English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

GratefulDisciple

12:01 AM

@Criggie ROT13 in Sanskrit would be novel. Reminds me when my kid was 6 we had fun exchanging messages using a letter substitution cipher he developed himself, better than ROT13!

tchrist

12:28 AM

Cinq à sept

Cinq à sept (French: [sɛ̃k a sɛt], literally 'five to seven') is a French-language term for activities taking place after work and before returning home (sometimes using overtime as an excuse), or having dinner (roughly between 5 and 7 p.m.). It may also be written as 5 à 7 or 5@7. == In Quebec == In Quebec French, the term stands for a social gathering. It may bring together friends or colleagues or may be organized around a specific event, such as a book launch or vernissage. Wine, beer, and cocktails are served along with finger foods and other hors d'oeuvres. Such a party held later may...

Criggie

So, "beer o'clock" ?

tchrist

> In France, Cinq à sept originally referred to a time for a tryst, and consequently is a metonym for a visit to one's mistress, an extramarital affair, and the mistress involved. It derived from the time of day French people would make such a visit. It is still commonly considered as the time of day to meet one's mistress or lover, and the term implies a sexual liaison (as opposed to the Québécois habit).

jlliagre

I was about to write it.

jlliagre

12:41 AM

Former president François Hollande cinq à sept made the headlines when they were disclosed in 2014.

Cerberus

@tchrist Nowadays called, "overtime".

Or 'overtime'?

tchrist

Yes.

Robusto

1:04 AM

Maybe "overt time" as well.

Cerberus

1:35 AM

Better than "over time", I suppose.

CowperKettle

1:46 AM

Now I know the Spanish word for company: empresa

From Italian impreza, Deverbal, formed with the feminine past participle of imprendere, a less common alternative for intraprendere (“to undertake”).

In Russian we have the word impressario for a business person who manages concerts, theater plays etc.

hundir

Verb: hundir (first-person singular present hundo, first-person singular preterite hundí, past participle hundido)

(transitive) to sink, engulf
(transitive) to ruin, destroy
(reflexive) to sink, sink down
(reflexive) to collapse, cave in, subside
(reflexive) to break down, go to pieces, fall apart

Inherited from Latin fundere, fundō, from Proto-Italic *hundō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd-. Doublet of fundir (“to cast, to melt”). Compare English found (“to cast metal”), founder (“to sink”).

Cerberus

@CowperKettle We have this word too.

@CowperKettle Company as in polite company, or as in enterprise, business?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Business

Cerberus

Sounds like enterprise.

tchrist

This is Poul Anderson, riffing on the AE Housman ballad:

> The Queen of Air and Darkness cried softly under sky:
‘Light down, you ranger Arvid, and join the Outling folk.
You need no more be human, which is a heavy yoke.’

He dared to give her answer: ‘I may do naught but run.
A maiden waits me, dreaming in lands beneath the sun.
And likewise wait me comrades and tasks I would not shirk,
for what is ranger Arvid if he lays down his work?
So wreak your spells, you Outling, and cast your wrath on me.
Though maybe you can slay me, you'll not make me unfree.’

@Criggie More ballad meter there.

I coupled up the 4+3 lines to make it shorter to paste. Here's Housman's, uncoupled to still look like a ballad:

> Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,

The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.'

O Queen of air and darkness,
I think 'tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
But you will die to-day.

CowperKettle

2:04 AM

Poul Anderson

Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until his death in 2001. Anderson also wrote historical novels. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, and was nominated many more times for awards. == Biography == Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania to Danish parents. Soon after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, relocated the family to Texas, where they lived for more than ten years. After Anton Anderson's death, his widow took the children...

@tchrist Housman is great

tchrist

Indeed.

CowperKettle

> He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck.

I memorized this poem a long time ago.

And parts of this one:

> Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;
Breath’s a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey’s over
There’ll be time enough to sleep.

poets.org/poem/shropsire-lad-iv

tchrist

Ballad meter makes for a catchy, memorable verse.

And it gives the poet more freedom with unstressed syllables, so the feet can vary.

@CowperKettle This one has "head rhyme" (alliteration) not just "tail rhyme".

