English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-03-12 (page 1 of 2)

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12:39 AM

I just don't like cities. I think they are evil and wrong and unnatural. Cities depress me. If you told me I would have to spend the rest off my life "living" in a city, I'd arrange for my funeral the day I received that death sentence, just say goodbye and leave. I would much rather die.

2 hours later…

2:30 AM

@tchrist But you kind of live in a city, just in the outskirts?

@Mitch Of course. I only ride downhill.

I like cities. I loved living in a high-rise on Lake Michigan, watching the sun rise over the lake each morning. Well, on the days that weren't cloudy.

My favorite cities are San Francisco, Paris, Chicago, and London. I used go to London every couple of years just to binge on theater. Excuse me, theatre.

Now that I'm learning Spanish, though, I'd like to have a look at Barcelona and Buenos Aires. BA looks captivating in the movies.

> No one's ever taken a holiday in Frankfurt am Main.

Yeah. My time there was certainly no holiday. What an ugly fugging city that is.

3:46 AM

Haha.

I can only imagine the horrors.

Architects and city planners should really listen to De Botton.

5 hours later…

user116848

8:54 AM

Hello

Hi pal

user116848

Just felt like breaking the silence here.

user116848

@infinitesimal Hi!

Cool

Look what I found

in Ask Different Chat, Feb 19 at 21:30, by bmike

https://vimeo.com/118853074#at=1m55s

@arrowfar

user116848

Yeah, I am checking it out now.

user116848

8:59 AM

Great video!

user116848

9:13 AM

Sometimes marine life looks other wordly. It looks awe-inspiring sometimes.

True, it does look "alien."

Good morning!

Is this sentence correct: People who are looking for a <thing>, should learn <something>.?

9:44 AM

People who are looking for a reason, should learn reasoning.

In my case instead of reason I have time machine.

People who are looking for a time machine, should learn #git.

I'm not sure if that's fine.

Is this nonfiction?

It's more or less a joke. Using Git, the programmer can create commits in past/present/future. And also can navigate in the commits, most probably in the past, but since it's possible to commit in the future, navigating in the future is also possible.

In that context it is ok.

Thanks!

9:52 AM

Thanks for asking :-)

Gave you some upvotes. :p

Thanks pal :D

@IonicăBizău You don't need the comma.

@Robusto Happy 100k! :-)

@IonicăBizău Thank you!

9:58 AM

Wow! You made it.

Yeah, until K. (naming no names) goes on one of his serial down-voting binges again.

I didn't want to serial up vote you too much ;-)

^_^

3 random upvotes is not considered serial voting I think. :-)

No.

10:00 AM

Congrats pal.

Gracias.

@Robusto What privileges do you get when you are higher than 20k? Anything new or after being a trusted user the llife is boring?

It's pretty boring. There's a list of privileges somewhere. You have just about everything you want after 10K, I think.

Is 100001 a palindromic prime?

I know, but after what's new after being a trusted user?

10:04 AM

@infinitesimal How could it not be?

Wait, depends on the base.

@IonicăBizău english.stackexchange.com/help/privileges

You should have that on SO, I think.

@Robusto I know that. I recently became trusted user on StackOverflow (+20k), but my question is Should I expect something new after that?

No. 20k is the max for privileges.

numbersaplenty.com/100001

> It is a junction number, because it is equal to n+sod(n) for n = 99964 and 100000.

Excuse me, sod(n)?

Sounds like @Matt getting upset with numbers. Or variables.

2 hours later…

11:40 AM

@tchrist desde to me sounds like she is saying dece.

The second d is soft.

And the /s/ is not vocalized

Like the one in English they, but lighter.

The abstract phoneme /s/ is never voiced, although in that position, it has a voiced allophone of [z].

You are probably not hearing the very light dental approximant.

Hmm, LinkedIn wants me to check out Careers at Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Turkey

Don’t go!

11:51 AM

But . . . it's Turkey!

She also swallows the c in impacto.

Well of course.

No unvoiced stops allowed at syllable end.

It is a molten language.

They just don’t have possibility in their syllabary.

How do you think they really pronounce the word written on a STOP sign?

It’s estof or estoz with theta. They can’t say a p at the end.

So they just pick something that they can say.

Ha.

Just like the Japanese.

That’s also why actitud isn’t something to worry about saying. Nobody says that c there.

11:57 AM

Except the Japanese is more rigid. I think of Japanese as square waves and Spanish as sine waves, with English as a combination of the two.

