English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I would guess grammatically it is correct but my friend did not understand what does it mean, so I had to re-phrase it. Also, he said that correct way of asking is "Is it getting late for you?" or something similar. Could someone please explain?

grammar

user19161

Hmm I am not too sure of my answer there...

TRiG

@JasonBourne Neither of the options sounds idiomatic to my ear.

user19161

12:21 AM

@TRiG Yes, but still I consider both grammatical.

Cerberus

@JasonBourne I think the OP misspelled laid.

user19161

@Cerberus Erm...

Cerberus

What is "are you getting late?" supposed to mean?

"Will you be late?"?

user19161

@Cerberus Didn't you see my answer?

Cerberus

I saw it.

user19161

12:23 AM

I won't say these things myself, but I don't doubt they are right.

Cerberus

5

A: "If I am getting late"

There is nothing wrong with using the continuous tense here. The reason your example sounds odd to native English speakers is that the idiom you want is "running late" rather than "getting late". We use "getting late" to mean that time has been passing, and the hour of the day is becoming late. W...

Here is your answer.

A thing can get late, while a person runs late, I would say.

user19161

@Cerberus I cheated a little and edited my answer...

Cerberus

Better.

But I still think it's a duplicate.

user19161

I would not say "get late" is wrong, just awkward.

TRiG

> Planned Parenthood received $410 in government funds for every copy of Justin Bieber’s Believe sold in 2012.

user19161

12:34 AM

@TRiG Yay! Justin Bieber!

Cerberus

Planned Parenthood? Do they distribute free birth-control?

TRiG

@JasonBourne Okay. I'll grant you, he's pretty. Still not a fan.

user19161

@TRiG Erm...

Cerberus

> He is from a northern European country where engagement rings are usually simple gold band, worn by both the man and the woman. The big diamonds that American women expect are very rare, and considered rather vulgar by most. My engagement ring is a cultural compromise: A gold band set with a very small (1/6 of a carat) diamond.

> I love my ring, but back home in the U.S., many people seem personally offended by it. My mother is urging me to have my ring "upgraded" because a respectable American middle-class woman needs a bigger diamond.

Funny.

"Middle-class" is key here.

Bigger than the Jones's.

slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2013/01/…

TRiG

@Cerberus Engagement rings don't have stones. Everyone knows that.

Cerberus

12:39 AM

@TRiG I know so.

But do American middle-class mothers know?

Vulgar is the right word.

It's all about money.

KitFox

@RegDwighт That is my favorite book ever by my favorite author ever.

user19161

1:01 AM

I am going to bed. Over and out!

user19161

1:15 AM

@KitFox I saw your answer and deleted mine, phew!

user19161

I have not seen the "as would rather" used in this way before.

simchona

@Cerberus I read that this morning!

Cerberus

@simchona Fun little situation, isn't it?

Hey, so I have a question.

@simchona What does a married man wear?

user19161

@Cerberus Don't they all wear rings?

Cerberus

I don't know. Must be. But what kind of ring?

Here, husband and wife wear plain gold bands.

user19161

1:30 AM

What kinds are there?

Cerberus

@JasonBourne Only one, see above.

user19161

They wear the Lord of the Rings!

Cerberus

Thickness will depend on the girth of the wearer's finger, just as the stone in signet rings.

What do people wear in Singapore?

user19161

I think it's the same everywhere ain't it?

Cerberus

Not in America...

user19161

1:32 AM

Oh, what is it there then?

Cerberus

Apparently, many middle-class people have the wife wear a huge diamond.

user19161

Oh I see.

user19161

But wearing a huge diamond looks ugly.

user19161

And also this makes the wife more susceptible to robbery!

Cerberus

@JasonBourne Yeah...

I mean, as a non-wedding-related ring, people should wear whatever they like...

user19161

1:35 AM

@Cerberus My eyes!

Cerberus

But making it part of a ritual, and having the size of the rock depend on the husband's income, that is just sick.

I know!

user19161

In fact, I think people should not wear rings at all.

Cerberus

So people wear plain gold bands in S.?

user19161

Like I said I think it's really the same everywhere, it's just that we don't see the diamonds very often!

user19161

The diamonds do exist but are not common!

MετάEd

3:55 AM

Wedding rings are not diamond rings. The wedding ring is generally a plain band. It's the engagement ring that is gaudy.

Cerberus

@MετάEd So does a married woman normally wear two rings??

