English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Martha

5:19 AM

Mwa ha ha ha ha! Fear my eeevil! ]:)

RegDwight

9:03 AM

@Martha Wow, and you're still at 8666 four hours later.

This aggression will not stand!

... there you go. No Satans on my watch!

Billare

11:00 AM

ThirdIdiot keeps adding the tag "pejorative" blindedly to every question that is tagged with slang and vulgar.

Which is of course, nonsense.

If I say, "that woman has great big knockers", that is both vulgar and slang, but not pejorative.

So someone please stop him. And watch his edits.

Mr. Disappointment

I just laughed at the answer he gave to the 'road', 'street' and 'avenue' question.

Good day everyone!

@Alain Hello Alain.

Moin.

@MrDisappointment and commented on all the other answers actually !

Billare

11:04 AM

Would it be wrong for me to downvote every single one of pageman's answers, even if they answer the question correctly?

Mr. Disappointment

Mine certainly isn't perfect but at least I thought of giving a different suggestion as opposed to blindly posting @RegDwight's answer again.

Billare

Well, not even; but he constantly copies and pastes stuff in full, that don't fit questions very well.

Mr. Disappointment

@Alain & @RegDwight Howdy

Alain Pannetier

@Billare In this case we could even possibly create the tag "appreciative" ?

Billare

@Alain Hm...

@Alain Is there a good antonym to pejorative?

0

A: What term can be used to describe Yoda's speech?

here's a fairly thorough discussion of Yodish Yodish, the language of Yoda of Star Wars fame is quite similar to that of our standard English. The words he uses are the same as those we use. They are intended to be used for the same purpose or part of speech. His language contains...

See this answer for example. For Pageman antics.

Mr. Disappointment

11:07 AM

@Billare Evolution, baby!

RegDwight

@Billare I'll ping @JSBangs about those tags. I'm not sure we need all of pejorative, offensive, taboo, expletives, obscenity, swearing, insults. Some questions are tagged with three or four of these at once.

Billare

Whole-sale copy and paste, without nary an editorial remark? Check.

@RegDwight Yes, probably not.

RegDwight

@Billare That certainly would be wrong, but I suppose the question is rhetorical.))) However, he does have quite a few answers that deserve being downvoted.

Billare

I didn't really mean downvote ALL his answers.

He gives some answers, that for example, have some nugget of answering the OP's question

If you parse, and deduce,

A big block of copy-and-pasted text.

In a way, they are answers, and the answer is there, but they aren't focused. And they aren't his words, importantly.

A legion of users like him could lead this place to become a content farm.

@RegDwight See this answer for example. english.stackexchange.com/questions/25508/…

@RegDwight It has excellent examples. Not his examples, mind you, cribbed from Wikipedia. Still, they would have made a great part of an answer.

Alain Pannetier

@RegDwight, speeking of which I've noticed at least one case of one user who has just over 100 answers but nearly 10000 rep and chugs along steadily adding 50-odd points a day for answers which are actually below the first-page horizon line. Any black magic ?

Billare

11:14 AM

@RegDwight What he'd have to say is, "With so many famous authors using these examples, using hyperbaton can't possibly be incorrect." Still, he needs to state something like that for him to be actually answering the OP's quesion.

@RegDwight Really? Who?

@Alain I mean: Really? Who?

RegDwight

@AlainPannetier Well, passive rep is like that, though 50-odd is a bit too high. I'm not seeing anyone of that caliber in my passive-rep stats.

@Billare: re:pageman, let me just quote myself.

Apr 28 at 19:14, by RegDwight

The thing is, and I'm not afraid to say this in public, I can totally see how a few weeks from now people will start coming to this chat and asking, "how the heck did that guy get to 2000?"

Billare

-2

Q: "Excrescence" and "Unseductive"

Are these two words excrescence and unseductive similar? When do we use one and when the other?

I think this needs a super mod close vote, honestly.

It's unanswerable.

