English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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tchrist

00:28

Bad @Mitch. Naughty @Mitch. You’ll have The Lawler on your tail for that one.

Why? Because English doesn't always spell things the way they sound. So it is easy to make spelling mistakes. — Mitch 33 mins ago

@Mitch s/always/ever/; that is, English never spells things “as they sound” — the very notion makes no sense! Depending on local dialect, we’ve like 40–48 phonemes in English: things you can find minimal pairs for. Now multiply those 40-odd phonemes by some smallish real number above 1.0 to account for the various phonetic allophones (“phones”) each phoneme can take on, again varying by region, register, and speaker. With barely 26 undiacriticked letters left in the modern English alphabet, these many-to-many-to-many mappings render any spell-by-sound idea sheer nonsense. — tchrist 2 mins ago

2 hours later…

Cerberus

02:27

@Robusto I confess. @Mr.Shiny is my sock puppet.

I thought you knew.

But that Iphone? Eww.

@tchrist All I know is that a morgen was different depending on the town you were in.

Also called margen or mergen.

Certain kinds of soil took longer to plough, and different towns have different customs.

tchrist

@Cerberus That’s like a league on the plains being farther than a league in the hills.

Cerberus

Indeed.

Any measurement was different from one town to the next.

And by a large percentage, sometimes many hundreds.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt This one’s for you, wherever you are. . . .

►

Robusto

02:45

Reminded me of Magrittes "The Empire of Light".

Cerberus

Nice but random. Like life.

Robusto

I was on my walk and I just had to snap that.

Cerberus

Bravo G2.

Robusto

Life would be boring if it weren't for random.

@Cerberus That's 50% scaled down, too.

Cerberus

Of course.

It looks like...dawn?

I'm also a bit tipsy.

Robusto

02:48

Dusk. Sunset actually.

Cerberus

Huh dusk is nearly always reddish here.

Robusto

Masked by clouds.

That's facing southwest.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Robusto

I love interesting sky textures.

Cerberus

You're like...a Dutch painter.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:09

@Cerberus yeah it's a bit eww. Not only is it an iphone, but it's an OLD one, and old technology is always yuckier.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't know, at some point it becomes quaint...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah, when it's old enough to be retro

Cerberus

Exactly.

Robusto

@Cerberus You mean an Old Master.

Cerberus

And Iphones are pretty outdated, right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:11

But the iphone is lagging Android in almost everything all the time, so even the new one is retro

Cerberus

@Robusto Not just any old master...but sure.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Jinx.

Robusto

Cerberus

What's that?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto so I watched one more episode of BB. The one that ends with a gunfight. I really wanted to start the next one right away but ... must.... write!

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

BB Cupid has struck you, too?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:13

well, not exactly

It's a good show

I don't love it as much as most fans

I have three episodes left

Cerberus

Hmm.

Left of the last season?

> Western Digital raadt klanten met Apple-computers af te updaten naar OS X Mavericks.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yes

Cerberus

OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> Western Digital recommends updating to OS X Mavericks. Customers with Apple computers off

That's GT.

Cerberus

Haha. Hilarious.

Not only is it nonsense, it is the opposite of what it means.

Afraden = to recommend against.

Apparently, Mavericks causes serious problems with WD software.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:16

@Cerberus I don't know what its opposite would be since it's so nonsensical.

Cerberus

"WD recommends updating" should be "WD recommends against updating".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, I should be off. There's still a few minutes left in this day to bring up my word count.

Cerberus

Good luck!

Robusto

03:30

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You have two episodes left. That is all.

And so to bed.

Cerberus

You're all going to bed rather early for a Saturday night!

I only came home less than an hour ago.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Which is interesting, because we gain an hour tonight.

Cerberus

Ah.

We've already gained ours.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

How is it?

Cerberus

It's...there.

EnglishMaster

03:42

I thank universities around the world for putting up books and resources for free on Internet. Now I can read it without ordering it on Amazon and wait for 10 days.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hmpf.

Well. Good talk.

EnglishMaster

Good talk

Do you know how to find good books to read? there are few steps involved.
1) Find name of a book, for example "Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution". Then find this book on Amazon.com and scroll down to "What other people also searched for" section. Usually this section has other epic books listed as well.

2) Pick an epic book (with epic rating) and search the name on Google by "Epic book.pdf"

Then look for a link to university site

Easy ^_^

I should write a book called "How to pirate like a boss in 100 ways"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto I think I have three left... pretty sure that was episode 13.

@Cerberus, I need help finding a word.

Cerberus

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm looking for an adjective that means "thousands of years long"

Cerberus

03:57

Uhh...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

specifically, to describe a journey that a spaceship might take if it can't travel ftl

Cerberus

Millennial?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That's what I wrote but it seems wrong somehow.

Cerberus

It probably means "a thousand years long".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the OED says "a thousand years old"

or "thousands of years old"

Cerberus

03:58

Or that, yes.

"Having to do with a thousand years".

EnglishMaster

Guys, I noticed in the book, the author introduces other associative authors and tell what books they have written in the past. Do you think it's a form of advertising or just letting people know about their achievements?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

could be both

EnglishMaster

Cerberus

But a millennial journey I would be willing to read as "a thousand years long".

You could say "plurimillennial".

> χῑλίωρος, ον, (ὥρα) of a thousand years, χρόνος Lyc.1153.

Apparently, chilioran could be a word.

Or chiliorous, chilioric...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

chilioran isn't in the OED.

Cerberus

04:04

Yeah I'm making it up based on the Greek.

> Millennarian 2. In the etymological sense: Relating or pertaining to a thousand. In mod. Dicts.

I think millennarian is the best option so far.

> The ship set out on a millennarian journey.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think I'm just going to rewrite the sentence.

Cerberus

Or that.

EnglishMaster

Gosh, I hate korean employers =( They only pay me 6.5 dollars an hour but I was being paid at least 18 dollars in Australia

I have to be very nice and well to American customers to get some tips from them otherwise I end up earning peanuts after hard labouring =(

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

restaurant work?

EnglishMaster

I'm quitting soon any ways, my job is the best joke in 2013

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

04:15

hm, good luck

2546 words! that's it for tonight.

bye

EnglishMaster

bye

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