English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

6:00 PM

Was ist los?

Interesting factoid about @Kit ...

@Robusto right

Stupid Chrome stupid died.

Grrr.

@JSBangs Sure it is.

Colloquial would be Was geht ab?

I am pretty sure los is related to less. I vaguely recall something like that.

Er, I mean loose, of course. Not less.

JSBangs

but in Robusto's Was ist los it seems to mean something like "this" (minus the metalinguistic joke)

RegDwight

No. Was ist los is a set phrase meaning "What's going on?"

JSBangs

6:09 PM

that's what i didn't know. thanks

Robusto

2

Q: Can the term "etymology" be applied to a phrase or only individual words?

I have always heard the term used in referring to a single word. When browsing questions on this site, I've seen it used applied to entire phrases, and have suppressed the compulsion to edit them and replace the term with origin.

word-usage

RegDwight

@JSBangs It's an adjective that is only used together with sein. Es ist viel los, es ist nichts los, hier ist die Hölle los. It should be distinguished from lose, though, which is also an adjective (and related), but is used much more freely, basically in all other situations.

Robusto

JSBangs, here's your chance.

This one was tailor-made for you.

@JSBangs — If you keep removing my metalinguistic jokes from the conversation, pretty soon I won't have anything to say at all.

@RegDwight — Can you use gar with it?

RegDwight

Um...

Beispiel?

Ah, sure. But there the gar is being used with nichts.

Robusto

Why can't it italicize my frickin' text?

RegDwight

6:13 PM

Because it's preformatted.

We've discussed this a zillion times.

Martha found it out.

Mar 22 at 16:42, by Martha

@RegDwight It's the line break in that post: putting in a line break turns a post into preformatted text, essentially.

Robusto

Was ist los? ... Gar nichts, heute.

@Martha doesn't share secrets with me anymore.

RegDwight

Martha only shares secrets with me, who then shares them with everyone else.

Jez

1

Chesterbelloc

Proposed Q&A site for people who read and love (or despise) G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc; people with questions about their works and lives; questions regarding their influences and legacies; and those who are wondering how to establish a distributive state.

Currently in definition.

JSBangs

@Jez huh? an SE about two guys?

@Robusto answered

RegDwight

And Dori will kill it with fire in three... two... one...

Robusto

6:18 PM

@JSBangs — Thanks. Read, approved, and upvoted. Kind of what I thought, but it's nice to hear it from a pro.

@RegDwight —̦ No @Dori, no fire.

I saw her Gravatar fall from the wall earlier.

RegDwight

She's hiding. Firing from the bushes.

Robusto

2 hours ago, by Robusto

Whoa! We just lost @Dori. For like the first time since January.

RegDwight

The first rule of killing with fire out of nowhere is...

@Robusto I know, I was there when it happened.

Mr. Disappointment

Total bombardment!

RegDwight

Bodal tomtardment!

Robusto

6:20 PM

It was like watching a meteor or something.

Not a thing you see every day.

Mr. Disappointment

Hah

RegDwight

You'd be surprised which things I do see every day...

Robusto

If it's evil, I won't be surprised.

Mr. Disappointment

Fraternising with the enemy yields all kinds of peculiarities.

JSBangs

but who is the enemy?

RegDwight

6:24 PM

Famous last words.

Mr. Disappointment

Indeed.

JSBangs

well, unless one of you tell me otherwise, i'll just assume that it's @Robusto

RegDwight

Feb 22 at 15:21, by Kosmonaut

Other famous last words include: "dare me to drink this?"

Robusto

Does anyone ever have famous first words? I mean, leaving out dada and mama aand the like.

JSBangs

@Robusto Einstein

Robusto

6:25 PM

What were Einstein's first words?

RegDwight

And his famous first words were?

Jinx!

JSBangs

googling....

> As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.
Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order."

RegDwight

Yeah, right.

Robusto

Uh-huh.

Jinx!

JSBangs

urban legend, but nonetheless amusing

RegDwight

6:27 PM

And my first words were, "You can quote me on the following:..."

Robusto

My son's first sentence, at 18 months, was a logical inference.

Mr. Disappointment

@JSBangs And years later he breaks into absolute chaos, sending his wife letters when she is in the next room in futile attempts to correct it, before abandoning his constants and relying solely on fractals.

Robusto

@RegDwight: You asked about L. A. Noire. This sums it up: escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/…

RegDwight

@Robusto Why thank you, actually. I haven't watched Zero Punctuation in a year or so, and I'm kinda missing it...

Watching...

Robusto

Always good for a quick laugh.

