English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Spare Oom

12:03 AM

hi @kit

KitΘδς

Hi!

Spare Oom

12:24 AM

@Kit I didn't read back in the transcript, but did you get pummeled with the hurricane?

KitΘδς

@SpareOom I wasn't too bad. Our walnut tree took down the power line to the neighbor's house went it went down and the neighbors across the street lost a tree that blocked the road for a while, but we only lost power briefly.

Spare Oom

That kind of thing tends to bring the community together and get people outside talking about the storm and such.

KitΘδς

Well, we're pretty rural folk, so we're like that anyhow.

Spare Oom

In my neighborhood, the ladies seem to stay inside. Only the men seem to go out and socialize. It's pretty strange to me, since it was the women in my neighborhood growing up that were out in the yards chatting.

KitΘδς

Interesting. Is that a cultural norm? Or just in your neighborhood?

Spare Oom

12:41 AM

It may be a cultural issue. Most of the neighbors are from India.

Where I grew up, we were all middle class white, Anglo-Saxon American as far as I remember.

KitΘδς

Do the ladies visit each other in their homes?

@SpareOom Where did you grow up?

Spare Oom

Kansas

I feel a bit like a minority here, the ladies have not really invited me anywhere.

KitΘδς

That's pretty WASPy.

Spare Oom

Yeah, I should have used that. It would have saved me some time.

KitΘδς

Where are you now?

Hullo Gracie.

Spare Oom

12:46 AM

I'm in Maryland, not too far from DC. The majority of the folks on my block have been here for 20 years, I think. They are the original owners. It's a bit hard to break in to such a tightly knit community.

Although, the kids had an easier time. They roamed farther than just the one block.

And there is a park very close to home.

KitΘδς

I didn't realize you had children. What are their ages?

Spare Oom

Almost grown.

KitΘδς

Wow.

Did you weather the hurricane OK?

Spare Oom

Yeah. I'm well inland.

KitΘδς

My mom spent part of her childhood in Havre de Grace. We visited there when I was a girl.

I haven't seen much of MD though.

I've seen more of Kansas, actually.

Spare Oom

12:50 AM

I've been through there a couple times on the way somewhere. It looked nice.

Where in Kansas?

KitΘδς

Of course, there is more of Kansas to see.

Spare Oom

True.

But not as picturesque, perhaps.

KitΘδς

Lemme think. The only place I remember for sure was the center of the contiguous US.

Spare Oom

Unless you like wide open spaces.

KitΘδς

I do. But Nebraska is really boring. Kansas, not so bad.

Spare Oom

12:52 AM

There's an interesting museum in Hutchinson.

Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center

The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is a museum and educational facility in Hutchinson, Kansas that is best known for the display and restoration of spaceflight artifacts and educational camps. It is one of only three museums to display flown spacecraft from Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Facilities The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center grew from a planetarium established on the Kansas State Fairgrounds in 1962. The facility now houses the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow, and the second largest collection of space artifacts in the world, secon...

KitΘδς

Oh! Wish I'd known. I love that kind of stuff.

Spare Oom

But I was on boarder with Missouri, and there are many museums in the greater Kansas City area.

KitΘδς

I'm pretty sure I was in Salina and Abilene.

Spare Oom

Oh and a couple years ago driving through, my sister and I stopped for a Wizard of Oz museum. No surprise.

KitΘδς

Also Topeka and Lawrence.

Spare Oom

12:54 AM

I had friends in Salina and Abilene.

KitΘδς

@SpareOom I can't believe that did not occur to me.

Spare Oom

there too

I went to Univ. of Ks.

What took you to Kansas?

KitΘδς

I like Kansas a lot, compared to other midwestern states. But I think if I had to choose, I'd pick South Dakota.

@SpareOom Road trip.

Just because.

Spare Oom

ozmuseum.com

My family all shared a set of the books, so we prefer the book version of Oz to the Hollywood version.

KitΘδς

Oh goodness yes. I was so disappointed with the movie.

I saw it after I had read all the books.

Spare Oom

12:59 AM

Good! Too many people have never heard of the books, or at least know of any more than one. Did you read the sequels by other authors?

Dad used to read us the books. I read them all to my kids.

KitΘδς

I'm not sure. I read them when I wouldn't have noticed such a thing.

I remember Ozma of Oz and Return to Oz.

The one with the Patchwork Girl.

Spare Oom

Ozma was one of my favorites. The Return is the movie based on that one, plus Tick-Tok

KitΘδς

And the Emerald City of Oz, I think?

