English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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RegDwight

3:00 PM

Yeah, Copy Editor is easy, just wait till they relax the thresholds yet again.

JSBangs

i'm amused that Yoichi is the only one with Famous Question, for this:

Q: "I took more than anybody could survive. Banging 7 gram rocks. That's how I roll. I have one speed and one gear: Go." What does this mean?

Today’s Quote of Time.com (TIME@time.chtah.com) carries the following line of Charlie Sheen’s remark. Being totally ignorant of the background of CBS and Warner Brothers’ cancellation of the production of the program, I have no idea about the phrase, ‘bang 7 gram rock.’ I understand the line af...

phrases

RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

@Billare I can "disclose" this bit because you've already found it out all by yourself: the Charlie Sheen question is quite a magnet.

Look at the view count, @JSBangs.

Robusto

13 hours ago, by Robusto

Anyway, "Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the deserving." — Coleridge, Biographia Literaria

RegDwight

It's not just a little bit over 10k. It's like 12k and counting.

JSBangs

@RegDwight oh, i know

i mean, it's charlie sheen. how could you go wrong?

Robusto

3:02 PM

I need a Charlie Sheen question. Damn!

RegDwight

@JSBangs Haha. Cue Robusto quoting himself.

No? Okay.

yesterday, by Robusto

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/scalpers-selling-charlie-sheen-tickets-cheap/story?id=13294737

Charlie Sheen is no longer a guarantee for stuff not going wrong.

@JSBangs I never needed to stop voting on answers to get my Electorate. I just had to remember to upvote questions from time to time. Everything else is kind of unfair.

I mean, certain users get their Electorate at around 800 votes. That's madness.

Certainly there are more than 200 good answers for every 600 questions!

F'x

@RegDwight good questions are not rewarded enough

JSBangs

@RegDwight true. i wish there was a way to see your progress towards those badges, though

RegDwight

@JSBangs It's supposed to be an Easter egg. An unexpected reward to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

@Fx Yes, but the Electorate badge doesn't really fix that problem. Instead, it introduces a whole 'nother one: mediocre questions are rewarded too much.

JSBangs

@RegDwight i think that would work better if the badges actually were easter eggs: undocumented and unseen until you got them. actually, i would love it if the devs sprinkled a few easter-egg badges through the system.

as it is, all of the badges are documented -- which works towards their actual purpose, which is to encourage good behavior

RegDwight

3:18 PM

@Fx I mean, I constantly run into comments "who the hell upvotes such crap question?", on all sites of the network. I have yet to see a single comment saying "who the hell does not upvote this brilliant question?"

@JSBangs There used to be some. But then people just wouldn't stop complaining, "show me my progress, show me my progress!"

On a totally unrelated note, I wonder just how many people at once the Generalist badge will go to...

JSBangs

@RegDwight with what trigger? (in any case: lots, since we have so few tags, and pretty much every highly active member should get it)

RegDwight

Mar 7 at 17:59, by RegDwight

"One thing the badge doesn’t say, is that there must be at least 200 questions in all 40 of the top tags before this badge is awarded to anyone. That’s why you won’t see it on meta for a bit longer, or any new sites for about a year. I don’t feel you can accurately measure a generalist until the top tag list settles down."

Our 40th most popular tag is abbreviations, with 45 questions. Still a long way to go. My money is on TPTB simply relaxing the requirements.

JSBangs

yeah, perusing the tag list suggests that it'll be a long time, yet

how long ago did we go out of public beta?

RegDwight

In fact, out of the ten tags that do have more than 200 questions, three are very likely to get killed.

JSBangs

aweXome

RegDwight

3:32 PM

usage, grammar, words

JSBangs

words needs to be killed with fire, as discussed before

i could make a case for keeping usage and grammar

(how do i get the awesome tag images?)

RegDwight

@JSBangs four months ago.

@JSBangs [tag:name].

Same as on the main site.

A: Should [grammaticality] be a synonym of [grammar]?

The tags grammar and grammaticality are most definitely not synonyms of each other. They should not be merged! Imagine that grammar is a circle. Everything inside the circle is grammatical and everything outside is not. For example, "Cat dream about chasing mice." is unambiguously and uncontrove...

