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Anonymous
02:34
@DariusJahandarie Which "bro" are you sure that it is?
Anonymous
Do you think you can rule out addressing a brother as "bro"?
Yeah, pretty much. At least in my idiolect.
Anonymous
They changed how tab completion works in chat :-O
Anonymous
@DariusJahandarie Well, neither bro is available in my speech :-)
Haha. Yeah, I don't use the "friend" "bro" either, but I've certainly been around people who use it, so I have some sense for it.
"Finish your homework yet bro?"
Like @naruto said (in the comment which he unfortunately deleted), probably the closest thing is 兄弟, but that isn't exactly common AFAIK.
兄貴 has an undertone of respect, like you'd only use it with someone older than you or senior to you in some other way, IMO.
Someone who calls their friend 兄貴 gives me the image of someone who also ends their sentences with っす incessantly.
行こうぜ、兄弟! is also friendlier/peppier(?) sounding to me than "Let's go, bro!" More like "Let's go, brother!"
Ah well. I don't fully trust my own intuition on this.
I'll just keep listening to the SMRPG soundtrack over here.
I wonder what age it is that you stop learning the new slang and start sounding like an old person.
(I should really play SMRPG in Japanese...)
Anonymous
02:56
I think calling people bro is counter to my personality regardless of age :-)
Anonymous
Kind of like how I never picked up "LOL"
Anonymous
Though I'm the right age for it.
Specifically the uppercase version, or just at all?
Anonymous
At all
Heh. I use the lowercase version as a softener pretty often.
I use the uppercase version if I'm texting sometimes, but that has a considerably different meaning to me.
Anonymous
02:59
I don't use any variants
Anonymous
No LOL, no lawl, no lulz, no nuttin'
In fact I'd say "lol" is my go-to softener, compared to :-) or "hehe" or whatever other options there are.
Hahaha.
I get a slight urge to utilize punch-over-TCP with people who seriously use "lawl" or "lulz" lol.
Actually it's a bit amusing to me how different an interpretation I have of all these variations.
Anyways, I actually have a pretty strange way of writing online myself, so I guess I'd hardly be the go-to person to get an authoritative interpretation of such things.
Anonymous
I talk funny online. But I probably talk funnier in real life. :-)
Hi @snailboat, how are you? I have a question about the "bro" question. The discussion in comments went sideways (I wish I hadn't started it) but is my answer good or not? If not, I'll remove it.
03:14
I think the answer is fine sans the lack of discussion of the pronoun, and the comment thread is perfectly upright. :)
Ok, thanks :)
Also, it's not entirely clear that the subject isn't 兄貴 in that sentence to me.
兄貴は何が当たったの? works, so it can certainly function as a subject, though it can also function as a vocative: 兄貴、父さんは何が当たったの?
Yes, I changed it later to say that the subject of the English sentence is "you". After the change suggested in comments 何を当てた -> 何が当たった the sentence has a clear subject anyway.
Anyways, I don't think I could write a better answer than yours so I certainly wouldn't suggest deleting it.
Despite my misgivings. :)
It seemed to me that OP did a translation from English and wanted to really ask about vocative...
Ok, thanks
Back to work now...
Anonymous
03:24
@Szymon I don't think there's any reason to remove the answer
Anonymous
When I read it, I thought "I don't think there's always a small pause"
04:46
@snailboat Care to help me with a bit of English linguistics? (More like, help me understand my own judgments, not so much actual linguistics.)
So, I wrote "org-mode and @bmndr are what keeps a roof over my head". After thinking about it for a while, I decided it should be "keep" not "keeps". However my friend argued they are both grammatical, and I'm pretty sure I agree with him. On the other hand "John and Jack are who keeps me from hurting myself." seems ungrammatical to me (while the "keep" version seems fine). [...]
[..] I decided to try clefting, and it seems that "what" and "who" behave differently there: "What enables me to eat food is the spoon." vs *"Who enables me to be me is my mother." I imagine this is highlighting the difference in status between "what" and "who" that enables "what" to work with both a singular and plural... thing... inside of them, but requires "who" to have a plural thing inside of it.
