English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

haha nice.

1:12 AM

This time, without an exclamation mark.

@RegDwight — Someone's gonna flunk writing.

I have just posted the laziest answer ever.

Feel free to suspend me holds out wrists.

Nah, I just upvoted you.

Wat!?

I'm too lazy to give that boy the thrashing he deserves.

1:14 AM

I mean, just in case anybody's not noticing: that's her third question about her homework assignment for today.

And two of them have identical titles.

I thought I recognized her je-ne-sais-quoi.

OK, then I'm too lazy to give that girl the thrashing she deserves.

@Cerberus — That's French for "I don't know anything," right?

Hey you wouldn't know that: it is in a foreign language.

American, right>

Oh right, I forgot: I'm an American.

1:16 AM

D'oh.

But yes that's what it means.

じゃ、米国人ですが。。。

"A native speaker of English is usually someone who does not know any other language, did not ever study any foreign language and honestly believes that there is no need to know any language except English/American"

english.stackexchange.com/questions/14582/…

@Cerberus Not exactly. It means "I don't know what"

Oh God, what does this mean: partner opens 1H, East bids 2H and alerts...

@Rob: D'oh!

I thought you were jokingly parading American ignorance in a subtle wordplay on the ability of the poster... let's keep it at that!

Me knows a thing or two.

I was doing that.

1:19 AM

You might be; there are so many twisted levels in this chat that I couldn't possible keep up.

I was saying she doesn't know nothing. Or, in the parlance of today's youth: She dosnt no nothin.

Occasionally I pretend not to understand @RegDwight's jokes just to see how pissed off he gets.

I see... no I don't...

Well I am bidding 4H even though I have only 3HCP.

It's the only time I ever see him get angry.

You are going down, my friend.

You will be set by one trick.

Probably... but I don't like this opposing cue bid.

One, you say? That is fine; I am just trying to block the opponents' bidding space.

Are you vulnerable?

Did you get doubled?

1:22 AM

They're using English words to speak another language. Is there a word for that?

It's called cheating.

Denglisch.

No and no, but it was probably the wrong bid. We are going down so hard. I am going to save this hand to see whether opps would have made 6 otherwise.

Jargon?

BTW, here's a diagram that defines the nerd better than your Venn diagrams, @RegDwight:

1:23 AM

Denglisch

Denglisch (German spelling) or Denglish (English spelling) is a portmanteau of the German words Deutsch and Englisch. Used in all German-speaking countries, it describes an influx of English, or pseudo-English, vocabulary into the German language through travel and English's widespread usage in advertising, business and information technology. Synonyms are Gerglish, Angleutsch and Engleutsch. While it has been argued that this influx, similar to the import of Latin and French words in the past, makes the language more expressive, in many sectors of society it remains controversial, nota...

Anyway, gotta go eat dinner. TTYL.

Not to me. I plan to be sleeping.

Aww nice diagram.

And bye Rob!

So they're using Bridlish?

Or is it Engridge?

Let's settle for vgv8isch.

1:24 AM

Man it looks like I am going to make 6H.

Yay made it.

Aww poor vgv8 (that you even memorized his name!).

But actually no portmanteau like that really covers this situation: the vocabulary is 100% English, it's just used in ways that make no sense in the normal language.

I can even spell kiamlaluno and ShreevatsaR anytime.

Part of my job description.

That is called Google Translate?

@Reg: Wow I am impressed. I might vote for you again. Just give me some candy too, will you?

Gotta go attend to needy child. Read everybody later...

Bye!

1:27 AM

@JPmiaou That is most certainly vgv8isch.

yesterday, by Kosmonaut

I read through this question a few times and now I feel like I don't understand English anymore.

Yup!

I wonder why he won't come back on an alt.

Mar 3 at 11:11, by RegDwight

Candy

Candy, specifically sugar candy, is a confection made from a concentrated solution of sugar in water, to which flavorings and colorants are added. Candies come in numerous colors and varieties and have a long history in popular culture. The Middle English word "candy" began to be used in the late 13th century, coming into English from the Old French çucre candi, derived in turn from Arabic qandi and Persian qand, "cane sugar." In North America, candy is a broad category that includes candy bars, chocolates, licorice, sour candies, salty candies, tart candies, hard candies, taffies, gu...

Please...

Please what?

Ehm... please, gimme candy! Now!

1:31 AM

I'm scratching my head, too.

3 mins ago, by RegDwight

Mar 3 at 11:11, by RegDwight

Candy

Candy, specifically sugar candy, is a confection made from a concentrated solution of sugar in water, to which flavorings and colorants are added. Candies come in numerous colors and varieties and have a long history in popular culture. The Middle English word "candy" began to be used in the late 13th century, coming into English from the Old French çucre candi, derived in turn from Arabic qandi and Persian qand, "cane sugar." In North America, candy is a broad category that includes candy bars, chocolates, licorice, sour candies, salty candies, tart candies, hard candies, taffies, gu...

