English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

4:36 PM

Hello.

4:50 PM

@Cerberus hey. remember our talk about the epistemic would? what do you think is the suppressed protasis in this excerpt?

@Vitaly I don't think this would is conditional: doesn't it look more like a past would?

"Johnny will have told them". => "She assumed that Johnny would have told them."

@Cerberus it's the epistemic would, and the phrase could be rephrased as “and Frankie had probably told John's old friends at the Red Lion”

I already forgot what that counter-intuitive term meant...

The "probably" is in the meaning of the verb "will", just as in "He will have told them".

I don't think that has anything to do with the change from will to would.

doesn't matter. what matters is that you were quite insistent that phrases like that contain a suppressed protasis, and therefore—you were saying—the epistemic would is the conditional would. :P

Not at all, because I do not consider this a conditional would.

4:56 PM

but it's an obvious case of the epistemic would.

It's just a story in the past.

Any will becomes would in past reported speech.

the would there expresses the speaker's degree of uncertainty in the proposition “Frankie had told John's old friends”

"I will tell them tomorrow" => "She said that she would tell them tomorrow."

2 mins ago, by Cerberus

The "probably" is in the meaning of the verb "will", just as in "He will have told them".

“Someone's at the door.”
“Oh, that would be Tom.”

≈ “Oh, that is probably Tom.”

That could be conditional.

But how about "there's someone at the door" — "oh, that will be Tom".

Do you see how the "probably" is already in "will"?

It just becomes even less certain from "will" to "would".

5:02 PM

Absolutely. The will is epistemic there. I just don't see how that is relevant.

And as you well know, I disagree with postulating invisible suppressed protases to explain the epistemic modals as conditionals.

And I feel a bit uneasy at the assumption of an invisible "new" category of an "epistemic" would.

But that doesn't matter.

So, well, we have a clear case of an epistemic would that you say isn't the conditional would, which invalidates your theory:

> She had also told Frankie Simpson about it, and Frankie would have told John's old friends at the Red Lion.

I completely understand the merits of either model. In your story, the would fits neither model, because it is simply a past would.

How is it a past would if it expresses the speaker's degree of uncertainty in the fact that Frankie had told John's old friends?

Or do you propose a switch from the past to the present perspective mid-sentence?

5:06 PM

The past is contained in the have told part.

Don't you see there are three temporal movements in "would have told"?

“Someone is at the door.”
“Oh, that would be Tom.”

vs

“Someone was at the door.”
“Oh, that would have been Tom.”

One from the time of utterance to the past perspective of the story. Then another one from the time of the perspective of "she" into the future relative to her; and then a last one referring back from that future time to an earlier time.

@Vitaly In this example, there is no switch of perspective.

@Vitaly Here it would only make sense of we assumed a shift of perspective from past to present.

You could perhaps assume the same shift of perspective in the story. In that case, it would become conditional/epistemic. I did not interpret it that way, however, because the entire story is in the past.

Perhaps you are confusing the direct and indirect speech in your story?

@Cerberus Are you?

Let me ask you a question, then.

> 'I need to get out of this house soon,' he replied. 'And the phone's been ringing all day.' 'I can believe that,' Linda said.
Earlier that day, before going to identify the body, Linda had told the manager at the jewellery shop about John's 'death'. She had also told Frankie Simpson about it, and Frankie will have told John's old friends at the Red Lion. People had obviously been phoning to talk to Linda about John's accident and to sympathize4 with her. Well, she and John had to continue with the lie now. And anyway, only by doing that could they carry out the robbery and escape safely w…

5:15 PM

The would there is part of a narrative that isn't spoken by any characters, except perhaps to render the thought process of a character through the author's words.

Does this make sense to you?

As you can see, I changed would into will as an experiment.

How about:

> She had also told Frankie Simpson about it, and Frankie must have told John's old friends at the Red Lion.

Must can be past or present, so that doesn't help. Have you looked at my will?

Well, there we go. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to analyze some modals as “past” (or ”present”) forms of some other modals.

