English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:15

@Cerberus I wish.

I’ve got 4, but not for long.

Probably 10 below or worse when I wake up.

Cerberus

Hmm.

That is most unfortunate.

tchrist

Worst part is the wind.

I see a plane crashed in Aspen today, with at least one fatality.

With this much dry snow on the ground, any wind makes a mess of everything.

Bear in mind that 83% humidity isn’t much at 4 degrees and 24" of pressure.

So it is still dry.

skullpatrol

@tchrist are you a broncos fan?

tchrist

@skullpatrol Sorry, the only golf I play is code golf.

skullpatrol

@tchrist you don't even watch football?

tchrist

00:22

@skullpatrol 1. I don’t have television. 2. Spectating is not a sport.

skullpatrol

fair enough

tchrist

Could somebody else please take a look at this and tell me what’s going on?

english.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/49361

I’m sure JR must have had a reason for doing what he did.

I was pretty sure we used Georgia, but I haven’t looked at the CSS.

@Cerb I just approved this edit to your post. Please make sure it’s ok with you.

skullpatrol

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

tchrist

Laugh:

1

Q: The "Bibles" of American English Phonetics

Daniel Jones' Outline of English Phonetics and Alfred C. Gimson's Introduction to the Pronunciation of English are considered the "Bibles" of British English phonetics. Are there equivalent works in the American English tradition?

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm the j is too high, but it is all right with me.

It's either dots or letters of unequal height.

skullpatrol

00:39

tchrist

@Cerberus Oh! It didn’t look like that to me. Must be a bad font sub.

Cerberus

@skullpatrol I pity you and admire you at the same time.

@skullpatrol Haha.

@tchrist ııȷ

They look equal and sans serif here!

But not in the actual answer, not to me.

Completely different, in fact.

tchrist

Odd.

Why do they close schools now when it’s merely cold? They never did that when I was a kid.

Smells like bullshit to me.

skullpatrol

and you had to walk up hill both to and from school, right?

tchrist

No really. Nobody I know ever had school cancelled due to cold. Ever.

Not even when it was 25 below in the morning.

Or when the highs never hit single digits negative.

This has got to have something to do with lawyers.

Some bullshit like that.

The way kids are mollycoddled these days does them no good.

Cerberus

00:54

@tchrist Forecast says "feels like -50 °C". There are limits!

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes: 0 K.

I’m telling you, we NEVER closed for reasons of cold. Ever. And it was very, very cold. -25F before calculating wind chill.

Cerberus

I would close for -25F...

tchrist

Do you really think you would be excused from going to work on a day that it were -25F? Of course not.

skullpatrol

@tchrist You are violating The third law of thermodynamics

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes!

tchrist

00:57

You would be expected to dress appropriately, and show up for work.

Where is @JohanLarsson when we need him?

skullpatrol

skating?

the phrase "The Zeroth Law of thermodynamics" plays tricks on your mind...

Cerberus

@tchrist But if they are no longer clearing the roads, how are you expected to get there, even if you have a car?

tchrist

The only reason to close schools is if the school’s furnace is broken, or maybe if the buses won’t start or can’t get through the snow.

Johan Larsson

@tchrist right here

tchrist

@Cerberus Trust me, that never happens.

@JohanLarsson Do they close schools in Scandinavia just because it’s chilly?

They’ve started doing it here now, and they never used to. I think it’s dumb.

Johan Larsson

01:01

How cold?

Cerberus

@tchrist It's what the news said.

tchrist

@Cerb Why would they stop clearing the roads?

skullpatrol

All schools?

Johan Larsson

I don't think I heard of any schools getting closed in Sweden due to it being cold.

skullpatrol

universities too?

tchrist

01:02

@JohanLarsson Yes, exactly.

I remember our university had a policy that even with heavy snow they didn’t close because most students lived on campus and so walked, not drove.

I mean, consider Alaska.

Cerberus

@tchrist The news said something about salt, I don't know.

tchrist

@Cerberus Well, yes, the 0F thing.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t plow.

It just means that the salt won’t melt the snow.

Cerberus

> Het ministerie van verkeer in de staat Missouri waarschuwde dat de meeste snelwegen niet sneeuw- en ijsvrij gemaakt kunnen worden. Het is zo koud, dat de pekel niet meer werkt. De harde wind kan ook de sneeuw tot onneembare duinen ophogen.

tchrist

plainfield.patch.com/groups/schools/p/…

Cerberus

By the way, the above sounds a bit like a translation, "onneembare duinen".

skullpatrol

01:11

a couple of days will not hurt anyone

tchrist

Missouri is down south as far as I’m concerned.

If you cannot drive because the roads are unsafe, then you can’t hold school.

Around here, they close roads a lot.

But if it’s cold, you are supposed to dress appropriately.

Stop wearing flipflops and shorts in the dead of winter.

skullpatrol

what if it was too hot?

tchrist

It cannot be so cold that you cannot dress appropriately.

If the school’s air conditioning were to break down, I suppose that it could be too hot.

Schools in Fairbanks, Alaska indeed closed in November due to bad weather this past year, but there was no power due to an ice storm.

If there’s no power, you cannot hold school.

The places that are the hottest still have school even if it’s hot. Ask people from Phoenix.

When it’s 120 degrees, you really do need to have AC.

Or it could be dangerous.

This is a different situation from the cold.

We are not talking about the South Pole here, you know.

People are being pussies.

skullpatrol

01:29

people are people

Cerberus

On the other hand, why is it so important that people go to school or work a couple of days more or fewer than in other months?

tchrist

It’s all part of the hysteria culture of super-hype. Like the way in the east, they’ve taken to giving every little snowstorm its own precious name. Utterly asinine. The Weather Channel and other mass media are all conspiring to get people all freaked out. It’s all an excuse for more spamvertising.

