English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

rsegal

00:00

Is there a way to tab a line over? I'm trying to match the formatting of a poem I'm citing.

Cerberus

@tchrist But he is from Canada...

tchrist

He apparently lives just outside Toronto. Color me méfiant.

user19161

@rsegal Use shift+enter in chat to go to the next line

KitFox

@rsegal You mean in blockquote without invoking the code format?

rsegal

@KitFox yeah

tchrist

00:00

Corsica would do it, yeah.

ΜετάEd

he means indentation

rsegal

^ yeah

KitFox

@rsegal Use the > on the first line, then put two spaces at the end of each subsequent line.

Cerberus

@ΜετάEd I was trying to refer to Tchrist's post on hence/thence/thither/etc.

KitFox

Or just write it and I can fix it for you.

tchrist

00:01

@rsegal This is very hard. But possible, kinda.

@KitFox That would be easiest here, I think.

rsegal

english.stackexchange.com/questions/77633/…

Cerberus

@tchrist Wiki c'ests that the Québécois also have /r/ in some cases.

rsegal

?

KitFox

@rsegal You mean in an answer or in chat?

rsegal

answer

tchrist

00:03

You have to lace it with nobreaking spaces, maybe with some inviso first. I’ve done it. I have to work it out afresh each time.

ΜετάEd

@KitFox When you're typesetting a poem you might need multiple levels of indentation.

tchrist

@Cerberus That may be it then.

KitFox

@ΜετάEd Yes, yes, I understand.

ΜετάEd

I know you can do nested blockquotes but I don't remember if they create borders.

Which would be ugly.

rsegal

they do

Cerberus

00:04

@tchrist By the way, I actually started typing c'est when I wanted to write says, so I thought why not.

KitFox

@rsegal It looks OK to me. Is there something else you wanted to do to it?

rsegal

the last line should be indented once or twice

as it is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven

tchrist

See mine for how to do it.

KitFox

Oh, I see. You want the classic styling.

tchrist

(refresh)

ΜετάEd

00:06

@rsegal The only suggestion I can come up with is the "code" format.

tchrist

No!!!!

ΜετάEd

which is also for preformatted text, which is what you're up to anyway.

rsegal

'code' format is icky :P

ΜετάEd

Four space indent every line of the poem. Additional spaces will tab stuff to the right.

tchrist

Do it like this:

ΜετάEd

00:06

icky, but I think it's the best it can do.

tchrist

6

A: What is the correct way to write 'for ever more'?

The OED has both flavors: 1850 Tennyson In Mem. xxxiv, ― My own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore. 1872 Longf. Christus Introitus 46 ― Forevermore, it shall be as it hath been heretofore. I myself would do the second; it goes with Poe’s nevermore. Are you sure ...

Refresh page to get my edit, look at the verses.

ΜετάEd

What are those, en spaces?

tchrist

No. 0xA0, NO-BREAK SPACE characters.

ΜετάEd

Ah, nonbreaking spaces.

Yes, if you can insert specials, that's a good approach. For some systems (or some people) that's just too weird.

tchrist

Run this in a shell and use murine snarf-n-barf:

macbook# perl -CS -le 'print "x", "\xA0" x 8, "x"'
x x

There are now 8 of them between the x's.

Or just grab from here.

ΜετάEd

00:08

well gotta go!

KitFox

So @rsegal, can you handle that, or you want me (or tchrist) to do it?

@ΜετάEd Bye, sug'ums!

rsegal

@KitFox I tried to do it, but it didn't work. If you could, that would be much appreciated!

KitFox

OK, let me give it a shot.

tchrist

@KitFox You’ll have to use a lot of them till it’s far enough right to look the way he wants.

KitFox

OK.

Thanks.

user19161

00:19

@kit Did you discover any secrets with your new mod powers?

rsegal

42

that was the secret

;)

KitFox

Good lord. I should have just looked up the keyboard entry.

