English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

4:00 AM

There are plenty of new Spanish words for me.

ChairOTP

@tchrist lmfao

Cerberus

My Spanish is less than basic.

I can usually understand Wikipedia, with effort.

tchrist

Cuélebre

El cuélebre, culebre o serpe son los nombres dados a una criatura legendaria, perteneciente a las mitologías asturiana, cántabra y gallega, la cual es descrita como un ser con forma de dragón, similar a una serpiente alada. Descripción La tradición lo describe de la siguiente forma: Sus ojos son ascuas incandescentes, todo su cuerpo está recubierto de escamas y de su espalda crecen unas alas de murciélago. Vive en cuevas donde guarda tesoros, siendo muy conocido el que vive en los acantilados de San Vicente de la Barquera. Se cuenta que una de sus principales funciones es la de vigilar...

Cerberus

And with a dictionary, sometimes.

tchrist

At least Spanish has cuyo. I hate weaseling around not having it in French.

RAE says "Dragón fabuloso de la mitología asturiana."

Fabulous, dude!

Mechanical snail

4:02 AM

@tchrist Is it cognate to "colibrí"?

ChairOTP

@tchrist When did you even learn so many languages?

tchrist

@Mechanicalsnail No.

@ChairOTP When I was a child.

ChairOTP

@tchrist Immersion or you were taught? or you learnt them on your own?

tchrist

@Mechanicalsnail Colibrí is from some Caribbean language. Culebre < Latin coluber/-bris.

@ChairOTP Spanish, immersion.

The others, I was mostly taught. A few I’ve dabbled up on my own.

ChairOTP

@tchrist I wish I had started as a child.

Cerberus

4:06 AM

Oh, how I keep weaseling in French. Damn you, cuyo!

tchrist

Stephen King.

Cerberus

But French has dont and de qui, and, who knows, even duquel?

tchrist

@ChairOTP Um, I use child loosely. I was in middle school.

It’s the dont thing I hate. cuyo/os/a/as just works.

Cerberus

Dont and en are admittedly weird.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus "whose" is similarly useful, even though it breaks the pattern of pro-forms.

Cerberus

4:07 AM

At least y makes some sense.

tchrist

Y is ok.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail It is useful...how do you mean it breaks a pattern?

Y ajoutant que...

ChairOTP

@tchrist But as a child it would have been easier, you're like a sponge that absorbs almost everything.

Cerberus

You have to admit this ^ is a bit silly.

I like it, but...

tchrist

I was in middle school. You are barely any older.

ChairOTP

4:09 AM

@tchrist I'm in uni.

Cerberus

How old is Chair?

tchrist

Oh,

I thought you were younger.

ChairOTP

17

Cerberus

Ah OK.

That's young for uni!

ChairOTP

It's not.

tchrist

4:10 AM

Precocious rapscallion!

ChairOTP

My sister was in uni at 16

Mahnax

I'll be 17 when I start university too.

Cerberus

►

Hey, I can't decide whether this video is from the 70s or from the 80s.

(Not that I like this song.)

@ChairOTP Wow!

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus me -> my, you -> your, him -> his, her -> her, it -> its, us -> our, they -> their, who -> whose; but what -> whose also.

tchrist

Um, it doesn’t quite work that way.

ChairOTP

4:11 AM

@Cerberus I know, I would have been 16 too if I had continued with the idea of Medicine.

Mechanical snail

Looks like suppletion since there was a missing form.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail So what you mean is the animate/inanimate break between nominative and genitive?

tchrist

You need personal pronouns. mine, hers, theirs.

Cerberus

I guess that is irregular.

Although it is very common in Germanic.

tchrist

Whose is it? It’s mine. It’s whose?? It’s ours. etc.

Mechanical snail

4:12 AM

@tchrist No; "whose" is also a determiner

tchrist

I can’t see anywhere it can swap with my.

Cerberus

In most IE languages, masculine and neuter endings are usually the same, except in nominative and accusative.

That probably explains whose

tchrist

Doubt you need go back that far.

Mechanical snail

@tchrist My tail is slimy. / Whose tail is slimy?