I don't think we have engagement rings.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Only if both engaged with a ring and married with a second ring. That is very common so yes it is normal.

Cerberus

How...odd.

So much money wasted.

MετάEd

Engagement ring

An engagement ring is a ring indicating that the person wearing it is engaged to be married, especially in Western cultures. In the United Kingdom, Ireland and North America, engagement rings are traditionally worn only by women, and rings can feature diamonds or other gemstones. In other cultures men and women wear matching rings. In some cultures, engagement rings are also used as wedding rings. Conventionally, the woman's ring is presented as a betrothal gift by a man to his prospective spouse while he proposes marriage or directly after she accepts his marriage proposal. It represen...

@Cerberus Right, and wasted on flowers and gifts and nice meals and ... bah. Humbug.

@Cerberus Seriously, though, I think a person should enjoy the rewards of their labors as they wish. If that's what they want, cool.

I personally would buy rings.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Flowers and meals are nice!

@MετάEd "Should"?

MετάEd

4:02 AM

Naah, flowers just wilt and die. They are worse than gemstones.

I'm just putting you on. I like flowers and gemstones both.

Cerberus

But they're cheap.

Heh.

A bunch of red roses, is, what, € 5...

@MετάEd A diamond engagement ring?

MετάEd

:77932 Roses are smart. They know what we want.

Cerberus

A plain wedding band is not that expensive. It's nice.

MετάEd

Diamonds don't know know nothin'.

Cerberus

We want cheap?

We do.

A gold band should be, what, € 500? € 800?

MετάEd

4:04 AM

But it lasts a lifetime.

Cerberus

Indeed.

If I were to marry and we weren't poor, I would probably buy wedding bands. Or maybe not. I don't know.

It is a bit...claimy. Then again, perhaps that is only right?

MετάEd

4:22 AM

Rings don't claim people. People claim people.

People will be people.

They still haven't gotten rid of the sled.

Cerberus

Yeah, but showing to the world that you're married 24/7...

Taking it off would be impossible.

> It is difficult to imagine who these people are that are responsible. Questions and images abound: is it some 20-something living in their mother’s basement who cannot get laid and has nothing better to do to amuse himself?

The failure of common-gender "they".

MετάEd

@Cerberus Well, think of it from the point of view of someone who wants to get hit on less.

@Cerberus themselves.

Cerberus

@MετάEd And this person, does he exist?

MετάEd

@Cerberus They does.

Cerberus

We doesn't know it.

MετάEd

4:26 AM

Y'all does.

Cerberus

Nay.

W'all doesn't wants to get hitted on by some people, but in most cases it is advantageous.

It benefits our self-esteemses.

Etc.

MετάEd

Self esteem is highly overrated.

Self worth is what it's all about.

Cerberus

And those who hit on people wearing wedding rings are not the kind of people you want anything from.

Self-knowledge implies that self-esteem approximates self-worth.

Gnôsis heautou.

MετάEd

@Cerberus You might want a little relief from married life.

@Cerberus Who has time for self knowledge?

Cerberus

That's not allowed, not for most people.

MετάEd

4:29 AM

Unless you mean the biblical kind.

Cerberus

Hah.

Eww.

MετάEd

@Cerberus You've been marrying the wrong kind of people.

Cerberus

Perhaps.

MετάEd

One of the big reasons my mate and I are so close is that we don't try to limit one another.

We are totally monogamous ... by choice, from day to day, and only because it turns out to be so. It doesn't have to be.

Cerberus

Okay.

MετάEd

4:31 AM

No limits.

= no fascism.

Cerberus

There is something to say for that.

Although one wonders what happens if one chooses to use this freedom some day. Will the other not be jealous, despite how he thinks he will react?

It's probably very hard to predict, don't you think?

MετάEd

@Cerberus Yes. But it's liberating.

Cerberus

Yeah.

I used to argue against monogamy as a teenager. It seemed stupid.

Later, it seemed more reasonable.

Now I don't know.

MετάEd

@Cerberus It's emotional. How can arguments matter?

Cerberus

Not all emotions appear before the fact. Arguments can call to mind potential, future emotions and weigh them.

Were you two polygamous from the beginning?

MετάEd

4:36 AM

@Cerberus Beliefs influence feelings influence actions. Thoughts can change beliefs. They are pretty far removed from feelings and actions.

I think I'll have a drink.

Cerberus

Or polyerotic...

@MετάEd This is getting a little too abstract...

MετάEd

:-)

@Cerberus We were illicit lovers.

I love how that sounds.

