English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:19 AM

@tchrist I apologize for Elsevier.

At least I believe they are not a direct continuation of the 17th-century company.

tchrist

12:40 AM

@Cerberus So they say.

Cerberus

What do you mean?

That would be something to disclaim.

tchrist

0

Q: Is "KUDOS" only to be told for the event that went over in the past?

Is " Kudos" only to be used to wish somebody for the event that happened to them in the past or even can use it for the event which is going to happen in near future?

grammar

Look at the tag.

It isn’t even asking whether it’s singular or plural.

There is nothing, nothing grammatical about it.

terdon

10:21 AM

@tchrist I'll be damned! I had no idea kudos was of Greek origin.

Robusto

10:34 AM

@terdon What? How could you not know that?

terdon

Ancient Greek != Modern Greek and that word doesn't exist in modern.

Robusto

Well, it should.

Still, I speak close to zero Greek and I knew that one.

terdon

@Robusto Yeah, but from English. I knew it in English too.

Robusto

Yeah, but I trouble myself to look up the etymologies of strange words.

Almost a hobby, actually.

terdon

I do so often myself. Hadn't gotten around to kudos yet. I'd always thought it was Japanese or something.

Robusto

10:44 AM

Well, if you spoke any Japanese you'd know it couldn't be.

All Japanese syllables end in vowels. So it could be kudosu, perhaps, but never kudos. Even though it might sound like it was pronounced like the latter.

To Western ears, that is.

terdon

Huh.

There are no Japanese words ending with a consonant?

Robusto

11:42 AM

@terdon If you consider n a consonant, then there are.

terdon

Since you're asking, I assume that the equivalent Japanese sound is not quite as clear-cut a consonant as ours.

Robusto

I'm not sure ours is a clear-cut consonant either.

terdon

Really? N? How is it not a consonant? Do you feel the same way about v,m,l and r?

Robusto

m, l and r, certainly.

terdon

Why? Because the can be made long?

> In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

Quoth the wiki.

tchrist

11:46 AM

[ˈkɪʔn̩]

I hear two syllables there.

And there aren’t that many candidates for vowels.

terdon

@tchrist Could you translate that for the IPA ignorant?

tchrist

kitten with glottal stop where normally some sort of [t] might be.

terdon

Ah.

tchrist

Then n is the second syllable’s nucleus.

It’s clearly a consonant in nasty though.

terdon

@tchrist Which somehow makes it less of a consonant?

tchrist

11:48 AM

The little diacritic at the bottom makes a syllabic consonant.

Robusto

@terdon You could also class /s/ as that kind of might-be-a-vowel.

tchrist

psst

bzzt

terdon

@Robusto So any sound that can be made long might have its consonantness challenged?

tchrist

Well.

Robusto

@terdon Dunno.

terdon

11:49 AM

A "true" consonant is only one which you cannot pronounce for 3 seconds?

Robusto

I only took survey courses in linguistics. I never delved into it that deeply.

So, no, I can't really comment.

tchrist

There are obstruents and there are sonorants.

Sonorants include various things, including vowels.

Robusto

My original statement stands, though. All Japanese syllables end in a vowel, except for /n/, which is a syllable by itself and may, arguably, be construed as a vowel of sorts.

How many syllables in clay?

tchrist

Sonorants include nasals.

terdon

@Robusto One, I should think .

Robusto

11:52 AM

Some people pronounce it cl-ay. Or cuhl-ay.

Especially people who have a hard time with /l/.

tchrist

Naw.

> Whereas obstruents are frequently voiceless, sonorants are almost always voiced. A typical sonorant consonant inventory found in many languages comprises the following: two nasals /m/, /n/, two semivowels /w/, /j/, and two liquids /l/, /r/.

Whacked server.

Robusto

What are you saying "naw" to?

terdon

@Robusto Ah, I pronounce it like lay with an added c but no pause.

Like slay or play.

Robusto

I'm just saying I don't think there is universal agreement on what constitutes a vowel. Or a consonant.

tchrist

A vowel can serve as a syllabic nucleus.

Robusto

11:59 AM

We were taught there are five vowels: a, e, i, o, and u. And then they'd add "And sometimes y and w."