I think it was rather like an "oh, please...".

That's what I read it as, but "oh, please" what?

RegDwight's self-references are coming closer and closer together. We are doooooomed.

Don't make me go ABBA.

Eh, we're already doomed.

1:32 AM

It was an ironic "oh, please.... not again!".

Ah. You and your irony. Was your answer to the apostrophes question snarky? I think it was snarky. Was it?

Ah, ok. (lightbulb just went off. Or on. Whatever. Enlightenment dawns.)

Another apostrophe question? Yikes.

Englightenment!

The Hungarian version is "leesett a tantusz", i.e. the coin dropped.

1:34 AM

Yup it was meant as snarky.

Now we at least have a term for the opposite of what your sis is looking for.

The coin dropped... hey we say that too in Dutch!

Hey yo! No fixing

Too late.

But we also say "his light went on/up".

1:35 AM

It will be too late for you in less than two minutes, but not for me! Mwuahahahaha.

Well, except "tantusz" means something closer to "coin-shaped token". The word for "coin" is érme.

Is that something communist?

The coin-shaped tokens.

No, I think it pre-dates communism. Think really old-fashioned pay phones. Once communism got ahold of Hungary, there were no phones to speak of, so there wasn't anything to put coin-like objects into.

What, seriously? No phones?

Hm. Why? In the USSR, them phones were all over the place.

1:39 AM

Yeah, I mean, when did Hungary receive the blessing of cummunism? Was that the fourties?

I now realize that I have no idea what Hungary's position was at the start of WWII.

I had like, two relatives who had phones. One was a doctor, and the other a teacher. The teacher had a shared line between all the apartments in her building.

Wow I had no idea.

1948.

In what year?

Ah.

Hungary was unfortunately still too close to Austrian control to enter WWII on the "correct" side. Horthy tried to keep it neutral as long as possible, but that wasn't very long at all.

1:41 AM

Ah, that sounds logical.

Well it is all forgotten!

We tried to stay neutral as well.

Plus, there was the issue of Trianon; many Hungarians thought Hitler was their best chance of regaining all those lost territories.

It sort of didn't work when the Germans conquered us in a few weeks.

(I think Hitler almost came out and promised just that.)

I am not surprised.

Hey is it true that Hungarian has a word like /bakvis/ that means a girl aged 16-20 or something?

Backfisch?

1:44 AM

Yes, is that it?

Yes. It's a slang word, though. I think it's spelled bakfis, and the online dictionary translates it as "flapper".

But that sounds German.

It's doubtless a Hungarianized spelling of a German word.

Okay, I see. Then we probably both got it from German.

Exactly.

Backfisch (Mädchen)

Backfisch ist eine – heute veraltete – Bezeichnung für Mädchen im Teenager-Alter. Der Begriff stammt von dem gleichnamigen Wort aus dem Fischfang und bezeichnete sehr junge Fische. Bis in die zweite Hälfte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts hinein war es eine Bezeichnung für junge Mädchen. So hießen Mädchenbücher früher auch „Backfischromane“, zum Beispiel Der Trotzkopf. In den 1950er Jahren standen die Backfische den Halbstarken gegenüber, die in der Erwachsenenwelt provozieren wollten. Nur wenige Mädchen waren Halbstarke, die Mädchenwelt war mehr eine „Kultur der vier Wände“, die sich in den...

1:45 AM

There are lots of those. My grandmother called curtains "firhang", which obviously comes from German vorhang.

@Cerberus "De naam is afkomstig uit de visserij. De te kleine vis werd in een bak gedaan, om overboord te worden gezet. Bakvis is dus jonge vis."

@Reg: Thanks; but I liked it better when your link would suddenly transform into Dutch before my eyes!

So my money is on Frisian.

Eh, what, Frisian?

Frisian languages

The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 members of Frisian ethnic groups, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, and Germany. The Frisian languages are the second closest related living European languages to English, after Scots. However, modern English and Frisian are mostly unintelligible to each other. Frisian languages bear similarities to Low German, Dutch (from which many Frisian words have been borrowed) and Danish, and Danish speakers are able to understand some spoken Frisian. Additional share...

Where else would the Dutch and the Deutsch get it from?

1:49 AM

Well, why didn't we all get it from German?

Or possibly Dutch; but why Frisian? I mean, it could be, but...

A: How to properly pronounce 'mall'

Because the fishermen in Germany are typically not Bavarians.

