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2:00 PM
@Jez Naaaaah.
@MattЭллен Hehe, probably.
@Robusto Hmm how?
 
@RegDwighт If one part of the truth table is false, it's all false.
 
@Cerberus then it all makes sense!
 
nods
 
51
Q: Is Python a snake or a programming language? If the latter, why is it choking my dog?

RobustoWe've been getting a rash of questions asking, essentially, what a programmer should name methods or properties. One such was a request for a word that meant both "add" and "remove" because the programmer wanted to have a method that could add or remove an element. Does this really fall under E...

Read his objections to my headline.
 
Mohammad Sepahvand looks suspiciously like the Dude
 
2:01 PM
I wouldn't want to come across a python as thick as my chest. Especially not in the jungle.
 
@MattЭллен That's just, like, your opinion, man.
@Cerberus But trouser snakes are fine?
 
@Robusto Oh, God, that.
@Robusto Not fine, but better.
 
I don't understand the title of this question at all. So much so that I wasted my time asking a question that got merged into this one. And wasted Jeff Atwood's time actually performing the merge. The daft thing is I've noticed this question several times. The actual matter being discussed would never have occured to me from the title alone. — FumbleFingers May 8 '11 at 22:28
 
Jez
@Cerberus complacency.
 
It is a Meta question, for God's sake.
 
2:03 PM
Heaven forfend that JA Rule's time be wasted!
 
@Jez Naaaah.
 
Jez
what are you now, a sheep with a lisp?
 
@Jez Name one instance in history where a minority language spoken mostly by people in the lower socio-economic strata was able to dominate a dominant culture with strong traditions.
 
And why does it matter?
 
English
 
2:05 PM
Let's not forget that. Why does it matter if Spanish overtakes English in popularity?
 
The death of a tradition?
That's always painful.
 
Oh goodness me! Something might be different!?
 
Jez
@Cerberus English in the Roman empire
 
Unless the tradition was truly evil in all respects.
 
Jez
@Cerberus English during the Norman invasion
 
2:06 PM
because then those whose only language is English (i.e. the people currently in charge) will not be able to be in charge any more!
 
@Cerberus but the centuries-old tradition is that Spanish is the lingua franca, not English.
 
@Jez Uhh what? That doesn't make any sense.
@Jez What does this mean?
 
Jez
@Cerberus well, what English would become back then
 
@RegDwighт Not in the cultural area seen as the American nation.
@Jez I'm sorry, but I can't even tell what you are describing.
English did not exist during the Roman Empire.
 
@Cerberus how do you mean? Where do you think names such as Texas and California and Nevada come from?
 
Jez
2:08 PM
the English people, during the Norman invasion, continued to speak English
English became dominant again
 
@Cerberus English was not the language of the ruling classes after the Norman invasion, French was. English was on the path to extinction, but then the English King started to hate the Frnech and so started speaking English, and everyone followed suit.
 
Jez
but those who spoke English were lower class
 
@RegDwighт The majority and the cultural mainstream have been English for a long time.
 
America is English + Spanish + French by design. If anything, Spanish has lost ground. And French only survives in the hat.
 
Jez
English might become a puny stump of what it is today if we dont defend it. It'll be like Italian or something, and the big languages will be Mandarin and Spanish. Mainly because the speakers of the aforementioned damn well fought to promote them
 
2:09 PM
@Jez Yes, but they were a large majority.
 
Jez
how has Spanish lost ground, exactly?
@Cerberus Latinos in the US are rapidly increasing in number
 
This is hilarious.
 
@Jez Again, English is socio-economically dominant.
 
Jez
anyway, there still shouldn't be no-go areas for English speakers, even if they are lower class areas.
it just sucks.
 
You would need a huge and very sudden increase of Spanish speakers.
 
2:11 PM
@Jez I figure you have never heard of the Mexican-American war.
 
There is no such increase.
@Jez No-go areas in what sense?
 
Jez
@RegDwighт that's a long time ago. i'm talking in the last 100 years, say
@Cerberus in that you can't communicate
 
@MattЭллен On the path to extinction? I don't believe that.
 
