English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Cerberus Nowhere that I've lived.

There once was a man from Purdue whose limericks would end at line two.

Cerberus

@MετάEd OK so it was meant to be a Britanism?

@Cerberus It's a quotation from a Monty Python sketch.

[...] Where syntactically correct and where “...” is not part of an abstract-declarator, “, ...” is synonymous with “...”. [...]

Ack.

Cerberus

12:23 AM

@MετάEd OK.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto keep living?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Keep it to yourself.

Just kidding.

Congratulations.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I was five the last time this happened.

I wouldn't have recognized you.

user685252

5:37 AM

@MετάEd who decides "how a chatroom works"?

:-)

9:44 AM

@user685252 God.

9:54 AM

@Robusto Well he's the only one here. Who do you think you were talking to? Oh yeah? OK.

user685252

10:42 AM

12 hours ago, by Robusto

@MετάEd Was I talking to you?

1:08 PM

@RegDwigнt There's nobody here but me.

That's true. I'm not here

Me neither :-)

@user685252 Reg got it in one.

In fact, none of us are here. We are all in remote locations.

1:23 PM

Yes, and where exactly is "here"?

Q: "Don't you think?" vs "don't you think so"?

For me, it's right here. For you, I have no idea.

-1

Life would be a lot less painful without love, don't you think?" Life would be a lot less painful without love, don't you think so?" Do they mean the same? Or they have slightly different meanings?

word-choice

This guy must be stopped.

right here right now

No rickrolls in chat, please.

well excuuuuse me Mr top 1/10th of 1% :P

aka 1/1000

:D

You may call me Thou (for thousandth). As in "Go, Thou, and do likewise."

1:33 PM

@Robusto I don't think, therefore you aren't.

Hi @RegDwigнt

I don't think so!

@RegDwigнt I believe the correct form is "Don't you think, asshole?"

Well, pain is a thought.

And If you see me with another man
Laughin and jokin
doing what I can
I Won't put you down
Cuz i want you around
You can make me asshole again.

1:35 PM

Elton John with another man? Please.

No. Atomic Titten.

NOU

Elton John does not have songs about men. Only about princesses.

You are my princess
You make me smile
You make my life seem worthwhile
You are my princess
You are the one
You make the sun shine on me
You're one fine lady
You're my princess

he made George Michael into a princess

And that goodbye England's rose thing.

@skillpatrol after which he never danced again, guilty feet have got no rhythm.

1:38 PM

you gotta have faith

a faith, a faith...

2:21 PM

@Cerberus no, not at all. I don't think any American varieties do that. It sounds a tiny bit wrong a tiny bit appalachian to say 'what that' ... but not in that particular sentence.

What that fuck?

Obviously drawn by a mathematician.

Phantasizing about knowing what a bustier looks like.

ta-ra-ra bustier! ta-ra-ra bustier!

Fact: in the entire history of mathematics, no anything was ever interrupted by sex.

2:29 PM

I lost my bustier!

@Robusto Ga, ga, uh-la-la.

eaten by your haustier

Now now, no need to be so haustile.

I want no tile of that

You know, there's a lot of weird shit in wikipedia

I can understand if anybody can make anything up, but I thought they had 'mods' or 'editors' or some shit like that.

@skillpatrol Here is what keeps everything from happening to me.

2:43 PM

@MετάEd The "sanctuary" of the internet?

@MετάEd I know! I'm sure there are "there"s that are better though.

@Mitch admins and bureaucrats.

I used to be both.

They don't edit or mod.

They quarrel and assign rights to bots.

Besides, absolutely anything on Wikipedia is expressly allowed to be made up for as long as it is not made up by yourself.

@RegDwigнt That's annoying because not everything is in a reference.

Wait...I'll make up a web page, and then that's the reference. Done.

2:56 PM

Exactly.

Which is what started happening en masse.

So they started introducing more rules on top of that. Notability.

@RegDwigнt Who's putting on those random snarky little footnote edits like [Needs citation] or [Why?] or [37]?

@RegDwigнt I got notability covered. Links to other wikipedia pages.

So if I say, "all presidents are gay", I can't put that up on Wikipedia. You could get away with putting it up as "sources say all presidents are gay [citation needed]".

