English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:25 AM

@ktm5124 Good!

@ktm5124 Like the founding myths of many nations!

America.

The Arc of Noah.

Yeah, just like America too :)

It's a dangerous idea, that a chosen people get to conquer the indigenous people of their new land.

Genesis = Stories of Adam/Eve, Cain/Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

At least most nations have now moved past that idea.

Exodus = Escape from Egypt, God reveals himself at Mount Sinai, building of the Tabernacle.

Leviticus: Practices, codes of conduct.

I can think of one, though, that still thinks it ought to conquer the promised land.

Israel?

Numbers: The Israelites depart Mount Sinai, and fail to enter the Promised Land, because they're afraid and don't trust God.

12:32 AM

Ding.

yeah :/

it's sad how the oppressed became oppressors

power corrupts absolutely?

there's a theory about the cycle of victimhood and victimization

That it is inheritable?

You treat others the way you were treated?

Yeah

I'm not sure whether that's the case here.

But it's still annoying.

The US is in a weird position to judge, since we did it on an even larger scale.

12:37 AM

You mostly just continued the work of the Europeans before you in the New World...

That's true.

But you know what's really hard to wrap your head around?

The Torah has one golden rule and one million dollar question.

The golden rule is, "Love your neighbors as yourself"

The million dollar question is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" which has received a unanimous "Yes" from rabbis world wide

So if Judaism is based on loving your neighbor as yourself, and looking out for ALL who are in need... why isn't Israel kinder to the Palestinians?

@ktm5124 The Lord Acton quote is about the absolute power of papal infallibility.

> I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than…

@tchrist I think he's generalizing in part of that letter. "Great men are almost always bad men..." is referring to all men in power.

It makes me think of the debate between Foucault and Chomsky, about whether reason can uncover justice. Chomsky says it can. Foucault says power defines what's just or not.

I tend to see both in my life. Even on the level of individuals.

@ktm5124 Yeah, those rules are just very general.

Very general rules are often not very effective or predictable.

@Ceberus That's true. I don't give money to all the homeless people I see.

It's an ideal that we can cherish but only approximate.

12:46 AM

Right.

But it is ironic. Because "Love your neighbors as yourself" applies very well to Palestine.

The homeless aren't my neighbors... but Palestinians are neighbors to Israelis.

@ktm5124 I think you may be right.

@tchrist I like that quote, because I see it with people who are highly accomplished. Sometimes these people have very high self esteem, but they don't help the self esteem of those around them.

Either group might be one's neighbours.

Yeah, the Palestinians should also obey that clause.

12:54 AM

@ktm5124 The Wise are cautious dispensing counsel.

@tchrist Hah, that's true. Does it sound like I'm dispensing counsel?

If counsel is given but caution dispensed with, it is unlikely to come from the Wise.

I'm not really giving counsel, though.

I'm just quoting others.

No, I was talking about the people you reference.

Foucault and Chomsky?

12:57 AM

"People who are highly accomplished". It is its own peril.

Oh, I see.

I think that highly successful people sometimes don't respect those around them (like their families, who can suffer).

That can happen anywhere.

I think there's a trend in the States of people moving farther away from religion.

But one of the sad consequences is that we forget the messages of our religions.

Like, how no matter how important you are, value others above yourself.

That depends how you look at it, whether they are or not. Certainly many pretend otherwise. But that's a basic and essential human value that doesn't need a religion behind it to be perceived and understood.

Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to be dirty, or rude, or unkind.

Someone who's fit to sweep your kitchen floor is fit to sit at its table.

Courtesy is not a function of wealth.

But I think it's a value that has to be taught somehow.

1:05 AM

From your parents, is the only place it can be.

Not all parents are created equal.

If it is part of your family ethic, then you will internalize it forever.

Hard to rely on families to bring up children.

But you will not learn it in school. You will learn it from those you love, or you will not learn it at all.

@ktm5124 That's their job. That's their only job.

I think we also learn from mentors.

Not just family.

1:07 AM

Sometimes.

And role models.

Hence the importance of how professional athletes conduct themselves.

