English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

1:03 AM

@Kosmonaut: Now that you mention it, what is this distinction? The only thing I can think of is that clitics can always exist as separate words, while some affixes cannot; then again, some affixes can be separate words.

Although, when I think about it, some clitics change so much in form that they should probably be considered whole new words. Both categories have the change of accent. Both can be separated from their head by spaces, hyphens, or be attached to them. In fact I suspect that there is no hard line: I believe many affixes are former clitic adverbs or pre-/postpositions. Or am I missing something?

nohat

2:35 AM

I think the key is that clitics are grammatically independent but affixes are grammatically dependent on the words they affix to.

nohat

2:59 AM

WTF?

2

0

A: Is [acceptability] a meta-tag?

This is a meta tag, and I have removed it. Beware, you have two questions now tagged untagged.

kiamlaluno

That's nice. :-)

I wonder how it is possible to make a distinction between meta-tag and tag.

To me, a meta-tag would be a tag about tags.

nohat

As far as I can tell, "meta-tag" is a grab bag of ideas for tags Jeff doesn't like

The best description I can find is from the Aaronut quote on the blog posting about meta-tags: “The reason meta-tags are a problem is that they do not describe the content of the question. They describe some other aspect of the question, like the author’s skill level, or the author’s motivation for asking it, or generally what “kind” of question it is (poll, how-to, etc.).”

(from blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags)

I don't think [acceptability] really met these criteria. It is a tag that describes the content of the question—the questions asks about the acceptability of something.

kiamlaluno

I understand what he means for stackoverflow.com, but I am not sure the concept can be applied to english.se.

I can agree it is possible to tag the question with usage, but call acceptability a meta-tag is not something I agree with.

nohat

I think it is absurd that the axe was dropped without even an hour of opportunity for someone to make a defense of the tag.

kiamlaluno

3:16 AM

That is true too. It should be also a decision taken from who normally works on english.se.

If that means there are few diamond users, then it is time to add more of them.

Is it true that American people don't use shall?

Vitaly

@kiamlaluno I accepted your answer, but would you mind adding a clarification that silviculture is the more technical term? It just bothers me a bit that this distinction in usage (which may be unknown to non-native speakers) isn't highlighted in an answer that is on top. I shall really appreciate it.

nohat

Shall is only used in American English in extremely formal contexts. Certainly essentially never in spoken English.

kiamlaluno

@nohat: Does that mean American people never say I shall return?

@Vitaly: I actually think that forestry is more technical, as it is also the nome used for a science.

I avoided to report that to avoid to make a passable answer a bad answer.

Vitaly

@kiamlaluno strange, one of my dictionaries reports that silviculture is the technical synonym to forestry. Thanks anyway.

kiamlaluno

I also thought that I shall return would be similar to I should return.

nohat

3:28 AM

@kiamlaluno People would say “I will return” or more likely “I’ll return”. You would only say “I shall return” if you were trying to be dramatic or exceedingly formal.

Robusto

Or Douglas MacArthur ...

kiamlaluno

When a user exceed the 200 point daily limit, do down votes have effect?

Robusto

They count.

kiamlaluno

How nice. :-)

@Robusto: Thank you.

Robusto

np

kiamlaluno

3:34 AM

By the way, is your nick an Italian word? :-)

Robusto

it doesn't do much though. Usually if someone goes over rep cap it's by a fair margin. More than 2 points.

It's a kind of cigar.

I took it because my name is Rob, not because I smoke cigars.

Where does your name come from?

kiamlaluno

It's Esperanto. It means "when the moon".

I usually use kiam la luno renkontas las sunon as signature (when the moon meets the sun).

Robusto

I never knew any Esperantans :)

Joke

kiamlaluno

Don't count me as one. :-)

I started reading about Esperanto thinking it could help me on studying English better.

Robusto

Where are you from?

kiamlaluno

3:39 AM

Italy.

And I still am there. ;-)

Robusto

Cool.

What part?

kiamlaluno

I am in the Northern Italy, central region, Brescia. :-)

Robusto

Interesting.

kiamlaluno

The lioness of Italy. :-)

Robusto

You are female?

kiamlaluno

3:41 AM

Last time I checked, I was not. ;-)

No, I am not.

