Language Overflow

Lawrence

00:00

@snailplane I've been wondering about this for a little while - keeping also in mind the Great Tagging Debate (TM) that seems to have raged on Learners, how about setting as a community norm the expectation (not just privilege) that those in the know actively edit the list of tags in questions? By 'those in the know', I mean people who speak English fluently, and have some idea of the set of tags available on this site.

Anonymous

@Lawrence It's a great idea, but everyone here is volunteering their time, and there's an awful lot of questions, so I'm not surprised to see some questions never get retagged. It'd be great if we could retag every new question, though. We don't have that many questions per day, so if everyone helped out, we could do 100% of them.

Damkerng T.

As for me, I just wonder how many 'those in the know' we do really have.

(BTW, feel free to count me out, because I don't really know.)

Anonymous

We do unfortunately get some tags that don't make any sense to me on this site.

Anonymous

We also have a bit of a mish-mash of terms from different theoretical frameworks, incompatible yet side-by-side on our site.

Lawrence

@snailplane Oh, I wasn't referring to doing it wholesale (maybe I shouldn't have referenced the GTD). It's more of retagging as people encounter questions they click through to read.

Anonymous

00:03

@Lawrence Ahh, yes, I see :-)

Damkerng T.

I think we need some sort of a compendium, or else we will fall back into the same old situation.

Anonymous

Still, we could retag every new question each day.

ColleenV

I would like to see us get the tag descriptions fixed first

then worry about tagging

if we have clear descriptions, we will have more folks comfortable with adding a tag

especially if we can make a few strategic synonyms

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's somewhat by design that our tags are still the Wild West of tagdom. It's supposed to be a little chaotic, since just about anyone can create a new tag, and even at this point we haven't necessarily settled on our tagging conventions.

Anonymous

@ColleenV That's a great idea :-)

ColleenV

00:04

Learners may not all be able to use the descriptions

but more fluent speakers should

I also think that the exercise of writing the description will reveal the weaker tags

Anonymous

It can be a real challenge to write things simply, using simple words.

Damkerng T.

Somehow something reminds me of the list that StoneyB posted recently...

Anonymous

The reason linguists have lots of technical terms is that it lets you be precise and concise at the same time.

Anonymous

Take away those terms and try to be equally precise without going on at length.

Anonymous

Well, you've got to keep at least some of the terms :-)

Anonymous

00:07

But maybe don't use them all in one sentence.

ColleenV

@snailplane Not just linguists - a lot of disciplines face the same challenge

It's a tightrope act to not be too wordy and vague while still being accessible.

Damkerng T.

FWIW

Aug 27 at 21:12, by Damkerng T.

Grammatical terminology recommended by the LAGB for use in schools

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Hmm... Maybe not :-(

Damkerng T.

Aww...

Anonymous

A lot of it seems good.

Damkerng T.

00:09

Anyway, it's quite close to my idea of the "compendium" for our tags. Just fix the context but keep the format.

Anonymous

But for example, look up attributive and it sends you to the adjective entry.

Anonymous

There's an adverbial entry but no adjunct entry.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Tag synonyms!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. But attributive isn't a synonym for adjective.

Anonymous

And they don't explain how other things besides adjectives can function attributively.

Anonymous

00:12

They went with specifier, which is interesting.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane I remember that in their rationale (or whatever they call it), they had to choose. It's a losing game no matter how we look at it, considering that we have so many sets of terminologies for English grammar.

@snailplane nods

Anonymous

Yes, that's true :-(

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. A lot of this is good, though.

Anonymous

They distinguish matrix clause from main clause.

Anonymous

I suppose we should distinguish them.

Anonymous

00:18

They point out that the term "double negative" is misleading.

Anonymous

(Wish we could get rid of that tag on ELL.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I changed my mind, this is better than I remember :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Yay!

@snailplane Maybe because Bas Aarts is in the committee, too. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. And Payne!

Damkerng T.

Yes!

Man_From_India

00:22

Why did my icon get a new paint automatically? :O

Anonymous

@Man_From_India It's a bug.

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I thought you selected a new picture!

Anonymous

Well, P. E. Dant has just done away with my new tag for biased questions.

Man_From_India

@snailplane I keep saying it repeatedly before going to bed - "good night sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite" but still those bugs bit :(

Damkerng T.

Off-topic: Wow, compiling code that wasn't designed for Windows on Windows is not fun! :(

Anonymous

00:27

I'm considering rolling that edit back.

