Language Overflow - 2019-12-27

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AIQ

00:15

I wanted to write an answer on omitting relative pronouns and such. But I don't think that in this lifetime I can write a better one than this english.stackexchange.com/a/283473/300322

This person is a beast!

Anonymous

01:04

Yeah, I really appreciate Araucaria’s answers.

AIQ

01:30

These questions are upvoted, but they show no research at all. Answers to these can be googled. It might require a bit of work, but certainly one can find the answers. Why are these not closed? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/233437/…

and this ell.stackexchange.com/questions/233443/…

The second question is good, but OP should at least say what they did to solve their problem. I simply googled plot turn vs plot twist and I got a number of relevant things.

3 hours later…

AIQ

04:27

So why is the moderator sign a diamond? Why is it not a spade, a heart, or a sword?

CowperKettle

04:58

Word of the day: to come off handsomely

> The favour of the empress was agreeable;
And though the duty wax'd a little hard,
Young people at his time of life should be able
To come off handsomely in that regard.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

07:08

Word of the day: the whole enchilada

3

2 hours later…

Anonymous

08:43

I’m devastated to see Araucaria leave SE. His answers are easily among the best on EL&U.

5

Anonymous

@AIQ meta.stackexchange.com/a/284398

Anonymous

I don’t really know. A sword icon seems like it might have some unwanted meaning attached.

AIQ

Yes, I was reading their answers today. So detailed. I have seen a very few people like that in ELL and ELU

Anonymous

09:01

I can only hope he decides to come back after reading that SE and Monica came to an agreement. It doesn’t seem like either side will release any details, though, so it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever know what their agreement really meant for anyone…

M.A.R.

10:40

@snailcar What?! :O :'(

Oh, I actually forgot about it

There was such a humongous wave of negativity that every single incident faded in comparison.

@CowperKettle Yeah I've heard this one somewhere

Boy it looks delicious!

ColleenV parted ways

> This is clearly the final nail, and it's clear that you haven't been building a bridge.

Someone wrote this in a comment and I think it’s an interesting way to allude to final nail in the coffin

M.A.R.

This is clearly the final nail in the bridge. You've been burning coffins!

ColleenV parted ways

@M.A.R. lol

skillpatrol

10:56

like a bridge over troubled waters?

2 hours later…

Anonymous

12:43

@ColleenVpartedways Ooh, that’s a good Word of the Day. Though I feel just a little silly when we call phrases like that words, we’ve been doing it for a while now :-)

Anonymous

Oh gosh, I can’t fix typos on my phone. Noooo!

Anonymous

I’ve always been partial to plays on fixed phrases, like “we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it”.

Anonymous

@M.A.R. I understand why people are leaving. I understand why people are upset. But some people have just been toxic, and that’s not okay no matter why they’re doing it. It’s been rough. I hope we can keep things a little more positive in this chat room.

ColleenV parted ways

@snailcar I’ve got you.

Anonymous

At any rate, I plan on sticking around personally.

Anonymous

12:48

Thanks so much, @ColleenVpartedways :-)

ColleenV parted ways

@snailcar Spreading negativity is not a good way to change things for the better.

CowperKettle

13:18

The whole enchilada of users have left, and that's real bottomry.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

15:20

Word of the day: drawing pin

ColleenV parted ways

@CowperKettle That’s a new on for me. It made me think of a gunslinger threatening to draw down.

CowperKettle

16:03

user image

ColleenV parted ways

@CowperKettle Stop making me snort-laugh at work! There’s only like 4 people here because of the holidays and it’s really quiet

1 hour later…

M.A.R.

17:21

@CowperKettle Lol OK, I yield

CowperKettle

17:36

user image

userr2684291

17:56

@M.A.R. How's tricks?

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 Hey

Es geht.

userr2684291

@M.A.R. You mentioned something about a university; what are you studying?

Chemistry?

M.A.R.

Pharmacy.

Which actually has more chemistry than I expected

@userr2684291 Yours was, computer science?

CowperKettle

There's a whole enchilada of chemistry in drugs.

M.A.R.

And a whole chemistry in enchilada

CowperKettle

18:04

But you'll come off handsomely in pharmacology with your knowledge of chemistry.

M.A.R.

