English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

:)

1:33 AM

@RegDwight: Well, we needed 25 points to get over 2500 against Atlantis. Took me six battles to do it. I officially suck. RAGEQUIT

1:56 AM

This site is super snarky.

@NathanCTresch Where do you get that?

Hello.

Q: how much more—question or statement?

4

Since this, how much more another[.|?] I would have used a question mark to end that sentence; however, I've seen two different, recent authors end it with a period. Is this type of sentence a question or a statement? I'm assuming that from the answer to this question, the punctuation flows...

@Cerberus Hullo.

All of the native english speakers I've asked agree with me, but I've been downvoted to 0 despite 6 upvotes.

That seems super snarky, given that I backed all of my assertions with authoritative references

That's like, the opposite of rigor.

There's not much point in my helping here if it's going to be like that. Why am I bothering? It's considered rude as hell on every other SE site to downvote with no explanation.

2:06 AM

@Robusto OMG I knew you would say that.

@Cerberus Easy to say ex post facto.

Yup, I like easy.

@nAthan other SE sites downvote without explanation too. I havent looked at your particular answer though

@Mahnax: What the bleep is that thing??

A: What word describes our habit to use extremes in language, and what are its implications?

I've never been downvoted on any other SE sites without explanation

And I've never, ever been downvoted on another SE site for a correct answer

Today I was downvoted for an answer that the asker accepted

Really?

1

The term you're looking for is hyperbole. The article states "Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect." I think that this is incorrect, as most people are doing without understanding what it is that they are doing.

There, in that case I was downvoted after the asker accepted. That's so awesome. :P

2:10 AM

@nathan I don't know. I do know that adding meta comments to your answer asking why it was downvoted isn't kosher

Oh.

If its revenge the scripts will catch it though

Well, on every other SE site I've been on it's fine to ask why I was downvoted.

Not here? I'll change it.

@nathan not in the answer though--ask in comments

I edited it for you

Okay.

The comments section was already out of control

I'm just going to delete the answer, I guess.

I'm going to take my ball and go home.

2:14 AM

@NathanCTresch You have my up-vote.

The comments didn't seem out of control

Don't delete it.

I don't think it is complete, but it is the best answer in my very humble opinion.

@NathanCTresch Happens to me all the time. Not just on this site.

It is a rhetorical question because of the inversion, as you say. I think that is uncontestable.

The debate should be about whether a full stop is allowed with a rhetorical question.

Cerebus, please say so.

Cerebus, the asker wasnt asking that.

And, I provided University level style guides that say to use a full stop there.

So, sure, you can say you disagree, but, clearly there are authoritative sources that agree, the only debate can be if you agree with the site, not if it's allowed.

2:17 AM

@NathanCTresch All I can tell you is not to take it personally.

@NathanCTresch How do you mean?

how do i mean what?

@NathanCTresch Ehm how is that different? The sites have opinions on whether it is allowed, presumably?

These are university courses

> Cerebus, the asker wasnt asking that.

2:19 AM

" Is this type of sentence a question or a statement?"

That's the question

He seemed interested in whether it should be considered a question, an exclamation, or a statement; and whether he should use a full stop, an exclamation mark, or a question mark.

Well, he didnt say that, but, if he was interested in that I provided references to it also.

(Four university style guides that say explicitly to use a full stop at the end of a rhetroical)

Sure.

I'm not really taking it personally, but, I thought it would be cool to help people.

And you did.

So I up-voted you.

2:21 AM

I'm a published author, both white papers and fiction

Doesn't mean I agree with you 100 %.

I rarely do.

Right, I'm not syaing you, I'm saying the 10 downvotes I have.

You really have ten?

I can go count.

You have two down-votes.

Three up.

Two down-votes for a controversial question is quite common here!

Look at poor Mitch.

His answer is even in the negative.

And he is a well respected user.

Happens to us all.

As I see it, the archetypical sentences would be like this:

> You are beautiful.

> How beautiful are you?

> How beautiful you are!

So statement. question? exclamation!

2:24 AM

Okay, so, that's not the question that bothers me so much

Oh, sorry.