Robusto

Why lioness then?

That is the term for Brescia?

kiamlaluno

Oh… yes. It's Brescia that is called so.

Vitaly

Thanks, it's an interesting phrase. I checked the Wikipedia article about Brescia when you said it, to make sure I understood it right. @kiamlaluno

kiamlaluno

I am sorry for the confusion. As my last sentence ended with Brescia, I didn't say to what I was referring.

Vitaly

Though I can't yet make a connection between the resistance of 1849 and the nickname.

Is it something about the Italian language?

Robusto

3:45 AM

IDK

Italian isn't one of the languages I'm very familiar with.

kiamlaluno

Let me see if the meaning can be used in English too.

Robusto

Was your area part of Gaul way back when?

kiamlaluno

The NOAD says lion means a brave or strong person. It means the same in Italian.

Vitaly

But lioness?

Robusto

The lioness does all the hunting. The lion just lies around and waits to be fed.

Vitaly

3:48 AM

Haha.

kiamlaluno

It's the female for lion. In Italian city (città) is feminine.

We have grammar gender. :-)

Robusto

I know

Which is about as useful as teats on a bull ...

kiamlaluno

Brescia is a Celtic town. It has been conquest from Roman, and became Augusta Brixia.

Well, in Italian the gender is useful. It helps with the adjectives and articles.

Robusto

Don't need no gender on no adjectives 'n' articles neither ...

kiamlaluno

You would, if you would speak Italian. :-)

Vitaly

3:52 AM

In Russian, grammatical gender has a strong effect on your feeling towards something. Does the same stand for Italian?

Robusto

I would pretty much have to then.

I get enough of gender with German.

Vitaly

We have, for example, берёза (birch), which is feminine, and дуб (oak), which is masculine.

So in Russian poetry, the birch tends to be excessively feminised, often represented as a young girl.

Ива (willow, feminine) is feminised in poetry and novels, as well.

kiamlaluno

That is what happen in Italian too. The liberty is represented by a young woman; the same is true for the statues representing Italy, a town, etc.

Robusto

I studied Russian for a year in high school, and as I recall it was not too hard.

Vitaly

Oh, nice.

kiamlaluno

3:56 AM

Echo is then feminine, in Italian. It was the name of a muse.

Robusto

I could never hear the difference between the soft signs and hard signs though.

Some phonemes you have to grow up with.

kiamlaluno

Is it like Japanese? I read it's a tonal language.

Vitaly

Russian? No

Robusto

Not completely. Not like Chinese.

You are asking about Japanese?

kiamlaluno

I mean, is Russian as tonal as Japanese? :-)

Robusto

3:58 AM

I don't think Russian is tonal at all.

Vitaly

I don't think so either, but as a native Russian speaker, I may be biased. ;-)

kiamlaluno

I was just asking. I don't speak Russian at all. :-)

Robusto

Japanese uses raised pitch for emphasis, but that's about it. In certain constructions, like the one I mentioned on English.SE the other day. Inu-(w)o ka'te-imasue ... the 'te' is spoken with a rising inflection.

kiamlaluno

I know how to say yes, no, goodbye, tovarich, but not a complete sentence.

Urka. :-)

Robusto

I don't have a Cyrillic keyboard, but I can say "Ya nichego ne znayu."

Vitaly

4:02 AM

lol

kiamlaluno

Dasfidania, tovarich.

Robusto

Ya ne ponimayu po-russki

Vitaly

Oh, you even used the hyphen. How nice. Most Russians don't know better.

kiamlaluno

Is that Russian, or Japanese? :-)

Robusto

that was Russian

Or my approximation of it.

Vitaly

4:04 AM

Where would you learn urka? I am curious.

kiamlaluno

I think I heard it in TV, in an Italian program.

Vitaly

That's a curiosity indeed, because urka has always been a relatively rare slang word.

Robusto

what does it mean?

Vitaly

It means a crook

kiamlaluno

I think they used it because its similarity with an Italian word. I must investigate. :-)

Vitaly

4:07 AM

Well, to be more exact, it hasn't always been a rare word.

It is a slang word back from the 30s-40s.