Anonymous

I rather liked my new tag. :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane :D

Anonymous

Thoughts?

Damkerng T.

@Man_From_India I used to use this sometimes. vcharkarn.com/uploads/191/191402.jpg (I don't know what I should call it in English.)

Man_From_India

@DamkerngT. haha. we normally call it mosquito coils. Don't use grammatical brain to decipher that term :P

Damkerng T.

00:30

@snailplane I wonder why he removed the tag. Maybe it was before you added the description to the tag.

@Man_From_India :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. No, it was after.

Anonymous

I put it back. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... interesting. -- Okay! :D

I think I need to get some rest after a long night of hacking. See you later, everyone!

Anonymous

Have a good night!

Damkerng T.

Thanks!

Anonymous

00:32

I'll do some more cat herding later myself.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Have fun! :D

Man_From_India

good night :-)

@snailplane u have cat also?

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Oh, it's an idiom.

Man_From_India

:O oh interesting

Anonymous

→ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herding_cats

Man_From_India

00:35

oh got it :-) do u have dogs btw?

Anonymous

ELL is made up of a bunch of people who, quite rightly, have their own opinions about how things Should Be Done.

Anonymous

I do not. I have a bit of a phobia of dogs.

Anonymous

I was attacked by a dog when I was little.

Man_From_India

i love dogs.

Anonymous

Dogs are great, but I'm not a dog person myself.

Anonymous

00:36

As an adult, I've managed to train myself to be around dogs, though :-)

Anonymous

They still terrify me, but I ignore my initial reaction.

Anonymous

I mean, unless they bark at me or try to make me run away.

Man_From_India

@snailplane it happened with one of my friends. It was a street dog, a little insane. One night in our hostel it attacked my friend. We were just in.I mean in college.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India I hope it didn't have rabies!

Man_From_India

But that guy was well built, and the dog bite his arm and don't let of of it easily. so my friend thrashed it repetedly on ground and almost killed it :D

Anonymous

00:38

Yikes!

Anonymous

This is a violent story.

Man_From_India

Young hostel guys have all sort of stories.

Anonymous

Your friend is okay, though? I'm glad if so.

Man_From_India

HIs dad was a doctor and instructed him immediately to go to hospital and get treated.

he is now enjoying Australian beaches comfortably :D

Anonymous

Oh, phew :-)

Man_From_India

00:40

the hospital was far from our hostel. Our hostel was in a rural area, far from city.

Anonymous

ELL chat is a place to discuss all my fears.

Anonymous

Heights, dogs.

Man_From_India

I am kind of a dog person :)

Anonymous

Don't tell me you're a height person too.

Man_From_India

hehe

no

Anonymous

00:42

I like places that are horizontal.

Anonymous

None of that vertical nonsense.

2

Man_From_India

i'm a little nervous of heights though.

Anonymous

Well, getting hit with a planet can hurt.

Man_From_India

but i still scale heights.

Anonymous

@Man_From_India You do rock climbing?

Man_From_India

00:44

talking about dogs, I can easily make friends with all sorts of dogs easily.

@snailplane nope :(

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Neat :-)

Anonymous

You're the dog whisperer.

Anonymous

oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/whisperer

Man_From_India

Interestingly I can't make friends with a stranger, but I can with an unknown dog immediately :D

Anonymous

@Man_From_India Cats all like me.

Anonymous

00:45

I don't know why.

Anonymous

I think dogs tend to dislike me, though.

Man_From_India

that day someone was saying similar thing. The daughter of my dad's friend.

StoneyB

@CowperKettle Blackberry stalks grow up and droop over, so their tips touch the ground again. New roots may develop from at the tip and produce a new stalk, so the plant grows in a series of 'hoops'.

2

Man_From_India

See you guys. It's time to be up again :(

Anonymous

Talk to you later, @Man_From_India!

Man_From_India

00:48

Oh btw before I go let me tell you something important.

that day I saw something interesting on net. It's kind of milk shake that contains almost 1000 cal. If you drink, you see, in one short you can get 1000

Anonymous

That's kind of crazy.

Man_From_India

u can actually make it at your kitchen

Anonymous

I make protein shakes with about 225 calories, and they're very filling.

Man_From_India

it says take 10 bananas, 1 full cup of dates, two coconut water. mix them in a mixer. And sip it.

Anonymous

Ten bananas?

Man_From_India

00:51

u can add up things according to your tastes.

Sipping things are easier than eating.

