English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Argon

00:28

$$\pi=\cfrac{4}{1+\cfrac{1^2}{2+\cfrac{3^2}{2+\cfrac{5^2}{2+\cfrac{7^2}{2+\cfrac{9^2}{2+\ddots}}}}}}
=\cfrac{4}{1+\cfrac{1^2}{3+\cfrac{2^2}{5+\cfrac{3^2}{7+\cfrac{4^2}{9+\ddots}}}}}
=3+\cfrac{1^2}{6+\cfrac{3^2}{6+\cfrac{5^2}{6+\cfrac{7^2}{6+\cfrac{9^2}{6+\ddots}}}}}$$

tchrist

02:44

@RegDwighт No, apparently not. It seems to be called false ablaut: “Examples in English are think/thought, bring/brought, tell/told, sell/sold. (These verbs have a dental -t or -d as a tense marker, therefore they are weak and the vowel change cannot be conditioned by ablaut.)”

Think of the pasts of strong verbs: they do not take a -t/d to form the past: sing/sang, ride/rode, come/came, run, ran. Also, they tend to have a distinct past participle form.

A curiosity that English has but German apparently does not was the rare past participle type of brungen for bring. OED says:

> Common Teut.: OE. bring-an, brȩngean (pa. t. bróhte, pple. bróht), corresp. to OFris. branga, bringa, OS. brengian, bringan (MDutch brenghen, Dutch brengen), OHG. bringan (MHG. and mod.G. bringen), Goth. briggan (= bringan), pa. t. brâhta, pple. brâhts.

> Beside the type bring-an, the Saxon group has also *brangjan, brȩngian, brȩngean, brȩngan, app. after þankjan; from bringan, OE. had also a rare strong pa. pple. brungen (mod. dial. brung), to which later dialects have added a strong pa. t., so as to conjugate, bring, brang, brung. The stem is not known outside of Teutonic.

German (I think) has for bringen only bringe, brachten, gebracht, but not any brung-looking word.

An interesting case in English is buy, bought. It’s false-ablaut because of the final -t. The interesting thing is that there is an old irregular past participle boughten. It was actually created because of the similarity to fight, fought, foughten.

MετάEd

Well, how ablaut that.

tchrist

Foughten is now archaic, and boughten is almost only ever now used in dialect, not in Standard English. For example, I grew up with a four-way buy, bought, bought, boughten, where the 4th form is adjectival only: the opposite of homemade was store-boughten, with an -en.

We always thought it was due to the very strong presence of German settlers there, but apparently this is not true. Anyway, you don’t get from kaufen to boughten.

Other four-way irregulars are I think always true strong verbs, like drink, drank, drunk, drunken.

@MετάEd Good evening.

MετάEd

Mitt, matt, mutt, mitten.

Smite, smote, smoot, smitten.

Work, wrought, rotten.

tchrist

Speak, spake, spoken is strong.

I already was typing that.

The story with work, wrought is. . . more complex.

MετάEd

02:59

You're wright about that.

tchrist

The normal representative of OE. wyrcan would be *worch (for the vocalism cf. worm, worse, wort); the substitution of k for ch, producing the modern standard form /wɝːk/ instead of /wɝːtʃ/, is shown in north-midland areas c 1200, and is due mainly to work sb., though Scandinavian influence (see various forms above) is possible.
The new pa. t. and pa. pple. worked, formed directly on the inf. stem, became established in the 15th century; it is now the normal form except in archaic usage (in which the older form wrought may appear in any sense), and in senses which denote fashioning, shaping,…

Dive, dove is a new strong verb.

MετάEd

Jive, jove, byjoven.

tchrist

Sneak, snuck is less new, but still newish.

MετάEd

Strike, struck, stricken.

tchrist

wit/wot, wist and a myriad of other forms.

The -st was past tense marker, as in dare, durst.