By the late 80s, it was used mostly by journalists to impress the reader with a funny slang-ish word.

I think last time I heard it anywhere (except this chatroom) was in the mid-90s.

kiamlaluno

►

To notice the title: urca urca tirulero, which doesn't have any meaning.

Vitaly

tirulero doesn't make any sense in Russian either, for what it's worth. :-)

kiamlaluno

In Italian, urca is an expression of wonder, if I remember well. I have not used the word in ages.

Should the first comment to this question be removed? It's a request for support, rather than be a comment to the question.

2

Q: Does the verb "unpublish" exist?

I use a CMS (content management system) where a post, or comment is visible to all the users (if there aren't other restrictions) when it is flagged as published. What verb should I use to mean that I changed the status of a post from published to unpublished? The dictionary reports that unpubli...

verbs

Vitaly

back to grammatical gender. I once wondered whether native English speakers perceived the entities that the English nouns refer to as possessing some form of gender, even in the absence of the grammatical category of gender

some Wikipedia page mentioned that gender in English has become a ‘hidden category,’ if I am recalling the term right

which doesn't really provide one with any insight into how native English speakers perceive the nouns

kiamlaluno

Old English had grammar gender.

Vitaly

4:20 AM

Yeah, it had the category of grammatical gender explicitly, which has become a hidden category

The word wyrm (worm) was apparently masculine in Old English

Robusto

I'll tell you how I perceive gender in nouns: as a useless encumbrance. :)

kiamlaluno

In some cases, there are two words for the same animal, but recent words don't make distinction of gender.

Vitaly

So, is it possible that modern English speakers could perceive a worm as ‘he’, not as simply ‘it’?

Robusto

Nope.

kiamlaluno

I think a worm is a it.

Vitaly

4:23 AM

It was a he in Old English. ;-)

kiamlaluno

You use "he" or "she" for domestic animals, though.

Vitaly

And ‘she’ for ships.

Robusto

We we ain't in Olde England anymore.

I don't say "Sume man eode ham to his huse." I say "Some guy went home to his house."

Vitaly

This reminds me that infants are customarily called ‘it’ in BrE, which AmE speakers apparently find offensive.

Robusto

Not true.

A newborn is called "it" if you don't know the sex. If you do, you call it he or she.

kiamlaluno

4:25 AM

It is used to refer to child of unspecified sex in American English too.

Robusto

That's what I'm saying.

Vitaly

It's implied that the gender is unknown.

Robusto

It's also how you ask what sex a child is: "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Vitaly

Wait, I shall try to find a blog entry about it.

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2010/11/…

kiamlaluno

@Robusto: Are you American?

Robusto

4:29 AM

Si, molto Americano.

kiamlaluno

Ok, now this comment is spammish (the second one).

2

Q: Does the verb "unpublish" exist?

I use a CMS (content management system) where a post, or comment is visible to all the users (if there aren't other restrictions) when it is flagged as published. What verb should I use to mean that I changed the status of a post from published to unpublished? The dictionary reports that unpubli...

verbs

Cool. I visited LI many times, in the last 10 years. :-)

Robusto

Why are you spamming that here?

kiamlaluno

Because there are diamond users? :-)

When I said spam-ish, I was referring to the comment to that question, not to my comment.

Robusto

I've been playing this XBox 360 game called Assassin's Creed lately ... it has a lot of Italian in it. Pretty interesting.

kiamlaluno

Really?

Do you mean they use Italian words?

Robusto

4:37 AM

Yeah, they sometimes speak whole sentences in Italian.

kiamlaluno

Wow; what an honor. :-)

Robusto

It's about Renaissance Italy, and the battle between the Borgia and the Medici.

kiamlaluno

It's really something I would not have expected.

Oh… Borgia…

Robusto

gamespot.com/xbox360/action/assassinscreed/index.html

kiamlaluno

Does the game make also references to history?

Robusto

4:39 AM

Absolutely. That's what's so cool about it.

kiamlaluno

That's cool, and nice. :-)

Vitaly

Meh. I know some Russians who complain that when they have local History Olympiads in Russian schools, their kids are being posed with questions to which they [kids] most likely would know an answer if they played that game. And they [parents] figure that the authors of the questionnaires play that game as well.

kiamlaluno

For once, it's not a game about Mafia. :-)

Robusto

Yeah.

