Language Overflow

Anonymous

01:17

Continuing the non-literality of a couple saga, my friend just typed "a couple of minutes (5-10)" to me online.

Anonymous

Literalists around the globe were aghast at the development.

Kaspar

@snailboat Hi! Would you tell me now why you prefer LPD, if you are free?

Anonymous

Better transcriptions, more transcriptions, good software, and I particularly like the little usage surveys.

Anonymous

S'got pie charts and everything.

Kaspar

I see. I guess that is a short summary of a very long reply. =)

Anonymous

01:22

I like how it marks some transcriptions as the main ones recommended for learners, but it contains other transcriptions, so you know not everyone pronounces it that way.

Anonymous

You already read the page on John Wells' site about Clive Upton's reforms, didn't you?

Kaspar

No, I did not. I am not so familiar with pronunciation dictionaries, which is why I wanted to ask you. =)

Anonymous

phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english-uni.htm

2

Kaspar

I like it that John starts with a J. =)

Now that I have gotten your answer, I can remove it from my to-do list. =)

Anonymous

I could type more stuff, but I'm eating right now.

Anonymous

01:27

Eating and typing are kind of mutually exclusive for me.

Anonymous

So really, aspectually speaking, my "am eating right now" refers to the larger situation containing many smaller instances of what could be called eating, and this typing is falling between those smaller instances.

Kaspar

Especially if you are eating with your hands and not utensils.

Anonymous

Kind of like how when you say someone knocked on the door, they might have physically hit the door three times, and "knocked on the door" refers to the larger situation that contains three smaller situations separated by time.

Kaspar

I imagine you are eating a delicious sandwich right now.

Do you do crosswords?

Anonymous

So if I don't stop typing, I'll never get that eating done, and my "am eating right now" situation will extend out to t→∞.

Anonymous

01:31

And we can't have that.

Kaspar

Yes, you should eat.

I think Chambers Dictionary is very popular with British crossword enthusiasts.

Too bad it has the humorous definitions which I don't like.

But many people like them, which is why they are there.

Anonymous

02:50

I usually type too much stuff. I need to learn the whole more-is-less thing.

Anonymous

It's usually less-is-more, but I don't know that yet because I haven't learned it yet.

CowperKettle

03:27

Word of the day: wildebeest

2

Anonymous

That's a nice wotd.

Kaspar

@snailboat You meant word, not wotd, LOL.

Anonymous

05:28

@Kaspar But WOTD is Word Of The Day!

Anonymous

Are you sure I wasn't splitting the difference?

New Meta Question

07:09

0

Q: "World-wide" English or "new v2.0 English"?

I just found out that there are 2 flavors of English, considering the moment of their "definition": the "normal" English, which everybody knows and uses and explained in the vast majority of (grammar) books around the world (further divided in UK English, US English, Australian English ...); a ...

discussion

0

Q: Which is "the ultimate" reference for the English language? Is there any "ultimate" reference?

We know that is at least welcome to provide a reason (and preferably some reference) when providing an answer. I am glad that we are not Nazis about this, and a strict format is not required. I found the following "reasons" supporting that an answer is good: dictionaries; grammar books / sites...

discussion

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@NewMetaQuestion One does not simply invoke Nazi references without good reason.

3

Q: "In some cities, it's more dangerous to breathe than to smoke cigarettes."

The Economist posted this claim on Facebook and Twitter, accompanied by a short video. In some cities, it's more dangerous to breathe than to smoke cigarettes. I can imagine it's more dangerous to live and breathe in a certain city for a year than to smoke one cigarette a year (at some com...

smoking pollution

I know there's probably some hyperbole and subjective interpretation going on, but goddamn, China is really polluted

@NewMetaQuestion VTC'd both. Someone is having a bad day and should probably step away from the keyboard for a bit.

