English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

1:41 AM

@Cerberus latinate

@VitaminC haltingly describes it but is not the word

Cerberus

2:40 AM

@Mitch Hmm nothing comes to mind.

Cerberus

3:07 AM

This may interest you: I find Spanish semi-legal texts a lot easier to read than German ones.

Even though German is close to Dutch and I have studied it in school for years, and read novels in German, while I have never studied Spanish at all.

I was reading about TTIP and CETA.

I had to look up words like Nachbesserung, Daseinsvorsorge, Vorstand.

tchrist

3:41 AM

@Cerberus Interesting.

SmokeDetector

4:01 AM

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: What's the difference between "jelly" and "jam"? by Anonymous on english.stackexchange.com …

sumelic

5:41 AM

@Cerberus I wonder if my knowledge of English would allow me to understand German. Using what look like cognates to me, I predict these words mean "nearbettering," "thatoneforsorrow," "forstand." I'm sure that explains everything.

Oh no wait the German cognate of "nigh" is "nah" not "nach." Still, that last word looks familiar. Maybe it's one of those annoying common words with easy-to-forget meanings.

crl

9:15 AM

Atlantropa

Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa, was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promoted by him until his death in 1952. Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricity and would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, for example in the Adriatic Sea. The project proposed four additional major dams as well: Across the Dardanelles...

bit crazy

SmokeDetector

10:22 AM

[ SmokeDetector ] Manually reported question: cheap rs gold and fast delivery online by fifapoints on english.stackexchange.com …

[ SmokeDetector ] Manually reported answer: cheap rs gold and fast delivery online by fifapoints on english.stackexchange.com …

Matt E. Эллен

10:40 AM

@Mitch tipiditungium

Matt E. Эллен

11:30 AM

is anyone else having issues with youtube?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Manually reported answer: What is the origin and meaning of "coyote ugly"? by hunterschicken on english.stackexchange.com …

Mitch

12:12 PM

@MattE.Эллен It took me years to figure out that 'counter-intuitive' was the right word for what that is. Now it is 'inability to express oneself well'

Is 'inarticulate' the word?

@MattE.Эллен Always! You watch one, then another catches your eye and then a 1/2 hour has gone by without noticing.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch inarticulate would work, yes.

Cerberus

12:42 PM

@sumelic It is both nah and nach. For example, can you guess what a Nachbar is?

You have to change both vowels...

Your translations were as good as mine.

Unfortunately, neither of our translations help us! That's the problem.

Nachbesserung is something like compensation.

Vorstand must be some kind of representational or executive government body.

Oh, and I think it's Da-sein-s-vorsorge.

A vorsorge may be like a precaution, as in Dutch voorzorg.

Dasein is there-being, probably like "being present".

Mitch

@Cerberus the words are like ... phrasal verbs

Cerberus

But what all of it means?

Mitch

if you analyze them, they don't add up.

'come to' - means to awaken or regain consciousness

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, they contain verbal stems and prepositions, yes, like con-tain and pre-position do.

Mitch

how does that come out of 'come' and 'to'?

Cerberus

12:46 PM

Yes, but these are prefixes, but the adverbial kind used in English.

Mitch

yeah, if you're a Roman kid, those words are like phrasal verbs

Cerberus

It's the same in German and English: the meaning of the whole often does not follow from its parts.

Mitch

exactly, which makes it hard for foreigners to pick up the meaning because they don't have the context

Cerberus

Yes.

As in other languages...

Mitch

the fancy words, whether Germanic (made up of simple known but highly polysemic parts like in phrasal verbs), or Latinate (unanalyzable to the non-Roman, an opaque whole) are both hard to understand.

both opaque

but if you know Latin/Greek, you -can[ analyze them.

iso now the problem is why can't we get the right meaning from analyzing the German.

@Cerberus I would have thought that educated vocabulary in Dutch would be mostly cognate with German.

@MattE.Эллен haha I'm so inarticulate. also forgetful. I'm looking for the noun. 'inarticulation' sounds like it is for one instance of not saying something well.

what is the generic noun for the situation?

It's very relevant to the 'phrasal verb'/German word formation understanding difficulty.

'transfer' or 'metaphor' sound so articulate, but 'carry over' sounds so ... what? vague? stupid? (that's how I want to say it!) uneducated? informal? Like children?

I think a lot of tipiditungium is just conditioned feeling to there usually being a word for a feeling you have that there should always be a word... for that feeling.

Cerberus

1:03 PM

@Mitch A phrasal verb is come in, but income is not a phrasal verb. It isn't even a verb.

Come in is called a phrasal verb because it is a phrase i.e. more than one word.