The ones where I was already accepted as the right answer by the asker

Which one is that?

A: What word describes our habit to use extremes in language, and what are its implications?

And then downvoted after

1

The term you're looking for is hyperbole. The article states "Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect." I think that this is incorrect, as most people are doing without understanding what it is that they are doing.

The other thing I notice is that people here leave wrong answers laying around and dont self delete them

Questions with 10 answers seem silly

Whatever, when in rome...

@NathanCTresch It has all of one downvote

I think you shouldn't take that so personally

In the comments someone said he disagreed

so it's not a hit and run

2:30 AM

Yeah, I'm not sure why you would downvote a correct answer that was already accepted by the asker

@NathanCTresch Because someone didn't think it was correct

yes, that person and I worked it out, I changed my post and the he accepted it.

People have opinions

Opionions that are unsupported by rigor are uselss/.

@NathanCTresch You have only one down-vote.

2:32 AM

Right.

@NathanCTresch Useless? It's a difference of opinion

erm

Yeah, that's why this site is so different from other SE sites.

People on SO downvote without explanation

So I don't see why ELU is so different

There can't be a difference of opinion about a factual matter

As a matter of rigor, my assertion is correct

English is full of opinions

Descriptive v. prescriptive

Oxford comma or not

2:33 AM

@NathanCTresch I thought about downvoting your answer (I didn't, but maybe the reasons I thought about it will give you closure). I felt like it was both not an answer to the question that was being asked, and had inserted into it an unsupported claim about how "most people" behave.

There is no "right" English

The point is, "hyperbole" means literary exaggeration; but it does not describe the sociolinguistic phenomenon the question is about. The main problem is that the question asks for a single word to describe a complex phenomenon, which is not possible in this case. So the question should be either closed or loosely interpreted.

Cameron, THANK YOU

@simchona That's not entirely true: some answers can be truer than others...

In fact, I'm going to delete my answer and upvote the other guys

2:34 AM

@Cerberus There's a gradation sure, but it's not black/white

As a matter of rigor, you're right of course.

Oh, I cant.

I'll edit it, then.

@NathanCTresch Don't edit it to be spammy

Your answer to the hyperbole question is terribly marred by the second sentence "I think that this is incorrect, as most people are doing without understanding what it is that they are doing."

@simchona True; at any rate, it is often very hard to tell which answer is truer, if any.

I upvoted it for 'hyperbole'

2:36 AM

@Cerberus Which is why there are opinions about it all

Aye.

@simchona Absolutely.

Thank you for the input, I'm changing it now, I totally see what you're saying

When the answer is complex and mixed (or the question itself is convoluted), there can be many reasons to up or down vote..logical correctness is only one of many.

@NathanCTresch If this happens again and you're not getting comments, definitely come to chat

Mitch is, as you can see, really good about putting his thoughts into words

2:37 AM

@Mitch I'd go so far as to say that the question is bad.

And Cerb is great at explaining things

I tend to be more hotheaded, so for that I apologize

"What [single] word describes this complex social phenomenon?" — I don't like it.

@Cerberus right, I get that..sometimes I'm in the mood to read between the lines...other times, ...

not

@simchona Thanks! But you're cool headed.

@Mitch Haha right.

yeah and simchona uses that goddam Oxford thing.

2:38 AM

@Cerberus Not with trg or Sonic. Or Carlo.

@Mitch Sometimes.

ERm, I will finish the edit later.

The question should have been worded "can you tell me more about this phenomenon?".

@simchona Hmm yeah, I know they aren't your kind of animal.

@Cerberus I don't like being asked for my photograph, or told I should be in the kitchen is all

OK no names. made up ones that we recognize are OK though.

@simchona Are you discriminating against my friends in the Cooking room??

Outrageous.

By the way, the Cooking room is called The Frying Pan.

Which is kind of funny.

2:40 AM

@Cerberus Out of the fire?

really, did CR...he was enertaining for the moment when not the object of his ... personality.

@simchona I think and hope that's how it was intended.