English has many more possible syllables than Spanish and Japanese combined.

How many in English?

Many.

¿Cómo?

Many syllables.

We can start syllables with sp-, st-, sk-.

And we can end syllables with arbitrary consonants.

And we have more than just five vowels.

12:00 PM

Japanese has quite a few, but they're isomorphic, like ice cubes in a tray.

Syllables, that is. Not vowels.

English speakers mistakenly think Spanish is easy to pronounce because they take each letter and use the English value for it, but this sounds completely terrible and is often not understandable to a native Spanish speaker.

Yeah, I gave up on that notion already.

They don’t understand how the sounds blend.

I've always prided myself on being good at foreign pronunciation, but I fear I'm getting my comeuppance for a lifetime of vanity.

When you say un perro, the n is pretty much completely gone, making the u nasal instead. There is a tiny bit of m (not n) left.

12:04 PM

Maybe my ear is getting better than my tongue, at long last.

The same assimilation thing happens with un gato but leaves a very far-back ŋ in its wake.

The tongue is in a different position, being all ready for the g.

It’s important not to create diphthongs unless written.

Not perrow.

Likewise, there's little lip-rounding at the end of /u/ syllables, apparently.

Also, I'd like to know how to distinguish between "very" and "too" for muy, as in Él fue muy cansado.

He was very tired or he was too tired?

Wait, is that what I mean?

No. I mean muy, not más.

It never means too.

I know. I had a brain cramp.

Well, más una as in another beer please.

Demasiado is an adverb.

A long way to say too.

12:12 PM

Read it again. I changed the word.

It doesn’t ever mean too, though, except perhaps connotatively.

Also, I don’t understand fue.

He went very tired?

Hello :) Is this correct?

Thank you for all the good things you've done for me, I can never thank you enough. You are a very kind and wonderful person. I’m lucky to have you in my life.

`How can i make it more lovely?`
Thanks :)

@tchrist No, my brain is what is tired. Estaba muy cansado.

Estuvo/Estaba demasiado cansado.

@Achu Writing Valentine’s cards?

@tchrist :) No, its for my step Mom :D She is being very kind and lovely to me.

12:15 PM

@Achu You can make it more lovely by decorating it with little hearts and flowers.

@Robusto Okay Thanks :)

"Me dijo que estaba muy cansado" is just he told me he was very tired, not too tired, but it ends up the same I guess.

So when to use fue and when to use estaba?

El impacto fue muy profundo.

Es difícil, lo sé. :)

Tiredness is a state.

Profundity is not.

Profundity can be a state.

12:19 PM

Not in Spanish. :)

It’s an essence.

BTW, estaba goes with era; estuvo goes with fue. But fue also means "went".

Because ser can’t be used with cansado, one had to read fue as "went" in your sentence.

Oh, that's good to know.

It turns out that there is no real-world overlap in go vs be, so one always knows which it was.

Well, no overlap between ir and ser. There would be one with estar, which is why you know which it was.

"Did I have any calls?": ¿Tuve algunas llamadas? o ¿Tuve alguna llamada? ?

The second.

I don't know why.

Yeah. That's what they say. I don't know why either.

12:25 PM

"Are there any questions?" is just "¿Alguna pregunta?"

sorry to interrupt. Which one is better
1. I'm so glad I have you as my mother
2. I'm lucky to have you in my life.

Um, ask Ann Landers?

1.

This isn’t English.

This is Family Counselling.

So?

12:27 PM

I’m unlicensed.

Me too pal :-)

Eres un ángel sounds like Él es un ángel.

Only if you’re Japanese.

The r is the one in here kitty kitty kitty kitty.

Well, I'm listening on computer speakers.

The r has a more wrinkled tongue.

Whereas the l is apical and further in front towards the teeth than the r is.

They only fall in the same phoneme bucket if you’re East Asian.

12:30 PM

I'm not East Asian.

And I don't play one on TV, either.

This remains undemonstrated.

There is no dark L in Spanish, remember. For that, you must speak Catalan.

They cannot produce the sound at the end of English "full".

Only the one at the front of English "list".

Compare EN [bɑɹsəˈloʊnə], CA [bəɾsəˈɫonə], ES [barθeˈlona]

Notice reduced vowels for the Catalan but not the Spanish.

So Spanish alone has an /e/ in the middle of that word when said.

Why Se le dijo que fuera a dormir and not Él le dijo que fuera a dormir?