But I don't really have any clue what's actually going on here, and don't know any of the terms of anything in English. Do you have any pointers?
The awful analysis I was thinking of was that "what" can also act as a dummy noun of sorts in addition to its normal role, or something like that, which allows it to act as the head of a NP, but, erm, this seems sloppy (because I don't think it's a noun...). :)
(Or I guess another way of saying it -- it seems like "what" introduces some new element that can be agreed with, while "who" doesn't do that... but again, I have no idea what any of these terms actually mean :-)
05:04
@Rilakkuma for some reason, I see Jabba the Hutt
Hi @3to5businessdays
Hello
You eat fruit flies?
could you please provide more context? I do not know who is Jabba the Hutt. Being a bit rusty you know.
Yes, why do you ask? Mostly their eggs though.
Oh I see what you mean
omg make me unsee it please
05:07
not the best pic
indeed!
you haven't watched star wars before?
the old ones
ah, definitely have, but I was some 9? years old and only remember Yoda because it is funny how it resembles Jodi from Latvian mythology, an android-like robot and terminator-like robot
I think I'm going to get a mosquito bat for those pesky flies
They annoy the shit out of me
Like when you're trying to eat
was checking if mosquito bat can indeed be used for killing flies
because it's called "mosquito bat"
I even kill cockroaches by them
requires a bit of patience and skill
japanese cockroaches have over 200 of armour and are not easy to kill using any non-industrial-grade device
I just dump hot water on them
even if a cockroach is in the middle of the room on tatami?
I lure them to a strategic location haha
to minimize collateral damage
how do you kill cockroach with a mosquito bat though?
with the bat's face to the floor?
first of all I use the electric bat. Then I hit the cockroach and keep it pressed to the floor.
Then i remove it slowly to let cockroach move a bit. They have instinct to try to climb anything above them so I let him do it.
Then there are sparks, smoke, smell of fried cockroaches
actually they don't die from it, they are just incapacitated for a while
so after a cockroach is not moving anymore I can take it somewhere safe and destroy using industrial press or anything else to smash it.
05:15
even when fried, they don't die?
nope :/
really they are insane, like zombies
you shoot them, cut them, but they still crawl towards you
wait so you hit the cockroach with the bat?
the only thing which helps is smashing them into a liquid mass
not really hit, i keep it pressed and deliver several impulses of electricity to incapacitate it
ah, you mean tazing the cockroach?
05:17
so what do you do with the incapacitated roach?
Feed it to a tarantula?
Oh
actually that would be good idea
Missed part of your message
Insect spray kills them though
So does hot water
Perhaps the electricity is not strong enough with the bat
yes
hot water requires time to prepare and place to splash
You should supplement with a taser
insect spray is very efficient but apparently not very good for own health
05:19
@Rilakkuma yeah
i tried hair spray on it once by the way
very interesting effect
glossy and slow-motion cockroach
I kinda freak out when they fly around
so slowing them down is definitely good
yep. And they aim for you when they fly.
I should let them crawl all over me to get over the fear
you can get outside while they are crawling and make others learn to get over the fear of you too.
japanese cockroaches also stink
05:24
don't they all
even the german cockroaches
little bastards
interestingly in latvia they are called Prussian cockroaches
ah, by the way
saw in the news yesterday about the red back spiders found in Mitaka area in Tokyo
and looks like pretty good population
just looked at a WSJ article. They sound pretty scary
that shade of red too
yep. Asked an Australian guy about them and he told red backs are indeed very dangerous yet very shy and won't bite aggressively.
 
11 hours later…
Anonymous
16:17
@DariusJahandarie Your last two structures are pseudo-clefts (not actually a type of cleft―note that there's no corresponding basic structure in many cases to be clefted), which pairs a fused relative construction with a foregrounded element. The fused relative presents a variable, and the foregrounded element tells us the value of that variable.
Anonymous
However, who typically appears in interrogatives and is (almost always) inadmissible in fused relatives; whoever does not typically appear in interrogatives but works grammatically in fused relatives, although "[Whoever enables me to be me] is [my mother]" doesn't work as a pseudo-cleft because now it's answering the question "Who is my mother?" rather than "Who enables me to be me?". One typical way of working around the inadmissibility of who is instead to paraphrase with the one:
Anonymous
> *Who deserves the credit is Jill.