@Mitch Who?

ha ha!! no names!

quizzical look

he'll be back son enough.

2:41 AM

Hmm...

soon enough

Hmm...

I suppose everyone has his enemies.

hmmm... hmmm...

Though I have none here. Or so I hope.

By the way, how do you people feel about starting a sentence with "also" in academic writing?

2:43 AM

no '3 hmmm...'s

No problem at all.

And how about in the humanities?

Starting it with 'Too, ' is nails across a black board.

I don't know humanities. All those long words with feelings.

Arts, then.

History, philosophy, literature.

Oh..anything goes there, except when it doesn't.

Hello.

2:45 AM

yourself

I feel very strongly about "also"; my friend participated in a mini course on academic writing (in the field of History) taught by an American, and he also strongly advised against "also".

Was that an appropriate response? It sounds very natural when spoken very unobtrusively.

Perhaps you should have mumbled more? y'sef

Oh...really, people who can actually write (like in the humanties) I'm sure that is a a good stylistic rule.

@Cerberus A kitten.

2:46 AM

@Mitch Heh OK. Noted.

@Mahnax A kitten?

I think it sounds too blunt of a transition, especially as an addendum.

@Cerberus Nope, I lied.

@Mitch OK, I fully agree.

So do you use it?

@Mahnax Evil!

what do they do in Dutch? 'Eke' or something? is that allowed?

@Cerberus Sorry.

2:49 AM

I don't write a lot, but I probably wouldn't use 'also' in a formal paper. To be honest, I just wrote 'right' back there and had to fix it.

@Mitch Eke? What universe are you from? We have "ook". It would be far better to start a sentence with that than "also", but it can sound a tad informal now and then. I would probably use it occasionally.

ha! close!

as close goes fr languages I dont know.

@Mitch Red alert! News flash: internet chat room witnesses "write" spelled as "right"!

@Mitch It is pretty close. Why "eke"?

an 'eke' name.

And doesn't 'Also' not mean the English 'also', something like 'thus' or 'hence'?

@Cerberus I͐̈ͬͫt̼̰̘̫̖̬̓͆́ͦ̄͡'̠̤̯̥̭̝̠ͪͪ͑ͤ̓̒s̖ͪ͒͂̆̐ͬ̾ ̍̓̅̊͂͏͓̫̜̩̗̥̯ạͮ̔ ̣̦̹̎͂ͫ͠k͖̬̹̩̲̰̔͡i̥͍̰̰̤̤̾̃t̖̹̙̺͋͛ͦ͛̑t̶̤̗͚͍ḙ͎̻͍̗̫̫̔́n̦̳̥̝̗͖͢ͅ,͈͍̟̂̃̓ ̡̜̩̬̹̲͛́͌ͭͅC̶̟͂e̢̯̝̗̙̬̬̽̒͋͋ͫ̿͐r̰̳̳̬̤̤̂ͪb̯̱̦eͩr̭̟ͫ̇̎̍͂̓u̜ͅs̢̬͇̭̘͚̈́

2

2:54 AM

@Mahnax: that is messed up

and convinces me it's too late.

@Mitch Just a little.

@NathanCTresch: people downvote all the time with no explanation, because if they try to explain, they get jumped on.

later.

@Mitch That's German. We have al zo, but that is rare and old-fashioned.

@Mahnax Waaahh how do you do that?

@Mitch Night!

@Cerberus M̸̧̢̘̮̞̗͔̈͛̋ͬ̑ͬͭ̏̄̔̄ͬ̀ą̶̸͖͕̮̙̥͉̱̩̱͎̻̋̂̏̈́͊ͧͫͦ͂̎̔g͗ͯ̊̎ͤ̄̈́ͭ̄҉̨̧̫̹͚͉̫i̧͎̣̺̞̣̠̼ͮ̉ͧ̋‌̌̃͛͑̽̃̊ͨ̅ͮ̄́͟ͅc̷̛͌̊̅̈́͆̄ͥ̅͆̈́̅ͣͬ͗̚҉̟̱̺̱̩̗͔̞̥͙̰͎̞̟.

