English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

When I'm talking about a unit of soldiers out to perform a small task, I accent the first, generally. When I'm talking about a small portion of a larger whole I will probably accent the second.

tchrist

1:33 AM

Please don’t have your kitties detailed.

Robusto

Kitty's Revenge, by Claude Balls

That had 'em rolling in the aisles in fourth grade.

tchrist

If you want them that way, there's a Man you should see.

Insular one, too.

Oh yes, the joys of fourth grade: when they made us change into gym shoes and clothes and sent us to ignominious group showers. I kept waiting for the gas.

@Robusto That sounds normal.

One hundred and fifty-nine comments. Have these people no shame? My only condolence is that there are five other flags on it already.

Robusto

Cómo?

tchrist

16

Q: How can I prove a word is a noun?

When I read a sentence, I can identify nouns. But now I need to give proof that they are indeed nouns, and that is where it goes wrong. I can think of one or two things sometimes (like combining it with an adjective), but that is not enough proof. So my question is, how can I prove in multiple ...

Count up all the comments. Last count was 159.

But I haven't counted in a few seconds. It may have grown by now.

In my chathouse there are many rooms; if it were not so, would I not have told you?

Robusto

Haha, Araucaria's answer was so long and beheadinged I thought it was y ours.

tchrist

1:40 AM

blech

She's gone off the deep end.

She spent almost a week editing it in secret, coming back to the deleted posting and twinking it several times each day.

And she's doing it with a new deleted posting, too. Bleckety bleckety bleck.

Are fatigue downvotes wrong? :)

Robusto

What does auracaria mean? Seems like it ought to mean something.

tchrist

And Goofle. Goofle knows eferything.

It's a fucking monkey puzzle tree.

Robusto

YouTube Brian Jonestown Massacre Monkey Puzzle

►

0

Q: Is the split in pronunciation of "detail" regional, semantic, or irrelevant?

Or maybe something else? When I want to refer to a small military unit put together to carry out a specific task, I'll call it a DEtail, accent on the first syllable. When I want to refer to a particular portion of a larger whole, I'll call it a deTAIL, emphasis on the second syllable. In my ...

american-english pronunciation

Robusto

2:11 AM

> You can now read 74.1% of all real Spanish text

tchrist

2 bits shy of real money.

Interesting that they phrase it as a readability score.

Robusto

@tchrist Pago en dólares, no en pesos

Can I say Pago no en pesos, sino dólares ?

tchrist

Almost.

You have to repeat the en.

But it is more common, I think, to say "No pago en pesos sino en dólares".

Robusto

@tchrist Oh, yeah. Brain freeze on that one.

tchrist

You could also use con instead of en both times.

Robusto

2:20 AM

Same meaning difference as in English?

tchrist

To the extent that such exists, yes.

Robusto

pay in dollars / pay with dollars

tchrist

Some things you can only pay with, like credit cards.

books.google.com/ngrams/…

Robusto

That's an interesting graph. I wonder what the camel hump in the early-to-mid 19th century is all about.

Maybe there was more talk of currency exchange then.

tchrist

BTW, paying cash is pagar en efectivo.

Robusto

2:26 AM

Similar to BrE's "ready money"?

tchrist

Also, un pago is a noun meaning a payment.

@Robusto Maybe.

Robusto

1

Q: In the U.S., why is octothorp used to signal an apartment at a particular address?

In the book "Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers" it says: The octothorp ("8 fields" ) has been used in cartography as a symbol for "village "... . But, the octothorp, as a number sign, is used in the U.S. to signal an apartment or unit within th...

symbols

I'm surprised you haven't answered this one.

tchrist

Sigh.

Robusto

Seems right up your alley.

tchrist

It's a joke word.

I wish people would stop with the joke.

Anyway, the bounty is from a troll.

Robusto

2:28 AM

I did not know that.

tchrist

He has been formally admonished on multiple occasions.

He just likes to stir the pot.

Robusto

Was the question itself from one of our former trollerones?

tchrist

And he is an habitual liar.

@Robusto I cannot tell.

Remember this?

-17

Q: Was my suspension for posting low-quality posts a Great Injustice?

Hello, I'm writing in reference to your English Language and Usage - Stack Exchange account: http://english.stackexchange.com/users/24531/xavier-vidal-hernandez Due to many moderator flags on your questions, we have elected to suspend your account for 7 days. Your quest...

discussion moderation suspension low-quality-posts

Robusto

Only vaguely.

Cerberus

@tchrist Thank you for the n.

