English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Possibly one should say something to Rand, too.

7:58 AM

[The battle is also associated with reports of many Japanese soldiers being eaten by the thousands of saltwater crocodiles lying in wait in the inland swamps. The Guinness Book of World Records has listed it both as "Worst crocodile disaster in the world" and "Most Number of Fatalities in a Crocodile Attack".(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ramree_Island)

dang..

Casualties and losses: 500 dead (possibly only 20 survivors) 20 captured

12:25 PM

@JohnLawler: Another couple of exceptions popped into my head just now. I don't believe I've ever said wronger or righter in my life, always "more wrong" or "more right" (as in "You couldn't be more wrong/right"). — Robusto 46 secs ago

Possibly there are others, but I don't have random access to them.

12:48 PM

@Robusto just, as in "he is more just in his actions"

Good one.

Justin

"juster than" does, surprisingly, appear in Google ngrams

:-O

now I've read it a few times, it doesn't seem so bad

12:51 PM

sounds archaic, no?

yes

Perhaps it was cockney.

Just 'er.

now that is a hard accent to understand

Then you also have bad -> worse -> worst and the like.

1:04 PM

dogooder

dogoodest.

dobadder

donothing

dobedobedo

Jan 27 '14 at 16:47, by Matt Эллен

Dooby duck's disco truck

1:30 PM

do the Dew

do the Jerk

Rocky Marciano Jr. reacts to Floyd Mayweather tying father's 49-0 record

That record was from a completely different era.

Come'on 1955?

The Capitols - Cool Jerk

@Robusto I'm not sure I knew that's what they were saying.

And I can't tell you the last time I heard that one.

Me either.

I'm trying to think of modern examples of monophony. So far I have the opening of "Chapel of Love".

And one is enough, I guess. Just trying to think of more.

1:40 PM

You mean instead of stereophony?

Or instead of harmony?

Instead of polyphony or homophony.

Polyphony implies harmony.

I think.

Also, define "modern"

More modern than Gregorian chant.

Ah

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yes. But also counterpoint.

1:42 PM

By monophony, do you mean that at some point you only have the melody being played/sung with nothing else?

Would a piano solo count?

That's why I wondered what you meant specifically. Chapel of love is not really monophony.

@Robusto does it always? I think the third phrase of "Chapel of Love" where they simply harmonize over the bass drum is polyphonic because harmony.

But there's no counterpoint.

@terdon No, it means a single melody with accompaniment.

@Robusto just the very opening.

@terdon yes

@Robusto Isn't that any song that's accompanied by a single instrument, for example?

1:43 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Whenever you have voices you have voice-leading, which implies counterpoint.

@terdon Yes.

The Dixie Cups - Chapel Of Love

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 In that case, "Aqualung"

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That starts out monophony but switches to polyphony, and then back during the verse.

@Robusto yeah.

But you'd have to say the whole thing was polyphonic because you always default to the most inclusive for the entire piece.

1:45 PM

Here's the discussion lead:

> Gregorian Chant is the first music in Western Civilization that was written down both as lyrics and as a notation system. The main reason for this new system of symbols (the notation) was to gain a musical consistency in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. These chants were just a melody line with lyrics, what we call monophonic in texture because there was no harmony, just the melody line.

> Can you think of monophonic textured music any today? It can even be in just a segment of a song perhaps. What if many people and instruments are playing. Can the music still be monophonic? Let's think this out.

Well, OK, many songs have monophonic segments. That's not even debatable.

I'm not debating anything. I'm trying to think of more examples.

How about Can't buy me love? The voice and instruments tend to play pretty much the same notes throughout as I recall.

@terdon the guitar part?

I didn't say you were debating it. I said it wasn't even debatable.

1:47 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Have to hear it again. I'm thinking of the chorus.

@terdon there are definitely parts where it's just the guitar playing the melody. Well, at least the 'sitting on a park bench' part.

@terdon Not true. The guitars harmonize and Paul McCartney's bass was always contrapuntal.

Although there are tiny drum fills.

Hang on, anything sung a cappella is monophonic then, right? So, say, Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace?

@Robusto OK

@terdon All by herself, sure. But plenty of a capella music is polyphonic. You're going to make @tchrist's head explode.