MετάEd

03:03

And speaking of drunken, here's to ya. Bunnahave, Bunnahad, Bunnahabhain

tchrist

I see you’ve been.

What’s with the coneys?

MετάEd

Actually, I been've.

tchrist

Radagast’s bunnysled has gotten to you, I see.

MετάEd

What? Bunnahabhain? Here, let me fix that for you.

Bunnahabhain

Bunnahabhain (Scottish Gaelic: Bun na h-Abhainn) is a village on the northeast coast of the isle of Islay, which is in the Argyll and Bute area of Scotland, in the Inner Hebrides group of islands. It is also the name of a Scotch whisky distillery located there. History The village was established in 1881 to house the distillery's workers, and the distillery still employs the majority of the village's workers. The surrounding area is also steeped in local history. The ruined village of Margadale, nestled between Margadale Hill and Scarbh Bhreac, was once the busiest marketplace on Islay...

Radagast! Surely that's a name from Narnia.

tchrist

No money, no honey, no coney.

MετάEd

03:05

No, from Tolkien. But there's a similar Narnian name, I swear.

tchrist

But no lack of poney.

Oh, I thought you were pulling my hair.

MετάEd

Rabadash. That was it.

tchrist

Radishing, simply radishing.

MετάEd

Ravish, Ravage, Geranium.

Rabadash was a black prince.

tchrist

Do you know what they used to use to make jack-o’-lanterns out of before Columbus discovered pumpkins?

Geranium you almost certainly wouldn’t know if you chanced upon it.

It’s actually cranesbill.

There’s a one-minute clip of what Shore’s done for Radagast here at 8:46:

►

I love Geranium.

MετάEd

03:13

What, the root of geranium?

tchrist

No, that one.

@RegDwighт Help, holp, holpen used to be a strong verb, but is customarily now a weak one, except in certain North American dialects, apparently. I believe I’ve caught you using it.

Of the strong inflexions, the normal ME. pa. t. sing. was halp; the pl. was holpen (with o of pa. pple.), later holp(e, which c 1500 was extended also to the sing., and continued in frequent use till 17th c.; it is now a rare archaism exc. in U.S. dial. use.
The pa. pple. holpen, kept alive by biblical and liturgical use, is still employed by poets and archaists (and occurs also in U.S. dial.); from 14th to 17th c. it occurs shortened to holp(e. The weak inflexion helped is found from c 1300, and has gradually become the usual form.

> Fremman ‘do’ belongs to the so-called “weak” class of Old English verbs, those that make the past tense by adding a dental consonant (-d- or -t-) as a suffix. The Old English weak verbs correspond roughly to the Modern English “regular” verbs.

> Helpan ‘help’ is a “strong” verb, one that does not add a dental suffix to make its past tense, but rather changes the vowel of its root syllable. The Old English strong verbs correspond to Modern English “irregular” verbs such as sing (past sang, past participle sung).

Only weak verbs formed their pasts using -d- or -t-. False ablaut occurred though.

Curious:

> Old English has no settled way of expressing what Modern English expresses with the perfect and pluperfect—that is, that an action is now complete or was complete at some time in the past.

> It can use forms of the verb habban ‘to have’ with the past participle, as Modern English does (hæfð onfunden ‘has discovered’, hæfde onfunden ‘had discovered’), it can use the adverb ǣr ‘before’ with the simple past (ǣr onfand ‘had discovered’), or it can use the past tense alone, in which case you must infer the correct translation from the context.

> The root vowels of strong verbs undergo i-mutation in the present second- and third-person singular indicative: thus the second-person singular of helpan is hilpst, that of faran ‘travel’ is færst, and that of ċēosan ‘choose’ is ċīest. The same does not occur in the weak paradigms or in those of strong verbs whose vowels are not subject to i-mutation (e.g. wrītan ‘write’, second-person singular wrītst).

