English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

George Pompidou

9:00 PM

@RegDwigнt NO I'M NOT they let me out of the crazy place so that means I'm not anymore

right?

has a scared look

RegDwigнt

0

Q: Words with Gomorrah as etymon

The name of the city of Sodom is the etymon of sodomy. Are there words in English for which Gomorrah is an etymon? According to Online Etymology Dictionary the unit omer is related to Gomorrah. Beyond this I haven't found other words that are, at least, related. It would be interesting to know i...

etymology

Who is etymon?

No seriously, I not know the word...

Andrew Leach

@GeorgePompidou Depends on context. Here, mod is not Mod.

RegDwigнt

Oh, it's the source. Then why don't you just say that...

Andrew Leach

> 1. The antecedent form of a word; the word or any of the separate words from which another word has developed historically by borrowing, derivation, compounding, etc. Also occas.: †the facts relating to this; an etymology (cf. etymology n. 1, 2b) (obs.).

(OED)

George Pompidou

@AndrewLeach I suppose.

what if I wanted to tell people that I am a member of that subculture then?

I guess I'm fucked.

Andrew Leach

9:03 PM

Well, yes; but use a capital letter.

RegDwigнt

He is Fucked?

Andrew Leach

Well, yes. But Mod.

George Pompidou

no no, I Am fucked.

RegDwigнt

Hah, you don't know how to capitalize an apostrophon.

George Pompidou

sure I do

RegDwigнt

9:04 PM

You just did not.

Andrew Leach

Goes to look up "Mod"

George Pompidou

6 mins ago, by George Pompidou

mods, right?

Andrew Leach

Yes. OED: "Forms: also with capital initial."

Mod.

Not mod.

George Pompidou

NotMod.

Andrew Leach

!mod

George Pompidou

9:06 PM

Notmod

Hotrod

a mod in the hand is worth bush in a sheep.

Andrew Leach

By George! I think he's lost it!

RegDwigнt

Mod is just dom backwards. Which is German for "cathedral", Romanian for "dome", Russian for "house", Swedish for "them", and English for "in Portugal and Brazil, the title formerly given to a member of the higher classes".

George Pompidou

I am a co-prince of Andorra who died.

Jasper Loy

A Maria with email is worth two Marias without email, LOL @RegDwigнt

Andrew Leach

@RegDwigнt And certain classes of religious. Dom Gregory Murray, for example.

George Pompidou

9:07 PM

@RegDwigнt yes but people usually say cupolă

RegDwigнt

@JasperLoy a Maria with email is worth nothing when you have to clean up on aisle NNS 24/7.

@GeorgePompidou who cares. It still means that. I am not talking about Francis Ford here.

George Pompidou

I met that guy once.

he's a nutjob

RegDwigнt

Exhibit A: his daughter.

Andrew Leach

He is, or he was? Is he still?

George Pompidou

I am making an assumption here, but yes he still is.

Andrew Leach

9:12 PM

Wikipedia seems to think so.

I wasn't sure.

George Pompidou

he was wearing this native american seeming outfit

Andrew Leach

I wonder who I was thinking of.

George Pompidou

with lots of bells and jingly things

it was so creepy.

and he only said things with a creepy smile and sketchy upward inflection.

Andrew Leach

Google result order is interesting. His winery comes before Wikipedia.

RegDwigнt

The order is different for every person on this planet.

You just blew your cover as a winer.

George Pompidou

9:15 PM

@AndrewLeach comes right after for me

oh.

sneaky Reg.

RegDwigнt

Yeah so now you can see which sites I visit the most.

Andrew Leach

@RegDwigнt I've never searched for or looked at wine online.

George Pompidou

also that you live in a german-speaking country.

RegDwigнt

@AndrewLeach winers don't search for wine. They wine themselves.

@GeorgePompidou or my browser is set such.

Want Romanian results? Or Japanese? Gimme a sec.

George Pompidou

you didn't give me a chance to answer

but yes, I do.

but what if I didn't?

RegDwigнt

9:18 PM

I am giving you a chance as we speak.

George Pompidou

then you'd be stealing a sec.

RegDwigнt

What do you think I'm doing? Changing my browser settings?

To prove to some person on the internet that browser settings can be changed?

George Pompidou

"Gimme a sec." ~Reginald Dwight, about a minute ago

that implies that you are doing something.

RegDwigнt

You would need to arse me OVER 9000 for me to do that.