1:49 PM

@terdon I guess that would count, though Amazing Grace itself is as old as America.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 And is frequently harmonized and accompanied.

@Robusto what he doesn't know won't. But you summoned him.

An a capella version of The Star Spangled Banner would be monophonic.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Which is still younger than Gregorian chants :)

I wonder if God Bless America during baseball games counts.

@terdon yes!

1:50 PM

@Robusto Not if you did it right.

Hendrix playing the US national hymn?

@tchrist OK, a solo version of TSSB.

Hendrix

@terdon Haha, Hendrix was never monophonic.

Even when playing solo?

1:51 PM

YES

yeah, I guess not. I see what you mean

have you seen him live?

Not me. Missed that by a few decades.

Joni Mitchell-The Fiddle and the Drum

Monophonic.

Jimi Hendrix - The Star Spangled Banner [ American Anthem ] ( Live at Woodstock 1969 )

He only plays one note at a time.

1:53 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 He plays reverb as an accompaniment.

^^

Well, okay.

Still, if introductions count, you have loads of songs with a simple, single-instrument introduction.

Jimi Hendrix - The Star Spangled Banner [ American Anthem ] ( Live at Woodstock 1969 )

Try there.

I wouldn't call it tonal, certainly, but it's not monophonic throughout.

@Robusto this is the correct answer.

1:56 PM

But do we really want to reduce monophonic to whenever there's a single note? That's really not in the spirit of it. Any song with one voice is monophonic, whether or not it's accompanied by harmonic instruments.

Monophony is about a single vocal line. Polyphonic is about more than one vocal line. That's why I called it contrapuntal.

@Robusto did you go to woodstock?

rows rows rows his boat

@Rigor I did not.

SOGGY BOTTOM BOY'S - (ALISON KRAUSS - DOWN IN THE RIVER TO PRAY,( O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?)

How about this:

There is some harmony but mostly on the same melody.

According to wikipedia, that should count:

> In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave (such as often when men and women sing together). If an entire melody is played by two or more instruments or sung by a choir with a fixed interval between the voices or in unison, it is also said to be in monophony.

@terdon But there are multiple voices, and there is slight but present contrapuntal voice-leading.

1:59 PM

musicappreciation.com/lecture6.htm

> This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave (such as often when men and women sing together)

Doesn't that fall under the above?

I suppose it does.

I've always thought of it slightly differently.

How do we account for, say, Bach's cello sonatas, which are a single line yet very harmonic and even contrapuntal?

@Robusto [citation needed]

Yo Yo Ma... The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach

@crl did you watch the fight last night?

2:03 PM

There's a chord at the beginning, but the rest is single note melody.

@Robusto thank you.

bach feels very mathematical

@Rigor no, what was it?

J. S. Bach - Fugue for organ in G Minor BWV 578 - Jazz-Voices Transcription

@crl here

2:05 PM

That is polyphony.

@terdon I've always called that plainsong.

@tchrist My point exact.

@JohanLarsson I agree

You have to have more than one song going at once.

@Rigor Oh I don't really like that sport

@Robusto That also counts according to the link given by Corny:

> One main melody. (mono=one, phony=sound). A single-line melody unadorned and unaccompanied. Often monophonic texture is not enough information to continue to hold ones attention as an artistic experience. The exceptions are vocal chants such as plainsong and certain pieces sung a cappella such as, Amazing Grace.

2:07 PM

@crl yeah, it's not very "likeable"

@terdon Whenever anyone sings Amazing Grace, someone else harmonizes. It's like a natural law or something. I harmonize that in my head when I hear it.

@tchrist whoa.

Rachmaninoff Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C# Minor (Rachmaninoff)

@Rigor in spite of the hugging.

they are clinching for the inside punches

2:09 PM

@Rigor can't see a sport where the protagonists lose hundreds of neurons per punch

true

punches to the head are nasty

the heavy weights take the most punishment

Arthur Grumiaux - Bach Sonata No.2 in A minor, BWV 1003 (II. Fuga)

A solo violinist can play a fugue, but it is very difficult. The illusion of multiple voices from one instrument must be created.