And pop singers.

A lot of girls probably love Taylor Swift more than they love their parents.

I have no idea who that is.

But anybody who chooses "athletes" or pop singers as their role model is a fool.

4

Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's eponymous debut album in 2006 marked the start of her career as a country music singer. Her third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Hot Country Songs chart...

Ick, please.

I have learned from those I hate too.

1:09 AM

I do not use "fool" lightly, nor often.

But I stand by my statement.

People have forgotten what heroism actually is.

Or who are fit to be called heroes.

And role models.

None of these "pop" ephemera have anything to do with any of that.

People on the whole are not heroes, and they are given freedom of speech; they have a voice. So it's no surprise that today's heroes and role models are different from yesterday's.

The rules have changed; turned upside down somewhat.

I don't see how that's so.

Without copyright, people's "heroes" would no longer be those who covert attention for the money so much.

We might get better heroes.

Than Aung San Suu Kyi?

She's all right.

1:21 AM

Madame Curie?

The Dalai Lama?

Although does not particularly care for the oppressed Muslim minorities.

At least I think they're Muslim.

But, yes people like them.

Pretty sure none of them care about copyright.

People who aren't Taylor Swift (although I know nothing about her).

Exactly.

Buzz Aldrin.

Is he the astronaut?

1:22 AM

Yes.

Better than some football player, I suppose.

Sportsmen would probably make less money without copyright.

Although I'm not sure what percentage comes from television rights and television video ads, and what from visual advertisements.

Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson. John Muir. Walt Whitman.

Socrates. Leonardo.

But who are the common man's heroes nowadays?

I've named mine.

Socrates or Britney?

You're not common enough, I'm afraid.

1:25 AM

I don't know even know who "Britney" is.

Too uncommon.

Rare, one might say.

avis

Britney Spears, the singer.

An avis you certainly are.

In the Germanic sense.

Oh, is that what she is? I thought she might be an actriz.

Rare vogel.

Maybe she also acts, I don't know.

You know what een rare vogel means?

A strange bird = a strange person.

1:26 AM

Literally, but not idiomatically.

Behaving weirdly.

Strange old bird is a collocation.

Or odd, etc.

Ah, yes.

Alan Turing.

So Germanic.

That is, I am not aware of this connotation of bird in Romance.

I could be wrong.

1:28 AM

@Cerberus Do you advocate against copyright?

Hah. Do you speak German?

"Odd old bird" is purely Germanic, but seems completely like a rara avis to me, although that's more of an especially rare find in a soul.

> B. Comically, for a man in the garb of a bird: "Sed quae nam illaec est avis, quae huc cum tunicis advenit?" Plaut. Poen. 5, 2, 15.

Oh, it's Dutch.

And A?

1:29 AM

@Færd Sort of. I want it at the very least radically changed and reduced, but I'd happily vote for its abolition.

A is just an animal.

> Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cycno.

Poor Juvenal never went to Australia.

Do we not have black swans in Europe?

No.

That would explain Popper's example.

I have to admit I've never seen one.

But I though I knew they existed.

It was a catch phrase for the impossible.

1:31 AM

Or the extremely rare...

This looks funny.

Black swan theory

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying which presumed black swans did not exist, but the saying was rewritten after black swans were discovered in the wild. The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and...

Lewis & Short apparently don't have an icon.

> The phrase "black swan" derives from a Latin expression; its oldest known occurrence is the poet Juvenal's characterization of something being "rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno" ("a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan").[3]:165 When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed not to exist.

Falsifiability

Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is the inherent possibility that it can be proved false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an observation or an argument which negates the statement in question. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning to invalidate or "show to be false". For example, by the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as All swans are white, since it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term...

@tchrist Yes, I understood that.

@Cerberus There might be pros too, but I don't know if copyright is to be exercised worldwide, how people of poor and subdued countries can develop in many ways.

Science and technology, particularly.

1:39 AM

Is to be?

Copyright does indeed hold poor countries back, having little access to modern scientific research.

I guess not.

Any people here play chess? on chess.com?