If we have the epistemic modal would, it isn't the past version of the epistemic modal will.

user19161

@JSBձոգչ I have no idea what that picture means, very cryptic.

5:24 PM

Neither is shall the “present” form of should.

I asked what your opinion was on using will in that story.

Just answer me.

@JasperLoy Excalibur

You don't even know why I asked.

@Cerberus Can't be something good.

All right, if you don't want to talk to me, then why ping me?

hissing sound of disapproval

5:28 PM

@Cerberus I don't like the will, obviously, but how is that relevant?

What do you mean why can't I chat on my bike?

Hi!

hello ;)

user19161

@MattЭллен Boo!

hi Jasper

5:29 PM

@Vitaly Why don't you like it: can you theorize why will is bad there?

user19161

I am trying to divine Carlo's age. Previously I thought he is a teen, but he said somewhere he is an engineer, so he might be a tween.

@Cerberus probably because it overlaps too much with the future-in-the-past-or-whatever-it's-called construction?

user19161

Meta seems to be filled with his questions now which mostly have negative votes.

@Vitaly How about this: the story is told from a past perspective; using will would break out of that perspective and switch to a present perspective (which would be the time of writing or something)?

@MattЭллен Hey Matt, are you busy?

I have a (probably very silly) Javascript question.

I am not busy

If I don't answer correctly, it's because my brain isn't working :D

user19161

5:33 PM

I have also come up with a unifying theory of atheism, Buddhism and Christianity.

@MattЭллен Hey Matt, do you think that the “Frankie would have told John's old friends at the Red Lion” can be paraphrased as “Frankie had probably told John's old friends at the Red Lion” in:

> 'I need to get out of this house soon,' he replied. 'And the phone's been ringing all day.' 'I can believe that,' Linda said. Earlier that day, before going to identify the body, Linda had told the manager at the jewellery shop about John's 'death'.

> She had also told Frankie Simpson about it, and Frankie would have told John's old friends at the Red Lion. People had obviously been phoning to talk to Linda about John's accident and to sympathize with her. Well, she and John had to continue with the lie now. And anyway, only by doing that could they carry out the robbery and escape safely with the money.

@MattЭллен I have a page with some articles in it. Some are about sports, and I want to remove those. So I want to remove all divs called "article selectie" if any thingie within the div contains "Sport". I have been trying some things like n.parentNode.removeChild(n);, but I have no idea what I'm doing, and it isn't working.

nrc.nl

user19161

By the way, note that Chrome 20 is out and comes with the built-in flash plugin for Linux. Yay!

This is the page.

@Cerberus I cannot go there

oh! there is it

5:36 PM

This is part of the html.

@Vitaly yes, I'll just read that context...

I think I need to remove that entire div?

var p = document.getElementsByClassName('Sport');
var cstr = "article selectie";
for (var i=p.length; --i>=0;) {
var n = p[i];
while(n.className.split(" ").indexOf(cstr)==-1) { // won't work in older browsers
n = n.parentNode;
}
n.parentNode.removeChild(n);
}

This is what I have, and it isn't working.

I copy-pasted it from somewhere.

I'm sure this is pretty basic, but I'm too stoopid.

there is no element with a class name of sport

Perhaps it is better to ask this on Stack Overflow?

@MattЭллен Ohh...see, I don't even know html.

user19161

@Cerberus Yes, then you can rake in the reps.

5:40 PM

I need no reps!

user19161

But the reps need you!

@Cerberus if you would like I can figure someting out

@MattЭллен Only if it's really simple: this is probably not how you would spend your Sunday afternoon, and I can ask on SO.

@Cerberus it'll help keep me awake until bedtime :)

<article>.*?Sport.*?</article> is what I would like to replace with nothingness.

user19161

5:43 PM

By the way, the last day of June had one extra second.

@MattЭллен Oh no! I don't want to keep you awake until bedtime.

user19161

So everyone readjust your clocks!

I read that many Linux systems crashed because of the leap second.

Or run into problems, at least.

user19161

Yeah I think there was some question on serverfault.

@MattЭллен Do you think I could just run a Regex on the entire html? Would that work?