J. S. Bach - Partita (sonata) For Solo Flute in A Minor BWV 1013 - I Allemande

@tchrist Grumiaux is great. I've always treasured his Beethoven Violin Concerto as well.

I used to play that.

you played flute?

I did in school :/

2:20 PM

@JohanLarsson Yes.

@JohanLarsson That risks reducing one of the most gifted musical minds humanity has yet produced to mere cold calculation.

I was looking for a way to express that too.

@tchrist bach is good

That's an understatement.

but is prefer jazz most days

BACH - Mass in B-minor - Kyrie eleison

2:22 PM

Bach is divine. And I dare you to say this piece is "mathematical."

this piece is homeomorphic

whoa, that is even worse right?

Worse?

lame joke, no idea what homeomorphic means

not leaving this tab to find it out either

@Robusto They probably won’t have the patience to get through the strings and listen to the fugue proper.

2:29 PM

Nobody has patience for ~~good~~ great music these days.

Challenge accepted.

When I listen to or play Bach I feel as if I've been invited behind the curtains of the universe where important mysteries are revealed.

Are the women singing actual words/lyrics or just sounds?

I don't understand.

@crl They're all singing words: kyrie eleison and christe eleison.

2:31 PM

Everyone is singing words. Very, very simple Greek words.

jinx

In fact, the only Greek words in the Latin mass, IIRC.

That's correct.

Melisma.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 From the Greek for "honey"!

Also where we get melody.

Oh pardon my unculturedness

2:33 PM

Song is the root of everything.

I can't imagine life without music. Well, it wouldn't be life, it would simply be existence.

@tchrist do you only listen to classical music?

That's a leading question without a possible answer.

Yes, but have you stopped beating your wife?

and starving your cats?

2:39 PM

hmm

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That problem is obviated by not having a wife.

Me, I have a wife, and I suppose it is accurate, though misleading, to say that I have never stopped beating her. Never stopped because never started.

You should. Chess is fun!

Beethoven / Arthur Grumiaux, 1964: Violin Concerto, Op. 61 - Colin Davis, Concertgebouw - Complete

Speaking of Grumiaux.

> Don’t play chess with your daughter / She knows more than you taught her.

@terdon ha!

2:48 PM

Checkers too.

@Rigor That’s not Op. 61.

Kasparov must have severely beat his wife

@tchrist you don't like checkers?

@Rigor That doesn’t fit the line.

Don’t play checkers with your daughter / She knows more than you taught her

2:52 PM

bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2012/09/10/…

> The concert began with the violin concerto, whose lyric first-movement theme would be unforgettable even without the rhyme — “Don't play chess with your daughter, she knows more than you taught her” — that got attached to it decades ago.

And now. You know. The rest. Of the story. Page 2.

symphony is to chess as pop music is to checkers

Jez

holy crap

ok so the boss of the company came over to our UK branch from the US on friday

now i find out they took a picture of the "UK team" without me in it! everyone else was there

i must've been out of the room for 2 minutes in the toilet maybe

wtf

Peaches en Regalia

@Rob ^

@Jez :(

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 From Hot Rats, of course.

@Robusto not that version.

2:59 PM

Then I had better listen.

@Robusto I wanted to see if anyone has performed it on armonica.

haha, nice.

@Robusto certain parts are exceptional.

3:14 PM

@Rigor symphony is to chess as pop music is to tic tac toe

yep, true for most of pop music

Aardvark is to coconut as Walpurgisnacht is to thurible.

Semiotics is to daffodil as rhinoplasty is to nutella.

aardvarks is a ceremony and coconut is a way of making it smell nice?

Aardvark

The aardvark (/ˈɑrd.vɑrk/ ARD-vark; Orycteropus afer) is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. Unlike other insectivores, it has a long pig-like snout, which is used to sniff out food. It roams over most of the southern two-thirds of the African continent, avoiding mainly rocky areas. A nocturnal feeder, it subsists on ants and termites, which it will dig out of their hills using its sharp claws and powerful legs. It also digs to create burrows...

Smelly is to green as sense is to this chat room.

3:29 PM

@MattE.Эллен You're overthinking this.

