English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

12:00 AM

Right.

The so-called meme means nothing to me. I had never seen it. I am remarkably insulated.

Mitch

The dog is cute.

tchrist

I thought it was a fox in Jez’s picky.

Jez

►

tchrist

Dogging it again, I see.

Mitch

dogs or cats, which is better? can't be both or neither.

tchrist

12:05 AM

Hyenas aren’t both or neither?

Mitch

yeah, hyenas don't count. unless you think they're really great.

Jez

cats are better unless the dog is the doge

Mitch

it is a cute dog.

but kittens!

wait..the question is 'kittens or puppies'

baby hyenas just don't come in to it.

Cerberus

12:27 AM

@tchrist I do not know it either.

@Mitch Cats!!

►

tchrist

@Cerberus We abide in similar retreats.

Cerberus

Quite.

(Here Fowler would not say "quite so".)

tchrist

Indeed.

tchrist

2:10 AM

That one is from Denver.

@Mitch Tell me again about baby hyenas not being cute?

Tiger and Hyena are friends: look at them holding hands!

►

Cerberus

2:34 AM

Funny dogs.

tchrist

Funny thing, that: hyenas are feliforms like cats and civets, not caniforms like dogs and wolverines and bears.

Feliformia

Feliformia (also Feloidea) is a suborder within the order Carnivora consisting of "cat-like" carnivorans, including cats (large and small), hyenas, mongooses, civets, and related taxa. Feliformia stands in contrast to the other suborder of Carnivora, Caniformia ("dog-like" carnivorans). Both suborders share one characteristic which distinguishes Carnivora from all other mammals: the possession of the four carnassial teeth. The separation of Carnivora into the broad groups of feliforms and caniforms is widely accepted, as is the definition of Feliformia and Caniformia as suborders (sometimes...

Robusto

@tchrist I suppose so.

tchrist

What od you get when you cross a leopard with a giraffe?

Robusto

A headache.

tchrist

Or maybe a neckache?

Cerberus

2:43 AM

A linsang, funny as well.

tchrist

Cross between a mouse and a kitty.

Or a mouse and a puppy. Not sure.

But there’s mouse in there somewhere.

Probably partly digested.

Robusto

Why are you torturing me?

tchrist

I have no idea.

I’m trying to melt Mitch.

Or do you mean the snow I sent your way?

Robusto

The awful animals, on top of the snow, may be a bit much.

tchrist

Cross between a kitty and a bear:

Cerberus

2:47 AM

Nice.

tchrist

Cerberus

Hey, do you own a so-called "smart TV"?

> Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

From Samsung's terms and conditions.

Robusto

@tchrist Easy there, Dr. Moreau. Time to pump the brakes a little.

@Cerberus I have a smart TV but I dumbed it down.

tchrist

Lobotomy?

Cerberus

The TV basically eavesdrops on everything you say 24/7 and claims the right to transmit it to third parties over the Internet.

@Robusto Good. But...are you sure?

tchrist

2:48 AM

Doesn’t everything do that?

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes. I disabled the inputs.

Cerberus

OK if you're sure.

tchrist

And you are awfully slippery calling the CIA a third party.

Cerberus

Why?

tchrist

They can read lips, you know.

Robusto

2:49 AM

The CIA is a party that doesn't stop.

tchrist

Ceci n’est pas un chat:

Cerberus

> The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment…

You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Cue the execution:

@Cerberus Darkness is no barrier.

Cerberus

2:50 AM

Indeed not.

Maybe it was in 1948.

tchrist

Name that lizard!

Cerberus

> I understand and agree that Voice Information may be transferred to, and used by, third party service providers on LGE's behalf in various countries around the world (including Korea), some of which may not offer the same level of data protection, for the purposes set out in the Privacy Policy.

tchrist

hehehehehehehe no.

Cerberus

@tchrist Google says fossa.

I had heard of this animal, but would not have thought of its name.

tchrist

I’ve been encheated.

Cerberus

2:52 AM

Have you?

tchrist

Well no, but it sounded right.

Mitch

@tchrist I knew I was stepping into that. They are cute!

tchrist

However, it’s wrong.

Mitch

But the following does not do justice:

tchrist

@Mitch Victory!