Jez
i firmly believe that one major factor in the US's strength has been that the people speak one common language
 
@Jez OK.
 
2:12 PM
@Jez and I was talking the last 200+ years.
 
Jez
which is why the EU can't really ever be as successful as the US
 
Look, that what language is all about, right? People find ways to communicate.
 
@Jez It certainly is an advantage; but English as a very strong second language will do as well.
@Jez And yet the EU is very successful.
 
Jez
@Cerberus on the report i heard this morning, you've got a bunch of people from Cuba/Mexico/South America who don't really speak ANY English
 
If it's not English, then it is Spanish, or Beijinghua, or Hindi, or Farsi. Who cares?
 
Jez
2:13 PM
@Cerberus compared to the US? people can't just move to other countries and start working without a massive investment in language learning.
@KitFox what?
 
@KitFox Jez does. Jez always cares.
 
It will do humans a world of good if more of them have a reason to learn another language.
 
@Jez Yes, that can be a disadvantage to them. It will make it more difficult for them to move up or around, if they so desire.
@Jez I meant economic success.
 
Jez
@KitFox dude we're not talking about "another" language, we're talking about one in particular which seems to be rather.... aggressive in its spread.
 
I'm still not sure where the "aggressive in its spread" part came from.
 
2:15 PM
@KitFox Do you happen to know of any research showing that learning more languages makes you perform better at some other tasks or something?
It is possible, I don't know.
 
@Jez Well, like I said, you really should come join the fight over here. I'm sure there are plenty who would welcome you.
 
Jez
@RegDwighт lots of people from central/southern america coming into NA and speaking spanish all the time
 
@Cerberus it was, according to The Adventure of English. First the ruling class only spoke French, so in order to get anywhere in life the middle classes had to learn French and slowly English was being eroded. It took a few generations, buy it was on the ropes
 
Jez
@KitFox sadly, they'd probably also be the anti-immigrant crowd :-)
 
@Jez You guessed it.
 
Jez
2:15 PM
i just think the US should integrate better like it used to
 
Hollywood is aggressive in its spread. I am yet to see a single Hollywood movie in Spanish. Or Russian, for that matter.
 
Jez
you want to settle in the US, you conduct business in English and prove that you can speak English well
 
@MattЭллен Um and how large do you think the middle classes were? Very small.
 
I think you are making a big deal out of nothing.
 
McDonald's and Coca Cola are aggressive in their spread. They use English aggressively, all over the world. I never noticed them use Spanish.
 
2:16 PM
@KitFox Agreed.
 
@RegDwighт They use Spanish in the southern US.
 
Jez
@KitFox well we'll review it in 20 years when the US is a 50/50 bilingual nation
 
@Cerberus not really. And it wasn't just the middle class. anyone who aspired to be middle class
 
@KitFox serves them right, then. Quid pro quo.
 
certainly all text was in French
 
2:17 PM
@Jez See, the thing is, I would welcome that. You would not. This is why I have a hard time caring about it.
 
You export American-English movies, you get Mexican-Spanish burritos. What's the issue?
 
Jez
@KitFox what about an all-Spanish nation?
 
@Jez what about it?
 
Jez
would Kit welcome it?
 
Spain seems to do just fine with being an all-Spanish nation.
 
2:18 PM
@MattЭллен Look, there was obviously considerable French influence on English. An influence the likes of which are not easily found around Europe. But I am not buying your claim that there was ever anything close to a majority speaking French at home.
Unless I misunderstood your claim.
 
@Jez shrugs Why not?
 
Jez
@KitFox interesting. well as an English speaker I think it would be a shame.
 
Yeah. I don't get your attachment to your native tongue.
 
As a British English speaker you're ashamed of American English anyway.
So no harm done.
 
Jez
@RegDwighт ashamed? hardly
 
2:19 PM
You might just as well be concerned that all blue-eyed people will disappear off the face of the planet.
 
@Cerberus Well, I have no numbers. The claim is that in a few more generations English would have gone because it would have so little utility.
 
Jez
@KitFox well it looks like i'm not alone, doesn't it? if you look at the myriad examples around the world of people fiercely defending their language.
 