I know it's a non sequitur, but I was curious ;)

The pop madness is not about copyright.

I'm sorry, I suck at chess.

Last I played chess was, mm, 15 years ago?

1:44 AM

I appreciate it in theory, though.

@tchrist It is amplified by copyright.

@Færd I'm sad to say that I may have to say the same. Terrible.

Does anyone play Bridge?

My grandfather did, but I don't :(

Another non sequitur. I was thinking about dipping my toes into Attic Greek.

Cerberus, do you know ancient Greek?

I used to play this as a 10-year-old, with delight and enthusiasm: bridgebuilder-game.com

Or maybe I was a little older.

But I guess that's totally irrelevant to what Cerb asked about.

@ktm5124 Yes.

You should!

1:52 AM

Is it a lot harder to learn than Latin?

I had 5 years of Latin in school, so it was easy to pick it up again. But no education in Ancient Greek.

Well, you need to learn the alphabet first, and you will recognise far fewer morphemes from English and French that you did in Latin.

I have a pretty good grip on the alphabet.

Good!

I checked out a book called "From Alpha to Omega" from my library.

I also have the Ancient Greek Alphabet course on my Memrise app :)

Good.

You could try doing the exercises/translations from the first chapter of that book.

1:54 AM

Yeah, I've had a little trouble finding time.

I think the hardest challenge will be learning to pronounce Greek words. Because from what I read, the words are pitch-based.

grave, acute, and circumflex

Does that prove to be a really big obstacle?

Nahh.

I have read classics.

How did you learn Greek?

Speaking Ancient Greek Chapter 1 Alpha and Beta Stories - Re-recording

And we don't even learn the accentuation properly (only cursorily).

So you can ignore accentuation for now.

First in high school, then university.

►

This is someone reading the first chapter from the book Athenaze, which is I believe popular now among those who wish to learn Greek.

His pronunciation is not very good, but that doesn't matter. You could even turn off the sound and just look at the text.

2:15 AM

"nice going" means "good job" ?

@Cerberus Thanks!

I really appreciate that link.

Black swans are not true black swans

@Shafizadeh Depends on context.

@Shafizadeh Yes.

Or what Lawrence said

2:32 AM

E.g. someone brings out the tea and drops the kettle vs someone takes a calculated business risk and succeeds.

Or what Mitch said. :)

wait... what?

What what? Who what?

the first one was not nice going or a good job and the second one was nice going and a good job

They both could be applied to the first sarcastically. (Not that I'd recommend more sarcasm in the world.)

@Shafizadeh They both mean, as stand alone two word phrases, 'You've done well"

2:38 AM

@Mitch My reference to your comment was that both "nice going" and "good job" can be used in both contexts.

@ktm5124 Cool!

@Cerberus You're conversant with both Greek and Latin?

Now that's cool.

@Lawrence Neither can be used in the first case. That person dropped the kettle. They blew it. Not a good job or nice going at all!

@Lawrence Well, it depends on your definition of conversant!

The two languages are normally learned together in my country.

3:19 AM

@Cerberus It always used to be that way, although by Mom's generation they only got to take Latin when you lived in a small rural community. I don't know about cities, but I'm dubious.

The two languages are taught together in gymnasia, the highest type of high school, which is now booming (partly because it attracts a "white" crowd).

About 10% of all children attend a gymnasium.

So if you meet 10 children aged 13-18, one will know some Greek and have read bits of Homer (probably).

@Cerberus Prep schools, but this time with clothing worn.

3:34 AM

?

I always get symposia confused with gymnasia. :)

But seriously, it's a "prep school" sort of thing to have enrichment courses like those.

> To be sure, any educated American needed Latin and Greek to enter college, but Latin was commonly charged with being irrelevant, poorly taught, and dull.

> At the turn of the twentieth century, more than 50 percent of the public secondary-school students in the United States were studying Latin. Until 1928 Latin enrollments in U.S. secondary schools were greater than enrollments in all other foreign languages combined, and in the mid-1930s the number of Latin students rose to 899,000.

