English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

My point was that atheists don't rally around atheists simply for being atheists the way the Catholic church has protected abusive clergy, or the way some christians protect other christians despite the flaws they have, simply because they are christians.

Cerberus

All right, but I read it partly as suggesting the opposite, that atheists have some sort of self-regulating nature or mechanism.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus well, they do: critical thinking

Cerberus

Inconclusive at best.

Pick your battles.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

No, it's the most important tool they have

You're saying I can't make that argument properly in this post?

Cerberus

4:12 AM

If you can't even convince me, then how will you convince others of that point?

If it isn't essential, maybe just focus on the vices of the Church rather than the lack thereof in atheists.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Nobody can convince you of anything, ever.

Cerberus

Well, I find most of your article/review quite convincing.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, that's the problem, the rabbi is whining that people always complain about the vices of the church.

Cerberus

And you solve that by extolling the virtues of atheists?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He says "people always point out the flaws in the church yet fail to point out their own flaws". I'm saying "your flaws are pretty damn big. Show me the comparable flaws on the atheist side."

Vitaly

4:14 AM

> There is no reward in your next left.

> But I guess that's a sentiment that devout religious people aren't ever likely to understand.

Well, I have finished reading and I essentially agree with what you have to say. (Except that last sentence which I suggest you remove from there or make it less harsh. Unless you are speaking to atheists, of course.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly Too harsh? I was trying to mirror his closing sentence.

Vitaly

But the religious are perfectly capable of finding multiple ways to dishonestly misinterpret anything you could possibly ever say in defense of atheism. It's a social game at its core, and the winner is not the person whose map matches reality, but the person whose brain is capable of producing lots of plausible-sounding reasons.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly sigh I know. By publishing this post I've already lost the game.

Vitaly

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Well, I haven't read the original article. I suspect many of your readers won't have read it either.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

In fact this post will out me as an atheist to many people.

@Vitaly I basically inlined the whole article.

Cerberus

4:18 AM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hmm then perhaps make that a bit more explicit?

Vitaly

Oh. That was the sentence then. Hm.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah, I guess I could.

Cerberus

Why is it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and not the Bible, is the tool that makes life better for women, and minorities, and gays, and other disadvantaged people?

Maybe "that is the tool"?

Vitaly

And why the hell do the religious attack atheists by trying to make atheists look more like themselves, as though they somehow know it's a bad thing?..

Cerberus

@Vitaly So can atheists.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hmm how about your parents? I thought they were still more or less in the dark?

Vitaly

4:21 AM

@Cerberus No doubt. But MrShiny's attempting to write something the religious wouldn't be able to pick on.

I presume.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Okay, I like your article/review in general. One thing you might want to look into is Comte and his Positivist Churches.

I was going to visit one of the few Positivist Churches when last I was in Paris, but I forgot.

@Vitaly Not sure.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly I want my post to be honest, truthful, and correct. To some degree I know that I have to generalize a bit because I don't have all the details or because it's too tedious to write it all in, and I'm sure there are mistakes that someone can leap on. But my goal is to be as correct as that original article was incorrect.

@Vitaly That's a good question. :)

Cerberus

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus My parents know. My extended family does not know, unless my parents told them and nobody talked to me about it.

Cerberus

Oh, that was it.

They might read it. But so be it.

Religion of Humanity

Religion of Humanity (fr. Religion de l'Humanité) was a secular religion created by Auguste Comte, the founder of positivist philosophy. Adherents of this religion have built chapels of Humanity in France and Brazil. Origins Comte developed the religion of humanity for positivist societies in order to fulfill the cohesive function once held by traditional worship. The religion was developed after Comte's passionate platonic relationship with Clotilde de Vaux, whom he idealised after her death. He became convinced that feminine values embodied the triumph of sentiment and morality. In a f...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:25 AM

@Cerberus They might read it, especially if I post the link to it on Facebook the way I usually do.

Cerberus

I suspected as much.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus This sounds a lot like what de Botton is after. Without knowing the details, I'm skeptical. I'm sure that it has some good points and some bad points and some pointless points.

Cerberus

Right. But it should not be absent in any discussion of a secular "religion".

It is based mainly on rationalism and science.