I personally can't think of any time I would classify y as a consonant.

tchrist

@terdon He’s talking about intrusive/epenthetic vowels introduced by people who have trouble with consonant clusters.

Y is a semivowel when it is part of a diphthong whose other vowel is the main part.

Robusto

What is it in frying?

tchrist

Yes is /jɛs/.

Robusto

I hear y as a consonant in Sp. yo, the way it's pronounced in my Spanish learning, but not in En. yo (meaning "yes" or "I'm here").

@tchrist: Can "de la mano de su madre" mean "with the help of his mother"?

tchrist

@Robusto It’s a semi-vocalic glide. You can write that /ˈfrɑɪ̯jɪŋ/ I suppose, to show that there is a syllabic break.

Spanish yo usually has a bit more restricted airflow than [j], so often [ʝ] or when emphasized the affricated [ɟ͡ʝ].

@Robusto Well, it's from his mother’s hand.

Robusto

12:09 PM

Yeah, I know, but the literal translation seems not to work there.

tchrist

I would have to see the full context.

Robusto

Con solo cuatro años, de la mano de su madre Pilar Bardem hizo un papel pequeño en la serie de televisión El pícaro (1974), aunque no aparece en los créditos.

Unless she actually gave him the role, in which case it would make sense.

tchrist

Looks helpy, yeah.

Robusto

But that still doesn't feel right.

tchrist

While holding his mother’s hand maybe? Not sure.

Robusto

12:13 PM

If she gave him the role, the verb would be something like "receive" instead of "play".

It crossed my mind to say "at the hands of his mother" but that isn't satisfactory either.

skill patrol

I see Damkerng has become a regular "lurker."

crl

How would you qualify someone (or his brain) who can do at least 2 brain-demanding things at a time, like understanding well an audio book while playing a game?

skill patrol

multitasker

crl

(not my case, but wondering)

@skillpatrol yes I thought about it

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol I thought "lurker" usually don't leave their avatar in the room. :-)

Robusto

12:18 PM

@crl Multitasker, but I don't believe that can be done.

crl

@Robusto me too but... chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/25960771#25960771

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol Good morning!

Robusto

@crl That's not really multitasking.

skill patrol

@DamkerngT. quite the opposite pal, they always leave their avatar in the room so you never know when they are lurking :)

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol Oh, then I must be qualified. :D

crl

12:19 PM

@Robusto gaming + book listening? hmm

skill patrol

@DamkerngT. :D

Robusto

If you know how to fry an egg, say, you can do that while listening to an audiobook. But if you had to make hollandaise sauce from a recipe you could only do one or the other. Either you'd know what you heard and the sauce failed, or you had good sauce with little knowledge of the audiobook.

I believe the world needs a new definition of multitasking. It's something more than being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

crl

@Robusto yeah those 2 tasks are so natural that they are like "background" tasks

tchrist

@Robusto Vowels are sounds, not letters.

skill patrol

Our "attention" is limited.

crl

12:23 PM

@tchrist How do you call the subset of letters {a,e,i,o,u,y} then?

Robusto

Even doing something in music like playing 3 against 2 seems like a kind of multitasking, but in reality it's just knowing where to play the beats so that they sound right, which is not the same thing.

tchrist

2

Q: A word for a value between 0 and 1 (inclusive)

I'm a programmer. I'm so sick of writing documentation for things that should be explainable in a word. When you write a function in a programming language, you get to name its parameters. Most things I can name easy enough, such as "Name" or "URL" or "MaxSizeN". The first 2 are self explanator...

single-word-requests

@crl Those are letters.

My net is suddenly so crappy I can’t really chat effectively.

Damkerng T.

@skillpatrol In the lurking business since 2013. Back to lurk. ;-)

skill patrol

@DamkerngT. nice chatting pal :-)

Damkerng T.

o/ Same here. :-)

crl

12:26 PM

@tchrist from Oxford dictionary, Vowel: 1. a speech sound ... like you said 1.1 A letter representing a vowel sound, such as a, e, i, o, u.

skill patrol

what a surprise...a word with two meanings :P

Robusto

@crl The Comedian as the Letter C.