Alain Pannetier

@RegDwight This user has not connected since End of March and is most recent answer is 2 months old. 10000 / 100 means 10 upvotes on average per answer. That must be a record and I'm not sure the second in this area is anywhere close to that!

Billare

It doesn't have an answer.

@Alain Oh, do you mean Shree?

@Alain I upvoted a whole bunch of his questions yesterday.

Alain Pannetier

Correct

So you're the one! ;-)

Billare

11:19 AM

@Alain He gives really good answers! I wish he'd come back.

Alain Pannetier

That seemed so suspicious from the outside.

Billare

@Alain Just yesterday, though.

RegDwight

ShreevatsaR is in the top 5 or something by passive rep, but certainly not the top 1.

I haven't checked the current dump yet.

Billare

Probably nohat is number 1 in terms of passive rep.

Or you.

Right?

Alain Pannetier

@RegDwight, my bad then...

RegDwight

11:21 AM

Nohat rules us all.

Alain Pannetier

But Nohat has always "killer" answers.

RegDwight

But you can always check that Data Explorer query and see for yourself.

Miss

is this sentence right ", you are asking like this as you know me "

RegDwight

data.stackexchange.com/english/s/866/money-for-jam-modified

Miss

???

Alain Pannetier

11:22 AM

@RegDwight : great link !!! But the dump is from ?

RegDwight

@Miss Probably not, at least I don't understand it at all.

@AlainPannetier I think they've finally updated it, like, yesterday.

So it's actually quite fresh.

Robusto

What up, dawgz?

Miss

what do you mean

Alain Pannetier

Good, I'll play around.

Miss

what

RegDwight

11:24 AM

@Miss I don't understand your sentence.

Miss

any ways , tell me is that right sentence "you are asking like this as you know me"

Hey, @Robusto.

ahh

Hi @Robusto.

i mean , some ask from me that how are you

i do't know him

so i want to say that he is asking like as he knows me

now tell me is that right sentence

Billare

11:26 AM

2

Q: Is it true that "tuppence" refers to a woman's vagina in British English slang? If so, why? [NSFW]

I was looking up a definition online, as I often do, in this case the British slang word tuppence; I got the standard "a slang reference to a coin denomination" definition from Wikipedia, but stumbled on these interesting ones given at The Urban Dictionary: tuppence Olden day word for a ...

meaning etymology british-english slang vulgar

Investigating this question, is leading me into all sorts of alleys.

Tuppence is definitely known for referring to ladies' parts, I've found, and it seems that ha'penny is also.

First: Is half a penny two pence?

If so, then second, finding that ha'penny was apparently coined to rhyme with woman's mammaries in Cockney Rhyming slang,

which show that the derivation isn't merely from getting a word for vagina from the language of prostitution.

@Alain Tuppence is also especially apparently used for adults towards children -- does it make sense that they would be calling their children's body parts by obscene words if the derivation was really so close from prostitutes?

RegDwight

@Miss "You talk as if you knew me" or something like that. Though that could be quite harsh. I would probably go with something more polite such as "I'm sorry, have we met before?" or something.

Miss

hmm i see

Alain Pannetier

@Billare, I think the prostitution connotation is only a branch of a more general meaning of "cheap". In the case of kids Tuppence is probably affectionate as "cheap little toddler of a thing".

Miss

@regdwight thanks

Mr. Disappointment

Tuppence, obscene? That's absurd.

Alain Pannetier

11:36 AM

@Billare, so which version of Bleak House did you watch ? I have both the 1985 and the 2005. I love the 2005 version. It's even greater in HD.

Robusto

Someone seems to be playing the vag card in order to get on SE radar?

Miss

@mrdisappointment , i guess you have experience for that . lol

Billare

@Alain The 2005 version. Awesome that you watched it. Who's your favorite character?

Mr. Disappointment

@Miss Well, yes, it's a familiar phrase - don't hear it so much with my gran not being around, though.

Miss

@alain: what is 2005 version..

Alain Pannetier

11:37 AM

I like the guy who is love with the heroin. scappy or whatever.

