English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:25

2 hours ago, by cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hello!

tchrist

00:54

I have question.

Why non native speakers never know how use doubt right?

> I have a doubt regarding the usage of "but".

> I have a doubt regarding expression like these: The new Al Pacino movie is supposed to be a good movie. Asians are not supposed to be good ball players. Whale is supposed to be the smartest anima

> I have a doubt about what a meeting agenda is. I don’t know if it is possible to use meeting agenda when you have to register all the topics (conclusions, ideas, members, date, etc.) of the

> I have a doubt on the uses of the word lyrics.

> I am going to translate an english song in italian language and I have a doubt with this phrase:

> I have a doubt on the usage of 'present' as a verb. Should it be always be followed by a 'with'?

> I have a doubt about this grammatical question: "..large amount of data and the fact that IT will exponentially grow..." "..large amount of data and the fact that THEY will exponentially grow..."

> I have a doubt between both expressions. I think the first one is the correct for express such rhetorical question, isn't it | no?

> a competition relies more on intelligence while a contest is associated to brute strength (well, I have a doubt about this one)

Who be done teached them this doubt?

No native talk this way.

Sounds like pidgin talking.

What do they really mean? What should those all be in idiomatic English?

> I have a question about. . . .

> I don’t quite understand. . . .

> I am unclear on. . . .

> I’ve been wondering about. . . .

> I am unsure of. . . .

> I’ve got some doubts about. . . .

Robusto

Today morning I have a wonder about this.

Cerberus

@tchrist Is it perhaps related to their country of origin?

It is probably not something a Dutchman would say.

tchrist

I haven’t analysed it for country of origin.

Robusto

@Cerberus There you go, trying to get your country off the hook again.

Cerberus

Perhaps some Romance languages?

@Robusto Oh, they make other horrible mistakes.

tchrist

01:09

You can say “without a doubt” or “There can be no doubt that” or “I have no doubt that” etc.

Robusto

Yay, my null flag disappeared.

@tchrist That is beyond doubt.

Cerberus

@tchrist I think Robusto knows this.

@Robusto I usually either refresh or wait for like 1000000 seconds.

Robusto

Refreshing didn't do it this time.

It was still there even after I rebooted my machine.

tchrist

@Cerberus Google would have one believe that there are a lot of Spanish instances of “tengo una duda” and also quite a few Portuguese instances of “tenho uma duda”.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

LOL TOEIC tricks are so predictable now. In a practice test, there is a picture of Temples looks like this

tchrist

01:12

But I had the notion that these were mostly coming from Oriasians on ELU.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

And it says "Tables are arranged in rows" assuming that ESL people will mis-hear 'tables' as "temples"

Robusto

@tchrist Nae doot.

tchrist

Pensu.

Cerberus

@tchrist Dadaa!

@O0oO0oOO0ooO That's funny.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I don't think these English exams can truly measure someone's English proficiency but companies rely on those scores so much

=(

tchrist

01:17

These are all Orindians so far.

Cerberus

Hmm yes, I suppose it does sound Indian.

tchrist

Actually, while one might say “I have a doubt in this concept” in India, that is not language that a native speaker would use. It sounds wrong. — tchrist 22 secs ago

They actually said that.

68

Q: Can "doubt" sometimes mean "question"?

I often see questions on Stack Exchange sites which I presume are written by non-native English speakers who use the word "doubt" in place of the word "question". Is this a case of misunderstanding the correct meaning or are people being taught that this is correct usage?

BINGO!

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Doubt always means suspicion isn't it?

tchrist

Who knows?

It doesn’t mean that in English.

You can’t just plop in suspicion for these weird Orienglish uses of doubt and have it make sense.

Cerberus

@tchrist I don't see what your comment adds. The OP has already said that.

tchrist

01:31

After browsing through the first five pages, the country that comes up most often is India. I'm sure our Indian contributors will shed some light on this. — RegDwighт Sep 2 '10 at 21:41

Very good question. I have observed this for many years on international tech mailing lists. It seems to come mostly from the Indian subcontinent. So it may be a specific linguistic issue relative to the languages used there, or it could be a cultural issue, that you would rather talk about your own feelings instead of addressing someone else. — Peter Eisentraut Sep 4 '10 at 11:09

Here in India, in most languages we speak (e.g. Hindi, Marathi), this is the valid and correct way it is expressed. People just translate it as it is in English! The para from the 'Vishy's Indian English Dictionary' in the answer by @cindi is very well true. — Gopi Aug 29 '11 at 4:40

62

A: Can "doubt" sometimes mean "question"?