@Jez And I don't understand that either.
 
@MattЭллен In any case, the Normal invasion is quite different from Spanish in America. First of all, the Normans were socio-economically very, very dominant. Secondly, they had the ever great cultural dominance of Latin across the entire continent behind them; Latin and Middle French were much more alike at the time. Thirdly, the invasion was very sudden.
 
Jez
@KitFox maybe you should try to, because there are a lot of people you're not understanding.
 
2:21 PM
@KitFox I do understand it. It's just in vain.
 
@Jez Why?
 
Jez
one might have thought you'd like to understand people
 
One might be wrong.
 
@MattЭллен I think that claim is based on a misunderstanding of the interaction between home languages and official/formal languages, and bilingualism in general.
Possibly caused by a misinterpretation of written sources.
 
@Cerberus maybe. who knows? it didn't happen, anyway :D
 
Jez
2:22 PM
@KitFox there's also the practical fact that if Spanish takes over, it's a total bitch for all the English speakers who are too old to realistically start learning it well
it's kinda heartless not to care about them
 
If every single document we have from 11th-century Britain is in French, that still doesn't tell us much about what people spoke at home.
@MattЭллен Thank God it didn't, because Germanic languages are easier for me.
 
@Jez so? That has happened thousands of times in history. We are still here.
 
@Jez Except that Spanish would not take over overnight. You're inventing a completely implausible catastrophe.
 
@Jez Let me assure you, there is no such danger.
 
Jez
towards the later stages, it would obviously happen
there would be a few people still speaking english, ever-decreasing
 
2:24 PM
Oh obviously.
 
If that would happen at all, which I think is highly unlikely, it would take at least 300 years.
 
Jez
unless they all happened to die on the same day
 
Of course. At some point the last native speaker of Middle English died.
 
Read up on history.
It doesn't work like that.
 
the anti-English speaking bio-toxic agent
 
2:25 PM
Even Dutch will probably survive for a couple of centuries.
 
Jez
but really, let's go back to my real question: why is Spanish spreading much more successfully than English in the Americas? why do Spanish speakers seem to feel so much more determined to speak it?
 
But why do you care again, @Jez? I mean, if the US just decides to start speaking Spanish tomorrow, why does that matter to you?
 
@Jez I do not feel that that is even true.
There have always been lots of people speaking Spanish in the US.
 
Jez
@KitFox A major nation speaking my mother tongue is a large benefit to me. stuff gets translated into English that otherwise wouldnt be
 
And people all over the world are learning English as a second language.
 
Jez
2:26 PM
yeah, badly
 
Including South America.
 
So if we are entertaining completely pointless scenarios, how about this: a century after English completely dies out world-wide, people will resurrect it. It will be like Hebrew. Except cooler, of course. Because everyone knows how much cooler English is compared to Hebrew.
 
Jez
anyway, ESL doesnt mean stuff will get translated into English
 
If you want to communicate with foreigners in Mexico City, you speak English, and so will your Mexican acquaintances.
If badly.
 
Jez
it means it will get translated into Spanish... because they arent going to want their stuff in their second language, are they?
 
2:27 PM
@Jez you will be long dead by that point. And even if Spanish takes over tonight, in one hour, you will not run out of English-language books for the rest of your life and beyond.
 
@RegDwighт Where will we get the required English Zionism?
Will it be called Oxonianism?
 
@Cerberus we will resurrect PNAC, too.
 
Reclaim Oxford, the Holy Site of Englishism?
@RegDwighт Who?
 
Jez
@RegDwighт never mind books, what about contemporary stuff from Japan or China or something?
 
2:28 PM
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1997 to 2006. It was co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership." Fundamental to the PNAC were the view that "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world" and support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." The PNAC exerted influence on high-level U.S. government officials in the administration of U.S. President ...
@Jez you still aren't finished reading all the books that already exist. So get to work.
 
Oh, those loonies. I have heard of them.
 
Jez
@RegDwighт i mean tech
i dont mean new books
 
I think it boils down to Jez just being too lazy to learn another language.
 
@Jez Aren't you afraid all of Europe will soon speak in Arabic, and we will all have to learn Arabic?
 