@SpareOom Oh yes! I remember Tik-Tok.

Spare Oom

The Emerald City of Oz was the one that introduced the Gnome King, I think.

KitΘδς

Is that the one where the friends are turned into emerald figurines?

Spare Oom

1:03 AM

I got miffed when I found that one of the books had printed the map of Oz wrong, with the Winkies in the East and the Munchkins in the West!

KitΘδς

Ha ha ha!

Spare Oom

@KitΘδς That was Ozma of Oz.

They were captured by the Gnome King.

Remember the lady who used to change her heads?

KitΘδς

Yes, I remember, I think.

Or maybe I'm thinking of Jack Pumpkinhead.

Spare Oom

Each head had a different personality. I thought that would be fun to wear a different head depending on what your mood was, but she was in a different mood, depending on which head she wore.

KitΘδς

Which one had the Shaggy Man?

Spare Oom

1:06 AM

Jack Pumpkinhead was introduced in the Land of Oz.

KitΘδς

@SpareOom I must have read that then.

Spare Oom

Shaggy Man had his own, but it was written by Jack Snow. He was introduced in the Road to Oz.

KitΘδς

I should read them all again.

Spare Oom

The movie, The Return to Oz, if you saw that, mixed a bunch of them together. Ozma, Tick-Tok, Land of Oz and maybe others. However, I think it was a better movie than Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz.

KitΘδς

I'm surprised how little I remember.

Spare Oom

1:08 AM

Make sure you read them to your children!

KitΘδς

I will certainly.

I plan to read them lots and lots of books.

Spare Oom

I used to re-read them every summer! lol

KitΘδς

Although my eldest insists on reading to me now.

Spare Oom

I was able to read to mine until the oldest was in middle school.

But not as often as earlier, of course.

I remember my Dad reading to us at least that long.

KitΘδς

Naturally. I remember my mom reading to us on road trips even when we were in high school.

Spare Oom

1:11 AM

Nice!

I loved the way my Dad read.

KitΘδς

Did he do voices?

Spare Oom

I don't think so, but I did with my kids. :)

KitΘδς

Did he have a deep rumbly voice?

And very expressive?

Spare Oom

Yes, that's it.

KitΘδς

Nice. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy just imagining it.

Spare Oom

1:13 AM

But, he couldn't pronounce the magic word from The Magic of Oz correctly, since it didn't work.

KitΘδς

Oh?

Spare Oom

We had a record of Maurice Evans reading Winnie the Pooh which was nice too.

KitΘδς

Oh, Winnie the Pooh. I loved those. And Peter Pan too.

Spare Oom

Yeah!

KitΘδς

Those books were really marvelous.

Spare Oom

1:15 AM

That magic word: Pyrzqxgl!

KitΘδς

Oh, I remember that!

It was for transforming things or something, right?

Spare Oom

Oh, this is the place to ask how to pronounce that!

Yes.

I should ask a question on EL&U. ;)

KitΘδς

Hahahaha! Yes, I think that this would be the place. ;-)

Oh, shoot! I forgot I was supposed to finish this bit of work tonight. I must go.

Spare Oom

Give me a moment. Maybe some linguists will be able to help.

Ok, nice chatting.

KitΘδς

Thank you for the lovely chat.

Night!

Spare Oom

1:18 AM

'Night.

simchona

1:49 AM

Hi @spare

Spare Oom

Hi!

simchona

I tried to answer your question

It's kind of a non-answer

Spare Oom

Oh, I thought it would take longer!

I'll look.

I'd forgotten about that.

@simchona I think it's good if nobody tries to attempt a real answer.

Baum wasn't a linguist, was he?

simchona

@SpareOom That is a real answer :p

I'm not sure if he was

Spare Oom

Yeah, of a sort.

user19161

2:04 AM

@spare I'm glad you got an answer, but I agreed with Robusto and voted as too localised.

Spare Oom

aw

simchona

@JasperLoy I think you're right.

Sorry, Spare

Spare Oom

So I can't even accept @simchona

user19161

@sim I saw you used "pronounciation" directly from the website. You may want to indicate there is a spelling error by using sic, but slackers like me would just edit it even if it is a quote.

simchona

@JasperLoy Yeah, i thought I got all of them

user19161

2:06 AM

@SpareOom You can still accept and upvote the answer.

user19161

@simchona See the first line in the quote?

simchona

@JasperLoy Got it

Spare Oom

But if it's deleted, @simchona won't get credit?

user19161

@simchona I only notice stupid things like that. :-)

simchona

@SpareOom Closed != deleted

user19161

2:08 AM

@SpareOom It might not be deleted, just closed.

user19161

@SpareOom It's OK, she has enough credit already.

simchona

And rep isn't everything. If it's deleted later, I can deal with it

user19161

And I don't need more.

