English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

14:00

@tchrist Yes, that's what I did, of course. In fact I thought the train drop with the percentage sign was humidity, while it was precipitation.

tchrist

Every time you see a word in Europe, you must translate it, and likewise with all numbers.

One really does get into this habit.

Cerberus

*bring in

tchrist

Money, time, distance, weight, everything must be changed.

And then you get to humidity and puzzle.

Cerberus

I never translate anything, for I am possessed with European arrogance.

tchrist

Se nota.

Cerberus

14:02

I just use the one and only system always.

Yes, you do that.

tchrist

Be careful what you wish for:

Cerberus

'Possessed with'? Is that even proper English? I can't. look anything up on my phone.

tchrist

Cerberus

Better.

tchrist

I was staring at the with myself. By? Of is nice, but old-fashioned.

WTF do you what meters per second for?

Useless.

Not fit for the human mind.

Cerberus

14:04

Ah that was the desired effect.

We use m/s in physics, mainly, including wind speeds.

tchrist

If you were serious about all this, you would use metric time.

And you don’t.

It’s my plan to jumpstart the putrescent Eurozone economy.

Because it would make jobs for people.

You would have to replace all your clocks.

And your road signs.

And the speedometers (odometers) in your car.

And people would get to drive faster, too.

So you would feel like you were finally getting somewhere.

And think of the timetables that would all need to be reprinting.

And the programs that would need recoding.

It’s a bonanza, I tell you!

Each day is divided into 10 hours, each hour into 100 minutes, and each minute into 100 seconds.

There are now 100,000 seconds per day.

Infinitely easier.

None of this 3600x crap.

And your speed limits would go from 100 kph to 240 kph. Isn’t that swell?

Get rid of your dumb Imperial time, and the world will be a better place.

And you will be able to convert kph into m/s in your head.

Cerberus

Oops gotta run, sorry!

tchrist

Even a child could do it!

Run run run.

@Cerberus Notice how on the NCAR weather sites at Foothills and Mesa you can switch between normal English units and scientific units. Scientists use only SI, even here.

@RegDwightАΑA I see that Madonna continues to make your news over there. Sigh. Even queerer, notice that the URL reads madonna-sued-russia-supporting-gays. A-whoops!

I didn’t know that Madonna had sued Russia.

0

A: Which is the correct spelling: "grey" or "gray"?

Gery or gray...its black and white to me....

That’s an answer?

Jez

14:32

Heh... I'm not sure which spelling I use instinctively. I may even switch between the two.

tchrist

I recommend against gery.

RegDwight АΑA

14:45

Gery Oldman is the best.

0

A: Why are Greek letters pronounced incorrectly in scientific English?

Sir or Madam, We are chiefly wondering why the Greek letter 'phi' is transliterated as 'phi' instead of 'fi'. Could you please elucidate? Sincerely, Ron & Cynthia Deere

tchrist

Sir or Madam. Cute.

RegDwight АΑA

Discrimination against birds and dogs.

tchrist

The cats must be in charge.

tchrist

15:30

Although Harlequin-Romance–style fantasies are filled with clichéd talking cats, it is interesting to notice the way cats and dogs are portrayed in wider literature historically.

For the most part, it was the dog that was the faithful companion, and the cat the wicked scheming changeling in our midsts.

@RegDwightАΑA At the vet where I go, they have one door for birds and dogs, and a separate one for cats.

tchrist

16:06

@RegDwightАΑA Perhaps it depends on what they consider “reviewed”? Does that just mean it pops up one thing from its queue, no matter whether you say “Not sure” or not? Do only certain choices count, like edit or close? What about looks-good for suggest-deletion? Or do you have to hit the damn link link [sic] ? I ask because I exceeded 1,000 reviews, but there was absolutely no meagre silver badge forthcoming from the heroic effort.

@Reg It claims you have 486 reviews. Didn’t you have a way of summarizing those by disposition? Is that available to non-mods?

Matt Эллен

well, it says I have 155 reviews, yet I have the reviewer badge, so that can't be accurate

tchrist

A peremptory perusal of MSO uncovered no obvious discussion about this.

Well, there is stuff abou the new review-beta, but not about badge issues.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist tolja boy.

tchrist

@cornbreadninja That was directed towards @Cerberus, who claimed that the humidity was merely 05% there, a figure I knew to be “impossible” so near the swamps of the Amstel.

cornbread ninja

Your @ was fine the first time, but I do enjoy that sound.

tchrist

16:16

There ya go. :)

cornbread ninja

:D

tchrist

It multipings on multiëdits.

tchrist

16:33

Why is red the most important color?