> While a Modern English verb descended from the strong verbs never has more than one vowel in the past tense, most Old English strong verbs have two past forms with different vowels. The form used for the first- and third-person singular past indicative (e.g. healp) is called the “first past,” and the form used everywhere else in the past tense (e.g. hulpon) is called the “second past.”

@Cerberus Here is more material on preterite-present verbs.

tchrist

03:40

Strive and thrive used to be just like drive, but usually now are not so inflected. Striven is a tough sell. Thriven is even harder.

Dig and stick in contrast used to be weak, but are now strong. Or strung.

tchrist

03:55

Wow, I had no idea we knew how to pronounce Neanderthal.

Cerberus

07:16

@tchrist Hmm funny that they had different vowels in the past tense.

That does not correspond to what I know of Dutch and German.

ChairOTP

08:32

Anyone around?

Cerberus

Yo.

ChairOTP

Can you help me out with a dumb question?

Cerberus

Always!

ChairOTP

Whilst I was working on my assignment I came across with this sentence: "Spill oil is move vertically in the water column in form of...."

I was wondering, why did the author use "is move" instead of "is moved"?

Cerberus

That was probably a typo.

"In form of" is also incorrect.

Should probably be "in the form of".

ChairOTP

08:41

Yep that one was my bad.

Cerberus

Oh hehe.

ChairOTP

Now I ask, Why is it wrong?

:P

Cerberus

Well, you can't have a form of be with an infinitive (move) like that.

You need a participle, like moved or moving (different meanings).

ChairOTP

But didn't you just say, that it was a typo? So it is moved

Cerberus

Yes, is moved would be correct, and that was probably what he intended to write.

1 min ago, by ChairOTP

Now I ask, Why is it wrong?

I was replying to this ^.

ChairOTP

08:44

Oh!

Cerberus

Or did you mean something else?

ChairOTP

So if the author had written "is moved" he could have used in form of?

Cerberus

Oh, no.

That is completely unrelated.

"In form of" just doesn't sound right in any context.

ChairOTP

Oh ok, I got it. So I should stick to "In the form of"

Cerberus

Yes, or in a form of, depending on what you want to say.

Can there theoretically be several forms, in this context? If yes, then you must use an article (a(n) or the).

ChairOTP

08:47

The author used "in the form of droplets", I could rearrange the sentence in a totally different context and say "in a form of game"?

Even though "in a form of game" sounds weird to me.

Cerberus

Umm probably not: what is it supposed to mean?

You probably mean in the form of a game.

ChairOTP

I was just trying to think of an example where I could use "in a form of"

Cerberus

Ice is a form of water.

Democracy is a form of government.

ChairOTP

Oh geez, I think my lacking of sleep is getting to my brain.

Cerberus

Haha.

ChairOTP

08:51

Of course I get it now.

Cerberus

I think the phrase "in a form of" is not very common.

ChairOTP

Thinking about it, yes, I don't know what was in my head when that example popped up.

Cerberus

But you can always Google it if you want to find some examples; and search in Ngrams if you want examples that are most probably correct English (there are many low-quality texts on the internet).

books.google.com/ngrams/…

ChairOTP

I wasn't aware that published books may have typos.

Cerberus

They often have some typos, but much less than the average internet page.

ChairOTP

08:53

Because when I look up for something, the punctuation, orthography and redaction says a lot about the author, and the information itself.

Cerberus

What I meant was that Ngrams is better than Google Search if you want to check whether a certain construction is used in proper English/French/etc., or if you want to see how it is used.

ChairOTP

I guess, it's just one typo in the whole book so it doesn't really matter.

Cerberus

@ChairOTP Absolutely!

@ChairOTP Many books have a typo every so many pages, alas. Some books even have several typos on a single page.

ChairOTP

I'll keep in mind the Ngrams stuff. I usually have a lot of doubts whether which sentence should I use.

Cerberus

Do you know you can click on the years, like 1991-2000, to see examples in context?