BTW, nohat strikes again:

1

There are a couple confusions at work here. First, there are different "lexical sets" the word could fall into: TRAP, LOT, BATH, CLOTH, PALM, THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE. For the most part, most speakers and dictionaries of English agree that mall is either pronounced with the vowel for THOUGHT or ...

So? I think I am missing a link. Is this about early German vowel shifts or something?

@Cerberus No. Just a theory. A gut feeling. Nothing less, nothing more.

But why the Bavarians?

Not the Bavarians.

But anyhow, "Andere Quellen sprechen davon, dass das Wort aus dem britischen Anglerlatein stamme, wo mit backfish ein Fisch bezeichnet wird, der noch nicht groß genug ist, um gegessen zu werden, und deswegen wieder ins Wasser geworfen wird. Auf die jungen Mädchen übertragen bedeutet dies, dass sie weder Kinder noch Erwachsene sind."

So it could be coming from the Brits, after all.

But still no Bavarians.

de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Backfisch

1:55 AM

My dictionary says (if I interpret it correctly) that it has existed in German as a term for young girls since ca. 1550, and came to Dutch in the 19th century.

Interesting. Still, the Germans themselves have to have it from somewhere, too.

Non sequitur: OMG, what have they done to the envelope?

4

Huh?

It's an arrow now.

I think I am slow...

Precisely what I was just going to complain about, @RegDwight!

1:57 AM

On the main site. The thing before your user name.

How am I supposed to figure out where those recent points came from?

Oh!

I see.

@Martha That, and now all of a sudden logout links are everywhere!

Ok, this really sucks. Where should I direct my torches & pitchforks?

And who needs that privileges link?

yesterday, by RegDwight

Complaints are to be filed over ------> there

1:59 AM

I did notice that the reputation graph has doubled in width.

So now I have to click twice to get to my profile. Egads.

@RegDwight Especially since your reputation score takes you to the same exact privileges page. With a single click.

My point exactly.

I have a feeling all **** is about to break loose on MSO.

I was just loading it up, under the assumption someone was already going bat-shit crazy

Well, someone found the first bug due to the new change.

I just posted my contribution to the all ****.

Q: I bet SEDE thinks I'm an electronic gadget

2:03 AM

At least now I see why people are upvoting my old stuff. It's because of Popular Demand's follow-up.

6

Consider this the less interesting, lower-grossing sequel to last year's surprise hit comedy, I am not an electronic gadget!. The Stack Exchange site list has been updated in response to that question — although some mistakes snuck in since the cleanup, e.g. "Q&A for peer programmer co...

bug data-explorer spelling description

@Martha thanks for tagging it 'bug'. I love that.

Well, what else could I tag it as?

Certainly not 'discussion'.

There needs to be a 'WTF did you do now' tag

There was. But it got renamed.

As did always-friday-in-iceland.

2:07 AM

merged with 'Status-by-design'?

Haha.

On the plus side, I like the new profile page. Once I stopped panicking and realized there were two menus now.

The new profile page is "meh" for me. You still can't zoom in on the rep graph, for one thing.

LOL you're up to 4 votes already. Fastest BugReport in the West should net you a great many question points.

Ok, someone posted that the envelope used to lead to this page:

english.stackexchange.com/users/recent

(I swear, I felt like a druggie in need of her next fix. Must... see... recent... changes....)

2:11 AM

Someone commented on that.

Yes, I saw. :)

Heh, they changed the tags page too. Another complaint has been lodged.

I don't know why people complain there isn't a good new features notification. I just read MSO complaints.

Q: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

The thing is, TPTB are probably having some fun time right now. I mean, it's not like they couldn't have anticipated all this. Bets are being won and lost as we speak.

in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 6 mins ago, by Tim Stone

4

The envelope is gone from next to my name! How am I supposed to check where those recent points came from? I don't remember the link to that page!

bug

in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 6 mins ago, by Rebecca Chernoff

I used that page all the time, just didn't pay attention to whether it was lit up

Uh oh, the Tavern's involved.

Jin is whistling.

in The Tavern (General) on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 8 mins ago, by Rebecca Chernoff

grrrr @Jin

2:19 AM

Hah, coordinated EL&U invasion of the tavern.

I've never had to release changes to a running system, I'll bet that is a load of fun.

But that's actually the cool part about Web development.

I'm a "close to the metal" developer.

You can breaks stuff for everyone, but you can also fix it for everyone, at once.

Mar 1 at 15:01, by RegDwight

@MrShinyandNew Webmaster, for the most part. I do a lot of customer support, too. But no product development, except for some GUI design.

Anyway, look at the related questions in Martha's MSO question. There's a bazillion "what happened to X" questions.

That's pretty funny.

Betcha none of them start with "Eeek!" though.

2:26 AM

You've gotta stand out. I'd add a picture of the baby next time.

Grats on the fastest badge in history.

