English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:00 AM

Is it about the process of making dice?

Surely he knows the origin of the die is cast: is it a joke?

Jez

12:20 AM

input.mozilla.org/en-US/?product=Firefox&version=29.0.0

hahahaha look how popular Australis is

:-)

tchrist

-1

A: Is the expression "may or may not" semantically void?

The phrase, "...may or may not" implies the potential of intent. The word "might" does not. This usage comes up in engineering quite often. The bolt might be the weak link. This implies no one knows, or it was not considered. Not a good thing to say at work. The bolt may or may not be the weak li...

Nutter.

As though volition matters in the present tense but not the past.

Intention has nothing to do with may.

This is why we need to make sure people who go to a college of engineering have already figured out English to a reasonable level of competence. Otherwise they plague us with such nonsense.

@MickLH “A pack of foxes”? Everyone knows that foxes do not come in packs. They come in skulks or leashes. Or hen-houses. Or vixen.

Cerberus

12:43 AM

@Jez Oh, dear...

Jez

@Cerberus don't worry. they'll ignore the negative feedback as usual.

Cerberus

Heh.

People who make things like change. People who use things do not.

tchrist

 The oftener seen, the more I lust,
 The more I lust, the more I smart,
 The more I smart, the more I trust,
 The more I trust, the heavier heart;
 The heavy hearty breeds mine unrest,
 Thy absence, therefore, like I best.

 The rarer seen, the lest in mind,
 The less in mind, the lesser pain,
 The lesser pain, less grief I find,
 The lesser grief, the greater gain,
 The greater gain, the merrier I,
 Therefore I wish thy sight to fly.

 The further off, the more I joy,
 The more I joy, the happier life,

0

A: Is "oftener" obsolete?

Why yes: Charles Darwin, for one. Or rather, he says oftenest as the superlative. The OED gives this under its entry for often adverb: Comparative and Superlative. 1467 Ordin. Worc. in Eng. Gilds 380 - [They] shullen com and assemble togeder in euery quarter of the yere, ones or ofte...

Few alive today would do so, however, I reckon but do not know.

Cerberus

Yeah some comparatives and superlatives used to be commoner.

We can still use some of the decenter ones.

tchrist

12:58 AM

Amongst the commoners and peerage alike.

Cerberus

Quite so.

And knight, too.

tchrist

The crossover of equal representation was in 1900.

Oh, this is interesting.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

tchrist

In the OED entry for oft, it has a citation with a gloss for the comparative degree of oft that uses oftener in its definition:

Mitch

@Robusto sure but it ain't informal

tchrist

1:02 AM

> 1868 Atkinson Cleveland Gloss. — Ofter, more frequently, oftener.

I guess they must talk weird in Cleveland.

It is now archaic and dialectal.

However, the superlative degree oftest is now marked obsolete, with the last citation from Milton.

C. 950 Lindisf. Gosp. Mark v. 4 - Forðon oftust mið feotrum & mið hracenteᵹum ᵹebunden wæs.
A. 1225 Leg. Kath. 114 - Ah eauer ha hefde on hali writ ehnen oðer heorte, oftest ba togederes.
1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. iv. 439 - That he þat seith most sothest [v.r. oftest seiþ soþ].
1480 Caxton Descr. Brit. 23 - Netheles oftest and longest they were vnder the kyngis of Mercia.
1599 Jas. I Βασιλ. Δωρον (1682) 35 - Vertue followeth oftest noble blood.
1671 Milton P.R. ii. 228 - Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck’d.

Nice title there in the 1599 citation, eh? :)

@Cerb What does Basilikon Doron mean? Royal something or other?

Royal gift.

Ah, thanks.

Dôron with an omega.

I know, it’s written with omega in the citation.

Cerberus

Related to didômi, "I give", aorist stem do-, Latin do, etc.

tchrist

1:07 AM

That’s what I was thinking.

Cerberus

Right.

I'm 80 % sure the r is the result of rhotacism, originally an s.

tchrist

Spanish uses the noun don (< dar (doy, di, dado)) as a gift in the sense of something one is born with.

As opposed to prezzies under the Christmas tree, which are regalos.

Cerberus

From donum, no doubt?

tchrist

don1.

 (Del lat. donum).


 1. m. Dádiva, presente o regalo.
 2. m. Bien natural o sobrenatural que tiene el cristiano, respecto a Dios, de quien lo recibe.
 3. m. Gracia especial o habilidad para hacer algo. U. t. en sent. irón.

Quite right.

Where "U. t. en sent. irón." = "Úsase también en sentido irónico"

Cerberus

I knew it.

Ah OK.

tchrist

1:12 AM

Or “Usado”.

Cerberus

So present, gift, talent (also "talent" wink wink).

tchrist

Yes, but I have never heard it used as a present except in old texts.

Where heard means read.

Well, at least donum didn’t give us donus. :)

Which is their word for, well, doughnuts.

In the Homeric sense.

Cerberus

Right.

tchrist

¿Oye, quieres donus? = Hey, you want (some) donuts?

Cerberus

Huh?

That's Spanish?

And Homeric?

tchrist

1:15 AM

It’s because they cannot say a t in the syllable coda before an s.

mmm .. donus

Homer Simpson.

I see.

As Mitch notes.

Oh, I barely know the Simpsons.

tchrist

1:17 AM

That’s queer: they certainly know you!

►

Mitch

That's OK, they probably don't know you either.

ha ha. negative jinx

tchrist

@Mitch Disproven.

Cerberus

1:29 AM

Of course.

I'm a VID.

tchrist

Very Infernal Daemon?

Cerberus

Very Important Dog.

tchrist

That, too.