<article>.*?Sport.*?</article>

Partly because of @Vitaly I brushed up my Regex quite well.

I can now do pretty much anything I need with it.

It's shiny.

5:48 PM

@Cerberus here boyo:

var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a')
for(var index in links)
    {
        if(links[index].getAttribute('href').indexOf('sport') > -1)
       {
           links[index].parentNode.parentNode.removeChild(links[index].parentNode);
       }
  }

:5186857 But <article> is in the html.

@MattЭллен Oh!

I smooshed it onto one line because I did it in the console

so apparently <article> is a tag: w3schools.com/html5/tag_article.asp

@Matt ^ did you know that?

@Vitaly no, that is news to me :)

@Vitaly Yes, with the added context, it makes even more sense to paraphrase as had probably

@MattЭллен Wow! Thanks! Many of the sports articles have disappeared.

But not all...let me see why not.

5:51 PM

oooo so close

This one is still there, even though I see "sport" in it somewhere?

that is confusing

Do you still see this one?

apparently Cerberus wants this to be gone:

With your script active.

5:54 PM

@Cerberus yes :(

i.e. the stuff between the article tags

@Vitaly yeah. but it also has sport in the href

@Vitaly Yes, correct; but "nieuws/categorie/sport" will do as well.

So @Cerberus, here's a native speaker's opinion:

3 mins ago, by Matt Эллен

@Vitaly Yes, with the added context, it makes even more sense to paraphrase as had probably

5:55 PM

What about it?

and that makes it an epistemic modal without a shred of doubt ;)

As I said back then, will is inherently "epistemic" here.

you were saying it was just a past would...

As I said a few minutes ago, "that will be Tom at the door" ~= "that is probably Tom".

52 mins ago, by Cerberus

I completely understand the merits of either model. In your story, the would fits neither model, because it is simply a past would.

5:58 PM

Yes.

And the sense of probability comes from the verb will, not from the switch from will to would.

Look, this is going nowhere, so let's change the subject, OK? We're just repeating ourselves, or at least I am.

here's a “past would”:

> She said she would shut up.

no epistemic-ness there ^

> Cerberus said he would change the subject.

lol

@Cerberus how can it fit neither model if a native speaker has just said that it can be rephrased as “had probably”, which makes it an epistemic modal by the definition of epistemic and modal (expressing the speaker's attittude, in this case, degree of uncertainty), and not just a “past would”?

My last comment on the subject: @Vitaly, perhaps it would be interesting to read some more about modality, because it is an extremely broad phenomenon.

6:02 PM

@Cerberus change the body of the for to links[index].parentNode.setAttribute('style', 'display:none');

@Vitaly As I said, any forms of will is in some way epistemic, so the adjective is a bit useless. I have objected to it from the beginning. As to the way your source (CGEL?) seemed to use "epistemic would", that was a much more specific kind of category. Now you are confusing your source's "epistemic" with the regular meaning of epistemic (as people like me use it).

as you know, CGEL calls it central-epistemic

I just can't be bothered to type out the central- part every time

@MattЭллен Hmm now nothing is removed any more...

> for(links[index].parentNode.setAttribute('style', 'display:none');)

Or is this not what I was supposed to do?

@Vitaly Then don't use the two interchangeably.

@Cerberus the body is the bit between {}

@Cerberus Where did I use them interchangeably?

6:06 PM

@Cerberus oh, bunm, I mean don't chaneg the for at all

change the iff

@Vitaly You are trying to prove that x is "epistemic" because there is a notion of probability. The latter is just the general meaning of epistemic, not central epistemic. And will is always generally epistemic, so it means nothing.

@MattЭллен Ohh OK...

for(var index in links)
    {
        if(links[index].getAttribute('href').indexOf('sport') > -1)
       {
           links[index].parentNode.setAttribute('style', 'display:none');
       }
  }

Aww, doesn't work.

I wish I had any idea of what you were doing so I could help, hehe.

@Cerberus I'm trying to prove that x is epistemic because it expresses the speaker's personal attitude to the likelihood that something has happened.

Not because of some “notion of probability”.