Q: Does the "usage" tag have any value?

Seems like pretty much every question is a usage question, so keeping around a "usage" tag seems about as pointless as having a "programming" tag at Stack Overflow would be. Does anyone object to my re-tagging questions to not have the pointless tag "usage"?

discussion tags

Q: Removal of the "words" tag

words is used in many questions, but it doesn't seem to have a specific meaning. All the questions are about words, even the one asking about a phrase or a sentence. We should remove the tag.

feature-request tagging

JSBangs

i think we need better tag policing. i'm going to make a vow to clean up the tags on every question i look at

RegDwight

Well, that will get you your shining shiny in no time.)))

RegDwight

4:02 PM

I find it hilarious that our site was proposed by this user:

Good Person, /dev/null

101 2

Then again, looking at his accounts, it appears that he specializes in proposing and defining sites, not in actually visiting them.

Anyhow, I'm out!

Robusto

Laterz.

Cerberus

4:42 PM

Hai.

Robusto

Hee.

Cerberus

Hoi.

Note that Hee may also be spelled as Hey or Heej (even more informal than it already is).

Robusto

Noted.

Cerberus

Good.

Oh I have to run.

Bye!

Robusto

Me too. Gotta get lunch. TTYL.

Cerberus

4:50 PM

Ciao!

5 hours later…

psmears

9:46 PM

Hi all

Has there been any chat discussion of this question?

-3

Q: First, Second and Third Person perspectives in interactive media

I have become curious about the correct usage of first, second and third person with respect to interactive media such as video games. As far as my limited understanding of grammar goes, I know that first person is written with "I" forms, second with "you" forms, and third with "he/her/it" forms...

grammar terminology word-definitions

It's been closed as off-topic, and I can sort of see why, but I think it's undeserved

as in - I think it's possible to give a good answer to the question that's fully on-topic for the site

The question itself is a bit muddled, but I think at the core there's an answer to be had, along the lines of: The terms 1st/2nd/3rd person originate from grammar, (meaning ...), but are used by extension to describe narrative styles in literature (meaning ...), and by analogy "1st person" is used to describe a certain style of video game - but that doesn't mean the other terms can be applied in the same way...

Thoughts?

Should I try editing the question to bring it on-topic, or do you think it's a hopeless case?

1 hour later…

MrHen

11:08 PM

@psmears I guess my two cents are as such: (a) "interactive media" is off-topic (b) perspective in interactive media is even more so (c) the question was not clear (d) the clarifications of the question did not help.

I feel like I sort of understand the question, and it is a good question, but well outside the scope of English

A: Can "paper bag" mean any bag?

Thank you for all the replies, none complete though. Starting with where I should have searched first; dictionaries. Almost all on-line dictionaries define paper bag as: A bag made of paper or plastic for holding customer's purchases http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paper+bag htt...

Can someone with other paper dictionaries help confirm my comment to that answer?

Rhodri

@MrHen Chambers doesn't give a listing for "paper bag", but I agree with you. I've never heard a placcy bag called a paper bag

MrHen

@Rhodri Okay. I am typing up a meta question asking about WordNet now

I did not realize that most online dictionaries were just using WordNet

Rhodri

11:23 PM

Nor did I. Merriam-Webster may be an exception (though the free online dictionary there doesn't like "paper bag" either).

MrHen

@Rhodri Ah, thanks. I added that info the meta question.

Rhodri

s/like/list, sorry. I don't know what's up with my brain today, I've been hopeless.

Martha

@Rhodri The statement seems correct either way, it's just that using "doesn't like" ascribes an emotional component that list doesn't have. :)

Rhodri

Dictionaries are such emotional things. You have to speak soothingly to them, the poor dears.

MrHen

@Rhodri Hey, books can be downright mean if you mess with their spines.

Q: How trustworthy is WordNet?

I was browsing old questions and answers and bumped into an odd scenario: Can “paper bag” mean any bag?. An excerpt from the accepted answer: Almost all on-line dictionaries define paper bag as: A bag made of paper or plastic for holding customer's purchases I did some quick re...