I mean, really?

It’s the first color to get a name.

It’s the color with the most aliases in English, too. Here’s the ranking:

red=122 brown=76 yellow=76 blue=67 green=64 grey=48 black=37 white=30 orange=26 purple=23 violet=10

cornbread ninja

@tchrist it's the shortest (?) part of visible light.

ROY G. BIV

tchrist

Dang irregulars.

Because it's the color of blood?

cornbread ninja

I just saw a ROY G. BIV yesterday.

tchrist

I don't know. The problem is that we cannot see anything like so many shades of red as we can of violet/blue/green.

cornbread ninja

It's primary.

@tchrist you might be on to something here.

tchrist

16:36

@cornbreadninja How was the old dear?

cornbread ninja

@tchrist mostly intact.

tchrist

She made a brief and faint appearance for me.

cornbread ninja

Saw double on my birthday.

tchrist

I FF’d brown. It’s really. . .
red=122 brown=89 yellow=76 blue=67 green=64 grey=48 black=37 white=30 purple=28 orange=25 violet=10

@cornbreadninja Brown and yellow aren’t primaries, but they beat out blue and green, which are.

cornbread ninja

Where did you get this alias ranking?

tchrist

16:40

The OED, where else? :)

Mitch

-1

Q: Word to describe 'speed at which the apocalypse is coming'

Is there a word to describe the 'speed at which the apocalypse is coming'? Thank you!

single-word-requests

tchrist

Oh purple just beat orange.

Mitch

closed already. is XVH teachable?

cornbread ninja

What kind of aliases are we talking here? Grass, sky, blood, urine, mud?

Tide can remove those pesky sky stains.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja see jwpat7's avatar

jwpat7, MT

22.9k 2 21 63

single-word-requests word-choice meaning nouns phrase-requests expressions phrases

cornbread ninja

16:42

@Mitch his(?) is prettier.

tchrist

Words whose definitions contain the words colour, hue, or shade, and which I hand-curated, not just blindly grepped.

@Mitch I begin to doubt.

cornbread ninja

Like puce, burgundy, &c?

tchrist

That might not even be the operative tense.

@cornbreadninja Certs.

cornbread ninja

dons dunce cap XVH?

Mitch

I've seen a double in real life once before, but...camera or phone couldn't get out before the rainbow went away.

cornbread ninja

16:43

@Mitch that was probably the fourth double I've seen and photographed. I feel fortunate.

tchrist

And not counting the hyphenated ones, like red-orange.

Mitch

@tchrist his questins all seem interesting, until you realize something is wrong.

cornbread ninja

Blood-orange.

Ohhhhh.

XVH.

tchrist

aeruginous: Of the nature or color of verdigris, or copper-rust.

Mitch

AFK until not.

tchrist

16:45

bisque: A light brown color or tint.

bistre: brown pigment prepared from common soot; the color of this.

blae: Of a dark color between black and blue; blackish blue; of the
color of the blae-berry; livid; also, of a lighter shade, bluish grey,
lead-colored.

cornbread ninja

Does ochre register?

tchrist

canard: A bright, deep blue, like the color which is found on a duck's wing.

Moment.

Sure.

ochre: a pale brownish yellow

capucine: The dark orange color of these flowers. (French name of
the Nasturtium)

chaudron: A reddish color, somewhat resembling copper.

crotal: of the color of lichen, golden-brown.

feldgrau: Field-grey; hence, a German soldier in a uniform of this color.

cornbread ninja

wishes for OED access

tchrist

feuille: A very light green

A murder of pilcrows!

2

Hare today, soup tomorrow.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist I guffawed.

tchrist

16:49

fleeten: Of the color of skimmed milk.

cornbread ninja

@tchrist so, bluish?

tchrist

Odd, eh?

modena: A deep purple color.

menald: Of a deer: Of a dappled chestnut color.

nacarat: A bright orange-red color.

nacrine: The hue of nacre. (pearl)

nankeen: A yellow or pale buff

niveous: snow-white

picescent, piceous: of a color between reddish-black and rust-colored

Dare ya to try that one! :)

porraceous: Of the nature or color of the leek; leek-green.