3:40 PM

There are muddy footprints on my piano keys.

sounds like cerb

@Cerberus Why you dance on my piano with muddy paws?

3:53 PM

I suspect los gatos.

et dona ferentes

Did somebody mention Nutella?

Mmm ... rhinoplasty

Also... 'holy crap' and 'toilet'... I thought we established that the pope shits in the woods

4:20 PM

"Query does not rhyme with very". Is this accurate?

rhyme

Noun: rhyme ‎(usually uncountable, plural rhymes)

(obsolete) Number.
A thought expressed in verse; a verse; a poem; a tale told in verse.
(countable) A word that rhymes with another.
(uncountable) Rhyming: sameness of sound of part of some words.
(countable, uncountable) Rhyming verse (poetic form).

Verb: rhyme ‎(third-person singular simple present rhymes, present participle rhyming, simple past and past participle rhymed)

(transitive, obsolete) To number; count; reckon.
(transitive, followed by with) Of a word, to be pronounced identically with another from the vowel in its stressed syllable to the end.
(reciprocal) Of two or more words, to be pronounced identically from the vowel in the stressed syllable of each to the end of each.
(transitive) To put words together so that they rhyme.

Amelia, some native speakers do rhyme them but it sounds really off to me

@Mitch You pronounce "query" as "kwɪri"?

And are you a native speaker?

I'm a native speaker and I pronounce query to rhyme with eerie, or leery, or ear...y, not very or hairy or Larry

Hmm, thanks.

4:33 PM

@tchrist Are they feline or canine?

I was hidden from the world in the woods this weekend.

No computers.

No Internet to speak of.

Just trees.

And heath.

By that I mean mostly Erica, but also its typical landscape.

@Cerberus were the woods lovely, dark and deep?

@tchrist Are baby rattlesnakes venomous? Dangerous?

@Amila Quite!

@Cerberus Both.

Although not as much as on wild continents.

@tchrist Maybe their instinct tells them how to handle rattlesnakes safely?

What if one bites you?

Go to the emergency room. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

@Cerberus Kitty != Mongoose. He has to have carried it in his mouth, and from a lost skin-patch in its middle, from there. But it was completely active and snaky, even coiling up like a grown-up. It was very tiny, so perhaps it just didn't manage to get through his medium-long hair. A facial bite is quickly fatal.

Jez

4:44 PM

@Mitch hairy and Larry don't rhyme ;-)

We're in peak time apparently. I'm trying to figure out how old it was; it was very tiny and therefore I have to imagine its brethren and perhaps brethren are nearby.

Rattlesnakes over ovoviparous, bearing four to ten live young.

At first glance I read it as very hairy Larry. O.o

> They'll stay relatively close to their mother until their first shed -- about a week after their birth -- and then they go off on their own.

@Jez sorry, modify everything I say by 'for a gen AmE speaker who does not distinguish Mary, merry, marry

@Mitch Larry King.

He talks funny.

He has the sad vowel in his own name.

4:47 PM

I remember my first bike shed. Didn't know what color to paint it! Good times

Aint Polly still needs her fence painted.

Ok, this has to have been a snake no more than a week old.

@Mitch That was a great show

Dynomite!!

:D

Why would Lady Snake give birth so close to my house? Lorin returned to the neighbor’s under-porch after I’d released the snakelet. I have warned the neighbors of this.

> From the moment they are born, baby rattlesnakes are capable of hunting and killing prey. They don't immediately set out after food, however, and remain near their birthplace for about one week, or until they shed their first skin.

This snakelet could have managed a ladybug but not a grasshopper.

Oh gosh, up to 20 of them.

I inspected the end of the snakelet’s tail very closely: it had not yet had its first moult that happens at the end of week one or two.

Wait, how do you spell that word?

Oh, it’s also spelt without the u, as thought it were molten.

@Cerberus Pussytoes, and not Antennaria plantaginifolia either.

I'm not sure how I came across this, but it's amusing.

Dr. Seuss - Fox In Socks

5:23 PM

That's the best ever!

Faheem Mitha

6:19 PM

@tchrist I assume the bite of an adult rattlesnake is very bad news for an adult human. How does a bit from a baby rattler rate?

