English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇: It seems inadequate. It doesn't explain why so many people, over so many centuries, including, I recall, the present POTUS, should have felt so insecure about their use of language.

Carlo_R.

@JasperLoy Hi Jasper. Thank you for your salutations during my last suspending period.

Cerberus

6:35 PM

@BarrieEngland Why insecure?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@BarrieEngland I don't know if I'd call it insecure. I'm secure about my use of language. But that doesn't mean I don't slip up, because of constant drilling to correct an error in another part of the language.

Cerberus

We all try to write "well". We use certain standards. Sometimes we fail.

No biggie.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I put that there. It wasn't orange juice.

4

Q: Why does "it" have a dehumanizing connotation?

There are a number of questions here on gender neutral pronouns, and one of the things that always comes up is that "it" should never be used to refer to a person (usually an adult). The general reasoning for this rule is that "it" is used to refer to animals (in some cases), and inanimate object...

asked by Shauna, answered by shaun5

cornbread ninja

@cornbreadninja: how rude! — Mitch 5 mins ago

Mitch

If it were shaun4, then I'd really be curious.

Cerberus

6:42 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I read this review where the reviewer accidentally dropped his Nexus 4, and the glass at the back broke.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja yay! mission accomplished. now I can delete my irrelevancy.

Carlo_R.

@Mitch Hi Mitch. Thank you for your salutations during my recent suspending period. Idid not answer because suspended user is only in reading mode. However, I appreciate your thought.

cornbread ninja

aww.

Whoa, Barrie is here.

Cerberus

Take cover!

cornbread ninja

I steal the covers every night.

Cerberus

6:43 PM

presence hits you

cornbread ninja

That's a great Led Zeppelin album.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja You meanie! So that's where they go.

OK!

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus poor cold doggy.

Cerberus

Yeah.

I will go lie closer to the fires.

cornbread ninja

Careful!

Mitch

6:45 PM

@Carlo_R. Your presence is welcome. It's annoying to be silenced.

Cerberus

No worries.

Carlo_R.

@Mitch :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I wonder if he thought it felt sturdy or weak before he dropped it.

Cerberus

Hehe.

No doubt "sturdy".

Carlo_R.

@Barrie I know that my opinion is nothing, but I think that English is not secure language because it is not founded on Greek and Latin.

Zairja

6:50 PM

@Carlo_R. Isn't it, though?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Carlo_R. What would that have to do with it?

Wait, this is a trap, right?

Like the time you tried to convince me that the difference between a king and an emperor was that one had a beard and the other didn't.

Zairja

@Carlo_R. What's meant by "secure"? "Static"?

Carlo_R.

@Mr.S great, you have a good memory.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 theverge.com/2012/11/2/3589280/google-nexus-4-review

They have no (silly and unfounded) predictions on how fragile the device is. Just their experience with the cracked back.

Zairja

How many times is this Google Nexus 4 review going to be linked in chat? Is this a running gag I just don't get?

Carlo_R.

6:52 PM

@Zairja English is always in evolution, instead my language is quasi-static.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They also say lots of things about the Galaxy Nexus that I don't recognize. They complain about how bad the screen was, and how text was not rendered in a very sharp way, or something.

@Zairja Sorry.

Carlo_R.

@Zairja the problem is that my language is how it is written, while English is how it is spoken.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Carlo_R. What do you mean by that?

Carlo_R.

@Zairja we have strong and large rules, English no. We resolve any problem in respect to Greek and Latin.

@Mr.Sh Italian language is how Dante, Manzoni, Pascoli, Pirandello, and go on have written it.

So, our speach is strongly guided.

While, English evolve every day.

KitFox

I find it difficult to believe that Italian is not evolving at all.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:59 PM

@Carlo_R. So, you can't talk about computers in Italian, because Dante didn't have one?

Carlo_R.

@Kit yes, Italian evolves, but in a quasi-static way.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Carlo_R. We have tons of rules in English.