Looks kinda passive.

Rather, impersonal.

"He was told to go to sleep."

It means "Le dijeron que fuera a dormir".

It’s an impersonal "one" or "they".

Like how Se habla español aquí means "Spanish is spoken here".

The se is often best translated as "is" + participle.

At least, that one.

By the way, ¡Fuera! is the command Out!

And afuera means "outside".

These aren’t really related to the fuera that means were or went.

And fueros are rights.

A different kind from derechos though.

It’s like the city code.

The city’s fuero would spell out where the city is and what is allowed there.

Aquí no se sirve el vino => "Wine isn’t served here."

Aquí no se toma el agua => "Water isn’t drunk here."

12:53 PM

@tchrist So it's like the city plan, not necessarily its code.

> «Este palacio es fábrica de los dioses, pensé primeramente. Exploré los inhabitados recintos y corregí: Los dioses que lo edificaron han muerto. Noté sus peculiaridades y dije: Los dioses que lo edificaron estaban locos.»

@Robusto City charter. Might include some rules.

> «Mañana, cuando el reloj de la prisión dé las nueve, yo habré entrado en la muerte; es natural que piense en mis mayores, ya que tan cerca estoy de su sombra, ya que de algún modo soy ellos.»

Mis mayores are my elders.

I’m quoting Borges.

Can you decode this one:

> «Noches hubo en que me creí tan seguro de poder olvidarla que voluntariamente la recordaba.»

The present tense would be Hay noches.

> «Todo lenguaje es un alfabeto de símbolos cuyo ejercicio presupone un pasado que los interlocutores comparten; entonces, cómo transmitir a los otros el infinito Aleph?»

Nekkid swords:

> «Dormir es distraerse del universo, y la distracción es difícil para quien sabe que lo persiguen con espadas desnudas.»

@tchrist There were nights when I so securely believed he could forget what he deliberately remembered?

Good, but the subject is first person throughout.

Ah. Context.

Because there is no other possibility of antecedent in that context.

jinx

1:00 PM

There were nights when I so securely believed I could forget what I deliberately remembered?

> Nights there were in which I was so sure of being able to forget her that I willingly remembered her.

Well, assuming la means a woman, not el aqua or something. :)

You’re doing well.

Notice the mix of the two types of past: preterite vs imperfect.

Gracias.

"That I would willingly remember her" might be better.

> «Cambiará el universo pero yo no, pensé con melancólica vanidad.»

See how often they use inversion?

I've noticed.

They are free to do what they want, but there are patterns, and when you use a different pattern, you change the stress.

Some whole classes of verbs are very prone to inversion. I'm sure there's some rule-of-thumb but I can't put my finger on it. Pasaron tres días sin noticia alguna.

Three days went by without any notice at all.

> The universe will change but I shall not, I thought with melancholic vanity.

> «Yo he sido Homero; en breve, seré Nadie, como Ulises; en breve, seré todos: estaré muerto.»

1:12 PM

I just got a congratulatory email from Robert Cartaino for hitting 100K.

Well.

What color sealing wax did he use?

Hip hip hooray I got a +1

Somebody died?

Your downvote was vindicated?

-_-

@tchrist I have been Homer. Soon I will be Nobody, like Ulysses. Soon I will be dead, like everybody.

1:15 PM

@Robusto Yes. Or soon I shall be everyone: I shall be dead.

4

Q: What do you call someone who is always complaining after getting what they what?

What do you call someone when they're always asking for something, and then is dissatisfied after getting exactly what they ask for?

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Oh, +10.

:D

0

Q: How do I invent a word targeted to english speakers?

I'm looking for rules, guidance, and structure that will allow me to invent a word (or series of words) that would be easy for an English speaker to pronounce and remember. The intent is to generate a password that is not necessarily in a modern English dictionary. Outdated words, and obscure w...

meaning etymology neologisms morphology

Gawd.

If they can ask a question in something close to English, no matter what the question is about, they ask it here.

1:18 PM

lol

1:29 PM

@tchrist IKR! "The question is in English so it must be on-topic"

So is 'up the block' natural idiomatic English? As in :
> Now it's two o'clock. The club is closed and we're up the block
meaning that they've left the club and are just down the street.