I mean, how can Unicode go so low?

2:58 AM

Wait, I shouldn't reveal my secrets.

Too late.

Darn.

@Mahnax yeah, I grabbed it too

@Cameron tsks

Beware, there's not-so-nice words on that page.

It shall be used against you when you least expect it.

@Mahnax Ohhh dearie, I'm scared!

3:00 AM

I always expect it.

True enough, but at least they're descriptive

@Cerberus Rightfully so.

@Mahnax python fan?

@Cameron Yep.

I can tell by your avatar and the fact that you are always expecting something

3:02 AM

Haha.

I like python too, but I never get to use it for work

harumph

@Cameron Me neither.

3:22 AM

@cameron after using ruby, I'll likely not go back to python.

@NathanCTresch I tried Ruby when I went through Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, but I never really felt as comfortable with it as I did with python. I guess I'm set in my ways.

I always wanted to learn Brainf*ck.

Just because it is so cool and utterly useless.

@Cameron Ruby is even more meta than python, which shocked me. It's probably as meta as Lua.

A: What word describes our habit to use extremes in language, and what are its implications?

3:39 AM

2

The term you're looking for is hyperbole. As for the effects on our daily lives, this psychologist has a great run down. He attributes a concept called "linguistic relativity", something he asserts affects us all, to the use of language we use every day to describe our lives. He suggests that ...

BETTER!

@NathanCTresch upvoted

I'm trying to compose a Google-translate friendly e-mail right now.

Sounds fun, what languages?

Well, I'm putting it into Finnish (which I will devote more time to learning this summer) as it is the language of my grandparents.

If you're interested in learning Finnish, I made a proposal for FiL&U on A51.

3:55 AM

Neato. Finnish is a language I know absolutely nothing about

Well, it's very, very difficult.

@Cameron thanks!!!

I'd imagine so

Also, I just added another paragraoh.

And I'm done. :)

It has a lot of noun cases.

3:57 AM

Finnish is like martian. I have a hard time beleiving that it's indoeuropean, even

But, they say it is.

Casus mihi placent.

@NathanCTresch Nope.

@Cerberus Oh, not this again.

I think the only things I know about Finland are from a comic called scandinavia and the world

@Cameron I love SatW!

@cerebus hm?

3:58 AM

It is Finno-Ugric, I believe.

@cerebus So it is! I WAS RIGHT

I didnt think it was indoeuropean, but, someone I know insisted it was.

Thank you for correcting me!

It was the cosmic spirit that ultimately inspired us both!

@Mahnax haha. Sometimes it saddens me that my only exposure to certain cultures is through webcomics.

Hmm I didn't know Turkic doesn't belong to the Uralic family.

So the link between Turkish and Finnish is disputed.

5:36 AM

@KitFox it would work better if you come out of the bathroom when you're Finnish.

6:36 AM

@DavidWallace LOL

I always seem to come to these threads about 20 hours too late.

:)

BTW, the Wikipedia page on Altaic languages says
For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many linguists who studied Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic regarded them as members of a common Ural–Altaic family, together with Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic, based on such shared features as vowel harmony and agglutination. While the Ural–Altaic hypothesis can still be found in encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general reference works, it has not had any adherents in the linguistics community for decades. It has been characterized by Sergei Starostin as "an idea now completely discarded".[

In other words, Turkic and Finnish are not related.

Rob

6:51 AM

@DavidWallace They could be related if one of your parents was a Turk and the other was Finnish ;-)

Well, one of my parents isn't Turkish, and the other isn't Finnish.

Rob

I did say could didn't I?

Either way it was a joke.

(!)

Clearly. And mine.

Rob

Yes, and I was merely elaborating on the possible exceptions (albeit sarcastically).

So any two languages could be biologically related(!)

user19161

7:53 AM

@DavidWallace I would certainly come out of it when I'm finished!

9:51 AM

OH gods! Has someone been trying to parse HTML with regular expressions?

Yeah.

Don't tell bobince.