> This is not surprising, since Latin was commonly required for admission to college and was seen as the mark of an educated individual. Latin continued to be the front-runner for about another twenty years, until Spanish took the lead.

> Latin has made a remarkable comeback in U.S. schools at the start of the twenty-first century. In many districts it ranks as the second most popular language–second only to Spanish.

Read more: Teaching of Latin in Schools - Enrollments, Teaching Methods and Textbooks, Issues Trends and Controversies - Students, Language, University, and Classical - StateUniversity.com education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2160/…

@Cerberus For when you rise.

3:49 AM

hi guys

what it is difference between the following two sentences?

I plan to do something

I will do something

It is his intention to do something.
He is going to do something, will he or nill he.

4:40 AM

Is there anyone which is familiar with iOS? (I bought a ipad mini 2 recently and I have 1 question about it)

@Shafizadeh what is your question?

@CoKoder the iPad mini comes with EarPods?

I don't see any in the box

@Shafizadeh no I do not think so. Check it out this unboxing video: youtube.com/watch?v=x4d4u4lMDVc

great .. thx

@CoKoder And one thing else, what's apple ID? Actually I want to download something and it tells me you need an apple ID. Is that free? And what should I do?

@Shafizadeh see this: google.com/…

@Shafizadeh apple Id is your password for Apple

@Shafizadeh yes creating apple id is free

4:50 AM

thank you so much

@Shafizadeh your welcome.

caub

6:51 AM

Reuleaux triangle

A Reuleaux triangle [ʁœlo] is a shape formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its center on the boundary of the other two. It is a curve of constant width, the simplest and best known such curve other than the circle itself. Constant width means that the separation of every two parallel supporting lines is the same, independent of their orientation. Because all its diameters are the same, the Reuleaux triangle is one answer to the question "Other than a circle, what shape can a manhole cover be made so that it cannot fall down through the hole?" Reuleaux triangles have...

a round triangle

9:25 AM

why is it the best?

> the simplest and best known such curve other than the circle

how is that judged?

9:44 AM

@MattE.Эллен Out of all curves of constant width, and besides the circle, this is the simplest and the best known. Maybe it's best known because it's the simplest.

Giving a mathematical definition of simplicity wouldn't be so easy. It may not have been defined, or may have several definitions; I don't know. But you can correspond it with the minimum number of words/lines required for a particular computer program to produce such a curve.

do they survey people regularly to find our which curves they know?

I don't think so.

so it's just a guess

it doesn't really add anything to the explanation, that's all. I wondered if there wasa justification for it

"simplest" at least seems quantifiable

They know each other, talk about these things all the time. Could be that it's not a wild meaningless guess.

I mean there are scholars who follow these subjects as a profession.

well, if you showed people a sine wave and a reuleaux triangle, which would they recognise first?

bell curves are far more well known

9:49 AM

A sine wave is not a closed curve of constant width.

Out of those, this triangle may be second best known.

lol. ok, fine. in that tiny category, I guess it could be second best

:)

Is it tiny?

How do you measure that?

in terms of all the shapes in the universe

I don't think so. It's not that simple.

you asked me.

9:51 AM

You know that the set of all whole numbers and the set of all rational numbers are of the same size?

yes

But one doesn't expect them to be.

if they don't already exist, they don't fit in the category

If you find a continuum of these closed curves, then there are as many of these as there are sine curves.

I have a hunch that you can find such a continuum.

I have a hunch you could prove such a continuum possible, but you would actually find all the shapes

9:54 AM

By introducing a real variable that doesn't harm the constantness of their width.

There may be several, or infinite number of such continuums.

that still doesn't put the shapes in the universe

For all I know, of course. :)

Is there a real circle in the universe?

Or a real square?

yes. things that we call circles and squares exist

No, the simple, exact shapes exist in our minds. We model what we see, smooth the bumps, etc, leave out most of the details.

no. we call them squares, so they are square

9:59 AM

We are talking math. Geometric shapes have exact definitions.

anyway, this whole discussion came about because I misread "best known curve" as "best curve". It doesn't really matter and I want to go and shower.