@infinitesimal Except she's not his mother, just mother-in-law

"Up the block" in this case means "down the block" . . . — Robusto 17 hours ago

2:33 PM

@Robusto Yeah. I saw that. But I'm slow on the uptake and HotLicks says that it is idiomatic. So by your explanation does that mean that you recognize 'up the block' as idiomatic English but not near as common as 'down the block'?

2:54 PM

Classic! In this "community", there's only one exception to this .. me. I have incredibly high language skills, but, singularly, I'm totally unpretentious, totally self-deprecating in a profound and not merely affected way, and generally drunk. However, by incredibly bad luck, unrelated to the issue in the previous paragraph, I'm rude and short-tempered. So you can't win really.

"Did I mention humble? How about incoherent?"

@Mitch I'm just pointing up the irony that both mean the same thing although they would appear to mean the exact opposite of each other.

My rep score could still be interpreted in binary: 100011 could be 35.

3:21 PM

“How to write better to famous people?” SERIOUSLY?

But of course it’s grammar.

I think grammar is a honeypot.

16

Q: Rename the [grammar] tag

As noted in this four-year-old question, the grammar tag (and also its misspelt cousin, grammer, which I implicitly include here) is the fourth most used tag on ELU, and it seems to be overwhelmingly misused as a generic tag by new users who don’t understand how tagging works and just put in ‘gra...

discussion tags

11

Q: The plan for [grammar]

The tag grammar is one of our most highly-used tags, though it is, unfortunately, so vague as to be nearly useless. I submit the following proposal as a way to break up this tag into something useful. Following nohat's answer, questions about the grammatical acceptability of a particular senten...

discussion tagging retagging

I have a suggestion: let’s give all 20k users moar powa for anything originally tagged grammar. Maybe just Mjölnir, maybe more. :)

Let's give 100K users the power to delete questions on sight.

Would there be anything left? :-)

In fact, without even reading them. Just the headlines would be enough.

3:29 PM

Congratulations, anyway. I hadn't noticed.

@AndrewLeach There are so many thousands! I’d have to jack up my OCD a mile to tear through all those. That or talk all my friends into seeing how fun painting this picket fence is, Aunt Polly.

Thanks.

All questions that begin "Is this grammatical?" would be deleted out of hand.

Also, any beginning "Is this correct?" or "Which is correct?"

And variations of those.

We need to engineer some gold badges in grammar.

@AndrewLeach I was thinking of that.

@Robusto I always CV those for their proofiness.

3:48 PM

@tchrist So do I.

The thing about engineering some gold grammar badges is that it means adding that tag to a bunch of questions, which will make for more burnination work in the long run. But at least it would help get dupes closed faster in the short run.

However, a lot of the grammar questions are just OT not dupey.

I don't think that adding the tag will help. The questions need to start out with it.

But I’d be willing to bend a little. :)

I was talking about something sneakier.

If we add the tag to a bunch of questions we've each already variously answered, then that will give some of us golds. Then we can later duphammer incomings.

I haven’t done that, but I’ve thought about it.

Adding the tag to an existing Q doesn't give a gold badge though. Gold badges only attach to the original tags.

Um.

Erm.

If you are correct, you are only very recently correct. :)

As that is precisely what I did to get my SWR gold badge.

And I have gotten silvers by adding, too.

3:54 PM

I'm sure the announcement mSE post said that adding tags wouldn't work.

So I do not think it is the original tag only.

That's for dupehammer.

You can only dupehammer if it is the original tagset.

However, for determining bronze/silver/gold tag badges, it is the current tagset not the original.

I may not be being clear. Sorry. :(

Oh, right. Once you have the badge you can use it on the original tags.

But original tags don't matter in getting the badge.

Yup.

That's not very sensible.

You get the badge on tags which have been corrected...

Yes

3:56 PM

...but once an incorrect tag has been corrected, you can't dupehammer.

Right.

Meh.

I didn’t say it was sensible. I just said it could be done. :)

And that I had already done it for SWRs.

Maybe we could drop dupehammer to silver on ELU. I wonder if Shog9 would go for that (and yes, I know you’re reading this :).

Shog kibos, you know. Whether he will answer is unknown. :)

user image

That’s in grammar.

So it would be easy at silver to get a few of us at least. Would take more work to engineer golds, but not impossible.

From here.

Thing is, I’ve been stripping so many grammar tags, that in a way those are "falsely" deflated.

It looks like both of my questions should have been grammaticality.

Oops.

That’s one I commonly replace it with, yes.

What’s the tag-collocation SEDE query again?

You apparently have a SEDE query that counts how many questions lost their grammar tags.