I wouldn't want to find out the hard way.

@Rigor not Prince.

6:34 PM

Roger Nelson

Rupert.

> Most rattlesnakes have venom composed primarily of hemotoxic properties. Baby rattlesnakes and the Mojave rattler are the exception; they have venom which contains more neurotoxic properties than hemotoxic which makes them very dangerous.

TAFKATAFKAP

6:50 PM

So I was feeling masochistic; how is everyone here?

7:02 PM

I can kick-mute Smokey if he gets too annoying. Just let me know.

Please don’t.

If he is too annoying, then we should fix him.

@Robusto Today SE has been flooded by sheep trying to feed us spam by reporting news.

Sheeple.

@tchrist Just kidding, of course.

Kick-mute spammers instead.

7:11 PM

I'm glad to see tunny again.

Tunny?

Tummy?

Timmy?

I saw his name in the recent ELU Blog post.

Toby?

Thomas?

Toni?

7:12 PM

Hope he is the same tunny.

Who is t̨̟̠̬̫̫̂́̂̇̂̐ư̡̧̯̘̯̯̟̭̪̪̤̦̫̙̩̥̈̍̌̇̂̃n̏ņ̣̭̥̞̯̔̇̕̕ỳ̧̛̯̣̠̞̙̖̜̝̣̎̋̆̊̕?

@tchrist He was a regular on ELL last year. I remember that he was (still is?) an ESL teacher.

goes to fetch a damp rag

@DamkerngT. Link to profile?

@tchrist You seem to be bonding with Zalgo Z. Zalgo.

tunny

4.9k 4 29

Not sure if this is the same tunny.

A: Z̡̬a̧̯̔l̆̓g̛̘̟o̡ generator

7:16 PM

3

Perl, 81 79(?) bytes Gee, you guys are all using variables! Who needs variables? :) Here’s the simple code, which is just 79 bytes, most of it taken up by silly identifiers(but not variables :): use Math::Random;s/\pL\K/(x x random_normal 1,10,5)=~s,.,chr 768+rand 48,reg/eg But I’m not quit...

reg/eg for the win.

Ugh! Zalgo on Code Golf!

@DamkerngT. Ugh! Code Golf on Zalgo!

That, too!

Man my AC just kicked on at 80.

Calling for 90s today and for the next couple days. Blowing hot, hard, and dry out there. Wonder whether it will burn.

@tchrist 80 Kelvin?

7:25 PM

There is no such thing as “Kelvins”.

The family. There is.

Those are all Kevins.

But I was distracted. No fair!

And probably French.

Look at how far red is from blue in the first graph. It couldn’t dew here to save a lotus.

@tchrist I love this one.

@DamkerngT. There's only one Tunny in ELU.

7:33 PM

@inɒzɘmɒЯ.A.M The same one?

@DamkerngT. Who else could've written something on ELU blog?

Okay, so it's him!

Time and dates would be so much easier if only we used base 12 for them.

We would have four equal quarter-days of 10,000₁₂ seconds each, plus two 1,000₁₂-second intercalary periods that we’d have to be paid for but wouldn’t have to work.

Think how much simpler clocks would be with two equal periods of 10₁₂ hours each.

7:59 PM

Wacko.

8:15 PM

More wacko.

9:23 PM

It's currently Ɛ:1ᘔpm (in GMT+2)

Nice.

@tchrist what does 10₁₂ mean?

10 in base 12?

Yes.

I prefer ᘔ :)

Sexagesimal?

9:26 PM

Duodecimal

10:02 PM

@crl me too. Base 12 would solve a lot of problems.

10:28 PM

@tchrist Nah, we should use the same base for all numbers.

Jun 29 at 12:52, by Robusto

Something interesting: TIL the word "grocer" comes from the word "gross" meaning a dozen dozen. Apparently grocers used a base-12 numbering system. Which is probably a good idea. It would make certain pesky fractions a lot less pesky.

11:08 PM

@Cerberus Well, then let’s do that then. English should use base-12 for all its numbers, and you Europeans can use base-10 in your own languages if you want.

We already have to change everything whenever we go to Europe; might as well finish the process.