Seriously, do you even read what I type here?

@Vitaly Same thing.

6:11 PM

Also, you didn't answer my question. Where did I use them interchangeably?

@Cerberus Not.

@Vitaly I answered that: when you were trying to prove one by proving the other.

But let's end this discussion.

Is it helping you?

Is it helping me?

Right.

Jun 21 at 17:43, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Gigili we all win. Except when Cerb argues, then nobody wins.

Then why the hell do you ping me?

May 24 at 23:10, by Vitaly

CGEL's example for “central-epistemic”:

May 24 at 23:10, by Vitaly

> They will have made the decision last week.

@Cerberus Because somebody is wrong on the Internet.

Well, that somebody is you, so go shake your fist at a mirror!

6:34 PM

@Cerberus what do you mean it doesn't work? It works for me. All the things disappear

@MattЭллен Huh really??

It does nothing for me. Perhaps something is interfering?

did you delete the first line?

var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

@Cerberus Do you disagree with the highlighted part?

@MattЭллен Yes, I have only this code of yours in the script.

6:48 PM

@Cerberus ah! then that's your problem :D put the first line back in

I tried it on a new profile, and on Chrome even—but I still see all the sports articles!

@MattЭллен Ohhh haha, OK!

@MattЭллен YES!!! I t works!!

Yay!

I am so happy now.

Thank you so much!

YAY! :D glad to have helped

@MattЭллен It's perfect!

6 mins ago, by Vitaly

@Cerberus Do you disagree with the highlighted part?

I have one more tiny detail, which isn't really important:

6:52 PM

lol

right?

In the lower part of the list, there is still an empty space displayed, with a time tag.

heh

I see

Would it be complicated to remove the entire divclass "article", or something?

6:55 PM

that a little more complicatd

I could give it a try

Oh OK.

Never mind if it is complicated, the main problem has been solved!

@Vitaly No, but I don't think this discussion serves any purpose, so let's end it.

@Vitaly: I disagree that the construction expresses the confidence of the speaker; rather, it usually conveys some degree of surprise that the obvious fact in question (i.e., that the woman is J.K. Rowling), is not known to the person being addressed.

@Robusto As in irony, right?

That's already on a more complicated level...

Nortonn is back again

english.stackexchange.com/questions/72958/…

0

Q: On Theoretical Grounds

"The secret was discussed on the basis of THEORETICAL grounds." "The secret was discussed based on THEORETICAL grounds." Do these mean that THEORIES were the reason for the act of discussing the secret? Or do they mean that the THEORETICAL aspects of the secret was discussed?

It is also used as a trump of sorts, to show off. "Q. Who was the winner of the contest? A. That would be yours truly."

6:58 PM

Is it Nortonn Ghost that has returned to haunt us?

@Cerberus I wouldn't call it necessarily ironic, though it could be used that way.

@Robusto I mean in the sense that you say in a way that normally expresses less confidence, while in fact you are very confident?

It is also used to express disbelief or rejection of an idea. Person 1: I think Microsoft should have stopped developing operating systems after XP. Person 2: That would be one way to look at it.

@Cerberus Except it's not less confident. It's actually more emphatic than a simple declarative sentence.

I suppose you could view that as irony, but I don't exactly feel that it fits all the corners just right.

@Robusto That's what I'm saying, you actually express high confidence.

@Cerberus Then if you don't disagree, on what basis are you attacking my use of epistemic if you know I had expressly said that CGEL's central-epistemic is synonymous with what the majority of grammar references and scholarly papers call epistemic?

7:02 PM

I consider that irony at a low, mundane level.

@Vitaly I'm not going to talk about this any more, sorry.

@Cerberus Yes. It is high confidence about a more or less obvious or mundane fact.

It is more wry than ironic. Somewhat mocking, in fact.

@Cerberus Sure, but I need to know that you understand you have been wrong.

I am right, you are wrong, and this discussion is over.

I don't mean that in an unfriendly way.

But it is helping neither of us.

OH NOES! Not another Vitaly/Cerberus day of reckoning!

I have been trying to end it for half an hour.