Mitch

@Carlo_R. That's purely a cultural thing, that is a bunch of people in the mid eighteenhundreds decided to take the Tuscan dialect (as part of the risorgimiento) to be the national standard. Before then there was all sorts of change.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And you can hardly claim that Italian is some kind of strongly-guided language. I've heard that people at one end if Italy can't understand people at the other end.

Mitch

In some sense, the rule could have been to have Sicialian be the standard (and then everybody else would have to have followed it).

JSBձոգչ

7:00 PM

"Italian" as a language doesn't even exist until about the 18th or 19th century

before then there's just a pile of regional dialects

and a pile of different nations, too.

Carlo_R.

@Mr.Shin excellent objection! But with the word "quasi-static" I mean that Italian evolves in the measure it is necessary.

Mitch

and then another rule coul hav been '...and you can make up new words, but they have to come from Arabic roots'.

JSBձոգչ

the notion of a single unified "Italian" for a single unified "Italy" doesn't appear until pretty late

KitFox

@Carlo_R. I think it probably just seems that way because Italian is your native tongue.

Mitch

@Carlo_R. and English does too. Maybe just more necessary here because so many more people speak/write it including non-native speakers.

Zairja

7:02 PM

@Carlo_R. Does English not evolve in the measure "necessary"? Like a wizard who is never late, it arrives precisely when it means to.

Mitch

@Zairja Is that how wizards do it?

Zairja

@Mitch So I've read!

Mitch

notes new excuse

Carlo_R.

@Mr.Shin excellent objection! But with the word "quasi-static" I mean that Italian evolves in the measure it is necessary.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch Please tell me you've read LotR or at least seen the movies!!!!

Mitch

7:03 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 duh? Isn't that part of the requirements?

wait. -and- remember things from it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Carlo_R. reprise instantanée!

Zairja

@Mitch I thought all ELU users had to submit to a "Tolkien Test" of some sort. (I failed.)

Carlo_R.

@Zairja you are right in thinking that we need of a global language to communicate.

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ Any language is a pile of dialects: where do you draw the line?

Mitch

@Zairja OK...go.

'friend' is the answer to your first question.

KitFox

7:04 PM

Do balrogs have wings?

Mitch

'No' is the answer to your second question.

Zairja

@Mitch You needed the Quenya "mellon", I can only award half points.

JSBձոգչ

@Cerberus what I mean is that there was no notion that these dialects were variants of a single language

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox No, but Italian does

Mitch

@Zairja this is ELU not QLU

KitFox

7:05 PM

An italian sounds good. Maybe I will pick some up on the way home.

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ How do you define this notion, and what do you base your statement on?

Zairja

@Mitch You've got me there.

Mitch

@Cerberus well, none of us were actually there, so presumably it is based on something he read.

@Zairja I don't know the answer to the third question. ...

because it is a trick question! there is no answer.

very clever trying to catch me.

Cerberus

@Mitch And I wanted to know what he read.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Do we need to precisely pin down what "dialect" means in relation to "language"? Or do you get JSB's meaning?

Cerberus

7:07 PM

I do not.

Robusto

Now you know. I am aged more than 60 days and I cost $17.99 lb.

Mitch

@Cerberus the same things I've read which are a bunch of stuff randomly picked up here or there that ...

well what he said.

Zairja

@Carlo_R. Would you say that English has an assimilative property or that a "natural" inclination toward evolution and assimilation gets expressed through English that other languages repress?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He means that until recently, there were a bunch of related languages which are now considered dialects of Italian. At one point one was elevated to be the Standard Italian.

Zairja

Or try to repress.

Cerberus

7:08 PM

All "languages" are a pile of dialects; certain dialects have more prestige and currency than others: the question is what JSB means exactly when he says Italian was not x.

Mitch

@Robusto whew! I can smell it from here!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Put some clothes on, man! I don't want to see you wearing nothing but plastic wrap!

Robusto

Ah, you love it.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 To "be" standard Italian? Considered by whom? Elevated by whom? All vague.

