English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:57 AM

How loathsome.

I'm thinking it's a trick question trying to lure us into advocating freedom of expression not to spell things write.

Freedom of speech is very important.

But the wording of the question pushes one into favouring censorship.

It pretends to offer a binary dilemma.

There's a reference about community building I may try to dig up that applies here.

1:23 AM

blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/02/leggings-jeggings-meggings

That's just a random link.

> Neither of the fundraisers has even put on a pair of skis or salopettes, but they intend to glide down the slopes with ease in the 26 mile event.

> Like many young people I ignored advice not to wear winkle-pickers, stilettos, and high platforms, and boy am I paying for it.

> Some of the high sorselet bodices permit of nothing more than a small guimpe with sleeves.

> Thongs, monokinis, bikinis, trikinis, pubikinis, tankinis are the revealing “ins” for the first summer of the millennium.

> Standish had brought them to a stop outside a dimly lit café that appeared to be closed, except that a burly drunk in a dark reefer jacket had just wandered in unopposed.

What does it mean to print something up? I can't seem to find it in dictionaries or perceive any difference from simply print in the examples I see online.

That's an interesting question.

@tchrist There's no way for me to grasp what they mean unless I look them all up in Google Images.

It means in a jiffy.

You want that while you wait? I'll print it right up for you. Won't be but a minute.

@Færd Me neither, but I'd just guess. :)

Does this come from the up?

1:37 AM

Yes.

I'll have that right up for you, sir.

Strange prepositions.

The OED may have something on up that applies.

Well, it's not a preposition, really.

Thank you.

You aren't sending it up the chimney.

There's no stranding of an imagined object. It's an intensifier.

In modern terminology I meant. Although I'm not taking sides.

1:39 AM

It modifies the verb.

Often we call such things adverbs.

Yes.

It's one of those separable ones in this case.

I can print up an order for you, or I can print you up an order.

Dative alternation, or whatever Lawler calls that.

@tchrist ahem. Where is your dissertation for the moderator Q & A?

I see.

@KitZ.Fox What, did others turn theirs in already? It's been like 4 hours, no???

1:42 AM

@tchrist NVZ has three answers done already.

I'm just pulling your chain.

looks for the Adderall bottle

I mean. NVZ does have three questions answered, but he's the only one what done something.

Not true. I told Grace about the spelling error. :)

You know what I mean.

Ok, coffee at least then. And vim. I can't edit real text in a toy web widget.

1:44 AM

Oh, now I feel bad. I was just teasing.

I was fixin' to tuck myself in pretty soon now.

I had wanted to answer them all at once, not tricklishly.

That makes sense. Sleep on it.

I have a several-hour energy surge in the morning. Dusk makes my brain droop.

there's a word for active at dawn and dusk. my boys have told me it

Crepuscular.

1:48 AM

crepu

yeah that

Cats are crepuscular hunters, man and wolf cursorial ones.

Which are like category errors, but so it goes.

The parallelism only works if you don't know what those words mean. But both parts remain true.

crepuscular makes me think of red blood cells for some reason

corpuscles, maybe?

Or very big French pancakes.

snerkle

That's funny.

It's from the crepuscule, a Latin word for gloaming.

1:50 AM

what is 'cursorial' then?

I love the word gloaming.

It means we hunt down our prey by endurance running.

oh

mosquitoes are crepuscular

Cursor Mundi was the Runner of the World.

for at least one of dusk and dawn

1:51 AM

It means we're runners.

Cats are sprinters, not runners.

Most people don't know gloaming, only twilight.

Gloaming is about the glow of the first light, or last.

The gleam.

Gloaming is nice because it is really a word straight out of Old English, with only minor spelling changes, and completely regular ones.

@tchrist Would you mind if I asked it on one of the main sites too?

I think I learned it from a movie with Glenn Close called In the Gloaming. About a family coping with a son dying of AIDS or something, iirc.

2:07 AM

ouch

@tchrist What are you on about now?

1 hour ago, by tchrist

Loathe is a verb.

Loath is an adjective.

This is the most ridiculous orthopedic convention I've seen. Adding a silent e to make something a verb?

We've always done that.

Because it used to be pronounced.

So we didn't add a silent e.

breath

breathe

2:12 AM

Cloth, clothe.
Breath, breathe.
Wolf, wolve.

Knif, knive

Aye.

knaf, knave

Naff.

Are you sure that's a naff? I could go on all night.

2:14 AM

House, house.

