English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

5:01 PM

I am ashamed of my meter answer.

It is approaching my top answers, even though it is extremely short and insignificant.

Any fool would know it.

Robusto

We all have those.

@Cerberus I looked for your meter answer but didn't see anything that would seem to qualify.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is my shorted, dumbest answer ever:

20

A: What is a thing called that takes measurements?

A meter (as opposed to metre). Or a gauge.

Robusto

Since when does short mean dumb? I think you were being concise.

Cerberus

Neither research nor expertise were necessary.

Well, dumb as in lacking any intelligent argument or research.

Like a nail.

Robusto

62

A: What is the difference between "nevermind" and "never mind"?

Nevermind is an album by Nirvana. "Never mind" means don't bother with something.

Try that one.

Cerberus

5:09 PM

Haha.

Mine is shorter!

But you got more reps.

Robusto

I got all the up votes because of the Nirvana reference.

Cerberus

Right.

Robusto

That wasn't my intention at the time. I was just trying to give a droll response.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I disagree with this answer

There are lots of things that take measurements that, I'm fairly sure, would never be referred to as a meter

Robusto

Yeah. Like a ruler.

Queen Elizabeth takes measurements all the time.

Anonymous

5:23 PM

@MattE.Эллен To be more accurate, placement of focus adverbs changes the potential range of meanings, and the ranges for a given pair of positions may have overlap

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would say you take a measurement with a ruler, but I wouldn't say the ruler itself measures.

There is a comment that says that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus So if I take a measurement with a ruler, does that make me a meter?

Anonymous

> Meter, n.(1) One who measures; a measurer [...] (OED)

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It does!

Like a land meter?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@snailboat I've never encountered this usage

Anonymous

5:26 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's very old :-)

Cerberus

But that would be someone who metes out land...

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Never heard the Beatles song about the lovely measurer of maids?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon Lovely Rita, maid-meter

terdon

That one, yes.

Cerberus

> Een wereldwijde subsidiestop zou een CO2-reductie van 17 procent opleveren. China subsidieert de industrie van fossiele brandstof het meest (2.300 miljard), gevolgd door de VS (699 miljard), Rusland (335 miljard) en EU (330 miljard).

China subsidises fossil fuels with 2300 billion dollars.

Abolishing subsidies worldwide would result in a reduction of CO2 emissions by 17%.

Thus spake the IMF.

Anonymous

5:35 PM

Oh, a cousin of milliard!

Cerberus

Yes, we use milliard and billion the old-fashioned way.

Some still use it that way in England.

But American big numbers seem to have won there.

terdon

I never know what a million means in English. I use it for 10^6, is that the European or the American one?

Anonymous

@terdon Both

terdon

That's not very helpful :)

Anonymous

But rather than say American or European, you can say short-scale and long-scale

Anonymous

5:40 PM

@terdon It's 10^6 in both systems

terdon

OK, but what is understood as a million in the US?

Anonymous

10^6

terdon

Oh.

Then what's the other one?

Anonymous

It's 10^6 in the other system, too. That's why I said "both"

Anonymous

Million doesn't change. Billion does, though.

terdon

5:42 PM

@snailboat Ah! OK, so what's a billion in the US?

Anonymous

@terdon 10^9

Mitch

@Cerberus +1 !!!

terdon

Oh. That's what I call a billion too. What's the UK one then? 10^8?

Mitch

@Cerberus He left in a huff though over ... well possibly a similar issue. I agree with you that I don't think anybody is saying anything so overt about muslims, but then that's how bad things get said sometimes, not realizing the subtleties that others will hear.

Cerberus

@Mitch Stop it!!

Anonymous

5:46 PM

@terdon Traditionally, 10^12. But these days, 10^9. As Cerberus was explaining, the system we use over here in the US has been taking over in the UK.

Cerberus

@Mitch No, David had other issues.

Anonymous

I don't think the traditional system is entirely gone for all speakers, though.

terdon

@snailboat Ah, yes, 1000 million. Thanks

Cerberus

Not yet.

Anonymous

And I think it's used in other countries, too. But I don't know details

Cerberus

5:47 PM

I believe it is used everywhere outside the Anglo-Saxon world.

Anonymous

A-ha

terdon

A billion is 10^9 in Greek as well. I think. This is the kind of thing that bilingual children mix up.

Cerberus

And quite possibly in most of the Commonwealth. Not sure.

Anonymous

Oh, it is in Greek? I didn't realize

Mitch

@Cerberus plus ones lots of embarrassing answers

Anonymous

5:48 PM

Not that I know Greek, mind you. :-)

Cerberus

@terdon Are you sure? Could you look it up?

@Mitch You meanie.

Mitch

edits to bring to top of queue so that more people will +1

Cerberus

Go back to your cage.

terdon

@Cerberus Yup, 10^9: el.wiktionary.org/wiki/…

@snailboat No, I meant that a billion is also 10^9 in Greek. The word itself is different but it is the translation of billion.

Mitch

@Cerberus I have issues. Like how did George inslut me. Iit's insulting to not know when one has been insulted. Wait... is that it? ... Well-played @GeorgePompidou! Well played!!

Anonymous

5:50 PM

@terdon Oh, I understood what you meant. My question may have been unclear, apologies :-)

Mitch

@Cerberus Meow. kicks back soiled kitty litter

terdon

@snailboat Nah, I missed the in. I read Oh, is it Greek.

Mitch

When I see cats do that, I wonder, are they doing that to ... insult me? Who the hell do you think you are, you're just a goddam cat.

Cerberus

@terdon I see no "billion"?

Where does it say "billion"?

A translation, you say?

Mitch

@Cerberus We (the americans) will expect you all to start using billion (and not this millliard (sounds like the 3 musketeers)) for 10^9. In exchange, we'll convert to metric finally.