This is Indian English. See Vishy's Indian English Dictionary. July 12, 2006Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: doubt doubt. /DOWT/. A question asking for clarification. In standard English and American, the noun doubt is uncountable and refers to a lack of complete trust in so...

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I'm not trying to be racist but do you think this particular Indian person said "doubt" as "having a problem or being unclear"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Vj8pM-DNI
It occurs around @4:00. (I recommend you to watch it from the beginning)

Robusto

Well, doubt is certainly countable. "I have a few doubts about your ability to speak English."

And let's not forget:

►

tchrist

> In Indian English it is very well understood when someone asks "I have a doubt in this concept". In UK, doubt is taken in the context of "suspect", but in India, it is taken as "having a problem or not being clear".

19

Q: What is wrong in "Please don't pluck the flowers" and other phrases used in the Indian subcontinent?

In the Indian subcontinent, especially India, there are many English words or phrases which are not a part of dictionary or not used in other parts of the world. The first one is "Please don't pluck the flowers". I might not be proper, but I don't see anything wrong with this. It is pretty easy ...

word-choice indian-english

Robusto

Without a doubt works.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Would you consider Singporean, Filiphino and Indian English as dialect of English or incorrect English?

tchrist

01:36

@Cerberus Deleted.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

My Singaporean friend always speak like "Hey Jason la, how r u been doing lao lia"

tchrist

What, you’re a boy!?

Cerberus

@O0oO0oOO0ooO It is just a definition. In the end, it doesn't matter.

tchrist

If you have any doubts about it, be sure to check privately.

I’ve got my doubts about that one.

Cerberus

British style books advise against many Americanisms.

Robusto

01:40

►

tchrist

Color me méfiant.

5

Q: "Doubt" vs. "suspect"

I have never used doubt or suspect properly before. Now I understand that they seem to bear quite the opposite meanings in a sentence. For example, Everybody believes him, but I suspect he is lying means I doubt he is telling the truth. Such pairs of words can be really challenging f...

meaning word-choice synonyms antonyms semantics

Robusto

@Cerberus Which means precisely what?

tchrist

10

Q: 'Questions' vs. 'Concerns' vs. 'Doubts'

This is a region-specific question--Indian English I have noticed when working with colleagues from India that they use the word 'doubts' where the typical American would use the word 'questions' or 'concerns'. This is most prevalent at the end of a meeting or discussion where an Indian colleag...

etymology indian-english

►

Robusto

Well, different strokes ... :)

But, yeah, I remember that one.

tchrist

Kinda turned me off, actually.

Robusto

01:46

Something's wrong with YouTube tonight. Lotta vids keep crapping out.

tchrist

Do you block spamvertising?

Robusto

Yes.

Maybe they're retaliating?

►

Featuring one of Stephen Sondheim's worst lyrics.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Hey if you have any doubt in your manhood, please come here I'm Amoured 7-11

Robusto

See if you can tell me which line I'm talking about.

tchrist

@Robusto I do too. Sometimes they do whig a bit.

Robusto

01:49

@tchrist *wig

tchrist

@Robusto Well, no Spanish-speaking immigrant would be able to do all that internal rhyme.

@Robusto Tory?

Cerberus

@Robusto Various words or expressions that are not used in Britain.

Robusto

Democrat?

tchrist

And I pity any girl who isn’t me today?

Robusto

@tchrist Keep away from her, send for Chino / This is not the Maaaa-ria we know!

Cerberus

01:51

Just as some American style books no doubt deprecate certain newer British idioms.

tchrist

@Cerberus What on earth are you talking about? That is not true.

Cerberus

And Indian expressions, at some point, although they are not frequent enough yet to bother with for style books.

tchrist

¿Quién es este “Chino”?

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh. I think I have seen such advice somewhere, but perhaps it was not in a style book.

Robusto

@Cerberus Really? You're equating American English with Indian English?

tchrist

01:52

@Cerberus Linky or never happied.

Cerberus

@Robusto No?

Robusto

@tchrist Maria's erstwhile boyfriend.

tchrist

Ah.

Robusto

@Cerberus Is that a question?

tchrist

You know a “barrio chino” is a red-light district, right?

Robusto

01:53

Si.