Zairja

@Robusto If you're a block of cheese, should I refer to you as a cheesehead or blockhead?

Robusto

7:09 PM

@Zairja I am a wedge.

But don't try to give me a wedgie. It would be redundant.

Cerberus

@Robusto Thank God for the disclaimer.

Carlo_R.

@Zairja yes, English seems to me an "open language".

Zairja

I suddenly got about 150 answers in my "Late Answers" queue. Can someone explain this?

Carlo_R.

In this perspective English recall me the Italian dialects.

KitFox

@Robusto I thought you resisted labeling.

@Zairja They change the date ranges periodically.

Carlo_R.

7:13 PM

I have to go. My wife calls me for the dinner.

Hi

Cerberus

Bye.

David Wallace

@Cerberus I believe it's in The Merchant of Venice.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus By the government? I don't know. How is that relevant?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Myeah.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Carlo_R. But most languages we'd call "English" are fully, or almost fully mutually intelligible, with the exception of some vocabulary issues. How is that anything like what Italy had?

Cerberus

7:17 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Because it only becomes a meaningful statement when the definitions are clear.

Otherwise it's too vague.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The point was not to give a lecture on the history of the Italian language families. It was perfectly clear to me.

i.e. it doesn't matter who, precisely, elevated the language to a standard. That standard is in place now and is followed. THAT is what matters.

Robusto

@KitFox Hey, when I can get $17.99 lb., I don't mind the labeling.

Also, I am quite tasty.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have to disagree, if the purpose is to compare languages.

But it's shower time.

cornbread ninja

7:35 PM

Remember the 'do we need to ask the good questions ourselves' discussion?

how is that going to work if Reg is going to do what he's currently doing to Main?

David Wallace

@tchrist möbius

@cornbreadninja How do we know which questions to ask?

cornbread ninja

@DavidWallace shrug

Zairja

@cornbreadninja What's he doing?

David Wallace

@cornbreadninja Sorry, you alluded to a discussion. I should have gone and found the discussion, before asking stupid questions.

cornbread ninja

15

Q: Do we need to write the better questions ourselves?

In the ELL-Post-Apocalypse chatroom, KitFox made a very interesting observation (gently edited here for dramatic impact): We have gotten diluted with basic questions because basic questions fill our pages. If we want higher caliber questions, people coming here have to see higher caliber ques...

discussion

@Zairja Editing or perhaps re-tagging.

@Zairja my point is that it is filling up the main page.

Don't get me wrong, I have no qualms.

Zairja

7:40 PM

I rarely look at "active" questions for that reason. I sort by "newest" or "unanswered". Do you know if editing Q&A's through the "Review" affects the status and bumps them up there?

cornbread ninja

OIC. I always click on the banner and forget there are other ways. :<

I do not know.

Zairja

Aye, clicking on "Questions" defaults it to "Newest" I think.

David Wallace

@Zairja I imagine it must.

Zairja

I went through about 20 late answers, but it doesn't appear that the ones I edited got bumped into the recently "active" ones.

David Wallace

@Zairja It defaults it to whatever you sorted by last time.

Robusto

7:41 PM

@cornbreadninja I did my bit. Let the slackers get off their dead butts and do it.

Zairja

However, if Reg is editing "manually" rather than through the "Review" then that may account for the active bumps.

cornbread ninja

@Robusto raises glass

Zairja

@Robusto I've been racking my brain but I have a bad habit of solving my own questions before posting them, and then I'm too lazy to post my own Q&A. Plus, I can't attest to the quality of said questions.

cornbread ninja

commutes

Zairja

Too many of my Q's are answered by Wiki (then following to the cited papers and searching through Google Scholar, JSTOR etc.) or Language Log and similar sites. When I find the answer that easily, I'm always surprised to see the question pop up later here on ELU. I wish more Q's showed some "research / effort" beforehand, but then we'd have much fewer Q's. I'm not sure how that would affect quality, at any rate.

