English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

9:02 AM

@Jasper Slow night.

I flagged even more to delete

user19161

@simchona Delete what kind of stuff?

@JasperLoy Old OT questions

Talked to Reg and waiwai about it; you can do it if you want

OT posts that have been closed for a while

I'm out of flags

user19161

@simchona I see. I'm not sure how deletion of questions here work though. But it's OK, I'll just close them; deletion is a bit strong for me.

@JasperLoy It's deletion for questions that never improved. Mostly "improve my English" from March or earlier.

Reg told me to do it because I was dredging up bad questions that shouldn't be here any more

17% acceptance rate:

english.stackexchange.com/users/11514/stackunderblow?tab=stats

user19161

It is a slow weekend. Not many people around. I'm not sure if he is really 13 though.

9:11 AM

@JasperLoy He said he's not. It was a "memorable age" or something

I asked.

user19161

With regard to editing, I think I'll just follow my own style and the rest can roll back or re-edit if they don't like it. There's no way we can agree on a fixed formatting system. I don't edit just to format, but when I do edit, I reformat as well. I think that's the right way to go here.

I edit when I can, but I did also do what a mod told me to. I wouldn't flag if Reg hadn't suggested it.

But that user has very low-qual posts. +10 total for 14 questions

user19161

And why such a low acceptance rate. By the way, is waiwai a he or she?

I think its a "he". Should we mention this user to the mods? He needs a good talking to.

Also: OT?

0

Q: Dictionaries in XML format

Is it possible to download or buy some good dictionary in XML (or other open source format)? I like OALD, Webster and other good dictionaries.

dictionaries

user19161

There are many dictionary questions here. I would just leave this there. Many times I am not sure what to do with something I must say.

user19161

9:17 AM

But why XML? It's weird.

For the <>s

I'm always confused as to whether "give me resources" are on- or off-topic here

user19161

Actually what we consider as OT we may not on another day. It depends on our mood too. Of course, we are not perfect, and our perspectives on matters change over time too.

True.

Ping a mod about talking to that user though? His questions are poor, and the majority of his answers get flagged and deleted

user19161

Maybe you can wait till one comes and see what to do about it. Anyway there aren't that many questions. One day this site will close if we are too aggressive in closing questions and users.

Glad you're more level-headed than I am

user19161

9:21 AM

See you later.

Q: A sensible mnemonic for "pseudo"

Bye

z7sg Ѫ

1:07 PM

0

Whenever I go to use the pseudo- prefix, I always have to pause for a moment and decide what the correct e-u order is. Often times I get it wrong. Built in typo correction frequently helps, though there are some instances (irssi, ... written forms) where such a feature does not exist. I'm very i...

mnemonic

OT though others have gone for "not constructive"

And another dup here:

0

Q: How to pronounce 'the' when used before a vowel?

I tend to pronounce the as thee when I use it before a word starting with a vowel. I know the difference between the words, but I find it more easy to pronounce this way. It's not universal, and I often hear people say things like 'thuh elephant' instead of 'thee elephant'. Is there a general r...

pronunciation common-pronunciation

5:03 PM

Here be dragons!

5:31 PM

Hey!

Dragons are sort of cool. But they mustn't kidnap our pretty unicorns to their lairs.

And nip their valuable horns off to buy aphrodisiaca at the local fair.

6:19 PM

Indeed, since then Aedia and z7sg would just be horses

Yes, and we wouldn't want that!

They'd become My Little Ponies.

yours?

I didn't own any.

Well, a girl once gave me two. But I sort of hid them, because I couldn't be seen with them.

You?

no. I don't own any little ponies. or ponies of regular size. Or any pets at all. I do have a plastic iguana I call Randal.

I hope this isn't from anyone we know:

Oh, dear...

Since Narwhals do not exist...

6:25 PM

Indeed

Perhaps unicorns shed their horns on a regular basis?

Or clip them when they grow too long?

Oh! Could be.

Well, I think they'd find that hard without opposable thumbs

Perhaps they have servants?

Or special machines.

Ah, yes. I can imagine that. They are magical after all

A horn clipping machine. Interesting. If there isn't one, there's certainly a market for one in the unicorn community

6:54 PM

My life is so full I'm going through the "suggest me" questions on SO and noodling with their grammar

I can't believe my question is a dupe ><

@simchona Was ist los, meine liebchen?