Cerberus

I am explaining how "native" and "dialect" are relative and changing.

tchrist

We have racistas stalking our periphery.

Pip pip.

I have now removed all doubt.

Robusto

►

Damn, that gal could sing.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

02:10

Do you think the main reason why English became so important is because of American influence?

Robusto

No.

American added a lot to English, but there was plenty to the language before there ever was an America.

tchrist

Shakespeare was American though.

Robusto

Gotta go.

Cerberus

@O0oO0oOO0ooO I would say yes.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Oh America~ Oh America~ America! Fuckyeah! Come and save another mother fxxxking day yeah!

Cerberus

02:17

That is, among Western countries, the economic power represented by the Anglo-Saxon world happened to become the greatest.

tchrist

Oh noes! 🐪🐪🐪🐪🐪 Camels may be a carrier of the mysterious virus that has infected at least 94 people in the Middle East and killed half of them, scientists are reporting. 🐫🐫🐫🐫🐫

@Cerberus There is no fricking A-S world, damn you.

Cerberus

So it makes sense to use the language that has the most speakers with the greatest economic output behind it.

tchrist

Anglo-Saxon wasn’t even a fucking language.

Cerberus

Spanish and Portuguese are also large, but not so large economically.

tchrist

Jun 30 at 0:15, by tchrist

> It is in the records of the fifth century that the word ‘Anglo-Saxon’ first appears. Indeed it was King Æthelstan who, among other high titles such as Bretwalda and Caesar, first styled himself Ongulsaxna cyning, that is, ‘King of the Angel-Saxons’. But he did not speak ‘Anglo-Saxon’, for there never was such a language. The king’s language was then, as now, Englisc: English.

Cerberus

02:20

Before English, it was French for a long time.

tchrist

Jun 30 at 0:15, by tchrist

> If you ever heard that Chaucer was the ‘father of English poetry’, forget it. English poetry has no recorded father, even as a written art, and the beginning lies beyond our view, in the mists of northern antiuquity. To speak of Anglo-Saxon language is thus wrong and misleading. You can speak of an ‘Anglo-Saxon period’ in history, before 1066. But it is not a very useful label. There was no such thing as a single uniform ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period.

The term is offensive.

Cerberus

I've already heard your talk several times, so why repeat it?

tchrist

Because it is wrong.

Because I asked you not to call me names that offend me.

I will continue to make that request.

Cerberus

I have heard your position, and you mine, and neither is going to change.

tchrist

Until you learn your lesson.

Cerberus

02:21

All right, good luck to you, then.

tchrist

You are so Mr Politeness until it comes to your own jingoistic racist name-calling.

Then it’s like you can do whatever you please.

That’s bullshit and you know it.

You expect other people not to be rude, and then you just bulldoze through with your own insistent rudeness. We have a nice Greek word for that, and you know what it is.

Cerberus

I'm not going to have this discussion with you, so just change the subject. This is the last I will say about...it.

tchrist

Please stop being a hypocrite then.

If you were German, you wouldn’t like it if people called you a Nazi.

So quit your racist slurs with the English-speaking world.

Please.

Cerberus

I don't freaking care what you call me.

tchrist

Do you want me to dredge up you telling off people for name-calling?

Because you know I can.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

02:28

Me too, my Japanese friend calls me Kimchi but I don't feel bad about it because I call him "Natto"

Cerberus

Care + I = not.

tchrist

Filthy hypocritical double-talking git.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

wow I came back at the right time.

tchrist

Hope you break your leg falling off your high horse.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I'll come to your home and hit you straight away

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:30

how is "Anglo-Saxon" offensive?

Cerberus

I have no idea why he is like that, he freaked out when I used the word.

I was even sort of talking about the glorious exploits of his country!

As in the current lingua franca.

tchrist

salon.com/2012/07/25/our_anglo_saxon_heritage_really

> But the Irish aren’t alone: The American identity of most “white” immigrant groups — especially Jews, Italians, Eastern and Southern Europeans – was forged in opposition to the supposed Anglo-Saxon ideal. There are British people who don’t consider themselves Anglo-Saxon, either.

It is an offensive term. I am not an Angle nor a Saxon, and I speak English.

My culture is not German.

My ancestors are not, either.

Or at least, not all of them.

America is the opposite of Anglo-Saxon: it is a melting pot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yes, it's clear how it's inaccurate.

But I don't see how that makes it offensive

tchrist

It offends me being called something I am not.

It is gratuitous stupidity.