George Pompidou

sigh

arses Reg but is bored this time from lack of novelty we need to try new things sometime, honey.

RegDwigнt

9:19 PM

@GeorgePompidou that implies that you think everything I say is true and real.

George just gave me three million dollars!

George Pompidou

yeah…

I guess.

just remember though, that a bush in the sand is worth two and a bird.

RegDwigнt

Huh wha?

Gah, you did arse me.

Now I have to go do things.

Gimme a sec

There, happy now.

George Pompidou

just once, and unenthusiastically.

RegDwigнt

That'll teach you to never ask again.

George Pompidou

who the hell uses Bing

RegDwigнt

9:25 PM

People who don't want to disclose they are really into Cuil.

George Pompidou

@RegDwigнt what are those words right before the results?

those are no language I know

RegDwigнt

AKA 5% of the world population. I think. According to stats forged by MS.

@GeorgePompidou exactly. That will keep you occupied.

George Pompidou

no, please

I have work to finish and I want to go home reasonably early today. I cannot sit here and try to figure out what language has ö and ç

RegDwigнt

Come on, just how many languages do you know in which -lar is a plural ending, and ç is a letter?

George Pompidou

and ș

literally 0

and 0 of those that I would see as likely to come up above Romanian search results.

RegDwigнt

9:27 PM

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-lar

George Pompidou

neither of those have ç

or ș

RegDwigнt

That is very poor trolling George. Especially in this room.

Next up you'll tell us Turkish doesn't have ö.

George Pompidou

huh. I did not know.

why would it say things in turkish?

RegDwigнt

For the same reason it would display results in Romanian.

George Pompidou

so you configured Bing to produce output in Turkish but results in Romanian?

Jasper Loy

9:30 PM

0

Q: By leaving a place are you always entering another place?

One of my co-workers made the statement that by leaving a place you are always automatically entering another place...is this always the case? For example: by leaving the house one enters the outside world, by leaving your spouse you enter singledom, etc. Is there a case where this "rule" fails?

rules

not an English question!

RegDwigнt

Every second word in Turkish uses a ç or a ș. You literally can't count till five without using both.

George Pompidou

then I have clearly not seen enough Turkish.

I haven't been to Turkey since I was like 8 anyway.

RegDwigнt

Üç dört beş.

George Pompidou

özelleștirilmiș

what an awful looking language

RegDwigнt

You should see Belorussian.

George Pompidou

9:32 PM

Belarusian?

RegDwigнt

Yeah. Exactly that.

George Pompidou

huh. strange spelling.

pff, slavs.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt The above should be nuked!!!

George Pompidou

us Romanians are more fancy eastern Europeans.

RegDwigнt

Yeah the gitanes' clothes really are fancy.

KitFox

9:33 PM

1 2 3 4 5.

Jasper Loy

What? It has an upvote?

KitFox

Hmm.

George Pompidou

I upvoted it. I think it's cool.

Jasper Loy

It belongs to Philosophy.

George Pompidou

I guess it'll be deleted if people deem it off topic, but until then, who cares?

Jasper Loy

9:34 PM

I am tempted to answer it.

RegDwigнt

I do.

George Pompidou

so then care.

RegDwigнt

@JasperLoy Oh FFS. Look over there, there's a puppy!

Done. We are safe. But you can keep looking at the puppy.

George Pompidou

sigh I guess I'm not one to talk but shitstorms about posts that should be deleted/downvoted/not upvoted are getting to me.

I need some soma to ease my stress.

KitFox

@GeorgePompidou After two weeks? Man. Maybe you should try a different site.

George Pompidou

9:37 PM

I damn near was decapitated by tchrist and Andrew last night over a stupid answer I posted. how it's going to be deleted, downvoted to the center of the earth…

great, so then let that happen! why do I need to be told about this a billion times

RegDwigнt

A soma, from French sommer, "to summon".

Jasper Loy

@GeorgePompidou You can always delete your account and come back, like me.

RegDwigнt

You need some summon?

George Pompidou

but I don't want to! I just want to not be told that mundane things are going to happen!

like that my answer will be downvoted

Mahnax

Hello, folks.

George Pompidou

9:39 PM

or be screamed at by tchrist that my answer will be downvoted. that's definitely worse than just being told.

Mitch

Hi!

RegDwigнt

@GeorgePompidou I herewith vow to never tell you your answer will be downvoted. I will downvote it in total silence. I even promise to enjoy it.

