English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

> In chemistry, the flame of a burning gas can be described as "gem-like"; in fact, the phrase is used to describe ignited flatulence. So perhaps the opposite of "jewel-like" is "like an unlit fart"?

Mahnax

So the opposite of jewel-like is flatulence. Q.E.D.

skullpatrol

8:20 PM

@Mahnax unlit

Mahnax

@skullpatrol Flatulence is generally unlit.

Jewel-like is an ignited fart. Jewel-unlike is a fart that is not ignited, so just a regular old fart. Thus, the opposite of jewel-like is the adjectival form of flatulence.

skullpatrol

Perhaps :-D

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Mahnax oh boy does that remind me of that flatulence question....

I still get the shivers even today.

Mahnax

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Which?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Hah, it got deleted. Hm.

Mahnax

8:26 PM

Aww.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8

Q: History of the phrase "break wind"

The choice of the verb "break" seems a strange choice for the phrase. Does anybody know where this phrase originated?

etymology

Mahnax

Gist?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

This is the question.

But the answer... I can't explain it.

A deleted answer?

Hold on a sec.

8:29 PM

It's just... there is no word for that.

Mahnax

Is pageman the answerer?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah.

Mahnax

Huh.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Now wait for the punchline.

2

Q: Is there a technical term for an idiomatic phrase that originates from words that closely resemble each other?

In the question "History of the phrase 'break wind'" I noted in the comment that the word "break" might have originated from the Middle English blowe, blaw, northern variant of blēwe, from Proto-Germanic *blewwanan 'to beat' (compare Old Norse blegði 'wedge', German bläuen, Middle Du...

etymology

Mahnax

8:32 PM

awaits punchline

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

He then proceeded to post this. ^

aedia λ

Ow my brains!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I suppose the only reason it hasn't been deleted is so I could show it to you now.

Mahnax

Well, wow.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

That was the same user who posted the hilariously absurd Tetris answer.

english.stackexchange.com/a/22366/300

Mahnax

8:37 PM

Aww, can't see it.

needs 10k

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Here, an appetizer. Get to 10k to see the rest.

Mahnax

OK, thanks.

What a champion.

aedia λ

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Sounds delicious.

Mahnax

Oh, @aedia, I passed you in all time rep. I'm sorry.

aedia λ

@Mahnax Don't be sorry! You're actually probably doing things, like looking at the main site more than once a day.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:41 PM

He took the word "well", pasted it into an online translator, which returned Russian translations for all meanings of that word (hole, trunk, cockpit, in good health...) and then transliterated them in Latin letters.

Matt Эллен

@Mahnax - who is your next target? After I passed Aedia, I aimed for TimLymmington

Mahnax

Well, I look, but my answers are few and far-between these days.

Matt Эллен

I'm currently aiming for 10K so I'm not trying to beat anyone atm

Mahnax

Maybe Waiwai or Yoichi.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Haha. No way. Yoichi will surpass @Robusto before you surpass him.

Matt Эллен

8:43 PM

Oishi san is quite a slow mover, so probably a good target

Mahnax

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Ouch.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@MattЭллен Famous last words when evaluating a ninja.

Matt Эллен

true. although I wouldn't see a ninja and I (think I) can see Yoichi

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I can only see his gravatar, and only because he lets me.

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

8:49 PM

Okay I'm off, bye peeps!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Ciao

Mahnax

Me too, I have teh houseworks.

Bye!

Cerberus

And think about "take out" some more.

poof

Matt Эллен

CU @Cerb

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

thinks about take out some more

stops thinking about take out some more

That was fun!

Matt Эллен

8:52 PM

CU @Mahnax

I thought about takeout

but I had fajitas for lunch, so I'm not hungry

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

hola fajita muy bonita

Robusto

@Mahnax Haha. Made me laugh out of all proportion.

@Cerberus Wait. You were told to shut up.

aedia λ

@Cerberus Hasta luego puppies!