Spare Oom

How am I to approximate it in reading to children, then?

user19161

@SpareOom Why not just make up your own sound?

Spare Oom

2:09 AM

Does too localized mean nobody else is interested in the question, basically?

@JasperLoy I can't even be consistent.

user19161

@SpareOom It just means it is too localised, period.

user19161

A=A.

user19161

That's helpful, isn't it?

simchona

@SpareOom You don't need to. Just emphasize that it's a magic word, and you'll change it every time

Hoping to find the right pronunciation

Spare Oom

Now, that's a good idea.

simchona

2:11 AM

you'll know it's right if someone turns into a walnut, but until then you have to keep trying

user19161

Medusa turns people into stone.

Spare Oom

@simchona haha. One way to get rid of enemies?

user19161

@SpareOom No, use Medusa instead.

simchona

@SpareOom Yup! It'll make the reading more fun, too, if you have kids try to shout it out

Spare Oom

What if they figure it out before I do?

user19161

2:15 AM

I gave the question and answer a +1.

Spare Oom

Do those points stay?

user19161

But no need to thank me.

user19161

@SpareOom If not deleted.

user19161

They stay too if you don't do a rep recalc.

user19161

You do rep recalc by logging in, going to english.stackexchange.com/reputation, then press recalc.

user19161

2:17 AM

I'm not sure if there is auto recalc periodically though.

simchona

@JasperLoy I think there is

Spare Oom

@simchona Why'd you answer it if you voted to close?

That's a bit counter-productive.

simchona

@SpareOom I saw Robusto's point.

Spare Oom

oh, ok

simchona

I didn't vote til after I had already answered, and Jasper brought it up

user19161

2:20 AM

@simchona How often?

simchona

@JasperLoy I want to say...I'm not sure now

user19161

@simchona Excessive use of ellipses!

simchona

@JasperLoy No, it's perfectly fine. I just used one

user19161

@simchona No need to agree with me or Robusto.

simchona

@JasperLoy Except that I did, when I thought about it

user19161

2:22 AM

@simchona Well, I mean in general you use ellipses quite often, but maybe I'm wrong.

user19161

Look at Martin's answer to your question @spare!

user19161

Well he even forgot the period at the end.

user19161

Maybe we don't need Medusa's head, we can just say Medusa Medusa Medusa and they will turn into stone.

Spare Oom

Well, it's good to see there's a site dedicated to the joke. I figured the books had gone out of popularity.

@JasperLoy Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, ...?

user19161

@SpareOom Where does Beetlejuice come from?

Spare Oom

2:29 AM

(Just in case.) ;)

The movie, you mean?

user19161

@SpareOom I thought you meant it was a magic chant like my triple medusa.

Spare Oom

Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice is a 1988 American dark comedy film directed by Tim Burton, produced by The Geffen Film Company and distributed by Warner Bros. The plot revolves around a recently deceased young couple who become ghosts haunting their former home and an obnoxious, devious "bio-exorcist" named Betelgeuse from the underworld who tries to scare away the new inhabitants permanently. Beetlejuice stars Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones, Sylvia Sidney, and Michael Keaton as the titular Betelgeuse (the film's title being a phonetic spelling of the character's ...

Tripple Beetlejuice is magic! Scary magic.

user19161

@SpareOom Another horror movie by tim

user19161

maybe i'll forget caps here like jsbangs, and periods too

Spare Oom

It may have been his first?

then you have to forget punctuation and youll be one ahead and confuse everyone who is trying to actually understand what youre posting

user19161

2:32 AM

well, only when confusion does not arise, like this

Spare Oom

ohwhybotherwithspaceseaitehrtheyreawasteofspace

user19161

that is not good

user19161

@sim I spotted another typo in your answer, guess?

simchona

@JasperLoy Fix it for me?

Please?

user19161

@simchona Done, there may be more, I'll look again.

simchona

2:37 AM

Thank you

Spare Oom

@Kit They closed my question. How are you going to read The Magic of Oz to your 3 yr old?

Well, late here. Thanks folks. Good night.

user19161

@SpareOom Night!

user19161

@simchona I fixed two spellings in total and moved one period.

