English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

3:00 PM

@Robusto Yeah exactly.

It is possible that schermutselingen can also mean something more like skirmishes in military parlance. But not the way it is normally used in the papers and such.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist I've made that joke three times by now, I thought I should flip the record.

Robusto

@Cerberus I'm trying to figure out what use your word would be.

tchrist

But are Germans wordthieves or wordwolves?

RegDwigнt

They are Werewords.

Say that aloud.

tchrist

The Word made Flesh?

Robusto

3:01 PM

@tchrist Some may be messianic thieves, like Muad Dieb.

Cerberus

@Robusto The news today said, "there were some schermutselingen around Donetsk and Mariupol, but the cease-fire held". So the idea is that the soldiers at those places engaged in light fighting, but it was not ordered from the top.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist No, that's Guns 'n' Roses.

Robusto

@Cerberus Hmm . . . I think skirmish would work for that, but we probably would call it "sporadic fighting" in English.

RegDwigнt

Rencounter.

Robusto

Roengten counter.

tchrist

3:02 PM

@RegDwigнt I did not know that Germany had an eastern desert.

> Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, sporadic fighting sounds good.

Robusto

@tchrist No no no, you're mixing it up with eastern dessert, e.g., Linzer torte.

tchrist

I was thinking about having a sundae for my last dessert, but the notion of wereworms in it has put me right off the notion.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist it's quite famous, mostly for being walked through with horses with no name.

tchrist

jinx

Robusto

3:03 PM

Have a tuesdae instead.

tchrist

Knights in White Satin?

RegDwigнt

That's White Satan to you.

Robusto

Knights in tighty-whiteys.

RegDwigнt

Breaking Bad again.

Robusto

It always comes back to that.

RegDwigнt

3:05 PM

Sometimes to Meat Loaf.

Or god forbid, Céline Dion.

Robusto

God refused to forbid Céline Dion.

And so we're stuck with her.

RegDwigнt

That is the ultimate proof of his impotence and inexistence.

Robusto

> This question was removed from Mathematics Meta Stack Exchange for reasons of moderation.

Hmm. What a lame sentence. Could only have been written by a math major.

tchrist

RegDwigнt

The moderation was removed from Mathematics Stack Exchange for reasons of questions.

tchrist

3:07 PM

Knights in Satin White and Red

Robusto

@tchrist What? The KKK has gone international?

RegDwigнt

@tchrist Día de los Ku-Klux-Klanos.

@Robusto how do you figure that's not Nohleans.

tchrist

Será de los santos Ku-Klus-Klanos, ya sabes.

Cerberus

Ah, the Spanish priests.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Oh. Yes, it could be. But New Orleans is a different country. Plus the people look vaguely Italian.

Cerberus

3:08 PM

Who ever invented that dress?

tchrist

No, there are laity.

Cerberus

Especially the spooky hats.

But they are connected to the Church, right?

Robusto

No. Not the Roman Catholic Church, anyway.

tchrist

Sí y no. Son los Nazarenos de las muchas Hermandades.

Cerberus

And those are...

tchrist

3:10 PM

Here.

Mahnax

Did anyone get to read Jasper's starred link before the question was deleted?

I can see that the title was "Congratulations Will Hunting", but that's it of course.

Cerberus

No? What was it?

Oh, that.

RegDwigнt

I read it.

Whence my starred comment.

Cerberus

It was Skullpatrol/Iceboy congratulating Jasper on his reputation and telling him not to delete his account, something like that.

tchrist

> The processions are organized by hermandades and cofradías, religious brotherhoods. During the processions, members precede the pasos (of which there are up to three in each procession) dressed in penitential robes, and, with few exceptions, hoods.

Holy Week in Seville

Holy Week in Seville (Spanish: Semana Santa de Sevilla) is one of the most important traditional events of the city and also the most important Holy Week in Spain. It is celebrated in the week leading up to Easter (Holy Week among Christians), and is one of the better known religious events within Spain. This week features the procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of the events of the Passion, or images of the Virgin Mary showing grief for the torture and killing of her Son. Some of the sculptures are of great antiquity and are considered artistic masterpieces...

Mahnax

3:11 PM

Oh wait, I can see the onebox in the transcript. Duh.

RegDwigнt

Wait. How do you mean it's deleted, it's not.

tchrist

It’s like every parish has its own Knights of Columbus or Elks Club or whatever.