Miss

hmm

Billare

@Alain Scappy? Surely not the guy who dies from opium?

@Alain Captain something. Captain Horton.

Guppy

Yes, Guppy!

I hate Skimpole

11:38 AM

I hate Skimpole, as a person. I liked his actor, and his character.

But Mr. Guppy has my second favorite character, and he was well above all others

Except for Mr. Smallweed.

The crafty villain.

Alain Pannetier

It's too easy a role. Being so slimy is actually quite easy because it is already exaggerated in the script.

Billare

Why did Jarndyce and Esther tolerate Skimpole anyway? I don't understand why they let him come to dinner when it was already obvious he was taking advantage of their hospitality from the get-go.

Alain Pannetier

That's right. Since his character is so exaggerated it is not credible that he always manages to squeeze money out of the other ones. It looks more like a dramatic device on Dickens part.

Billare

You know what I didn't like? The ending. I hate that guys like Woodcourt win.

Alain Pannetier

You know his theory that he is a child (as in irresponsible).

Billare

11:43 AM

Woodcourt was so dreadfully boring.

Alain Pannetier

Can't remember the ending actually :-(

I will need to watch it again.

Speqking of which I can give you my preferred list of all these period dramas.

Billare

Woodcourt proposes to Ms. Somerson, who cries because she's engaged to Jarndyce, then the good man lets her go of her engagement, buys her a house in the country, and they marry.

Alain Pannetier

Hm yes I remember now. A little bit flat.

Billare

Which is proposterous on Jarndyce's part, having sacrificed so much again and again on her favor, so another younger man can sweep her off her feet.

Guppy should have won. He was a hard worker, upwardly mobile, funny, charming.

Alain Pannetier

Yes but isn't Jarndyce the very incarnation of abnegation ?

Billare

11:45 AM

But you get some boring old hard throb doctor winning it all.

After doing what? Going off to sea and leaving behind a rose.

Pathetic.

It makes me rage at the world that people see it just that Woodcourt won.

Alain Pannetier

You're being too American here. You always want the nice guy to win.

Billare

I wouldn't say that. They were all "nice."

Alain Pannetier

That makes a good sleep after prime time but that's not reality.

Billare

Woodcourt has just too boring, and too heartthrobby.

Alain Pannetier

But at least Esther is happy no ?

Billare

11:48 AM

Esther loved Woodcourt, not because he pursued her harder than the other two did, or because he loved her more than the other two SHOWED, but because he was a doctor, and he was set up to be the heartthrob of the movie.

Well, the ending is supposed to leave her happy.

And she seems sensible to be happy enough in a long marriage.

But the truth of it is, women getting married to heartthrobs does not for productive marriages make.

Alain Pannetier

There is no sequel I'm afraid. And CD is long dead now!

Billare

In real life, they'd be divorced 5 years later.

Alain Pannetier

Very true. But that's now and that was then.

Billare

And Guppy would be head partner at an expensive law firm with a plain jane wife, who he loves very much.

Robusto

@AlainPannetier — You French want the bad guys to win? You're making me sorry I stood up for you ...

Billare

11:50 AM

And Esther would regret things looking from afar.

Alain Pannetier

Now is the Schwarzy family doing BTW ?

(Now that we're in gossip)

Billare

Schwarzy?

Alain Pannetier

@Robusto I don't want the lion to eat the gazelle. But I understand that lions eat gazelles.

@Billare Wedminator.

Billare

@Alain It's a terrible thing, lions eating gazelles. Never let age take away the zeal one has for raging against the fundamental unfairness of the world ;)

Life is unfair, but dammit, I'm gonna be cursing it till the day I die!

Alain Pannetier

Yes but gazelles eat grass. I feel so sorry for poor young grass. Or do I ?

@Billare age transforms testosterone in cynicisterone.

Billare

11:56 AM

Does it now?

Alain Pannetier

What I mean is that indignation, revolt and rebellion are costly and hormone driven. When you grow older, fading testosterone influx tip the balance towards cynicism.

