English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

1:55 AM

@Robusto The horror!

2

Q: Comma splice in pending edit mouseover notification

When a 3k-rep user browses to a post that has a pending suggested edit, the edit link changes to edit (1). When you mouse over it, the title text displayed is: 1 edit to this post is pending, please review it The comma should be a semicolon. Alternatively it could be rephrased to something...

Cerberus

faints

Mechanical snail

@MετάEd The pronunciation?

@Cerberus THE END IS AT HAND, WE'RE ALL DOOMED!

Cerberus

I personally don't have that much of a problem with commas if they connect very short sentences, or at least one very short sentence to a longer one.

@Mechanicalsnail comes to, faints again

> I know, it's wrong.

Do you have a problem with this? ^

> There was no potassium in the laboratory, so they told her.

And this? ^

And can you do something about this?

Luckily, I will be asleep most of that time.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Well, it's probably standard for phrases that short.

@Cerberus That's not even a comma splice.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist remember that ghoul script I was trying to write? somebody was running hundreds of them and fucked the school server.

Mechanical snail

2:06 AM

@cornbreadninja ?

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail I'm trying to stretch up your notion of comma splices. What is your definition of a comma splice, and how would you analyse my so sentence?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus "so" is a conjunction?

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail I would not call it a conjunction except where it means "so that" or "and so".

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Must satisfy the 3 conditions: (1) both sides are valid independent sentences (2) where neither can be analyzed as dependent clauses (3) that I don't like.

Cerberus

Haha.

That is the best definition ever.

Can you cram this sentence into 1 or 2?

Mechanical snail

2:15 AM

You mean it doesn't mean that here?
"I need some potassium to drop into the toilet!"
There was no potassium in the laboratory, so they told her.

Cerberus

Um.

I mean it as in "there was no potassium in the laboratory. They told her so".

As an alternative, you could punctuate it thus:

> There was no potassium in the laboratory—so they told her.

Perhaps you would call my example a comma splice and disallow it.

I might not be wholly unsympathetic to that.

Perhaps my example was a bit too complicated.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Given that I mis-read it, I would definitely disallow that one.

Cerberus

Heh.

Context would make you read it correctly.

Mechanical snail

I guess a (heuristic) rule would be: it's fine where one clause is fairly short and semantically dependent on the main one (e.g. "Yes,", ", you know?").

And it doesn't introduce ambiguity.

Cerberus

That is about how I feel about comma splices.

But I would allow slightly longer clauses than "you know".

Mechanical snail

2:22 AM

@Cerberus I'm not saying that's the limit, just listing clearly acceptable examples.

Cerberus

And both clauses being short would ease the pressure on either.

@Mechanicalsnail OK.

Oh, and less formality means I would allow somewhat longer clauses too.

> The office is upstairs, please follow Mr Huitzilopochtli.

A semicolon or a full stop would certainly be fine here.

But I would be inclined to allow the comma in a fast-moving text.

If that means anything.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Comma-splices are usually fine in spoken English, but that one actually sounds odd to me.

Cerberus

Can you hear comma splices?

@Mechanicalsnail Odd, or simply wrong?

Mechanical snail

(The difference is that a "spoken semicolon" has maybe a longer pause, and the following part is uttered with the prosody of an independent sentence.)

Cerberus

How does this prosody differ?

Mechanical snail

2:28 AM

I think that in "A; B" the preceding part's ending has a similar intonation to that of a comma (elevated pitch on the last stress, which falls to mid-range).

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail I am a bit sceptical about this longer pause. On average, yes; distinctively so...I don't know.

@Mechanicalsnail And the following part?

Mechanical snail

When I read it with a "spoken comma", the "please" is unaccented, whereas it is in an independent sentence or with a semicolon.

@Cerberus Actually it might be that the final mid-tone is drawn out for slightly longer.

