English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

11:12 AM

Heh.

Well, now I do!

Yeah, it is kind of the same old complaint.

But I think his premise is false, that there is or should be symmetry between askers and answerers.

Look at EL&U.

How many questions have you asked?

Yes. This is what I thought

20

I 4. My ratio is 100:1.

I'm about 11:1

also, saying that stackoverflow is for experts is a joke

Stack Overflow has experts on it, but the site is not for them, it's for programmers of all levels

the number of questions for experts is close to 0 as far as I can see

Skeet didn't get where he is by answering expert level questions, nor did Robusto or Barrie here

11:22 AM

Good point.

> Jon Skeet has answered 24,332 questions

!

How can you answer 24,332 questions??

yeah

Too many for the mind to comprehend.

Say each answer took him 10 minutes to type.

I think Jon Skeet once said something like "there's no point answering questions if you don't cap every day"

That's 4000 hours.

Which is 100 working weeks

Which is two years of full-time work.

eyes bulging

yup

although I think 10 minutes is a bit long

11:26 AM

@MattЭллен Odd.

but still

Mechanical snail

@MattЭллен More like 10 seconds. This is Jon Skeet we're talking about.

Including correction, edits, Meta activity, maintenance...

@Mechanicalsnail indeed :D

A: "suggest" feature for textboxes in a rails app

0

EDIT: I'll leave this answer here as a sort of theoretical reference point, but it sounds like the autocompleter answer is likely to be more useful to you :) Disclaimer: Although I work for Google (which clearly has "Suggest" elements in various UIs) I haven't looked at any of the code around th...

This is his lowest-rated answer, with a score of 0.

That took him longer than 10 seconds.

11:29 AM

no doubt

11:45 AM

@Robusto $ whatis flex → flex – fast lexical analyzer generator

@Robusto Sure, as long as it’s written goto-ell.

A: How do I determine whether a question fits on English Language & Usage or on English Language Learners?

12:02 PM

0

How about this: If you have something to ask about a certain linguistic element for your own practical use, ask on ELL; If you are not mainly concerned with using the element yourself, but instead you would like to know more about it, such as how it came to be, whether there is a pattern behin...

What do you think: is this too abstract?

A: Should we begin migrating questions to ELU?

I don't think we should bother thinking about EL&U when defing topicality of ELL

0

No. We should jealously guard our questions. If a question is off topic, close it. Do not spend time thinking about EL&U. EL&U is more prominent than ELL, so it seems unlikely that someone will find us before them. I'm not suggesting we don't have enough questions. I am saying that whe...

I understand your rationale.

ELL is its own thing. We created it so we could help learners, not so we could help EL&U

But...

Oh, and:

lol

12:07 PM

@MattЭллен In principle, yes. But...is it realistic?

That's too cute

The apple doesn't like its little parasitic friend!

@Cerberus not forever, but at this formative point, I think it is imperative to decide what we want to do with the site, ignoring other sites.

The only reason I wanted ELL was to get the whiners on EL&U off my back...

that will never happen

EL&U will still be inundated with questions we don't want to answer

12:08 PM

It might if they can migrate instead of whine!

maybe, but we can't define ELL like that

Learner's questions have always got fairly good answering rates on EL&U. The problem is not that nobody wanted to answer them, but rather that a few prominent people would continue to whine about them.

the movement of "annoying" questions to ELL will happen naturally if the ELL community defines it to be the case

Many people don't find those questions annoying at all.

hence the quotes

12:10 PM

Poorly formatted questions annoy me.

Questions with not enough context annoy me.

OK.

I truly wish we had a button with "not enough context".

we do: NARQ

what we really need is a button that tells people that closed means they should edit the question by listening to the criticism in the comments.

Yeah.

But NARQ is not as specific as "add more context".

Nor as instructive.

no, but that would be in the comments, I assume

But I want a button.

write one in AHK

12:15 PM

Is it too much to ask? It can be tiny.

Haha.

I could!

you could!

Yes.

And it wouldn't be extremely hard either.

It would be extremely inelegant coding, though.

Lots of image search and emulated mouse-clicks.

You would roll over in your grave if you were dead.

Oh, gross!!

They are draining a septic tank or some kind of cesspit.

And it stinks!

I have all the windows closed, but still.

@Cerberus Still talking about question-migration, eh?

If only.

There is a huge yellow tank truck in front of my house.

Or what do you call those?

I have no idea.

I don’t mean I cannot envision it.

12:23 PM

I just don’t know that these are called anything in particular.

Wait, that’s for transporting petro-products, no?

"Tank(er) truck" gets plenty of hits.

Petrol or other liquids.

It can be anything.

Sure, it’s a tanker, like an oil tanker.

But a sewage tanker?