George Pompidou

my reply to that is "sucks for my answer"

thank you!

Mahnax

@JasperLoy—Boo.

George Pompidou

that's the point of the voting system, isn't it?

Jasper Loy

9:39 PM

@Mahnax Boo!

George Pompidou

everyone gets a vote and it's their prerogative to silently cast it!

RegDwigнt

@GeorgePompidou tell that to the 99% of the world population who would love to spend their entire lives on being told why someone didn't give them an imaginary point somewhere.

George Pompidou

and for @Andrew and @tchrist's information, my answer did actually get upvoted once, and only downvoted four times. and I still have the same amount of caring about that, which is and always was 0, and just… jesus guys, nobody died. everyone's just fine despite my horrible, awful answer.

RegDwigнt

That's literally like 50% of Reddit. "Why am I downvoted?" "I know I will be downvoted, but..."

George Pompidou

voting is voting. it's for the community to decide the value of things.

it makes talking about voting completely redundant. and before someone quotes me talking about voting, yes, I know, that was idiot me.

KitFox

9:42 PM

Then why are you still talking about it?

George Pompidou

because past me is an idiot!

KitFox

Right now, I mean.

George Pompidou

only current present me is a reasonable fellow.

right now, I am talking about flowers.

RegDwigнt

yesterday, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwigнt By definition, every remark of his you observe at any time must be in the past.

George Pompidou

^

KitFox

9:43 PM

shrugs

Andrew Leach

shrugs too

I shall cast delete vote number 3.

RegDwigнt

It's okay. You just have to visualize that George is the actual George Costanza. Then it all just snaps into place.

George Pompidou

finally. everyone's been talking about deleting that post and it just now happens.

RegDwigнt

Awww and I didn't even get to see it. The horrible no good very bad post.

Jasper Loy

Someone managed to slip in an answer on that closed question.

Andrew Leach

9:44 PM

-3

A: How to distinguish "can" and "can't" pronunciation in American English?

Can't has a t at the end. But, on a more serious note, this youtube video may be more useful than anything someone can type on here. I think it points out very well that many times in quick American English, can't is pronounced like you'd expect can to, and can gets much shorter—this is also th...

George Pompidou

@RegDwigнt you're lucky. if tchrist is at all right, it was worse than the holocaust.

Andrew Leach

Not deleted yet.

George Pompidou

oh no! don't! you'll ruin your eyes

it's just so horrible and will get deleted and downvoted so much!

RegDwigнt

Meh. It's a dupe anyway, so I'm not looking at that.

And IIRC the original had an answer by Kosmo, no less.

So I know everything I need to know and everything else is superfluous regardless of its quality.

George Pompidou

here's the thing. that it'll get downvotes or deleted is all just wind to me. if you want to challenge the idea that the post has potential to help someone then I welcome that challenge and will take it to heart.

that would actually be useful advice to me and affect how my posts in the future will be.

Andrew Leach

9:46 PM

My comment does that.

George Pompidou

it does not. for some people who can play videos and click on it, it will help them.

it has potential to help some people. that point has not been challenged.

RegDwigнt

Everything has potential to help some people.

George Pompidou

of course, I'm not saying it's a good answer. your comment explains why it's not and that's perfectly fine.

RegDwigнt

I can literally say "you should eat poo", and that will help some people.

Andrew Leach

@GeorgePompidou Well there you go. Your answers should be both good and helpful.

George Pompidou

9:49 PM

but that's just… I guess it's just not my concern. I have a few decent answers on this site. and I'll have more in the future. I have one bad one. not a big deal to me.

Jasper Loy

Nothing on SE is a big deal.

George Pompidou

well, it is to some people.

like employees of SE.

RegDwigнt

Okay so everything's fine and enough with the wind already. Mă trage.

Jasper Loy

It is a place to have fun.

George Pompidou

@RegDwigнt haha. și pe mine. hai să nu mai discutăm căcatul ăsta.

RegDwigнt

9:50 PM

Da. Haiduc.

George Pompidou

laughs heartily

RegDwigнt

Foarte bolnavă.

Anyway, that reminds me that I need to get the laundry from the cellar.

AFK

George Pompidou

arsing free kludge?

huh.

KitFox

If it isn't a big deal, why are we still talking about it.

George Pompidou

we're not. Reg and I have been talking Romanian nonsense for like 7 messages now.

KitFox

9:52 PM

Huh.

Andrew Leach

@GeorgePompidou You brought it up. Now I shall have it on my watch list.