As the saying goes. But this is the saying's first instance

@CowperKettle 😎

CowperKettle

I don't know how to involve bottomry in this.

M.A.R.

I also grew up in a pharmacy.

CowperKettle

And I loved watching Farmacia de guardia

Farmacia de guardia

Farmacia de guardia ("Pharmacy on Duty") is a Spanish comedy serial, originally broadcast on Antena 3 from 1991 to 1995. == Cast == Concha Cuetos - Lourdes Cano Carlos Larrañaga - Adolfo Segura José Soriano - Don Enrique Cano Maruchi León - Pili Fernández África Gozalbes - Reyes «Queen» González Miguel Ángel Garzón - Enrique Segura Julián González - Guillermo Segura == Awards == == References == == External links == Farmacia de guardia on IMDb...

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle That would explain how the whole academia is fairly well

Unless you're weeded out, you're stuck with a bunch of disinterested schlubs holding you down.

Not remotely all of them, mind, but the whole atmosphere is toxic.

CowperKettle

18:07

user image

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Via bottom quarks?

CowperKettle

)))

user image

> - What if He is really up there?
- Save us God from that!

or maybe "God forbid"

userr2684291

@M.A.R. Yes. Sorry, I had a phone call.

CowperKettle

An AI has outpaced the average human in an English reading comprehension test.

> Out of a full score of 100, the average person scores around 87 points. Baidu is now the first team to surpass 90 with its model, ERNIE.

M.A.R.

Ernest? That's the name they came up with?

userr2684291

18:22

> To appreciate ERNIE, consider the model it was inspired by: Google’s BERT. (Yes, they’re both named after the Sesame Street characters.)

CowperKettle

Now the whole enchilada of Sesame Street characters will dominate the world by being more intelligent than us.

M.A.R.

I dunno how that makes me feel

CowperKettle

18:40

> Our pediatrician has very little patients

M.A.R.

in Shadow's Den on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, 18 secs ago, by FOX 9000

@M.A.R. (┛^ਊ^)┛︵und

userr2684291

I have to say I'm beginning to understand people who hate puns.

Actually, nah.

Bring it on.

@snailcar I asked a couple of my university-educated friends in the US whether they knew what gap year meant, and they said they didn't. When I suggested it's something to do with university, they remained clueless. They're from Florida and California.

Doesn't have to mean anything as the sample is far too small, but I refrained from explicitly endorsing its use in AmE.

Anonymous

Huh, really?

userr2684291

Yes.

Anonymous

I kinda want to do a mini-survey myself.

userr2684291

18:52

Haha. I'd be happy if you did.

Anonymous

How old are those friends, I wonder?

userr2684291

24 and 25.

Anonymous

People are always writing articles about how gap years are a thing, I feel like.

userr2684291

19:29

My cheek is aching. I had anesthesia administered 4 hours ago, and now the pain is kicking in. (Quite) Amusingly, it hasn't let up yet. It hurts so much. I hate dentists, but it was a mistake to avoid them for so long, lol. I'd been living a peaceful life until a couple of days ago. No visual signs of caries; a radiograph was necessary to ascertain its presence.

I think I hadn't been to the dentist for a decade or so.

AIQ

where i am from gap year can range anywhere from 1 to 3

and it isn't what is commonly thought of it

CowperKettle

19:45

I had a CT of my teeth made

Quite cool, you can rotate the image in 3-D

It helped ascertain that there was a site of inflammation undiscovered by the standard two-dimentional dental X-ray

userr2684291

Nice.

AIQ

20:31

Jesus. I am quoting an author who wrote "Many components have aged poorly and/or do not work well together ... "

That "and/or" is really bothering me

userr2684291

@AIQ Why?

ell.stackexchange.com/q/233605/3395: "Tea is served in a sugar-added state in this cafe."

That made me smile.

AIQ

It's just awful. It's lazy writing.

userr2684291

@AIQ That's a lazy way to spell efficient.

AIQ

20:46

wait ... I am a little slow today. What do you mean?

slow in making sense of things

userr2684291

I assumed you were talking about the and/or above.

AIQ

yes, I am

It would be fine if it were a technical paper (like for mathematics or something of that sort)

userr2684291

Or a report...

AIQ

This is totally avoidable.