The Comedian as the Letter C

"The Comedian as the letter C" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was one of the few poems first published in that collection and the last written for it. Consequently, it is still under copyright, thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and similar legislation in other jurisdictions, which extends copyright for all works first published after 1922 to 70 years after the death of the author. The consequence of this act is that "Comedian" will not enter the public domain until 2025, whereas for instance "Peter Quince at the Clavier", firs...

tchrist

> vowel /ˈvaʊəl/, sb.
Also 4 wowel (6 -ell), 5–7 vowell(e.

Etymology: a. OFr. vouel (also vouyel, voy-, voieul) masc. :– L. vōcāl-em or vōcāle, masc. and neut. acc. sing. of vōcālis vocal a. The later OFr. voielle, mod.Fr. voyelle, Prov. and Sp. vocal, Pg. vogal, Ital. vocale are fem., after the L. sb. vōcālis.

1. a. A sound produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords; a letter or character representing such a sound (as a, e, i, etc.).

‘A vowel may be defined as voice (voiced breath) modified by some definite configuration of the super-glottal passages, but without audible friction (wh…

terdon

I wonder what percentage of words in an English dictionary have multiple meaning and whether that's actually more than average.

Robusto

@terdon It's the rare word that has but a single meaning.

crl

12:37 PM

so 'i' and 'y' are the same vowel? but not the same letter?

terdon

Yes, but how rare? I think that this is particularly the case in English but I'm not sure.

@crl It depends on how they're pronounced. Consider sit and I and yes and why, for example.

Robusto

If you count different senses of a word as separate meanings, then almost no word has but a single definition.

terdon

We'd have to check a dictionary though. I don't have one in text form, it'd be easy enough to parse. @tchrist any idea where I can get a txt dictionary?

Robusto

25

Q: Is there a term for words that have a single meaning or are only used in a single context?

Certain words you hear in English are only ever heard in a single context. For example, skirl is used to describe the sound a bagpipe makes. Etymonline generously says the word is "rarely" heard outside that context, but I can't recall ever hearing it used for anything else. I imagine one could u...

single-word-requests terminology nonce-words uniquity

tchrist

@terdon mail me

terdon

12:42 PM

Done. Thanks.

crl

12:53 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 popnsport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/…

tchrist

@terdon Wow, I had forgotten how fast current hardware is compared to what I have on my own servers.

Or rather, I’d forgotten how slow my machines were.

terdon

What reminded you?

tchrist

gzipping a particular artifact.

terdon

:)

Robusto

How old are your servers?

tchrist

12:58 PM

I cannot remember.

There's probably something I can cat in /proc that would tell me clock speeds.

Robusto

Are they single-core or multi?

crl

cat /proc/cpuinfo or lscpu or lshw?

the only lego (technic) I did in the last decade probably, the "scorpion" tricycle is missing one bar, things and 2 front wheels though

I used to do more interesting things :/, aircraft carriers, planes (lots of), and all other things from models

tchrist

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.53GHz ("GenuineIntel" 686-class)
stepping        : 7
cpu MHz         : 2533
fdiv_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception:  : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe

crl

1:14 PM

pentium 4 lol

tchrist

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 8
model name      : Intel Pentium III ("GenuineIntel" 686-class)
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 997
fdiv_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception:  : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse

crl

3 even more lol

tchrist

See, didn't I tell you? :)

crl

impressive that they are still alive

tchrist

MemTotal:    249044 kB

MemTotal:    507148 kB

@crl Why would they stop working? :)

I have two of the IIIs and a 4.

terdon

1:17 PM

That's *nix for you :)

Thanks, @tchrist, received and downloading now.

tchrist

Cool.

Uptime tends to be measured in years.

Oh, this one I recently rebooted:

 7:17AM  up 158 days, 13:03, 8 users, load averages: 0.12, 0.14, 0.21

crl

@tchrist Depends how much you are using them, I don't think they can last forever

oh, they are always up, so I guess they don't have too much load?

tchrist

Hm?

What does the run queue have to do with whether they reboot?

crl

Nevermind, I thought electronics components would "decay" and cease to work faster in time, so I'm impressed they kept running for maybe 2 decades

tchrist

They don't usually seem slow to me, but I'm sure my current company's webapp stack could never survive there.

terdon

1:38 PM

@crl *nix servers often have uptimes of years. That's what they're for.