ChairOTP

08:57

@Cerberus If I notice several typos on a single page, I will hardly keep reading it. I don't think just because you can't spell correctly doesn't mean you don't know about whatever topic you're writing about. But I would rather quote an author that knows how to write properly.

Cerberus

@ChairOTP That may or may not be true. But you can also judge the content of the text on its own merits in many cases, can't you?

If a book is very interesting and cleverly written, but contains many typos...

But I agree that it can say something about a book.

ChairOTP

Well that's true, but if you are able to publish a book, and still don't know the difference between you're and your, that says a lot!

I wouldn't actually judge the book, or the information it contains, rather, I'd judge the author.

And don't get me wrong, by judge I don't mean a bad thing.

Cerberus

@ChairOTP Ugh, that would be ugly indeed.

I was rather thinking of real typos, like the one you mentioned.

Move instead of moved.

I hope to never see a your/you're mistake in a printed book!

ChairOTP

Me either. I hardly contain myself when on Internet people try to use them correctly and just end up interchanging them. I'd prefer not to use it at all, than to attempt to. Of course, on internet.

Cerberus

09:30

Heh.

But it is difficult not to use common words...

Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

ChairOTP

09:56

What do you mean?

I'm not following.

RegDwighт

11:07

This is hilarious.

russian.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/568

I so want to ridicule it, but I can't. It ridicules itself.

Cerberus

11:42

Haha.

tchrist

12:19

@Cerberus An example is that 1/3s for “to help” in OE was healp while 2s was hulpe, pl hulpen. It really doesn’t show up in any notable way in Modern English, since we don’t have 2s in general use, plus most people don’t know what is correct for it anyway. But no, I don’t remember there being a difference in any German strong verb’s 2s vowel compared with its 1/3s vowel.

@Cerberus So you can develop some proper notion of scale.

►

I think @Mahnax has shown us that either the song is wrong, or it’s not fall any longer.

Everybody seems to have recorded that song. John Denver. Johnny Cash. Neil Young wasn’t even the first.

Cerberus

12:58

@tchrist And this is the past tense, right?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes. See the OED on help for forms.

Cerberus

The OED doesn't mention differences between persons in the singular past.

tchrist

Yes it does.

Cerberus

At least not my OED...

tchrist

A. Illustrations of Forms of Pa. t. and Pa. pple.
1. Strong past tense. a. 1st and 3rd sing. ɑ1 healp, 2-3 hêlp, 5 huelp. β3-5 halp. ɣ6-7 holpe, 6- holp; (U.S. dial.) holpen.
b. 2nd sing. 1-3 hulpe, (3 holpe). Subj. 1-3 hulpe.
c. plural. ɑ1 hulpon. β3-4 holpen. ɣ4-7 holpe, 6-7 holp, (4 hylpe). δ4 halp. ɛ5 heelp.

Maybe you weren’t looking in the right place, or noticing. But I bet that the text above is in your version.

2. Strong pa. pple. ɑ1- holpen, (4-5 -yn(e). β4-7 holpe, (4 hulpe), 6-7 holp.
3. Weak pa. t. and pple. ɑ3- helped, (4-5 -id, -yd, -et, -it, -yt), 6-9 helpt. β6-7 holpt.

Cerberus

13:06

Ah, under Illustrations, yes.

I only looked at the etymological section.

tchrist

Sorry. Some of the “bigger” verbs have a distinct Illustration of Forms section where they break this down.

In fact, if the dual-vowel notion in the past of strong verbs is correct, a lot more should have such as well.

Cerberus

Probably.

I wonder what the Greek letters are.

The numbers are probably centuries?

Jez

hello

tchrist

I know all three answers.

1. On "probably", see take.

2. The OED uses Greek letters for historical collections of forms or senses that have converged in a modern word.

Cerberus

Yo.

tchrist

13:11

3. The numbers are indeed centuries, almost. 1 means 1000AD or earlier. 2 is 12th century (1101–1200), 6 is 16th century (1501–1600), etc.