Robusto

2:37 AM

@Cerberus I'm sure it was an hono[u]r.

tchrist

Sometimes I just don’t give a damn what idiots think.

And at those times when I don’t not give a damn what they think, then I’m clearly one of them.

Cerberus

@Robusto Forn him or for me?

Robusto

Why, for him, of course.

tchrist

Ovens? Screwing? What?

Robusto

Screwing onions? Has it come to that?

tchrist

2:42 AM

Al forno vengo.

Oh and hey, what language is that? :)

That's Italian — or Old Spanish. Modern Spanish is hornier: Al horno vengo.

Cerberus

Ah okay, good.

Ew.

Why does Spanish always have to hacer h's?

tchrist

Many people want to know that.

Gascon has the same issue.

I don’t much believe the folks who attribute it to Basque influence, because it’s too recent.

Cerberus

Moorish?

tchrist

Basically, any initial /f/ from Latin become /h/ and then /∅/.

That's a big basic.

Frigidus become frío, having been somehow guarded by the R.

Frígido is a modern reïntroduction.

Fumo become humo, frater became hermano but by accident: frater germanus, and they kept the second part.

Formica became hormiga.

I could go on horever.

Ferire became herir.

But focus became fuego.

Hueco and hueso had O- in Latin, not F-.

Filius, filia became hijo, hija.

I’m just thinking of common words anybody would know.

Femina became hembra. @Cerb note the intrusive R again.

Robusto

0

Q: I want to be FANCY when calling somone a idoit

I need a fancy way of calling some one stupid HELP ASAP

word-choice

zomg

Calling someone "a idoit," eh?

tchrist

2:55 AM

Crush. Kill. Destroy.

Robusto

What I wouldn't give to be able to smack him with a sock full of horse manure.

Cerberus

@tchrist That's silly.

Are you sure that isn't some weird variation of hombre?

tchrist

Quite sure.

Robusto

Answering this kind of question is, quite frankly, beneath us. At least I hope so. — Robusto 41 secs ago

tchrist

Now you have me wary for more intrusive R’s.

BTW, this is worth reading:

Cambio fonético «f → h» del español

El cambio fonético «f → h» es uno los rasgos más distintivos del castellano entre las lenguas románicas (aunque también se da en gascón, rumano de Moldavia y Transilvania y, esporádicamente, otras lenguas romances). El fenómeno consiste en que, en ciertas condiciones fonológicas, la f- inicial latina se convirtió en una h- aspirada que luego desapareció en las variedades estándar del español, si bien se conserva su pronunciación para algunas palabras en varios dialectos, sobre todo en buena parte de Andalucía, Extremadura e Hispanoamérica (y también se mantiene en los dialectos orientales d...

Robusto

2:58 AM

@Cerberus We need your close vote.

tchrist

Rob, I bet you can read that oneboxing sin error.

Cerberus

Y'already have it.

> es uno los rasgos más distintivos

This sounds odd?

tchrist

It has a typo.

Good catch.

Cerberus

Not something like dellos?

tchrist

Should be es uno de los rasgos.

Cerberus

2:59 AM

Or w'eva.

Right.

tchrist

Modern Spanish only has two contractions: al and del. Portuguese and Italian have many many more.

Cerberus

O.

tchrist

The thing is, the spelling doesn’t always reflect contractions that are mandatory in speech.

La acción previa must be pronounced l’acción previa.

Because duplicate adjacent vowels always fuse.

Cerberus

I suppose that is so natural that one wouldn't have to write it expressly.

In what language does this not happen to some degree?

tchrist

"Una amiga mía" and "Un amigo mío" are identical till the -o.

@Cerberus German. English. Say "the eel wriggled free".

You have to stop the glottis between the two /i/ sounds.

Cerberus

3:03 AM

French is already the king of contraction, and yet it does not write many common contraction in speech, except in informal language.

tchrist

Thank God.

Cerberus

@tchrist I wouldn't count on it in casual speech.

tchrist

My lisboeta friend who did his PhD in France went crazy about that.

College-speak was all utterly clipped. EVERYTHING was an abbreviation.

And I don’t mean TLA alphabet soup.

Cerberus

J'suis pas surpris.

Alphabet soup seems to be the worst in English, somehow.

Perhaps because corporations, marketing, and the army are more important in America?

tchrist

No, much much worse. Let me give a Spanish example of the same common thing to show Rob. ¿Ya has echo el mili? Coño, basta con la poli.

El servicio militar.