@Mitch You can identify the parts, but you often can't predict what the whole will mean.

It is the same as in German or English.

For example, anything with ex- usually means "outside".

But things with con- can have wildly different meanings.

As can words with dis-/dif-/etc.

Mitch

1:17 PM

@Cerberus i'm using 'phrasal verb' as an example of the general 'whole is much much greater than the sum of parts'

I blame prepositions.

Well, maybe it's more than that

the german words are often strings of nouns. and they tend to be opaque too.

MετάEd

Mitch

It's obvious when you know the transalation, but that's just recognition. deriving the meaning from the parts is almost impossible in Germanic. For romance it seems so easy.

@MετάEd Like 'Oi, bruffer, let's give a butcher's!' ?

Oh. 'riffer'. 'offer', 'swiffer'

Coyote's have a different beauty aesthetic than humans. What is ugly for a coyote might be ravishing to a human. 'Coyote ugly' means ugly for a coyote, but pretty good for a human. — Mitch 3 mins ago

Look man it's Wednesday, am I right!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:44 PM

And here I thought the ugly person was the coyote in the pair.

Mitch

1:56 PM

That's so humanist

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah I'm an unabashed humanist.

Mitch

a bashed one is no good

Matt E. Эллен

depends if it's still under warranty

Mitch

The makers employ statisticians to determine the distribution of the average fail time, in order to position the warranty time right before then. Just to stick it to you.

mathematicians are effing bastards that way

Kit Z. Fox

2:18 PM

@MετάEd Happy Solstice!

MετάEd

@KitZ.Fox Thank you!

Cerberus

@Mitch Any less opaque than English strings of nouns?

@Mitch I don't understand why you think it's easier for Romance.

Unless because you and I happen to already know more Romance combinations.

MετάEd

2:33 PM

@Mitch I think that cofers it.

TIPS

@MετάEd looks like M & M's now.

Kit Z. Fox

♫ It's like getting that song ♪ stuck in your head ♫ every time you try to find a spoon ♪ in the company kitchen

MετάEd

@TIPS Melting ones.

TIPS

That's besides the point

MετάEd

@KitZ.Fox The spoon song?

Kit Z. Fox

2:40 PM

I wish.

IT'S LIKE RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY!

My brain needs to shut up.

I just wanted a spoon.

MετάEd

@KitZ.Fox Who would have thought. It figures.

Kit Z. Fox

I can make do with this fork.

MετάEd

ow

ow sorry

sorry! ow!

Kit Z. Fox

giggles

A spoon. Not to spoon.

MετάEd

You might want to spoon sugar.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:51 PM

a spoonful of sugar makes it hard to take the medicine because there's no room on the spoon

Mitch

3:15 PM

@Cerberus I was agreeing with you that romance seems easier to figure out than German, even as an educated Germanic non-German speaker

@MετάEd you might want to spoon, sugar.

user208178

howdy!.

user208178

and today topic would be "spooning" I'm guessing.

user208178

*today's

Matt E. Эллен

I think you spoke too spoon

user208178

hello matty!

MετάEd

3:31 PM

This question is not a request for opinions. It is a rare thing: a word request with substantial thought going into it and showing evidence of research. Voting to reopen. — MετάEd 15 secs ago

@Mitch You might want two spoon sugar.

@MattE.Эллен I think you poke to spoon.

Cerberus

@Mitch Ah, but I think it is easier to recognise Romance combinations not because of some intrinsic quality, but because we are more familiar with those combinations.

Because they are more universal among Romance languages like French, Latin, English.

Whereas those combinations have more differences between the Germanic languages, at least for formal, bureaucratic words.

Matt E. Эллен

@MετάEd I will give it a try next time I have a chance

Cerberus

Those bureaucratic words already existed in early Romance and were probably shared between many Romance languages; but such words only came to exist in Germanic once the Germanic languages had already drifted far apart (because they used Latin words for formal terms until the late Middle Ages).

Just an hypothesis.

Shafizadeh

4:03 PM

Is there any English word like "daure it" which means "I hardly think so" ?

Cerberus

@Shafizadeh I doubt it.

I dare you.

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus yeah that's the one

Cerberus

In doubt, bt is pronounced d or t (the b is silent).

OK.

Shafizadeh

yeah got it

Cerberus

Good.

user208178

4:42 PM

@MετάEd nice avatar. but why do you change it so often?

Mitch

@Cerberus yeah it's probably just familiarity

What does Dutch do for educated vocabulary? Create it out of Dutch pieces or borrow from Romance languages?

Cerberus

A mixture.

In between English and German.

With some modern French added.