By the looks of it, you will be getting a Good, Great, Popular, Notable, Famous, Favourite, and Stellar Question in no time.

Yeah, I'm earning badges left and right for that question.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a duplicate question yet. I guarantee that happens soon.

No badges for that.

Except views and passive rep.

I didn't mean on purpose. Just that nobody checks before they post.

Usually there's a ton of closed duplicates for this kind of thing.

2:31 AM

I must say that I am a bit proud, Martha beats the entire SO to it.

Whaddatheyhave? One billion users?

Of course it might mean we don't have enough good new questions.

Q: I just created a new account on the board games beta, though OpenID as I always do; but now I get an account called usersomething, and I have 1 rep. What gives? Is that because it is in beta? No, I don't think so: I was OK in the Latin alpha...

What's the user name?

This is I; fear me!

user1040

1

Did you forget to tell it to associate the account with your others?

2:45 AM

If you had used the same openid, wouldn't the gravatar image have been grabbed?

@Cerberus I am looking for that question on MSO. Can't promise I will find it, though. Not my day today.

I never typed anything; just did what I always do when I visit a new site on se.com; I get logged in automatically everywhere with Lastpass.

@Reg: Thanks for looking!

It was something like "why am I userXXXX on [site name]"...

I see all my other accounts as they should be under Related Accounts.

Worked ok for me.

2:48 AM

Hmm then I'll just have to try 9999 times...

Okay, I have disassociated and reassociated my accounts; now I have 101 rep! But still the wrong picture.

@Cerberus I registered on Drupal today and didn't get the association bonus. I disassociated and reassociated, and got it.

@Reg: Yeah I just tried that: I got the bonus now, but still wrong name, wrong picture...

Perhaps I should delete it.

Ah yes.

I think I read somewhere that the images are cached. I'd give it a little time. As long as things are associated ok.

There's some method for going to one of your good profiles and telling it to use that on all of your accounts.

2:51 AM

Yes, it's on the accounts tab, the button on the bottom.

Right, I will try that. Thanks.

I couldn't try that, as it would copy my profile from ELU to all 47 other accounts, and I have different info on each.

Yay it worked!

Great.

Thanks @Martha.

And @Reg and @RD01.

2:53 AM

Now @RD01 just needs to find that question to totally pwn me.

You are the accounts master RegDwi

Hehe.

What question am I looking for?

The one about "why am I userXXXX on [site name]"

Ah.

2:54 AM

Anyhow, looking at the time, I must go to work soon, and I think (I think!) it might help if I go to bed first.

Q: New account has generic name and associations

1

Note: the solution is to disassociate accounts and reassociate. Then copy your profile to fix the names. Original I'm pretty confused about account associations. I went over the AskUbuntu site. I logged in with the same OpenID I've always used (from myopenid.com) and logged in as dlamblin; it fo...

support linked-accounts askubuntu

Oh dear, you will only be getting a few hours' sleep?

Well done, RD.

@RD01 Close, but no cigar.

Hrm.

I should be going to bed as well.

2:57 AM

And I as well.

Let's go.

I mean, bye!

Toodles!

Hey!

I didn't know "toodles" was English.

Lordy, how'd it get to be 10pm? And I'm still in the office.

It is used in Dutch as well.

2:57 AM

Okay. I will find that darn question tomorrow. I must. I hope it won't deprive me of my sleep.

Bed time!

@Martha: Not-at-the-office time!

There's a lady on a mailing list I frequent who always signs off "toodles, Margaret". We call her "Toodles Margaret".

Bye all, night, I'm out!

Funny last name.

Bye!

Good night, joéjt, etc.

Q: My profile just went blank?

2:59 AM

One last try

7

Signing on today, I was showing up as "user351327" on SO and "user46143" on serverfault. Looking at my profile, every field was blank. I'm not sure if any of the fields besides display name used to have a value.

bug status-completed profile-page

I'm off as well, night!

3:10 AM

Someone accept my edit....rawr

3:45 AM

I've decided to spice things up in here. What we need is a bawdy limerick contest.

The only rule is, it has to be a limerick and you have to write it yourself.

Let me start us off:

...........................

The actress who played Lysistrata
While on stage seemed no inamorata
But her backstage libido
Made her act more like Dido:
Hot love scenes were desiderata.

........................

And you thought it was going to be dirty.

lol

And another:

.......................

A Shanghai gal's passion for Heine
Gave her husband a painful angina
Her lovemaking lyric
Was victory Pyrrhic:
He expired ... oh, somewhere in China.

........................

Do moderators have to personally approve each edit?

Is Heine supposed to be short for Heinken?

Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder (art songs) by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose is distinguished by its satirical wit and irony. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate ...

Ahh....

3:50 AM

What question did you try to edit?

@Billare: ^