English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Just heard an NPR story about the threat of draconian language laws sweeping the province and declaring 90 towns no longer bilingual. Quite controversial. But guess what word they use for the non-francophones there? “Oh them? Those are just ****”. What word?

RegDwighт

Nichtfroschfresser.

tchrist

Shorter.

RegDwighт

10:10 PM

Seems to fit.

NFF if you're on a shoe-string budget.

tchrist

Hint: It is the same word as the Pennsylvania Dutch use for people outside their community.

In both cases, that word is English.

RegDwighт

Uh. Schmuck?

tchrist

That one’s Yiddish, not English.

“There aren’t many English living around here anyway.” would be said in both places.

RegDwighт

No, that one is English, in Yiddish it means "jewellery"

tchrist

Well the first would be in French, but you get the picture.

RegDwighт

10:12 PM

I'm not sure I'm following anymore.

tchrist

We dispensed with the anti-Semitic sense.

RegDwighт

Who's calling whom what now?

tchrist

The francophone Quebeckers call everybody not them English.

The Pennsylvania Dutch call everyone not in their quaint little buggies English.

Anti-Semitic being related to Jews and Jewery.

It’s like how Welsh used to mean the foreigners. Or some such.

They use English to mean foreigner, kinda.

RegDwighт

So you watched your buddies die face down in mud to get called English by the Dutch. Seems about fair.

Robusto

I insist that Jews capitalize Gentile. And pronounce it genteel. That's just how I roll.

tchrist

10:16 PM

Funny you should bring in the Dutchers, and it is Cerb that brought all this to mind.

RegDwighт

@Robusto I insist they pronounce it Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

tchrist

Do you hang pretty shiny mobeels for your grandchildren’s amusement?

RegDwighт

That'll show'em.

Robusto

@RegDwighт Stop mauping around.

RegDwighт

I could try mauping asquare for a change.

tchrist

10:18 PM

We need to call an Armistead.

Robusto

Sorry, I meant Moliering around. Got my Frenchmen mixed up.

RegDwighт

I would call myself Esq., too.

@Robusto it's okay, you will have time to recite all the Frenchmen back and forth en attendant Godot.

Robusto

Short for Esquimeaux?

tchrist

Can’t get good gas attendants anymore. Nor high school, either.

RegDwighт

Short for Eerie Stampede Quarterpoundwithcheese.

Robusto

10:19 PM

You mean Royale with cheese.

tchrist

Banned in France.

Robusto

We were talking about the French.

RegDwighт

I mean Battle Royale and no cheese.

Robusto

@tchrist Au contraire.

RegDwighт

Jun 8 '12 at 13:35, by Robusto

@Mitch Le chien chaud est la saucisse Americaine.

Das mußte mal gesagt werden.

tchrist

10:21 PM

I have to confess that more than half of my sticking with English units is to keep pithing off the frogs.

Robusto

> Patience pays off with banana bread; it’s better day two.

RegDwighт

Patience flies like a banana bread.

Robusto

Notice that nobody makes pineapple bread? But they do make pineapple upside-down cake? That's because pineapples are naturally upside down.

tchrist

knows no shortage of saucy Americans

RegDwighт

Shortage of saucy Americans, tchrist. Tchrist, shortage of saucy Americans.

tchrist

10:23 PM

hates short jokes

Robusto

I neau, ryte?

RegDwighт

Q: Phrase for the construction "a, b, c, and d"

I'm looking for a concise phrase for the sentence construction "a, b, c, and d". That is, a comma-separated list of things, where the last comma is either replaced or accompanied by the word "and". I'm trying to avoid an Oxford comma debate as it is not relevant to this question.

expressions

Like, I dunno, list?

Robusto

@RegDwighт That's what I thought, but I felt it too obvious to say.

RegDwighт

Then you should have said it backwards, and in Russian. That wouldn't have been too obvious at all.

Robusto

@RegDwighт Also, trying to avoid an Oxford comma debate is just waving a red flag at a bull. @tchrist is in da house, mothafuckah!