Anonymous

Yes, I think it's easier to get a lot of calories by drinking than eating.

Man_From_India

I mean you probably can't eat 5 bananas at a time, but you can drink it easily.

give it a try, it might be helpful for you.

Anonymous

01:09

@Man_From_India You don't have to worry about my weight, it's okay :-)

Man_From_India

I worry about mine :D so much that I don't get time to worry anything else :P

Anonymous

Do you have a good workout regimen?

Man_From_India

i started jogging a little bit again.

Lawrence

@snailplane Round two! :)

Lawrence

03:36

21

A: Why can't I use a regular modal verb here?

This question appears to derive from the 'Entry Test' at the beginning of Diana Hopkins with Pauline Cullen, Cambridge Grammar for IELTS, 2007, and the answer from the 'Key' on page 223. You are invited to read Unit 14 for an explanation of the answer. If you do so you will find these among the '...

Lawrence

03:50

@DamkerngT. After reading StonyB's answer above (which I agree with and up-voted), I can understand why you think they use a different English in tests. It would seem that these 'tests' mistake typical for canonical. Just because one way of saying things is more common than another doesn't make the less common phrasing incorrect. Certain contexts occur less frequently than others in a given community. ...

... E.g. commands aren't as common as requests in an egalitarian society. But they do occur, and the forms of speech idiomatic to commands are as valid as those idiomatic to requests. To say that the former is uncommon is fine, but it would be incorrect to say it's wrong.

Anonymous

The description in the blockquote doesn't look too bad, but I agree, I don't like the way it's been applied in the test.

Anonymous

By the way, I'm surprised the test doesn't use a hedgier term like best rather than correct (implying the other choices are wrong).

Lawrence

04:09

@snailplane I suppose that hedging opens the test to requests for marks / grades to be revised upwards. Maybe they'll improve their questions in future tests. But this isn't exclusive to English. Even elementary school / junior school maths tests are sometimes less than rigorous. ...

... E.g. a question displays two squares, three triangles and three non-square rectangles, then asks the student to select all the "rectangles". Do the students pick all the non-triangles (5 instances), or try to second-guess the teacher and pick just the non-square rectangles (3 instances)?

(That was a rhetorical question.)

I'm heading off now. Bye!

Anonymous

05:11

3

Q: Do native speakers use "whatever" in place of "what"?

I have heard phrases like the following in animations: Whatever happened to Naruto? Oh god, whatever happens now? Whatever is the matter? Why what is being replaced by whatever in these phrases?

Anonymous

Should this really be closed?

Anonymous

It would help to see their research effort, but the question is answerable without it.

Anonymous

And I don't think it's particularly easy to look up.

Færd

05:34

I guess you already reopened it.

Anonymous

No, I haven't.

Anonymous

But it hasn't been closed yet. It has four votes.

Anonymous

I'm wondering if we should really close it for a lack of research effort. And the lack is certainly there.

Anonymous

Or the there is certainly lacking. Whichever.

Færd

It can be easily edited.

I can do it after my nap.

CowperKettle

05:38

@StoneyB Thank you! I never noticed that. To me, all bushes are just bushes. (0:

Færd

05:52

Well, the OP just accepted an answer, so there's less call for an edit now.

Stretches lazy tendons

.

Is there an idiom or proverb which features gun recoil and is about when you want to harm someone else but end up hurting yourself?

backfire:

> ... Of schemes, plans, etc., "to affect the initiator rather than the intended object" it is attested from 1912, a figurative use from the accidental back-firing of firearms.

It's not about gun recoil, but is pretty close to what I wanted.

Anonymous

06:41

@Færd Backfire is the word that came to mind. Recoil itself can have that meaning, but it's less common.

Anonymous

If you have a reason to want to phrase it that way, though, it's possible.

Anonymous

07:02

Do you all think ELL's going to kill me if I make a tag as technical sounding as pp-attachment-ambiguity? I think I made it before :-)

Anonymous

I don't know a non-technical term. I guess we could just use the general term ambiguity and avoid categorizing this kind of question.

Anonymous

Oh, hey! There's an attachment-ambiguity tag. It seems to exist still.

Anonymous

But it's been more or less abandoned. Maybe we should fold it into ambiguity.

Damkerng T.

@snailplane We have a similar idiom in Thai, but we use crabs instead of cats (^_^)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Ooh, very nice :-)

Damkerng T.