Jez

gawd. how are you supposed to deal with working in the same office as the most beautiful woman in the world, again?

Cerberus

Right.

Picture!

tchrist

hypothesizes that Jez is actually female, and has a mirror in her office, and so is referring to herself

Cerberus

She would like that.

But no.

tchrist

As Zeus said to Narcissus, Watch yourself!

Cerberus

13:16

God.

Another horde of tourists gaping up at my window.

Jez

the worst thing is that even if i were to get another girlfriend right now, i'd just be thinking of this girl anyway

tchrist

Turn off the red light.

Cerberus

Aww.

Dating someone you have to see every day is just not a good idea.

tchrist

Not sure what happened here: seek, sought; beseech, besought; teach, taught. There is a -k in one of those but not the others. I used to think sought was the past of search, not seek.

Jez

@Cerberus nice try, but cold comfort

tchrist

13:22

And then there is the question of the base verb in a situation fraught with peril. There’s a folk etymology related to being afraid, rather than to freight — which is no longer even close to a verb in English.

Cerberus

@tchrist No you didn't. Seek - sought, search - searched.

I think beseech and seek come from the same root?

tchrist

@Cerberus It was when I was a kid.

@Cerberus I think so.

Robusto

@Cerberus Take off the garters and fishnet stockings and close the curtains, fer chrissakes.

Jez

is besought a word?

Cerberus

@Robusto But I was trying to have some fun!

@tchrist Odd.

Robusto

13:27

@Cerberus And see what that got you!

Matt Эллен

@Jez can you use it in a sentence?

Cerberus

Well.

Next time I'll try something else.

Matt Эллен

I thought we were all naked

or is that only if you're carrying a gun?

tchrist

1885 Ruskin Præterita iii. 105, ― I besought leave to pat him [a dog].
1622 Mabbe Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf. i. 97 ― Both which besought to be baptized.
1709 Tatler No. 42 ⁋2 ― A Poor Man once a Judge besought, To judge aright his Cause.
1844 Brougham Brit. Const. xvi. (1862) 243 ― He besought the King to refuse his consent.
1859 Thackeray Virgin. (1876) 539 ― The wretch··besought him for mercy.
1647 W. Browne Polex. ii. 298, ― I prayed, and with teares besought for an end of our contestations.
1805 Southey Madoc in W. v, ― We now besought for food.

> besought /bɪˈsɔːt/, pa. t. and pple. of beseech.

@MattЭллен She just did.

Matt Эллен

pshaw

tchrist

13:30

Is that the past tense of pschitt?

Jez

no, that's pshought

tchrist

> flaught /flaxt/, v. Sc. and north. dial. ‘To card (wool) into thin flakes’

Now I am forced to wonder whether flax and flake have any connection.

> flax Etymology: Com. W.Ger.: OE. fleax = OFris. flax, OS. *flahs (MDutch, DU., LG. vlas), OHG. flahs (MHG. vlahs, mod.G. flachs):-OTeut. *flahsom str. neut.; commonly referred to the OTeut. root *fleh-, flah- to plait:-OAryan *plek-, plok-; cf. Ger. flech-ten, L. plec-tere, Gr. πλέκ-ειν. Some think however that the root is flah- (:-OAryan *plak-) as in flay v., the etymological notion being connected with the process of ‘stripping’, by which the fibre is prepared.

"Some think". Hm.

Why don’t restaurants ever serve you your flaming yon while it is still on fire?

MετάEd

After you eat be sure to floss.

Jez

the world would be sooo much simpler if basically we just assumed that those people who were single were definitely up for it.

and those who are single must advertise the fact.

tchrist

Not even the fancy Shadow Brie Yon comes in flames. What is that about?

Jez

13:43

that should be the societal norm.