BTW, Vitally, I hear the Russian press is blaming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II for the airport terrorist incident recently.

Vitaly

I cannot say whether it's true. I haven't read Russian press in a long time.

However, the Russian news I get on the Web didn't mention anything like that.

Robusto

4:44 AM

Because there is one "chapter" that takes place in a Russian airport, and the deal is you are working undercover trying to bring down this Russian mobster, but you have to massacre civilians at the airport to prove yourself.

I don't play that myself, but my son does.

I couldn't bring myself to even pretend to kill civilians.

Vitaly

Have you run that game on your computer or shut it down yourself? ;-)

kiamlaluno

How do you edit a message you already sent?

I found it.

Vitaly

@kiamlaluno Press the up arrow. Oh well, you beat me to it.

Robusto

My son is in college. He plays it sometimes on my XBox when he comes home for a visit. Actually, I only really bought the XBox for the boys to play when they come home. But then I played Assassin's Creed and kind of got into it.

Vitaly

Anyway, if you have ever shut the game down, you have in effect obliterated a whole world full of civilians. The chunks of data were erased from the memory. You're evil! ;-)

Robusto

4:51 AM

I don't deny it. I have killed a lot of bits of data in my time ...

Somehow they keep coming back to live though. Or undeath ...

Vitaly

:D

Robusto

Later. Gotta go to work in the morning. Also we're getting slammed with snow here for the next two days. I ... hate ... winter ...

kiamlaluno

Bye, Robusto.

Vitaly

Bye @Robusto

kiamlaluno

Do users see my email, on english.se or other SE sites?

Vitaly

5:02 AM

I don't. And when you edit a profile, it says the e-mail is never displayed.

kiamlaluno

@Vitaly: Thank you.

Vitaly

You're welcome.

Yuva

Hi good Morning/evening

kiamlaluno

Good morning.

Yuva

5:20 AM

I m new to this chatroom. Do we discuss only about english in here?

kiamlaluno

5:32 AM

I guess the chat has the same purpose of the site.

Yuva

If it is so then I m in the right place. I am proud to say that I m interested in English oration

kiamlaluno

6:24 AM

This is another duplicate.

0

Q: Rule on absence of the article "the" with plural nouns

I recently reviewed (as I believe, rather thoroughly) the rules of using articles in English and I do not recall any rule on absence of definitive article THE with plural nouns. Can you give me a reference on such a rule?

grammar plural learning articles

3

Q: Definite article with plural nouns

Are there cases where the definite article is used with a plural noun, or is it a rule that the definite article is never used with the plural of a word?

grammar plural learning articles

RegDwight

9:21 AM

@kiamlaluno: note that diamond mods can see your email address, so as to be able to contact you directly if there are any issues to be settled. They can also see your real name (well, the "real name" you provide), and open your consecutive-days calendar.

kiamlaluno

9:31 AM

@RegDwight: Thank you. I was more worried of that user who tries to contact me, and reports it as a comment on english.SE.

I don't know why, but I keep to write "Red" when I write your nick. :-)

RegDwight

Heh. Many people do, especially on the meta Meta.

I miss a lot of comments because of that.

It's short for Reginald. There is no Redinald!

kiamlaluno

I hope not! :-)

RegDwight

BTW, that last question, I'm not sure if that's a dupe, but I think it's what they call "noise or pointless" on MSO.

kiamlaluno

I am used to users who write kiamlaluna, on drupal.org. It doesn't happen too frequently, thought.

I think "I am not a female!". :-)

RegDwight

I'm not that familiar with Esperanto. Do they have both luno and luna?

kiamlaluno

9:36 AM

It's quite a noise. In the question I asked you find when the article is used; therefore, you know when it should be not used.

There is just luno; the feminine would be lunino.

RegDwight

I seem to vaguely remember that all nouns take -o, all adjectives take -a, or something like that.

kiamlaluno

I am sure you know a word that is related to fraulo, but I am sure you would think it refers to a woman.

That is correct.