*los

@KitΘδς Err.... runs to Google translate

@Cerberus Danke.

6:58 PM

My second question is a dupe of one of Reg's old ones

@simchona Well, at least you duped a really good question then.

@simchona The last two question's I've thought of have been dupes! One was even answered by Kosmo.

@MattEllenД But I asked a question, then found it was duped

@simchona It shows the system works :D

or almost works

Haha, though Reg is the one who left that comment

7:07 PM

If Reg counts as part of the system, then it definitely works!

He IS the system

user19161

Matt is the law, Reg is the truth, they said that before.

Q: Term for measuring in fractions of 1

Ah, so it is.

4/5 votes:

2

When you measure in fractions of 100, you call it a percentage. When you measure in fractions of 1000, you call it promille or per mil. There are even words for fractions of 10000 or 100000. But what do you call it when you measure in fractions of 1? @nico: You are completely correct, I meant...

measuring-units

user19161

@simchona He thanked nico but not me, for trying so hard to figure out what he is asking!

With the revision, I think nico's answer is right.

7:11 PM

@JasperLoy I still like your answer: "I call it counting"

And the translation of percentages...is a conversion of percentage to decimal

user19161

@simchona I didn't answer, I was just trying to edit the question. Look at the revision history and comments, I still don't know what is going on.

@JasperLoy Oh my. This is...hard

user19161

And what is [0..1]? Is that standard notation for the numbers between 0 and 1? And what is meant by the scale? If he wants that can't he just say numbers from 0 to 1. I think he is very confused.

@JasperLoy [0, 1] is mathmatical range notation. The square brackets indicate that the endpoints are included

user19161

And nico didn't have to say 'didn't want to start edit war', there is no war here, only edits.

user19161

7:16 PM

@simchona Note I said what is [0..1], not [0,1]. I have a degree in math BTW.

@JasperLoy Maybe they typoed? Or forget range notation. And I'm sorry

user19161

@simchona No need to say sorry, you didn't do anything wrong.

user19161

And now after he edited his own question it is very unclear. Why did he have to quote nico? And he did not roll back his title if that is what he wants, and did not edit the body, so very confusing altogether.

user19161

In fact I feel like nuking this question now.

Q: Danish translation of "Eye of Round Roast"

@JasperLoy Do it.

0

This is a very specific / technical question and might be a long shot at this forum. It is though very difficult to find the answer anywhere, so I'm trying my luck here. I need to translate the type of meat called "Eye of Round Roast" into danish. Does anyone here master the english and danish ...

translation

7:24 PM

@Reg See this one ^

user19161

@kit @matt See term for measuring fractions of 1.

huh wha?

@JasperLoy What about it?

user19161

@KitΘδς Look at the comments on the question, the edit history. I don't know what the question is all about, and also the above messages.

@JasperLoy I am the Alpha and the Omega. I just have a slight typing impediment.

7:28 PM

@simchona We jinxed on our question comment!

@JasperLoy I'm not sure what you expect me to do, though. Do you want me to make some edits or something?

user19161

@KitΘδς No, I just want to hear your thoughts and what you think the question means.

user19161

@kit What is your cryptic message about, and removed too.

@JasperLoy Nothing important.

I typed into the wrong box. I wasn't paying attention.

user19161

7:44 PM

@simchona I can only -1 and vote to close which I have done.

user19161

And it has 4 upvotes and 1 favourited and only 1 downvote, hmm.

user19161

Other than my downvote and currently I mean.

user19161

Anyway it has been closed, and I still don't know what is being asked!

8:03 PM

@JasperLoy okeedoke

user19161

Not many people here now, boring...

:p

user19161

@fallen Hello! >_>

So you got a math degree?

@JasperLoy <_<

It's not really a greeting smiley. XD

user19161

8:05 PM

@simchona Ya, just a pathetic one.

@JasperLoy What did you focus in?

user19161

@simchona What do you mean by focus here?

@JasperLoy What area of math did you focus in?

user19161

@simchona None, math is many different topics all thrown into one, so a bit of this and a bit of that. There isn't really a focus, officially or unofficially in my case.

8:22 PM

Hmm. I almost did a math major

user19161

What are you doing now then, and why the switch? You thought carefully?

user19161

And why is Grace Note now a moderator on all the sites? I didn't know she was SE staff, or so it seems.