I should look at recordings to get actual pitch data.

cornbread ninja

@Mechanicalsnail UNIX class. We were supposed to write a script called ghoul that makes a copy of itself before you kill it with a trap. This guy in class did it some strange way and it started all these processes. There were some 20,000 of them and we could barely log in.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail I don't know...you are just describing how you would pronounce it differently if you had to read that text aloud.

Commata and semicola don't exist in speech.

Mechanical snail

@cornbreadninja :(){ :|:& };:

Cerberus

2:38 AM

Various pauses exist in speech, and intonations—but not punctuation marks.

cornbread ninja

@Mechanicalsnail you got it.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Yes, but the pauses and intonations correlate with the punctuation marks that are used when transcribing speech, in e.g. dialogue.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail There is some correlation, but nothing distinctive per case.

Mechanical snail

So it's reasonable to refer to a spoken ",", just as one refers to a spoken "potato".

cornbread ninja

@Mechanicalsnail I resisted the urge to find the ghostbusters theme on youtube and play it.

Cerberus

2:41 AM

@Mechanicalsnail I really don't feel that I can agree with that.

cornbread ninja

later. play nicely!

Cerberus

When you transcribe speech, you basically add punctuation marks based on rules that apply to writing, right?

@cornbreadninja Bye! We are!

In some cases, you might pick a semicolon over a comma to indicate a longer pause, possibly; but usually it is grammar alone that dictates which mark you choose.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Sort of. I commonly hear spoken sentences that in formal writing would take a semicolon, but that sound clearly distinct from how you would read the same sentence (with a semicolon) out of a book. It feels wrong to transcribe such utterances with ";".

"I walked the dog, it looks healthy."

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Well, I would say that reading from a book is very different from spontaneous speech.

@Mechanicalsnail I guess that could be a reason to transcribe such utterances differently.

But it is also that semicolons are usually only needed with longer sentences, and we often don't make such long sentences in speech.

And, when we do, they are usually differently structured, I think.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus That's the point. I think there is a real difference. Notice that in books, comma-splices of that sort are far more common in dialogue than in the main text, even when the characters speaking are supposed to be highly educated (who presumably would hardly ever write a comma splice).

Cerberus

2:49 AM

Yes.

It could also be that semicolons express a certain kind of deliberation that sometimes looks a bit out of place in a transcription, perhaps?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus It could also be that spoken-semicolons express a certain kind of deliberation that sometimes sounds a bit out of place in speech, perhaps?

Cerberus

What if you compared semicolon v. comma to capital v. no capital in certain words that may or may not be proper names?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Example sentence?

Cerberus

You must bear with me and be generous in supplying whatever context is needed:

> There is no food on this island. We should go back to the Island.

I suppose this Island would be pronounced with some added stress, but that would probably be due to the contrasting focus.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus "Please follow Mr. Huitzilopochtli, the office is upstairs." looks/sounds more natural to me. Semantically, "please follow", the imperative, is the main point, and "the office is upstairs" is an auxiliary explanation. So spoken comma-splices seem better when the RHS is dependent on the LHS, perhaps.

Cerberus

2:56 AM

@Mechanicalsnail Almost functioning as an afterthought, you mean?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus I suspect there's no difference for most such words. Notice that English has lots of terms of uncertain capitalization, like "i/Internet", which suggests that the capitalization is neutralized in speech.

I must go for a few minutes.

Cerberus

OK later.

@Mechanicalsnail Yes, in most cases pronunciation should be unmarked. But in some cases there may be a difference between the uncapitalised common noun and the capitalised proper noun.

Perhaps because the proper noun then gets added emphasis?

I would need to think about it some more.

(By "unmarked" I meant that the capital was not marked as such in pronunciation.)

> 2. Propaganda and information manipulation are still alive and well in 2012. Of the countries analyzed in the report, a staggering 14 employ thousands of professional internet commentators to manipulate online discussions. We've covered some of China's efforts. Cuba alone employs 1,000 bloggers. Some more mind blowing examples from the report:

> China’s paid pro-government commentators, known informally as the “50 Cent Party,” are estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, while an Iranian official claimed in mid-2011 that 40 companies had received over $56 million to produce pro-government digital content.

techdirt.com/articles/20121004/09270920593/…

skullpatrol

Propaganda will never die.