Cerberus

3:06 AM

Quoi?

tchrist

Enough with the cops.

Cerberus

Ah.

tchrist

So servico militar becomes just mili. My Portuguese friend fed me his frustrations with French student-culture language for at least two years. :)

But that is kind of an obvious one. The French ones he would pose for me I could guess no more than one in three, they were so outrageous.

> El problema de las teorías conocidas hasta hoy ha sido que simplificaron bastante la cuestión. Los investigadores, tanto los seguidores de las hipótesis substratistas como sus oponentes, trataron de explicar el cambio con una sola y sencilla causa, cuando, en ocasiones, un solo factor no es el único responsable de un cambio lingüístico, sino que el proceso puede ser más complejo.

Cerberus

What you mention there does not seem outrageously weird.

tchrist

I know.

Cerberus

3:09 AM

Dutch and English also have lots of slangy shorthand words?

Ari = arelaxed = "not relaxed, incinvenient, uncomfortable".

Rela = relatie = "relationship".

Etc.

Buh = burgerlijk = "bourgeois".

tchrist

But we don’t apocopate any of those.

Cerberus

Hum = ahem = "the loo".

tchrist

T’as une hipo?

Cerberus

How do you mean? Those are apocopated.

tchrist

Not saying we never do that.

Cerberus

3:12 AM

We have the word hypo for a hypoglycemic episode.

T'as is of the category I already exemplified.

English has vet, meth, sub...

It's easy to come up with examples.

tchrist

Registres de langue en français

Un registre de langue (on dit aussi niveau de langue, ou encore, style) est un mode d’expression adapté à une situation d’énonciation particulière, qui détermine notamment, certains choix lexicaux et syntaxiques ainsi qu'un certain ton. Il existe en français plusieurs registres de langue, dont le registre familier, le registre courant et le registre soutenu. == Registres populaire, argotique et vulgaire == Le registre populaire emploie des formes et un vocabulaire connotant certains groupes sociaux (par exemple, les étudiants, les adolescents) ou les milieux socialement défavorisés : - Wesh bien...

Cerberus

But you may be right if you have all the statistics.

tchrist

> De nombreuses abréviations non encore lexicalisées :
(2)T’es là ? / phone / p’tit dej / une deuch’…
Pour : « Tu es là ? / téléphone / petit déjeuner / une deux chevaux… »

Cerberus

I think German has profi where French has pro.

@tchrist Yes, sure.

Jee = Jesus (I think).

Like English Gee.

tchrist

Gee, really?

Cerberus

3:17 AM

Fo sho.

Or how do you spell that?

Ho.

tchrist

I was never taught to speak AAVE.

Nor was I taught never to speak AAVE: why bother, I couldn't pull it off.

> The day that is added to a leap year is 24th February. The extra 24th February means that the original 24th February becomes the 25th February and all the other days get pushed down a date until 29th February. This is because the Romans divided the calendar into three, and when the Romans discovered that a year is 365.25 days they added the extra day to one of those three divisions.
Evidence for the 24th February being the day that is added is that in Denmark the day for women to propose to men is the 24th February.

There are also some Catholic saint’s days that move over, so if they are supposed to be on the 24th, they become the 25th on leap years, etc etc.

Cerberus

That's nice.

tchrist

It’s an odd thing.

Cerberus

@tchrist You mean 24 and 25?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

3:24 AM

I wonder whether we have a traditional day for women to propose.

tchrist

> The days of these calendars were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so February 24 was ante diem sextum Kalendas Martias ("the sixth day before the calends of March") often abbreviated a. d. VI Kal. Mart. The Romans counted days inclusively in their calendars, so this was actually the fifth day before March 1 when counted in the modern exclusive manner (not including the starting day).

> The Republican calendar's intercalary month was inserted on the first or second day after the Terminalia (a. d. VII Kal. Mar., February 23). The remaining days of Februarius were dropped. This intercalary month, named Intercalaris or Mercedonius, contained 27 days.

> Caesar also replaced the intercalary month by a single intercalary day, located where the intercalary month used to be. To create the intercalary day, the existing ante diem sextum Kalendas Martias (February 24) was doubled, producing ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias. Hence, the year containing the doubled day was a bissextile (bis sextum, "twice sixth") year.

> For legal purposes, the two days of the bis sextum were considered to be a single day, with the second half being intercalated; but in common practice by 238, when Censorinus wrote, the intercalary day was followed by the last five days of February, a. d. VI, V, IV, III and pridie Kal. Mart. (the days numbered 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 from the beginning of February in a common year), so that the intercalated day was the first half of the doubled day.

