English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-12-09 (page 1 of 2)

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2:13 AM

Here's some good faith: あなたは完全な文章を書いていないため、あなたの質問が閉じられました。また、実際の質問をしていませんでした。誰もあなたの知りたいことを理解していません。 — simbabque Nov 16 at 8:54

1 hour later…

3:21 AM

@tchrist Way too much pronoun usage.

@tchrist Forget Chuck, don't even tell her Dad. Also, don't tell the radio idiot that nobody in the royal family actually "rules" the British "Empire" anymore.

1

Q: can 'He' be referred to a woman?

In the song "Extraordinary girl" by Green Day you can notice that the singer (Billie Joe Armstrong) sometimes refers to "Extraordinary girl" (her name is not specified) as "he", and sometimes as "she". For example, at 2:51, you can hear: "Somedays he feels like dying, somedays it's not worth try...

grammar american-english lyrics music

Must we interpret Green Day for pineapples? Must we?

3:50 AM

Yo.

4:02 AM

YU

+1, yes, I agree. absolutely compelling evidence, or, more precisely, there is a ton of evidence on that, but none of it stands up to rigorous indicate what subjective is. — Carlo_R. 11 hours ago

The "evidence" iCarlo is referring to is Kristina stating her opinion about what she would do.

I'm also wondering what "rigorous indicate what subjective is" means, exactly.

2 hours later…

6:12 AM

-1

Q: Can the word "he" be used to refer to a woman?

In the song Extraordinary Girl by Green Day, you can notice that the vocalist sings about an "extraordinary girl", sometimes referring to her as he, and sometimes as she. For example, at 2:51, you can hear: Some days he feels like dying, somedays it's not worth trying . . . she gets so sick ...

pronouns lyrics

The formatting on this one was fairly atrocious.

1 hour later…

7:19 AM

What the Hell?

@S: Perhaps, but it's still just a terminological quibble. Eg, I don't really care whether we have a future tense in English or just sentences that refer to the future: the function's the same & the meaning's the same. Terminology is ideology related: Yahweh = whatever the Xian god is called = Allah, but believers with different names for God like to kill each other in part because of terminological differences (Malaysian Muslims claimed some months ago that only Muslims could use the word "Allah" to refer to God). If you think his terms are hard, why should others think them "easy"? — Bill Franke 55 mins ago

I cannot understand how he might think that was a constructive example.

I wasn't here.

Hrrm, yes.

But I decided maybe not to say anything.

Ok.

At any rate, hello.

Hi.

How's my weather?

7:22 AM

Cold.

Pshaw.

Howdy.

-2°C?

You might be above 0.

Hi Ed.

7:23 AM

But not likely.

And I am not even talking about Celsius

It's -30°C here.

-38°C with the wind chill.

Not much wind, but still.

And it's not even January yet! This is supposed to be the warmish part of winter.

Cold Lake, Beaverlodge, Edmonton, Peace River, Spirit River are all in that approximate temperature.

Well, parts of Edmonton. Not sure how that works.

Er, parts?

You can see temperature for parts of Edmonton now?

7:28 AM

user image

Like I said, not a great deal of wind.

Ah.

That was from here.

Hrrm.

In the US, you can just type in your zip code. I'm not sure how it works there. I guess just use city comma province.

I think the "Edmonton" temperature they're giving is from the airport.

The airport is about 20 minutes out of the city itself.

7:32 AM

Notice how downtown is warmer.

It always works that way with cities.

Yes.

Downtown Edmonton is rather lovely, I like it there.

I'm still hovering a degree or two above freezing. Supposed to drop to 5-10 tonight and not hit 30 tomorrow.

But no more than a dusting.

We had fire warnings last week.

Tomorrow morning will be -30°C (including wind chill, -22°C without) and it will rise to -8°C by the afternoon.

We’ve had that this time of year here, but not for a while.

Fire warnings, that's creative.

7:35 AM

Usually we have to get past Christmas before the real cold sets in these days. But you never know.

No, it’s serious.

They banned open burning, etc.

Ah yes.

We had the open burning ban for awhile in ~~August~~ July.

Never heard of such a thing in December.

Great, the high tomorrow is now only 19.

Which is barely any warmer than you.

So I take back what I said. :(

I’ve shut the cat door. It’s too cold for him to be running outside at night.

He’s not pleased, but I show him the regular door and he decides it’s too cold to go out.

I think he blames me for it. :)

Oh, I almost forgot about your cat. I love him, by the way. Lovely creature.

He thanks you.