RegDwight

Yeah, Esperanto is full of "German" words.

kiamlaluno

Yep. Tago is another word of those.

RegDwight

That's a funny word!

Now I'm hungry!

kiamlaluno

9:40 AM

Anyway, fraulo means mister, and the feminine would be fraulino.

I didn't know that tago had that effect. :-)

RegDwight

I didn't know either until just a minute ago.

kiamlaluno

Well, between an hour will be tagmezo. :-)

Speaking of German words borrowed from Esperanto, there are also kvar and kvin.

RegDwight

I'm not sure that's German, sounds quite Latin to me.

Quarta, quinta.

Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordini

kiamlaluno

Oh. From the kv, I thought they were German-related words. :-)

Now it's my turn to be hungry. :-)

RegDwight

How so? I didn't say sArdini!

kiamlaluno

9:45 AM

What are sordini? :-)

RegDwight

Ugh, err, what do you call them in English? Mute, I think.

kiamlaluno

Sardine e alici!

RegDwight

Ah! Dampers!

Another German(ic)-looking word.

kiamlaluno

OK; I am lost. :-)

What is sordini?

RegDwight

Mute (music)

A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both. Musical directions for muting The use of a mute is usually indicated in musical notation by the direction con sordino (often abbreviated con sord, sord, sordino). (Sordina, with plural sordine, is the strictly correct Italian term for mute as used on string instruments; but the forms con sordino, senza sordino, sordino via, etc., are much more commonly used as terms in music than the forms con sordina, senza sordine, etc.) The mute should ...

kiamlaluno

9:47 AM

It's the first time I heard of that. :-)

RegDwight

Musical notation is full of all kinds of funky Italian words.

kiamlaluno

Andante, allegro, piano, pianissimo_. andante allegro. :-)

RegDwight

Presto agitato.

kiamlaluno

There are many Italian words used in lyric.

Actually, lyric used texts in Italian. The first to use texts in German was Mozart.

I am sure I didn't use the correct word. :-)

RegDwight

Yeah, it's still called libretto for a reason.

And librettist.

kiamlaluno

9:52 AM

There isn't an article in Italian for sordino. There is an article in German, but I would understand Chinese better than that. ;-)

RegDwight

Sordina

La sordina, in musica, è un dispositivo meccanico che, applicato ad uno strumento musicale, ne modifica il suono, attutendolo e modificandone il timbro. Ogni strumento viene sordinato in maniera e con dispositivi diversi; allo stesso modo la frequenza con cui le sordine vengono applicate è molto variabile a seconda del tipo di strumento: il procedimento è abbastanza frequente per gli ottoni mentre è più raro per altre famiglie e quasi inesistente per alcuni strumenti (chitarre, flauti). Quanto si è detto riguarda le sordine che vengono usate per modificare il suono degli strumenti duran...

kiamlaluno

I should add the link to this page on the article for sordino.

RegDwight

What Beethoven meant, however, is only briefly mentioned in a single sentence buried in the middle of the page: "Nel caso del pianoforte, alcuni spartiti specificano senza sord. per indicare l'uso del pedale (normalmente specificato con Ped.)."

kiamlaluno

Thank you. :-)

RegDwight

In Russian, we have the word сурдина (surdina) for the sordina per tromba.

Or any brass instrument, for that matter.

kiamlaluno

9:58 AM

It's almost the same word, except it's used in a more specific way.

RegDwight

So, are you still hungry or what? (^_^)

kiamlaluno

After talking of sordina so much, no. :-)

RegDwight

We could talk about gelati, then.

kiamlaluno

Oh well… ice cream doesn't match well with sardine. :-)

I think I will pass on that. :-)

RegDwight

I just like the word. Ge-la-ti. Kind of like what Nabokov was getting at with his choice of Lo-li-ta.

Also, there's actually ice cream with sardine taste/flavour.

kiamlaluno

10:06 AM

Now I am definitively not hungry. :-)

For cry out loud! Who would even taste that ice cream?

Don't reply: I know I would not. :-)

*crying out

I hope I didn't write the wrong expression: I heard it many times, but I am still not sure I understand what is being said.

RegDwight

I think your usage was fine. At least I understood perfectly what you meant.