Ah, Roman Law! Has there ever been anything like it? :)

> Thus the intercalated day was effectively inserted between the 23rd and 24th days of February. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter), continued to state that the bissextum (bissextile day) occurred before the last five days of February.

> Until 1970, the Roman Catholic Church always celebrated the feast of Saint Matthias on a. d. VI Kal. Mart., so if the days were numbered from the beginning of the month, it was named February 24 in common years, but the presence of the bissextum in a bissextile year immediately before a. d. VI Kal. Mart. shifted the latter day to February 25 in leap years, with the Vigil of St. Matthias shifting from February 23 to the leap day of February 24.

> Other feasts normally falling on February 25–28 in common years are also shifted to the following day in a leap year (although they would be on the same day according to the Roman notation). The practice is still observed by those who use the older calendars.

> Deinde, ne in posterum a XII kalendas aprilis aequinoctium recedat, statuimus bissextum quarto quoque anno (uti mos est) continuari debere, praeterquam in centesimis annis; qui, quamvis bissextiles antea semper fuerint, qualem etiam esse volumus annum MDC, post eum tamen qui deinceps consequentur centesimi non omnes bissextiles sint, sed in quadringentis quibusque annis primi quique tres centesimi sine bissexto transigantur, quartus vero quisque centesimus bissextilis sit, ita ut annus MDCC, MDCCC, MDCCCC bissextiles non sint.

Glad that's settled. Ish.

From Inter Gravissimas, of course.

He uses loca.

@Cerberus I must advise you on this unyearly non-bissextile day of February that water freezes at your age.

The whole point is that today is where the extra day would fall.

@Cerberus wins.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:15 AM

@tchrist I'm so glad our calendar is simpler now.

SmokeDetector

4:43 AM

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive title detected, Offensive body detected: How did “shit” and “the shit” come to mean opposite things? by Owen on english.stackexchange.com

Matt E. Эллен

9:56 AM

guten hello

user116848

Hello!

Matt E. Эллен

hi @arrowfar

Robusto

10:20 AM

Thanks for the down vote, @Kris. — Robusto 7 secs ago

I'm 97.5% sure I'm right about this.

Nothing I ever post escapes a down vote these days, and Kris is always "last seen" contemporaneously. QED

fredsbend

10:42 AM

Considering his participation on the main site, you might be interested:

24

Q: Let's take a moment to remember Affable Geek

On February 14th, Michael Hollinger passed away. We all knew him better as Affable Geek. Affable Geek was our top user. Not only did he have the highest rep count by over 20% more than the next user, he also was instrumental in forming the site policy, community, and culture. His activity was al...

discussion

infinitesimal

10:53 AM

:(

Andrew Leach

:(

user116848

:(

A Beautiful Mind

12:12 PM

Hello @MattE.Эллен. I feel better today, but I don't know what tomorrow will be.

Matt E. Эллен

@ABeautifulMind that's good to hear :)

Robusto

@Cerberus Any day will do.

A Beautiful Mind

@fredsbend I hope he is in a better place now. I am not a Christian, but I believe in rebirth.

Robusto

12:29 PM

Haha, one of the translations they accept for Tú habías conseguido vino is "You had achieved wine."

I have always dreamed of achieving wine.

A Beautiful Mind

Jesus turned water into wine.

I would like to turn wine into water.

I do not drink wine, but I drink water.

They should call it wineyard and not vineyard.

Robusto

@ABeautifulMind Did you see him do it?

I can do something along those lines. I can turn wine into water.

A Beautiful Mind

@MattE.Эллен I think it's because I listened to Bocelli's Because We Believe 20 times yesterday before I slept.

A Beautiful Mind

12:47 PM

Last night, I dreamt that Justin Bieber was giving me a massage.

Matt E. Эллен

@ABeautifulMind massages are nice

A Beautiful Mind

@MattE.Эллен My dream is so gay.

Matt E. Эллен

notes that typing with both hands is still not viable

A Beautiful Mind

What happened?

Matt E. Эллен

@ABeautifulMind If you say so :D masseurs aren't necessarily gay

@ABeautifulMind I broke my elbow

3

infinitesimal

12:50 PM

:O

doing what?

Matt E. Эллен

braking badly on my bicycle

-_-

yeah

do you have a cast?

no, just a sling. the doctor wants me to move my arm a lot so that I don't lose degrees of freedom of movement

A Beautiful Mind

12:54 PM

I fractured both wrists before, at the same time. So I had 2 casts at the same time.