Cerberus

In Dutch and German, the possessive adjective zijn is both "his" and "its".

tchrist

4:14 AM

Mine.

Cerberus

@tchrist Why?

Similarly, the Dutch equivalent of whose, wiens, can be neuter or masculine.

tchrist

hunch

Cerberus

Although in practice wiens is no longer used for things.

Probably hasn't been for a long time.

tchrist

> ME. hwās, later hwō̧s, whō̧s, altered form of hwas, hwes, OE. hwæs (:-*χwasa) genitive of hwá and hwæt, through the influence of hwā, hwō̧ who, hwām, hwō̧m whom. (Later ME. whas prob. represents an unstressed variant.) Cf. OS. hwes, MLG., MDutch, OHG., G. wes, ONor. hues(s, MSw. hwes, hwas, (Da. hvis), Goth. hwis:-*χwesa, Indo-Eur. *qweso, represented also by Gr. (Homeric) τέο for *τέσο, OSl. česo.

Cerberus

This supports my presumption.

ChairOTP

4:16 AM

I'm off to study for my test tomorrow. Goodbye everyone, and thank you.

Cerberus

Good luck!

tchrist

Not very far back.

Cerberus

Um, that is as far as it goes for the OED.

Mahnax

@ChairOTP Bonne nuit!

Cerberus

And it goes back all the way to there.

tchrist

4:17 AM

So same genitive for both hwá and hwæt. Don’t need PIE.

Cerberus

The old form of whose was the genitive of both who and what.

tchrist

I just said that.

Cerberus

@tchrist But you do. For how do you explain that fact?

tchrist

I don’t feel compelled to do so.

Mechanical snail

@ChairOTP Buenas noches! Bona nit!

Cerberus

4:18 AM

Well, you don't need to, because I already have, so then we are agreed.

tchrist

-as

Cerberus

Bona nit?

Which language is that? Romanian?

Some dialect?

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Catalan

Cerberus

Ah OK.

tchrist

Of course it is some dialect.

Everything is.

Cerberus

4:19 AM

I am not biting.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Chomp.

tchrist

You are thinking masc vs neuter, but you should not be.

You should be thinking animate vs not.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Good.

I am explaining animate v. inanimate through masculine v. neuter, because some explanation is needed.

tchrist

I don’t really think that is right.

Cerberus

And feminine + plural was different at some point.

tchrist

4:21 AM

I am too tired to dig now.

Cerberus

Why not?

tchrist

Feminine was new.

Came later.

Cerberus

Now you are going too far back.

I am thinking late PIE.

tchrist

Yes.

But there are vestiges of that in OE.

I’m going to bed.

Cerberus

Consider Latin servi/templi v. ancillae, and servorum/templorum v. ancillarum. Consider also German and Dutch.

Mechanical snail

4:24 AM

Has this been asked yet?

Cerberus

And consider Greek.

@tchrist Good night.

Mechanical snail

"very like ..." is ungrammatical, but "exactly like ..." and similar are fine.

What's the difference?

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, well, in fact the recency of the feminine gender could explain the m/n v. f contrast here!

@Mechanicalsnail "Very" normally modifies only adjectives.

And "like" is not an ordinary adjective.

There are plenty of exceptions, of course.

Perhaps I am phrasing this incorrectly.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus "like" is a preposition.

Cerberus

Yes.

Well, depends on how you look at it.

It is also an adjective.

It is traditionally an adjective.

So "she is very like you" could be OK in archaic English.

I'm sure you will find that somewhere.

We still have "that is so very like you".

Although perhaps that is a modern formation.

Based on using "like-you" as some kind of fixed adjectival phrase in casual speech.

But "is very like you" appears to have peaked around 1880, according to Ngrams.

Noah

4:31 AM

hola

Mahnax

Hiya.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail In any case, the answer to your question is that very is a special adverb: it only modifies adjectives or what are felt to be plain adjectives-with-ly-stuck-after-them.

Hey, @Mahnax

Hi!

Hi @Cerberus

4:32 AM

@Noah How's things?

Cerberus

Yeah, is it getting crowded yet?

Your ark, I mean.

Mahnax

slaps knees

Cerberus

Brilliant, huh?