RegDwigнt

7

Q: Congratulations, Will Hunting

Congratulations on achieving 1,020 reputation points. Please try your best to not delete this achievement. We have faith in you this time. Words cannot describe anyone who would downvote this celebration.

discussion

tchrist

> A number of people (sometimes barefoot) dressed in a habit and with the distinctive pointed hood (capirote), and holding long wax candles (only lit by night), marching in silence. These are the nazarenos. Colours, forms and details of the habit are distinctive for each brotherhood — and sometimes for different locations within the procession.

RegDwigнt

But I must be off before the stores close, and for that I must be off before the showermobile drives off.

So AFK and BBL.

tchrist

3:13 PM

These are many many centuries old.

Cerberus

@tchrist Right, those.

What is there origin, and who came up with the weird hats first?

@RegDwigнt They still close at 6 in Germany?

That sucks.

Opening hours have become later and later even in my lifetime.

Most supermarkets in the city are now open until 10, elsewhere until 8.

Small shops close at 6, though.

tchrist

You can get these little graphic “keys” during Holy Week that show the different robe/cap/belt coloration combos and which brotherhood each combo indicates.

James Michener’s very well-received Iberia is worth acquiring. It has a chapter on Seville during Holy Week.

amazon.com/Iberia-James-A-Michener/dp/0449207331

user08742

hi

could somebody read my sentence?

and check if it is correct

@tchrist could you?

Alraxite

I can't seem to log in into any of the Meta sites. Weird.

Johan Larsson

Wrote a FlipView for WPF. Started from this but not much left of it now.

Handles mouse & touch.

Robusto

3:30 PM

@tchrist Michener always writes too long. He usually pulls it off, though.

user08742

@Robusto will you read my one sentence?

Robusto

@user08742 Post it and we'll see. I'm making lunch right now, so it will have to be quick.

user08742

A man (or should I rather call him a “crock”), toddled into my office with clumsiness, a natural squire of the aged (though much too advanced in his case), a repulsive, yet curiosity-provoking wen on his wizened cheek.

Robusto

Way too rambling.

Find a way to say all of that in 1/4 as many words.

Especially get rid of "with clumsiness" and "natural squire of the aged" and "repulsive, yet curiosity-provoking."

And then lose the parenthetical asides.

I have no idea what you mean "crock" to convey.

user08742

grammar OK?

crock means a feeble old man

Robusto

3:35 PM

A dumpy, wrinkled man with a wen on his cheek toddled into my office.

user08742

my sentence ungrammatical?

Robusto

@user08742 Not in any form of English the readership would recognize.

user08742

tell mewhere im wrong

Robusto

Grammatically it's probably OK. My issues are with the style. If you're happy with the style, go with god. Me, I'm off to lunch.

user08742

i see

thank you

tchrist

4:18 PM

@Cerberus Have you ever heard of either of the words choreutes or choreutic before?

Apparently it is much more normal in French than in English, but they have reänalysed the number in French. In English, it was used in the singular, but in French, it seems to be the plural. Ancient Greek seems to have χορευτής, χορευτοῦ so a plural of χορευταί.

So the English didn’t reänalyse the number.

Mitch

@user08742 what's a wen? Also, 'crock' isn't a kind of man or even a good descriptor for a man.

@user08742 no one would recognize that meaning.

tchrist

Hm, apparently during the 1500s people called cold sores herpetas (< ἕρπητες < ἕρπης, ἕρπητος). But soon gave way to herpes as a non-count noun.

I guess in the 1500s, a scholar still would have known Greek, too.

Mitch

4:34 PM

I wonder if proportionally fewer scholars than now.

tchrist

Well, scholastics were different then.

I get the notion that it wasn’t until the Renaissance or later that there were any non-clergy who counted as scholars.

hey

hello everyone

Cerberus

@tchrist A scholar still knows Greek.

@tchrist I presume it must mean something like dancer?

It is funny how word classes are reanalysed upon borrowing!

tchrist

@Cerberus Well, in Greek it was the chorister, I believe.

Who also danced IIRC.

> choreutes /kɒˈr(j)uːtiːz/. Antiq.

Etymology: Gr. χορευτής, f. χορεύειν to dance, f. χόρος chorus.

A member of the chorus of Greek drama. Hence choˈreutic a. Gr. χορευτικός, of or pertaining to choral song and dance.