I am reading all this ELU posts on this and/or thing

userr2684291

And/or is equivalent to the logical OR operator, from what I know.

ColleenV parted ways

20:59

@AIQ How would you write “You can have sugar and/or milk in your tea, but we don’t have any honey.”?

userr2684291

"You can have any combination of sugar, milk, and honey in your tea. The honey's a bit runny, however."

AIQ

21:22

@ColleenVpartedways I would say "You can have sugar or milk in your tea; both if you would like. But we don't have any honey."

I mean in such cases the simple "or" does the job. I doubt anyone would think they are being given a choice between milk and sugar.

Anonymous

I don’t think and/or would be as likely in a technical paper. It feels kind of informal to me. I mean, some people say it in casual conversation.

Anonymous

I guess you can use it in, erm, official contexts? Like when you’re trying to write rules in a terse fashion. But it feels out of place in an academic paper, I think.

Anonymous

Do you disagree?

userr2684291

I think that may be because people are abusing it. It might just be me, but when people do use it in conversation, they primarily imitate writing. It's normally associated with contracts and legal stuff where precision is of great importance.

Anonymous

Ah, contracts, that’s a good example of a more formal context where it might sound appropriate.

userr2684291

21:36

And because they imitate writing, just like lol, it becomes informal. Yes, I don't think I've seen it in academic writing.

AIQ

"and/or is as official as English gets in the sense that you can use it in extremely formal contexts. There is typically a better way to say whatever is being said but it does convey a specific meaning."

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 Oof, talk it off!

AIQ

Anyone here uses the CMoS guideline?

I have a question.

M.A.R.

Nooooooo

Style Guides shudders

userr2684291

@M.A.R. Feels stiff. I'll wait it out.

Well, lol is already informal, so that's a bad example.

M.A.R.

21:41

@userr2684291 As someone who takes fairly good care of his teeth, I feel it my responsibility to endlessly tsk at you.

AIQ

omg you two

M.A.R.

Like a buddy cop show

I'm the tough one

userr2684291

@M.A.R. The doctress asked me how it felt, I said depressing. She was apparently asking whether the tooth felt "normal" when I bit.

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 Let that be a lesson not to read too much GRRM.

AIQ

really GRRM?

wow

M.A.R.

21:44

Or Adams? I dunno. I'm suddenly short of depressing novel author names.

McCarthy.

userr2684291

@M.A.R. I have no idea what you're talking about, haha.

M.A.R.

Yeah, Cormac McCarthy.

userr2684291

I recognize the author's initials, but I've never read his books.

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 You're so immersed in it you forget

It's like Fight Club but it has dentists.

userr2684291

Never seen Game of Thrones either.

M.A.R.

21:47

Yeah, you prefer idle games and Eminem

Weird combination but OK

userr2684291

One game. Occasionally. I listen to the same song for weeks. Eminem's so 2004, or something.

I do occasionally experiment with random songs.

M.A.R.

Hey I'm not judging

@AIQ does shoves AIQ forward

AIQ

lolz

M.A.R.

You can transfer some of your toothache to him via fist cables

userr2684291

Haha, that's true.

AIQ

21:49

I already have my whole left side (of my face and head) hurting like a bi*ch.

M.A.R.

I listen to movie soundtracks mostly/only.

AIQ

I ate a right hand

M.A.R.

My entertainment revolves around movies. Even novels I have tied a knot to read in the indiscernible future have had movies made from them

AIQ

movie soundtracks like 007?

so catchy

M.A.R.

I guess that counts, but no, that's kinda the luxury category

Y'know, the tones that are so tied to certain labels that you can't ever regard them as a separate work of art.

AIQ

21:53

I am listening to this

Royal Deluxe - Dangerous (The Magnificent Seven Trailer Music)

userr2684291

He's a Pirate comes to mind. Also the intro song to Conan the Adventurer. It does help that it's literally... the intro, and repeats the title like 10 times.

M.A.R.

Drink up, me hearties

Mermaids (from On Stranger Tides)

You know, go check out Logan's main theme.

userr2684291

@AIQ That sounds like every Suits song.

E.g., this.

AIQ

Suits Ah yes

userr2684291

@M.A.R. Do you have access to YouTube?

M.A.R.