Cerberus

2:53 AM

ilpost.it/2013/05/30/foto-animali-sconosciuti/fossa-pup

Then this website is also wrong.

Mitch

tchrist

@Cerberus Non è vero.

Mitch

I want one!

tchrist

But I was referring to the encheatment.

Robusto

@Cerberus What? How can a website be wrong?

Mitch

2:54 AM

@tchrist Equality!

Cerberus

@tchrist Certo no?

@Robusto Perhaps it is a Communist website?

tchrist

Encheated is the weirdest word.

Cerberus

It is endearing.

Robusto

@Cerberus Even so . . . that flies in the face of the conventional wisdom about websites.

Cerberus

I think I heard that Communist websites can be wrong.

Yes, but there are said to be exceptions.

Websites from the Opposition.

Robusto

2:55 AM

I don't want to live in a world where websites can be wrong!

tchrist

@Cerberus I can read the Italian: it says it’s a ferociously hidden prostate exam.

Cerberus

@Robusto Then ban all the wrong websites.

Robusto

They must ban themselves.

Cerberus

@tchrist Che?

Robusto

It's the only decent thing to do.

Mitch

2:57 AM

@Cerberus Fidel?

Verdad?

Cerberus

That wasn't Spanish.

tchrist

@Cerberus Ma si chiama Cryptoprocta ferox, lo sai.

Mitch

Spanish shmanish. it still sounds the same.

Cerberus

Allora, per che...

Robusto

No me fío de los websites que pueden ser malos.

Mitch

3:00 AM

you can understand 67% of all verbas espagnoles

tchrist

Crypto, vuol dire che è nascosto. Ferox, lo sai: fiero. Solo procta rimane.

@Robusto *malos

Robusto

Just under the wire.

tchrist

Hey, if we’re going to demonize them, might as well go all the way and make them malvados. :)

Robusto

Just for grins I checked the Duolingo German and tested out of the first two sections before I got bored. But it gives me a perspective on where I'm at in Spanish, which is not all that far by comparison.

tchrist

¿Creías otra cosa?

Robusto

3:04 AM

No.

tchrist

But notice how far you have come and how fast.

Robusto

@tchrist Where is your fronted ¿?

@tchrist Yes. Not bad for three weeks.

tchrist

@Robusto Perdida en la pereza.

Robusto

One more test-out in German and I'll be where I'm at with Spanish. Still pretty basic.

tchrist

Depends what you call it, what gender it takes. Still, sheer laziness.

Do you have all the indicative tenses now?

Robusto

3:06 AM

Present and past. No future. I understand infinitives, though.

I have a slippery grasp of 768 words.

tchrist

Notice I had to say creías not creíste.

You always have to distinguish the two "pasts".

Robusto

¿Por qué?

Mitch

@Cerberus Puppies!

But really, I can't decide, they are all cute.

tchrist

Because your believing was narrative, ongoing, "imperfect".

Robusto

@Mitch What? @Cerb has puppies?

Mitch

3:09 AM

ugh..why can't languages just do their tenses normal? Just give a star-date.

tchrist

"Were you thinking otherwise?"

Cerberus

@Mitch Wrong!

tchrist

Duck typing.

Mitch

@Robusto His mate has. I find it really annoying when a dude says we or he just had a baby. Man, you were involved but really didn't do much. Get a job!

Cerberus

@Robusto Nope, I like cats.

Mitch

3:11 AM

@Cerberus There's no 'wrong' in cuteness. Witness the cute baby T Rex.

Robusto

@Mitch Hey, nothing happens, procreation-wise, until the guy flashes his O-face.

tchrist

Limpiaba la ropa cuando me llamaste.

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, if he has lost it, it's not really proper to bother him with such reproaches.

@Mitch Nope cats are the cutest.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm meeting you halfway.

tchrist

O hacía lavandería cuando me llamaste. O estaba haciéndola.

Cerberus

3:14 AM

I'm afraid I cannot make any concessions, cat-wise.

tchrist

And the damned laundry still isn’t done. :)

Robusto

@tchrist Making what?

Mitch

@Cerberus I wish your concession stand would offer french fries.

tchrist

@Robusto Laundry.

Mitch

and baby ducks.

for my pet baby alligator

tchrist

3:15 AM

Doing, in this case. Hacer serves for make or do.