Jez
anyway, i find it a bit strange that on a site dedicated to celebrating the English language, there seems to be little love for its continuation.
 
2:29 PM
@Jez 99% of contemporary stuff from China does not get translated anyway. And never will be. You see, little do you know that once you have mastered Spanish, everyone around you will be speaking Chinese.
 
Jez
@Cerberus there's not so much Arabic immigration into Europe
 
@Jez Fallacy.
That is a false dichotomy.
We dispute your "danger".
Its existence.
 
Jez
@Cerberus i would also argue that Europeans are very strong at defending their languages. the French will not tolerate French dying out. The italians likewise. The Spanish... well, obviously.
 
@Jez love doesn't have to be blind to reality.
 
@Jez Oh, there is lots.
 
2:31 PM
@RegDwighт gasp You're right! I need to make a phone call...
 
@Jez And yet people in Paris start speaking English to me when I ask them something in French.
@KitFox Hello, this is your operator. Ching, press 1. Chong, press 2. Pin-pong, press 3.
 
Jez
@Cerberus not as a first language :-)
 
But even the Parisiens are losing their linguistic arrogance...
You know what happens to me sometimes?
 
Jez
@Cerberus well i was just talking to a French guy who told me most French speak only French, so that's not necessarily true
 
giggles
 
2:33 PM
@Cerberus you forget what you're talking about halfway thought a sentence?
 
"The French defend their territory, so we must defend ours!"
 
Jez
@KitFox yeah, why not?
 
@Jez most French meet each other on le weekend, despite French not even having the letter W. I rest my case.
 
@MattЭллен Someone from a strange land within my own Kingdom, like the South, will speak to me on the street, to ask for directions, in Dutch, but I can't understand him very well: I will automatically speak English to him. I have done that several times.
 
@Jez It's silly.
 
2:33 PM
@KitFox well, they're only an hours travel away! They could invade at any moment
 
Jez
le weekend is arguably the strangest entrant into French I've ever seen :-)
 
@Jez That's different.
 
@Cerberus cool!
 
@MattЭллен From you. smiles contentedly until she realizes they are also only an hour from her door
 
@MattЭллен It is a bit insulting.
 
2:34 PM
@KitFox :D
 
Then I have to keep up the English once I have realised my mistake.
 
Good lord! We'll be speaking only French here in no time!
 
@Cerberus oh, yeah, I suppose it'd be like me speaking French to a Geordie. But cool from a utilitarian perspective
 
Except of course that we do and have for centuries.
 
@MattЭллен What's a Geordie?
 
Jez
2:35 PM
@KitFox oui oui, nous parlons comme ci
 
@KitFox But if they gain independence, they might get imperialist ambitions...
 
@Jez I mean in my neighborhood.
 
@Cerberus someone from Newcastle
 
Ah OK.
 
Jez
@KitFox New Orleans?
 
2:36 PM
There's a lot of Franglais in my neck of the woods.
 
Guess again.
 
Acadians, not quite Cajuns.
 
Jez
well where then? near Quebec?
 
Ayup.
 
Jez
now look at how the Quebecois defend french there
 
2:37 PM
@Jez Mind your accent!
 
Jez
it's like the most important thing to them
 
Yeah.
And yet somehow, French is not my primary language.
 
@Jez And yet they all speak English too. And they are said to have an English accent in many cases...
 
Jez
@KitFox were you born in Quebec?
 
@Cerberus That's not accurate.
 
Jez
2:38 PM
@Cerberus they all speak English? that's news to me.
 
@KitFox No?
 
They speak English, but they have their own accent.
 
@Jez Well, "all", you know what I mean.
 
@Jez No, but French is a strong second language here. Many people speak both.
Or a version.
 
Last time I spoke to a Québecois, his English was fine, if accented.
 
2:39 PM
I like their French. Their English varies, but it is a rather cute accent.
 
Jez
@KitFox yeah, well it would suck if spanish took over. then you would be expected to learn yet another language. i'm not a great language learner so it's not fair to people like me.
 
@Jez Well, I already know some Spanish because I lived in Carolina for seven years, where Spanish is a strong second language.
 
