English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:06 AM

@JSBձոգչ Which one did you say this was for? Where did you say this was from? What time did you say the movie was at? How can this be something you expect to get through? Whence came the hobbit’s ring? Who did you say was coming in? When did you say this was for? Whose shall the horn be? Whither was he bound? What has it come to? Whom then shall you condemn to enduring such tortuous syntax, if not in whole, then at least a part of?

StoneyB

12:26 AM

Hello, folks.

user19161

@StoneyB Welcome to this chat!

Mahnax

@StoneyB Hi there.

tchrist

@WillHunting Rather chary of words tonight, aren’t you? Parsimony can bring but querimony.

StoneyB

I've promised MattUnicodellen a blogpost on What to Do When Your Q is Closed as GR. Supposing a person actually edits his Q, what if anything should he do to get people to take notice -- should, not can!

user19161

@StoneyB If it is not answered yet, he can actually just delete the old one and post a new one too.

tchrist

12:30 AM

@WillHunting Do we really wish to encourage that?

That looks more like can than should.

StoneyB

@WillHunting Does that screw over folks who got an upvoted answer in before the Q was closed?

user19161

@tchrist Well, I think it is not a bad idea if the two are sufficiently distinct. It also helps to keep the site clean if the new question is well written and the old one poorly written.

user19161

@StoneyB Well, if an answer has been posted, the asker cannot delete the question anymore.

StoneyB

Should he Meta? Should he come to Chat and announce his born-againity?

tchrist

Either.

user19161

12:32 AM

@StoneyB So much flowery language!

user19161

What did you just drink? Whisky?

StoneyB

@WillHunting Is one better than the other?

(sorry that was for @tchrist, but I got confused.

@WillHunting Alas, no ... drunk on words and too tipsy to remember the right ones.

user19161

@StoneyB You should go to bed then.

tchrist

@WillHunting No more queruling!

StoneyB

@WillHunting A Pepysian recipe.

@tchrist Or we run the risk of a pheruling?

Pherulinguistics. That's got to be good for something.

user19161

12:39 AM

Ah ELL is still a long way to beta.

tchrist

@StoneyB Either: chat is fine, or should our felinity prove wanting, then meta.

@StoneyB That’s the language of lighthouses.

StoneyB

@tchrist Hokey-dokey. Learn where the good dictionaries are, learn how to use a dictionary, fix the Q, bell the chat, metathesize. I have an Outline, just like a Real Writer.

user19161

@reg It is late so you should go to bed. Stop editing stuff on the main site.

StoneyB

@tchrist Unhappily lost when the Library burned.

@WillHunting You keep trying to send everybody to bed. Are you planning on throwing a party when it's empty?

user19161

@StoneyB I am waiting for everyone to start dreaming so that I can go to their dreams.

tchrist

12:46 AM

@Mahnax You should try the -A option to oedlook, although you will probably often want to use -AX once you realize that you don’t want the xrefs all that very much.

@StoneyB It’s when he runs amok on the main site, editing everything willy-nilly, will we or nill we. And I assure you, we nill.

@WillHunting recommends Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series

StoneyB

@tchrist Dirty work, but somebody has to do it. ... If-and-when ELL reaches the Promised Land are all the questions going to migrate with the tired-poor-huddled masses yearning to be prescribed at?

tchrist

@StoneyB Summarily unlikely, I aver.

StoneyB

@tchrist Tabula rasa. That's a relief.

tchrist

@StoneyB Fear not: rascalry shall doubtless set in anon.

Mahnax

@tchrist I read Good Omens by him and Pratchett and it was fantastic.

StoneyB

12:57 AM

@tchrist I had this vision of a new Versailles: opposing mods carving up the corpus. We all remember how that turned out.

tchrist

Corpuscularly.

Mahnax

amazon.com/Hobbitus-Ille-Hobbit-English-Edition/dp/0007445210

I'm excited for that.

StoneyB

@tchrist And crepuscularly. Cue Rheinmusik.

tchrist

@Mahnax Really? Hm. Well, ok, but don’t spread this around: somebody leaked the entire opening track for the new movie. It won’t be up long, so listen while you can, if you care to. It’s quite nice, actually.

Think of it as an operatic overature.

StoneyB

@Mahnax Back to the 60s. I have Winnie Ille Pu around somewhere.

Mahnax

1:00 AM

@tchrist Oh, awesome! keeps quiet

user19161

@Mahnax You just made some noise.

tchrist

@Mahnax I wish I could get my Safari to safe the current track via Opt-Command-A and double click, but apparently I’m too ancient.

@WillHunting You want noise?

@WillHunting Noise we can give you!

Mahnax

@WillHunting Shh.

tchrist

I really like all the brass, and the minor key. And the interwoven leitmotifs.

StoneyB

Vale. @WillHunting, you may play your phonograph softly, but no girls.

tchrist

1:14 AM

@Mahnax This “behind the scenes” video was just released a couple of days ago, apparently officially, although I haven’t seen an announcement, which confuses me; I prolly just missed it. Similarly these photos are immensely many, like 76. Both links are of course spoilerish-to-spoilerissimo, and delightful.

user19161

@StoneyB HAHAHAHA.

tchrist

1:42 AM

Sometimes I feel like applying a manichaeanism, false-dichotomy, my-way-or-the-highway, highlander-mentality, there-can-be-only-one, boolean-revolution, or overrighteousness tag to all the megamyriad questions that are fundamentally incapable of conceiving of a world in which there can be more than one right answer to some spelling or grammar matter. Or less than one, for that matter. What in the world is wrong with people? It’s ridiculous, I tell you!

tchrist

2:05 AM

Arthur eastward in arms purposed
his war to wage on the wild marches,
over seas sailing to Saxon lands,
from the Roman realm ruin defending.
Thus the tides of time to turn backward
and the heathen to humble, his hope urged him,
that with harrying ships they should hunt no more
on the shining shores and shallow waters
of South Britain, booty seeking.