:D

I've been trying to ponder copulae some more and came across beest. So, is this a proper subjunctive sentence? "Thou beest a doctor were I a dog?"

user19161

@MattЭллен Where? I don't understand.

A: RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags

@JasperLoy I will link you to the explanation in a moment

4434

You can't parse [X]HTML with regex. Because HTML can't be parsed by regex. Regex is not a tool that can be used to correctly parse HTML. As I have answered in HTML-and-regex questions here so many times before, the use of regex will not allow you to consume HTML. Regular expressions are a tool th...

user19161

@MattЭллен Ah nowadays people talk about site X in room Y where X!=Y.

9:59 AM

@MattЭллен well, I mean, is it a proper subjunctive sentence in early modern English?

user19161

@MattЭллен 4434 votes! The world must be ending this year!

Tony the Pony! He Comes!

user19161

Why don't we have that kind of voting on ELU?

because we have about 1% of the population that SO does

user19161

I say we turn this into ELU Lite. Then we will have the same traffic as SO.

10:06 AM

And we don't have any answers like that

We could write one for the next a vs an question that comes along

user19161

@MattЭллен Well, waiwai's blog post has said it all. It is the canonical answer now.

it is

@MattЭллен In the spirit of iconoclasm, I parse HTML with regular expressions ALL THE TIME. It's just the way I'm built.

So this is YOUR fault!

@MattЭллен Hahaha... brilliant!

Shit, that post is locked. I can't up-vote it.

10:10 AM

@Robusto I am surprised. you haven't read that before?

@MattЭллен I don't mess with SO anymore. It's like trying to hug an elephant.

2

lol. that's a good metaphor :D

May 15 '11 at 21:38, by Vitaly

> ALL IS LOŚ͖̩͇̗̪̏̈́T ALL IS LOST the pon̷y he comes he c̶̮omes he comes the ichor permeates all MY FACE MY FACE ᵒh god no NO NOO̼OO NΘ stop the an*̶͑̾̾̅ͫ͏̙̤g͇̫͛͆̾ͫ̑͆l͖͉̗̩̳̟̍ͫͥͨe̠̅s ͎a̧͈͖r̽̾̈́͒͑e not rè̑ͧ̌aͨl̘̝̙̃ͤ͂̾̆ ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ ISͮ̂҉̯͈͕̹̘̱ TO͇̹̺ͅƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ H̸̡̪̯ͨ͊̽̅̾̎Ȩ̬̩̾͛ͪ̈́̀́͘ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜Ȇ̴̟̟͙̞ͩ͌͝S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ

Also, he misspelled liquefy. I guess the Regex got to him.

Good days:

May 13 '11 at 17:24, by RegDwight

room topic changed to English Language and Usage: General discussion about God

10:15 AM

:D

	var rex1 = /^(\s*)(.*)$/gi;
	var cbOpen = /(<[^\/][^>]+>)/gi;
	var cbNoChange = /<[^>]+\/>|<(br|hr|img|link|input)[^>]*>|<!--[^>]+-->/gi;
	var cbClose = /<\/[^>]+>/gi;

	docText = docText.replace(/>\s*</gim,">\n<");
	docText = docText.replace(/(<[^>]+\/>)/gim,"\n$1\n");
	docText = docText.replace(/([^<]+)(<[^>]+>)/gim,"$1\n$2");
	docText = docText.replace(/(<[^>]+>)([^><]+)$/gim,"$1\n$2");

A fragment of my heretical preaching.

The whole manifesto is too long to reprint here.

I am the Antiparser.

they'll burn you as a witch if they catch you

your only hope is to hide at Programmers.SE

They believe you can do it, sometimes.

@Vitaly There is no God. There is only The Parser and The Antiparser. Together they have resurrected Manichaeism and joined holy battle, the light against the dark.

11:12 AM

Okay so now someone is batch-upvoting me. What the hell.

No day without needless entertainment.

if it's 3 up votes, my guess is Jasper.

It's OVER 3 upvotes that I can see.

Possibly more under the hood.

And then some.

Tony the pony comes.