07:10

(Lit., "put crabs in a basket" :-)

Anonymous

In English, we have the crab mentality or a bucket of crabs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

Anonymous

Somehow I imagine crabs liking a basket more than a bucket, but I suppose they wouldn't like either one very much.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... it doesn't have the sense of "if I can't have it, neither can you" like in English.

Anonymous

I used to keep pet crabs.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. If it did, it wouldn't be similar to cat herding! :-)

Anonymous

07:12

You know, snail herding is equally difficult.

Anonymous

Have you ever seen a snail race?

Anonymous

Not Turbo, but an actual snail race.

Anonymous

You line up all the snails, and the first one to crawl an entire foot in the right direction wins.

Anonymous

Some of them go into their shells and sleep.

Anonymous

Some of them crawl in random directions. Or circles.

Anonymous

07:13

Some of them crawl on top of the others. And then go to sleep :-)

Anonymous

If you're lucky, one of them will crawl toward the finish line and win the race!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane That would be quite a hassle!

(Sorry, my browser just crashed again!)

Anonymous

Oh no!

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Hehe! :D

@snailplane Like in a real race, and maybe people bet on them?

Anonymous

Oh, well, I don't know about betting.

Anonymous

07:17

It tends to be small children who race snails, you see.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... I see! It must be a cute sort of race, then. :D

@Lawrence Another great answer by StoneyB! :D

I think Use 'between' only when we have two things (and 'among', otherwise) is still common among these tests, too.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's sad.

Damkerng T.

nods

@snailplane We have only 130 questions tagged with [ambiguity] at the moment. So I think it should be okay.

*Ah, I forgot to add tag:, but that's okay! :D

Anonymous

Darn, I really need to proofread my comments before I hit enter.

Anonymous

This is an ongoing problem with me. :-)

Anonymous

07:31

I must admit I'm grateful for my edit button.

Damkerng T.

I guess the problem is heavier with me. :D

Anonymous

Well, I think it'll be okay as long as I go back and find my blunders. Well, find them and fix them :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailplane Ooh, before everyone notices them! :D

Anonymous

Well, mistakes are fine.

Anonymous

As long as I'm not practicing my mistakes until I'm really good at making them, that is :-)

Damkerng T.

07:34

If Mistake is a language, I must be somewhat fluent in it already. :D

Anonymous

It must have multiple mutually unintelligible varieties!

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Avicenna

07:55

@DEAD @Færd @Cardinal type this "رژیم اشغالگر اسرائیل" in google translate and see the translation into English! O.o

Then change the name of Israel to whatever country you like even U.S. o.O

I found out who google realy serves!

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna I don't know what they use in their engine, but it may be just a bad translation, like many other unfortunate cases.

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. not about this one. Believe me.

Damkerng T.

But you can tell them (I think they allow us to "teach" the engine) about the correct translation, I think.

I remember that @DEAD does this sometimes.

Avicenna

Doesn't it surprise you that it translates the phrase all correctly with the name of whatever country you put there except occupant Israel!

It surprises me.

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna Maybe some users taught it (the engine) the wrong translation.

Avicenna

08:08

@DamkerngT. let's ask them and see what happens.

@DamkerngT. Then let's teach the engine the truth!

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna Yeah! Yay! :D

If you use it via your browser, there should be the button "Suggest an edit" somewhere on the right.

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. How long does it change before they change it?

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna I don't know how exactly this works.

But I guess it has to take input from all users (who took time to suggest correct translations) into account.

So maybe not immediately.

Avicenna

08:32

@DamkerngT. OK. I am patient enough.

Oh, look at my mistake. *it take before they change it.

Damkerng T.

Don't worry too much. It's not easy to type anything perfectly in any language.

Avicenna

Oh, google users are the translaters?

So it cannot be authentic this way.

I should admit I didn't know it.

I thought they used a good databas. And they used some experienced translators and/or linguists as a source.

Damkerng T.

I think they used some data they had to build their engines, but they know their data can't cover all the cases (even all the sentences in Google Books combined wouldn't be enough to cover the English language), so they allow the users to add more translations to their engine.

@Avicenna They must initialize their engine that way.

Partly, this is because translation and language understanding is a very hard problem.

Though, translating everyday speech is considered a solved problem. Or at least mostly solved.

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. But this way I can suggest like everything for a word or phrase in whatever language I know. And as there is no authentic people to decide it can be so taste based.

Rather than language science based.

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna I think you can suggest virtually anything.

I don't know if they have a screening process, but I think it's more efficient to just let the engine learn by itself.

