Language Overflow - 2021-05-13

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12:43 AM

@EddieKal That is an interesting example, I certainly didn't bother to consider every definition of TO and OF. I think in your example it would be definable as 'the route taken to the destination. The key provides the method of access to the destination.

And I tried avoiding using TO in defining TO without success.

2 hours later…

2:30 AM

@Man_From_India Basically in SBI PO and IBPS PO we are asked to go write a 200 words passage.

So can we go through each paragraph of the article and discuss the most important points?

@M.A.R. I am sorry I saw the message just now.

4 hours later…

6:59 AM

@RajorshiKoyal I certainly can check your writing if it's small. But as for what is important and relevant to your exam, I can't help at all. I am sorry, but I really have no idea about those exams.

And one more thing, request for proof-reading is not allowed on main site.

1 hour later…

8:18 AM

@Man_From_India Ok even that will do. I will send you the writing :-)

1 hour later…

9:19 AM

Is such construction allowed in those exams?
> *We are asked to* **go write** *a 200 words passage*.
It is fine for me and all others will pass it as correct but I am doubtful that such construction will be considered correct in those exams.

10:15 AM

Yes you are correct @Man_From_India

2 hours later…

11:57 AM

Sorry for my spelling mistake, I meant that that construction might be considered incorrect in your exam.

3 hours later…

3:07 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer, repeating characters in answer (264): The adverb to complete the sentence by Ian Anderson on ell.SE

3 hours later…

6:18 PM

So, a question for moderators. Call me OCD but I wonder. Can't old questions with no accepted answers be 'cleared' when it is obvious there was an acceptable answer? Speaking specifically about the OP's long absence from Stack Exchange.

PSA: flagging a comment in chat raises a notification visible to ALL the several hundred moderators across the SE network, no matter which site they happen to moderate, and should be used ONLY for serious issues that require mod intervention.

Oh wow. That came out way more heavy-handed and officious than I meant it to!

No big deal or anything, just thought I'd let people know how the flagging system works.

@GWarner Questions are counted as "answered" if they have at least one answer with a positive score. Accepting is not really relevant, that just shows which answer the OP happened to prefer but isn't used anywhere else as far as I know.

I'll sometimes just upvote an answer to keep it from being continually bumped by the community user as "unanswered" - assuming the answer was decent.

6:55 PM

@terdon Is there a way to see who starred a chat message? What happens if an insult is starred?

@EddieKal Mods (and room owners, I think) can clear stars. When you hover over a starred message on the starboard, there's an action arrow and clicking on that gives you a menu.

user image

I am aware of that. But here is my question and it is a serious question: What if the room owners and site moderators allowed insults, racially biased, to stay for a long period of time and the victim wanted to get to the bottom of it so despite the fact the victim was also a moderator themself they didn't wish to cancel the stars

u shiba inu!

or whatever that thing is

I think maybe "real" can stand in for "serious" in that line

Cats are racially superior to dogs

fite me

7:00 PM

oops

@EddieKal As far as I know, only SE employees can see who starred what.

@terdon One of my oldest questions about chat answered

@terdon That's what I thought. Okay, appreciate the answer. I guess I will have to get a long post to Meta SE when I have enough time to get it done

New Meta Question

0

Q: Most comprehensive guide for article usage (a/an/the/no article)

I have been trying hard to understand how to use articles correctly. I read several English grammar books but they mostly provide only 5-6 rules for article usage. However, when I try to understand why an author used a, the or no article in a text, I have no idea where to look for it. I am aware ...

im humbled that I have received a star

7:02 PM

I'm humbled that you received a star

okay normally i dont care since i am not that active, so how do i know if i have since gained a privelege?

@EddieKal If you feel there is a problem, just ping a staff member in the TL.

@GWarner There are no secret handshakes in chat winks at @ter but if you mean the main site you can check your profile on the main site

@terdon I have tried that and it left me feeling the problem ran deeper than one CM was able/willing to handle

thinking i might of gained one that i never have used, but would consider using now

7:04 PM

@EddieKal Ah.

ell.stackexchange.com/users/current

@M.A.R.