JSBangs

6:30 PM

@RegDwight i'll make sure to put this into my raunchy biography of you after you become rich and famous

Robusto

"That's like beating Hitler at the end of Wolfenstein 3D by challenging him to Pictionary!" Priceless.

RegDwight

Hahaha, I have to pause to inform you that my wife is shouting from the other room, "hey, I remember those reviews, I miss'em!"

Robusto

Hahaha.

JSBangs

+1 to your wife

RegDwight

I'll pass it on.

0

Q: looking for word, idiom or expression to describe feeling full (after eating)

For example, I like how you conveniently informed us after most of us had eaten already and we are [feeling full]. what's in brackets sounds odd/weird/unnatural. Would you suggest how to rephrase that better?

phrase-requests

39

Q: Is there a polite alternative to "No thanks, I'm full"?

English is not my native language, but when I was studying in the US, I was always trying to find an alternative to I'm full! I felt that it was a very improper way to express that I have eaten enough, especially when I was invited for dinner. I remember having difficulties demonstrating m...

word-choice single-word-requests vocabulary adjectives politeness

JSBangs

6:42 PM

related but not dup IMHO

RegDwight

I'm not sure myself, that's why I'm posting it rather than killing it.

Alenanno

heeeey

so long

lol

RegDwight

That's what the ladies keep telling me, yes.

Alenanno

or the men?

@JSBangs they both ask for alternatives, so why is it not a dupe?

Robusto

IS there a polite alternative to "Sorry, my pants are full"?

RegDwight

6:45 PM

Sorry, my pants are surfeited?

Alenanno

Sorry, I have socks in my pants?

RegDwight

Why do I keep misspelling stuff?

Robusto

@Alenanno — You misspelled "sex" ... or did you?

Alenanno

@Robusto No no I didn't misspelled it, it was my honest suggestion :D

RegDwight

Cut him some slack, sorry is a very common misspelling of sex.

Robusto

6:48 PM

@Alenanno — "We have armadillos in our trousers."

Alenanno

@RegDwight Like "Sex! I didn't know it was you!"

@Robusto lol :D

RegDwight

May 16 at 14:38, by RegDwight

Robusto

Es tut mir Lederhosen.

RegDwight

Schtonk!

Robusto

Shpongle

Shpongle is an English psychedelic downtempo/psybient music project formed in 1996. The group includes Simon Posford (aka Hallucinogen) and Raja Ram (one third of The Infinity Project). Their musical style combines eastern ethnic instruments and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music. When asked to describe Shpongle's music, Posford has responded that it is "like nothing you've ever heard before." Shpongle's first track, "Vapour Rumours", was released on TIP Records' Infinite Excursions compilation in 1996. Their debut album, Are You Shpongled?, was released...

Alenanno

6:50 PM

gotta go to dinner, bye guys, it was fun to see you all again

Robusto

BTW, cool band.

BTW, is it just me or does Anderson Silva sound like a self-help course? The Anderson Silva™ Self-Help Seminar Series.

RegDwight

Hm. Ongle is a nail, but what is "shp"? Is that Yiddish?

@Robusto Well, he basically uses this site to proof-read his (and others') Reddit postings.

Robusto

IDK. I think it's just dissociative schizophrenia.

RegDwight

Jun 1 at 13:59, by RegDwight

There was a time when he used this site to proof-read whatever he had posted or seen on the dating subreddit.

Robusto

We can be so proud of our efforts here now.

Vitaly

6:54 PM

@Robusto: Are there any linguistic markers through which you heuristically detect diseased thinking in a piece of text without giving it any explicit thought?

RegDwight

How would he notice if the thoughts were non-explicit?

Robusto

@Vitaly — Probably. But I haven't given the matter any explicit thought.

Vitaly

@Robusto — I haven't given it much explicit thought either, and I find it difficult to formalize it now that I'm trying to. Hence the question.

RegDwight

Well, if it reads like BS, and sounds like BS, and smells like BS...

Vitaly

but what exactly makes it “read like BS”?

Robusto

6:56 PM

Stop correcting your text. You keep thunking me.

RegDwight

Duck test

The duck test is a humorous term for a form of inductive reasoning. This is its usual expression: The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject's habitual characteristics. It is sometimes used to counter arguments that something is not what it appears to be. History Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) may have coined the phrase when he wrote "when I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." The phrase may also have originated much later with Emil Mazey, secretary-t...

What exactly makes a duck "sound like a duck"?

Robusto

I guess the markers aren't linguistic but semantic.

Vitaly

well for semantic you'd actually have to read the text as opposed to glancing over it

Robusto

When I sense that a narration is unreliable it's usually because the meaning goes off in a wrong direction. It's more than just a misspelling or an omission of syntactic elements. It's a sense that the teeth of the prose aren't meshing, exactly, with the gears of the logic.