2

A: What is the correct way to write 'for ever more'?

Edgar Allen Poe also used 'for evermore', famously in The Raven. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow...

tchrist

What did you do?

Robusto

@KitFox The answer is: yes!

KitFox

@tchrist Oh, I reformatted all your shit. That's what you wanted, right?

tchrist

00:24

You should have just snagged the stuff with your mouse that I pasted above.

KitFox

@tchrist It wouldn't paste properly.

It didn't like me.

tchrist

Weird.

KitFox

So I looked up the input for No-Break Space.

That worked fine too, unless I tried to copy paste it.

Maybe it has something to do with my keyboard setup on the laptop. No numlock.

tchrist

I think Microsoft fucks up with its "Codepage" idiocy when you paste. On Macs and other Unix systems, everything routes through Unicode, and if needed, converts dynamically if pasting into a window of a different encoding.

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus it's my understanding that someone was removed

tchrist

00:26

I believe Microsoft forgets to convert.

Robusto

@tchrist But they think they're helping you!

tchrist

Or it may downgrade U+00A0 to codepage cp1252, which is 8 bit, which when you paste again into a UTF-8 window, it forgets to upconvert again.

KitFox

Well, I think both operating systems are too smart.

tchrist

Well, the Mac just works.

If you call that smart, so be it.

KitFox

It does stuff for you, so you don't have to think.

tchrist

00:27

I am referring to this specific circumstance only.

No, it Does The Right Thing.

What Microsoft does is simply wrong.

KitFox

And you can't break it without Apple telling you it is OK to do so, so that's nice too.

tchrist

You cannot paste 8-bit data into a Unicode window.

KitFox

Plus, it is pretty.

@tchrist I will take your word for it.

tchrist

I only remember the keyboard tricks for the characters used in Spanish, French, German, etc. Anything else I run a trivial perl command in a shell window to get the characters I need, then use the mouse to snag.

KitFox

I have a sheet of paper taped to my desk slider.

tchrist

00:30

Like Opt+e for acute, Opt+n for tilde, Opt+u for diaeresis, etc.

KitFox

I only use a few odd ones every now and again anyway.

tchrist

I can't be arsed to type in stupid codes.

KitFox

I only just learned how to type them about a year ago. In this very chat, actually.

And because of Rob and Reg.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja Hmm...

rsegal

@KitFox weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/…

tchrist

00:31

The @#$%#@ Microsoft codes aren't even the code point numbers.

They make up their own numbers.

It is evil.

Cerberus

Autohotkey is really the best way to write special characters.

KitFox

@tchrist Agreed.

tchrist

Which is?

Cerberus

I type o// for ó, o\/ for ŏ, etc.

KitFox

@rsegal snortgiggle

You want to learn how to do the keyboard input?

rsegal

00:33

@KitFox yes please!

KitFox

Are you on Windows or Mac?

Or other?

rsegal

windows

but

it's a bootcamp

KitFox

Do you have a numeric keypad?

rsegal

no, laptop

tchrist

@Cerberus I confess that I don’t like reaching for anything that isn’t available with my fingers locked into homerow position. The Opt+ key isn’t in a nice place.

KitFox

00:34

thinks So you've got a Mac keyboard?

rsegal

(and I mentioned it's a bootcamp both because that sometimes gunks things up, and because the mac one would also be helpful)

yeah, Mac keyboard

tchrist

And of course I remap CAPS_LOCK to CTRL.

Where it belongs.

Cerberus

@tchrist I completely agree, and I also dislike having to hold down keys while pressing other keys.

tchrist

The right place for the caps lock key is in the next room.

Of someone you hate.

Cerberus

I use capslock for all sorts of things.

Shift+capslock enables capslock.

tchrist

00:35

I use it for control. :)

KitFox

@rsegal I'm not sure if what I know will work for you then.

user19161

I never use caps lock.

tchrist

Like when I am typing, I don't hit <BACKSPACE>. I use ^h.