Have a nice shower!

Curve of constant width

In geometry, a curve of constant width is a convex planar shape whose width (defined as the perpendicular distance between two distinct parallel lines each having at least one point in common with the shape's boundary but none with the shape's interior) is the same regardless of the orientation of the curve. More generally, any compact convex planar body D has one pair of parallel supporting lines in any given direction. A supporting line is a line that has at least one point in common with the boundary of D but no points in common with the interior of D. The width of the body is defined as before...

10:21 AM

@tchrist She represents the sole reason why some (many?) of us want to learn your language. Back then when I was (or tried to be) a teacher, she was the heroine of some of my students. Ugh. I could continue; that was just to give you an idea.

A: How should ELU deal with personalism?

11:47 AM

-1

Agree to disagree, cant agree more

I could care less! Literally! ... um ... cleave?

1:20 PM

@tchrist I'm glad that it is coming back.

A hundred years ago it would have been surprising for a small rural school to have no Latin classes, but today it would not be. Of course big cities are different, as our special schools.

The 1917 quote at the end from 100 years ago is poignant.

1:43 PM

@Cerberus Pretty much the entire high school curriculum is irrelevant and never ever needed in anyway by anybody in their future life, except maybe bio/chem/physics for the very narrow employment opportunities of health care and engineering, and in the humanities all I can se useful is foreign language. All else is simply marking time and maybe vaguely improving communication skills. But really, reading Dickens is just entertainment or marking time.

2:24 PM

@Mitch High school drivers-ed was pretty useful for later life. For me the programming class was important as a gateway drug. And of course four years of Spanish. The only thing useful I got out of junior high school was the typing class. I don't know that I consciously used the math, but you can't get anywhere without at least algebra. Other classes were fun, too.

@Mitch Then I think you vastly underestimate Bildung and what it means to be a free man!

I wouldn't want to be ruled by a politician who had not been taught basic history in school.

Or mathematics.

Or basic physics. Or economics.

Yes.

The sacred seven: the trivium plus the quadrivium.

Or who had never read a bit of good literature, to learn about the human condition and what's possible in life and in society.

@tchrist Hence "free".

2:28 PM

Hm.

That's like the cousin of your cousin's cousin.

Meaning, I see where you got to free from liberal arts, but my goodness no one else ever shall.

I even think many people understimate the practical use they get out of their high-school curriculum. They forget where they learned that light is a very fast beam, and that Hitler was elected democratically.

@Cerberus Trump: it's not just for Bridge any longer.

@tchrist That's what it means, no? The things a free man should know.

@tchrist I rest my case.

Liberty and liberal are now divorced.

"Liberal" has become a verbotten curseword.

A word can have different meanings.

2:31 PM

Good luck.

I bet you don't know this, but in many European countries, whatever passes for their high school there is often in fact equivalent to an American undergrad liberal arts degree in depth and coverage.

An American high school education is different.

Usually.

@tchrist Sure but typing and programming are usually electives in HS.

Perhaps they should not be. And typing should be earlier.

@Cerberus I'm not addressing the benefit of a liberal arts and sciences education. I am directly addressing the uninformed complaints of students everywhere of 'will I use this later in life?'. The answer for almost all things taught in HS is 'most assuredly not'.

Euclidean triangle proofs? No.

Factoring polynomials? No. ((these are some of the most elementary mathematical things taught that not even mathematicians use.

MετάEd

2:46 PM

@tchrist I use it liberally.

Also, progressive.

Which I use progressively.

And it goes all the way up. Even radiologists (MDs who specialize in imaging), arguably the most scientifically both broad and deep in medicine, have to do reappraisal ever few years in radiation physics and they all admit it is not used at all day to day.

Today is cynical Wednesday, right?

MετάEd

@Mitch Today is Superbowl Sunday, I think. I never remember exactly.

Of course if you don't know these things, it shows you didn't have the intellectual capacity to pass those hurdles, and so probably don't have the intellectual capacity for most modern employment activities.

19 hours ago, by Mitch

1 min ago, by Mitch

now you have me doubting myself