There, that link should work

thanx

@M.A.R. Cats are the most selfish animal that has walked the earth

7:05 PM

@GWarner Well you've gotten all the good stuff by 125, the only other important privileges are at 2000 and 10000 rep

We NEED TO send them to mars! You with me?

vote to reopen?

@EddieKal I can relate.

But of course kings don't need to bow to mountains.

Or winds.

Or whatever

@GWarner Oh right, 3k, I forgot

just tilt to windmills

oh okay. im a ways off then

Just answer a few clickbaits

Next time someone comes with "Are native speakers Gods that walk among men?" and you can reply "noooooo" and that'd be that, 70 upvotes

Probably just 400 rep or something because of the rep cap (max rep you can earn a single day is from 20 upvotes only)

7:08 PM

@M.A.R. Wow a sheriff?!

@EddieKal I can have it if you don't want it

@M.A.R. J.R.'s got more than I do. Ask them. They have what? 7, 8 of them and counting?

Didn't he quit?

Nah JR is still a mod

Though yeah he's probably sitting on the great fortune that is several constable and sheriff badges

I doubt there's much real work for you guys to do these days anyway

7:12 PM

lol what's that supposed to mean

The site is not as busy as it used to be?

Well no sophisticated trolls, no meta crusades

Probably just the regular serial upvoter

@EddieKal I dunno, you have the stats

I suspect traffic might have even increased

I mean, learners are still very concerned about whether to say "types of meat" or "kinds of meat"

Does meatie still post anymore?

Or that other dictionary troll

lol

Oh speaking of trolls I am not sure this counts but a handful of users are in the habit of creating throwaway accounts

The only guy that kinda still keeps the lights on is Kentaro. And he's serious half the time

Like they desert their account after a few questions and create a new one

Oh that's an age-old thing

Used to be they at least ruffled some feathers on meta before doing so

Kids these days

7:16 PM

lol

Kentaro's heart is in the right place

He just needs to adjust

I sure hope so

Being in the right place is required for a heart to beat

Even that's sort of a thing from the past

I mean, I know people that are or used to be mods that started out as trolls

I am still adjusting to Internet circles where I have to ask for someone's permission to talk informally with them, even if everybody else has asked and received permission from that person

Well, honestly that's always going to be rare

But still, now that SE has matured into being like every other corporation, to the degree that they introduce a pointless font change that makes three lobes of my brain hurt when I'm reading, just because others do it too, SE users have also matured into being boring

@M.A.R. Shhh! How the hell did you know??

Oh don't push your luck. Professional trolls have standards

Like, a very years back, SE was kinda growing up as I was growing up. It was fun.

On science site chats, you had the JEE gangs that flooded the sites with homework. On 'fun' sites, trolls were taking turns posting every other day with questions like "is Captain America gay"

7:22 PM

user image

@EddieKal Sherriff? Explain plese

I certainly hope SE is still growing. At least ELL and ELU need more users. I am surprised we see productive contributors leave but not people coming in. I mean don't they recruit new linguistics students every year?

@GWarner ell.stackexchange.com/help/badges/95/sheriff

I think he inadvertantly trid to change that image

@GWarner "sheriff" is a badge awarded to moderators for one whole year of cleaning up user droppings

My bad JR also only got one

7:25 PM

oh fun. kinda a Barney Fife entitlement?

At least I am not outsheriffed

@GWarner I don't want to bring "kids these days" to your mind but I have no idea who Barney Fife is/was

@EddieKal I think they might, but you know, before 2018, it used to feel like the pet project of a bunch of cool college guys. The climate was just more intimate. I mean, of course that's not scalable, and it has all the problems I'm ranting that I miss, but there was a unique feeling of camaraderie, people treated communities like their own kids, carefully grooming posts and doing all the extra stuff on metas they didn't have to

He was the comic relief on an old B&W tv show about a town sheriff in a small town and his sidekick deputy named Barney Fife.

@EddieKal Cute avatar!

@GWarner I think "old" is an understatement

@CowperKettle what's this from?

7:29 PM

@M.A.R. The very interesting book titled 1493

@M.A.R. :)

About the changes that happened to the world after we discovered the USA back in 1492

@CowperKettle Thanks! We shall band together and deport all the cats to mars. Dog people unite!