@Avicenna In this kind of technology, data is king.

No rules like in our grammar books. Just more data.

Avicenna

08:47

@DamkerngT. If I don't like something and it's the same with the other users, so we can easily change it. It's not right at all.

Damkerng T.

Nothing is perfect, I suppose. :D

It's very hard to build a perfect machine!

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. This is awful not just imperfect.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

I understand why you feel that way.

Only if I were Google! :P

Avicenna

Because I am a translator and I believe in being an honest translator --> don't include your own feeling in your translation. Don't translatet based on personal preferences.

CowperKettle

09:20

@StoneyB I wonder if it could be artificial hoops. "Plant hoops are designed for specific applications, enabling you to choose the flower hoop that will best support your particular plants. The ends of the rings or hoops are shaped so as to provide vertical bracing and support for the ring when it is loaded with plant growth."

Cardinal

09:47

@Avicenna I agree with our sage Robot

Damkerng T.

10:13

Sage mode! (Toad sage) :P

Lawrence

@Færd Shoot oneself in the foot.

Damkerng T.

Word of the Day: taxidermy

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. :-)

> These days I find Leo. Cohen very cool and nice.

Does this sentence is correct?

Damkerng T.

Leo Cohen? Like a person?

Lawrence

@snailplane You're a mod, and well-liked too, so you're safe on that count :) . But do you want the tag to be selected by those asking questions, or by linguists that happen by later? I doubt that I'd think of that tag when composing or reviewing a question.

Cardinal

10:19

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work has explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received a Princess of Asturias Awards for literature. The critic Bruce Eder assessed Cohen's overall career in popular music by asserting that...

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal I think it's fine, then.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. Interestingly, lobsters, another kind of crustacean, are caught using lobster pots.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence We don't really have lobsters over here. (I think all of them are imported.)

But crabs in a basket never stay still. :P

Cardinal

Crab is an animal and Carp is a fish, awo, That sounds confusing !

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal Hehe!

Lawrence

10:22

@snailplane How long do people allow for these snail races?

Damkerng T.

I wonder if English speakers will understand spitting into the sky. It's a common phrase in (I think) both Chinese languages and Thai.

Cardinal

14

Q: Where did the "trick" in the phrase "turning tricks" come from?

Or in other words, can anyone make clear the etymology and the history behind the coinage of the word trick in the phrase turning tricks? (Why am I interested you may ask? Well, turning tricks is a phrase with kind of a history for me. For a long time I didn't know what it meant -- in one emba...

meaning etymology

Cohen says:

> I am turning tricks.
> I am getting Fixed.
> I am back on Bougi Street.

My great up-vote for that question.

Damkerng T.

I don't know Bougi Street.

(I guess that was a song, perhaps.)

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. I guess it might be somewhere in New York; However, it could be a chimerical street.

Lawrence

@snailplane Hmm, "We'll share this between/among the 3 of us" "We'll share the work between/among the 3 of us" "We'll share the cake between/among the 3 of us" "This is just between/among you, me and Dam." I think only the last is idiomatic for between.

@snailplane Infinite edits. A wonderful privilege. But don't edit them if they affect messages written afterwards.

@Avicenna I copied that into google translate, and it gave me "Israeli" (just one word). Do you get something different?

I don't know Persian (that's what google translate recognised the text as), so I can't try the other countries.

Færd

10:41

@Lawrence Thanks. But that doesn't connote the intention of harming another in the act.

@snailplane Thanks.

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. :-)

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal :D

Færd

Verb phrase ellipsis

In linguistics, verb phrase ellipsis (VP-ellipsis or VPE) is an elliptical construction in which a non-finite verb phrase has been left out (elided), e.g. She will sell sea shells, and he will sell sea shells too. VP-ellipsis is a well-studied kind of ellipsis, particularly with regard to its occurrence in English, although certain types can be found in other languages as well. == Features of verb phrase ellipsis in English == In the types of VP-ellipsis considered here, which are features of English grammar, the elided VP must be a non-finite VP; it cannot be a finite VP. Further, the ellipsis...

Strange thing that there's no mention of transatlantic differences there. ^
Do we have a nice Q&A on the site or on ELU to explain the difference? I think there are a few.

Damkerng T.

It's a bit like an inside joke from Naruto, BTW. @Cardinal

Cardinal

I didn't watch that series

Damkerng T.

10:48

@Færd I can't think of any difference on the two sides of the pond that's about ellipsis at the moment. Do you have some examples in mind?

