V'dibarta Bam

Seth J

1:31 AM

@Charlie, maybe it's not the headphones giving you headaches, but the music (or the volume).

@Monica I've found that I like wearing headphones even with nothing playing. It keeps people from bothering me unless it's important.

(@Charlie, I was joking.)

Monica Cellio

1:56 AM

@SethJ the deterrent factor appeals to me, but I already have special computer glasses, so sitting down (or getting up) involves swapping those with my regular glasses. Also dealing with headphones feels like it would be too much of a hassle, especially as I make a point of moving at least every half-hour.

Charles Koppelman

@Charlie It's actually cooler - it's a translucent starfish they found about a mile below sea level.

Daniel

3:14 PM

Jon Skeet is such an interesting guy to follow on SO

he's so famous for having such high reputation that everything he does automatically gets tons of upvotes

Daniel

4:41 PM

@MonicaCellio do people in your hometown say things like "The cat wants petted"?

Monica Cellio

@Daniel sometimes. Drives me batty. :-(

"Needs" is the most common auxiliary verb in this contruct, but "wants" is probably second. ("The car needs washed" is the canonical example.)

Daniel

@MonicaCellio Is there a historical reason for that?

Monica Cellio

@Daniel I'm not sure where this comes from. Here's an EL&U post on the form; I haven't checked to see if anything there addresses its origin.

31

A: Central Pennsylvanian English speakers: what are the limitations on the "needs washed" construction?

I've heard the "needs washed" construction so many times that it sounds completely normal to me. Your other three examples, however, don't sound familiar. I'm having a tough time thinking of a set rule for dropping "to be." I think it could work with want in addition to need, e.g. "The baby wan...

Jon Ericson

4:59 PM

@MonicaCellio I was wondering if it were from Dutch speakers, which that answer alludes to. To find out, one would probably need to find out something more about Dutch grammar. ;-)

Isaac Moses

@JonEricson NB "Pennsylvania Dutch" actually come from "Deutch," or German, origins, and speak a form of German.

Jon Ericson

@IsaacMoses Yikes! The ignorant one will clap his hand over his mouth. ;-) (That's for the clue.)

Menachem

5:14 PM

@ms210 I think your bounty on judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/7084/… might actually be a separate question. The question doesn't ask why nun is the only one skipped.

msh210

@Menachem The questions asks why nun is skipped. I think "only" is pretty well implied. I mean, any answer that gives a reason nun is skipped, which reason applies equally well to any other letter, is not much of an answer, don't you think?

Menachem

@msh210 but the answer (that nun is associated with something undesirable) is an answer. There is then a follow-up question, "Aren't there other undesirable things associated with other letters?". -- This is very similar to the question of why the Torah starts with a Bet? The answer is that Aleph is associated with Arrur (curse) and Bet with Beracha (Blessing). You can then ask a follow-up question, "If so, aren't there good words that start with Aleph and bad words that start with Bet?"

Monica Cellio

5:29 PM

@JonEricson something on EL&U alluded to Scottish, which sounds vaguely familiar from a lecture I heard by a linguistics professor at CMU, but memories are fuzzy. Andrew Carnegie and his fellow Scots had an influence on the region's industry, so maybe language too?

Double AA

@Menachem what you call follow up questions I call inherent insufficiencies. Just because people commonly give incomplete answers because they don't have the time or the audience to give the full answer doesn't make it a full answer.

msh210

@DoubleAA Note that the "people" in this case is the g'mara B'rachos. But I agree: that answer is a partial answer: an answer with an inherent insufficiency.

@JonEricson Speaking of interesting constructions in English, do you always use the subjunctive in "wondering if [clause]"?

Jon Ericson

@msh210 I think so. I have no idea why, however.

In that case, I think I used it to express doubt about what I was trying to say. Sort of like distancing myself from my thoughts. (Which, it seems, was a wise thing to do. ;)

msh210

6:16 PM

Hey, new layout at judaism.stackexchange.com/help/badges

Daniel

@msh210 Ahh that's much better

Double AA

8:37 PM

@msh210 Gemara all the more so says things in shortened or cryptic ways.

@Daniel I think mine and Aaron's are about as convincing as you'll get.

Is this answerable and not in violation of our personal-advice rule?