When you change an f into a v it changes the pronunciation at least.

Well, house and house change pronunciation.

The verb is voiced, the noun is not.

life, live

@tchrist Pronunciation has been a wreck for a while.

Wife, wive.

Shelf, shelve.

There's no wreck here.

Hmm...

A: "E" at the end of words to make a word

2:16 AM

Mouth, mouthe.

:)

Just kidding, Mister Chaucer.

calf, calve

half, halve

6

(The key elements of the answer to this question are given in the comments following it. This answer ties them together and adds some more detail.) If you look at a fuller range of examples— calf, calve; grief, grieve; half, halve; life, live; proof, prove; safe, save; serf, serve; strife, st...

Why do you continue to make a distinction between v and f like I don't know 13 dwarves from one dwarf?

goof, goove

@Tonepoet Walt Disney didn't.

@tchrist Yeah, I know it's variable too. I think Tolkien may have had some influence on the matter but I forgot how.

He did.

Before him, there were very few instances of dwarves. But he had always formed the plural along the lines of wolves and elves.

It was one of the hundred thousand million things that the "proofreaders" screwed up with his manuscript.

Today, the dwarves form is perfectly common, and quite acceptable.

Except to them elfs.

2:22 AM

.

Oh sorry, you're not a native speaker. Yes, it is, unless you are parodying speaking with an accent.

I realized it after posting it. :)

A: Why is it "dwarves" and not "dwarfs"?

17

In Appendix F, Tolkien suggests that "dwarfs" has become associated with more childish stories, so his use of "dwarves" is meant to disassociate his race from the others (bold is my emphasis, italic is Tolkien's): It may be observed that in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used,...

> Still I rather wish I had used the word dwarrow.

user227867

Hi @kit. I am going out to see my friend now. Bye.

Remember that the Elves called Khazad-Dûm Moria, which was not a nice name. In the Common Tongue, it was the Dwarrowdelf, where delved the dwarrow.

Moria basically meant a black chasm.

2:27 AM

So "always" means rooves and gooves and such too?

Always what?

No. The plural of goof is goofs.

6 mins ago, by tchrist

Before him, there were very few instances of dwarves. But he had always formed the plural along the lines of wolves and elves.

You don't voice the f there.

@tchrist Interesting.

But roof is a funny case. Most people pronounce it voiced in the plural.

2:28 AM

I guess gooves wouldn't sound goofy enough.

No one would know what it meant.

Hmm I think I say roofs but hooves.

Rooves sounds so very much like reeves.

Right. Rooves is an old spelling.

It really depends on whether it's a long vowel or a short one.

I meant say, not saw.

Hoof goes to hooves, but most people have a short vowel in both.

21

A: Plural of "roof"?

Rooves is not wrong per se, but extremely uncommon nowadays. Here are the stats from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus: COCA BNC roofs 2307 653 rooves 1 5 The Corpus of Historical American English has 6 cites for...

I must confess that I’d always thought it really was rooves, if a bit old-fashioned like striven or trodden. Some folks find my roof, rooves, roofed, roofer already exotic, since I have the PUT vowel there. OED gives citations for the 1300s and 1400s, plus these from the 20th century: §1903 Dialect Notes II. 352 ― Roof, n. pl. rooves. Common plural in Mass. §1938 C. Himes Black on Black (1973) 165 ― W’en de panic cum an’ de Lawd tek yo’ food an’ yo’ clothes an’ de rooves off’n yo’ haids, den laff. — tchrist Nov 20 '12 at 23:01

In Australia, in my experience, the situations are reversed. Rooves is far more common, and I have been taught roofs as being incorrect. — cortices Apr 12 '15 at 9:57

2:34 AM

I think the problem with me is that the pronunciation differential between loath and loathe is smaller than in the other words. Merriam-Webster's pronunciation key shows that loath and loathe can both be pronounced the same way.

/loʊθ/ is the adjective.

/loʊð/ is the verb.

loath

Adjective: loath ‎(comparative loather, superlative loathest)

unwilling, reluctant; averse, disinclined
I was loath to return to the office without the Henderson file.
1911, Jack London, The Whale Tooth
The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful. Sometimes, when the harvest was too plentiful, they imposed on the missionaries by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a barbecue.
(obsolete) hostile, angry, loathsome, unpleasant

> Often confused in meaning and pronunciation with loathe, a related transitive verb.

I was looking at Cambridge's pronunciation key first and theirs is also regionally inconsistent.

