English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2012-09-27 (page 4 of 5)

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3:05 PM

@cornbreadninja concordance

Hey guys

@RegDwighт Brazilians and Japanese like to introduce vowels where none exist. Portuguese in contrast likes to eat vowels.

@Mitch Either that or he's partially sighted.

I am filling in a bank account form

GFY.

3:12 PM

what's the difference between "Supplier Name" and "Beneficiary Name"?

@tchrist yes, but Pnin is a Russian name.

You have to read my comment in context.

@Meysam Gmail o mituni baz koni?

@Gigili ba filter shekan

Commute.

@Meysam Dige nemiad mamooli?

3:21 PM

@Gigili omidvaram bazesh konand!

kheili kharan

Kheili kharo dirooz rad kardan ke.

@Meysam Read this

> When you open a bank account, find out if there is a way for you to indicate beneficiaries. This is often referred to as “payable on death” or “transferable on death.” When you die, your money is automatically available to the person you designate. This can make things easier for those remaining.

Good morning, campers!

@Gigili thanks

@tchrist Alphabits?

cornbread ninja

Morning, counselor.

3:33 PM

@Meysam Any time.

@Gigi Aww that is annoying.

@tchrist You will agree that "very into you" is colloquial, right?

We all sense that there is something about it.

@cornbreadninja Everybody remember our motto here at camp?

In such a context, you can just as well say she's not like a whale — oh, she is very like a whale, have you ever looked at her?.

The question presumed a certain level of formality.

cornbread ninja

@MετάEd Be excellent to each other, and party on?

@simchona McDonalds > Makudonarudo; opção > opição

@Cerberus Don't quibble over register.

3:41 PM

@cornbreadninja Clean Mind … Clean Body …

… Take Your Pick.

@tchrist Why not? It is 100 % relevant.

cornbread ninja

Clean Body.

Clean Mind.

Or I wouldn't have bought it up.

I just felt that we all understood this, so I didn't address it in my answer.

pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit

3:51 PM

I remember when you brought that up last time...

@Cerberus Are you close to your mother?

? Close is an adjective.

Are you near your mother right now?

Very.

Exactly. Case closed.

3:57 PM

How typical that you ignore my point again.

But never mind.

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus I am so into you / I can't think of nothin' else

Yup, informal again.

I am very near the door.

That is hardly in a register of disparagement.

cornbread ninja

She is near to my heart.

And it doesn't matter.

4:01 PM

Aug 10 at 12:15, by Robusto

Or, for @Cerberus, Pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit.

Almost as if it was last month ...

@tchrist What does it have to do with disparagement? And, again, "very near" is different from "very into", because the latter is clearly a preposition, while the former is more complicated.

@Robusto And the time before that. And the time before that time...

@Cerberus That healthy stuff just never gets old.

@Cerberus I'm still trying to figure out why tchrist is so interested in how close you are to your mom.

2

@Robusto Like whole bread?

@Mitch This is about a question about very like a whale from Hamlet, where like is still more an adjective.

@Cerberus Fresh whole bread never gets old, because if it is old none dare call it fresh.

4:06 PM

The "rule" that makes this sound old fashioned is that very now only modifies adjectives or adverbs, not verbs or predications.

@Cerberus That is very YOU.

And like has shifted away from being a plain adjective over time.

Like I no rite?

@Robusto Yeah. And a true gentleman would never pinch girls' bottoms.

@Robusto Yes, of course many phrases are used adjectivally in informal registers.

@Cerberus Yeah, I get that, but it is more interesting, the question about your mom. I mean, of all people.

@Cerberus no true Scottish gentleman. In France it's expected.

4:09 PM

@Mitch The intention behind that line was never really epxlained...

@Cerberus But the girl might well call him "fresh" if he did.

@Mitch Oh, right, it was a Scot.

and the poor whale. kinda awkward all around.

@Robusto Heh yes.

Matt Эллен

we talk blog talk

EL&U Blog

Discussion for the EL&U Blog. For more info see meta.english.s...

4:10 PM

@Robusto For a girl to called 'fresh bread'...

Now I'm wondering about the origin of fresh in that sense.

Intuition tells me it is probably fairly new, and American?

Then again...

Beats me. It's actually pretty dated.

@cornbreadninja so-so in Spanish isn't así-así

Americans started all cool language trends. we started 'swell' and 'keen' too.

@Robusto OK. I rather meant 20th century.

4:12 PM

I think it's kind of a euphemism. 'Don't get fresh with me.' = "Don't be such a dick'

That's new to a European.

@Mitch Yeah...but why fresh?