Thank you, Canada!

pretends to be standing in front of huge audience

Noah

@Mahnax dont slap them hard

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

4:34 AM

@Mechanicalsnail No, conjunction.

Cerberus

Girls may need to sit on them one day.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Don't worry, you are! There's like, ten people here.

tchrist

@Cerberus I ran very fast.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, that is the third option.

tchrist

I came back to fetch the cat, and look what I find.

Cerberus

4:35 AM

@tchrist Yeah, that is felt to be adjectivish enough.

tchrist

I shall leave very soon.

Cerberus

As I said, the rule is riddled with exceptions and borderline cases.

Mechanical snail

@tchrist No. "Like" is a verb!

tchrist

And very often.

@Mechanicalsnail Don’t argue.

Cerberus

You will leave very often?

Mechanical snail

4:36 AM

and a noun, for that matter

Cerberus

Ugh.

tchrist

6. Used as conj.: = ‘like as’, as. Now generally condemned as vulgar or slovenly, though examples may be found in many recent writers of standing. This use originated partly in an ellipsis of as or an extension of the quasi-prepositional function of the adv. (sense 1) to govern a clause instead of a sb., and partly in an anacoluthic use (somewhat common in the 16th c.) by which the sb. or pronoun which is primarily a dative governed by like is used as the subj. or obj. of a following clause.
A good example of this anacoluthon (but with to instead of simple dative) is the following: 1596 Spe…

1608 Shaks. Per. i. i. 163 ― Like an arrow shot from a well experienst Archer hits the marke his eye doth leuell at.

Clearly conjunction.

Cerberus

Yeah, I prefer as in formal prose.

tchrist

Not preposition.

Not verb.

Not noun.

Cerberus

Adjective.

tchrist

4:37 AM

Conjunction. If it was good enough for Billy the Bard, it is good enough for me.

Mechanical snail

Okay, asked here:

0

Q: When can "very" modify a prepositional phrase?

In Hamlet, when Hammy Jr. asks Polonius whether a cloud looks like a whale, Polly replies, Very like a whale. In contemporary English, however, "very like ..." feels ungrammatical. You instead have to epenthetically say "very much like ...". Interestingly this restriction doesn't seem to a...

tchrist

Yes, adjective too.

Mechanical snail

@tchrist How is "like" used as an adjective?

I can only think of things with "alike".

tchrist

1871 Freeman Hist. Ess. Ser. ii. 97 ― An old Greek was a being of like passions with a modern Englishman.

1854 Brewster More Worlds xv. 226 ― The fixed stars are like our sun in every point in which it is possible to compare them.

1966 I. Murdoch Time of Angels xviii. 193, ― I suppose it’s a skill like another.

Mechanical snail

@tchrist Good.

@tchrist But this one's a preposition (or conjunction).

tchrist

4:41 AM

1876 Jevons Logic Prim. 9 ― Things which seem to be like may be different.

1890 Freeman in W. R. W. Stephens Life (1895) II. 414 ― His domestic arrangements··are rather like a steamer.

1835 Marryat Jac. Faithf. xxiii, ― But like mother like child, they say.

Would you like to buy an adverb?

1798 T. Twining Recreat. & Stud. (1882) 237 ― Often have I heard you something like blamed for these voluntary labours.

1840 Dickens Barn. Rudge xxvii, ― It would be like his impudence··to dare to think of such a thing.

1894 Du Maurier Trilby (1895) 111 ― Bother work this morning! I feel much more like a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens.

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail It works just like worth in modern English, which is often considered an adjective and was historically just that.

Exactly like like.

tchrist

1886 Bynner A. Surriage iii. 34 ― The two or three places I am like to have business relations with.

1879 McCarthy Donna Quixote xxi, ― But I never was good like that.

1885 Illustr. Lond. News 18 Apr. 392/3 ― If she doesn’t know anything about it, she’ll say so like a shot.

Mechanical snail

I like(verb) likes(n) like(prep) those like(adj) likes(n) like(conj) you like(verb).