Deal?

terdon

5:54 PM

@Cerberus It doesn't. The Greek word for billion is δισεκατομμύριο and that means 10^9 and not 10^12.

Mitch

I'll get my people on it.

Cerberus

So dis- as in twice, a translation, I see.

And hetakommurio is obviously 10⁶.

Mitch

hekato is a thousand? I thought it was a hundred.

Cerberus

It is.

But murio is ten thousand.

@Mitch Haha, you have no negotiation power, since you will convert to metric anyway.

Mitch

like chinese. that's messed up. Why can't they have standards from 2000 years ago that match mine now?

They should be paying attention to the future.

@Cerberus Ha ha... jokes on you, we won't be converting to metric!!

sobs in hands

Cerberus

5:56 PM

You shall!

terdon

@Cerberus aye

@Mitch It is.

Mitch

well, for the people that matter they've converted so it's OK (scientists!!)

terdon

100, I mean.

Mitch

got it. stupid ten thousand

Anonymous

@Mitch I always thought milliard was a great sounding word.

Mitch

5:58 PM

@snailboat En garde!

Anonymous

:-)

Mitch

See? great for starting duels.

I'm sure there are some over-designed poofy pants that go well with milliard.. pantoufle? Little lord Fauntleroy? blunderbuss?

Cerberus

> Les deux systèmes ont été utilisés en France à des époques diverses de l'histoire.

Le premier, l’échelle longue, est le système original, tel qu'il a été généralisé par le mathématicien français Chuquet vers la fin du XVe siècle. Il suit ainsi une conception moderne et logarithmique.
Le second, l’échelle courte, est le fruit d'anonymes « savants », français eux aussi, qui — au cours du XVIIe siècle, lorsqu'on commença de grouper les nombres décimaux par trois chiffres au lieu de six auparavant — jugeaient nécessaire de réformer le sens même des noms des grands nombres. Cette idée réformi…

Anonymous

Oh! I want to wear over-designed poofy pants to our duel!

Cerberus

The échelle longue is the one with milliard.

It seems Brazil and America are the exceptions.

RegDwigнt

6:02 PM

A bit too late to the party, but still:

The English word for jootha is jootha. It's even in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. More to the point, the moment you use a word in English, it is an English word. That's called borrowing. Every language does that, and a vast majority of English is borrowed already, so what's the problem. — RegDwigнt ♦ 6 mins ago

Cerberus

Both scales were invented in France...says French Wikipaedia.

RegDwigнt

More to the point still, jootha is only an English word. It is specifically created for the English audience using English characters to convey English pronunciation. The Hindi word is झूठा. There is no such thing as jootha in Hindi. — RegDwigнt ♦ 3 mins ago

Mitch

@snailboat They're strategic. It offers a much bigger target and therefore more chance for the other guy to miss.

@Cerberus I knew it! Brazilian exceptionalism.

I saw a map once where America and Brazil (supposedly) were colored the same in their equal shame in body hair.

Was that from you Cerb?

Cerberus

Shame about body hair?

Where?

I do not recall any such map.

Mitch

@Cerberus or lack of it, or popularity of measures to remove it or some other made up thing.

@Cerberus Where do you get all you maps from? all the ones of the world with a color for each country measuring the average score on some quiz.

Cerberus

6:10 PM

@Mitch Google Images?

Newspaper articles?

I find them as I surf the web.

Hah, what a silly, old-fashioned, mixed metaphor.

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh.

@Cerberus it's already a dead metaphor. you don't do anything else with the web.

if you stand still, you sink

Cerberus

You might walk its strands.

Or threads, which is better?

Richard

@snailboat - I live in the UK. I've never encountered any use of billion as anything other than 1,000,000,000. To use it differently (albeit in a traditional way) would be to court misunderstanding.

Cerberus

Alas!

Anonymous

@terdon So there you go―Richard's experience backs up billion being 10^9 in the UK.

Anonymous

6:23 PM

Oh, wait. I misread. I'd better edit that message so it looks like I didn't :-)

Richard

@snailboat - Too late. We all saw it.

Anonymous

@Richard No you didn't! My edit was very stealthy.

Cerberus

I saw it!

Richard

@snailboat - Smooooth.

terdon

I can still see it :)

Richard

6:24 PM

All the newspapers use it in the sense of 10^9 as well.

Anonymous

Shush, y'all. I'm stealthy, I say!

Mitch

@Cerberus I just done a lot of online research. I couldn't find a map.

@snailboat I didn't see anything.

but then I can't read

Cerberus

But google.nl/…

Milliard is not quite dead in English.

@Mitch Did you type "map"?

Mitch

@Cerberus OK so anthropologically, every culture has some hair 'culture' (doing something with their hair). There are some tribes in Brazil that... not only cut off all their hair, but even go so far as to pluck eyebrows. The whole thing.

but this is not the whole country. just those few tribes.

seems like a lot of work to go to.

@Cerberus yes. map. I could easily have misinformed myself.

I just remember it being weird that US and Brazil were lumped together alone like that. I mean the world over women pluck around their eyebrows to straighten them up.

Anonymous

6:39 PM

@Richard Out of curiosity, do you still encounter thousand million?

Robusto

@snailboat In 1974 Britain adopted the short scale, presumably to avoid confusion in international business and finance. Other languages continued calling a billion either a thousand million (eg, Spanish, mil millones) or a "milliard" (eg, French and Russian), an old French term that originally meant 1012 but began to change in the 17th century.

From The Economist.

Richard

@snailboat - Never. Or almost never.

Most people go for million (6 zeroes), billion (9 zeroes) and trillion (12 zeroes)

Anonymous

6:55 PM

@Richard Thanks for the information! :-)