And he knows better. But Eurotrash are always like that.

> As an Irish American, I find the comment extremely offensive. John F. Kennedy was not an Anglo Saxon. It is also inaccurate.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

mmmkay. See, if someone calls me something I am not, I am not typically offended.

@tchrist yeah, see, that was different.

tchrist

02:41

It’s at best culturally insensitive, and at worst . . . well, much worse than that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Sometimes people think I'm an American, because, It's the Internet. Would it be logical for me to be offended?

Cerberus

At least "Eurotrash" is inoffensive.

tchrist

It would be logical for you to be offended if people thought that you had no cultural identity distinct from being an American.

Wouldn’t it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist No. I would just assume they are uninformed.

Cerberus

I was not talking to you, I was explaining something to OOO. And I cannot stop using words I consider OK just become there is one person who has a problem with it. I think I usually try not to use it when talking to you, and I think that should be enough. You can't force other people to talk the way you want if they disagree.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:43

I might be annoyed. But not offended. Especially not if someone was saying something that was not meant to be offensive. Unlike Romney, who was trying to be racist, only in code.

tchrist

American of Irish/English/German/Jewish descent are not “Anglo-Saxons”.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Like the old rules about immigration.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I don't know the old rules

Cerberus

I'm also not "Deutsch"—the word is not used in het Nederlands—, and yet you call me that.

tchrist

Ah! Well, prepare to be icked out.

It used to be that there were country-of-origin quotas.

To make sure only the right kind of people came here.

Ethnic quotes were in force until 1965.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oh, quotas, yeah. I knew about that.

tchrist

02:47

And Chinese exclusion laws, even.

> 1921: The first quantitative immigration law was adopted. It set temporary annual quotas according to nationality. A book review of Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in America, 1890-1924, which discusses this period is available here.

> 1924: The first permanent immigration quota law established a preference quota system, nonquota status, and consular control system. It also established the Border Patrol.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah. Chinese people were actually kicked out at one point.

tchrist

That’s right.

Most people don’t know that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

we had the same shit here too

tchrist

> 1882: The Chinese exclusion law curbed Chinese immigration.

Cerberus

Most countries allow immigration only selectively...

tchrist

02:49

> 1888: Provisions were adopted--the first since 1798--to provide for expulsion of aliens.

> 1907: A bill increased the head tax on immigrants, and added people with physical or mental defects or tuberculosis and children unaccompanied by parents to the exclusion list. Japanese immigration became restricted.

Cerberus

Migration from other Schengen countries is mostly free, but it is strictly regulated from other countries.

tchrist

> 1952: The multiple laws which governed immigration and naturalization to that time were brought into one comprehensive statute. It (1) reaffirmed the national origins quota system, (2) limited immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere while leaving the Western Hemisphere unrestricted

> Under the 1952 law, national origins remained the determining factor in immigrant admissions, and Northern and Western Europe were heavily favored. As in the past, the Western Hemisphere was not subject to numerical limitations.

From here

Also here

> 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act. First federal immigration law suspended Chinese immigration for 10 years and barred Chinese in U.S. from citizenship.

> 1943: In the name of unity among the Allies, the Chinese Exclusion Laws were repealed, and China's quota was set at a token 105 immigrants annually.

One hundred and five.

Generous toward our allies, weren’t we?

> 1952: Immigration and Nationality Act eliminated race as a bar to immigration or citizenship. Japan's quota was set at 185 annually. China's stayed at 105; other Asian countries were given 100 a piece.

> Northern and western Europe's quota was placed at 85% of all immigrants.

Serious quotas.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I have a question on finding out a word that I heard on TV last time. The TV show I was watching described China as a society with pretty much only 1 race, and they said an adjective sounds like "Hermitous" "Hermigious" to describe the word "Society" but I can neither spell or remember it. Can you possibly assume what the word is?

And the definition of the word must be opposite of "multi-cultural"

Cerberus

03:10

Snowden's Email Provider Abruptly Shuts Down, Issues Cryptic Statement About Government Surveillance

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> The Canadian government’s first attempt to restrict immigration from India was to pass an order-in-council in 1908 that prohibited immigration of persons who "in the opinion of the Minister" did not "come from the country of their birth... by a continuous journey and or through tickets purchased before leaving their country of their birth or nationality." In practice this applied only to ships from India, as the great distance usually necessitated a stopover in Japan or Hawaii.