RegDwight

@Vitaly Reading a text certainly does help in determining its value.

Robusto

6:59 PM

@RegDwight — You're so old-fashioned.

RegDwight

I know, I know.

Still good old communist thinking.

Jez

if it walks like a bunny, squeaks like a bunny, and hops like a bunny, I call that animal RegDwight

RegDwight

Well, you Jez, you are special like that.

Where is that Feynman video?

Vitaly

@Robusto — I'm thinking more like words like “something” when the author never actually qualifies what the something in question is

Robusto

Like this bunny?

@Vitaly — Can you use it in a sentence?

Vitaly

7:01 PM

idk, that's why I am finding it difficult to formalize exactly what heuristics I use

but I actually find that most of creationist propaganda has something in it that makes me recognize it instantly without even reading it

(obviously, I am not talking about words specific to it like “creationism,” but just the general word usage)

RegDwight

@Jez Meh, can't find that particular video, and that particular place in it, but here's a quote.

Robusto

Well, we humans are really good at pattern recognition. We usually get dinged with false positives and then discount them rather than the other way around. Once we get enough hits we draw a conclusion.

RegDwight

> I smiled to myself, because my father had already taught me that the name doesn't tell me anything about the bird. He taught me "See that bird? It's a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it's called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird--you only know something about people; what they call that bird.

> Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way," and so forth. There is a difference between the name of the thing and what goes on.

So, a RegDwight by any other name...

Robusto

What I mean is, we recognize linguistic patterns and then our BS detector goes off. But we turn it off because, well, one swallow does not a summer make and all that. But we get another ring, and another, and sooner or later we just know we are talking to someone who's not going to give good conversation.

RegDwight

Huhuh, you said swallow, huhuh.

Robusto

7:06 PM

@RegDwight — Stop trying to live up to all my expectations of you.

RegDwight

Oh, make no mistake, I am not trying.

Robusto

I think you are very trying.

RegDwight

No, I'm just living up.

Robusto

But will you ever live that down?

RegDwight

Right after these messages:

Robusto

7:09 PM

... and we're back.

And AFK for a bit.

Vitaly

do tomatoes in the US have a more water-y, insipid-y taste than in Europe?

Martha

The tomatoes you can get in the supermarket in the US either have no taste, or they taste just nasty (like, kind of... overripe.) Hence the popularity of those upside-down tomato things and other grow-your-own tomato options.

(And as the attached diagram shows, I'm back.)

@Robusto Was Dori hit by the same chat outage as I was? That, oddly, makes me feel better.

Vitaly

7:26 PM

and compared to European supermarket tomatoes?

Martha

Also, the stupid [9] is back next to my Tools. Click it, zero flags. And Jeff wants to remove the "bug" tag and call it a support issue? Hmph.

@Vitaly Well, all vegetables in Hungary tend to be better than anything you can buy in the US, so I'd have to say "yes". But that's only a small part of Europe.

Vitaly

interesting, thanks

Jez

8:02 PM

hmm.

Are there any Area51 sites where a question about scar healing/treatment options would be even vaguely on topic?

Jez

8:15 PM

Health I guess. I hope that one makes it into beta.

one doc's opinion is not ideal, they are often unaware or behind the times.

aedia

Hullo @Jez! Anyone else awake?

You awake, for that matter?

Jez

8:37 PM

yup

aedia

@Jez Hooray! I don't have to suffer at work alone!

Fridays seem to go on forever, sometimes.

JSBangs

i'm here again

though i agree that this friday has lasted at least two weeks

Jez

@aedia what time is it there and where is there?

aedia

Washington DC area and it's sadly only 16:40.

Jez

ah right

aedia

8:40 PM

@JSBangs It has. I even had a nice potluck lunch today, but that didn't make up for the meeting horrors of the afternoon.

Jez

what is the SEN chat equivalent of /me?

JSBangs

@Jez non est

aedia

@Jez Me no understand? Say again?

Jez

@aedia it's an IRC thing

ok i'll emulate it

jez debates the wisdom of having pizza tonight

aedia

@Jez Like, "/me eats cookie"?

Ah so it actually replaces. I did not know that. I've used IRC like, twice, ever.

Jez

8:42 PM

yep

i had Nando's for lunch so maybe i need something more healthy

JSBangs

@aedia there is no chat equiv for that command

non est = Latin for "there is none"

aedia

@JSBangs I got it :)

@JSBangs I understood you saying there wasn't one, but I was wondering what "me" there wasn't one of. Now I know.