7:04 PM

@Cerberus How so if 1) you don't disagree with the highlighted part 2) CGEL's central-epistemic is synonymous with what pretty much everyone else, including that paper with the highlighted part, calls epistemic?

user19161

I think you guys should take this outside.

And I hoped it had ended a month ago.

@Cerberus Like my granddaddy told me, "Always let the asshole have the last word." :)

@JasperLoy I'd rather not. I don't want spider bites.

@Robusto Heh, he's not an asshole...just someone I happen to disagree with.

But in general it is sound advice.

user19161

We are all assholes. Asses have holes.

7:06 PM

Though sometimes very hard to follow.

@Vitaly Discussion := "over!"

grammar idioms prepositions usage

So let me now direct your attention otherwise

-1

Q: On Theoretical Grounds

"The secret was discussed on the basis of THEORETICAL grounds." "The secret was discussed based on THEORETICAL grounds." Do these mean that THEORIES were the reason for the act of discussing the secret? Or do they mean that the THEORETICAL aspects of the secret was discussed?

user19161

@simchona So what should we do with this now?

@Cerberus OK, I am right, you are hopelessly wrong and refuse to admit it, and this discussion is over!

@JasperLoy I flagged it, and left a comment on his other question

@Cerberus I know Vitaly's not an asshole. I'm just saying it's a great way to conclude an argument that is going nowhere. You say, "I always let the asshole have the last word." If that shuts up your antagonist, you can bear being an asshole; if he persists, your saying nothing lets it be known that he has taken that mantle upon his own shoulders. Either way, you exit in triumph, argument over.

7:07 PM

But I really hope the mods figure out what to do about this user

user19161

@Robusto The greatest way is to forget about it, but this path is not for mere mortals.

@Robusto Oh hah, you say it out loud! Nice.

@Vitaly Yippeeeee!

@Cerberus But I will no doubt bring it up in the future if I stumble across another mention of the epistemic would on ELU or elsewhere and if I forget to make a custom JS/CSS to make your messages appear with a red border around them again.

@simchona So this is a duplicate of that other, deleted question; was that in turn a duplicate of another question by the user?

user19161

@simchona Maybe he is just an elementary school kid.

7:12 PM

@Cerberus Yup. There's a trail of at least 3 questions

@Vitaly You should never forget that. Like leaving the stove on.

english.stackexchange.com/questions/72958/…

english.stackexchange.com/questions/72824/on-the-basis-based-on

english.stackexchange.com/questions/72880/on-grounds

@simchona It's really odd. I say give him as little attention as possible and wait till he gets bored.

english.stackexchange.com/questions/72845/…

Spammer!

user19161

7:13 PM

@Cerberus Hammer the spammer till he stammers.

@simchona Okay, so all those questions have been deleted; isn't there one archetype that the others can point to?

@Cerberus I think that one possibly was plagiarized? Mods were deleting his questions on sight

I'll look through the older ones to see if there's a linkback

Plagiarized? You mean duplicated?

@Cerberus No, plagiarized from another site

Hmm how can a (short) question be plagiarized? Just copied? Then...can't we allow a question here that has also been asked elsewhere? As long we can just have one open question here and the duplicates deleted?

Or even one closed question, if it is GR?

user19161

7:17 PM

I have cast a delete vote on Carlo's meta answer on $100. It is now deleted.

Q: Why was this question about usage of twofold/threefold deleted

2

Why was this question about usage of twofold/threefold deleted? No explanation is given. I find it hard to imagine this one is General Reference, when I compare it to countless other really trivial questions that don't get deleted.

discussion

Here, this one says where he's been copying from

english.stackexchange.com/questions/71800/move-at-great-pace

user19161

Is he aware he is breaking the rules?

I assume he got a message from the mods before being suspended

englishforums.com/English/BasedOnOnTheBasisOf/wgrqv/post.htm

user19161

I am trying to divine his personality type from his actions.

Effectively, I remeber this question, but the link you have provided link to "page not found". — Carlo_R. 3 mins ago

Didn't I say "10k only"? Yeah, I think I did.