1855 F. A. Paley Æschylus Trag. Agam. 397/1 ― The first choreutes speaks [line] 1315.
1926 Spectator 5 June 948/1, ― I rather doubt if the musical and choreutic material from which the organizers drew could justify so extensive an enterprise.

Catamenia is a curious word.

At least that one people treat as plural.

Cerberus

@tchrist Well, the chorus is the dancers.

tchrist

4:48 PM

One hears of menses but never mensis.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

tchrist

In English, menses means catamenia.

I grepped for all the headwords in the OED whose pronunciations end in /-iːz/.

Many have been reänalysed.

Cerberus

I didn't even know catamenia.

tchrist

You of course wince at bona fide as a malformed “singular” for bona fides. It turns out that sailors would reänalyse words for peoples like several Chinese, several Portuguese, several Maltese and create new “singulars” like one Portugee.

Or just one Chinee.

And then there is chassis, which like species and series, is both singular and plural.

Although in the singular, one does not pronounce the final /z/.

Have you ever heard people pronounce social mores with the second word sounding like the normal comparative more with an -s added to it? I have.

Ug, anatomy is hard: nares and lores are completely unalike. Nares is the plural of naris, but lores is a plural of lore, itself from lorum for a strap.

Cerberus

@tchrist Umm we use that as an ablative here. We have no bona fides in Dutch.

And the ablative can function adverbally or attributively in Dutch.

@tchrist Hmm I think I have.

To be quite honest, I wasn't even sure whether that was wrong in English (the problem does not arise in Dutch, where we actually pronounce letters).

@tchrist Do you pronounce those nareez but lorz?

tchrist

5:05 PM

@Cerberus Apparently!

Cerberus

> Nnl. bona fide ‘te goeder trouw’ [1824; Weiland].
Ontleend aan Latijn bonā fidē ‘id.’, ablatief van bona fidēs, letterlijk ‘goed vertrouwen, goede trouw’, van bonus ‘goed’, zie bonus, en fidēs ‘trouw’, zie fideel.
malafide bn. ‘te kwader trouw’. Nnl. mala fide ‘trouweloos, kwaadaardig’ [1824; Weiland]. Ontleend aan Latijn malā fidē, ablatief van mala fidēs, letterlijk ‘slecht vertrouwen, kwade trouw’, met een eerste lid malus, waarvoor zie malaria.

The dictionary says it is indeed from the ablative.

tchrist

In botany, the stalk is the stipes, with plural stipides. But some writers reänalyse it to stipes being a plural with a stipe singular.

@Cerberus So it needs no preposition, or is it that it occurs only as an ablative object of preposition?

Cerberus

Ugh.

tchrist

> stipe1 /staɪp/.

Etymology: a. Fr. stipe, ad. L. stīpes (stīpit-) log, post, tree-trunk (in mod.L. = sense 1).

1. Bot. A footstalk; in various applications: the stalk which supports the pileus of a fungus; the leafstalk of a fern; the support of a gynæceum or a carpel; = stipes 1.

1785 Martyn Lett. Bot. xxxii. (1794) 499 ― From these arises a stipe or stem supporting hollow conical receptacles.
1821 Sir J. E. Smith Gram. Bot. 8 ― Stipes, a Stipe, is the Stem of a Frond as in Ferns, where it is commonly scaly; or the stalk of a Fungus.

Cerberus

@tchrist Why can't people just look something up if they are not sure?? What is wrong with people? I have to look things up all the time. If I can't, I won't use it. It betrays an inferior mind or character, I would almost say.

tchrist

5:09 PM

> ǁ stipes /ˈstaɪpiːz/.

Pl. stipites /ˈstɪpɪtiːz/. Also anglicized as stipe1, q.v.

Etymology: L. stīpes (stem stīpit-): see stipe1.

1. Bot. A stalk, esp. of some special kind, other than an ordinary leaf- or flower-stalk; e.g. one supporting a carpel or other part of a flower, or the pappus of the ‘seed’ or fruit of some composites; that of the frond of a fern or sea-weed (also, the stem or caudex of a tree-fern); that supporting the pileus or cap of certain fungi.

1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. i. vii. (1765) 15 ― Pappus, a Down,··a feathery or hairy Crown··connected with the seed by Stipes…

Cerberus

@tchrist No preposition.

tchrist

k

Cerberus

In Latin, you could say bona fide or bona cum fide, but the borrowed idiom happens to be bona fide.

tchrist

Oh!