Anonymous
> The one who deserves the credit is Jill.
Anonymous
(See CGEL p.1072-4, 1422-3)
Anonymous
> The one who enables me to be me is my mother.
Anonymous
16:19
Although obviously other paraphrases are possible
Anonymous
If you have a copular construction with a fused relative, specifying be, and the fused relative represents a variable whose value is defined by the other complement of be, then you have a pseudo-cleft regardless of order―it's called a reverse pseudo-cleft when the fused relative comes second
Anonymous
I'll have to get back to you on the subject of agreement
Anonymous
You asked a really complicated question! :-)
Anonymous
16:33
Who used to be acceptable there, by the way: in Othello, we find "Who steals my purse steals trash", but this is now archaic
17:54
@snailboat Thanks! This already helps.
The argument I was trying to make, with the new terms: when you can build a fused relative (like with "what"), then the verb in the complement must be singular, and you can also pseudo-cleft it. When you can't build a fused relative (like with "who"), then the verb needs to agree with the matrix subject and you can't pseudo-cleft it.
The pseudo-clefted version has to be singular, and reversing it keeps it singular. There is just another construction here which requires the agreement that has nothing to do with clefting.
@DariusJahandarie Are you there?
18:23
Yes, though I'm installing some curtains. What's up?
What's a good 擬態語 for "peep"?
Like to peep at something.
みる
Maybe one of [チラ・チラッ・チラチラ・チラリチラリ]と?
It has the connotation that it's a quick glance or look
Not sure if that's what you're looking for
Anonymous
Yeah, those fit with 覗く
I had ちらりとみる for glimpse
Anonymous
Though the "peep" meaning would come from the verb
Anonymous
18:29
And the adverb would add some different meaning
And I had のぞきみる for peep.
But that isn't 擬態語 is it?
Anonymous
@Anthony チラッと and チラリと would be 擬態語
Anonymous
(And they would also be adverbs)
What verb are you saying those are for?
Anonymous
I fit them with 覗く because you said "peep"
18:33
What would 'glimpse' be then?
Anonymous
チラッ/チラリと見る or the like
Anonymous
There are a bunch of ways to say 'glimpse'
Anonymous
Why are you sad?
You said チラリと for both
If I wanted distinct 擬態語 which would I assign to which?
Anonymous
18:35
What? :-)
Homework is dumb.
I know.
I hate this homework.
@snailboat If you had to pick distinct 擬態語 for peep, and for glimpse, what would they be?
I guess I would use チラッと見る for glimpse and こっそり見る for peep. I think こっそり is considered a 擬態語.
こっそり?
Why wouldn't it be?
Anonymous
@DariusJahandarie That sounds good! And I don't think it could be a 擬音語 :-)
Anonymous
18:38
I know different people have different categories for mimetic words
Oh, well, etymologically it's certainly a 擬態語, it's just that for me personally it seems more like just a normal adverb than チラッと.
In fact, that probably has to do with why I used it without と (though I think both are fine, just different nuance).
A native speaker told me のぞき was gitaigo. I'm so confused.
Is ぽかんとしてみる good for gape?
Anonymous
@Anthony It's a deverbal noun from 覗く(のぞく)
Deverbal?
Anonymous
「覗く」の連用形「覗き」の名詞化 ← When it's been 名詞化ed, it's no longer a verb…
18:42
I see.
Anonymous
Pretty much any 動詞の連用形 can be used as a 名詞 but
Anonymous
Some of them get lexicalized as 名詞
Anonymous
And then they can take on attributes independent of the original verb (or not)
Anonymous
I don't see any reason to consider it a 擬態語
Yeah I dunno either...
Anonymous
18:57
@Anthony You can probably find all this stuff in dictionaries
Anonymous
Although I thought ぽかん was a 擬音語・・・
Anonymous
20:38
Our self-evaluation period is about to end.
Anonymous
The timer's already run out, but there's a little time to sneak in reviews past the buzzer… :-)

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