George Pompidou

I brought it up because I wanted to point out that I think I got treated unfairly for that answer. it was a bad answer, but just that. not murder or larceny.

not so much by you, but by tchrist and you combined.

Andrew Leach

I can't provide -4 votes.

George Pompidou

that's not what I am referring to by unfair treatment.

I mean the fact that I got virtually yelled at on numerous occasions for it.

Andrew Leach

Well, I've not yelled at you. I've pointed out its deficiencies as I see them, and yours is not the only answer I've commented on in the last couple of years.

Jasper Loy

9:57 PM

We are still at this?

Andrew Leach

As you say, it's a community thing. It's invidious to single out inviduals.

George Pompidou

@AndrewLeach you're right. what happened was you commented very shortly after tchrist had already been yelling at me, saying all of the things you said but many more times and much more verbosely and annoyingly. so I'm sorry that I called you out for it, when the frustration I had was a result of timing.

KitFox

I think we have different ideas about what "yelling at" entails.

George Pompidou

I use hyperbole literally all the time.

perhaps literally too much.

RegDwigнt

It takes a lot of yelling for a Romanian to realize you're yelling.

13 hours ago, by RegDwigнt

It goes from one to eleven, then Romanian, then Greek.

KitFox

9:59 PM

I thought he was from Chicago.

Andrew Leach

I have a project manager who is Greek.

RegDwigнt

@KitFox yes, Chicago, RO.

George Pompidou

@KitFox parents are Romanian.

Jasper Loy

I use parables and hyperboles all the time. It is interesting that parabolas and hyperbolas are graphs.

RegDwigнt

And bolas are balls.

George Pompidou

10:00 PM

they were political refugees. my dad was being hunted down by the securitate.

^.^

Jasper Loy

However, I try to avoid circular reasoning. Circles are also graphs.

KitFox

Oh, that's how I know you.

Your aunt and uncle are both physicists.

RegDwigнt

0

Q: Decent way to refer to something within a question

How to rewrite the following question in decent English? For which of the following code should a Test created first before writing the code to meet the demands of the Android TDD Policy?

questions

George Pompidou

@KitFox holy shit!

can you actually explain this time

Andrew Leach

Because you have eminent relatives?

KitFox

10:02 PM

I had a huge crush on your cousin when I was in college.

She has blond hair and brown eyes, which is so unusual.

And she's really, really smart.

And way better at physics than me.

George Pompidou

I'm really confused now because all of those things are wrong.

Jasper Loy

I like blonds too.

George Pompidou

but the physicists thing was right.

KitFox

Hmm.

Weird. I mean. I would think there were only a few physicists couples in Romania.

Jasper Loy

There are some people here with black hair that is then dyed blond. They look terrible.

Mitch

10:04 PM

@GeorgePompidou apparently

KitFox

You don't have a cousin named Irina?

George Pompidou

my cousin did actually dye her hair blond at some point

RegDwigнt

@KitFox in Romania, yes. But this is outside of Romania.

George Pompidou

nope.

KitFox

Are you sure?

Jasper Loy

10:05 PM

Mahnax is blond.

George Pompidou

my aunt and her husband live in Queens. aunt works for NASA and her husband is a doctor of physics but doesn't do any physicist stuff.

KitFox

Geez, that's weird.

I mean, half her family fled Romania on account of being political targets.

George Pompidou

this is my grandfather. that's why my parents fled.

when he got killed, they decided to bounce.

RegDwigнt

We should nuke the ELU blog and replace it with an ELU telenovela. In tonight's episode: Mahnax is George's cousin, tune in to find whether or not Kit dated him!

KitFox

That's frigging weird. I wish I could remember her family name.

RegDwigнt

10:07 PM

And his grandfather was a bear.

George Pompidou

Ursu or Golea or Capotă

RegDwigнt

Oh, Truman!

George Pompidou

are my family's names

RegDwigнt

Of course.

KitFox

I think I would remember one of those.

George Pompidou

10:08 PM

and Schönfeld and Stössel on the jewish side.

KitFox

So not a relation, but freakishly similar.

George Pompidou

yeah. really strange. there is still the Old Town Social thing though.

RegDwigнt

Stössel means "pestle".

George Pompidou

it's my grandfather's name ^.^

or someone else. they got sent to Auschwitz.

along with everyone else in my family besides one person.

RegDwigнt

Now there was that revolutioneer called Pestel, but Pestle?