The Japanese have all kinds of ice-cream. Garlic, meat, fish, cheese, vegetables, you name it.

kiamlaluno

That's good; it means I really keep attention to what a person tells me. :-)

I would rather eat a pizza with french fries on top. :-)

What is about a Bismarck pizza? Yummy!

Wurstels and french fries!

Now I am really hungry!

To point the finger, those are all Italian pizzas; no need to put the blame on other countries. :-)

What I would really like to taste, now, it's fudge.

Is there fudge in Germany too?

RegDwight

10:24 AM

Yeah, sure there is.

I still can't make head or tails of the [acceptability] question.

Guess I'll have to wait till Kosmonaut and nohat are around, have a chat with them.

kiamlaluno

Nor do I.

RegDwight

I can't believe this is happening.

Or has happened.

kiamlaluno

nohat expressed his opinion with "WTF". :-)

RegDwight

That can't be starred enough.

kiamlaluno

Do you know what Drude would mean?

Just in case, I starred the link too.

RegDwight

10:31 AM

I dunno, could be a misspelling of dude or druid(e), or a proper name.

I'm not familiar with that forum, I would have to guess.

There's the German word Drude, it's a female elf.

But it's extremely seldom.

kiamlaluno

I was thinking of dude, but the word has been written in capital case.

RegDwight

Yeah, hence my reasoning that it could be a proper name.

Drudge or who knows, just Drude, as is.

kiamlaluno

I would spouse the last hypothesis you said. :-)

Ehmm… the one before the last.

RegDwight

Haha, spouse is funny (^_^)

kiamlaluno

I will ask on drupal.org, and report the answer here. ;-)

RegDwight

10:35 AM

Fair enough.

kiamlaluno

That is a case of translation from Italian to English I do. :-)

I don't know why, but there is already a person laughing at my English expressions.

In Italian, sposo la tua teoria would mean I agree with your hypothesis.

I thought spouse could be also a verb, in English.

RegDwight

Now that you mentioned the domain name, couldn't the dru in Drude be the same as (or related to) the dru in drupal?

kiamlaluno

Drupal derives from the Dutch word for drop.

RegDwight

Yeah, just read that on Wikipedia. (^_^)

Funny how I never thought about what it could mean.

kiamlaluno

Dries was thinking to call his first site dorp.org, but when verifying the domain was available, he wrote drop.

Oh. I memorized it. :-)

RegDwight

10:40 AM

Yeah well, I guess I won't forget it now, either, it's a fun story.

kiamlaluno

I registered my account on drupal.org 4 years and 45 weeks ago. :)

RegDwight

Do they have shiny badges for that?

StackExchange and Reddit do.

kiamlaluno

If you look at Druplicon, it's a water drop. :-)

No. We don't have even a tag for site maintainers/administrators.

RegDwight

A water drop with a sleep mask on.

kiamlaluno

I thought it was the mask thieves use. :-)

RegDwight

10:44 AM

Or that. Somehow it also reminds me of Astro Boy.

kiamlaluno

That is why I was thinking to make a module that would add badges, and permissions based on the reputation.

Actually, there are some modules that allow to create a StackExchange-like site with Drupal.

RegDwight

I'm pretty sure someone is working on that already. There are all kinds of SE clones around.

I wonder if there's one in Turbo Pascal 5.5.

kiamlaluno

I hope I don't select Hebraic in the Google search preferences. I would have troubles to reset the language back to English. :-)

Turbo Pascal for a web site; that would be really cool.

Is Turbo Pascal like Delphi?

I wonder if when I edit one of my old questions/answers, other users see the question jumping on the top of the recent questions.

I edited one of my questions (or answers), and it has been voted up.

RegDwight

Delphi is a mix of Borland Pascal Object and Visual Basic 3.0.

I'm now holding a book titled "Programming in Turbo Pascal 5.5". It's in Russian, published in 1992. Good times.

kiamlaluno

I think I will delete this question; I got already two down votes because it.

-2

Q: Check the information available from http://example.com/info.html

What does the sentence reported in the title mean? Check the information you find in that page, and in any page with a link in that page. Check the information you find in that page.

usage meaning prepositions

1992… Yes; they were good times. :-)

RegDwight

10:54 AM

I'm not sure you can delete it now that it has an upvoted answer.