Cerberus

In Dutch and German, gelijk/gleich are still stronger in their adjectival uses.

tchrist

1800 Coleridge Piccolom. iv. i, ― She’s now rising: Like as a sun, so shines she in the east.

Cerberus

4:46 AM

@Mechanicalsnail This should replace the old buffalo thing.

tchrist

1896 Daily News 24 Oct. 7/4 ― Snow··is descending in thick flakes like in January.

1969 Observer (Colour Suppl.) 23 Mar. 23/2 ― They look at me like I’m dirt.

1971 Black Scholar Apr.-May 26/1 ― Man like the dude really flashed his hole card.

1890 Rolf Boldrewood Col. Reformer (1891) 321, ― I was much deceived in them··. Very like··. It takes a smart man to be up to chaps of their sort.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus If we're doing that, use "I like a like like a like like like you like."

tchrist

1875 Whitney Life Lang. ii. 13 ― When he first begins to employ preterits and plurals and their like.

Mechanical snail

Is that syntactically ambiguous?

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Aahhhhhhh!

@Mechanicalsnail Not at all. Immediately clear.

tchrist

4:49 AM

1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. iii. ii. 61 ― Only like can know like.

Cerberus

> Very near a whale

I find this a bit iffy.

tchrist

1842 Tennyson Walking to Mail 55 ― Like breeds like, they say.

Cerberus

Old fashioned, probably?

Either casual or old fashioned.

tchrist

Like breeds breed like breeds like they say.

Cerberus

But not exactly common in, say, a modern newspaper, I'd say.

tchrist

4:50 AM

1820 Shelley Œdipus ii. i. 85 ― She never can commit the like again.

1859 Masson Brit. Novelists ii. 94 ― Swift··the likest author we have to Rabelais.

Mechanical snail

Also, like, an interjection.

tchrist

1703 Rules of Civility 98 ― That would be liker a Drunkard than a Gentleman.

Noah

Good, @Mahnax. You?

Sorry, I just got your message @Mahnax not sure what's wrong with the system

tchrist

1868 Yates Rock Ahead II. 245 ― Wooded uplands suggested good cover-shooting; broad expanse of heath looked very like rabbits.

There is your very like again.

1710 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 25 Oct., ― Addison’s sister is a sort of a wit, very like him.

1757 Mrs. Griffith Lett. Henry & Frances (1767) I. 181, ― I always looked upon them as twin-sisters, and so very like, that it was difficult to know one from t’other.

1854 Hawthorne Eng. Note-Bks. (1879) I. 103 ― It was very like and very laughable, but hardly caricatured.

Mahnax

@Noah Oh, I'm OK. Tired.

tchrist

4:56 AM

1849 Sidonia Sorc. II. 144 ― That brotherhood who··lived like brothers amongst themselves, dividing all goods alike, so that they were called ‘Like-dealers’. (These Like-dealers were the Communists of the Northern Middle Ages.)

likes to sleep

Mechanical snail

I saw like 60 cows going like "moo". (Approximation/exaggeration, and a quotative particle.)

Cerberus

How do you like this comment?

Yes, that is a single comment.

Mechanical snail

@Cerberus Hey, I thought of that first!

But it might be exposing a second bug.

Yes. That's a bug.

[so]
[su]
[sf]

[mso]

Stack Exchange

Mahnax

5:15 AM

[so]

Cerberus

@Mechanicalsnail Yeah.

Mahnax

I did it!

If you put a reverse solidus in front of each square bracket, it works.

Interesting.

Cerberus

Ahh...

But I have to go to bed.

Have fun!

Mahnax

OK, hyvää yötä.

Cerberus

Eh you too!

Mahnax

5:24 AM

Kiitos!

John Junior

7:36 AM

hi @Gigili

Hello.

howdy

hi

Anyone has experiance with KC stuff?

John Junior

KC?

Noah

7:39 AM

Kalvin Clien

sorry

CK

Calvin Klien

John Junior

The designer?

Noah

I was buying some clothes

yea

John Junior

@Noah So what's the question?

BTW His last name is spelled Kl ei n :)

Gigili

8:03 AM

Stack Overflow

John Junior

8:52 AM

Stack Underflow

Definition of: stack underflow. An error condition that occurs when an item is called for from the stack, but the stack is empty. Contrast with stack overflow.