Seeking booty they were.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:21 AM

@tchrist It's built right into the site software too. Only one answer can be "accepted". Questions which invite lots of "correct" answers are forbidden.

tchrist

2:39 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What is the correct spelling of /məˈnuːvər/? Am I supposed to spell it manœuvre, manœuver, manoeuvre, manoeuver, maneuvre, maneuver, mainour, or manure? I can find all those used in books, so I need to know which single one of those is right so I can not use the all the wrong ones. Can anybody pleaze help me!??? I need to know the grammatical answer right now for my thesis. Thx in advance!!!

Answer: manure.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist of course. The feces thesis.

And while you're getting all boldy about this, I'm building a tiny wall for miniature men of Rohan to defend from similarly tiny uruk-hai.

tchrist

english-writing grammatication orthorighteousness horse-hockey thesis-urgent

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Although it's a bid odd that they included Eomer in the set considering in the movie he wasn't there for the battle of Helm's Deep.

tchrist

Erkenbrand.

bit it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah

well, the movie simplified it and it didn't so much harm the story, excepting the implausibility of men of Rohan carrying out an order to banish Eomer.

But that isn't the worst plot hole introduced in the second movie, so I'll ignore it

tchrist

2:46 AM

The second movie is a pit.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The most annoying mistake in the whole trilogy is the part where all the horses disappear at the gate of Mordor.

tchrist

> a. Fr. manœuvre (OFr. also manuevre, maneuvre, 13th c.) = Pr. manovra, Sp. maniobra, Pg. manobra, Ital. manovra: -late L. manopera, vbl. sb. from manoperāre: see manœuvre v., which occurs in Fr. earlier than the sb. The OFr. word is represented in Eng. by mainour and manure sbs.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ya think? I could come up with a couple of dozen more than pissed me off more.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Oh, there are lots of mistakes. That's the one that makes me grit my teeth.

tchrist

I’m glad we no longer have those interminable manoperas of old. They were just too lame to live! I mean, come on, how the hell is it supposed to ever get over without a fat lady to sing?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That's the one that says, more than almost anything else wrong in the train-wreck of film production which was part III: "We are out of time and no longer know what we are doing"

tchrist

2:51 AM

I really don’t feel like ranting. It saps me. The first movie was least bad.

Then he got cocky/stupid.

How can’t this be off-topic?

0

Q: Is programming easier to learn for English native speakers?

Even knowing that logic is the core to learn computer programming, I'm wondering to know if there are any studies showing that natives can learn programming faster/easier than non-natives. The reason for that seems obvious, since all the programming languages make use of English for them syntax.

Plus it’s wrong.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Bad programmer, obviously.

I wish @Reg were here for that one.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

welp, I guess Sim is here, cuz she closed it

tchrist

He doesn’t have a good history.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I agree. But the second and third books are harder to make into good films, IMO... and he had less time to do them.

tchrist

I don’t know. The BBC Radio dramas are just fine. Why do you think he had less time?

More crappy proofreading. Gosh!

-1

Q: 'of yet' and 'as of yet'

Can ‘of yet’ be used with the same meaning of ‘as of yet’? [example] Most importantly, he’s found footprints of dinosaurs that we haven’t found bones of yet.

idioms

I answered it instead of closing. I can’t decide if that was a good deed or a fell one.

It shows no research.

It’s just a gimme-proofreading question.

0

A: A noun for "someone who pays/compensates a part of a bill"?

I am developing a web application, which will be used by medical clinics. Initially, patients get an invoice for the treatment(s) they received. Dependent upon the individual choices made by the patient, a part of the cost(s) may be paid by a third party to their medical care. Two examples 1. A...

Q ≠ A

@simchona Actually, there is something worse than weird with that one. Notice how she signs it “Jonathan”, as though she were the OP. I am really confused.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:09 AM

@tchrist Because he had more than one year to make the first movie, and then only one year to make each subsequent movie. Also, while doing the second and third movies, he had to divert attention to the DVDs and extended releases, etc. He discussed it in the special features. In fact the third movie was so rushed that he never saw the completed movie before the premiere. There was one scene which wasn't yet finished in the "final" cut; he okayed that cut before that "ring melting" fx were done.

Anyway, I'm outta here. bye all

Cerberus

5:30 AM

0

Q: Does English language stand special in terms of phonology?

I am a native Russian speaker. When I am listening to songs and music in other languages, which I do not know, such as Italian, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, and even Japanese, Finnish and Hebrew, I usually can write what I hear with Russian letters (with possibly adding 1 to 3 additional characte...

phonology english

> When listening to English songs I can barely understand anything even though I can write and read in English well...as if they were singing with extraterrestrial non-human sounds or if it was just a noise rather than human speech.

Eat that, Britney.

I knew she was from Mars.