Vitaly

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Are you talking about science the process or science the social institution?

Cerberus

> The services at the Temple could go on for up to four hours and that, combined with a certain moral strictness, led to some decline during the Republican period.

This is about Brazil, where it is/was most popular, somehow.

> Inspired by August Comte, John Stuart Mill also advocated a Religion of Humanity. Though a close associate of Comte, Mill disapproved of his religion. Mill believed one could distinguish between a "good Comte" (the author of the Course in Positive Philosophy) and a "bad Comte" (the author of the secular-religious system).

Mahnax

4:30 AM

Hi everyone.

Cerberus

Interesting, I didn't know Mill was of that ilk.

Hello!

I am officially asleep.

Vitaly

Hi.

Cerberus

Have been for 1.30 hours.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Noted.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly Well, both, I guess. Though there are some aspects of the social institution that don't follow the process... such as withholding experimental results that don't conform to your desired outcomes, not publishing negative results, etc... I didn't want to get into that too much.

Vitaly

4:31 AM

That paragraph is somehow bothering me, sorry.

I think I would have made it more explicit that I was writing about the epistemology (for which the social institution is commonly mistaken).

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus From reading wikipedia I conclude that that "religion of humanity" is essentially what de Botton is proposing, or at least, very similar. I'm not sure I need to discuss it further in my post.

Vitaly

And the epistemology, is, well, impersonal. Maybe this would clarify what I mean: wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Tarski

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly Hm.

Vitaly

While it seems that you are trying to present science as a sort of friendly and honest human.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Oh, you don't need to. But he is its most important proponent, while De Botton is a light-weight. Comte is far more interesting.

nature.com/news/replication-studies-bad-copy-1.10634

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:35 AM

@Cerberus well, de Botton is alive and pushing his vision right now, AND is the guy referenced by the rabbi's article

Cerberus

Fair enough. I would just say "Botton (like the famous philosopher Auguste Comte) ...".

Or something.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly I am, sorta.

Cerberus

It would be like talking about Platonism without mentioning Plato.

Okay, bed time!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, I've never heard of Comte before just now. But I've seen de Botton's TEDTalk.

Cerberus

Bye kids!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:37 AM

cya. Thanks for the help.

Cerberus

Again, Comte is far more important, not only because he has had much more influence on "humanism" and other organizations around secularism, but also because he came up with the idea. He is the original thinker here, not De Botton.

Oh, well.

Bye!

Mahnax

Bye!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying that I'm a nobody responding to a nobody who wrote in a paper about a book by a minor somebody. I can address that somebody's ideas directly; the fact that someone else had the ideas earlier and put them into play doesn't matter much, since it's the ideas that are being addressed.

For me to try to bring in all the philosophers that contributed to these ideas is futile, primarily because I don't know them myself and secondarily because my readers won't care.

Cerberus

He deserves mention as the central thinker here with respect to the concept, if only in brackets. But do what you must do. Now really bye!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I dunno that he deserves mention. Maybe de Botton was influenced by him, maybe de Botton had these ideas all on his own?

Cerberus

4:42 AM

Impossible.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly so let's say my paragraph is mainly about science the epistemology. It is written a little poetically: "science stands, etc" instead of "scientific knowledge and ideas stand"... is it wrong? Or just imprecise?

Mahnax

@Cerberus That's enough! I'm filling in for your mother. Straight to bed with you, young man!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus good night puppy.

Cerberus

I will eat my hat if De Botton doesn't comment on Comte in wherever he wrote about this subject.

@Mahnax Thanks mom, bye!

Mahnax

@Cerberus Bye!

Cerberus

4:44 AM

poof

@MrShinyandNew: In fact, I think the "sacraments" of the church of humanity I gave provide an excellent example of how atheists can be preoccupied with morals, and often are.

21 mins ago, by Cerberus

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I don't know what you mean. Tell me about it tomorrow.

Cerberus

Oh, the pillars, mainly.

Bye mom and dad!

Mahnax

Good night.

Vitaly

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Well, it sounds off to me for some reason I can't figure out, but maybe it's just me. I also think that it leaves too much wiggle room for someone to attack that paragraph on the grounds of your not making a precise distinction between the epistemology and the social institution (poetic language implies the latter, I'd think).