Meaning CTRL+h.

Cerberus

Simple capslock is escape here. The escape key is so far away. Control is within reach.

What does control-h do?

tchrist

The ESC key is the one to the immediate left of the 1 key.

Cerberus

00:36

It opens a side bar for me.

rsegal

@KitFox how about normally on a Mac?

tchrist

cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^H; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;
stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;

KitFox

@rsegal That's what I am trying to remember.

Cerberus

Oh, and double capslock opens IPA mode.

KitFox

tchrist probably would know.

I haven't actually done it on a Mac, although I remember reading the instructions at one point.

tchrist

00:36

That's stty -a output. Shows my bindings for special characters when the tty is in canonical line mode.

Cerberus

@tchrist So how do you use control-h to backspace?

Oh, you have remapped it.

How is control-h easier than backspace?

tchrist

I type ^h to erase the char behind me, ^w the word, ^u the whole line.

as it says above if you squint.

Cerberus

Yes, I saw that.

I use control-backspace to backspace a word.

tchrist

The status key is so cool.

Cerberus

Status key?

user19161

00:38

You know about hitting shift 5 times?

tchrist

If something is running and I don't know what it is doing, I hit ^T (CTRL-T) and it tells me things like this:

chthon(tchrist)% perl -e 'while (1) { $i++ }'
load: 0.36 cmd: perl 2422 [runnable] 1.75u 0.01s 7% 425k
load: 0.36 cmd: perl 2422 [runnable] 4.18u 0.01s 16% 425k
load: 0.41 cmd: perl 2422 [runnable] 6.63u 0.01s 27% 425k

So each line starting with "load" is what got printed as I hit ^T.

Cerberus

What does all that mean?

tchrist

It is not the default on a mac, you have to execute the command "stty status ^t" to set it up to happen.

Cerberus

You're on a Mac??

Well, well.

KitFox

@rsegal It looks like you can use Option plus the code, so maybe try something like Opt 0150 and see if you get an em-dash.

tchrist

00:40

It means I have a 0.36 runnable jobs, the cmd name is perl, the process id is 2422, the state is runnable, the process has accumulated 1.75sex of user time and 0.01sex of system time and I am taking up 7% of the cpu and the process uses 425k of memory.

That's all.

KitFox

That's not a lot of sex.

tchrist

@KitFox Yes that is right, but you have to enable Unicode input.

Wait.

KitFox

Unicode Hex Input keyboard.

tchrist

% uninames EN DASH
– 2013 EN DASH

The code point number is 0x2013 for EN DASH.

KitFox

The input is different in Windows then. That's hardly surprising.

tchrist

00:42

% uninames EM DASH
— 2014 EM DASH
* may be used in pairs to offset parenthetical text
x (katakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark - 30FC)

KitFox

Sorry, my bad.

tchrist

The problem is that is not Unicode numbers. That 150 thing.

KitFox

Yes, I understand.

tchrist

@Cerberus I am sometimes typing into a Mac, sometimes into a regular BSD Unix system, OpenBsd in fact. Mac is derived from FreeBSD.

user19161

@tchrist I did not know Mac came from that.

tchrist

00:43

Yes.

That's why all the old Unix hackers switched to Mac.

We wouldn't be caught dead touching the pre-Unix abomination.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ah, I understand.

tchrist

MacOS X — meaning Darwin — is the first release with Unix underneath.

KitFox

looks pointedly @Cerberus

Cerberus

@tchrist The latter sounds better.

@KitFox What!

KitFox

@Cerberus raises eyebrows and touches nose

Cerberus

00:46

@KitFox Is your giant statue cross eyed?

tchrist

It is for some things. It isn't so crazy. It has better documentation and much better security. It has a smaller memory footprint by a mile. You can use it as a router "for free".

KitFox

@Cerberus coughs

Cerberus

chisels off tiny bit of marble

tchrist

My firewall machine is a superduper slow 13-year-old x86 box running OpenBSD. It is plenty fast enough of a processor for doing packet-switching stuff.