And some unique Germanic neologisms from the 17th century.

I believe Dutch is the only language that has a non-Greek word for mathematics: wiskunde.

You can guess what it should mean.

A half-translation of the Greek.

MετάEd

5:00 PM

@VitaminC I like to recognize various holidays with my avatar.

There's a complete inventory on my profile.

Mitch

As hard as I try, I can't see any holidays at all when I press my eye against your avatar

MετάEd

@Mitch Do you see stars when you press hard?

Cerberus

5:21 PM

Education is onderwijs (uncountable) or opleiding (countable).

Opleiding may be a loan translation of education.

But both words are Germanic.

School is school, from Greek.

University is universiteit.

Teacher is leraar (only up to and including high school) or docent (high school and university).

Leraar is Germanic, docent Latin.

Improvement is verbetering.

Abdication is abdicatie.

Professor is professor (only for university professors that receive a high salary and are appointed for life).

In French, a professeur van teach anyone, from young children to PhD "students" (who are not considered students in Dutch).

Student is student, but only at university.

Mitch

@Cerberus you can have more than one opleiding? Is that like the (execrable) 'learnings'?

@Cerberus what are phd people considered, if not students?

Cerberus

@Mitch Umm it is like a programme-leading-to-a-specific-degree/certificate/whatever.

Mitch

@Cerberus what is a child at elementary school, if not a student?

@Cerberus Oh

words are messed up

Cerberus

@Mitch They are called promovendi and are considered a category unto themselves. They are paid something like a salary, they are employees of the university.

@Mitch A leerling.

Maybe a pupil.

Mitch

dictionaries only give definitions that are not wrong: they don't exclude wrong things though

Cerberus

5:31 PM

Such as?

We also have many words that have a Germanic variant and a Romance fancy variant.

Stoep = trottoir (sidewalk).

Mitch

@Cerberus the concept is the same, what real life is the same, but yeah here a PhD is a PhD student. messes a lot with the formation of graduate student unions

Cerberus

(Auto)deur = portier (car door).

Mitch

@Cerberus trottoir makes sense because you tread on it.

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm messes, in what way?

@Mitch Exactly.

Mitch

@Cerberus whether it's really cognate or not.

Cerberus

5:33 PM

Sometimes, the French variant is just fancy. Sometimes it is non-U. Sometimes it is U.

Mitch

also makes me think of pigs feet = trotters

Cerberus

Hah.

@Mitch I'm sure it's cognate.

Probably a French word with a Germanic origin.

English trod, Dutch treden.

Mitch

@Cerberus I get confused with U and non-U because sometimes it is presented as U (upper class people) use less fancy words because they don't have anything to prove. Is that what it is or is it the other way around?

Yes, I'm still avoiding your dictionary question.

Cerberus

@Mitch That's the trick: U can be either fancy or not fancy. You never know. When in doubt, choose non-fancy.

It's usually non-fancy, but certainly not always.

Mitch

@Cerberus in the US graduate students (MS, PhD in arts and sciences) are slowly attempting to form unions to protect their salaries/rights/benefits (when they are paid research/teaching assistants)

Cerberus

5:36 PM

It's probably even less likely to be fancy in English than in Dutch.

Mitch

@Cerberus and it was first applied to England. so I don't know if it really works the same way elsewhere.

Cerberus

@Mitch And forming a union is more difficult if you're an assistant than when you're a different kind of employee?

@Mitch Not always, and not necessarily. But it works mostly the same in English.

And toilet for loo is I believe universally non-U.

French, German, Dutch, English.

user208178

@MετάEd ah gotcha.

Cerberus

But the distinction may be most strongly developed in English and Dutch.

I don't speak German and French well enough.

Mitch

@Cerberus the university administration, to their self interest, dont want any union, so they like to say that they are all students still learning and so not employees at all (even if they're given money) i.e. a stipend isn't a wage. a student cannot be an employee (in the uni admins eye)

Cerberus

5:39 PM

Weird.

A student assistant gets paid, so he should be an employee by law?

Mitch

Yes, one would think (from the student's point of view)

@Cerberus OK that entirely confuses me. but I'm not british so either would be weird.

Cerberus

It all depends on the law.

Mitch

but to how much dictionaries suck

looking for an example

Cerberus

@Mitch Confuses you why?

It is a simple case of "faux-French euphemisms are bad news".

Mitch

@Cerberus toilet sounds blunt and a bit vulgar, loo sounds overly euphemistic, so I would think toilet is U (upper class = not caring about flowery euphemisms)

user208178

5:43 PM

@Mitch did you find the word you were looking for?

Cerberus

@Mitch It may be true that loo is a euphemism, but at least it is old.