@KitFox Yeah I couldn't distinguish it from a hexagonal French accent.
 
Jez
i suspected you might have known some
 
Well, it helps to understand "the help."
 
Jez
2:40 PM
@KitFox how would you feel if Mandarin were taking over? would you be happy to try learning that from scratch? not everyone has experience of Spanish
 
I know more Mandarin than Spanish.
 
@Jez well why not shorten all this fruitless discussion to just that, "I am not good at X, so X is not fair to me".
 
I know more Spanish than Dutch
 
Jez
@RegDwighт because it's more than that. IMHO, going into another country, then refusing to speak its language, is downright disrespectful
 
I don't have a driver's license, so people driving around is not fair to people like me. Discuss. For the next two hours.
 
2:41 PM
@Jez The fact that people don't like to learn a new language should help to stem the tide, don't you think?
 
Jez
@Cerberus not if lots of Spanish speakers displace non-Spanish speakers.
 
@Jez Yeah, people here have made that argument for a long, long time.
 
@Jez How many people are there, you think, whose children's primary language is Spanish, while their own is English?
 
@Jez people come to my city and don't drive a bike like I do. Neither do they grow tomatoes or play piano or buy LEGO. That's disrespectful to me.
 
@Jez Displace how? Drive them from their homes? Or outbreed?
 
Jez
2:42 PM
@Cerberus erm, that's not my point
 
The point is, them not speaking my language is more a problem to them than it is to me.
 
Jez
@Cerberus outbreed.
 
You seem to forget that.
 
@Jez And does that happen as fast as the Normal invasion?
 
Jez
@RegDwighт yeah at the moment. but the tide will change the more and the wider Spanish becomes entrenched
 
2:43 PM
And how large is the capacity of the dominant culture to absorb and convert the influx?
 
@Jez you still miss the point. If they can pull that off, more power to them.
 
Evolution of language is evolution of thought.
 
Jez
@Cerberus I'd argue that the English speakers at the time of the Norman invasion defended their language harder than you lot seem to want to defend it now
@RegDwighт and you are screwed.
 
Every language I have learned has contributed to my ability to express myself and understand other people.
 
Jez has a point, in so far as, Latin Americans seem to be more fertile than White Americans (I read in New Scientist today)
 
Jez
2:45 PM
unless you happen to speak Spanish
 
If you can come to Germany and handle the German bureaucracy without knowing the first thing about German, and then even manage to gradually turn it into a Spanish bureaucracy, that's an amazing thing to pull off. I'd like to see that.
 
Jez
@KitFox not everyone can learn languages easily!
 
@Jez You'll manage just fine.
Just like everyone else.
 
Jez
@KitFox i'd barely manage in France, and I have been studying French for 15+ years
AND french is very close to english in vocab
 
Just like all the people who have difficulty learning English.
 
2:46 PM
@Jez Naaah. This "defence" is already accounted for in the historical analysis.
 
@Jez I am not screwed anyway, because I have no problems with Spanish, or other languages for that matter. :P
 
Jez
if they stay in Central and Southern America, they don't need to learn English, do they?
 
@Jez If you had no other choice, you'd be fluent pretty quickly.
 
@Jez Look, any historian and historical linguist will tell you that your fears are unfounded, so go back to sleep.
 
2:47 PM
necessity is the mother of failing fast, failing often and improving quickly
 
@Jez And that brings us back to the anti-immigration rhetoric.
 
Jez
so you guys would be happy if 1 or 2 languages dominated the world
@KitFox it's directly related to what you said
 
@Jez your language already does, and you seem to be unhappy if it stops.
 
Jez
it hardly dominates. not in China, not in France, not in South America, not in India, not in Russia.........
 
2:48 PM
@Jez Happy, no; but there is little we can do in the long term. And it will be tolerable.
 
@Jez in which of those places does Spanish dominate?
 
the fact is that it won't happen in our lifetimes, so why worry?
 
Jez
@RegDwighт maybe they defend their languages better than the anglo-saxons :-)
 
There is nothing I can personally do to change whether 2 or 2,000 languages are spoken on the face of this planet.
 