Ideally, I'd say that not here, but in a comment on the NYT website. Then you could link to that. Hey presto.

My point is (as little as it is) is that it seems lots of crap is getting through without it being edited/modded/admin'ed but lots of good stuff is all questioned and citation needed and stuff... just like... oh shit I just looked into the abyss and all I saw was dead whales.

@Mitch the former two anyone can put. The latter one is not a footnote edit but an actual reference. Put there by the engine semi-automatically.

@Mitch bikeshedding.

Everyone checks the article on Iran's nukes. Everyone feels entitled to question every word.

But nobody checks the article on your mom. So you can write whatever you want.

@RegDwigнt Good point. Unless your mom is Taylor Swift. Then the thrashing starts.

Also, Slate is a bunch of crap. Lies lies lies that I want to read about. Steven Colbert hates gay people? I should read about that.

3:04 PM

Stupid liberal media. How is it news that someone hates gays? Every normal person hates them by default. Jeez.

@RegDwigнt So sometimes bikesheds are thrashed over and sometimes it is George Bush. And sometimes no one cares about the history of the world and sometimes it is your mom.

writes a check to Steven Colbert

@Mitch Somehow I never get there. As soon as I get there, I'm here.

also sends flowers

he doesn't need your money.

3:06 PM

nono, them's non-gay flowers, it's alright

it works in mysterious ways

@Mitch he needs every cent in the endless crusade against liberal media.

Assuming you do, how do you see his show? Some newfangled internet thing?

Which show? The Colbert Report is no more.

ha ha, the tonight show which is almost identical except for the fawning admiration of interviewees

Lately, he almost always uses the aside "Now that I can interview people as me..."

3:10 PM

From his new show, I've watched like one segment on YouTube, and this was when I noticed just how boring he is.

By which I mean, I always knew it before, but this is at the latest when every last person should notice it and stop watching.

@skillpatrol I'm just saying that without "here", there's no "there" there. And "there" is awfully convenient sometimes because if it's "there", it's also not "here".

@RegDwigнt Well, he ain't your mom if you know what I mean.

Most TV show hosts are rubbish. There are like less than a handful that aren't.

Leno is awful. That redhead, what's his name again, is not funny and too obsessed with himself to even notice he has guests.

@MετάEd That's neither here nor there. ducks and runs

Letterman was too old school even for old school.

3:13 PM

@Mitch Well, crap. So much for my cosmology.

@RegDwigнt It's all about them. Redhead?

Basically it's only Jon Stewart and Craig Ferguson that are left, and neither of them has a show anymore.

@Mitch conan o'barbarian or whatever.

You should watch local news. Lotsa laughs.

Especially after you shoot yourself in the face

You should stop watching local news. Lotsa life.

@RegDwigнt I don't know. It keeps people in jobs, the writing staff, the musicians, the stage crew.

3:15 PM

He has musicians?

I know Jimmy Fallon has musicians. Even good ones. But that conan thing?

@RegDwigнt I watched it once. Now that it told me the weather i don't have to anymore.

@RegDwigнt um...yeah... the house band led by the drummer for Bruce Springsteen

Anyway. Your horrible, atrocious pseudo-argument is horrible, atrocious. And pseudo.

There was an argument? Film at eleven!

"Crap jobs keep people in jobs". Well fuck me. That was never my point. My point was why not have people kept in jobs by good jobs instead.

@Mitch Let's suppose arguendo that there was one.

@RegDwigнt We tried that. He died.

3:18 PM

Connecting telephone calls manually or making landmines or typing using typewriters or shitting on the streets or invading Poland keeps people in jobs, too.

@MετάEd I had a turtle once. He died. So that makes sense.

Wait, no, we sent him to a farm upstate.

Doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't get rid of them all. And half of them we in point of fact have.

@RegDwigнt Well, then, point made.

"The sudden interruption of his soothing music hebumblefrotzed." Just make something up.

That worked. (in case you weren't sure if it sounded made up or not)

3:20 PM

@Mitch You sent him to state farm to insure ... what?

It doesn't sound made up enough. Too many actual morphemes.

@MετάEd so he could live a care free life chasing cats and sleeping in the sun and getting petted by cute farm kids.