Robusto

@tchrist You could probably replace the lot today with a single cheap Linux box.

Jez

gah. anyone here have experience with using KVMs?

i'm wanting a really sophisticated one where i can switch between 3 devices in various "modes of operation"

tchrist

> By itself, KVM does not perform any emulation. Instead, it exposes the /dev/kvm interface, which a userspace host can then use to:

Set up the guest VM's address space. The host must also supply a firmware image (usually a custom BIOS when emulating PCs) that the guest can use to bootstrap into its main OS.
Feed the guest simulated I/O.
Map the guest's video display back onto the host.

Jez

hmm

which definition of "KVM" is that?

tchrist

The standard one.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel that turns it into a hypervisor. It was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in kernel version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KVM requires a processor with hardware virtualization extension. KVM has also been ported to FreeBSD and illumos in the form of loadable kernel modules. KVM originally supported x86 processors and has been ported to S/390, PowerPC, and IA-64. An ARM port was merged during the 3.9 kernel merge window. A wide variety of guest operating systems work with KVM, including...

Jez

1:52 PM

i mean keyboard-video-mouse

tchrist

3:35 PM

Dead reckoning:

0

A: Use of the word "reckon"

It is not possible to be completely certain what you are asking, because the verb reckon can be used in many ways, all of them with a subject in the first person singular. It looks to me that this wasn’t something you reckoned with, unfortunately. But the one you’re thinking of, I imagine, is th...

So many questions could be answered merely by cracking the dictionary.

terdon

@tchrist I've been struggling to parse the sgml file you gave me. For some reason, I can't install SGML::Parser or SGML::Parser::OpenSP on my system and I've never worked with sgml files so I don't know the format definitions. Do you have any nifty scripts that can parse this?

Or any hints?

tchrist

Yes.

And you probably cannot use the module; not sure.

I have some slightly out of date tools written by someone else that will work. Let me just toss you my whole out-of-date directory.

terdon

That'd be great, thanks.

Thanks @tchrist having a look now.

tchrist

3:52 PM

There's an SGML bug somewhere down in the middle of it all that prevents running any sane parser on it.

terdon

Ah, OK, that explains why the couple I tried choked on it.

tchrist

Exactly.

This is a five-year-old backup copy I made back then. Pretty sure the newer tools take the encoding bug into account. By encoding bug, I mean a missed close tag or something.

However, be aware that there are cross-tags in this. That will seriously freak out any normal parser.

So like <i>test here <b>more text</i> and done.</b>. Isn't that nice?

I actually know the person who did this work for them.

terdon

@tchrist Bugger. Good thing I only want to play and not actually work on this.

tchrist

Web browsers actually manage.

But you aren't going to get sane data structures out of it without some work. I talked to Mr Shiny about this at one point.

I think though that if you just do the <ALLCAPS> ones it may be sane.

Be aware that you actually can use regexes on this because all tags are regular enough and have no embedded anything funky.

terdon

4:08 PM

OK, thanks. What are the <ALLCAPS> ones? Some entries are written in ALLCAPS?

OK, wow, that cgi one certainly does work! I should be able to figure out how to use that. Thanks!

tchrist

Yeah, the tags that aren't style markups.

Without the entity mappings you'd go crazy though.

They're in there.

Also the <gr> ... </gk> mappings, but those I trust you'd've figured out on your own. :)

The indexer is stupid about things with spaces in them. Sorry, wasn't mine.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in username: why is chapter 1 of any book important by chely ಌಌ chanಌ on english.stackexchange.com

Robusto

4:51 PM

@terdon, @tchrist: In the case of the Japanese syllable ん (/n/), it occurs to me to point out that although the sounds in the Japanese syllabary are classed by the Japanese as merely "sounds" (the syllabary is called gojuuon in Japanese, meaning "fifty sounds"), we class them in the west as syllables. And are there any syllables in English that do not have a vowel? It is tempting to conclude that ん must be classed by our own definition as a vowel.

Maybe that's splitting hairs, I don't know.

tchrist

5:57 PM

@terdon Of 291592 entries, 59830 had one sense and 231754 had many.

skill patrol

6:31 PM

So about 4 times as many?

On average.

tchrist

Something like that.

tchrist

9:04 PM