KitFox

sighs, whacks @Cerb's left head

tchrist

00:47

But OpenBSD is next to impossible for commercial software like Photoshop and the like.

Cerberus

This will fit nicely with my pieces of the Berlin Wall and the Pyramid of Cheops.

user19161

@KitFox No self injury in this chat.

KitFox

@Cerberus Sometimes you can be incredibly dense, my friend.

tchrist

Sometimes there is a Linux version, which it can run in emulation mode if you set things up for that.

user19161

@tchrist I never tried BSD except PC-BSD once.

tchrist

00:47

Emulation mode is not slow. It's not that kind of emulation. Just a different syscall jump table vector into the kernel.

Cerberus

@KitFox Ah, I get it. Your statue was distracting me.

KitFox

Was I looming?

Sometimes I loom.

tchrist

I need the Mac for example to run the Nikon raw conversion software I use. The free stuff just isn’t as good, and they only sell it for Apple and Microsoft.

And I would suicide before letting Microsoft eat my soul.

So I use the Mac.

KitFox

Meh.

user19161

Chat is getting too fast for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KitFox

00:49

All OSs suck.

tchrist

Plus the guy who taught me photo processing was on a Mac and it was easier that way.

No, Kit.

KitFox

Just in different ways.

tchrist

Have you ever written kernel code?

Robusto

The old Final Cut Pro on the Mac is the best video-editing software I've used.

user19161

@KitFox Should not that be OSes?

KitFox

00:50

@JasperLoy I don't write it "systemes" so no.

tchrist

@JasperLoy It is for me. Should is a bit prescriptivist though.

user19161

@Robusto No wonder you have many Protips.

tchrist

Words that end in -s form their plurals with -ses.

This does not change just because you cap the S.

user19161

Like two Santa Clauses.

user19161

Or two FumbleFingerses.

tchrist

00:51

LIKE TWO SANTA CLAUSES.

Cerberus

@tchrist I sympathize with that, although it is Scylla and Charybdis, really. And Charybdis's star is the the ascedentent of evildom, so you'd be somewhat better off faring a bit closer back to Scylla again.

KitFox

I'm going to take a stroll now, I think.

tchrist

Not like SANTA CLAUSs.

Poor kit.

Sorry.

KitFox

I'm glad that Rob has a Mac friend now.

user19161

@KitFox Good, good.

KitFox

00:52

'sok @tchrist. We can disagree about how to write OSs.

I don't mind you being wrong.

user19161

Well I would just avoid the construction altogether to avoid this.

KitFox

;-)

tchrist

@Cerberus Scylla is a monstrous bully.

Cerberus

Of course.

And so is Charybdis.

tchrist

I know. It says so right here, in this review for Gene Wolfe’s *Book of the Long Sun*:
His gods have let him down by proving to be mere ghosts in the machine heaven called Mainframe, and (for the most part) not nice ghosts either: Pas the father has already been murdered by his family, Echidna the mother forcibly possesses one of the most sympathetic characters and conducts a nasty human sacrifice to herself, and Scylla -- one of the several offspring -- is a monstrous bully.

Cerberus

00:54

Pas?

tchrist

Hominibus, perhaps.

Cerberus

I don't get it.

tchrist

Pax, maybe. Dunno. Father-figure god in the constructed pantheon.

He’s really Typhon, though.

He renamed himself Pas when he uploaded to pretend to be peaceful. He’s a dick, so his kids killed him.

Cerberus

Oh, in this novel.

tchrist

Right.

Cerberus

00:57

I know my daddy.

tchrist

autostifles

Cerberus

Wha?

tchrist

Read: bites tongue

selfsilences

Cerberus

Why?

tchrist

Because you're begging the question, in the contemporary sense not the elder one.

Cerberus

00:59

I refuse to acknowledge the incorrect sense; ceterum I still don't understand what this was about.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…