He is looking at me. Wondering why he can’t go out and play.

Oh, he has acknowledged my presence! I am forever indebted.

7:40 AM

Or why I am not in bed.

One or the other.

A week from now, I’ll’ve seen The Hobbit. I’m just going to see it in regular 24 fps 2D for the first viewing, so as not to be distracted by the 48 fps stereo-vision thing. I guess the 48 fps is really whacky at first.

Interesting. I think I might go see it with my father when it comes out.

Yoichi just doesn’t get going grocery shopping. Nor probably going star gazing either.

Also, I am struggling to find a picture of your cat.

Well, it is in the log.

Hmm yes, but I cannot find it.

7:45 AM

Me neither.

78 mentions of cat by me.

I know you posted a picture of him.

Maybe several.

I know.

Jumping.

Oh, I know how to find it.

Yes, jumping.

Search for superkitty.

user image

Found him!

Didn't search for superkitty, I searched for imgur.

At first I searched for something else, but I didn't find him there, so I switched to that.

7:52 AM

Ah.

user image

That was from this past summer. When the world wasn’t trying to freeze you to death.

Ah, yes. Those were the days.

Days full of catnip and mice and little birds.

sighs wistfully

Now my days are full of espresso and French presses.

7:56 AM

That’s why you’re still awake. :)

I didn't even have any coffee today. Just tea.

Very good tea, I might add. Pumpkin Chai.

Lotta that going around this time of year.

'tis the season.

I have to get out and get cards tomorrow.

Here's a silly English language news story: theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/11/…

I wanted to share. Also, everyone will no doubt be delighted to learn that NN Taleb of Black Swan fame likes EL&U. One moment, I'll provide the linked statement.

8:02 AM

hah

They simply had serious size constraints back then. They couldn’t just put anything and everything in. It is strange though that they never got daggered.

I am going to sleep now. Good night, everyone.

Good night.

Sorry, he seems to have deleted it. Goodnight everyone from me as well.

4 hours later…

12:35 PM

See my comment here.

1 hour later…

Matt Эллен

1:57 PM

ah, Kris. He's... curious

1 hour later…

Henning Klevjer

3:10 PM

So, guys, when citing someone, should I write "Most of Foo is Bar. [...] [The Foo] is never Baz". or can I write "Most of Foo is Bar. [... The Foo] is never Baz" directly (the ... indicating that content is left out)?

3:25 PM

Not sure what you're asking. Can you be a little clearer?

Henning Klevjer

@Robusto I'm citing a document. Sentence A's meaning is connected with Sentence B, but they reside in different places in the document. Usually, we write [...] in such cases, meaning that there is some text left out from what is cited. In addition to the [...] I'd like to imply that it is "The Foo" we are talking about.

In the last example, the original sentence may be "Most of Foo is Bar. That is a fact. It is never Baz"

And I'd like to both replace the sentence "That is a fact", by [...] and write "The Foo" instead of "it". Therefore, I write both inside the same [] enclosures. I'm wondering if that is the correct way to do it.

So it comes down to this: should I write [...] [The Foo] (two enclosures) or is it okay to use one [... The Foo]?

It might be too silly a question.

Brackets are used to insert material that makes the sense of something clear in case it is left out, not referenced directly but implied, or separated by irrelevant material. For example, if I referenced Foo in a sentence as "That great big, beautiful concept scholars have argued about for decades turns out to be a myth," you could quote it in a shorter form as "[Foo] turns out to be a myth."

Henning Klevjer

Exactly. However, when leaving out additional parts of what is cited, that need not be referenced in the citation, we use [...]. I wonder if it's alright to combine the ...-part and the "Foo" in the same bracket.

It's probably not specified anywhere.

(this problem, that is)

Don't use brackets around the ellipsis. "[Foo, which] scholars have argued about ... turns out to be a myth."

Henning Klevjer

oh, really.

Thanks!

3:37 PM

np

4:14 PM

Well.

I see you have kept yourselves busy.

4:39 PM

@Cerberus Who, me?

Have you?

I am currently reading about a woman who was in permanent sexual arousal for more than a decade.

The judge didn't think it was a real disability.

The judge was probably envious.

She ended her suffering at last, by killing herself, last week.

The judge avoided her gaze.

@Cerberus Oh, no! That is tragic.

Yeah.

Another woman had her clitoris removed. It didn't work.

4:43 PM

@Cerberus Now that's a double meaning if I ever read one.

Heh.

The procedure = it.

The clitoris grew back?

Work = achieve the intended goal.

Oh, OK. Triple meaning then.