Laterz @Mahnax!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

-1

Q: What is the opposite of gem?

Does anyone know what would be an appropriate antonym for gem-like? That is something that is not valuable, not beautiful, briiliant, or clear, and may be soft, where a gem is hard. EDIT We understand that we say gem-like to mean someone with attractive quality. I was looking for an opposite ...

antonyms

So. Worth reopening?

aedia λ

I must have missed that gem.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

8:57 PM

I'm afraid now it's kind of non constructive. Gah. runs around in circles

Well you know what, I'll reopen then you can vote to close again if you must.

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You are the opposite of Batman.

Matt Эллен

lol

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

> Seriously, people, stop assuming poorly worded questions aren't questions. It makes the entire community look like pernickety asshats.

Bah. That comment misses the point by a mile.

aedia λ

I... I still don't understand the question. The only connotation I have for gem describing a person, and its antonym, is someone's grandma pinching their cheeks and saying, "Jenny, you are a just a little gem! And Jimmy, you are, eh, such a little... rascal."

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Christi: we are not assuming they are not questions. We are working on improving them. This is how the SE engine is supposed to work. If a question is unclear, it gets closed as such. If it's improved, it gets reopened. If it doesn't, it stays closed because an unclear question doesn't help anyone, least of all the OP himself. — RegDwight ΒВBẞ8 3 mins ago

Well she's deleted her comment since, but I'm not deleting mine.

She also suggested banal in an answer.

I have no idea in what world banal is an antonym of gem. Oh well.

aedia λ

9:06 PM

It's not shiny?

Robusto

For some reason I want to coin the word fsloomic as the opposite of gemlike. Somebody stop me before I do.

Matt Эллен

maybe she meant a contraction of be anal?

aedia λ

And the post had gem and gem-like so you get your pick of noun or adjective...

splutters

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

What you hear now is the sound of me not stopping Rob.

Robusto

Not ... working. Try ... harder.

Matt Эллен

9:07 PM

@Robusto how does it mean that?

aedia λ

I'm too busy not choking on my coffee. Don't mind me.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto not. Note the not.

Robusto

@MattЭллен In all possible ways, on all possible occasions.

Matt Эллен

I see

Robusto

Still .. struggling ... against — it must be fate. I did it. Fsloomic is now a word meaning the opposite of gemlike.

2

Matt Эллен

9:08 PM

:D

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I think Rob still misses the meaning of my not.

Matt Эллен

it's official. the question is now not constructive

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I thought you were just making a litotes — or not not making one.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto It's okay. I suppose in a world where fsloomic is the opposite of gemlike, greenlight is a synonym for stopping.

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Thanks for understanding.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:10 PM

Now if only I could convert chat messages into answers...

Let me see under the hood...

Matt Эллен

I an alternate universe Robusto asked the question and Ronald Regan answered

Robusto

You are free to use fsloomic to answer that question. I won't even charge you royalties.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh how generous of you. I only owe you OVER 9000 for today, then.

aedia λ

"let's stop caring about that thing" = "let's greenlight the project"

Robusto

@MattЭллен Ronald Reagan doesn't talk to me anymore. He's gone quiet somehow, lost in the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Matt Эллен

9:13 PM

►

aedia λ

I am so sad that meetings have ruined my thinkybrain such that greenlight even is in there being a harbinger of doom. I think I need more coffee.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Meanwhile, this:

2

Q: What is the meaning of "I read a book once"

I saw an image on Missed Connections few days ago, and the image text is: Friday, January 29, 2010 - m4w - 23 (L train) How did you get those bruises? I wouldn't let anything happen to you. You were reading some book, and taking notes. I read a book once. And I saw people comment b...

meaning-in-context

Robusto

@aediaλ If you can't find better drugs, coffee will have to do.

Matt Эллен

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

The sad truth is, I'd rather be there, roundhouse kicking that guy off his sled than here closing and reopening gems.

