKettle

18:14

@M.A.Ramezani The acronym HUI is highly unfelicitous in Russian

M.A.Ramezani

Why?

CopperKettle

"I need to reinstall my HUI" would be especially unfelicitous, since "хyй" is an obscene word for the male organ

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Haha!

M.A.Ramezani

HAHAHAHHA!

CopperKettle

(0:

M.A.Ramezani

18:16

Well I'm a molecule; those things are typical.

Anonymous

@CopperKettle Oh, that's sad!

CopperKettle

@snailboat Yes, a nice poet, I('ve?) quoted his Mnemosyne on ELL once

Anonymous

I think I'd go for the simple past

CopperKettle

because of "once"?

Anonymous

Well, the present perfect would also be possible...

Anonymous

18:18

I don't want to attempt to explain it in my current mental state

M.A.Ramezani

If it were me, I'd've used the perfect aspect thingy.

Anonymous

Maybe I'll try anyway.

Anonymous

I think "I've quoted his Mnemosyne on ELL once" is a statement about how many times you've quoted it

Anonymous

Whereas "I quoted his Mnemosyne on ELL once" is telling us simply that you quoted it before

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm, yeah, I can agree with that.

CopperKettle

18:20

@snailboat Very interesting! The stress is on the number of times.

Why is Arrowfar not allowed here?

M.A.Ramezani

@CopperKettle Dunno. @Dam's choice, I think.

Anonymous

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/24938/…

Anonymous

I see 7 approved and 5 not approved at the moment

M.A.Ramezani

For Allah's sake, I don't wanna go over that discussion again.

Anonymous

But you can count it as 8 because I snuck in without permission

CopperKettle

18:21

(0:

M.A.Ramezani

chat.stackexchange.com/users/148542/harish-s

Who's this? O.O

Anonymous

I can't speak for Damkerng, but he did post messages at the very top of the transcript explaining his intent in making this room

Anonymous

My impression is that this room was made to help keep conflict to a minimum

Anonymous

That's why, in the past, I've suggested we not talk about other users in here

Anonymous

Jun 27 at 13:23, by snailboat

What if we kept that sort of discussion in the other room?

Anonymous

18:24

Like here, where some users were discussing pazzo before he quit the site

Anonymous

I was envisioning this as a sort of conflict-free room

M.A.Ramezani

Hmm, ideal world.

Anonymous

Not necessarily always on-topic, but ideally English would be the main topic of discussion

Anonymous

Damkerng can discuss his vision for the room when he returns

Anonymous

I do think he additional ideas in mind when he made the cabin (which didn't work out, because that one turned into a general chat room, it seems)

Anonymous

18:26

And additional ideas in mind when he made this room―specifically, his semi-blog idea

Anonymous

Jun 18 at 0:24, by Damkerng T.

What's it? If you asked me, I'd say it's sort of half-blog half-chat.

M.A.Ramezani

Heh. Then he shouldn't have given me access.

Anonymous

And I think he's still treating it as a half-blog.

M.A.Ramezani

I would've totally respected his opinion.

Damkerng T.

20:36

sigh -- I shouldn't've tried.

M.A.Ramezani

:(

Damkerng T.

rereading danwaldschmidt.com/2013/10/attitude/get-treated-unfairly ...

"Don’t write out a long explanation of why you are right." -- Absolutely true.

BTW, what was SF Citations about?

M.A.Ramezani

Indeed.

@DamkerngT. What?

Damkerng T.

I clicked on the link snailboat pasted up there.

jessesword.com/sf/view/210

M.A.Ramezani

21:18

@DamkerngT. I think it was about whether it's Sci-Fi or SF.

Damkerng T.

Oh, you mean the abbreviation?

M.A.Ramezani

Yeppie.

Damkerng T.

:D

M.A.Ramezani

O.o I wonder why mods came here too. o.O

Damkerng T.

To observe, I think. That's okay.

M.A.Ramezani

21:25

Hides They can't catch me!

Damkerng T.

I hope the mods will keep it on-topic if they want to chat.

If I were able to edit/delete old messages, I might've allowed more people in here.

M.A.Ramezani

Reloads shotgun Or else!

Damkerng T.

BTW, last night I was reading a little about English modality.

M.A.Ramezani

Can could would may might. . .

I once thought the above was a sentence.

Damkerng T.

Which made me realize that I don't have a clear definition for the term "modality" itself.

And some grammar books count used to and dare as modal verbs too!

M.A.Ramezani

21:28

Me neither. A modal verb is a verb that has a thingy which is another thingy related to other different thingies. . .

@DamkerngT. Dare uses a similar construction, but a modal? O.O

Damkerng T.

Hmm... where is it again? That definition given by Wikipedia.

@M.A.Ramezani Yes! Isn't that interesting?

M.A.Ramezani

Oh no. . .

I've never understood anything Wikipedia has about linguistics.

Damkerng T.

yesterday, by Damkerng T.

> In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:

yesterday, by Damkerng T.

> (1) According to [a set of rules, wishes, beliefs,...] it is [necessary, possible] that [the main proposition] is the case.

M.A.Ramezani

Oh darn. That's obviously a Wikipedia sentence.

Damkerng T.

I think it's an interesting definition.

M.A.Ramezani

21:31

Let me start parsing it.

Damkerng T.

Yes! I copied it from Wikipedia.

M.A.Ramezani

BTW @Dam I was browsing downvote whines, and I encountered some interesting usage of that.

Damkerng T.

It will rain == According to my beliefs, it is possible that rain is the case.

@M.A.Ramezani What question?

M.A.Ramezani

Oh no. . . Do I have to find it now?

Hmm what time is it there @Dam? 6 a.m.?

Damkerng T.

It's all right. You don't have to find it now.

4:36 am

M.A.Ramezani

21:35

Oh? So you're not gonna hibernate?

Damkerng T.

Nope. Not yet.

M.A.Ramezani

It's 2:05 a.m. here hehe. We're a pack of merry night owls.

Damkerng T.

Though the discussion-turned-explantion-turned-argument was a little tiring for me.

@M.A.Ramezani I think most SE users have uncommon sleep cycles. :-)

M.A.Ramezani

@DamkerngT. If you feel interested, I think it was in the programmers.SE's meta, sorting votes, the last page, written by a user with 121 rep, and 30 Qs Per page.

Heck. . . Why don't I find it?

Damkerng T.

:D

M.A.Ramezani

21:39

-9

Q: Would it be possible to get the mods to be a LITTLE slower in closing a question in case it might be answered or edited to be answerable anyway?

I am referring to What icon would you use to denote an XML (not rss) feed available which was closed - and when I (not having seen the warning that asking about icons was off topic at UX too) re-asked it at UX it of course also got closed. It is really amazing how quickly that took place. As i...

Specially the comments in the answer.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! Save the pings for when you really need them. :-)

Damkerng T.

22:31

@M.A.Ramezani Is it about this vs. that? -- I'm not sure which sentence you meant.

M.A.Ramezani

A moment. . .

Damkerng T.

zzz... :P

M.A.Ramezani

22:51

Nah, I was praying again.

@DamkerngT. I challenge you!

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see!

Challenge me to do what?

Oh, to hibernate? :D

M.A.Ramezani

To not hibernate.

Damkerng T.

I see. I'm still here. :D

But I think I will go hibernate within an hour or so.

M.A.Ramezani

Bring it on!

Damkerng T.

The this vs. that question?

M.A.Ramezani

22:54

Whatever, hehe.

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