Færd

> A: Pay me back.

> B: I have. / I have done.

Cardinal

What ellipsis does exist in that example, " She will sell sea shells, and he will sell sea shells too. "?

Damkerng T.

@Cardinal The example is meant to say She will sell sea shells, and he will ~~sell sea shells~~ too.

Cardinal

@DamkerngT. nods

Damkerng T.

Maybe the layout varies from one browser to another.

@Færd Personally, I have done sounds a bit odd (to me), but maybe I was just unable to think of a good context.

Færd

10:52

in English Language & Usage, May 25 at 4:07, by tchrist

Did you know that using do for do so is peculiarly British?

Damkerng T.

Thanks! -- checking it out...

Cardinal

I have 4 verbs to master: Rise, Arise, Arouse, Rouse :D

See you

Færd

Add raise too.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I can't find I have (done) in the transcript, after a couple of jumps. Maybe later.

@Cardinal o/

Færd

@DamkerngT. It's not about have.

> Do you think this machine will break down?

> It may well do / do so.

The first one is supposedly British.

Damkerng T.

10:56

That's a bit different. -- Hmm... I thought tchrist meant the other way around.

Ah, you corrected it. Yes.

I can imagine an American using the first, but I'm not American! :P

(Or a Brit using the latter, but I'm not an Englishman either! :P)

Færd

I wanted to find a full enclosure of the matter by an authority, and couldn't so far.

Damkerng T.

BTW, I find Dublin accents are quite charming. :D

Færd

Yeah? I should check it out.

Damkerng T.

I think they tend to raise the pitch at the end of each utterance in an interesting way. :D

Færd

There are so many accents. Almost any new one sounds interesting to me.

Those that are new to me, obviously.

Avicenna

11:26

@Lawrence Type these too: "رژیم لشغالگر آمریکا"
"رژیم اشغالگر زنجان"

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. At a guess, spitting into the sky means about the same thing as pissing into the wind?

Avicenna

@Lawrence The first one you tried was The occupying regime of Israel = رژیم اشغالگر اسرائیل

@StoneyB \o

StoneyB

Yo @Avi

Avicenna

Just an strange Hi to great @StoneyB. :-)

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Close but not quite. It's closer to English's shooting oneself's in the foot because our own saliva will fall back right on our face.

Lawrence

11:31

@Avicenna Hm, it just discards the words "occupying regime".

StoneyB

@DamkerngT. Mutatis mutandis, that's the usual sense of pissing into the wind.

Avicenna

@Lawrence Yes, and it's not correct.

Damkerng T.

@StoneyB Ah, I must've misunderstood pissing into the wind, then!

StoneyB

It's a matter of aerodynamic rather than gravitational reaction!

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. Does it reffer to an action that aimes to insult or harm someone but actually harms or insults the doer, or the aimed person and the doer togather because of a close bond?

@StoneyB :D

Damkerng T.

11:38

@Avicenna Any harm will fall upon the doer in this case. :-)

Lawrence

@Avicenna Noted.

Avicenna

@DamkerngT. We have a similar thing in Persian.

Damkerng T.

@Avicenna A-ha!

Avicenna

A literal translation gives: upward spitting.

Damkerng T.

That sounds quite similar!

Avicenna

11:41

Asians are similar in some cases.

Lawrence

@DamkerngT. A phrase that doesn't involve firearms is poetic justice.

Damkerng T.

@Lawrence Nice one!

Anonymous

@Lawrence I try not to.

Lawrence

@snailplane :)

Anonymous

@Lawrence There's a real difference between the two words.

Anonymous

11:44

But it's not as simple as two versus three or more.

Anonymous

Unless you, unlike most people, get sand among your toes.

Avicenna

Hi 🐌✈

@snailplane

Anonymous

@Avicenna Aww :-)

Avicenna

@snailplane :-)

Question: what's the word for this in English.

And this one.

user233358

Good afternoon all

Færd

11:54

@Avicenna Crow, raven?

Avicenna

Hi. @Arrowfar

user233358

yo

Avicenna

@Færd the first one a crow?

Færd

I can't really tell them apart. Google "raven vs crow" and you'll hopefully find out.

Avicenna

@Færd Technically, in Persian I guess, we call the first کلاغ and the second زاغ.

Lawrence

11:58

@snailplane That's another good one. :)

Anonymous

@Avicenna Bird.

Anonymous

@Avicenna Bird.

Anonymous

I'm showing off my vocabulary here.

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