@Cerberus see how behind you guys are?

@Cerberus Most of English is new to most of Europe.

@Mitch Have we ever claimed otherwise?

@Robusto In what way? Borrowed words?

etymonline.com/index.php?term=fresh&allowed_in_frame=0

4:13 PM

@Cerberus it's like the other side of nothing from 'minced' almost saying something nice.

> probably from Ger. frech "insolent, cheeky,"

Ohh that's funny.

@Cerberus Not out loud. THat's how refined you are. Not arrogant, simply superior already.

Dutch has vrek, "niggard".

I had no idea that was related.

A vrek is never a nice person in Dutch, it implies a nasty character.

@Mitch Um quoi?

@Cerberus what is 'niggard'? That's not an English word.

4:15 PM

@Mitch Thanks. Of course I couldn't confirm that.

@Mitch Sure it is.

I like it better, because it sounds like nigger.

So as to shock Murkins.

Matt Эллен

@Mitch stingy

I use it instead of miser or whatever whenever I can.

@Cerberus despite Rob's more authoritative historical reference, 'fresh' (as in impudent) sounds like 'fresh' as in new, so my folk imterpretation is that it is like calling a bad person 'likeable enough' (by saying that avoiding being mean oneself, but belittling anything positive as much as possible)

@Mitch Well, the folk etymology may have influenced the current perceived meaning.

@MattЭллен oh. I've only ever heard 'niggardly', never without the '-ly'. too close to taboo to use.

Matt Эллен

4:20 PM

taboo and niggard sound nothing alike! ;)

depends on how bad you mumble.

oohh...who has the power to make timely popup announcements like that?

4:45 PM

Hi, all. The dictionary says you can say "to give evidence of", Google reveals that "to give evidence that" is also frequently used, but is it right?

Mahlzeit!

@floele Yes, both can be used.

OK, thanks :)

Did you have a specific sentence in mind?

5:02 PM

Yep, something like "the behavioural tests gave evidence that a prior stimulation also cause adaptive processes..."

@floele Oh, wait.

I know there's an "s" missing btw ;)

To give evidence is often used in courts of law.

As, "to testify".

so rather not applicable here?

I'm not sure how strong that connotation will be to other people, but I would personally avoid using "give evidence" like this.

How about "provided evidence"?

5:08 PM

hm, OK, I will think about that. thanks!

@floele Do you know Google Ngrams?

books.google.com/ngrams/…

If you click on this:

user image

You will get examples from books.

You will see that they are almost exclusively in a legal context, where it means something like "testify".

5:32 PM

@Cerberus He left.

Or he right. Whatever.

But I still have about 20 pages to read to finish the introduction.

It can also be offensive to remove rice from a bowl with a spoon.

6:10 PM

Hey, @MattЭллен how are you? Feeling any better?

Matt Эллен

Hi @Noah, yeah, thanks. I'm taking anti-biotics now, and they seems to be doing the trick

@MattЭллен Cool. Drink a lot of tea and hot water...

Matt Эллен

ta!

@MattЭллен You welcome

6:42 PM

user image

Funneh.

Yes, only if you explain what's written on the wall.

"Banque de Grèce" (Bank of Greece), but "Grèce" is crossed out and replaced with "Merkel".

The Greek text under that probably means "their wealth our blood", and then a Marxist(?) star.

Umm, that's more like Mepken than Merkel.

6:57 PM

That's Greek for you.

It came first.

@Jez Okay, I officially agree, your PM sucks.

He doesn't even know what Magna Charta means.

At least I would have expected him to have had a decent education at Oxbridge.

But alas.

Anyway, I'm off to finish this #@%!## chapter.

What are you reading?

Pattern recognition and machine learning by Christopher M.Bishop.

Oh, interesting.

Good luck...

Another day, another MultiCollider question I had to relieve of its suffering.

7:00 PM

Dankyou.

Great.

It is dankje.

Or more commonly dank je.

Danktje.

No, no.

Hey y so series.

It sounds like what you'd say to a gingernut.

7:03 PM

That's your danktje for the rare pun in Dutch? Pfffft. I can fall back on English anytime.

Anyway. Where were I?

Ah yes.

@RegDwighт Umm if I had understood the pun, I would have danked you.

If the answers to an SWR are "green car", "Schindler's List", and "linguini", then you are looking at a NARQ.

@Cerberus yeah I know you don't understand Dutch. You told us.

@RegDwighт Haha seriesly?

Because only one of those three is a single word?

@RegDwighт Did I?

7:06 PM

@Reg, should I use "a" or "an" in front of "NARQ"?