Whence bonified. :)

Cerberus

With people, prepositions are often compulsory with the ablative. With things, they are often optional.

So you go to the battlefield with Marcus, but (with) courage[abl.].

I think in almost all cases, this applies only to prepositions that (can) take the ablative, including in.

tchrist

5:13 PM

Then there is the famous gladio.

Cerberus

Is it famous?

You would normally be brief and not use cum there.

tchrist

I presume that’s ablative meaning with or by in Qui gladio ferit, gladio perit.

Cerberus

Yes.

He who hits with the sword, dies by the sword?

Perhaps ferio can also mean "kill" in this context?

tchrist

In English it is customarily rendered "He who lives by the short, dies by the sword."

Cerberus

Lives is weird.

tchrist

5:16 PM

But I always think of that verb as meaning wound.

Cerberus

It can mean that.

tchrist

Oh, perhaps this is why. :)

Cerberus

Its basic meaning is something like...to strike vehemently.

tchrist

I don’t understand then how it is used there to mean what we say live for in English.

Cerberus

Well, if you use the sword to strike people regularly, you live by the sword.

But it is a very liberal translation.

Because there is no "regularly" in the Latin.

hey

5:20 PM

►

tchrist

Hm, ferio and ferrum. The weirdly non-connecting connection survived Latin. For Latin ferire gave Spanish herir (hence una herida for a wound), a verb whose 1st sg present is (yo) hiero, a word so like unto hierro for iron that the poets must have no end of fun with it.

@Cerberus Loose.

Cerberus

@hey Meh, that video is a bit silly. There is very little chance that you will spread disease with your hands after going to the bathroom, unless there is an epidemic of something out of the ordinary going on.

@tchrist That must be incidental...

@tchrist I was trying to be generous.

tchrist

@Cerberus That’s why I called it non-connecting.

But that never stopped the poet.

Soy héroe: con hierro hiero y con hierro me muero.

I am a hero: I wound with iron and with iron I die.

You can play around with world order to change the emphasis: Héroe soy is perfectly allowed, and because it is in the flipped position, it would be what we in English do when we add emphasis: “I am a hero.” Whereas Soy héroe would just be the normal “I’m a hero” — less formal, less emphatic.

Cerberus

@tchrist I thought so.

tchrist

@Cerberus I looked it up to be sure.

Or at least, so I wasn’t called on talking out of my butt.

Cerberus

5:30 PM

If only everyone were to do so before writing stuff down.

tchrist

On me muero: I don’t know why, but dying is reflexive in Spanish but not in French. Je meurs de faim > Me muero de hambre. So it is just plain mourir in French not se mourir the way it must always be morirse in Spanish. I dunno why; Spanish and Portuguese make a lot of stuff reflexive that French doesn’t. Italian is halfway.

And which we would not translate reflexively in English.

Will Hunting

Do you know that Thursagen's suspension has ended?

I hope he comes back, lol.

tchrist

6:01 PM

I love how “regular” Spanish is portrayed, like how you always just add -s or -es to make a plural.

The problem is that little word “just”.

Will Hunting

I love how easy it is to pronounce Italian words. One can learn it in 5 min.

tchrist

As demonstrated by the Royal Spanish Academy’s rule for plural formation, there is much more here than meets the eye.

@WillHunting Actually, you cannot.

@WillHunting Not correctly.

Stress is phonemic in Italian, and often unmarked.

Therefore, you cannot know how to say something for all values of something.

Will Hunting

OK, not things like stress.

tchrist

But stress is critical.

If you do not know the stress, you will not say it right.

Will Hunting

But any Italian should be able to understand every word I read.

tchrist

6:04 PM

And since Italian has a 7-vowel tonic system but a 5-vowel atonic one, then you will not get that right either.

You deceive yourself, Jasper.

Will Hunting

Today I got a CD case. For slipping in CDs and carrying around easily.

tchrist

In contrast, I actually can teach you how to pronounce Spanish in five minutes, and every word you read you are guaranteed to know how to say, including the correct stress and the correct vowel choice. In Italian, you do not.

Will Hunting

I don't have many discs now, but I threw away all the boxes after I put them into the case.

tchrist

If you do not know Latin or Spanish or both, knowing how to pronounce a new word you have never seen before in Italian takes quite some time to get used to getting right.