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

There was never a period where you were supposed to be mutually monogamous?

MετάEd

@Cerberus Yes, actually there was.

It was when we started to seriously contemplate a long relationship.

Or should I say a greater degree of intimacy.

Or so.

We were exclusive for a time, while we tried that on.

Cerberus

How long?

MετάEd

4:43 AM

Can't remember.

Less than one year.

But, in practice, we've been monogamous since then.

Cerberus

How was it decided that it became "allowed"?

Exeros, I mean.

MετάEd

I don't remember.

Cerberus

Okay.

MετάEd

We have been mated for more than ten years.

And my brain is getting old. :-)

Cerberus

It seems surprising that neither of you has ever felt a strong desire for the other side of the fence during those ten years.

MετάEd

4:47 AM

@Cerberus Well, maybe that is because neither of us felt suffocated. It is strange how when someone demands something of you, even something you would give freely, then sometimes you resist it.

But when the demand is not there, the resistance is not there too.

Cerberus

That is true.

But still.

MετάEd

We have a really good love for each other.

Cerberus

Great.

tchrist

8:27 AM

Good morning, slackers and Europeans.

I’ve decided on what I want for my upcoming birthday: a new timezone.

How do I an offer a bounty on a spammer’s head?

tchrist

8:44 AM

In adult education classes, do they watch adult films to get them through the boredom?

Hurray! ELU finally got the Bat Signal flying! Surely the superheroes cannot be far behind!

And ours is yellow, I now see.

“i find that most unix programs get written again and again and again,
when the one you wanted was already there in the first place.” [ref](https://groups.google.com/forum/%23%21msg/net.sources/rdwIP38fbCo/DXGhXn35xwIJ)

Well, I dunno.

Can’t get it hot link. I wodner why.

Oh, I know.

It it https.

How dumb.

Maybe I can chat.

["C'est la vie," states the Frenchman, non-plussed, to which the intrigued
Spaniard replies, "Monsieur, yo tambien se la vi."](http://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/net.jokes/12bX3rRzQYQ/kebGohCUQi0J)

No, apparently not. I don’t understand.

tchrist

9:14 AM

I have been unexpectedly seized with the almost unquellable urge to create a tagged union. Is this a treatable condition, or do you think I’m done for?

I sit beside the fire and think
     of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
     in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
     in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
     and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
     of how the world would be
when winter comes without a spring
     that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
     that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
     there is a different green.

Q: How can I explain the meaning of LaTeX to my grandma?
A: I suggest with dish-washing gloves, not with condoms.

tchrist

9:30 AM

There sure aren’t many union questions on Stack Overflow.

RegDwighт

10:03 AM

@tchrist I see you've been practicing the role of the Alleinunterhalter.

Your timezone must suck indeed.

user19161

Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have 27k, I may retire from ELU.

user19161

Hey @novice, what brings you here today?

Novice

@JasonBourne Nothing, just the rejoin favorite rooms button.

tchrist

@RegDwighт And people wonder why strongly typed languages get my knickers in a snit, or Snickers in a knit, or something like that:

0

Q: Can only a typed union solve this type of array-data declaration in C?

I'm trying to come up with a way to declared several data structures that are arrays of structures, where each subsequent array uses part of an earlier one. way that minimizes duplication. That way each element is declared only once. So conceptually, imagine these four arrays, where a given elem...

c arrays data-structures initialization unions

RegDwighт

> a way to declared

> is mean to represent

tchrist

10:15 AM

At least it shouldn’t attract too many pineapples. I just hope it attracts some worth answers.

Ok, fixing.

user19161

@tchrist Is there such a thing as an intersection too in that context?

tchrist

@JasonBourne You have just been whooshed, but that I didn’t meant to that time.

code4eight

Hello people!

RegDwighт

Well I don't know jack shit about C, much less about C++ so shrug.

code4eight

I have a question to ask you. :)

Is this sentence correct "See you our next lesson."?

user19161

10:17 AM

@tchrist Haha, how is that a whoosh?

tchrist

This problem almost doesn’t even come up in dynamic languages.

code4eight

I think it should have a preposition before the "our next lesson," for example, "in" or "at."

tchrist

@JasonBourne A C union is the same as a C struct whose members share the same memory.

It is not related to set operations.

@RegDwighт Not knowing C++ is actually an advantage is this case — and in most others besides. But yeah, this is just such a non-problem in Perl, where we can inspect the type of each array element with ref($a[3]) or whatever, that no one would ever get any knit-snickering from such a trivial problem. But with a strongly typed language, you are constrained by all these ridiculous red tape and duplicate paperwork requirements.