Better hope they don’t hit an iceberg.

I'm trying to think of what we would call them in Dutch. I think probably a tankwagen.

Luckily, I have no icebergs in my street—just rubbish bergs.

Are they pumping out the mainline?

12:25 PM

I have no idea what they are pumping out of.

Sewage always stinks.

But one would think regular sewers didn't require draining by tank wagon.

One would hope.

I have noticed any sewage problems.

They do do this for isolated toilets that are unconnected to city sewers. It is expensive to pump them out. We have that for example in certain mountaintop rest-stops.

“Pumping truck” may be it.

I don’t know. Just flailing here.

12:30 PM

Hmm possibly.

My parents were only connected to the sewer system a few years ago.

I’ve found hits for pump trucks, portable toilet trucks (which are of course portable-toilet trucks not portable toilet-trucks), septic pumper truck, vacuum service trucks, portable latrine trucks, vacuum trucks.

And they hardly live on a mountain top.

The pumping truck came every 6 months or so. The sewage was supposed to decompose on its own.

But it didn't always work well.

Sometimes you have to toss in a cup of something or other in it to help it along.

Do you y-front sewer?

Hmm?

Soo or syoo?

12:32 PM

Oh, soo.

Just curious.

Although actually syoo might be...better.

I think the syoower thing would tend to get sh-ified, like issue.

That would sound wrong.

Exactly.

12:33 PM

I wouldn't do that with sewers.

That is very important.

You never want to mistake sewers with showers.

Soo when I'm lazy, syoo when I'm making an effort.

Haha.

Although shower returns are greywater not blackwater.

Small solace, that.

Do you know the difference between a loo bowl and a sink?

Spigots.

12:35 PM

You're supposed to answer, "no?".

About ten drinks.

Then I say, "your house must be quite a mess, then".

The joke abuses rhetorical questions.

It’s a girl-vs-boy thing. You’ll never see a somnambulant girl get up drunk in the middle of the night and pee into your sink by accident.

Okay, the truck is gone.

Somnambulant ≠ drunk.

Just don’t leave the step-stool in front of the sink as an enticement.

Hm, not that kind of stool.

12:40 PM

"Leave", as if you would ever put it there.

Houses with wee ones often leave step-stools in front of their sinks that the resident tikes might stand tall enough to wash their hands.

Wee...I see.

We all know the international euphemism "where can I wash my hands?".

Q: 'Take it off him' meaning 'take it from him' is incorrect - but what is the grammatical reason?

Drunken Scottish lads : wee ones in the wrong place, and spend the night in jail.

0

'I took it off him' OR 'I took it from him'. I know that the second version is correct (unless it refers to an item that is literally on top of somebody, eg a wardrobe had fallen on someone), but what is the grammatical explanation?

prepositions

Tell me that’s a real question. Or something.

Ones, or once?

Exactly.

12:50 PM

Seems like an OK question to me.

It sounds better in your ears.

You could say something about usage patterns for off v. from and how they differ.

This is not a question of grammar, though.

And about the origin and development of both prepositions/adverbs in contrast.

Sure it is about grammar.

User IDs are getting up there, what with 37227 already taken. That means we’re soon going to overflow our shorts: 2**15-1 is 32767.

1:03 PM

What about unsigned integers, which is what you're talking about? I think we're only halfway there.

@tchrist Who said anything about accidents?

Mechanical snail

2:19 PM

@Cerberus Unicode Coptic block

@Mechanicalsnail Ah. You...you...transcript reader!

Gigili

Hello, what exactly does" Press Releases" mean?

a statement made by someone or thing that is given to the press

Gigili

A statement that is published in a newspaper or magazine or something?

yes

Gigili

2:33 PM

Thank you, Matt.

no probs

@MattЭллен a statement made by some thing? You got a talking cat or something? ;)

:Þ I suppose I could have just left it at someone. corporations are people, after all

or is that soylent green?

Corporations employ people who write press releases at least

I'm not sure about Soylent Green Corp.

they may be of the people, for the people, by the people, as someone once said

Bob Monkhouse, I think

2:53 PM

Hey, do you want to see how our EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, N. Kroes, edits her Word documents?

She forgot to accept all edits before converting to PDF and publishing the proposed EU directive.

tweakimg.net/files/upload/CS_Directive_EN%20doc.pdf

/facepalm

I know.

@MattЭллен Spoiler alert: Soylent Green is a corporation!

In capitalist USA corporation is person

Corporate personhood

Corporate personhood is the legal concept that a corporation may sue and be sued in court in the same way as natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons. This doctrine in turn forms the basis for legal recognition that corporations, as groups of people, may hold and exercise certain rights under the common law and the U.S. Constitution. The doctrine does not hold that corporations are "people" in the most common usage of the word, nor does it grant to corporations all of the rights of citizens. Since at least Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward – 17 U.S. 518 (1819)...