Charles See Mann

Makes sense

Born to be a historian

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created is a nonfiction book by Charles C. Mann first published in 2011. It covers the global effects of the Columbian Exchange, following Columbus' first landing in the Americas, that led to our current globalized world civilization. It follows on from Mann's previous book on the Americas prior to Columbus, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.In his book, Mann argues that Columbus paved the way to the homogenocene, a particular feature of the anthropocene that is marked by a global homogenization of (agricultural) species, diseases, and...

Despite being lauded in New York Times and Washington Post, this book is really good

7:30 PM

@EddieKal in a way this kindo of explains my reluctance to contribute here more.

@CowperKettle Smoking used to be a very important postcoital ritual

I think a lot of movies used smoking as a postcoital symbol

@GWarner Why?

I am a native english speaker but i'll be damned if i know the terminolgy or the contruction methods to our language

i felt like i was going back and forth with another user. i said its not natural to say something that way. and thy answered its an indefinite article it has no tense.

I found the book by change on PirateBay, in audio-form. It's a pleasure to listen to.

@GWarner I feel you but it is oftentimes the non-native speaker who cling to grammar myths/illusions. Even "there is no rules to follow" has something to it.

I hit my computer/email accounts/ sites/ sites passwords threshhold today. Just TOO many.

In other news.

7:36 PM

Use a password plug-in or just Chrome

I just use the 1234 password everywhere.

@EddieKal I stumble on questions when a non-native talks about whether they need to use present tense possessive pronouns to describe objects.. :)

Well interestingly, I have one PC. Was given another. and recently a laptop. Up til now Chrome has been great all the way around. but now it says i have duplicate email accounts with multiple PWs..

> In his book, Mann argues that Columbus paved the way to the homogenocene

Brainy, huh

homogen-what?

Google, save me

> Your StackExchange account and password don't match

7:42 PM

I have a laptop, a desktop PC I use for listening to audiobooks, an old sublaptop that's very slow, and a half-disassembled desktop PC that just stands on the floor.

@EddieKal AH! I should check.

The sub-laptop has some missing keys. I should cannibalize it for its HDD (500 GB)

I had a huge 19" CRT monitor from Hitachi, a professional model. I gave it away for free to a young couple. They were very happy. They use it as a TV set.

It weighed many kilograms. My cat loved it.

@CowperKettle well the cat thinks the open laptop is hers, always trying to lay on the keyboard. The first one is connected to the TV since I dont have a monitor for it or a DVD player (it hasnt been turned on since before last winter

Haha

My cat prefers chairs

yea i need to weed out some stuff, the virtual hoarding needs addressing as well

And it loves to lie on the upper tier of a set of bookshelves. We set up a set of boxes so that the cat can gradually get to the upper tier of bookshelves, almost near the ceiling. It lies there and looks at the people below.

funny a friend gave me his Dad's old AutoCAD 200 manual. At first I said no. but I kept it. I found the installs on archive.org. and activation keys online somewhere.

too complicated to be bothered to learn it. and i wouldnt use it anyway

im a digital hoarder i think

7:48 PM

If you put your head just below where the cat lies on its bookshelf eyrie, the cat will claw right at your scalp with its paws. It protects its territory.

i have too 6 foot high cabinets like that. they scratch up the sides to get on top. im workiong out a good 'tree' for thei use

\

one cat just lays on top of the fridge and swipes at me if i try to open it

im a foster daddy. i have 6 cats. sorry dogheads

I found the article on Orion website. orionmagazine.org/article/the-dawn-of-the-homogenocene/….

8:07 PM

@GWarner In my childhood flat in Noyabrsk, we had soundproofed one room by layering one side of a door with a thick layer of felt. The cat loved it. It allowed it to instantly get to the top of the door and sit there.

So we attached a layer of felt to a tall wardrobe, and the cat started climbing there too.

It's a great kind of surfacing for cats.

user image

Felt is very cheap

4 hours later…

11:58 PM

@CowperKettle I like that better then building a cat tree. Currently they are using an 8 foot length of rolled up carpeting that is propped against the cabinet and wall that was to be used for the cat tree, but it also prevents using that wall for anything else.

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May '2113

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