@snailboat Pronouncing d after t is really awkward

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ: what is off-topic or rhetorical about "How shall we handle the answers?" Especially in the specific example: is there a future tense or not?! — virolino 3 mins ago

"a new English an elite knows about" . . .

I'm just gonna disengage before I set something on fire

Good deed of the yesterday: Helped a fluent nonnative speaker be more mindful when spelling "losing" and "loosing"

Anonymous

07:40

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Yeah, we have a few options for that.

Anonymous

You can assimilate one to the other.

Anonymous

You can insert a vowel between the two (epenthesis!).

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@snailboat Hmm, like merging t and d and pronouncing something like a long hybrid of both?

Anonymous

You can insert a vowel after the second one so you can release it into something.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Wottttd

Anonymous

07:41

Well, we don't really have long consonants in English, so one of the sounds more or less goes away.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@snailboat Oh this one is good

Epenthesis feels really good when pronouncing something in Arabic or reciting Koran but I don't like it all that much in English for some reason

CowperKettle

08:06

> In phonology, epenthesis (/ɪˈpɛnθəsɪs, ɛ-/; Greek ἐπένθεσις) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word (at the beginning prothesis and at the end paragoge are commonly used).

userr2684291

10:46

@SamBC I think you'll get more realistic results if you spell no one as two orthographic words in that Google Books Ngram Viewer query. (:

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ You wotd, mate?

userr2684291

11:03

Ah, a wildebeest is a gnu. I watched a docu on Madagascar (I was actually there – the documentary was about UFOs and pyramids), and they have these cows with humps, zebus (also zebu). I'd heard of the animal before, but never noticed the hump. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebu#/media/File:Bos_taurus_indicus.jpg

Hm, I'm more likely to interpret cows with humps as "cows that have multiple humps" than as "cows that have a hump each", but oh well.

SamBC

11:29

@userr2684291 thx

Anonymous

11:54

@userr2684291 I suppose I might be too, but I might not mentally resolve the ambiguity unless the context makes me do it.

SamBC

@userr2684291 What about cows with guns? youtube.com/watch?v=aPhWfSeMYHA

Kaspar

12:32

@snailboat OIC

Anonymous

@CowperKettle It's usually called epenthesis at the end of a word too.

Anonymous

What Wikipedia gives was how the words were used in traditional rhetoric, though.

Anonymous

Modern linguists tend to use epenthesis and divide that into prothesis and anaptyxis.

Anonymous

But most of the time I just hear epenthesis.

Anonymous

Nothing wrong with saying paragoge, I just don't usually see it used in descriptions of modern languages.

Anonymous

12:40

Ooh, I can find some fun examples on Google Scholar, though.

Anonymous

Actually, my experience might be biased since so much of it is time spent on descriptions of Japanese.

userr2684291

13:30

@SamBC Hahah.

CowperKettle

13:46

Word of the day: aposematic coloration

userr2684291

I assume that means the... injection of contrast fluid or whatever into the brain before or during a PET or similar scan.

Not the brain but skull or something. Same difference.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

18:26

@userr2684291 The fluid thingy

Neurospinal or something

Just combine two fancy-sounding sciencez termz

Anonymous

18:38

Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, innit?

userr2684291

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Precisely.

Robusto

21:05

Just a quick note that the following might be a troll:

-2

Q: What is Pi and why is it a decimal?

I saw on good morning Britain a 10 year old boy recting pi to the nearest 258 places im 12 and not have been taught Pi yet despite being in set 1 for math please explain thanks👌👍

mathematics

Lists PewDiePie in profile, with link to that YouTuber (and all the mess associated with him).

ColleenV

@Robusto Thanks for the heads up!

@snailboat If you get a chance, would you look at the comments here and either help me explain why experiment doesn’t need to be plural, or help me understand why I’m wrong?

-1

A: On using "time span"

Your usage of time span is correct, but there is another issue I will add that, technically, you should say "experiments" (plural) because experiments is referring to both the first and second experiment: The short time span between the first and second experiments ... That said, as you ...

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