Will Hunting

@tchrist That is news to me. I always thought Spanish was harder to read than Italian, but I guess I have not been exposed to much Spanish.

tchrist

6:07 PM

@WillHunting I thought you were talking about how to pronounce things.

And I do not know what “hard to read” means, really.

Will Hunting

@tchrist Yes, how to pronounce the word written in letters.

tchrist

Spanish is easier than Italian at that.

Because it has no exceptions.

None.

They have been vicious at keeping it that way.

Italian though, has not.

Will Hunting

Wow, the Spanish must be very orderly people.

tchrist

No, the Spanish are as a whole more disorderly than the Austrians. However, their linguists do know their stuff, and they have a many-centuries-old tradition of updating the orthography to conform to speech so that they never drift apart.

Will Hunting

By the way there is a user or three on Math who always leave unconstructive comments, so I am aiming for the Marshal badge there, lol.

tchrist

6:10 PM

You should avoid making a pest of yourself, Jasper.

It will not end well.

Will Hunting

Well, so far it has been well received by the mods.

tchrist

Good.

Will Hunting

In fact, the mods are aware of these problematic users.

tchrist

I do not understand then why there are long-repeating cases of it from the same small set of users.

Will Hunting

Because despite emails sent to them, they never change, so the mods have sort of given up, lol.

tchrist

6:12 PM

Really?

Will Hunting

You see, it is not possible to suspend a user just for posting chatty comments.

@tchrist OK, that is partly my speculation.

tchrist

@WillHunting “Not possible” seems unlikely to be operative here.

Will Hunting

Anyway, the mods are very industrious. The past few days they removed over 1000 comments.

And only a small fraction of that is flagged by me. I have about 60 helpful flags now.

If they find my flagging too much, they can always email me and I will stop.

tchrist

More likely that they would just start declining your flags, perhaps with a custom note.

That would be my bet, at least.

Will Hunting

My flagging is related to this.

18

Q: On mutual tactical serial upvotes and unconstructive comments

I notice that there are some groups of users on this site that like to leave unconstructive comments on each other's posts. For example, A writes "Great answer, +1" on B's posts and B writes "Short and sweet, +1" on A's posts. Often there are a few of these comments each day, accompanied by the u...

discussion feature-request comment serial-voting

Cerberus

6:27 PM

Think different is probably a variation on the colloquial expression think big, which is not the normal way we use the verb think. The other slogan is perfectly normal syntactically, but a bit awkward because of the overly long subject, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world. And by the way, I don't think advertising is amazing at all, I find it dull and of low quality; it's nothing like e.g. good literature or cabaret. — Cerberus 41 secs ago

tchrist

How many Antilles are there?

user116848

6:46 PM

@JohanLarsson hej :)

Johan Larsson

hej

user116848

So I notice that users in all chat rooms fluctuate between 150 users and 50 users :-)

user116848

It looks like a trend imo.

user116848

Due to work hours etc. I'd say.

user116848

It looks strange that out of the thousands of users only a handful of us make it to the chat.

Will Hunting

7:03 PM

@Arrowfar Hi! Nice photo.

@IceBoy While our post on math has been closed and deleted, the one on eng is well received, lol.

Ice Boy

@WillHunting Indeed, opposite reactions.

Ice Boy

7:37 PM

meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/16850/…

11

Q: Congratulations, Will Hunting

Congratulations on achieving 1,020 reputation points. Please try your best to not delete this achievement. We have faith in you this time. Words cannot describe anyone who would downvote this celebration.

discussion

RegDwigнt

7:51 PM

@Cerberus No. Since like twenty years no more.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: The days go on longer and longer Things just seem wronger and wronger Like spelling and adding An…

posted on September 20, 2014 by sgdi

The days go on longer and longer Things just seem wronger and wronger Like spelling and adding And pant buttock padding And painting arms so you seem stronger

Will Hunting

9:44 PM

This chat is dead.

tchrist

@WillHunting Jasper, regarding your Math “issues”, I wonder whether you have yet read this post in full, and also whether some of what you grouse about might be related to it.

Ice Boy

The facts speak for themselves.

tchrist

@IceBoy Be that as it may, facts alone can never explain patterns of human behavior. Agreed?

Will Hunting

9:59 PM

@tchrist Too deep for me.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…