I feel like I’m trying to solve Russell’s Paradox using an infinite hierarchy of different-order sets. And I really hate that solution.

RegDwighт

@code4eight could work colloquially. I dunno. I wouldn't use it deliberately, but I won't vow it will never slip out involuntarily. It's the our, I think. If you drop it, I find it inexceptionable.

user19161

Amazing that my last 3 questions I answered got closed! How amazing!

tchrist

10:26 AM

code4eight

@RegDwighт I cannot understand your high-level English. :)

4

RegDwighт

Oh.

Someone take over from here.

tchrist

Why is everything I ever want to do in the 1% club? Maybe I need to buy a television and learn to eat meat. Not looking forward to either.

RegDwighт

Maybe you need to buy meat and eat your television.

No wait, that will put you in the 1% again.

user19161

@code4eight It sounds weird with "our" but if you remove that it sounds alright to me.

code4eight

10:28 AM

Thank you @JasonBourne for the translation. :)

RegDwighт

0

Q: meaning "down on me" Janis Joplin

What does "down on me" means in the Janis Joplin song? I'm sceptic about the "oral sex" meaning here. lyrics: Well, down on me, Lord, down on me. I said it looks like everybody in this whole round world, Yeah hey yeah all right, is down on me yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. One of these mornings...

meaning

He really had to quote it all, did he not.

Cerberus

@tchrist What do you want to do?

And hello.

user19161

@code4eight I wasn't translating him. That was my own thought, but it is similar to what he says.

code4eight

Oh, sorry.

Thank you for your answer.

user19161

Yesterday, I had a thought to delete my Eng and TeX accounts, ha.

tchrist

10:29 AM

@Cerberus It is. . . . hard to explain in a single sentence. See my SO post above.

I want to avoid duplication, because seeing the same thing more than once in a program makes me shudder as a programmer.

It goes against my every instinct.

It leads to undate-incoherency.

You change something in one place and forget to change it in another.

Cerberus

Yeah, although in practice it matters very little, in all probability.

Depending on what it is.

tchrist

You need things that rely on each other explicitly, so that this can never break.

Everyone does this all the time. Drives me crazy. Makes bugs.

Cerberus

What 1 % is this?

user19161

I don't like Bill Franke's answers anymore. He has many strong opinions which seem to neglect the other side of the picture.

tchrist

If I can avoid gratuitous buggery in the first place, then I might be able to avoid painful debuggery later on.

user19161

10:32 AM

I put him in the same class as Kris from now actually.

tchrist

@Cerberus Look at my tag set in the clipping post: the probable solution, the one involving unions, is a nearly invisible topic on SO. Nobody knows what unions are, or how to use them, or why. They are very highly trans-pineapple.

Hence, the 1%.

user19161

Now they have pineapples too in programming?

tchrist

You. Have. No. Idea.

Cerberus

Okay then I have no idea what this is about.

tchrist

Yes, I am sorry.

user19161

10:34 AM

I don't know any programming, so I am a pineapple.

tchrist

I could probably come up with a purely English version, but I am a bit tired.

Basically, I want a SEE ALSO as part of a definition.

So that definitions nest. Kinda.

user19161

What are you even doing in this chat with that tight schedule?

tchrist

I have to go away now.

I came here to post the SO question.

user19161

You should get more sleep.

tchrist

I Got lots of sleep. I slept from 6pm–1am. That is more than in days. Together.

It just has nothing whatthefuckingsoever to do with the nominal timezone in which I reside.

Our application is harlequin hodgepodge of C and Perl, and for this part, I need the C solution. The Perl solution does not apply. Plus would be trivial.

user19161

10:37 AM

I will put an asterisk on "Are you getting late", now they will be happy.

tchrist

Well, it has one deleted answer, one very good comment, three votes, and a favorite. I just might get an answer today after all.

One small advantage of posting a C data-structure puzzle is that it does tend to keep the pineapples at bay in a way that posting something about Java or C# or whatnot never does. There are real programmers left in this world.

user19161

I have been thinking what I would tell TPTB if they ask me why I want to delete my ELU account, if I really do so.

tchrist

Because you are in the wrong part of your bipolar swing.

user19161

Haha, well I have many frustrations on this site which I shan't mention here.

tchrist

You just did.

Ok, off to hack, perchance to perish.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…