RegDwight АΑA

@tchrist ugh. Um. No, yes, something, perhaps. What?

tchrist

sinoper: A color of some shade of red. (lake, cinnabar)

sinople: The color green

Hi Reg.

Was trying to figure out the reviewer stuff.

RegDwight АΑA

@tchrist no idea, but I did notice that they won't stop presenting me with the same rubbish all over again even if I already reviewed it earlier.

tchrist

16:53

I thought you had a per-user summary of the counts of each thing.

@RegDwightАΑA Yes, what the hell is that about anyway?

cornbread ninja

I can get in with my card number and another library. :\

RegDwight АΑA

Bugs.

They do tell us to submit feedback on MSO.

tchrist

Also, they aren’t doing this randomly.

RegDwight АΑA

Kind of.

tchrist

They grab a question with low answers, and then show you all of them.

cornbread ninja

16:54

I'm miffed, miffed that I can no longer see my Copy Editor badge progress.

tchrist

Shouldn’t I have a Reviewer badge?

english.stackexchange.com/review-beta/low-quality-posts/stats

RegDwight АΑA

I saw you hit 1011 earlier today, so that'd be my question as well.

Some badge scripts run every five minutes, others only once a day.

Ah yes. Still at 1011. Slacker.

tchrist

My wings are tied.

RegDwight АΑA

I wonder where I am expected to get mine from.

Only 400-odd left.

And then there's other people.

And they can't be serious about silver.

This is more work than Electorate.

tchrist

46

A: Review-beta: Obviously good answer in low-quality

You caught me. We throw a few known cases into the queue* as "gotchas" to keep people from just nailing "Looks Good" or "Close" or whatever without reading the questions. If you see one of these just handle it normally, we're probably going to make them a little more... subtle over time. For n...

Agree re Electorate.

RegDwight АΑA

17:01

@tchrist well by the time they roll out the review score, people who care won't care anymore because they'll already have their badge.

tchrist

On phone, will post bugs to MSO after.

0

Q: Review-beta likes to show the same things over and over and over again

The new review-beta likes to show the same low-quality postings to the same person — me, but others have reported the same thing — repeatedly. Is this a bug, or an accidental misfeature?

discussion bug review-beta

6

Q: Reviewer Badge not awarded

A few days ago I actioned over 200 of my over 1000 reviews, but I still haven't received the Reviewer Badge. Am I missing something? Or is there a time delay until it gets awarded? Upvoted 137 Downvoted 1 Edited 8 Commented 3 Voted to Close 0 Flagged 55 Deleted 0 Reviewed 1235 I have ne...

support badges review

0

Q: Silver Reviewer badge much harder than Gold Electorate: Why?

Why are the requirements for the Silver Reviewer badge so much higher than those of the Gold Electorate badge? Isn’t this a bug? Silver Reviewer: 1000 reviews, over 200 actioned Gold Electorate: Voted on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions Reviewing is certainl...

discussion feature-request badges review-beta reviewer-badge

Are you clicking "not sure" or using an action on the post or just clicking "review" again? It should be taken out of your queue if you act on it or click Not Sure — Ben Brocka 1 min ago

Looks like the Reviewer badge script may run along with the other dailies at 3am UTC.

Mine was made after that time today.

Pardon me as I bugtest chat:

19

A: Formatting Sandbox

⁠ Double-Struck: ⁠ Monospace: ⁠ Sans-Serif: ⁠ Sans-Serif Italic: ⁠ Sans-Serif Bold: ⁠ Sans-Serif Bold Italic: ⁠ Script: ℊ ℰℊ ℱℴℴ ⁠ Italic: h ⁠ Bold: ...

Yup, it’s brucking foken.

Rimnods.

Mahnax

17:36

Aww.

I used up all of my closevotes today.

11

A: Formatting Sandbox

FATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflowFATAL ERROR: <kbd> overflow...

Huh.

tchrist

Bug?

Mahnax

Perhaps.

tchrist

This one looks bad too:

524

A: Why does modern Perl avoid UTF-8 by default?

: ℞: Set your PERL_UNICODE envariable to AS. This makes all Perl scripts decode @ARGV as UTF‑8 strings, and sets the encoding of all three of stdin, stdout, and stderr to UTF‑8. Both these are global effects, not lexical ones. At the top of your source file (progra...

Sonic The Hedgehog

Mahnax

sends Sonic a cease-and-desist order

tchrist

17:42

Nice chick.