I think you will have to close-vote it, not sure.

kiamlaluno

That fine; I voted that answer. :-)

I thought it was a good question; at least it would make clear what the difference between available from and available on is, IMO.

RegDwight

I think it could benefit from some editing, to highlight just that.

Actually, the title looks kind of spammy, without quotes.

Perhaps some people are voting on that.

kiamlaluno

You were right, indeed. I cannot delete it.

Oh for Pete's sake!

Well… the link is the classic example.com. If they think there is really a site with that name, they could as well think Santa Claus really exists. :-)

RegDwight

Heh. Well, I'm not saying that that is really what is happening. Just a theory.

kiamlaluno

I would not surprised it would be so. Sometimes people don't think.

RegDwight

11:00 AM

But if you want to highlight the difference between "available from" and "available on", I would ask just that.

kiamlaluno

Or that, or they overthink.

The idea was to ask about that in the specific case. I don't want to get 1000 answers saying a different meaning of "available from".

-2

Q: "Available from" versus "available on"

What is the difference between available from and available on? Do the following sentences have a different meaning? Check the information available from [URL of a web page]. Check the information available on [URL of a web page]. My interpretation is that they mean, respectively: Chec...

usage meaning prepositional-phrase

Fantastic; another down vote.

RegDwight

I like the edit. A lot.

kiamlaluno

I must thank you for the suggestion. Sometimes I need somebody who proof-read my questions, even to just suggest what it is better to avoid misinterpretations like that.

RegDwight

You're welcome.

kiamlaluno

I think that most of the down votes are done from who speaks English as first language.

For them the question is quite obvious, but sometimes they don't think of the meaning of the phrase being asked.

RegDwight

11:16 AM

I must say that a few downvotes here or there is nothing to get upset about. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two answers that got a downvote (along with many upvotes) for no reason whatsoever, one by Robusto, one by nohat.

Now, if people start getting downvoted like on the breasts question, that is insane.

kiamlaluno

I know. I just find that some questions are more obvious than others, but I would not down vote a question for that.

For example, there is the question about the difference between day and date.

RegDwight

The point is that ultimately, everyone is entitled to his opinion, and he's paying a -1 himself for the privilege.

kiamlaluno

That's true. :-)

RegDwight

Plus, as the site grows, there are many more votes, including downvotes.

kiamlaluno

What I don't understand are the votes for a user who doesn't frequent the site anymore.

RegDwight

11:20 AM

We now have well over 4000 users. What's 2 downvotes, (or even 10) in that context?

Well, that's passive rep.

The "old "questions don't get thrown away, people still come across them, and they still vote.

kiamlaluno

I wish I would have that passive reputation; when I was away, nobody voted my questions/answers. :-)

RegDwight

I have some stats right here. According to the latest dump, you're getting 4.936 passive rep points per day.

kiamlaluno

What?

Oh… that is the decimal point. :-)

Still it's amazing.

RegDwight

Hahaha.

kiamlaluno

Do you mean votes on my old questions/answers?

RegDwight

11:23 AM

Yeah, five thousand passive rep every single day, now that's what I call inflation!

kiamlaluno

I was going with another "for Pete's sake". :-)

RegDwight

Yep, votes on all posts that are older than 4 weeks.

Rep that is collected in the first 2 weeks is ignored, any rep after that is considered "passive".

kiamlaluno

How do you see those statistics?

RegDwight

Also, my stats only consider the top 2000 posts.

data.stackexchange.com/english/q/18071/money-for-jam

Brb, Xblast, afk for 20 min or so.

kiamlaluno

I hope you are not going to blast somebody. ;-)

@RegDwight: Thank you for the link.

RegDwight

11:49 AM

Geez, got pwned big time.

kiamlaluno

Pwned?

RegDwight

Yeah, haven't lost like that in a looooooong time.

kiamlaluno

I hope it was not painful. :-)

RegDwight

It kind of is.

kiamlaluno

Oh… Xblast is a game.

RegDwight

11:58 AM

And an extremely fun one at that.

Anyhow, where were we? Ah yes. DataExplorer rocks.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…