4

@DavidWallace I don't think SWRers even know what a single word is...

Aug 1 '11 at 23:49, by RegDwight

3 hours ago, by Cerberus

@simchona Hmm... I know ananas (the only word in Dutch), but I never got it, not after hearing it several times.

@DavidWallace Neither!

Aug 1 '11 at 23:50, by RegDwight

Wow, the Dutch language consists of just one word, and even that one word native speakers of Dutch don't understand.

How could you forget that?

@Cerberus So it should be "the"?

7:07 PM

@RegDwighт Haha now that your mention it.

@DavidWallace No article!

@DavidWallace I say "a narc".

@RegDwighт Slow down, I can only remember one word at a time.

Yes, but you are one of the NARQ narcs.

I say "NARQ".

This is NARQ.

Is that question NARQ?

There's proper language for you.

@Cerberus well yes. The last two SWRs I shot down were pretty much like that.

2 days ago, by RegDwighт

This was a rather poorly defined question to begin with, but I let it be. In hindsight I shouldn't have, because the accepted answer makes it weird at best, and misleading at worst. If passing an exam makes you feel smart and failing the exam makes you feel like an idiot, you are not a flip-flopper, indecisive, vaccillating or a fair-weather fan. Neither are you compliant, open-minded, or most other things suggested on this page. This is a train wreck, and I'm closing it as such. Everybody should remind themselves of this meta post. — RegDwighт 10 secs ago

7:08 PM

The Liber Stili Cerberanus.

imagines owl with rifle engaged in skeet shooting

I would never shoot Jon.

Or the Liber Stili Cerberani, if you will.

@Cerberus Well, I guessed Magna

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Hello from Salzburg

7:10 PM

but I thought "carta" was "card" or something from the french carte. turns our "carta" is just Latin for charter. :-)

@Jez But he is supposed to know stuff.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Guten Abend!

@Cerberus you don't count. Because you never close anything, and you never call anything a NARQ. You call everything "extremely on-topic and very useful to the humanity at large".

not really. he can't even use the subjunctive. Americans just think he knows stuff.

@Jez It is Latin for piece of paper.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How do you like it?

@Cerberus main definition is "charter"

7:11 PM

@Jez Admittedly has has a better accent.

Oh, gee, Cerberus, I thought I was the only one who was extremely on-topic and very useful to humanity at large.

better than what?

Now I just don't feel special any more.

@RegDwighт Hardly. You cannot rightly accuse me of saying such things of SWRs.

@Jez Eh you can trust me on this.

@Cerberus I cannot accuse you? What did I just do? Pay attention!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:12 PM

So far it's nice. I'm glad you told me to spend more time in Wien though

It means a piece of paper, but there are many secondary senses, amongst which "charter, document, map".

@Cerberus It means "menu".

I'll have the veal.

@DavidWallace But you're on the opposite topic of the world.

@RegDwighт See "rightly".

the oddity would be the English "chart"

looks like the Latin speakers didnt use "carta" to mean "chart"

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, did I? Good. How many days are spending in either city?

7:13 PM

"Do I need the preposition in this question?"

Well, let's see. "Do I need the preposition this question?" No good. Apparently you do.

Do I need any preposition this question?

jinx

Jinx!

@MετάEd It could mean menu, perhaps...but that is a rare things to encounter, probably.

Double jinx. You owe me a cake.

7:14 PM

★ A properly pre-starred comment

jinx x 2

@Jez Sure charta can mean chart.

jinx x 3

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@cerb not counting travel days, five days in Vienna and two in Salzburg

@DavidWallace You have to be first.

7:14 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That sounds good.

as for who wrote "rule britannia", cameron should've asked who wrote "the star spangled banner"

@MετάEd Are you not going to buy me a cake?

We were only in Salzburg for half a day.

@DavidWallace I just want a Dr. Pepper.

@Cerberus I see menus all the time. Maybe they're rare where you live.

@Jez Yeah, people aren't supposed to know that. But then you know how nationalist Americans are, they would know that.

7:15 PM

@MετάEd I don't know what Dr Pepper looks like. Is she related to Sgt Pepper?

Die Speisekarte, bitte.

@MετάEd They were rare in premodern documents.

@Cerberus is it known by anyone?

I have no idea.

I don't know who wrote the text or the music to our national anthem.

Nor can I sing it.

I know only a few verses.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But I must admit to being disappointed with Sachertorte and the one at Hotel Sacher was the worst of them

7:16 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What!?

speechless

Sacher!