Cerberus

Hie.

But hundreds of thousands of Chinese propagandists on the Internetz?

skullpatrol

We are living in the "information" age.

Cerberus

3:09 AM

Hehe.

Mahnax

4:03 AM

I'm just here to say "happy Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend!"

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus There are definitely some cases where different capitalizations would be pronounced or stressed distinctively, but those seem like different lexemes perhaps?

"free town" vs. "Freetown" is kind of an example.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Thanks!!

@Mechanicalsnail Right, that would be an extremely notable example.

Mahnax

@Cerberus It's common courtesy in these parts.

Cerberus

4:18 AM

@Mechanicalsnail But would you say you can "hear" the capital?

Mahnax

I get a 4 day weekend, woohoo!

Cerberus

@Mahnax I appreciate it.

Mahnax

@Cerberus I'm glad!

Cerberus

@Mahnax Now that is worth the congratulations!

Mahnax

@Cerberus Yeah! And very little homework, too. My last shift at work has passed, so one might say that I'm free this weekend.

Cerberus

4:20 AM

Wow.

What ever will you do?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus "Freetown": 2nd syllable gets only secondary lexical stress. "Free town" gets primary stress on both adjective and noun.

Mahnax

Well, I'm going to a get-together tomorrow.

And another on Sunday night.

Thanksgiving dinner and a driving lesson on Monday.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Yeah.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus China! Mwahahahahaha

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail But would you say you can "hear" the capital? Or is the connection more complicated?

@Mahnax Family function? I presume it will be OK?

Mahnax

4:23 AM

@Cerberus If you consider my classmates family, then yes.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail One thing we can never beat them at, numbers.

@Mahnax Oh haha.

Mahnax

It will be interesting, to say the least.

Cerberus

Cool.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus That's what I said earlier: I suspect it's not the capitalization you hear, just differing stress patterns for different lexemes.

skullpatrol

@Mahnax Driving lessons?

Mechanical snail

4:24 AM

@Cerberus And by the way, that's ambiguous, since Freetown is both capital(ized) and the capital (of Sierra Leone).

Mahnax

@skullpatrol There's not much to it. A guy teaches me how to drive a car, and it makes my insurance rates go down.

I can drive just fine, by the way. But like I said, it lowers insurance rates and is therefore good.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Right, well, what I was trying to sneak into your mind was a dislike of calling a speech pattern by the name of an (admittedly in some way related) written mark.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Here's one:

news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2012-09/27/c_131877372.htm

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Haha I even missed my own beautiful pun.

skullpatrol

@Mahnax So do you already have your licence?

Mahnax

4:26 AM

@skullpatrol I have my learner's permit, and I will have my license in a matter of weeks.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail That is the official state press.

I think those guys come on top of the 100,000.

But hey, it's bed time, guys.

Mechanical snail

Notice the clever (?) use of lexical ambiguity, in which it appears China claims to have conquered Taiwan and Penghu after WWII.

Nice try, Xinhua.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Well, China did.

It's just that China was non-communist China at the time.

So the writer picks sides for the Kuomintang, calling them "China".

Theoretically.

In practice, he just conflates the communists and the Kuomintang as "China" when it suits him.

Or she!

google.com/…

Meysam

6:16 AM

hey

do I need the here? "I am looking for the possible reasons that..."

David Wallace

7:02 AM

0

A: Number of n digits having no same consecutive digits and same first and last digit

Since the first and last digits have to be the same, this is the same as asking how many ways there are to colour $n-1$ points on a circle with $9$ colours such that any two adjacent points have different colours. The answer is given here: $(-1)^{n-1}(9-1)+(9-1)^{n-1}=(-1)^{n-1}\cdot8+8^{n-1}$