@Jez Nando's is fried chicken? I think we have one here but I haven't been.

Now I really want pizza.

Jez

yup

aedia

I wonder why it's so important to be able to talk about oneself in the third person.

Jez

i had chicken breast in pitta, chips with vinegar and salt and tomato sauce, and corn on the cob with butter

JSBangs

8:50 PM

sounds delicious

aedia

@Jez Is it good fried chicken, or is it like KFC that makes you regret it immediately?

Ohh that sounds yummy.

Jez

i like KFC, so...

aedia

I have cravings for disgusting greasy food every once in a while but it always gives me a stomachache.

JSBangs

all we have around here is jars and jars of homemade strawberry jam

Jez

though i don't like their recent trend of replacing the nice barbecue dips with nasty sachets. i want to dip stuff in it!!

speaking of KFC...

►

aedia

8:55 PM

@JSBangs Mmm. I'm impressed. I can't cook a thing, much less (can? jar? wtf is the right verb for putting things in a jar?) strawberries.

JSBangs

my wife's been working at the strawberry harvest here, which means she gets buckets and buckets of extra strawberries. we've been turning them into jam. did two giant pots earlier this week, and another one tonight

Jez

we can can the can-can and start canning

aedia

@Jez but I can't can nor can I can-can!

Jez

one can-can and one will can until one can can (nor can-can) no more

1

Chesterbelloc

Proposed Q&A site for people who read and love (or despise) G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc; people with questions about their works and lives; questions regarding their influences and legacies; and those who are wondering how to establish a distributive state.

Currently in definition.

Do we think this is a joke?

aedia

9:15 PM

one can and one can-can, and one'll can and can-can, 'til one can can and can-can no more

Jez

can the canning and the can-canning, if you can.

JSBangs

@Jez not a joke, but not gonna make it, either

aedia

0

Q: Is there an EBNF that covers all of English

This almost feels like a SO question. Is there an EBNF that covers all of English, and if so, what is it?

grammar

I... I... My brain.

It hurts.

JSBangs

9:30 PM

@aedia i answered definitively in the negative

aedia

@JSBangs Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was unable to even think of the phrase "context-free grammar." Gosh darn Friday.

Jez

►

^ In this country, Bristol is a city and people with that name would be bullied.

oh, and Levi's is a brand of jeans

so it sounds like she's saying her jeans stole her virginity

aedia

9:47 PM

@Jez I really don't like to publicly curse up a storm, so suffice it to say, that makes me VERY EXTREMELY EXTRAORDINARILY ANGRY. I can't continue watching.

Jez

im also watching one about private prisons lobbying coughbribing the govt for higher incarceration rates

aedia

@Jez Makes me think of Bristol board. Oh, hmm. That's probably from Bristol the city.

Jez

yup.

Bristol board

Bristol board (also referred to as Bristol paper) is an uncoated, machine-finished paperboard. It is named after the city of Bristol in the southwest of England. Common sizes include 22.5″ × 28.5″ (572 × 724 mm) and its bulk thickness is .006 inches (0.15 mm) or higher and A4, A3, A2 and A1 Bristol board may be rated by the number of plies it contains or, in Europe, by its grammage of 220 to 250. It is normally white, but is also made in different colours. Applications Bristol paper is used for printing documents, brochures, promotional materials and envelopes. It is also u...

literally no-one in the UK is called Bristol.

it's like calling an american Atlanta

actually, more like Portland

aedia

@Jez I think it's become a thing here to name people for places, like Cheyenne or Dallas.

Jez

heh

aedia

9:52 PM

Troy. That's another ridiculous one. The Troy I know is in upstate NY and it's a dead manufacturing town.

@Jez I bet there's someone out there named Portland. Madison Atlanta Portland Savannah III.

Jez

heh

Martha

10:22 PM

Bristol board is a good fallback medium for scrolls when I've run out of Pergamenata and don't feel like splurging on parchment.

You just have to be careful if you're doing a trace-and-rub type of transferring the drawing: the burnisher can leave indentations on the paper. (Ask me how I know this.)

My sister's step-brothers-in-law all have kids named after rivers. Hudson and... and... I'm blanking on the other one.

But then, 16th century England had a fashion for naming girls after their mother's maiden last name. How would you like to be called "Leach"?

Jez

3

Q: "If the bowl had been stronger, my song had been longer."

In the original version of the nursery rhyme, The Wise Men of Gotham, the word 'had' is used in the main clause of a sentence where it seems modern English would commonly use 'would have'. The full rhyme is: Three wise men of Gotham, They went to sea in a bowl, And if the bowl had been s...