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен Did you hurt your hand? Oops, never mind. I read further.

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto no, I just can't keep it rotated that way for long before it gets painful

Robusto

@ABeautifulMind It's hard to masturbate with your feet, isn't it?

A Beautiful Mind

@Robusto Never tried, but I can do it without hands, details omitted.

Robusto

At least I would find it hard. Others may be more supple, though.

Matt E. Эллен

12:56 PM

@ABeautifulMind that must have been inconvenient

A Beautiful Mind

My left wrist never really recovered properly, so till today I cannot do weights properly. Every time, my right arm gets worked out more than my left arm.

Matt E. Эллен

maybe typing will help the healing process...

oh... maybe I hsould use my wrist weights to keep the strength up in my left arm

infinitesimal

what did the doc say?

A Beautiful Mind

And it's because when my left wrist healed, the shape just was not normal, not like before, though the doctor says it is normal.

Well, I think the doctor needs to study some more.

Matt E. Эллен

@infinitesimal he gave me some exercises to do to stop the joint from seizing up

Robusto

1:01 PM

@ABeautifulMind That's why they call a doctor's place of occupation a practice.

Doctors practice medicine, they don't perfect it.

infinitesimal

@MattE.Эллен did you get a second opinion from another doc?

Matt E. Эллен

@infinitesimal I should be fit as a fiddle after 12 weeks

@infinitesimal no.

A Beautiful Mind

How did I fracture both wrists. In school, we were having physical ed. We were running and I fell on the track with both wrists to break the fall.

Matt E. Эллен

ow. that sounds nasty

infinitesimal

so no biking for three months?

Matt E. Эллен

1:06 PM

aye :(

Robusto

@Matt, are you a casual biker, a commuter, or an enthusiast?

Matt E. Эллен

commuter

I have to get the bus now. quite annoying

A Beautiful Mind

Are you using a laptop now?

Oh, sorry.

Matt E. Эллен

no, I'm at work :)

A Beautiful Mind

I misunderstood your line.

Matt E. Эллен

1:07 PM

no worries

infinitesimal

do you have a stationary bike to keep in shape?

A Beautiful Mind

I have no appetite. I am skipping dinner tonight.

Matt E. Эллен

no. I am wondering what I will do. I could go running, but then I could trip up or something

@ABeautifulMind what will you do instead?

Robusto

Or you could write letters on your stationery bike.

A Beautiful Mind

@MattE.Эллен Well, I will just drink some coffee and eat some fruits and things like that.

Matt E. Эллен

1:10 PM

@Robusto :D letter to my regular bike about how I miss it

Robusto

And your regular bike would be all sulky. "Oh, it's not important. Why don't you just go write some more letters with your stationery bike?"

Matt E. Эллен

no no, it's not like that! it means nothing to me.

Robusto

Sure. pouts

Or: "I think you hurt yourself on purpose."

Matt E. Эллен

"Well, if you hadn't thrown me off"

Robusto

"Oh, now it's my fault you're a klutz!"

"Next time I get to be on top."

Matt E. Эллен

1:14 PM

rofl

A Beautiful Mind

I lost another kg. Now 61 kg.

infinitesimal

that's what happens when you don't eat

Mitch

I read that as "I lost another leg".

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch there are easier ways to diet...

Mitch

So if you're down to 61 legs, not too much to worry about.

@MattE.Эллен but it's a quick way to lose weight.

Robusto

1:16 PM

Reminds me of an old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore routine, about a guy who had a leg off who was trying to join the army.

Mitch

@ABeautifulMind I did that too once. One is a shame. Two is just carelessness.

Robusto

"What's the problem? Don't you want recruits?"
"Well, you seem to be . . ."
"Seem to be what?"
"Seem to be, uh, a little short in the, er, leg department?"
"How so?"
"Well, you're one short, aren't you?"

Obviously I'm mangling it. But it was funny.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен That makes no sense. how do you break a joint? (I'm not denying that something is terribly injured, just that the doctor is naing things weird. theres no elbow bone, is there?

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto that is familiar. I'm sure it's hilarious :D

Mitch

and anyway, it's still winter, you shouldn't be riding your bike outside anyway. You're welcome (your aunts wanted me to pass that on)

Matt E. Эллен

1:20 PM

@Mitch oh, well one of the bones that has one end in the elbow

radial something

oh, the radius bone

A Beautiful Mind

Radius and ulna.

Mitch