Spare Oom

@simchona I'm going to check in the morning and accept your answer then, just in case it gets looked at overnight.

See ya.

user19161

I added the period too for Martin, haha.

simchona

4:39 AM

Too localized?

0

Q: Can we use "what the heck" in formal contexts to denote a more friendly environment?

I see in many movies bad words are censored or simply replaced by a beep sound. But the expression what the heck is not censored and you can hear it clearly. You can also see that this expression is used in many conversations on online forums and Q&A websites. It seems to me that this expre...

Bogdan Lataianu

4:52 AM

i think it is fine

simchona

It's better now

Bogdan Lataianu

one can say it is for anybody who makes a website

simchona, do you know how to link a comment?

simchona

You can't, but you can link answers

Bogdan Lataianu

i mean to give a link to a previous comment

ok

simchona

@BogdanLataianu But it's a pretty specific website he was asking about

> You can quote, though

Bogdan Lataianu

4:54 AM

yes, but we can extrapolate to other websites/users, see her latest comment too

simchona

You're ignoring the fact that I commented too

Also, why did you put a bounty on the phrase/idiom/expression question?

Bogdan Lataianu

why not?

simchona

Is there a problem with the answer?

Bogdan Lataianu

i will write a comment in that question

wait for it

simchona

Please do. Right now, it seems like you're saying dr65's answer isn't good enough

Bogdan Lataianu

4:58 AM

simchona i do not ignore your comments to Saeed question

but i refer to her/his last comment

simchona

Which I read, understood, and replied to

Bogdan Lataianu

ok good

see you around

user19161

5:17 AM

Martin deleted his answer to spare's question, I wonder why...

Purmou

Hello

user19161

@Purmou Hi!

Purmou

hi there :D

I was just wondering

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@Jasper I was kidding about the prayer. XD.

Purmou

do you guys tolerate one or two sentence questions?

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

5:23 AM

sometimes.

Purmou

specifically one for a word request

user19161

@Purmou It is not the length but the quality. The system makes it impossible for it to be too short though.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Well, on word requests, you might want to be careful not to be out of scope of our site.

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū I was kidding with you too, but there are other things here that I don't kid about.

Purmou

@JasperLoy @ChaosGamerel my question: "What do you call someone who has experienced many hardships?"

user19161

5:24 AM

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū I am not sure what the rest consider on or off topic anymore though. :-)

Purmou

the only backstory I can provide is that the question came about while we were talking on the Christianity.SE chat

but i think that's irrelevant

user19161

@Purmou You call him Job. :-)

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Just because the site is private, it does not mean chatroom is. ready for a ride to that chatroom, @Jasper?

Purmou

wait!

while I have both of you here

Anyone taken AP Lit?

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

....Ap lit?

The Upper Room

General discussion for Christianity.SE, pseudo-meta support, a...

3

@Jasper.

Purmou

5:27 AM

AP literature and composition

Advanced Placement

user19161

@Purmou Nope.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Never heard of it. you should call it APLC.

that sounds more grand.

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū What is there now?

Purmou

Lol.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

2jasper we have a quest!

we should look at the discussion!

We should go on our merry way, and nothing will stop us!

huuza!

user19161

5:28 AM

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū You mean right now?

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Noooo, a century later. Of COURSE now!

lets go!

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū OK!

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

wait,

@Pur how far should we go back?

@Jasper meet me there.

Here.

Purmou

that was

...

confusing, to say the least

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I'll paste the whole disscussion.

Purmou

5:35 AM

lol

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@pur you do not know Sonic?

Purmou

Sonic the Hedgehog?

i know what it is

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Purmou
is there a simple way to mention someone who has gone through several hardships?
Stefano Palazzo
so make sure early on that you don't have a chistianity tag :)

Purmou

or is this better suited for English language SE

Flimzy

answer updated, tell me your thoughts

s/answer/question/

@StefanoPalazzo: Good suggestion :)

Caleb

@Purmou That does sound like an EL&U thing unless you want a biblical reference.

Purmou

9:30 AM

@Caleb I sort of did.

opps....

hehe...

Purmou

though i don't know it

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū holy moly

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

sigh next time I should just touch my forehead. Its easier, but less cooler.

DBZ reference

@Jasper yo.

i kinda... messed up. hehe.

user19161

5:38 AM

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Most people type my name wrongly.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I fixed it.

So, @Pur, I think ti is safe to ask that question.

ok.

its 2 pm here. I'm out. Seeya.