Robusto

7:46 PM

I've asked 22 questions here, of which at least half are damned good and damned appropriate for the site. Four or five are classic.

Still no good answer for this one:

8

Q: "I'm sure" vs. "I'm for sure": Who uses which, and when?

I hear both (and their negatives: "I'm not sure" and "I'm not for sure"). I want to classify the "for sure" variety as regional Southern, since that's the context I most often hear it. For example, take the "gimp" scene from Pulp Fiction. (Not that usages in the movies prove anything, mind you,...

dialects class-based-usage

Neither does this one.

12

Q: Types of things vs. types of thing

When speaking precisely or technically, one would say that "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominid" rather than "Homo erectus and homo sapiens are two species of hominids." The hominid here should be singular because we are speaking about instances of a single class ("class" bei...

word-choice grammaticality grammatical-number

I've since seen both versions used in many places.

Mitch

8:01 PM

@Cerberus maybe something like this:

Italian language

Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and other regional languages. According to the Bologna statistics of the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 65 million people in the EU (13% of the EU population), mainly in Italy, and as a second language by 14 million (3%). Including ...

user19161

8:17 PM

@Mitch It's high time they change the spelling of Romance so that it is not spelled like romance.

JSBձոգչ

Romantze

Raumance

MετάEd

Roman.

Romany.

And yes, I know.

Evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Rick Santorum over Romney in the Iowa caucuses, helping Santorum squeeze out a slight victory

Cerberus

@Mitch A bit...broad.

Barrie England

8:36 PM

@Cerberus: Insecure because those who argue the case for hypercorrection claim that those who use ‘I’ in these constructions do so because they fear misusing ‘me’.

Zairja

8:52 PM

Almost 700 words for NaNoWriMo. Already ~2700 behind schedule. :(

Mitch

@BarrieEngland so who is being insecure, the people who use 'I' there or the people who call that hypercorrection?

@Cerberus that's wikipedia for you. but it is something.

@JasperLoy maybe they should change romance instead. just 'harlequin' instead.

Zairja

My god Word's spellchecker is incorrigible. It doesn't accept shadowless as a word?!

Mitch

@Zairja my point exactly. the word lists these things use are not complete for all configurations of allowable affixes.

how do they do it for Latin?

er... I mean Russian.

MετάEd

@Zairja Microsoft is the Walmart of software. Lower your expectations.

Carlo_R.

9:10 PM

Wonderful question:

16

Q: Have coma patients ever gained the ability to speak a foreign language fluently?

I read this article about a Croatian teenager waking from coma, speaking fluent German. She started learning German before the coma. I know of savants and few people showing special mental improvements after accidents damaging their brain, but the end the article states: "There are references...

psychology neurology linguistics

Cerberus

@BarrieEngland Well, is it really a fear? More like a (conscious or subconscious) desire to apply a chosen rule? "Fear" and "insecure" make it sound so unusual and dramatic, while I believe we experience this process every day in our own writing and speech.

It can be fear for some people, but I'm not sure about the average person.

JSBձոգչ

9:59 PM

@Cerberus I want to +1 this comment

Joseph Weissman

a wild JosephWeissman appears!

@Cerberus any chance you might be interested in a game of map?

....s?

Barrie England

10:15 PM

@Cerberus. This has all become rather disjointed, so I’ll try to summarise.

The hypercorrection argument runs like this. Those who use ‘I’ where many of us might expect ‘me’ do so because they have had it drummed into them that they mustn’t say things like ‘Me and my brother went fishing’. As a result, they tend to avoid ‘me’ altogether where they have any doubt, thereby suggesting a degree of insecurity in their use of the first person personal pronoun in certain contexts.

This argument seems implausible to me, given the number and nature of the people who have used and use constructions…

MετάEd

10:48 PM

-1

Q: "At the clinic" vs. "in the clinic"

Possible Duplicate: How do American English and British English use the definite article differently? I wonder, which one is correct: The operation was performed at/in the neurosurgical clinic of the hospital.