CowperKettle

I don't understand my Russian colleagues translators who say that they last read English poetry in University. To master a language to perfection, and not enjoy the language's most exquisite parts (poetry, songs etc.) is odd.

tchrist

> A gypsy rover came over the hill
Down through the valley so shady.
He whistled and he sang 'til the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady.

* Ah-dee-doo-ah-dee-doo-dah-day
Ah-dee-doo-ah-dee-day-dee
He whistled and he sang 'til the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady.

She left her father's castle gate.
She left her own fine lover.
She left her servants and her state
To follow her gypsy rover.

She left behind her velvet gown
And shoes of Spanish leather
They whistled and they sang 'till the green woods rang

CowperKettle

2:11 AM

I heard a version of this song in my jogging mp3 player a couple years back by some US singer of the 1960s

But I don't recally exactly by whom

The Kingston Trio -The Whistling Gypsy.

►

Ah, I recalled.

It were the Kingston Trio

Their "Tom Dooley" is a great song.

I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday being unable to crawl out of the house for weakness. Today I"m a bit better. I wonder if the non-growing old tumor in my brain can somehow play up the inflammation and cause drowsiness. I should use perplexity.AI to investigate.

tchrist

Yep.

More ballad meter:

> I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think

@CowperKettle I only walked a couple miles today, trying to feel better. I wish your ills were as simple as mine are.

CowperKettle

After long runs, I have hazy vision in my left eye, and bad mood, and sometimes these bouts of weakness for days. I wonder -- can physical activity somehow "shake up" a non-growing tumor so that it releases some inflammatory factors? And thus makes a person weak and mentally tired.

@tchrist Nah, I felt so great on Monday and Tuesday that I covered 100+ km on bicycle

tchrist

@CowperKettle Hazy vision in one eye is really unsettling. You need serious doctors.

CowperKettle

> Mr Gong, a 57-year-old man from Shanghai, has systemic sclerosis, which affects connective tissue and can result in skin stiffening and organ damage. He says that three days after receiving the therapy, he felt his skin loosen and he could start moving his fingers and opening his mouth again. Two weeks later, he returned to his office job. nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03209-4

Scientists have come up with revolutionary therapy for immune disorders

> One woman and two men with severe autoimmune conditions have gone into remission after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells

@tchrist It just lasts for several days

And then becomes better again.

tchrist

I understand that. My position stands.

CowperKettle

2:20 AM

I have a schwannoma around the trigeminal nerve in the cavernous sinus just behind the left eye, so it might, when agitated, temporarily decrease vision.

tchrist

OH.

This is also ballad meter, just coupled up:

> Ent:

When spring unfolds the beechen-leaf and sap is in the bough,
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow,
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!

Entwife:

When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade,
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid,
When sun and shower upon the earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair!

CowperKettle

Probably written by Tolkien

tchrist

You can call it heptameter if you with, but it's classic ballad meter in stanza of 4 lines, 4+3 each, with rhymes on the shorter ones.

Yes.

I was looking for some of his that used ballad meter.

He actually uses common meter more often.

He writes in nearly everything in the books, save for iambic pentameter.

I haven't gotten the new two-volume of his poems, including unpublished ones.

> The majority of the poems of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are in common or ballad meter (lines of iambic tetrameter alternating with lines of iambic trimeter) or long meter (iambic tetrameter), but there are poems in hexameter, heptameter, octameter, amphibrachic dimeter, dactylic trimeter, Old English alliterative meter, and free verse;6 the rhyme schemes range from abab to couplets to more complex forms, including a sestet (Aragorn's song of Gondor).

from here

CowperKettle

tchrist

> It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

> Strange fits of passion have I known,
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befel.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

> Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba
and wandered wandered far
from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night.
Fool of St. Elmo’s fire

In scary night I wandered, praying,
Lord God my harshener,
speak to me now or let me die;
speak, Lord, to this mourner.

And came at length to livid trees
where Ibo warriors
hung shadowless, turning in wind
that moaned like Africa,

Their belltongue bodies dead, their eyes
alive with the anger deep
in my own heart. Is this the sign,
the sign forepromised me?

The spirits vanished. Afraid and lonely

> ‘Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?’

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.

> O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

> There‘s a lady who‘s sure all that glitters is gold
and she‘s buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed,
with a word she can get what she came for.

> Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid

And what was the color of his hair?

> He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

I bet he was a redhead.

> I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

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