Chaos Control

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Really, same time here!

Purmou

you must be the same person

user19161

@Purmou I think he means 2 am maybe.

user19161

@purmou You can try posting on the main site, though I don't know what will happen then.

user19161

5:43 AM

Bye!

Jez

8:55 AM

249

Bitcoin

Proposed Q&A site for Bitcoin crypto-currency enthusiasts.

Currently in commitment.

What a strange decision to remove "crypto-currency" from the title. If anything, I would've removed Bitcoin.

now it's limited to one sole form of crypto-currency. much less potential.

user19161

9:08 AM

Yo @jez! I saw you edited my question, or rather retagged it.

Jez

where?

user19161

Hi @sim I see that you are still working hard at answering questions!

user19161

@Jez FL.

simchona

@JasperLoy I saw the opportunity for an NGram

Jez

@JasperLoy what's your username on there?

user19161

9:10 AM

@simchona I am not sure how useful ngrams are. IIRC someone was going to do a blog post on it.

simchona

@JasperLoy Shhhhh

user19161

@Jez same, no secret there.

Jez

oh well i've retagged a few

user19161

@simchona Anyway 400 and you will hit 10k. Proabably by the end of this week.

user19161

@Jez The site went into existence way before we thought it would.

Jez

9:13 AM

yep :-)

where is your question on there?

user19161

5

Q: Free online resources for beginner course

What are good, free online resources for an English speaker to learn French properly from scratch? Ideally, important areas such as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation should be covered, to the point where a self-learner can start to read, write, listen and speak simple French, firstly for use...

ressources

Jez

ah yes

tag should be in french

user19161

I shamelessly plagiarised myself from GL.

user19161

11

Q: Free online resources for beginner course

What are good, free online resources for an English speaker to learn German properly from scratch? Ideally, important areas such as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation should be covered, to the point where a self-learner can start to read, write, listen and speak simple German, firstly for use...

resources learning

user19161

Now you know another secret of mine!

user19161

9:16 AM

I don't intend to do the same for other lang sites though.

user19161

Perhaps these two sites will be in beta forever.

Jez

well it's difficult to build up much of a non-English following on SEN, but at 176 visits/day we're doing better than Signal Processing :-)

user19161

I must say I got better answers on GL than FL, and more votes too.

Jez

To be fair it was a dupe of another question which had very thorough answers

12

Q: Are there good online resources for the easy translations?

Given that site policy is veering away from 'simple' translations (if such a thing exists!), which on-line resources would you advise people to use?

traduction ressources

user19161

@Jez But I was not asking for translations.

user19161

9:24 AM

Any fifth grader can see that the two are distinct.

Jez

are you smarter than a fifth grader? :-)

user19161

Well, perhaps the answers are relevant too if that is what you mean.

user19161

@Jez Not sure, really, and this is not a joke.

user19161

I loved watching that show though.

Jez

I think in the UK it was called "are you smarter than 10-year-old?"

we don't have the whole "grade" thing here

user19161

9:28 AM

I went to audition for moneydrop here with my best friend but did not get to play in the end. May be a good thing, we probably would have walked away with niothing.

user19161

@simchona Anyway don't bother about it if you are busy with schoolwork, that's more important.

user19161

@Jez Neither do we, just thought of the show.

simchona

@JasperLoy I'll be away/moving in the next week

So no idea

user19161

@simchona Please take precautions against the hurricane.

simchona

@JasperLoy Will do. I think it passed through where I'll be, mostly

Jez

9:49 AM

115

Health

Proposed Q&A site for anyone wanting to discuss health-related issues not covered by Fitness & Nutrition, as well as experts wanting to discuss new breakthrough treatments, etc.

Currently in definition.

We need about 6 more people to follow and vote on a 'good off-topic question' (which currently has 14 votes) to get this into commit

anyone interested in health please do so ;-)

user19161

@sim Just another small thing I noticed. Do you think your answer for "the nature of the beast" should include "the" as part of the reference throughout, since that is how it is listed?

simchona

@JasperLoy perhaps.

Do either of you know what backshifting is?

Jez

and who isn't interested in their health? ;-)

everyone should follow that

simchona

1

Q: Backshifting in the that-clause of 'make sure'

Do you normally backshift a verb in the that-clause of 'make sure' when the 'make' is 'made,' 'could make,' 'would make,' etc.? Please take a look at the examples below. Are my thoughts on the right track? A man is asking his travel agent to get seats next to each other's for him and his wif...