Robusto

9:21 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You could be closing and reopening a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Danke vielmals, ich bin beschränkt genug.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:36 PM

1

Q: What do you do when you end the first part of a compound sentence with a quote?

For example, if I want to show someone's response in the same sentence, what would I do? Would the comma from the end of the quote be enough? He said, "Get me a drink," but I didn't want to. Because this looks weird: He said, "Get me a drink,", but I didn't want to. What if the quote...

questions quotations puncuation

Isn't this a dupe?

Too tired to search.

13

Q: How should I punctuate around quotes?

The American convention in quotations is (typically) to place punctuation inside quoted text. But I always run into situations where the punctuation of the quote interferes with the punctuation of the sentence. How would you punctuate this (American, non technical)? When my friends ask, "What...

punctuation quotes

Robusto

Yeah.

There should be a list we keep of all the relentless dupes.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

It's called my head and it's about to assplode.

I sure wish they hadn't broken the FAQ tab.

It worked so fine.

It had all our dupiest dupes right at your fingertips.

Now it only has crap. Literally.

Sep 21 '11 at 15:52, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

@GraceNote: has the algorithm for the FAQ tab changed? I see only crap there.

Sep 21 '11 at 15:56, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

It used to have actual FAQs. A vs an, Oxford comma, collective nouns in AE vs BE... Now it's "Plural of 'learning'", "What would you call a person who farts a lot?", and "Just how offensive are the terms 'retarded' and 'gay'?"

Sep 21 '11 at 15:59, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

This is like MultiCollider on drugs.

Should be steroids, but you get the idea.

user19161

I just realized that under the votes tab one can see where one had cast close, reopen, delete, undelete, up and down votes. Amazing!

user19161

I am not sure when this was rolled out, could be yesterday or 9000 years ago.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

-1

A: Should I say "not I" or "not me"?

The correct answer, within confines of economical language, would involve use of the pronoun 'I.' E.g. 'I do' or 'I don't.' 'Not I' would be short for 'It is not I,' but that is not an economical way to answer this question. Still, 'not me' is just wrong because it cannot be short for anything. T...

Wow. He has the balls to post that under nohat's answer.

user19161

9:50 PM

By the way David being serially upvoted was not reversed. The upvoter may have tricked the algorithm despite casting 10 votes by increasing the time in between votes and varying the order of posts.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I mean, nohat explains it in the most simple terms I would expect every child to understand.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Obviously all he's have balls. QED.

user19161

I admire his courage. We should all be courageous like him. Then this world will be a better place.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I won't even bother commenting because the entire page is full of comments he seems to have ignored.

aedia λ

Oh, dear.

We have to economize on language now?

I r disapoint.

Oh, dindin! Bai!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

10:01 PM

Laters

Matt Эллен

stupid SE software highlighting articles just because I read a lot of articles question today looking for dupes

don't tell me what I like!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh. Just looking at questions is enough?

I didn't know that.

Matt Эллен

apparently

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Good thing I just look at all questions.

When everything is highlighted, nothing is. The TimeCube axiom.

Matt Эллен

lol

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

10:09 PM

Meanwhile in Finland. the gem question has 4 upvotes already.

user19161

@aediaλ Wow, all it takes to say is "ding ding" and all work is over? It's magic!

user19161

@MattЭллен Yes I realized something like that too.

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy I believe dindin is slang for dinner

user19161

Ubuntu 12.04 was disappointing. Unity still feels buggy. I think I will stick to Debian and Fedora. Currently on Fedora 16.

Matt Эллен

dang it, I was going to upgrade ubuntu at work today. oh well

user19161

10:12 PM

@MattЭллен Oh, I got confused. There is a guy who says "ding ding ding" every time someone goes to bed in the other room.

user19161

@MattЭллен The launcher sometimes shows when it is not supposed to and doesn't show when it is supposed to if one configures it to autohide. You may just do a "sudo apt-get install gnome-shell", log out, log in to GNOME shell instead of Unity.