Mitch

so cute!

Robusto

@tchrist Oh. I thought it was an unfinished sentence, not an alternate suggestion for the first sentence.

tchrist

Ah.

All the Romance derivatives of Latin facere have to serve for both make and do.

Robusto

One of the many pitfalls inherent in learning a language.

It's not that you don't understand, but that you think you understand something you don't.

tchrist

Well, that and typing not betraying continuity or intonation.

Cerberus

3:16 AM

@Mitch It stands as it is, fryless.

However, it does offer raw herring.

Mitch

@tchrist I'll grant that that is a failure on English's part to eradicate redundancy. Also the letter c.

Cerberus

With toast and onions.

tchrist

If I had said it, you would have realized I was offering alternatives.

Mitch

@Cerberus and cream sauce?

(The cats would like it)

Robusto

@Mitch Redundancy should be eradicated, eliminated, extirpated, and weeded out.

tchrist

3:17 AM

@Mitch No facere in this chat.

Cerberus

@Mitch Nope, sorry. That's not traditional.

tchrist

@Mitch Not kosher.

Mitch

@Robusto all that latin should be -removed- gotten rid of and only phrasal verbs should be used

tchrist

@Mitch He did say weed, which no Latin has.

Mitch

@tchrist just 'do' ... or 'make'. crap just choose one and stick with it.

tchrist

3:19 AM

Make do.

Mitch

@tchrist fish and milk not kosher? checking with my local rabbi

tchrist

@Cerberus I don’t think he took that right.

No fuckery in this chat.

Mitch

@Cerberus it's my kind of traditional!

tchrist

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. . . .

Mitch

@Cerberus #4 on google suggestions starting with [herring cream]: "herring cream cheese and memories"

Cerberus

3:23 AM

Well, there you go.

We have no memories.

Mitch

@tchrist I wish for a puppy. and a kitty!

Cerberus

So we couldn't serve that.

Mitch

There you do go then. I'll be here with my puppy and kitty and herring in cream sauce

Robusto

> You can now read 66.5% of all real Spanish text

Mitch

well, it should have more cream, but close enough.

herring with apples and onions and cream.

Robusto

3:28 AM

Me tengo ir ahora.

Mitch

Served with potatoes. cold. I could take or leave the dill. It always feels like I'm eating the garnish. Which is wrong.

@Robusto Hasta luego?

Robusto

@Mitch No si te veo primero

Cerberus

@Mitch I'll be here with my cats and my herrings and my onions.

@Mitch That raw herring?

Robusto

Kittens in cream sauce? You disgusting doggy!

Mitch

@Cerberus I try to save some.

@Cerberus What? no. I think the animals will have it either way. I thought the kitties would like the cream too. The puppies wouldn't notice. puppies are kinda dumb like that.

@Robusto Ruff!

Cerberus

3:32 AM

@Robusto Umm Mitch was the one advocating cream; I opposed it.

Mitch

@Robusto No U!

Cerberus

@Mitch I'm sure the herrings would love the cream.

But I serve only raw herring.

Mitch

@Robusto they can swim for just a little bit longer then

tchrist

4:21 AM

@Robusto You don’t really need the future. You can always just use the "going to" periphrastic construction voy/vas/va/vamos/vais/van a + infinitive. It’s fine. But the future and conditional work differently than the other tenses because they add stuff to the end of the whole infinitive, rather than making stem changes. That’s because they were originally just forms of haber tacked on the end; the Latin future was lost.

This happens in the other Romance languages, too.

So pensar + he => pensaré. Similarly for all the others. Voilà! Now you know the future tense. Done. :) That’s also why they carry stress after the end of the infinitive base: because their endings used to be separate words conjugated from to have.

Little things like this are why picking up another Romance language once you have one down is pretty easy, since the same sort of treatment applies throughout.

Robusto

11:50 AM

-1 So it does outside of mathematics. TFD says nothing of math. How does this answer the question? — Kris 6 hours ago

Kris does find a reason to downvote every answer I give. Here he plays the literal mind.

@Kris, you'd have downvoted any answer I gave. Why do you even bother to attempt to justify your petty literal-mindedness? — Robusto 4 mins ago