KitFox

10:10 PM

Oh. Marinov. Never mind.

RegDwigнt

Pavel Pestel

Colonel Pavel Ivanovich Pestel (Russian: Павел Иванович Пестель; July 5 [O.S. June 24] 1793 in Moscow – July 25 [O.S. July 13] 1826 in Saint Petersburg) was a Russian revolutionary and ideologue of the Decembrists. Pestel came from a Lutheran family of Saxon descent that had settled in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great. His great-grandfather, grandfather, father and uncle had all successively served as director of Moscow's postal mail service, forming a dynasty of sorts. His father Ivan (1765—1843) continued to work his way up through the political bureaucracy to become Governor-General...

George Pompidou

packs up to go home

I'm a bit bummed.

RegDwigнt

I should pack up to go to bed.

George Pompidou

I thought we were on to something with that physicists comment.

RegDwigнt

Didn't realize it was that late.

George Pompidou

10:11 PM

coinci-mental I guess.

KitFox

I liked her SOOOOO much.

George Pompidou

my cousin is really awesome.

everyone would probably like her. she's really sociable and nice unlike myself…

s/probably/definitely

RegDwigнt

10:51 PM

0

Q: Describing a 'sucking sound'

slurp: to eat or drink noisily or with a sucking sound. Can anyone descrive what a sucking sound is and how it is made?

grammar

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt By the great E S, no less.

RegDwigнt

@JasperLoy and you answer and upvote a rubbish question again.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt I would not call it rubbish. I think it is alright.

RegDwigнt

@JasperLoy they are easy to work with for what reason and to what end? Is it considered a good thing or a bad thing? Considered by whom?

You say it's cooperative, I say it's apple-polishing. Now what?

Jasper Loy

OK, I see your point. Still, I think it does not hurt the site to have this type of question.

@RegDwigнt I answered with a youtube video.

@RegDwigнt Anyway it is late, you should go to bed.

RegDwigнt

11:05 PM

@JasperLoy and of course you upvoted him.

Seriously?

@JasperLoy yeah, that's the only way to answer it online, but link-only answers are verboten.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt That must be a German word.

RegDwigнt

It's an English word.

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verboten

Jasper Loy

Ah, I thought it is German for forbidden.

RegDwigнt

Oh that. Yes.

Jasper Loy

I think if we are too strict with questions, this site will have too few questions.

RegDwigнt

11:09 PM

It's even obviously the exact same word as forbidden.

@JasperLoy and that is a bad thing because?..

Jasper Loy

The more users we attract, the more money SE makes.

RegDwigнt

We get many more questions than Gaming.

@JasperLoy SE doesn't make any money from any of the kind of people who you're trying to attract. Not a fraction of a cent.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt Ah OK. Anyway you should not work so hard for SE, they don't pay you anything.

RegDwigнt

And your YouTube answer just made Google some money because I had to endure a commercial.

Jasper Loy

Ah, it is good to give money to Google.

Without Google, my life would be terrible.

RegDwigнt

11:12 PM

Our problem is not that we get too few questions. Our problem is that we get too many.

Jasper Loy

Hmm, OK. Anyway, you can do as you deem fit.

I am very cooperative. I am fine with anything you decide.

RegDwigнt

We get 250,000 visitors a day. Every day. We do not need more popularity. If anything we could use less.

Jasper Loy

Wow, 250000!

RegDwigнt

Yeah. Do you think there are that many linguists and etymologists in the world?

Jasper Loy

I wish my blog had that many visitors.

However, I have no blog now.

RegDwigнt

11:14 PM

That could be one reason why there are so few visitors...

Nobody visits my non-existent garage, either. Even though they could look at all the Ferraris I don't have!

Jasper Loy

I never liked cars. I only like women and math.

RegDwigнt

As you should know, every car has a gorgeous woman on the bonnet.

And it needs math to run.

Jasper Loy

I am worried sometimes that Yoichi might not make a good mod because of his language abilities.

RegDwigнt

Mods have many different tasks. So e.g. he might not be too eager to get involved into writing to users to suspend them, but e.g. he's been handling more flags than myself ever since he got elected.

Jasper Loy

Ah, he should have plenty of time since he is retired.

RegDwigнt

11:19 PM

Help is help. As long as someone is helping out, they're helping out.

2

Jasper Loy

Well said. The star is probably from skull.

RegDwigнt

I think the star is from pity.

To make me go to bed at last.

Jasper Loy