Haha yes.

3:05 PM

but you can't get married to a corporation

But you can get divorced from one.

If a thing can be preposterous, can it also be postposterous? Question for the day.

You can make it postprosperous by suing the hell out of it. Think of it as a gold-digger's divorce.

How about metaprosperous?

Hmmm

preposterous originally meant putting things first that should be last

anteposterous might be more appropriate for the opposite

@Robusto And megaprosperous.

3:17 PM

My auntie is very prosperous.

> 1535–45; < Latin praeposterus with the hinder part foremost.

@ElendilTheTall Nice.

backasswards in other words

Do cats have canine teeth?

Yes

But dogs don't have feline teeth.

That's not quite fair, actually.

3:22 PM

@ElendilTheTall Zactly my thinking. I picture an animal presenting its hind quarters.

I'll bet you do

@Cerberus Stop telling us about your sexual fantasies.

weirdo

Jinx.

@Robusto But we can be catty.

@Robusto You're the weirdos.

3:23 PM

We can be catty, but not doggy. Except for you.

Oh, but you can be dogged.

We can be horsey as well.

@Cerberus You have dogged us for lo these many years.

And sheepish, you Sheeple.

Lo, even?

And piggy.

And viral.

3:24 PM

And parasitic.

And polysitic.

Now you're just aping me.

Or megasitic.

Don't be so hawkish.

I'm a dove carrying an olive branch.

What a pair of tits you are

And what a couple of prime pigeons you are.

3:27 PM

All I require of you people is tribute and vassalage, and seven beautiful lads and lasses.

3

You can require all you like

doesn't mean you'll get it

!

@Cerberus Theseus is gonna kick your ass.

whining Why must you be so unkind? Why deny me my wishes?

@Robusto Then he can say goodbye to his Elysian Fields.

Not if he goes to Paris.

3:29 PM

I'm quite sure Paris is not there.

And no jokes about Helen and Menelaos.

And I gotta go to a meeting.

makes none

OK bai.

toodle, and indeed, oo

Oo?

Hello black hole.

toodloo

3:32 PM

@BlackHole At last you shed your disguise.

@ElendilTheTall That the same as toodle-doo?

never heard of toodle-doo

Hmm.

toodle-oo/toodloo is a colloquialism for 'goodbye'

Tweedle-dee, then?

In Dutch, we say...toedeloe. I guess that is the same.

Then there is toedels, and toedeledokie...

I am bettering myself at KhanAcademy.org

Algebra today

I have just learnt about Cartesian co-ordinates and linear equations

3:48 PM

@Cerberus oddly OED and etymonline don't know the etymology of toodle-oo. It seems very close to the Dutch word.

4:02 PM

@MattЭллен Yeah, they are no doubt related.

I guess Hollanders and Englanders often say hi and bye to each other. That is only logical, if your ships pass one another all the time in the Channel.

parting is such sweaty sorrow

Sweaty, even?

well, on the high seas and all

it won't be sweet

salty, perhaps

I suppose.

What's the difference between a "frame" and an "iframe"?

An iframe is a frame within the normal flow of a document.

4:14 PM

Hmm.

Think of the i as meaning inner.

And a frame is not within the normal flow?

Ah OK, inner.

No. A frame is an intrusive compartmentalization of a window's viewport.

How can I tell the difference when I see one?

Each frame is its own viewport, and is a subdivision of a window.

4:16 PM

What is a viewport?

@Cerberus Sometimes you can't tell. But usually if you see a window that is divided into sections that are resizeable, and which don't allow overlap of things like dropdown menus etc., those are normal frames (within framesets).

Framesets are going away, btw. Only iframes remain. Think of an iframe as a sub-window inside another window.

So this text box I'm typing in is a normal frame?

The viewport is the part of the window that displays the HTML.

No. I don't think there are any frames or iframes in chat here.

@Robusto But isn't a normal frame also a sub-window inside a window?

@Robusto Oh...so confusing.

@Cerberus Yes.

It's confusing if you don't know anything about it. Just like Latin grammar.

4:18 PM

Yeah.

I know only what I see.

And how it behaves.

I don't know anything about the code.

Why do you need to know?

I always read about how iframes can be dangerous, and I am blocking them now in Noscript, but I set it to allow frames.

This only applies to untrusted sites.

Two black holes in one chat room? Is this the end of the world?

One is touching us.

Read this article about iframes and security vulnerabilities.

I wouldn't worry too much about them unless you visit a lot of suspicious sites. In any case, iframes are on their way out as well. You can accomplish the same tasks better with AJAX, JSON, and dynamic HTML.

And by you I mean we.