Mitch

@VitaminC I wasn't looking hard. I think 'inarticulate' is exactly the right adjective, but maybe a noun for it would help.

Cerberus

Toilet is newer, and French to boot. French is fancy and flowery.

Shafizadeh

Is this sentence correct? "The first non-working answer form Gordon I've ever seen here so far."

Mitch

@Cerberus it's very foreign/british sounding to me so I have no natural feeling for what kind of person would use it.

user208178

5:44 PM

@Mitch ah

Cerberus

@Shafizadeh Sounds good to me!

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus good :-) thx

Cerberus

@Mitch Ah OK. Lavatory?

Mitch

@VitaminC 'plain speaking' is maybe close as a noun (and non-judmental)

@Cerberus british

or clinical

Cerberus

@Shafizadeh Maybe ever and so far are a bit redundant, because they mean the same thing?

That is: ever refers to the past in your sentence, because the future is unknown: it means "all the time in the past" in your sentence. And so far also means "all the time in the past up to now".

Mitch

5:47 PM

[ed·u·ca·tion
ˌejəˈkāSH(ə)n/
noun
1.
the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
"a new system of public education"
synonyms: teaching, schooling, tuition, tutoring, instruction, coaching, training, tutelage, guidance;](https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+education)

user208178

@Mitch ok. but in 'plain speaking' there is no halting or stuttering.

Cerberus

@Mitch I asked a question about American U and non-U. I'm still waiting for a good answer!

Mitch

you loo at that and are able to say 'Yes, that definition certainly fits "education"' but it doesn't eliminate many in the synonym list

that's my problem with stupid dictionaries

stupid stupid supitd

or maybe just plain speaking

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus so one of them is redundant? I mean should I write either "so far" or "ever" ?

Cerberus

But why should it eliminate those synonyms?

The description is necessarily not perfect...

Mitch

5:49 PM

@VitaminC halting and stuttering are not necessary features of what I am thinking of. they may be symptoms of it.

Cerberus

@Shafizadeh Yes, probably. Although it is not really "wrong" to use both together, it is better to use only one.

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus I see

Mitch

Another example "I came to" vs "I awoke"

Cerberus

If you use both, nobody will notice.

@Mitch One is more limited than the other.

But they are close in meaning.

Can you come to from natural sleep?

I don't think so?

I associate it with fainting.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm not saying to remove those synonyms from that entry, I'm saying the definition should exclude those synonyms. 'tutoring' is definitely a synonym, but the defintion of 'education' should still exclude 'tutoring'

@Cerberus then maybe "I revived" it's not the exact instance that is importance, but the relative ... somethingness.

sure formality, but something else. specificity? they both really point out the same thing.

maybe another dimension of register.

Cerberus

5:53 PM

@Mitch Is the problem that those words are called synonyms when it fact many of them aren't even close?

user208178

6:07 PM

@Mitch also check this place out it is good: reddit.com/r/whatstheword. I'm a regular there, I like that sub. Any word you can't think just throw the question there and might get some good answers.

user208178

and you don't even have to worry about votes.

user208178

votes makes no sense there.

user208178

in fact I have gotten better answers to some of my questions there than on English main sites here.

Mitch

6:44 PM

@Cerberus no the synonym list is fine, they're not expected to be definitional. the problem is the definition. 'education' definitely fits that definition, but I feel like other words could fit that definition too.

@VitaminC hm... that's neat. they do vote there, but there's no rep.

oh..they have 'karma'

user208178

yep karma is on comments. votes on questions.

user208178

there is voting but votes don't get you any privileges unlike here.

Mitch

7:52 PM

@VitaminC that might be a good place to redirect the SWRs from here in general.

@MattE.Эллен so is all the voting done yet?

TIPS

Yes

Mitch

and are the results in?

MετάEd

@Mitch They're still trying to change the convention voting rules.

Mitch

I want to know how to plan my vacation: if GB leaves the Union, how long will slavery really last

TIPS

@Mitch 2 minutes

Then only a mod can edit it

Mitch

7:57 PM

wait, that's not my question. I want to know when the price of hotel rooms will fall in London. Brexit soon but also no heat or water.

@TIPS That should be in the FAQ

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch not until 10pm Thursday

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I SE'd it.

3

Q: Expository/accessible source on computability/undecidability

Are there any expository books or articles on computability that are accessible to the general public on the order of Simon Singh's math popularizations (The Code Book)? I'm looking for one with lots of pictures/diagrams (like Scientific American graphics) and low on mathematical notation. It d...

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch if you mean the EU referendum

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I don't mean the anti-donut referendum because there's no concern that that might pass.

