English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@KitFox Yeah :)

Yeah

I have to send my niece a birthday present.

Huh. I haven't noticed, or at least I assumed those were intentional.

3:35 PM

Well, you haven't seen me in my natural habitat.

I really have to do something about my assumptions that people do a lot of stuff intentionally.

It's the physical posturing that was cracking me up while I was getting lunch.

Do you also feel more at peace or something?

I forgot the word.

I suddenly noticed that I was standing straighter than usual with my feet apart and planted, and my chest puffed out like an 18-year-old boy defending his territory.

At peace? Hells no. Way more aggressive.

OK, the word I am looking for is not an antonym for aggressive...

3:38 PM

Resolved?

Hmm. thinking

Self-assured?

Coherent?

I am rather enjoying it.

1

Q: Is an article a word?

Is an article like "a/an" or "the" a word? From Wikipedia: "An article (abbreviated art) is a word that combines with a noun to indicate....", which seems to indicate that it is. However a simple Google search "define:word" bring up the following: "A single distinct meaningful element of speech...

OK here's the thing, subjects with high levels of some hormone reported feeling generally better while their displayed status was higher, and I think the correlation was both ways

Oh puhleeeees.

I am almost euphoric.

@Vitaly Oh yes.

@KitFox Oh this must be it then.

3:41 PM

You seem a bit agitated.

Agitated. Yes, maybe. In the sense that I want to be conquering the world right now.

@KitFox How do you feel about fat people right now?

Pillaging and raping and whatnot.

@KitFox manic?

@KitFox Did they give you testosterone?

3:44 PM

@Vitaly Same way I always do.

@KitFox Same as always? No difference?

36 mins ago, by KitFox

Philosophers suck ass.

@Vitaly I don't like fat people. They should be punished.

I am mostly interested in how your perceived increase in status affects your opinion about fat people, in light of this:

> More of an empirical evidence thing, with some logic supporting it: For the vast majority of people, their fat percentage says nothing about their health or how well they're living their lives. The cultural opposition to fatness is status-driven, and should be viewed as signaling gone out of control.

@Mahnax merriam-webster.com/dictionary/androgenicity

The androgenicity of this kind of progesterone is high.

3:46 PM

Oh.

So not testosterone, but with similar effects.

Got it.

Androgen

Androgen, also called androgenic hormone or testoid, is the generic term for any natural or synthetic compound, usually a steroid hormone, that stimulates or controls the development and maintenance of male characteristics in vertebrates by binding to androgen receptors. This includes the activity of the accessory male sex organs and development of male secondary sex characteristics. Androgens were first discovered in 1936. Androgens are also the original anabolic steroids and the precursor of all estrogens, the female sex hormones. The primary and most well-known androgen is testoster...

@Mahnax Oh, sorry. It means producing effects similar to androgens, like testerone.

Oh. You got it.

Darn, chat no longer updates automatically for me.

I have to keep refreshing.

Well, sometimes.

At any rate, it is breakfast time. Bye!

Bye!

@Vitaly So I should find fat people less repulsive?

3:50 PM

@KitFox I don't know, I haven't formed a null hypothesis

I find my own fatness ~~less~~ much fewer repulsive.

Fewer.

Many gooder.

best -> gooder -> betterest

I wonder, could I have drive-by-dropped any word and you would have edited it, willingly, no questions asked?

i m heer 2 meny goodr.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Probably not. It's your subtle appeal to our long history of less-fewer that was endearing enough for me to want to change it.

3:53 PM

@MattЭллен teh betterest, duh. Lern inglish you looser.

Also, I don't know if I would have understood your intent otherwise.

I will give it a try some time.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I bet you say that to all the boys

@MattЭллен No. Only to girls.

See, I called you a girl. In case you didn't notice.

Then I guess I'm special :Þ

damnit

3:54 PM

You're my special girl, yes.

@Vitaly I feel like I understand boy behavior better.

That's only because girl behavior is unfathomable.

I've never been particularly good at being a girl.

Girls don't behave. They just do stuff.

It seems like boys have it easy.

3:56 PM

Yeah all the jelly girls say that.

girls make rules. boys follow rules. being a boy requires less cognitive load

Fewer.

jelly girls?

Jealous.

oh

3:57 PM

Fewer is not an article

So it is a word!

I wish it were an article, then Kit could use it all she wanted without it having any meaning.

so, if an has no meaning, I can an put an it in a sentence and an it won't have an any effect

Yeah I said something similar except the other way round in my comment.

Your approach is actually better.

But journalists use words to write articles. Hmm.

@Kit is there a term for intentionally turning off the self to spare your neural tissue some cognitive load, but not quite like flow in that it's less efficient?

4:00 PM

@Vitaly You mean like meditation?