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Finland? I thought we were all in Soviet Russia!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@JasperLoy catch up on the transcript. Just a dozen messages back.

Though now that you ask, I guess I might as well use the opportunity to point out that yes, you are right, Finland is a part of Soviet Russia.

Matt Эллен

The Finns won't like that!

user19161

I appreciate Mark Shuttleworth's efforts and the Ubuntu developers' efforts but I really dislike Unity, and since that is representative of Ubuntu in a way I will abandon it.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

10:17 PM

@MattЭллен They got their chance to kick our asses, and kick our asses they did. So no more kicking our asses.

Winter War

{{Infobox military conflict | conflict = Winter War | partof = World War II | image = | caption = A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War | date = 30 November 1939 – 13 March 1940 | place = Eastern Finland | result = Interim Peace | territory = Cession of the Gulf of Finland islands, Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia, Salla, and Rybachy Peninsula, and rental of Hanko to the Soviet Union | combatant1 = | combatant2 = Finnish Democratic Republic (A puppet state. Recognized only by USSR.) | commander1 = Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim | commander2 = Josep...

Matt Эллен

fair enough

user19161

Jimmy knows everything in the world.

Matt Эллен

I am feeling sleepy. very sleepy. I am falling into a deep sleep

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Jimmy gets high tonight.

Matt Эллен

good night

user19161

10:18 PM

@MattЭллен Good night!

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Reg gets drunk later.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

►

user19161

Wait, I don't understand the joke that Vitaly knows everything in the world. Is it because he has an account on every site?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Psssst, Vitaly is the Singularity.

user19161

Hello @metaed, long time no see.

user19161

10:21 PM

Debian releases every 2 years and Fedora releases every 6 months. It would be good if both release once a year.

user19161

That way the software is new and also stable.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Hahaha. "New and also stable."

user19161

Now that I have tried at least 6 distros and 4 package managers, I feel like a Linux guru.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

You are only a Linux guru once you have tried at least 6^4 distros and 4^6 package managers.

At which point you might as well give up and use jQuery.

JSBᾶngs

You are only a Linux guru once you have invented your own distro and package manager

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

10:31 PM

No, that's a rookie move.

Everyone invents their own Linux distro and package manager on their first trip.

user19161

I was waiting for a nice number to stop casting down votes. Now that I have cast 900 down votes, I will stop.

user19161

Note that 900 is more than 7 but less than 9000.

MetaEd

@JasperLoy howdy!

JSBᾶngs

11:08 PM

@JasperLoy wow, i've only cast 322 downvotes. i need to catch up with you.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Looks like I've cast 864.

But I'm not sure if that includes deleted stuff.

I don't think it does.

David Wallace

11:28 PM

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 But he's actually right.

To say that "not I" is grammatically incorrect here is just wrong. I think I'll be downvoting (or at least responding to) nohat.

I've only just realised that this is 18 months old, rather than a recent question. Why did I bother!

Mahnax

I've cast 610 downvotes.

David Wallace

For questions or for answers?

Mahnax

Both.

David Wallace

Downvoting answers is way more useful - that's a way for the community to tell which answers are good. Downvoting questions is a bit meh.

Mahnax

I've not downvoted many answers.

David Wallace

11:43 PM

From now on, then, you shall be known as Meh-nax.

Mahnax

Does it need the hyphen? I'm good with Mehnax.

Well, not really.

I like Mahnax more.

David Wallace

I can drop the hyphen.

Mahnax

OK.

David Wallace

See, if people search for something, having upvotes or downvotes on the question doesn't help them find the good question or hinder them from finding the bad question, right?

Mahnax

Right.

David Wallace

11:47 PM

But I do it too. You can call me Mehvid.

Mahnax

Nice to meet you, Mehvid.