@Jez in which of the Anglo-Saxon places does Spanish dominate?
 
Jez
2:49 PM
@RegDwighт parts of the Southern USA
 
Really, I have no idea what the point of this discussion is.
 
Jez
and western USA
 
@Jez That's not accurate.
 
@Jez How about the Celts? You let the Anglo-Saxons destroy your true language!
 
@Jez Nor that.
 
2:49 PM
@Jez the parts of the Southern USA have Spanish names for crying out loud. They were Spanish 200 years ago. We're going in circles.
 
Jez
@Cerberus actually, Welsh and Scots Gaelic have very fierce defenders
 
@Cerberus except in Wales, and Scotland and Ireland ;)
 
@Jez Besides, you wouldn't be able to understand spoken Early-Mediaeval English anyway. It is as good as a different language.
@MattЭллен Well...I rest my case.
@RegDwighт Yes, I imagine large Spanish-speaking populations have always remained there.
 
But it is hardly dominant.
 
You know what's more important? I took a weeks holiday to work on this machine learning competition for SO, and I came down with cold/flu/chest infection that is really hampering my ability to think. Stupid worst timing ever
 
2:51 PM
@KitFox Exactly.
 
@MattЭллен Oh man, that blows.
 
@MattЭллен Aww that sucks!
 
Thanks @KitFox
 
@MattЭллен you had an ability to think? I spent all my coins on agility and HP.
 
@Cerberus yeah :(
 
2:52 PM
I hope you didn't catch it from me.
 
Jez
so in conclusion, to the chant of USA USA USA
 
@RegDwighт I just didn't spend any on stamina
 
@Cerberus Ooohh. Gossip!
 
But I am in no competition, so I just take some aspirins and decongestants and I'm fine.
 
Jez
"ENG AH LISH, ENG AH LISH, ENG AH LISH"
 
2:52 PM
@KitFox I mean, through the chat room, silly.
 
Damn it.
 
@Jez *ENG AH RISH
 
reworks plan for world domination
 
Again?
I hope you saved some older versions.
 
2:53 PM
Well, if I can't get the two of you together, it's going to be a lot harder.
Wait. That didn't come out right.
 
Because if you keep tinkering with things...
 
Everything's under control!
Don't worry about it.
 
Muy bien.
I mean, uh-oh...it has begun!!
 
Nice trigh.
 
2:55 PM
The evolution has begun.
 
Yo no ahh speak English.
Es muy diff...hard!
 
si, es muy easy hablar en Spanish from time à time
 
Unngggg...
*time à time
Thanks.
 
Jez
taissez-vous tlm
 
2:56 PM
porque?
 
It's funny how fluent such mixed grammars work.
So easy to understand.
 
tu ne hables pas spanglish?
 
What a godawful movie that was.
 
Jez
you know what I once heard at a Liberal Democrat conference? A Welsh nationalist saying how Welsh was the "language of the Gods" and then proceeding to give his speech, in Welsh, to an audience of English speakers.
 
Der Spanglish is erg moeilijk para mi.
 
2:57 PM
I will not speak french on the playground et ni anywhere else non plus.
 
Or is it por me?
Mais tu en parles!
 
Парле-ю дойч?
 
para mi es correct
 
Huh I thought ю was like /{y}u/?
 
Jez
Iaith y Duwiau
 
2:58 PM
is that Welsh?
 
@RegDwighт So don't you mean Bю?
 
@Cerberus and it is. Have a whoosh.
 
@MattЭллен Grazie.
 
Gah. Must learn to read Cyrillic.
 
@Cerberus no I don't. I'd give you a whoosh except you have one already.
 
2:59 PM
de nada
 
Jez
Mae un chwerthin neu grio ar genedlaetholdeb Cymreig?
 
@RegDwighт Then I don't get it.
 
@KitFox you even write in Cyrillic.
 
Oh, it was supposed to be English you?
 
@Cerberus how about you transcribe it all in its entirety? That's why I kept it so short, after all.
 
2:59 PM
I did.
 
Well then.
 
@Jez no idea, but I'm guessing no
 
I...just didn't think of the English word.
 

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