4:07 PM

This one?

data.stackexchange.com/english/query/211372/tag-edits

Yep.

data.stackexchange.com/english/query/262397/…

user image

I wonder what the difference it between grammatical-structure, sentence-structure, syntax, syntactic-analysis is.

But all that is somewhat beside the point.

Which was how to engineer more golds. :)

I’m not really willing to retag 122 questions to add grammar to them to get a gold. I would be willing to retag 22 to get a silver if that were enough.

Hm.

2 hours later…

6:01 PM

@tchrist The ghosts of Usenet . . .

6:24 PM

user image

@Cerb

less painful to watch scaled down

user116848

@JohanLarsson hej!

hej

user116848

It says "I can't sleep" I guess.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Yo.

user116848

6:40 PM

Yo

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hey ------------->

user116848

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Heh :-)

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Terry Pratchett!

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yes. Sniff.

RIP

First Banks, now Pratchett.

Damn.

6 hours ago, by tchrist

> «Yo he sido Homero; en breve, seré Nadie, como Ulises; en breve, seré todos: estaré muerto.»

6:53 PM

:(

What happened?

nvm

:(

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

7:23 PM

I don't feel safe in this world no more / I don't want to die in a nuclear war / I want to sail away to a distant shore / and live like an ape man

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Kinks. Me too.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto Every time I'm near pen and paper, I think about writing a letter of resignation.

Maybe my fave Kinks song, in fact.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 No shit. I tried to retire earlier this year but it didn't take. Must try harder.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto oh dear.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Instead I took another job for much más dinero. We'll see how long that keeps me going.

See, then I made the mistake of taking two weeks off before starting the new job. A little taste of not working. And it's downright spoilt me.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

7:26 PM

@Robusto I'd rather go back to retail than stay in this industry.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 But . . . don't you get to build cool shit?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto no, not at all.

Oh. Then there must be something else for a bright person like you.

I mean, it's a long chalk between that and retail, isn't it?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I guess.

Can't you do programming or something like it?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

7:28 PM

Sorta.

Well . . . I mean, there's gotta be something like that available.

Hell, the market for UI programmers is so hot they wouldn't let me retire. Like I said, I turned down mucho dinero and they came back with mucho más.

0

Q: Baby (singular-pleural) correct usage

What's the correct usage for the plural of baby here: Please say a prayer in the name of the babies Or Please say a prayer in the name of the baby's Or Please say a prayer in the name of the babies'

grammatical-number

That one ought to make @tchrist cough up a long. ^)^

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Mucho Maas has some nice guitars.

A long?

lUng

A lung. Shit.

Blew the fucking joke with a typo. Who am I, @Cerberus?

Elvis Costello -- "Less Than Zero" [Original + Live Dallas Version]

When I'm down I remind myself what everything means less than.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Can't proceed. Shutting down.

BBL

7:34 PM

CU

Later pal

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

:)

:)

8:13 PM

Ora in nomine infantium. You don’t want to use infantis there. — tchrist 21 secs ago

I was trying to figure out how to cough up a log.

1 hour later…

9:17 PM

@JohanLarsson Very nice.

Not hard, but nice.

I had a strange day today

went home from work 00:30 last night

Started 06:30 today

But that is not what happened. Here goes:

My desk stopped adjusting downwards, I had to stand up and type with my keyboard in nipple height :)

guess I'm gonna do it tomorrow also

sent a mail to supplier but no response

Haha weird!

So it is an adjustable desk?

By the way, to everyone: Terry Pratchett has died.

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

Tweeted by terryandrob on March 12, 2015 at 3:06 PM

This is serious. But the obituary tweet is in style.

user image

very similar to that but much bigger

need to fit A1 drawings and more on both sides

I gambled and tried to raise it all the way up hoping it would go down after. It did not.

9:40 PM

Salutations.

What are some brief books on English essay/story writing that can be suggested as a language learning resource?

9:55 PM

@JohanLarsson Hmm can you work this way?

code quality suffers

guess i could use a laptop

not sure which is worse

10:42 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] Repeating characters in answer: Is there a word that describes both "comparing" and "contrasting"? by XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD on english.stackexchange.com

Hi um, I have a sentence that says "Mr. Browns' lecture was inaccurate, boring and should have been omitted"

Is the correct past tense of this Mr. Browns' lecture was inaccurate boring and had to been omitted?

I think it changes the meaning..

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