Cerberus

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Homogeneous?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@O0oO0oOO0ooO maybe homoge... dammit cerb

Cerberus

Hehe.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Oh

Homogeneous, right

Thanks

Cerberus

03:11

I appreciate your three dots.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's pretty inaccurate to describe China as ethnically homogeneous.

Cerberus

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Homos = "same, equal" in Greek; "gen-" means "procreation, species".

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But racially?

He was talking about race.

The admittedly-not-very-sound-biologically term.

Of course there are many different cultures within China...it depends on how you would define ethnic homogeneity and what you compare it with.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I think China used to be homogeneous country but it's changing now but I don't know

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Sorry, I meant racially. Actually those terms get used interchangeably a lot.

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Hardly.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I find that confusing...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:15

It's never been homogeneous.

@Cerberus What is the difference between "race" and "ethnicity"?

Cerberus

Well, when talking about humans, race is about appearance, about the three conventional races, right? Caucasoid, African, Mongoloid, or whatever they called? And American could be a fourth race.

It's not a very interesting or useful concept, at least not on a global scale.

Ethnicity is vaguer but more relevant: I would say it is a combination of cultural and genetic relatedness.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hm. there are only three races?

Cerberus

Or four, maybe five, if you count Melanesian.

The concept of human races is based on a misunderstanding of biological facts.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

are Polynesians the same race as Chinese? what about Australian Aborigines?

What about people from India.

Cerberus

I think Polynesia excludes Melanesia?

India is Caucasian.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:19

what?

Cerberus

Melanesia is the part of eastern Asia/Oceania where people have very dark skins and facial structures that remind a casual Westerner more of Africa than of Asia.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So Indian people with brown skin are the same race as Anglo-Saxons with white skin?

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

No.

The latest evidence of modern genetic research indicates that the peoples of both north and south India are of mixed Caucasoid/Mongoloid/Australoid racial ancestry, consisting of an autochthonous sub-Gangetic base which has been gradually combined, through a series of population expansions and the historical migrations of various immigrants, with west Eurasian and East Asian elements.

Cerberus

And the region near/in/around Australia where people look "African" to us is unclear. Perhaps it was not fully discovered yet when the three/four great races were conceived?

Yes, it is sometimes called Australoid.

And the great races are not about genetics at all: they didn't understand genetics then.

It's fairly arbitrary, in various ways.

tchrist

03:23

> Anthropologically, the populations are grouped into four major ethnic categories, which include the Australoid, Indo-Caucasoid, Indo-Mongoloid and Negrito populations and linguistically broadly classified as Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Sino-Tibetan speakers.

> In short, the older view that north Indians are mainly Caucasoid whereas southern Indians are mainly Australoid is incorrect. Indians, both from the north and the south, seem to be a racially admixed population with each individual genotype exhibiting membership in multiple gene clusters, albeit in varying degrees in terms of Caucasoid/Mongoloid/Australoid admixture ratios.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well. I guess before we can answer O0oO0oOO0ooO's question about China we'd need to know what people mean by race.

Cerberus

Or what he means by it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

or what the person he's quoting meant by it.

Cerberus

Yes. But he wasn't quoting.

tchrist

White Yellow Red Black.

Cerberus

03:25

But anyway, I would say they nearly all look Mongoloid to me.

So in that (superficial, Eurocentric) way, they are very uniform.

tchrist

Did you just say that all Orientals look the same to you?

Cerberus

Culturally/ethnically, more context is needed to understand what he could have meant.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yes. In that superficial categorization, which I find somewhat ridiculous in that it lumps India with Caucasian, I guess I'd have to agree.

Cerberus

Cantonese is very different from Mandarin; but are we comparing this two German and English, or to India and Iran?

tchrist

> Australoid is a term coined under the biased reading by early anthropologists without refering to the genetics, in modern genetics, ancient australoids are much far closer to mongoloid than Europeans.

Cerberus

03:28

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nobody said it made much sense! It is about superficial appearances to a Westerner.

> My body doesn't seem to understand that the antibiotics are on its side. So far, it has tried virtually every trick in the book to violently expel the antibiotics from my system. I've tried to talk to my body about its behavior. I told it that it was going to die if it didn't learn to get along with the antibiotics. It didn't seem to care. It is a stupid, stubborn little body - the kind of body that would die just to prove a point.