So in Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, I can make a dead key that gives Greek characters for similar Latin characters (AltGr+6, a → α), but it doesn't work with Hebrew. For some reason, the kbdtable becomes corrupted.

I have spent the last two hours trying to make it work. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly I feel your pain but can't really help you.

And I really must head off to bed. I'm down to 5 hours of sleep now :(

thanks @Vitaly for your input

Vitaly

4:54 AM

Good night!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax if you want to read it you can click here. I'm not sure you'll agree with me :) Anyway it's a draft and subject to change and may not even ever be officially published. But probably it will be.

bye!

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 You make some valid points, and I'm not so hard-headed that I'll just ignore them.

user19161

5:46 AM

@Mahnax Boo!

rudra

6:17 AM

hi all...

David Wallace

7:11 AM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I don't know what you said, because his answer is now deleted. But clearly it worked. Thanks; I have my just desert.

Sankar Ganesh

@DavidWallace: Hello mate, @ALL: Hai

David Wallace

@SankarGanesh Oh, hi.

Feeds

8:07 AM

Hello.

user19161

8:50 AM

14 zombies in this room, amazing.

David Wallace

Yeah? Check out MSE if you think that's amazing.

user19161

@reg That was a rapid migration of the oscilloscope.

user19161

I am still not sure what writers is for so I won't vote to migrate to other sites.

user19161

In fact I am still not sure exactly what topics are off-topic here.

David Wallace

If you don't know, then what hope do mere mortals (not from the planet Krypton) have?

Vitaly

9:00 AM

@Reg Heracles or Longshot?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Wut iz longshot?

user19161

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Now you are confusing all the ESL people with that sentence.

Vitaly

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 The card next to Heracles.

I am not spending WB on Svetlana.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Hm. I have no idea. Never got the point of Intercept. And frankly I don't find Heracles sexy, either.

Vitaly

He's quite sexy with Svetlana (4 attack on a protected-1 1-drop, and then Mobile Base with its Rally 3). Without her, I have no idea. That's why I am asking.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:07 AM

1

A: Which words in a title should be capitalized?

Interestingly the German wikipedia page on capitalisation states that British English uses sentence capitalisation in titles in newspapers, whereas book and play titles are according to the American format. I can't find much other reference to that though. Australian English, which is similar to ...

Is this an answer? A comment? A follow-up question?

Gigili

All of the above.

Vitaly

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Doesn't feel like an answer. I wouldn't want that as a question either (“Here, proofread the German Wikipedia plox!”). That leaves the comment option. Now, Heracles allegedly gives you a guaranteed top 5% and almost guaranteed top 1% in every single standard tourney these days, but with Svetlana.

Not to mention the abundance of excellent Raider support cards (Mobile Fortress, for one).

I'm tempted to predict that Support Carrier spam with Elemental gets resurrected this month or so. It's basically the only deck that is remotely capable of overcoming Heracles given enough luck.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

How do you mean, resurrected. I never stopped using it.

I am using it right now.

Vitaly

In the meta game.

David Wallace

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 It ought to be a comment. Fletch probably made it an answer because it was too long for a comment.

Vitaly

9:19 AM

Which, in turn, would make Longshot an attractive option.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@DavidWallace that's what I'm thinking. Except that I can squeeze it into a comment.

Gigili

@DavidWallace What's they? He's a moderator himself.

David Wallace

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Ah, but you are a master squeezer.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

At last, someone to appreciate my squeezance.

Gigili

Well, you weren't talking to me.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:21 AM

Gigili, are you alright? I feel like you're talking at yourself and stuff.

David Wallace

Who, I? I never talk to the likes of you.

Gigili

Yes, thanks for being so kind to me.

Vitaly

Do you see squares or letters here: ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀᴍᴇ?

Matt Эллен

Letters

Damnit. now I've lost

Vitaly

Thanks.

Matt Эллен

9:25 AM

no probs :)

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah, letters.

Kapitälchen.