My dear antipus, it's back to reading-comprehension class for you.

4:50 PM

Haha! I am indeed the Anti-puss

That second s is not mine.

Yes, but you may have it for free.

I can't accept that.

What do you think of this?

englishforums.com/English/DifferenceBetweenAndE/bdbplg/post.htm

Mr Micawber is a nice guy.

But bait is /beit/, not /bet/ or /bɛt/.

I find e and ɛ very hard to distinguish.

5:03 PM

This shows that there do exist some non-diphthongized versions of eight in Scotland and Ireland.

@Cerberus Well, exactly. I'm sure he's a lovely man. But this post is confusing. I do not distinguish e and ɛ in my speech, and I can't think of any minimal pair for them. Unfortunately, OP asked about American speakers, so I am not qualified to comment.

@tchrist Sure those exist.

@DavidWallace I don't think there are any minimal pairs.

I have to go to work. See you all.

@DavidWallace He's not stupid either, but he probably misread the question.

It happens.

Bye!

The thing is that /e/ always diphthongs to /ei/ in standard pronunciations.

5:07 PM

You can't really say that.

It always occurs as part of a diphthong.

> Er wordt druk gespeculeerd dat Monti als kandidaat-premier wil meedoen aan de verkiezingen, die mogelijk al in februari worden gehouden. Op een vraag daarover van een Italiaans dagblad ging Monti echter niet in.

"It is speculated that Monti will run for PM in the next elections, which may take place in February."

"When asked by an Italian newspaper, Monti refused to comment."

To me, that means yes!

Yay!

5:29 PM

/eɪ/ and /ɛ/ are phonemes in English, and many minimal pairs exist. However, there is no oppositional pair of /eɪ/ vs /e/, because the trailing glide is more of a phonological/allophone effect, so cannot be phonemic. That is why you will see broad transcriptions write /e/ for /eɪ/: because there is never a meaningful difference there.

The one place I can think of where they might be room for quibbling is in words like there. However, for most speakers this is homophonic with they’re, which is just they /ðeɪ/ with a phonemic /r/ tacked on the end, so /ðe(ɪ)r/, for actual [ðe(ɪ)ɹ]. I have used parens because there is some disagreement about whether the glide disappears before the rhotic, but in most American speakers, it does not, which is why they goes to they’re, which is full homophonic with there.

I don't get diphthongs.

"We no speak Americano."

@Mitch A diphthong is a vowel that has an extra /j/ or /w/ glide either before or after it. If a glide occurs on both sides, we call this a triphthong.

It has to be the same syllable, too. So neon has two syllables, because eo are in hiatus.

Nor do I speak whatever dialect they are speaking, probably Napolitano.

Funny how they pronounce "whiskey and soda".

Let me listen.

The whiskey and soda is ok. The beisbol is perhaps not.

Yes, it’s sung in neopolitano, not standard Italian. I’m looking for the lyrics.

Ecco il texto della canzone‌.

He can’t do /hw/ on whiskey; he does something more like /wɪski/.

His and on the and soda part comes out closer to [ɛn] than to [ænd], but that happens to native speakers, too. His baseball sounds more like [ˈbɛs.sbɒl] than to [ˈbeɪsbɔɫ], almost as though he were geminating the s into the next syllable.

I agree that he seems to have /ɛ/ not /eɪ/. I think this make make sense in the normal seven-vowel scheme of Italian.

5:54 PM

Yeah I didn't recognise baseball the first time.

In that a stressed /e/ becomes an open /ɛ/, as in Spanish it often becomes /je/.

He wants to open it up.

The onset of the voiced stops in Italian is different from how they occur in English.

The final refrain of whiskey and soda, and rock and roll is very mutated.

If I hadn’t had the lyrics in front of me, I would not have realized he was saying tu vuò fa l'americano.

In fact, the written lyrics in many many places seem to vary significantly from what he seems to be singing.

For example, I am hearing ma si bive come out ma si bebi.

I see that The Philologist’s Apprentice is still número uno in the multicollider’s hit-parade.

1 hour later…

7:12 PM

Yeah their dialect is hardly transparent.

Hello.

hi

user19161

I am a little unhappy with what I feel is excessive downvoting on the questions here, just saying. Yes I have seen the statistics and the meta posts.

7:27 PM

I've decided to hold off on downvoting so much recently.

user19161

Also, google is not general reference.

user19161

Also, ngrams are just statistics.

user19161

Also, subtle differences questions are not general reference.

user19161

Also, uncommon usage is not wrong usage.

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Dec '129

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