From Hyperbole and a Half.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, when I replied to O0oO0oOO0ooO I was thinking of how the residents of Tibet, Mongolia, and southern China are considered separate groups and are different ethnicities. But then I realized that I was conflating ethnicity and biological race and so now I'm not sure how the question should be answered.

Cerberus

Hehe.

Neither am I.

In a casual context, when describing someone you saw on the street, the four races are perhaps...functional. In an academic context, they have no place any more.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And furthermore if the concept of "race" is so broad as to include all those groups as one, then why bother making the distinction.

Cerberus

This context is academic enough. So I wouldn't talk about race in such a context.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, it is not very useful in that context even if applied consistently.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If I was talking about "race" I'm sure I'd have way more than 4 categories.

Cerberus

03:34

Then why use the word race?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Although I probably cannot accurately recognize many of the categories.

why indeed.

Cerberus

You could say "genetic groups". Biologically, I believe we humans are all one race, right?

Compared to, say, dogs.

tchrist

You mean species.

MετάEd

Thank you whoever ran the deletequeue a half an hour ago. ... tchrist

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

dogs are all one species.

Humans are all one species.

tchrist

03:35

Right, dogs are wolves.

Cerberus

Dogs are different races, aren't they?

tchrist

@MετάEd I get so depressed with that queue. It always says I already voted.

MετάEd

@tchrist What about those studies of domesticated foxes?

Maybe dogs are foxes are wolves.

Cerberus

Oh?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

foxes are not wolves.

Cerberus

03:35

Never heard of that.

tchrist

@MετάEd What of them? Dogs = Wolves, but not foxes.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Never heard of the domesticated foxes?

tchrist

Wolf-Dog hybrids prosper. If you mix dogs with other things like jackals, it doesn’t work well. Wrong species.

Cerberus

There is some evidence, I believe, that many/some homines sapientes have genetic material from other subspiecies, like Neanderthalensis and ehh some other species.

@MετάEd Never! Or I forgot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Canid hybrid

Canid hybrids are the result of interbreeding between different species of the canine (dog) family (Canidae). Genetic considerations Members of the dog genus Canis: wolves, dogs (both common dogs and dingoes), Ethiopian Wolves, coyotes, and golden jackals cannot interbreed with members of the wider dog family: the Canidae, such as South American canids, foxes, African wild dogs, bat-eared foxes or raccoon dogs; or, if they could, their offspring would be infertile. Members of the genus Canis can, however, all interbreed to produce fertile offspring, with two exceptions: the side-striped ...

tchrist

03:37

@Cerberus Not much.

Cerberus

Significant.

tchrist

What, are you a secret redhead?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes. But that doesn't mean much. For one thing, there isn't necessarily a good definition of what delineates two species.

Cerberus

We may have something like 4 % Neanderthal genes, I believe. On average. Or something. And I think it was Aboriginals who may have significant amounts of material from...I forgot.

MετάEd

blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/…

@Cerberus this ^^^

Cerberus

03:39

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I meant subspecies.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus so are you suggesting that humans, as we exist today, comprise multiple subspecies?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No?

Well, I mean, we are mixed, as are probably most subspecies?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I dunno.

Cerberus

> And so it was that selecting for a single behavioral characteristic— allowing only the tamest, least fearful individuals to breed—resulted in changes not only in behavior, but also in anatomical and physiological changes that were not directly manipulated.

@MετάEd Pretty interesting, and also a factor in evolution that is sometimes underestimated.

Or so it appears to me.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How many subspecies do you know that are unmixed, huh?

See, they must all be mixed.

But, seriously, I don't even know the definition of subspecies.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:56

@Cerberus yeah me neither, and that's why I didn't comment further.

Cerberus

@MετάEd The behaviour of the tame foxes v. the aggressive foxes are quite fascinating. So very different.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

From what I know any attempts at establishing a taxonomy basically fail on all the corner cases.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I only know some of the things they call subspecies.

I.e. that there are groups of humans called subspecies x.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yes, but early humans, or proto-humans, right? not modern year 2000 humans.

Cerberus

Well, the other subspecies mostly died out.

Only homo sapiens is left, except that some of us have significant genetic material from extinct subspecies.

As I understand it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

04:01

yeah that's how I understand it too.

but anyway I must get going

It is 0:01 here now.

cya later

Cerberus

Good night!

Or whatever you do at night.

Mahnax

05:35

pokes head in

Cerberus

Whose head are you poking in?

hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.nl/2009/09/…

She's really cool.

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