Kapitälchen

Kapitälchen sind Großbuchstaben deren Höhe der Normalhöhe (x-Höhe) der Kleinbuchstaben entspricht. Sie werden zur Hervorhebung in der Typografie anstelle von Kleinbuchstaben verwendet. Daneben gibt es falsche Kapitälchen deren Höhe zwischen x- und Versalhöhe liegt, sowie Versalschrift aus Großbuchstaben einheitlicher Höhe. Strichstärke und Grauwert der Kapitälchen orientieren sich an denen der Gemeinen. Im deutschsprachigen Raum wird auch der synonyme englische Fachbegriff Small Caps verwendet. In den Anfängen des Buchdrucks betrachtete man kursive Schriften nicht als zur selben Famili...

Vitaly

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You misspelled капитель.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

0

Q: How to formally speak dates?

How are date spoken, formally? Are there any differences in the British and American versions?

usage

Oh come on.

Is today the International ELU Lite Day?

Matt Эллен

just today?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well I can't keep up closing questions.

Normally I can.

Matt Эллен

9:30 AM

It does have a definitive answer, at least

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Is that answer any different from the answer to the question of how to write dates?

Matt Эллен

oh. hmmm, probably

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

15

Q: What is the best format to use when writing out dates?

What format of date is appropriate for different contexts (business, personal) in written English, nowadays? 1st of April, 2010 April the 1st, 2010 April 1, 2010 April 01, 2010 another one

writing date

1

Q: How to write out dates correctly

I have a document dated 05/05/2012. What should I say? Based on the document from 05 May. Based on the document from 5th May. Based on the document from 05 of May.

word-choice grammar date

Matt Эллен

writing dates includes stuff like 33/12/19999

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

2

Q: Date format in UK vs US

Why is the most common date format in the US like mm/dd/yyyy, whereas in Europe (including the UK) it's more common to have dd/mm/yyyy? Looking around, I found that the US form is actually the more traditional Anglo-Saxon way, but the British adapted to using the European form in the early 20th ...

american-english british-english date

Matt Эллен

9:32 AM

which has nothing to do with pronunciation

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well yeah that's what I'm trying to figure out, if that's relevant.

If the Americans write truck and the British write lorry, then the Americans also say "truck" and the British say "lorry", no?

Matt Эллен

that high voted question doesn't address pronunciation

pietro's question is quite colse

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well I'll start by leaving a comment.

In fact tchrist's answer to the date format question starts with "that's how we speak it in English". (Emphasis his.)

Matt Эллен

yeah

I was about to say, he's posted half the answer. He's an opinionated blowhard, so I always find myself doubting him.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Uh. Now you betweened me.

Matt Эллен

9:38 AM

:D

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Anyway.

Matt Эллен

It is pretty much the same question

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

We can't have two versions of each question, "How do I pronounce 1092/fuchsia/46°F/dates" and "How do I write out 1092/fuchsia/46°F/dates".

Matt Эллен

why not?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well fuchsia is perhaps a bad example.

Matt Эллен

9:41 AM

pronouncing fuschiaer is a lot different to trying to write the damned word

oh

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Scrap that.

But 46°F is written out exactly the same way it's pronounced. Same for dates.

Everything else would be nonsensical. We are not Arabs, who speak language X, and write in a totally different language Y.

Anyway, I've left the comment, let's see if it gets closed.

Matt Эллен

hmmm, not really for dates. dates are written in a truncated form that don't explain the pronunciation. 15/6/2012 doesn't tell you to pronounce it 15th of June it could easily be interpreted as 15 June

Vitaly

So @Reg, is this right?

Ты не-правильн-о на-пис-ал «капитель».
You ɴᴇɢ-right-sɢ.ɴᴇᴜᴛ ᴘʀғ-write-2ᴍs капитель.
“You misspelled капитель.”

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@MattЭллен we are specifically talking about writing out the dates. No truncated forms. Written out.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 but the truncated form is how dates are written

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:46 AM

@MattЭллен but the questions are about writing out those forms!

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 but not the latest one

> How are date spoken, formally?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah have that straw.

Of course if we get an awesome answer, all this discussion will become obsolete.

Matt Эллен

covets straw

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

But I fear we'll get a bunch of answers that tell you how the dates are usually written and then sell that under "pronunciation".

Matt Эллен

aye. that's highly likely

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

9:49 AM

@Vitaly I am not familiar with all those abbreviations, but they make sense to me.