Q: "Good to hear(read) from you"

2

I have noticed people use this sentence to reply to written mails but I often ask myself; why use "hear" when you "read" ? Is it just a generally accepted phrase or people do use it wrongly ?

phrases sentence

Isn't that a dupe?

I remember commenting on something like that not too long ago.

It is.

@Mitch Turtles can't chase cats. It's in their contract.

Q: "Glad to hear" in non-speaking form

3:26 PM

0

I'm from Russia and I've got a problem with writing a letter. Can I use the phrase "glad to hear such news" if I'm not speaking with a person? Isn't it better and more correct to use "glad to know"?

writing letter-writing

Which of course is hilariously misleading because the exact same thing happens in Russian.

And every language I am aware of, for that matter.

People will say hear for "read" and say for "write" and nöone will give a flying or crawling anything.

Nobody says "glad to read from you."

Exactly. Not in Russian, either.

It is a crap question through and through.

Not in German not in French and just let me bet 10 roubles saying not in Japanese either.

Voting to close because it's not our job to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Voting to close because lighten the fuck up, it's how people talk ferchrissakes.

3:28 PM

No wait, sorry, should be writing, not saying. I didn't really say that. Haha. My bad. Haha.

I see you typing, but so far you haven't said a goddamned thing.

Maybe if you typed louder?

You're a liar. You don't really see me.

Maybe hear.

Maybe smell.

But not see.

@Robusto I like how the answer quotes a dictionary. Making it sound like it's an answer while in reality it's just a repetition of the question.

> "Hear" has the following meaning: Be contacted by (someone),

OP: well yes, I just said just that.

Fruit of the same poisoned tree.

That's the other funny thing about this. When you read a letter you actually do hear and see them.

Only if you're reading out loud.

Question for ELU: "If I move my lips while I read, how can I be sure I'm using correct IPA symbology if I can't hear what I'm saying?"

3:37 PM

@Robusto No, hearing is more complicated than that. You actually hear language even when you are reading it rather than listening to it. The same speech centers such as Broca's area are involved, and in the same way.

@MετάEd that's the other funny thing about this: some people actually don't.

Like Cerberus.

@RegDwigнt Oh, well, you win.

He said he does not have a voice in his head that reads stuff aloud to him.

He must be like the only person on Earth for whom that's true, but well. He exists.

@RegDwigнt Oh, well then I win. I just thought you mean he doesn't listen.

Then again he's not a person, just a dog.

@Robusto by looking at the tree that falls over in the forest 10000 miles east.

3:40 PM

@RegDwigнt Tsk. So decacentric.

LOLWUT, I never said it was decimal.

Noob.

decimal => claimed

It says 243 in your decacentric world. But you are too decacentric to know.

@Robusto you claimed all words a long time ago, no news there.

anagrams => ars magna => a ram sang

Huhuh, you said ars,huhuh.

3:45 PM

ars me no questions, i tell you no lies

Deal, I will axe you questions instead.

I just typed "It disappeared from my cue" in skype. I bet nobody on the receiving end noticed the mistake.

This is how literate people amuse themselves.

Yes. Should be queue.

I'm talking to the SC, so I'm sure it was a stone whoosh.

He's probably all dressed in stone whooshed denim.

3:49 PM

He? The SC is legion.

It's the plural he.

Lern grammor.

legion => leg ion => englio => ingleo => oleing

What does that tell us about Enrique Ingleosias?

Southern Comfort

Mkay, didn't expect that.

3:50 PM

oleing is, of course, the act of shouting olé!

Noöne expects the Southern inquisition

You don't need the diacritics if you are oleing in English.

oleing = gli neo

The New.

το νέο

Do the Russkis call Keanu Reeves novayo?

I guess he's Odin if they translate one into Russian.

3:53 PM

@MattE.Эллен νου

@Robusto first off, that would have to be novyy. Masculine.

@RegDwigнt όχι εσύ

Second off, even the neuter, which in the case of Keanu is arguably justified, would be novoye, not novayo.

Robusto is in ur internets metathesizing ur russian.

meh, nobody else in Hollywood cares about translating Russian correctly, so why should I?

16 hours ago, by Robusto

@MετάEd That's not an argument. That's merely contradiction.

are you in Hollywood?

Jun 19 at 14:11, by RegDwigнt

λολ

3:55 PM

@MattE.Эллен I don't know, I haven't checked since I got up. Should I go look outside now?