22:08

@userr2684291 I do have VPNs, but I'd have to check them out later

userr2684291

No worries, I was just wondering. You said something recently how... some things became viewable or something, haha.

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 Ha, no, that was images on SE.

userr2684291

Right.

AIQ

M.A.R. do you use the paid ones or the free ones?

M.A.R.

Back at 2014 or something, i.stack.imgur worked, then the censorship protocols changed or whatever, and it was blocked along with imgur. Now, imgur is blocked, but i.stack.imgur works, it's like a partial censorship, and I guess I could roll with it.

@AIQ Free

Randomly looking for criticisms of the regime on the internet to form your own opinion about them is a pretty loser thing to do. I wouldn't mind most of what they block if they do it right, but the problem is they don't! Why should all the good things you can use YouTube for, and hell, just its entertainment potential, be entirely taken away because of the fringe 0.01% of YouTube videos they care about?

userr2684291

22:15

Hm.

M.A.R.

Thank you for your Hm

userr2684291

According to a random website, there's around 5 billion videos on YT.

@M.A.R. Why? Because it's easier for them to control who watches what.

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 I do think they have the manpower, or could if they wished to, to supervise what most of the population watches on YouTube.

I don't think there would be too many patterns of signs of problematic behavior

Maybe the state media is so detached from reality that anything of a different sort should be suppressed, but they already failed that when Telegram became the, I guess, most used app by Iranian users.

It still is, despite them blocking it.

Anyway, I landed on this

bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

userr2684291

It's easier to deny access by default. "Default deny" is the best (safest) possible policy when it comes to cyber security in general. If I were them, I'd simply unplug everyone from the internet.

M.A.R.

Chomsky's words are always so nurturing to read.

@userr2684291 Thank God you're not them!

Well, the thing is, I guess there's also a big but still hidden divide — The kind that everyone knows and no one talks about — among the higher ups as well.

I'd daresay except some fanatics in areas such as this, most of them don't believe in anything but their position anymore.

No one admits to it, but our generation knows it and uses it to fuel our rebelliousness, and is generally the epitome of this 'rejection' of ideology

I think if I did study other civilizations' history more closely, I'd be hardpressed to find one with a similar number of what I may call the cycle of cleric

You know how there are these periods of moral recession, after which people kinda "wake up" and find often a major religion to clung to, and "awaken"? America has had two or three "great awakenings" AFAIK, periods in which people got more Christian.

History often has something remarkable at the peak of this period. Revolutions, coups, wars etc.

Ours was the 1979 revolution.

However, oftentimes (always?) there's an abrupt smack at the ideologies put forward at this era of awakening, and it's almost always comes in the form hypocrites rising into power, fame etc., leading to people distrusting the ideologies/religions themselves.

I'm not educated enough to say this for sure but the advent of really really fast forms of communication should have accelerated this process to a great degree too.

We're at that age of hypocrites. Famous final words

And my literature teacher this term showed me just how prevalent these notions are in Persian poetry

I feel profound.

Again, exam month symptoms

userr2684291

22:52

@M.A.R. History indeed repeats itself. But as you might have seen, social networks can be used to spread all sorts of information. Stories can be transmitted quickly regardless of their content.

M.A.R.

@userr2684291 On social media, bullshit is contagious.

userr2684291

What I think often happens is that people will vote for or choose someone as their leader because they solve a certain problem. They will turn a blind eye to other potential problems this person brings.

M.A.R.

Oh maaan. That was a good line. I'm gonna quote myself later at random irrelevant occasions.

M.A.R.

23:14

Word of the day: Delicatessen

AIQ

Anyone here into chess?

More formally, "Does anyone here like playing chess?"

lol

Oh my god I am having read through dozens of these parliamentary debates

house of commons

looking for comments on a specific government program

it is painful

userr2684291

@AIQ I don't have anything to do these days, and it's cold outside. Yes, chess is an option.

@M.A.R. I've seen this word before, but I've never heard it pronounced. It's always deli.

Anonymous

23:43

I can't remember when I first heard it pronounced. I must have been fairly young, but yeah, deli seems to be a lot more common, doesn't it?

Anonymous

COCA has 1975 delis and only 262 delicatessens.

Anonymous

And the latter generally seem to be in formal contexts, not in casual conversation.

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Dec '1927

Language Overflow

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