@Cerberus Don’t understand.

Cerberus

If the weather is bad, why not stay home?

Nobody dies if schools close for a couple of days?

skullpatrol

21 mins ago, by skullpatrol

a couple of days will not hurt anyone

tchrist

Because weather is weather.

Cerberus

01:33

@skullpatrol Right!

tchrist

Cold weather is not “bad weather”.

Cerberus

Unpleasant weather, then.

tchrist

Snow that interferes with transportation is bad weather.

Cerberus

Name it as you like.

tchrist

But cold is no excuse for not going about one’s normal activities.

It just means you have to dress differently.

Especially if you need to be out in it for any substantial period of time.

Long johns.

Cerberus

01:35

Dressing different won't remove all the unpleasantness.

tchrist

Snow pants.

Scarf, even a face-mask.

Cerberus

Hey, Bitcoin is over $1000 again.

tchrist

Mittens instead of gloves.

Boots not sandals.

Cerberus

It will still not be fun.

tchrist

And wear a hat for God’s sake!

@Cerberus So what?

It will not be unpleasant.

It’s just a bit cumbersome.

But if you’re too cold, you’re doing it wrong.

Cerberus

01:37

You seem to experience the weather differently, then.

tchrist

I’ve seen tourists, Californian chicks, visiting here during snow storms wearing sandals and halter tops. They’re being idiots.

skullpatrol

he has experience

Cerberus

Most people will find -50 °C unpleasant even when wearing lots of extra clothes.

tchrist

A –60 wind chill is just that: wind chill. You are expected to wear clothing to stop that.

skullpatrol

they still play football in the coldest days

tchrist

01:39

If you insist on running around in your bathing suit — or your birthday suit — during subzero weather, you are responsible for your own discomfort, and have no business blaming it on the weather.

People need to learn to deal with it.

Cerberus

But I always run around in the snow in my bathing suit. Why can't I have fun?

skullpatrol

lol

tchrist

@Cerberus Because your butt is frozen to the metal struts of the ice-sled.

2

skullpatrol

rofl

tchrist

It’s like the school-kid whose tongue gets frozen to the metal pole during recess.

This happens all the time — just usually not to the same kid. :)

skullpatrol

01:47

true dat^

tchrist

Except that unlike the dares involving peeing on an electric fence, this one requires assistance from others to get undone.

Cerberus

@tchrist Not when you're running.

@tchrist You can wait for the metal to heat up just enough...

tchrist

@Cerberus Losing battle there: it’s got more cold than your tongue’s got heat — as it were.

Cerberus

But not locally...

tchrist

Did you ever go to a sledding party as a kid?

Cerberus

01:55

I'm still not sure I like that edit.

It messes up the rest of the answer by creating false expectations.

tchrist

Well, then by all means do please revert it.

Cerberus

And the capital J doesn't really look like what it ought to look like in 2/3 fonts.

tchrist

Apparently sleds have gone high-techier since I was a wee lad.

Mitch

@Cerberus mmm... that'll keep you warm!

Cerberus

It does!

Mitch

02:00

I'd be scared of the roller coaster ride of ups and downs.

tchrist

02:10

@Mitch What do you call those knit thingies that look like fencing masks that you pull over your head when it’s cold?

I guess they’re called ski-masks.

Three-Hole Balaclava Winter Face Ski-Mask

Oh wait, that should autobox.

amazon.com/Black-Knit-Three-Balaclava-Winter/dp/B004BP9HQI

> Balaclava [bæləˈklɑːvə]. Balaclava helmet (also cap): a woollen covering for the head and neck worn esp. by soldiers on active service; named after the Crimean village of Balaclava near Sebastopol, the site of a battle fought in the Crimean war, 25 October 1854.

That’s the word I was looking for.

Except that I would never think to use /æ/ there.

Very odd.

Then again, Brits like to eat /ˈtækoz/, too.

Mitch

02:33

@tchrist I call it a ski mask and everyone I know calls it that, but I read that some people call it a balaclava. If I heard somebody say that I'd wonder what the hell.

tchrist

Baklava

Baklava (, , or ; also baqlawah) is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, but is also found in Central and Southwest Asia. Name The word baklava is first attested in English in 1650, a borrowing from Ottoman Turkish . The name baklava is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations. The origin of the name is unclear. Buell argues that the word "baklava" may come from the Mongolian root baγla- 'to tie, wrap up, pile up' compos...

Mitch

Tæcoes?

That's wrong

tchrist

@Mitch Yeah, you tell ’em. Creepy, eh?

Mitch

As in esthetically wrong

tchrist

Kwayzadillers, too.

Mitch

02:35

But the amazon thing is a mish mash of everything, it's a balaclava and a fask mask.

it looks like balaclava is a neck and head covering together but not a face thing at all.

@tchrist I don't know what that is!

so still a face mask and a balaclava are not the same.

tchrist

quesadillas

Mitch

Oh.

right

tchrist

They really murdalate imported words.

Mitch

sounds like my grandmother who used to say. pi - zah instead of peet - sa

tchrist

See their /mæˈkizmo/ while you’re there.

Mitch

02:38

it should be muh cheese mow right?

tchrist

Sure.

/məˈtʃiːzmo/

Mitch

Brits are funny. unlike americans who are always right.

2

-2

Q: Here is Practical Explanation about Next Life, Purpose of Human Life, philosophical/religious facts, theories etc

Here is Practical Explanation about Next Life, Purpose of Human Life, philosophical/religious facts, theories etc. http://jayagauranitai.blogspot.in/

meaning word-choice single-word-requests etymology differences

kill

tchrist