@Robusto well haven't you all but answered your own question, young man. You are not Hollywood.

@Robusto I think it's best you don't find out

Perhaps.

Jinx.

Where is @Matt going to find a "not in Hollywood" coke this late in the day?

3:57 PM

In my capacity as the only permanent resident of Robusto's backyard, I testify it ain't no wood, holy or otherwise.

yeah, all the coke is in Hollywood already

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Buy before you try.

Eat the cave, then empty it.

Wait, that's a Hollywood coke, not a "not in Hollywood" coke.

3:59 PM

the first image of ""not in hollywood" coke" is of coke in hollywood. tch

Looks like the NaCl @Rob was all excited about yesterday.

jinx

50 secs ago, by Matt E. Эллен

Or maybe it's the uranium carbon lanthanoide so many students dream about.

There's your "not in 'not in Hollywood' coke".

4:00 PM

Uranium carbon lanthanoide is right next to Hollywood alright.

everyone's a winner

Minor correction: some losers are not necessarily winners all of the time.

But other than that, yes, spot on.

Also, they are losers, so they don't count anyway.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: A summer house, a cottage or a cabin? by user145889 on english.stackexchange.com

@RegDwigнt No, Donny, these men are cowards.

Smoking a fag? Whoa that's too gay even for this site. We don't allow that.

4:08 PM

It's outlawed by the SPCA or something. I'd have to check.

Yes, by all means do. Just take precautions not to repeatedly fall onto someone's penis during research.

It's jungle out there.

what's the list that smoke detector uses?

It uses the too-secret-to-be-revealed-in-chat list.

Mostly it watches youporn all day, occasionally glancing at ELU. If it can't notice a substantial difference quickly enough, it raises alarm.

Oh, and the least known fact is that the smoke detector himself is a smoker.

Awww, Ohio voted to reject pot. That's not good news. I

4:13 PM

@Mitch will be outraged. So many people lose their jobs.

when isn't @Mitch outraged?

At three past four in the morning.

Not sure about the date.

@MattE.Эллен WTF attitude is that?

Mitch: in, rage: out.

@Robusto seems reasonable. they're a 'dry' state

4:18 PM

Not when it comes to almonds, I bet.

control it like liquor

Oh dry in that sense.

Well there's almond liquor as well, my comment can be re-used.

is that .. frangelico?

Oh my.

so you have some?

4:20 PM

Haven't heard that word for a decade.

Yes, good stuff.

Damn, why did I stop?

What the frangelico is that kind of attitude?

To the extent of forgetting the very name.

now you've heard it again. makingup for lost time.

Yes yes thank you Evil Santa.

@RegDwigнt drink enough you'll forget other things too.

Live dual, laud evil

4:21 PM

Doo-bee-doo-bee-ous.

Stregalicious.

What's dinos to do with this.

@RegDwigнt Gives you gas.

The Levee was dry.

Nona beef streganoff

4:24 PM

@Mitch Nona beef is tough.

Serves him right for running a gas station in Ohio.

@MετάEd Indeed, nona beef is so tough it will even cause cancer.

Source: WHO.

Who, indeed.

Statistics are supposed to make something easier to understand

Haha wut.

@Mitch You got some kinda problem with my noticing your outrage, huh? Punk?

4:26 PM

Oh. I found more stats on the processed meet thing.

According to my inbox, I just got a +1 for my answer to "Is Jesus Christ the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?" on Biblical Hermeneutics.

I didn't even know I had ever answered a question like that or been to that site at all.

How to Lie with Statistics

How to Lie with Statistics is a book written by Darrell Huff in 1954 presenting an introduction to statistics for the general reader. Huff was a journalist who wrote many "how to" articles as a freelancer, but was not a statistician. The book is a brief, breezy, illustrated volume outlining errors when it comes to the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors may create incorrect conclusions. In the 1960s and '70s it became a standard textbook introduction to the subject of statistics for many college students. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over...

File as Exhibit A under "just how drunk I am".

@RegDwigнt It's a miracle.

the probability of getting (or is it dying from) colorectal cancer when eating regular (includes some meat) is 5%. the probability with a high processed meat diet is 6%. so that's 18% relative increase in likelihood.