TIPS

@Mitch Time for another unpopular meta.SE FR

Mitch

8:02 PM

@TIPS creates new question

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch cool!

TIPS

@Mitch warm!

Why should cool feel better than warm?

This is racism

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the sun is warm but it gives you skin cancer.

TIPS

Because the coin has another side.

Sun is secretly a coin.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I tried flipping it but all that happened was I burned my fingers

TIPS

8:06 PM

You're doing it wrong

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I forgot the age old advice.

> It goes by many names: Apollo's lantern, day moon, old blazy. The important thing is, never to touch it.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Those couple suggestions were nice, but not very definitive. It may very well be the case that there's no such thing you can give your kids and say 'here, you might get something out of this'.

No one actually looks at links sent to them by their parents.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 'day moon', that's nonsense. And I suppose the moon is the 'night's day moon'? Where will it all end?

There's a language in the south Pacific in whose language all words end in 'food' (really, their word for food). It's naturally a food based culture.

@TIPS here you go...

0

Q: Redirect for SWRs?

It is a long standing annoyance that SWRs (single word requests), though unusually highly trafficked, the source for rep for many people, and having a few catchy interesting questions, they tend attract poor quality questions and answers which are often not to the expected standard of ELU. (just ...

discussion

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch you might have meant the USA presidential election

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch Hey, it's not my advice. Blame ol' HJS.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch due to the positive imbalance of doughnuts in the early universe

user208178

8:24 PM

@Mitch heh true.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I might have but that's not happening all today

user208178

@Mitch but Mitch there is one downside to it. I'll write my comment here since I don't go to meta. Feel free to disagree.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 High Jittering Synapses?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch nor's the EU referendum, that's tomorrow

Mitch

Harry J Struman?

@MattE.Эллен Oh. never mind

Matt E. Эллен

8:33 PM

:D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен Are you worried?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I love science

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch The J stands for Jay

user208178

@Mitch Some people might feel unwelcome and leave ELU altogether. But yeah maybe ELU doesn't want such users. I'll give you the links if you want, on reddit there are Grammar, English learner's, Etymology, Lexiconicporn, Words for that, Wordplay, r/Vocabulary and what not. Everything.

user208178

I mean when I left here I landed there and on some other sites. I didn’t even feel the difference in fact it felt awesome except for the neato chat function that we have here.

user208178

8:34 PM

So there, my two cents. SE might lose customers/users.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 a little, but not really. it seems unthinkable that there are enough voters who want huge, unpredictable change.

user208178

But yes I see where you are coming from, many bad SWR there on the main.

Mitch

I thought it stood for 'J'. That is his parents never came up with the rest of the name to follow the initial J. SO it's actually not an initial. It's just a 'J'

@VitaminC Well, therefor the meta question to discuss those things. Anyway, people don't seem to care anymore.

user208178

Yeah.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен stirring the pot so to speak.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

8:36 PM

@Mitch He went on a pilgrimage to a hippy commune to find out what it stands for. It stands for Jay.

@MattE.Эллен But the polls seem to have it very evenly split.....

Mitch

actually if you don't, then things get kinda lumpy. and you get gobs of dry flour not mixing in.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And didn't enough people vote UKIP that you have Ukippers in the EU parliament?

Isn't UKIP all about brexit?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Maybe Britain and Quebec could get together. and hey, Scotland too. They could all whine (or is it whinge) about the French. Because you know how they are.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 we also have green party MEPs. I think the greens have one MP, I'm not sure how many UKIP have...

UKIP also only has one MP

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No but HobNobs is all about biscuits.

Matt E. Эллен

8:40 PM

UKIP is a vocal minority. I don't know about the polls though. They could be a bad sign, or they could just be bad polls.

Mitch

it seems like polls are hardly ever representative.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch Scotland is part of Britain...

Mitch

but maybe it's just the wrong polls that are vocal

@MattE.Эллен Ironic!

hah ah ha hhah h ah hahha

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Mitch

because if UK leaves EU, Scotland should totally leave the UK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

8:42 PM

@MattE.Эллен still... worrying!

@Mitch I was just reading an article about that, how Scotland and Northern Ireland will likely be strongly on the "remain" side, and if there is a brexit, their separatist movements will probably become stronger and may succeed.

Mitch

and then Fife would leave Scotland, and St Andrews from Fife, and the whatever that golf course is would leave St Andrews, and then the 19th hole would leave the golf course

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah, it's always bad when fascists get power. but then again we elected the Tories...

Mitch

'but this time we're good fascists. no worries at all if you're one of us!'

also, the uniforms