@RegDwighт Everything in Russian is backwards.

tchrist

10:25 PM

Couldn’t find the flag for flamebait.

Robusto

He's tryin' ta punk your ass with the Oxford comma thing.

I'd waste the mothafuckah.

RegDwighт

@Robusto his mistake was to say he wanted to avoid a debate. He didn't say he wanted to avoid being taught The One Right Way With No Room For Any Debate Whatsoever At All.

Robusto

Rookie move.

There is no debate. The Oxford comma is settled science. All right-thinking people agree. — Robusto 8 secs ago

I hadda do it.

RegDwighт

@Robusto see, ain't it nice. It makes being not too obvious quite easy.

tchrist

Droll.

Robusto

10:28 PM

Yeah, but you Russkies ain't inscrutable, like them Chinese.

RegDwighт

The Chinese are quite scrutable if you know Chinese. Also, boring.

tchrist

Who’d wanna scrute the Chinese anyway?

jinx

RegDwighт

The Russkies are inscrutable no matter what.

Robusto

You're both a couple of Chinese checkers.

RegDwighт

You can be Putin and have no idea how to scrute a Russky.

tchrist

10:29 PM

With a name like that. . . .

RegDwighт

You have to be the lover of a queen?

Robusto

@RegDwighт Yeah, well, you should try to deal with this Russian guy I work with. He brings me over a fragment of Google Analytics Javascript and asks me why it doesn't work in his page. How the fuck should I know? We have a gazillion lines of code in that page. Is this just him being inscrutable, or just dense?

@tchrist The French spell it putain, ne-c'est pas?

RegDwighт

@Robusto You see, the real art of Zen lies in understanding that it doesn't make a difference.

I do wonder, can I haz embedding of ELL content hier?

A: Pronunciation of "beaches" and "bitches"

Bitch ~ pitch bitches ~ pitches beach ~ peach beaches ~ peaches I believe there is an American (possibly Latino, but I'm guessing) beeet-ches pronunciation, similar to how stinking becomes steeenking - as in "we don' need no steeenking baadges" - but I digress. In general usage, bitches and...

Haha yes we can.

Robusto

> English spelling is crazy, these two words are pronounced identically except for the vowel. Don't worry about the 't' at all, it's not really a separate sound.

That from Mitch?

What fucking language does he speak?

RegDwighт

Yeah.

Robusto

10:32 PM

Except for which vowel?

RegDwighт

@Robusto he wondered the same thing about spicyoko before posting that answer.

Robusto

Nobody on ELL speaks English. I think I will delete my account there lest people start to suspect I'm a pineapple.

RegDwighт

So anyway. That pineapple asks, what is the difference in pronunciation between "beach" and "bitch", and he gets that answer, "bitch is pronounced like pitch, while beach is pronounced like peach".

Robusto

►

The theme song for ELL.

RegDwighт

This song is owned by UMG. Dis Pardner has forbode thee to watch, mofo.

A quick-and-dirty translation, my first try.

Robusto

10:35 PM

No cowbell for you.

RegDwighт

HP Lovecraft bells cows now?

Robusto

This one does.

RegDwighт

Wayfaring Stranger has been ruined for everyone else by Johnny Cash. You can't listen to any other version once you've heard his.

He did that to every song.

RIP

Robusto

You misspelled the acronym for Rock Island Line.

►

RegDwighт

Guess what, UMG won't let me listen to that, either, even though I own fiftytwelve versions of the song.

YouTube is breaked.

Wow, we only have 35 voters on ELL. Unless it just doesn't list anyone who's voted less than 11 times.

And now I gotta go.

Toodles.

Robusto

10:46 PM

RegDwighт

@TimLymington "list" is too generic. The specific action I'm looking for is a transformation from a simple comma separated list to one with an "and" before the last element. — Josh 11 mins ago

Translation: "I am writing a function that inserts a conjunction into some text, and I need a name for it".

Robusto

list.join(",")