@MattЭллен the thing is, the corpora have exactly one category for SPOKEN.

Vitaly

List of glossing abbreviations

This page lists common abbreviations for grammatical terms that are used in linguistic interlinear glossing. Abbreviations beginning with (a common prefix for non-) or ending with (a common suffix for -izer) may not be listed separately. For example, is not listed, as it is composable from + . {| class=wikitable ! Gloss !! Meaning |- | › || direction of transitivity or possession(2›3 may mean 2 acts on 3; 1sg›sg may mean a 1sg possessor and a singular possessum) |- | 0 || zero (null), covert form(such as gender in a language where the word doesn't show it) |- | 1 || first person |- |...

There's no abbreviation for short form there. :(

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Unlike for written stuff that gets segregated into MAGAZINE, SCIFI, BLAHBLAH, and WHATNOT.

Vitaly

Неправильно is a short form.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 so no formal vs informal vs clown vs etc?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well not to my knowledge anyway.

I don't think they file formal speech under SCIENTIFIC writing, and leave only informal speech for SPOKEN.

Sankar Ganesh

9:54 AM

Hi All

@DavidWallace: Internet Problem , I m back, i need your advice

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

So you can't even say, here's what the corpora say. You can only post a bunch of gut feelings.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I guess the only time speaking is really formal is in places it's part of legal or political proceedings

or some sort of ceremony

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well certainly there's more shades of grey.

Matt Эллен

court proceedings might supply an answer... if only there were an easy way to search them

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

There probably is, for ₤500 a day.

Sankar Ganesh

9:57 AM

@DavidWallace: and @Matt: and @RegDwightB8: I Have attend a telpehonic interview in a company cleared that interview , then they said you have second telephonic interview
he attend that last friday there's no response from them then monday i dropped an email to know abt the status they called monday afternoon , and said you have cleared second telephonic round also then they said you have 3 rd round of interview
it is a pratical round they gave one task finished the task on Monday midnight and send the build on tuesday morning

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 They should be public record, but I can only find the basic outline and verdict

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Vitaly you sure that's a short form? Sounds like an adverb to me.

That's not sɢ.ɴᴇᴜᴛ if you ask me.

You can't have any other forms.

As opposed to adjectives.

Vitaly

I knew something was wrong. Thanks.

-5

Q: Proposal to add small-capitals formatting directive

I propose that a new formatting directive be added to access the font’s small capitals. For example, <smcaps>some text</smcaps> would work, but I encourage discussion on any syntactic variant that appeals to you. The coolest thing is that since this is a simple matter of invoking t...

feature-request formatting

That is downvoted? Really? How about glossing on sites like RL&U?

user19161

10:15 AM

It's weird that meta is taking very long to sync the rep from main today.

user19161

Usually it happens in an hour, but it has been hours.

user19161

@SankarGanesh Just decide for yourself. You don't need any advice on such matters, really.

Gigili

Mr. full-of-wisdom is talking.

user19161

@Gigili I see you transformed again. I will also transform my username in 4 hours.

user19161

Transformers, robots in disguise. Transformers, more than meets the eye.

Sankar Ganesh

10:19 AM

@ClarkKent ok mate

user19161

@SankarGanesh You need to have more confidence in yourself.

Sankar Ganesh

@ClarkKent ok mate

user19161

@SankarGanesh And you should learn how to write properly in English. For a start, at least spell properly.

user19161

Writing the way you did already gives a bad impression to any employer if your job requires English.

user19161

In fact, it is not clear what you want to mean. You need to organize your thoughts before hitting enter.

user19161

10:24 AM

It is small things like that which matter. Big things are made up of small things.

Gigili

@ClarkKent Noted.

David Wallace

10:54 AM

@SankarGanesh Why specifically mine?

David Wallace

11:08 AM

@SankarGanesh Yes, I see no reason why you shouldn't.

Monica

11:35 AM

Hello

Vitaly

Hi.

1

Q: Small caps for interlinear glossing for sites like Russian Language and Usage

It is a common notational convention in linguistics to use small capitals in interlinear glossing. Using good ol' plain capitals for that is almost like not using the [code][/code] tag for code snippets. To quote Wikipedia, Grammatical terms are commonly abbreviated and printed in SMALL CAPIT...