Cave canem.

Cerberus

I'm not really a daemon.

tchrist

The dog’s grotto.

You draw a distinction between a minor god and a major daemon?

@NeilCoffey That would be my guess, yes. The simpler oft isn’t used very much any longer, but its comparative degree survived more than two centuries longer than its superlative degree, per the OED. Its comparative ofter is labelled “archaic and dialectal” but with 19th-century citations, while oftest is now marked “obsolete” and last seen in Milton. We see something of the same relative distribution of oftener and oftenest, where oftener seems to have endured a bit more than oftenest. But I don’t know for sure that no native speakers anywhere ever use either of them any longer. — tchrist 4 mins ago

Oh right, you’re a monster, insofar as Typhon is the father of monsters.

Written script for the Simpsons episode with the Cerberus reference.

Here the ~ stands in for don. You can see that the don de errar is ironic:

~ de acierto.

 1. m. Tino particular que se tiene en el pensar o ejecutar.

~ de errar.

 1. m. Falta habitual de acierto, tacto o maña.

~ de gentes.

 1. m. Disposición peculiar de quien es muy sociable en el trato y tiene facilidad para atraer y persuadir a los demás.

~ de mando.

 1. m. Aptitud personal que para ejercer el mando tiene alguien por su firmeza, su prestigio o alguna otra cualidad.

The other don of course comes from dominus.

And is spelled dom in Portuguese.

And champagne.

2

Q: What is the word for a fear of hippopotamuses?

single-word-requests

@AndrewLeach Because hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia exists, that's why. ;-) — Michael 10 hours ago

@Elliott, taken at face value, hippopotophobia would mean ‘fear of drinking horses’, which would be a … somewhat unusual fear to have. I doubt whoever came up with that one knew their Greek very well. — Janus Bahs Jacquet 5 hours ago

I’m afraid of drinking horses: they might get pulled over for drunken driving.

Plus they don’t fit in my shot glass.

Cerberus

1:44 AM

Or just fear of horse-drinking.

Which could be a fear of horses drinking.

tchrist

A vampire might have cause to fear drinking horses: he might turn into a werehippo!

Cerberus

Umm.

How would that realisticallyhappen?

One doesn't turn into whose blood one drinks...

tchrist

@Cerberus I see you haven’t finished Wolfe. :)

Cerberus

(Do you like the relative pronoun without antecedent?)

tchrist

I’m unsure.

Mitch

1:50 AM

@Cerberus you are what your horse drinks

Cerberus

I lack horses.

Mitch

so empty

tchrist

Janus has written hippopotamophobia, but I read hippopotatophobia.

Or maybe hippotomatophobia.

Cerberus

I have just eaten tomato[dualis].

tchrist

A brace of them, you say?

And where do they come from, the hothouses?

Cerberus

1:53 AM

Heh.

It could have been tomatoin in Greek, had they but known tomatoes.

tchrist

There are no tomatoes but summer tomatoes.

Cerberus

I don't know where they came from, either from a hothouse or from faraway lands.

tchrist

The Isles of the Dog?

Cerberus

Where are those?

tchrist

Islas Canarias.

Mitch

1:55 AM

off the coast of africa

Cerberus

Oh!

Is that really from canis?

tchrist

Yes.

Mitch

classic trivia question

tchrist

What, you think it’s from birdies?

Mitch

dog in the coalmine

Cerberus

1:56 AM

I actually had no idea.

My friend has a dog from the canaries, actually.

You know what she did?

there you go.

Tweeted.

No. What did she do?

She drugged it and smuggled it through airport security as a pregnant belly.

tchrist

She is your friend or the dog?

Cerberus

1:57 AM

Friend.

tchrist

Craycray.

Cerberus

Very much so.

But it worked.

Mitch

then it's not crazy?

Cerberus

Still crazy.

Or, wait, perhaps the other dog was from the Canaries. Either way, she smuggled it through airport security.

She's a wild thing.

Robusto

2:33 AM

@Cerberus "The die is cast" refers to the rolling of a die, as in lots, meaning that a matter is in the hands of fate. Bierce is making a joke, deliberately segueing to the other meaning of die, as in tool and die.

Cerberus

@Robusto Right, that was the only possible explanation.

Robusto

Actually, one of the other meanings of die.

Cerberus

I mean, something like that—I didn't have a very clear idea of what the other meaning of die was.

Sure.

Robusto

A die is a kind of mold.

Machinery .
a.
any of various devices for cutting or forming material in a press or a stamping or forging machine.

Cerberus

Right.

It's the kind of word that I read in books but never quite look up as to what it means exactly.

Robusto

2:40 AM

Well, I'm glad Ambrose Bierce could sort that out for you. Bring things to a head, as it were.

Cerberus

To a die.

Alea iacta est, Rubiconem transeamus.

Or whatever Caesar said.

Robusto

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

Another entry in TDD.

Cerberus

Haha.

TDD?

Robusto

I guess he didn't cotton to the Greek habit of long walks in the morning.

TDD = The Devil's Dictionary.

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

4

Cerberus

3:39 AM

Hah.

skullpatrol

3:54 AM

Hah, hah.

skullpatrol

5:05 AM

over 9,000 hours later...

Hah, hah, hah.

Boris_yo

9:06 AM

Let's say: Mike's pensil is broken
What if Mike's pensil has its tip broken?

Would following A variant be correct?

"Mike's pensil's tip is broken"

B variant:

"Mike pensil's tip is broken"

Thanks

skullpatrol

B sounds strange.

A sounds overly possessive

imo

skullpatrol

9:49 AM

!!wiki possessives