Nice pu^C

Mitch

@tchrist yeah..the news has been all over itself trying to avoid saying the nam of the punk band going to prison in Russia for what is essentially performance art.

-2

Q: Is 'See our sister site' a plain example of sexist language?

See our sister site ... The users of such expression may have nothing against men, but I consider that that expression is a plain example of sexist language. In this light, I think the best method of phrasing the expression would be to reword that in order to eliminate and to avoid its nega...

sentence

I was the user of 'sister site' (frivolously of course):

Sonic The Hedgehog

Mitch

How many letters? Any letters known? What's the theme of the puns? See our sister site [English Crosswords and Usage](area51.stackexchange.org). — Mitch 2 hours ago

Whether XVH brought it up or not, ostensibly it's a legitimate question. It came so easily to me, but maybe it is viewed as sexist.

tchrist

18:03

There are just SO gonna hate me:

0

Q: Chat autoboxing screws up on Unicode 😿

The Bug The chat autoboxing of cited questions and answers screws up when those contain Unicode codepoints from any of the astral planes, like 1, 2, or 3. Example 1 This question autoboxes in chat to this: But it is supposed to look like this, the way it does if you go to it direc...

bug chat unicode

They’re gonna hate me because they’re using a POS UTF-16 language and treating it like UCS-2.

Classic screw-up.

Sonic The Hedgehog

@tchrist thwack

tchrist

Notice how the real question looks quite different from its autobox.

The queerest bit is that the weepy kitty emoticon comes through on the autobox, pero nada más.

I cannot begin to explain the WTF on that one.

Sonic The Hedgehog

The square box is shown on the title, but not on the question itself when I look at it from autobox.

tchrist

@Mitch You mean I prolly oughn’t Listen sister. . . . him.

Sonic The Hedgehog

That is weird.

When I click on the question and look at it from the meta itself, it shows the squares... but not here.

O.o

Mitch

18:16

@tchrist or 'girl, ...'

@tchrist: does unicode have mayan glyphs yet?

tchrist

@Mitch Not yet, but it might be in the Official Roadmap. I haven’t looked.

Yes, it only gets the kitticon.

Don’t get it.

For bug-for-bug internal self-consistency, it shouldn’t be getting that one, but it does.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Huh. @tchrist, it shows bees and cats from your computer, but on mine, it just shows white squares.

Why is that?

tchrist

That isn’t the issue.

Oh, that’s because you don’t have an adequate font and/or browser and/or operating system.

But despite appearances, that has nothing to do with what is going on with the bug. It’s another thing altogether. Annoying, true that, but different and OT for MSO.

@SonicTheHedgehog If you want to be able to see those, you should install the Symbola font from George Douros.

Hi @Mahnax. I finally files some bugs on MSO.

Mahnax

@tchrist Yes, I saw. Hello.

@SonicTheHedgehog No cross-posting /r/aww in this chat.

Sonic The Hedgehog

18:47

@Mahnax says who?

Mahnax

@SonicTheHedgehog Me.

I outrank you.

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Mahnax Uhh... do you think I care?

outrank?

Mahnax

Yes. Outrank.

Sonic The Hedgehog

oh come on, now we are ranking people?

Well guess what.

Mahnax

I'll humour you. What?

Sonic The Hedgehog

18:48

I'm level 178 Resistance on Maplestory.

So, just like any other resistances

Mahnax

This isn't Maplestory.

Sonic The Hedgehog

I am going to rebel.

behold. I am going to cross link so many pictures of cats that you will die of cuteness.

Mahnax

I will do no such thing.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Mahnax

yawns

Sonic The Hedgehog

18:50

Mahnax

Ha.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Mahnax

display:none, thou art my hero.

Sonic The Hedgehog

...>:)

Mahnax

I win.

tchrist

18:54

très amusant

Mahnax

There. I have tweaked it so that images that Sonic posts here will no longer show up for me.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Mahnax

But other people's images will.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Um, yeah.

The pic I just uploaded is not a cat picture...

shrugs

Mahnax

Oh, it does, does it?

Sonic The Hedgehog

18:56

Yeah... pretty much.

Mahnax

Please explain why Python package management sucks.

In your own words.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Well, I can't.

You ignored my pictures.

So I am ignoring yours...

shrugs

Mahnax

No, you're ignoring my question, which is not a picture.

QED.

Jasper would be proud.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Well, this is a stalmate, isn't?

Mahnax

No.