Cognitive dissociation?

@KitFox if you could still chat, write code, and read books while meditating, i guess

Dissociation is like that.

Q: On what juristic basis are students corrected when making mistakes in an English class?

Wow, so this is reopened? Really?

5

I've learned that there is no authoritative dictionary for English. I wonder on what juristic basis students are corrected when making mistakes in an English class. How can someone say that whatever the student did wrong is not considered correct English by other people. In German schools, stude...

dictionaries

Yeah. Shocking, innit?

it is.

4:01 PM

Why?

It's a question for Law.SE.

Thanks.

because Barrie England and some guy I forget have answers.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Not really. You don't get in legal trouble if you teach something wrong in school.

> You just go to school and learn whatever the teacher teaches you.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I voted to close as non-constructive.

J.R.

4:02 PM

You got it right there.

@KitFox Yes, but that's my rebuttal of the question. That is not the question.

Too much debate involved. Also, you see people like Barrie E. answering in a way that is both parochial and beside the point.

A: On what juristic basis are students corrected when making mistakes in an English class?

The quesion is, what is the legal basis for teaching spelling in schools.

@Robusto Also, dig the comment by JR.

> Voting to reopen - I thought I had a decent answer for this...

Now check his answer.

0

Just because there is no single "authoritative dictionary for English," doesn't mean there aren't any bona fide mistakes. 99% of all mistakes made by students in school can be settled using any desktop dictionary. For example, the sentence: Hay, teacher, theirs no whey u can say I'm wrong,...

@RegDwightѬſ道 Shouldn't an answer refer to the legislated curricula then?

@KitFox is it detrimental if done intentionally?

4:04 PM

I don't see how people find that question interesting, except in that it may be interesting to bloviate for a few paragraphs about something that is not resolvable.

2

Yeah. The thing is, even if you do have a decent answer, that's irrelevant.

@Vitaly It depends on what you consider to be detrimental.

Feb 11 '11 at 16:19, by Kosmonaut

Someone could ask for a recipe for a really tasty egg salad sandwich and probably get at least one answer before it could be closed.

In the instance of teaching English in Britain, we have the advantage of always being right

@KitFox detrimental to your peak cognitive function

4:05 PM

And it says juristic right in the freaking question title. We are not jurists, so how could we possibly answer? Also, there is no jury!

That was my thinking as well. But well, five people voted to reopen.

@Robusto phew! I thought I was going to have to look up juristic to make sure I wasn't mad

Well, I voted to reclose.

@Vitaly So you mean would it cause a decrease in your cognitive potential if you practiced dissociating on a regular basis?

@MattЭллен You'll still need more evidence.

4:06 PM

@KitFox Yep.

@Robusto I have a degree in psychology! I can't be mad.

@Vitaly No. It's essentially what you are doing when you meditate. If you are performing other tasks while dissociated, you would probably find it disconcerting.

@MattЭллен Au contraire, mon frere. That degree in psychology there is evidence that you are crazy.

You suddenly become aware that your bed is made, or someone tells you about a conversation you don't remember having.

@KitFox I see, thanks. I was worried that I practised that too much.

4:08 PM

@Robusto crazily hungry, maybe. bbl, must make lunch/dinner

@Vitaly Not at all. I think it is actually quite beneficial.

Hmm, lunch. What a great idea.

Dissociation will help strengthen your atheism as well.

Have you read those studies? Oh! You would really like them, I bet.

Let me see if I can find the reference.

Damn it. I'll have to dig out my old files to find it.

So months later, I might suddenly hand you something.

@KitFox Heh, really? You could point to anything I typed here in the last few months, and there's a 95%+ chance I typed that in the dissociated mode.

No shit?

4:15 PM

In fact I switched back just a few minutes ago, when asking that question.

Because that required introspecting the self.

impressed

That takes a lot of practice.

Or drugs.

Huh?

Intentional dissociation takes a lot of practice. You can achieve the same effect with some drugs.

And no practice.

I dunno, it seems natural.

The studies I was thinking of used fMRI to examine people who self-reported religious experiences.

Also, Tibetan monks.

4:18 PM

There's a down side to it though, I am always getting my timeframes confused.

That explains a lot.

I couldn't tell how many days or weeks ago something happened, exactly.

I just remember it happening.

I had that problem when I had insomnia.

Also, I had a hard time remembering what was real.

One more close vote for the juristic question? Anyone?

Already voted.

4:31 PM

It's now getting flagged and downvoted, but I don't want to act on that too early, seeing how people pushed back after my killing it with fire the first time round.

It should be noted that it has hit the MultiCollider, too.

Bikeshedding galore.

Well, another downvote from me, FWIW.

What's with your gravatar anyway? I never asked.