It has chocolate!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It was very dry

Red Dwarf X begins airing on 4th October. i cant wait :-)

"I must admit to being disappointed with sex, and the one with the experienced girlfriend I was madly in love with was the worst".

8

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:18 PM

My wife and I have fallen in love with Kaiserschmarrn though.

Does he let you call him Schmarrn?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm never eaten those.

Are they like bits of pancake?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Imagine if someone told you to go to a certain hotel for the best sex, only when you got there the sex was meh and really dry

Looks very fatty.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 If you are used to deep-fried sex, then, yes, it may seem dry.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yes, it's chopped fried pancakes

7:20 PM

How very North-American of you...although I must admit that I like the Dutch variant (poffertjes) very much as well.

But I could eat a piece of Sachertorte every day. Not so with poffertjes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have rarely had such a dry cake. Our guide book even mentions the fact that even the locals complain that Sachertorte is took dry these days.

I ate that same cake two years ago, and it was fantastic.

Well, it probably would have dried out by now then.

I think North-American food is just generally more fatty and soggy?

@DavidWallace Hmm good point.

@Cerberus Ssh, you'll offend tchrist.

7:22 PM

He's not that soggy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

No! Every other thing we've eaten here has been excellent. But not the sachertorte.

It was the best thing I ate in Austria!

The "old-fahsioned" boar was bad.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Actually I find Austrian food fattier than what I usually eat.

We ate in "hip" restaurants the rest of the time, and the food was admittedly excellent everywhere.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, then what did you eat?

Sure, German and Austrian cuisine have many very fatty dishes.

Like sausages.

And eh...

But Schnitzel is not fatty.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Schnitzel, goulash, boiled beef, ...

7:24 PM

(Not that it is good either.)

Boiled beef? As in a stew?

And have you been to Demel?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Schnitzel isn't fatty but it is deep fried so it has lots of fat

Deep fried?? Surely not!

It's just "crumbed" and fried.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

No, it's called boiled beef and like every restaurant proclaims it as an authentic Austrian dish so I tried it.

No, its deep fried. All the English menus say so.

Thank heavens I'm not Austrian.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Never seen that. We mostly went to the most popular restaurants, which were mainly French/Mediterranean cuisine. The one time we went to a very traditional restaurant, the food was meh. Never seen this boiled meat—or perhaps just skipped it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's wrong! Although, sure, frying does involve fat. But it doesn't taste nearly as fatty as those Kaiserschmarren!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:29 PM

Yeah the boiled beef was so-so.

The kaiserschmarrn doesn't taste fatty

Oh, puh-lease.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, it's not as fatty as schnitzel

hands on hips

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, time for me to go. Good call btw on T-Mobile for a prepaid sim. €10 for 3 gb

Oh, not bad!

Have fun!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Where did you end up buying it?

In a supermarket? At a T-Mobile shop?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:32 PM

Oh, one other weird thing: the hotel room has no power when we leave. So I thought my phone was recharging but it wasn't.

Bought it at a T-Mobile shop. Didn't find them for sale anywhere else

Granted I found it pretty quickly and stopped looking.

Anyway, ttyl

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh yes, that sucks! They do that sometimes. What we did was put some other card on the inside of the door, I believe.

That worked at least in one hotel. I don't remember where.

@Cerberus It only works with its own card sometimes.

Yeah could be.

At least in the hotel we stayed.

And no, I didn't finish it.

I'll never finish this chapter.

Burn it.

7:36 PM

burns it

Hilarious video about queues and broken Iphones 5.

And it's not even Apple-bashing.

Just funny.

C'est bien drôle, non?

oui oui.

Bon.

How come you never talk about your phone?

I am painfully shy.

I don't have the new SIM-card yet, I just don't have it.

Oh, still not??

7:50 PM

The nice part is dead people are watching us.

That explains it.

Are they? Which ones?

@Cerberus It's not the Netherlands, we should give them some time.

You said your SIM card would arrive in a few days, last week.

@Gigili Oh, phone companies here suck too. It could take weeks, you never know.

@Cerberus They don't care about what I say or expect.

Same here.

Their customer service is the worst.

But then they are much worse in America and Canada.

7:52 PM

@Cerberus The ones with whispers something in his ear

Where they are a massive oligopoly sucking customers dry with even worse plans than here.

Oh, those.

@Cerberus No no, none of them is worse than here.

Are you sure?

What do you pay per month?

Umm, it depends. My SIM-card was not a pre-paid one.

What is the other type called?

Pay-as-you-go or something.

@Cerberus that really is doubly funny if it was made before people started complaining about their iPhones being all scratched and dented.

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