Sonic The Hedgehog

19:00

You ignore my pictures, you can't see whether I am insulting python or posting cat pictures.

Mahnax

Yes I can.

It's easy.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Well, you would have to endure cat pictures first.

Mahnax

Not true.

By the way, I love cats.

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Mahnax well, you wouldn't have problem with me cross linking aww if you loved cats.

Mahnax

@SonicTheHedgehog False.

I like cats, but I don't like seeing the chat room filled with pictures.

Sonic The Hedgehog

19:04

@Mahnax I will stop... if you ask nicely.

Mahnax

@SonicTheHedgehog OK. Would you please stop incessantly posting pictures here?

simchona

@SonicTheHedgehog Please stop spamming.

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Mahnax Yes.

Mahnax

Thank you.

Exactly. In my opinion, spam is exactly what it is…

Sonic The Hedgehog

I was getting tired anyway.

Remember, there is history.

Editing does nothing.

Mahnax

19:06

Pardon?

Sonic The Hedgehog

Eh. Nothing.

I have to go back to my reading anyhow

cya.

Mahnax

I added the word incessantly. It doesn't significantly change anything.

Bye.

@SonicTheHedgehog I added the word incessantly because it seemed unreasonable to request that you stop posting pictures altogether.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Oh wait, I forgot.

Guys, I got this Vindicator of They guy in my game...

Not too shabby, IMO.

Parody of They Might Be Giants band.

cornbread ninja

wow, it's not even caturday.

@SonicTheHedgehog nooooooo

Mahnax

I don't know what day it is.

Sonic The Hedgehog

19:12

Sunday, bro. Sunday.

@cornbreadninja Uh, why?

cornbread ninja

@SonicTheHedgehog They should not be parodied. I must hear this.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Ah.

@Mahnax, mind if I post just one bunny picture?

@cornbreadninja Uh, no cornbread. They didn't parody the music.

Mahnax

@SonicTheHedgehog sighs Oh, OK.

cornbread ninja

-_-

@Mahnax sorry.

Mahnax

@cornbreadninja I don't mind.

Sonic The Hedgehog

19:15

BTW, it should be "No, it's Bunday", not "No, is Bunday".

I am eating toast bread with eggs and tomatoes...

And you should too.

user19161

19:31

@SonicTheHedgehog stalemate

user19161

Hello @sim. How is your modship so far?

user19161

@mahnax Are you enjoying your hols?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Yeah.

user19161

@Mahnax Good good.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy Yeah. We are renting a wave runner for two hours today.

user19161

19:42

@Mahnax What is a wave runner?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy I think it's like a jet ski.

Sonic The Hedgehog

What's a hol?

user19161

@Mahnax Oh OK. Have you done water skiing before?

Mahnax

@JasperLoy No.

Sonic The Hedgehog

I'm no good at ice skating, water ski, skateboard, etc... sigh

So what is a hol?

I'm curious.

Mahnax

19:44

Holiday.

user19161

@Mahnax My grow up question did not get as many votes as I expected. Only the comment sort of answered it, so I edited it into the answer given.

Sonic The Hedgehog

...Oh.

Mahnax

@JasperLoy OK.

Seven votes is pretty good.

user19161

I am just surprised that people thought the original answer answered it. As I commented, the original answer does not seem to answer it at all.

user19161

But in the absence of a better answer, I will accept the single answer given for now.

Mahnax

19:48

No, don't.

If you don't think it answers the question, why accept it?

user19161

Because now the comment sort of answers it, and I like to have all my questions with accepts.

Mahnax

If you say so.

user19161

Essentially, the answer in the comment is that the end of the process is represented by the process itself.

user19161

In other words, the answer is a "just because".

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Jasper What's the question? Perhaps I could have a crack at it.

user19161

19:51

7

Q: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

The usual question and answer seem to be of the form What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a singer when I grow up. Should it not be What do you want to be when you have grown up? I want to be a singer when I have grown up. Here we have interpreted grow up as...

tense

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Jasper ...Never mind. Sorry, no good at English.

user19161

@SonicTheHedgehog No, your English is fine, much better than Xavier's.

user19161

@sonic Are you also having hols now?

Sonic The Hedgehog

@Jasper If you consider Summer Vacation Holiday, than yes.

cornbread ninja

20:50

I found a Unix that displays a smiley face.

It's in Unix In A Nutshell

cornbread ninja

21:44

coughs

Mitch

blinks

cornbread ninja

ohai @Mitch

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…