MετάEd

@Jez I thought that was what the forehead paint was for.

tchrist

recommends Jez seek out Onan and Rosie for his relief rather than neurotically taking it out on others

Jez

who are they?

MετάEd

@tchrist Did you just tell @Jez to take himself in hand?

Get a grip on himself?

tchrist

Or herself.

MετάEd

13:47

Or itself.

Jez

that's a bizarre euphemism

tchrist

@MετάEd Can’t use it on sentients. Are you roboticizing her?

MετάEd

@tchrist I'm pronouncing.

tchrist

Smells more like nancing about to me.

MετάEd

And I'm out in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Noah

13:50

Out to where @MετάEd

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

tchrist

tf?

Noah

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I like the lady in the first picture

tchrist

For certain values of lady.

I didn’t know Dame Hillary knew ASL.

Jez

work is the most frustrating environment to have a crush on someone

tchrist

13:54

Nov 5 at 16:12, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It seems like every time I open up wikipedia I learn a new fact about animal penises.

JSBձոգչ

@RegDwighт can you set mass-nouns to be a synonym of uncountable-nouns

Jez

personally i think having a bone in it is wrong. imagine being able to break your penis.

JSBձոգչ

pretty pretty please

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 who is the couple in the top picture there?

tchrist

Heh.

That’s Leppy Khan and his trollop.

Noah

@JSBձոգչ Frenchy

JSBձոգչ

13:56

Sarcozy?

Noah

Yeah. Looks like him

tchrist

Less cosy of late than then.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

and carla bruni

Noah

And why is the last one alone?

Isnt she M Obama?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't know who the middle people are.

tchrist

13:58

It’s all about ladies doing “it was SO big” hand gestures about their recent researches in hoohoodillies, kinda like fishermen’s tales.

Oh drat, we’re about to lose 50 degrees again. I hate that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

do you have an oed entry for hoohoodillies?

Noah

He doesnt, but OED should probably add one.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Isn't that Hillary and Netanyahu?

Noah

@Cerberus It is. He is trying to act a bit like a politician...

Cerberus

Silly.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:05

@Cerberus yes, I guess it is.

Noah

Does anyone know about Spiritual Ignorance?

Robusto

-2

Q: Is this an imperative sentence?

Is this sentence an imperative sentence? Or is it has conditional meaning? [example] You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.

This isn't a bad question, actually. I'm kind of surprised at all the negative attention, especially with no votes to close.

@Noah I feel the same way about Spiritual Ignorance as I do about Spiritual Apathy: I don't know, and I don't care.

tchrist

14:21

Carla: “It was so big (read: like 2″ long).” Hillary: “It was so big (read: like ¾″ long).” Michele: “It was so big (read: so like 8½″ long).” It’s a once-you’ve-tried-Black/Barak,you’ll-never-go-back kinda visual joke.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:36

@tchrist Did it really need that much explanation?

@Robusto So why not post your comment as an answer?

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't have time to give it the attention it deserves. The use of the "and" conjunction to express conditionality deserves a more thorough analysis than I can manage with my workload today.

Jez

isn't it ridiculous the way our brains work? there must be millions of very attractive, eligible women out there who'd make great partners, but we're so primitive that if we don't see them, we don't get frustrated by not having them. but the one(s) who are in sight are constantly on our mind.

Robusto

A bird in the hand?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Jez you're frustrated by not having any of them, not her in particular. But she's the most recent one you've seen so she becomes the personification of your desire.

tchrist

14:55

Ecco l’ Homo patheticus.

Robusto

@tchrist Who you callin' a homo?

tchrist

Lui.

Robusto

Lui XIV?

tchrist

Lui Says.

Robusto

Simon Sez.

tchrist

14:57

Simony is a cry’em.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah...although this frustration is not necessary to fall into the trap of proximity.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What a simonyzing job.

tchrist

However, simonizing is not.

Gotcha.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

dammit

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…