4:28 PM

@MετάEd there can be miracles if you believe!!!

They never say how much is a lot of processed meat.

@RegDwigнt QED

@Mitch one lot is typically made of several two by fours. You do the math.

So You probably should eat much red/processed meat for many reasons. And the latest cancer report should remind us. BUt no, you're probably not going to die because you had bacon the other day.

@MattE.Эллен I gotta poop.

Except in the one case that you are.

4:29 PM

what makes meat "processed"?

Humans.

How?

@MattE.Эллен A process.

Get rid of all humans and I assure you all meat will be unprocessed henceforth.

it means sausage-like things.

4:30 PM

Huhuhuh.

Today on ESPN: porn gives you cancer.

smoking, nitrates, mixing up with entrails and floor dustings

@Mitch I see. That's a shame about the floor dustings

Also, background noise of Justin and Miley.

@RegDwigнt some animals like to leave their dead prey out for a while or bury it, to give it that extra gamey flavor.

Tomorrow: predicting the future gives you cancer.

oh no!

4:31 PM

You can wash your floor, but you can't wash other people's radios.

@MattE.Эллен well, you don't want to let things go to waste.

@Mitch yes. They are called Icelanders.

and jaguars.

so sophisticated

And peugeots.

Volkswagens, on the other hand, never quite process their meat to the extent they claim they do.

Hellowed.

4:34 PM

Eat German game!

["Statistics may be a principled means of debate with opportunities for agreement,[1][2]" ] . comes with footnotes so it must be true.

I disagree strongly with 'may be'. It should be 'may possibly be'.

Thanks, I am not hungry.

Which reminds me, I will be hungry soon.

So Germans watch out.

Oct 22 at 14:19, by Robusto

I don't put pie in my nose.

just in case you needed a meal suggestion

Wait. That's a *non-*meal suggestion. Or meal *non-*suggestion.

4:38 PM

He's suggesting that you try something new

I suggest he suggests something new first.

I suggest something new first

"Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination"

4

NO, INB4 MATT.

or to vomit next to. Politicians are dumb

4:39 PM

@Mitch That is not a very new suggestion.

Just look at it, all worn up and scratched.

That suggestion is totally new to me.

You must be a hip hop DJ.

So almost hungry

Yeah austria.

Very close indeed.

but not hungry at all

4:40 PM

Yup.

I don't I've ever seen a drunk vomit though.

Wait...

Nope... still never.

Austria went nazi in the 1930s, hungry in the 2010s.

Eretz Germany

Which reminds me.

Muting commies it is.

You too?

4:42 PM

No.

But also yes.

Hell, yes to all three and perhaps to the rest.

So you've gotten all you've been planning to do not done?

Nice.

Mama just killed a man.

Must've been Matron Mama Morton.

@RegDwigнt Throw her from the train.

Chicago - When You're Good to Mama - Queen Latifah (Turkish Subtitle)

►

Over and out.

I'll pretend I can't find the play button. That always pisses Momma off.

4:47 PM

Momma said, "knock you out."

I have a question regarding the following dictionary entry

> Amputation: The action of surgically cutting off a limb

So if I say "amputation of limbs", is it redundant?

It sounds wrong to me

needs more context. as is it could be a pleonasm or not.

@Gigili amputation could be for a finger or toe, or not the entire limb (an amputation of the foot)

> if a person causes escape of a criminal, He shall be required to hand over the person. ** In cases of murder and crime on organs that resulted to amputation of limbs and extremities or their defects or interest lose; ** if detention of causer is effective for presence of criminal or requiring the causer to hand over the person; court shall detain the causer at the request of owner of blood-money right until arrest of criminal.
The causer shall be released if offender dies before arrest, or arrest is impossible, or owner of Qesas right declares his consent. If perpetrator dies or arrest is…

pffft, silly stars

Is this a translation?

'causer' sounds really awkward

Not done by me, but yes it is.

I am reviewing the translation.

skull petrol

4:57 PM

Are you a translator?

'limbs and extremities' sounds very much like legalese, string together lists of near synonyms, to make user that every contingency is covered (like maybe amputation might apply to the earlobe)

Right

for causes' I would use 'aid' or 'abet'... the rest sounds like they kidnapped the criminal in addition to just harboring or helping them.