Billare

lol

I suspect you just have an agreeable disposition, @Alain, and are trying to make excuses for it ;)

Alain Pannetier

Guys, you all got me brain-leaking again.

@Robusto, when did you stand up for the French ? Just currious!

A lost battle anyway. Commendable Frenchmen can't be chauvinistic.

Billare

What does your surname come from, @Alain?

Does it say something about your ancestors?

Alain Pannetier

= Baker

The one who makes bread.

Spanisg panadero. Italian panettiere

Billare

12:04 PM

So I suppose the delectable Hayden must be a long-lost cousin of yours ;)

Alain Pannetier

You're getting me curious!

Robusto

@AlainPannetier: When the U.S. Congress banned the use of the word French to describe fries in the cafeteria, I wrote this satirical poem:

Feb 14 at 11:03, by Robusto

**Franco-American Spaghetti Western**

With Sparkling Freedom (not champagne)
And Patriot Bread (not Au Bon Pain)
We spit out all that beaujolais
To celebrate the U.S.A.

In our Americanized edition
Voila's lost to the magician
Fries are "freedom", never French
Chaise longue is your "American Bench"

Our women never put on rouge
Our winter sports eschew the luge
Our soldiers never camouflage
Our hospitals must not triage

Amid the buzz of language saws
We toss the salad called Niçoise;
We'd not have any strength to boast

Sorry for the unrendered HTML entities.

The whole thing is found at the link for Feb 14

Alain Pannetier

I reconstituted the salade niçoise ;-)

Billare

@Alain How much do you know about your family history? Do you have a long history of bread making in your line?

@Alain Your family served as breadmaker to the King and the Dauphin, no doubt?

Alain Pannetier

@Robusto, not bad. You got some of the best French specialities. These were probably not boycotted anyway ;-)

Robusto

12:11 PM

It was a stupid, embarrassing time for the U.S.

Alain Pannetier

@Billare. We did not manage to find that ancestor of ours who was first named that way. Panettiers were not only an office in the Royal retinue but also in any other offices and aristocratic family.

Billare

@Alain Pannetier Really? Awesome. Major or minor nobility?

Alain Pannetier

@Robusto, the past is known because it can't be unchanged. The future is open and that's why it is unknown. Many people look up to the American people and very few would not admit it had till now an extraordinary destiny underpinned by a compulsively positive attitude. So you can't have it both way. Testosterone again is to blame for the "écarts de conduite" but it is also the driving force behind that extraordinary destiny.

Old Europe is wise/cynical because all the testosterone has gone to the other side of the pond in the last few centuries

The biggest problem facing the US right now is that it needs to accept that good education should be free for all.

The US were leading the world when they had enough engineers to organise the work of unqualified people. Now that des-industrialisation is in full swing, the unqualified can't find their position any more.

Billare

Yes. But I don't think that can be rectified.

Alain Pannetier

China is beating the western countries with its own weapons. And education is their most important effort right now.

@Billare, you are so right. The problem is ideological.

Billare

12:19 PM

@Alain China will EVENTUALLY beat the Western countries at education. Not yet.

@Alain And it's not clear that education, for the Chinese, will make them overtake us economically on a per capita basis, not yet.

@Alain We still have much more of an entrepreneurial spirit here, with fully explicity laws.

@Alain That's one of the biggest problems with China's "communism with capitalist rules" (I forgot the exact term); their legal system is "dark". People don't have confidence to know that things cannot suddenly change their political, social, economic fortunes all of a sudden.

Alain Pannetier

China has been the most advanced country for 90% of the last 5 millennia . Our epoch is just a hiatus.

Billare

@Alain It was; but technological progress has changed the calculus some.

@Alain China's economic power in the past relied on the weight of Chinese demographics and the penchant for hard work; the matter much less without entreprenurship in the modern age.