@Reg If you can be bothered grinding pistons, Mission 156 apparently has the best piston-to-energy ratio, even though Mission 169 has the highest probability of giving out a piston per completion. I'm using Dracorex, 7 Patrol Cruisers and 3 Utopia Beacons to grind M156. Use as many Utopia Beacons as you have, then as many Patrol Cruisers as you have, fill the rest with Sundering Ogres.

Dracorex + 10x SO → 99,162/100,000. Dracorex + 10x UB/PC → 99,999/100,000.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I make it six. Anyway, if it disturbs you, let me know, and I'll go and apply downvotes to all of them.

Hahaha, that's a good one. I have 1 beacon, 1 cruiser.

11:22 AM

@RegDwightѬſ道 Wow.

Okay...

And I am using them for Pantheon right now.

Let's see.

@DavidWallace no, you don't understand. I am infuriated people would vote on my stuff at all. Voting on my stuff some more won't help alleviate the pain.

Maybe this person thought your questions were worthy of upvotes. Stranger things have happened.

Does piston seriously not have that connotation in English?

11:28 AM

What connotation?

It doesn't have any connotation that I know of; it's simply a mechanical gadget that makes a wheel turn; usually some kind of cylindrical stick inside a hollow cylinder.

Вставлять пистон кому-либо in Russian is a slightly vulgar and/or rude expression for give somebody a telling-off. Literally, “to stick a piston into somebody”.

Nope, I can't think of anything like that in English.

I think if you talked about "sticking a piston into somebody", it might be assumed that you were talking about sex. But it's not a known expression.

At least not in my little corner of the world.

Wondrous, wondrous.

Okay @Reg, here are the top spam decks with Dracorex as the commander from the simulator, and Mission 156 on the fansite wiki.

Я иду спать. Спокойной ночи.

Night!

11:44 AM

bloody Americans and "no skin off my teeth". I don't know how they get away with such nonsense.

@Vitaly Where can you examine your inventory of pistons and the like?

@Robusto Store → Collections → Components

Been seeing a lot of posts containing some form of 'how it looks', is this actually correct? I've always thought it should be 'what it looks like'.

@Vitaly Thanks.

(These are isolated phrases I'm talking about by the way)

11:47 AM

@Chris That's not how it looks to me.

But if you're saying, for example, 'This is how it looks: (...)', would that be alright?

Googling this got me to 'catsthatlooklikehitler.com' and 'How to Look Like a Wanker at a Party' :(.

@Chris I don't see a problem.

Ah, alright. You think I've simply been misinformed or could there be a preference for AE / BE people?

it's fine in BrE

So why are there no tips on how to look like Hitler at a party, or cats that look like wankers?

11:54 AM

Do you want to know what Zalgo looks like? This is how it looks:

9 hours ago, by Mahnax

@Cerberus I͐̈ͬͫt̼̰̘̫̖̬̓͆́ͦ̄͡'̠̤̯̥̭̝̠ͪͪ͑ͤ̓̒s̖ͪ͒͂̆̐ͬ̾ ̍̓̅̊͂͏͓̫̜̩̗̥̯ạͮ̔ ̣̦̹̎͂ͫ͠k͖̬̹̩̲̰̔͡i̥͍̰̰̤̤̾̃t̖̹̙̺͋͛ͦ͛̑t̶̤̗͚͍ḙ͎̻͍̗̫̫̔́n̦̳̥̝̗͖͢ͅ,͈͍̟̂̃̓ ̡̜̩̬̹̲͛́͌ͭͅC̶̟͂e̢̯̝̗̙̬̬̽̒͋͋ͫ̿͐r̰̳̳̬̤̤̂ͪb̯̱̦eͩr̭̟ͫ̇̎̍͂̓u̜ͅs̢̬͇̭̘͚̈́

You can do anything at zalgo.com

Yeah that's exactly the kind of use I'm talking about @Matt , thanks for your help (and @Robust).

no trouble

@RegDwi Heard that site was hosted for free because the hosting company liked it so much, even after the owner didn't care for it anymore, could be a hoax though. Still pretty funny thinking of it. :)

Referring to the actual zombocom of course