0

Q: Cant decide which to convert to based on my belief....Modern orthodox vs Conservative

Please help me...I was born to a jewish father and a christian mother...raised following all jewish holiday and have always identified myself as a jew and nothing else. I would frequently get reminded by my surrounding mostly jewish friends that technically i am not a jew (although based on my re...

Seth J

@DoubleAA I've answered it. Do we not give any personal advice? Or just the type of personal advice that someone needs to get only from a rabbi (or other professional)? SE is about asking and answering practical questions, after all.

Isaac Moses

8:53 PM

@DoubleAA @SethJ IMO, no. It's asking for opinion and discussion relating to her particular situation and beliefs, which seems suited for a forum that promotes give-and-take discussion and/or a personal adviser, not for a Q&A site. Note that I believe this is true of its fit for SE even if you take out our special sensitivity WRT rabbinic advice.

Seth J

@IsaacMoses You don't think it can be generalized a bit?

Isaac Moses

@SethJ Can and has. The general case is a dupe of the question @DoubleAA and you both linked.

"Congratulations! your question has answers here."

Seth J

@IsaacMoses ?? How did I get the idea (in my answer) that the other question was about moving to Israel? Maybe I was adding that as an additional consideration, though I don't remember.

Isaac Moses

... given that, despite my vote to close as TL, I think I'd recommend closing as dupe, which is both informative and more polite

@SethJ It mentions Israel as an issue, but I don't think it's meant to only address that concern

Seth J

@IsaacMoses Whew! It does say Aliyah. Missed it on my quick once-over a minute ago.

Double AA

9:09 PM

Try searching the site for something like 7a or 23b and see how many different masechtot have been referenced.

Seth J

@DoubleAA Who's that addressed to? Why?

Double AA

@SethJ Anyone who wants to see how awesome our site is.

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA :)

@DoubleAA I wonder how far we are, with our current stock of content, from being able to produce a Q or A that references each daf (with duplicates allowed). OK, probably pretty far.

Seth J

@DoubleAA @IsaacMoses Looking good, but I think we've got work to do. :)

Isaac Moses

... or perhaps, how far we are from at least one question relevant to each week of D"Y

Here are two for last week.

Here are a few for next week.

Maybe we should start a Question on the Daf twitter account. Each day, if there's anything relevant, it could send out a link and an enticing blurb.

Seth J

9:37 PM

@IsaacMoses I've lost all momentum on my Daf Yomi Challenge. I'm still up to date on D"Y; It's just that I'm finding that to be challenging enough.

Isaac Moses

Similar (and easier): Question on the Parsha. How about converting @mi_yodeya into a group-run account that, instead of automatically tweeting out a link to every question, manually tweets out a curated link or two per day, relevant to the daf, the parasha, the holiday, the headlines, etc.?

2

Isaac Moses

9:49 PM

Anyone interested in being on such a curation team?

Double AA

@IsaacMoses meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/ask

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA Will do, beli neder

Until then, further brainstorming here is welcome.

Monica Cellio

10:15 PM

@IsaacMoses I like the idea of curated tweets. Whether they should supplement or replace what we do now I don't know (I don't actually use twitter). Curated parsha tweets should probably go out early in the week to maximize impact, which may well mean they come from old questions. If so, that would be a reason to also tweet new questions (daf or otherwise). Looking forward to your meta post.

Hey all, custom close reasons are coming soon:

11

A: What do site moderators need to do to support the new custom question close reasons?

Introduction Per-site off-topic reasons were created to reduce the amount of confusion and debate surrounding what specifically is on- or off-topic for a given site. Folks asking questions for the first time are often unclear on what is allowed or expected; by explaining common misconceptions in...

Work for us: figure out what our most common close reasons are and draft wording. Via a post on meta, not here, but I'm just alerting the folks here.

Double AA

10:37 PM

Maybe we should have a ordering tag?

no one seems to know what to do with priorities

Charles Koppelman

@DoubleAA I think the real question is: What is the use case for priorities?

I understand this one: a user comes in and looks around for all questions related to parashat-balak, or grapes-wine

but.... How is a list of all things that have to do with preferring things more than others useful? (This is not rhetorical, but a sincere question)

alternatively, how is a list of the temporal ordering of things useful? I can see that one a bit

find all places where we talk about korbanot and temporal ordering

or "[temporal-ordering] [tefillah] late" is a useful search

HodofHod

11:52 PM

@DoubleAA You can comment on deleted posts these days?

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