@Alain When China fosters Zuckerberg's and Gates, people willing to drop out of college knowing full well they aren't doomed from that decision, and can create millions of dollars of value, then we'll know they can overtake us.

Alain Pannetier

My theory on China is not an industrial or an economical one; it is much deeper than that.

It is sociological.

Robusto

@AlainPannetier — When we behave up to the standards of a great democracy, then we are worthy of world admiration. When we do not — as in the case I satirized, and pretty much for the entire period of the Bush administration — then we are not.

Billare

I don't understand why America should care about world admiration, apart from a strictly real-politik sense.

Alain Pannetier

12:26 PM

Tomorrow's leading countries will be the ones who can live and work (and compete) in harmony. What everybody perceives as willingness to work in the Chinese attitude is actually an outcrop of a much deeper characteristic: the abnegation to the group. Hence also their fierce nationalistic pride.

On the road to social fusion, China is more advanced than Europe or the US.

We are white light, they are Laser.

Robusto

@AlainPannetier — Everyone who would prefer to live and work in China, raise your hands now.

That's what I thought.

Anyway, gotta go. TTYL.

Alain Pannetier

Again I'm observing the lion.

Not saying I like that the lion eats gazelles.

Billare

@Alain You overestimating China. China has some great strengths, but also some massive weaknesses.

Alain Pannetier

Yes. But when it sinks in its history it is when it acts as white light

Billare

@Alain Their legal system is one of the biggest ones. The fact they have no real written down source of law will mean that they cannot do the sort of scale of banking and finance we do in America.

@Alain Their group identity is a source of a weakness, in many ways. For example, it means that some might not be able to challenge inequitable laws, in the name of saving face.

Alain Pannetier

12:30 PM

Which was brough to England by the Danes ;-)

Billare

@Alain They don't have freedom of the press, because of this collective identity, than the Communist Party will manage them well. Are they economically better off for this? That means the rich and powerful will exert some of their power within the Party to protect their interests.

Alain Pannetier

All this is bound to slowly change. Future will still have to choose between two paths: evolution or revolution.

Billare

@Alain The Chinese social obligation is also a weakness to the entrepreneurial minded student; instead of trusting that his parents will find away, he might choose not to work for that risky Microsoft compoany and take the safe job, so he can care for is parents.

China's massive growth and everything doesn't tell you that the Chinese are going to rule the world, just because of who they were; it tells you that Communism is just a really, really, really bad system to govern a people.

Alain Pannetier

The most worrying thing is the future scarcity of natural resources. To me that means a lot of trouble ahead. I have no example that powerful entities do not use their power to carry on dominating.

@Billare Communism will be over in a few decades or even before in China. Willy nilly.

it's the scaffolding.

Billare

No, the PRC really thinks that communism with capitalist tendencies can really work.

Alain Pannetier

12:36 PM

people die. New people take their shoes.

Billare

There is no middle way, really. Either the give up their absolute power, things like free press and transparent courts, to really unleish capitalism, or they stay with all the inefficiences of communism.

Alain Pannetier

Remenber Brejnev andropov etc...

Billare

Brezhnev had to tighten down. In any case, Russia was never as capitalistic in their Soviet days as the PRC system is now.

Alain Pannetier

Communisn is just a boogeyman in the US - every body knows it's a lid on a social sauce pan used by the leaders to curtail possible rebellions from the masses.

The same holds true in PRC.

When the soup is ready, you take off the lid.

Billare

Communism is a bogeyman because it is legitimately bad. When a political system kills more people than both World Wars combined, why can't we be afraid of it?

North Koreans are diverging genetically from their South Korean neighbors become of communism; becoming genetically shorter than their brethren because communism doesn't afford them enough to eat.

anyway gtg

Alain Pannetier

12:42 PM

What I mean is that by waving this Bogeyman, the American ruling class is quite free handed to do whatever they please. I remember one professor commenting on poor people in the US protesting against Obama's wellfare reform as "Turkeys voting for Christmas".

Gtg too.

thx

Billare

We'll continue later. Ciao @Alain.