GraceNote got hired by SE last week

@JasperLoy Man, I would not dare to say that on Math.SE

And I ended up going into Economics and Computer Science. I still enjoy math, but I wasn't going to do THAT much math

user19161

8:25 PM

@FallenAngelEyes Why? It's true it is a multitude of topics.

@JasperLoy I didn't see the bit you said before about it being your own focus. I thought you meant there was no focus in math in general.

user19161

@simchona I think as you go into the more theoretical aspects of these subjects, there will be lots of nontrivial math involved.

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes I see. How is your sleep cycle now?

@JasperLoy I think that's also why I stopped. I was great at multivar calc, but the theory didn't interest me

user19161

@simchona OK then it seems you made the right choice since you aren't really interested in theoretical stuff. But the misconception is that pure and applied math are disjoint. They really aren't. Applied math is just math applied. And neither is more difficult than the other.

8:29 PM

@JasperLoy I think I fixed it! I stayed up 22 hours yesterday to go to sleep at 1:30am and slept til 11am or so.

So I'm on roughly a normal circadian rhythm for my time zone now

@FallenAngelEyes Wow.

rather than like... Alaska's

@simchona I do this fairly often

@Jasper a mod never came in--we had mentioned StackUnderblow last night

user19161

@simchona I'm wondering what's up with the recent lack of activity. Maybe there was more a few weeks ago while people were threatening to quit, and now they have all said whatever they want here!

@JasperLoy Perhaps. It seems like the people in the chat are the only movement in this wasteland

user19161

8:35 PM

And I thought Grace Note would change to his/her real name after becoming staff, but he/she didn't.

user19161

I just come to edit questions, answer one or two now and then, give the people I like more rep, and to chat with you lovely people.

@JasperLoy Can you change your name and still retain your rep and stuff without changing open ID?

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes You can change your username and retain everything else. The numeric user ID remains the same. Username can only be changed again 30 days after a change is made to prevent too many changes.

user19161

The avatar at gravatar.com can be changed as often as you like as I discovered, so I have reverted to my current one which should stay for a while!

@JasperLoy It seems like people come here for one question, and leave

user19161

8:39 PM

@simchona You mean their own question?

@JasperLoy Mhm.

user19161

Honestly I would not take part in SE if not for my current crisis and not working.

@JasperLoy It's highly time consuming. My activity will probably really drop after this month

user19161

I just told sb that he can upvote and accept answer at the same time, on the question sim just answered.

user19161

That might give you some more rep @sim!

8:43 PM

@JasperLoy Who is sb?

@JasperLoy Oh, huh, I didn't know that.

user19161

@simchona memoir and bio question.

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes There are many things about SE we don't know. For example, you may be Jeff Atwood in disguise here!

@JasperLoy I can't be, I've never taken the GMAT. :P

user19161

@simchona Yes, it's good to spend more time on your studies. That's what these few years are good for if you wanna your stuff really well!

Q: When/Where to use "scholar" instead of "scientist"?

8:47 PM

12 questions in 1:

0

I mainly associate scholar with scholarship. But whats its etymological origin? On scientific websites both scholar and scientist seem to be used with the same meaning; A graduate working actively on a scientific topic. Is it a AE/BE thing or does scholar imply the graduate is doing a phd/postdoc...

etymology word-usage

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes I don't even know what that is, only taken the SAT!

@JasperLoy I am so glad I never have to take those again

user19161

@simchona I don't like counting. It's alright if they are closely related, but I'm not saying if they are or not here.

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes Good, you don't intend to do a degree of any sort?

@JasperLoy I do, but Dutch universities don't give a crap about the SAT, so no worries!

user19161

8:54 PM

@FallenAngelEyes Good! I intend to do grad studies too once I get well, but I may never get well... All the best to you!

You too. :)

user19161

@fallen You don't really post Q and A here. No interest?

user19161

Did you go for the gay parade Cerb mentioned, or there is none in your district?

@JasperLoy I don't feel I have enough expertise to answer questions here and most questions I'd want to ask have been asked

user19161

@FallenAngelEyes I see, but your Eng does seem pretty good too!

9:10 PM

I'd like to think it is, but I have no degree in English or linguistics, so my knowledge level is pretty much only that of native speaker who finds language interesting.

user19161

This is the first time I am in two rooms at once. interesting to see how this works.

I have over half a dozen starred, but there's usually only one or two active at once.

user19161

OK back here, nothing interesting going on there.

user19161

The incomrehensible room is the only interesting room.