4th closevote just added

commence killing with fire

Mar 15 at 20:44, by Robusto

BTW, you can ease up on the emoticons. I already imagine you sticking out your tongue at me most of the time.

@Vitaly I do remember reading that.

So your avatar was in response to that?

4:35 PM

Effing multicollider. That's made me downvote it.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I don't have to type ":P" as often now. There's the gravatar for that.

How most very devious.

Mmm, deviation.

Now why the hell is my chat account suddenly associated to my Linguistics account?

I sure as heck haven't changed the association.

Perhaps a small gnome or dwarf in your operating system.

4:41 PM

Or a huge gnome or dwarf.

Priceless awkward parenting moment...

Seriously though, I have been loading Ling.SE more often than ELU in the last week, but that's surely no reason for the SE platform to change my parent user without so much as letting me know about it

My son has recently discovered that touching his penis feels good. We discovered this kind of by accident when he had his hand down his pants at the diner where we have breakfast sometimes.

"Honey, why do you have your hand down your pants? Is something bothering you?"

"No, Mommy, it's my penis. It's HUGE."

3

sigh

@Vitaly Maybe you did it and don't remember.

@KitFox gasp Impossible.

@Vitaly Huh that is weird! Is it higher status?

4:46 PM

mischievous look

@KitFox Haha, oh boy. He is going to be something.

Yep.

I will tell my daughters to keep away from huge fox kittens.

He growls at me when I tell him to stop rubbing his penis on his Darth Vader stuffy.

Haha.

4:47 PM

@KitFox why hasn't anybody else starred this message yet?

I don't know. Maybe they are intimidated by the perceived size of my son's penis.

@JSBᾶngs I was considering it.

it's certainly more interesting than the majority of the chat stars we currently have

Well, thank you.

when i was about 6, i was in church with my mom, on the front row, and i got a huge boner

4:49 PM

First time you'd noticed?

my mom tried to get me to hide it and i told her, "no, mom. this has happened to me before, and i learned that if you just don't touch it it will go away."

It's just that starring a boy saying his penis is huge is like starring a woman saying that she has shoes.

@JSBᾶngs Hahaha.

Wow. Just wow.

Ah, there he is, the sucker!

4:50 PM

Is it normal to have that happen at such a young age?

Yes.

@Cerberus yes

Both my boys have had erections since they were infants.

OK I was trying to find out what the Joker Clap meme means before posting it so as not to commit a faux pas, but the meme website throws out a database error so I give up and will post it anyway

@KitFox same here

4:50 PM

Huh.

@Vitaly bows

(Disclaimer: I have no idea why Cerberus sucks, but if Kit says so...)

I don't remember that.

Uh, this was an odd conversation to enter.

Very.

4:51 PM

Okay people. Comb your hair, watch your language.

Hello @mhoran.

@Cerberus Your testosterone levels probably weren't high enough.

What? Guests?

@KitFox okay now you just don't make sense.

licks face, neatens whiskers

@KitFox Apparently not. But I thought most people only had that happen once they hit puberty.

Oh, @Kit, Skyrim is now parent-approved, on one condition.

4:52 PM

@Mahnax Which is?

You look away when you save the barely clad princess?

@KitFox I have to buy another PS3.

That's an odd condition.

Very.

Yeah. The current PS3 is full.

4:53 PM

Your dad got hooked too?

Oh. Hahahaha.

Skyrim takes up a lot of space.

Full?

How much?

We've used up our 40GB.

You could offload some files onto a flash drive or something.

4:53 PM

man, i am so tempted to knock off of work and go play magic right now

@JSBᾶngs do it. do it.

@KitFox That's what I was thinking, but how does one do that?

I see.

someone (other than @Kit) tell me to be a responsible employee

@Mahnax Plug a thumb drive into the USB port.

4:54 PM

Skyrim takes up about 5GB.

@KitFox Yeah, and then?

A couple years down the line, you will have to buy a new console for every game. Consoles will come bundled with games. Wait a minute...

@JSBᾶngs Think of the children!

@Mahnax Go to the save game utility, select the file and click Copy, I think.

@JSBᾶngs You have an obligation to be a responsible employee, young man. What would your mother say?

@Cerberus Oh hi, do you want to officially represent academic philosophy in the talk we've had here earlier:

4 hours ago, by Vitaly

@KitFox if you don't mind, what are your heuristics telling you upon a cursory look through this text anyway? i'm seriously disturbed because i can't see why someone like Peter Watts would praise this so much. is this me being stupid?

@KitFox Hm, I will try that.

4:55 PM

@Mahnax I'm sure you can figure it out.

@JSBᾶngs Magic is fun!

@KitFox Probably.

Am I doing this right?