Alain Pannetier

TTYL

MikeVaughan

1:42 PM

hey folks.

RegDwight

Helloes.

MikeVaughan

Chat is empty so far.

It's early here.

RegDwight

Well, it can't be that early, Martha is here.

MikeVaughan

Haha

Martha

Hmph.

Can we please close this question? english.stackexchange.com/q/25878/1547

RegDwight

1:53 PM

Wait. That wasn't supposed to be an insult.

I actually meant that Martha usually shows up like 4 p.m. my local time.

Martha

I'm still upset that you messed up my evilness.

RegDwight

@Martha Should I go back and downvote five stuffs of yours?

BTW, can it really be true that you only got one upvote in the last 8 hours?

Martha

@RegDwight Yeah. My passive rep sucks.

RegDwight

Actually you're in the top ten or something. Well, top 20, anyway.

I'm still swimming in the current dump.

Martha

Anyway. Is there some charitable way to interpret this as on-topic?

1

Q: When to call first name or last name?

For example, a man's name is Jeff Smith. My question is: When should I call him "Jeff"? When should I call him "Smith"? When should I call him "Jeff Smith"? in western.

names politeness

RegDwight

1:58 PM

Ha, I'm looking at it right now.

BTW, in your comment you accidentally the whole verb.

Martha

Thanks, edited.

RegDwight

Closed.

That other one I would like to see closed by the community.

MikeVaughan

I flagged the first link.

I cant vote to close yet.

how many close votes does something have to have to get closed?

RegDwight

Five.

Robusto

3:07 PM

Hey, now we can ask @Martha how she prefers to be called. So, are you a god or a goddess?

I called you the god of thwack, but someone suggested you might prefer goddess of thwack.

Martha

Uh. Um. Mistress?

MikeVaughan

Mistress of Thwack.

Interesting..

Robusto

Hmm ... sounds kinky.

Martha

Though in general, I don't see a need for feminine versions of occupations. So if you must assign divinity, then god would be my choice.

@Robusto And this is a problem because... ?

Robusto

3:21 PM

@Martha — Did I say it was a problem?

Martha

@Robusto Fair enough.

Kosmonaut

3:41 PM

I am really starting to have concerns with how much we are using the Google Books ngram viewer to make judgments about usage.

I think we are putting way too much stock into something that is quite messy.

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1701

5

MrHen

@Kosmonaut Agreed. The British English response for Jesus H Christ has me worried

Kosmonaut

You can't just graph two words and say "this one is the preferred one" based on the graph.

MrHen

@Kosmonaut Is the problem that "preferred one" doesn't mean "most represented in the books currently scanned"?

Kosmonaut

That is one reason

Also, there are a lot of errors.

MrHen

I am reading your link; I see now

Kosmonaut

3:48 PM

Another example is that there is stuff from other languages. For example: ngrams.googlelabs.com/…

MrHen

Also, when doing the research on cornhole I noticed that the numbers are pretty misrepresentative of usage, even in the books themselves. There were tons of hits with nothing but copies of earlier hits. The exact same page showed up dozens of times across huge gaps of time.

@Kosmonaut Heh, good point.

Do we have a meta discussion on NGrams yet?

Kosmonaut

If you search for the specific hits on malheureusement, you can see that they are actually French texts.

@MrHen I don't think that we have had an in-depth discussion of it.

MrHen

It may be time to include a quick "what is this" and "how to use" somewhere we can link to

Aside from Google's own pages

Kosmonaut

Yes, it's just that I am not entirely sure how it should be used.

MrHen

Agreed.

The Jesus H Christ miss really freaked me out

I find it a little incredulous that it didn't show up anywhere in the British corpus

28

A: Who is Jesus H. Christ?

The primary theory appears to be that it derived from the "Greek monogram for Jesus, IHS or IHC" (World Wide Words) which is standard for the Greek name of IHCOYC (Christian Origins) which comes from ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (Persus Digital Library; see also the comments below). The origin stems from incorrectly a...