Loath and both are perfect rhymes.

The only regional difference I know of is in spelling.

> This spelling is about four times as common as "loth" in the UK and fifty times as common in the US.

Loath: UK /ləʊθ/ US /loʊθ/ formal [Loathe:verb [ T ] UK /ləʊð/ US /loʊð/](dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/loathe)

That's correct.

The adjective has a minor spelling variant in loth akin to both.

2:41 AM

What's the difference between that ə and an o?

There is a perception that RP has a higher diphthong than General American there.

cloth, clothe

Schwa

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (/ʃwɑː/ or rarely /ʃvɑː/) (sometimes spelled shwa) refers to the mid central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, denoted by the IPA symbol ə, or another vowel sound close to that position. An example in English is the vowel sound in the 'a' of the word 'about'. Schwa in English is mainly found in unstressed positions, but in some other languages it occurs more frequently as a stressed vowel. In relation to certain languages, the name "schwa" and the symbol ə may be used for some other unstressed and toneless...

However, that's just phonemic. The actual phonetics are a bit more abstract, and vary somewhat by region as well.

And now I'm lost.

blames Comcast

Look at where the RP version starts the diphthong in from both. It's more central than in the American version, which is further back.

The US version is to the right of the UK one. That's the difference.

2:49 AM

I feel like an illiterate person.

How come?

Because I've never really studied how to read pronunciation keys, whether it's in I.P.A. or any other system.

International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects

It takes an hour or two to learn.

This concise chart shows the most common applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent English language pronunciations. See Pronunciation respelling for English for phonetic transcriptions used in different dictionaries. AuE, Australian English CaE, Canadian English GA, General American InE, Indian English IrE, Irish English NZE, New Zealand English RP, Received Pronunciation (Standard in the United Kingdom) ScE, Scottish English SAE, South African English SSE, Standard Singapore English WaE, Welsh English == Chart == This chart gives a partial system of diaphonemes for...

Which one is correct?
- Might you want to take a look at it.
- May you want to take a look at it.

The first is a question, the second a command or wish.

2:58 AM

aha ok :)

Neither is normal.

well, what's the normal ver?

Would you like to take a look at it?

The might version feels very formal, but I'm not sure why.

Oh I know.

No do-support.

Do you think you might want to take a look at it?

I don't want to ask any question, that's a comment. So is this good?

Using might you for do you think you might is very formal or old-fashioned or polite to the point of stand-offishness.

3:00 AM

> You might want to take a look at it.

That's ok.

great

But you could also say You may want to take a look at it.

aha ok

The may version is a bit less iffy than the might version.

It means that you probably should.

Well, "means" is a strong term.

It can mean that.

Most people would never consider one being any different from the other.

3:02 AM

I see

Uhm, I tried to move this discussion into a chatroom...

The initial inversion confused me, thinking it was a question.

@Tonepoet We're already in one!

Erm, I mean...

@Tonepoet But you still need a third site, for native English language speakers that are not linguists and do not consider themselves "serious" English language enthusiasts. OR you need to change the description of one of these sites. — pabrams 4 hours ago

a pretty similar comment:

Jul 4 at 17:55, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shafizadeh may means permission. might means possibility. Either way is probably fine, but the "into table above" part is wrong. "in the above table" is probably what you want, but without context it's hard to tell.

Q: What's wrong with the sentence "I got so many requests to make some Valentine's Day treats.", if anything?

0

The word so feels wrong to me, but I can’t articulate why. I hear this pattern (I got so many requests to X.) frequently on a particular Youtube channel and I always think to myself You got so many requests that what? Some definitions for so use it as above, but they tag it with the word ‘inform...

language

There we go.

3:04 AM

"You may want to" and "you might want to" are super close.

@Tonepoet I think you can create a room for continuing the discussion when it prompts you to.

@tchrist what's the meaning of "super close"? It means "bad"?

No, it means very very similar.

oh, I guess it means near

@tchrist aha ok

Yes.

What's your first language?

Persian

3:06 AM

Oh, that's Indo-European. Distant, but not unrelated completely.

:-)

We have several Persian regulars here.

but I think that's completely unrelated :-)

@tchrist really? who?

They change their names all the time, but one was just on.

aha ok .. nevermind

3:07 AM

Well, I'll typo them.

Færd is one.

ah .. I see .. I will talk to here if I see him online here later

Persian is down in the lower left, English the far right.

yeah ..

Does it mean the Persian is older than English?

Oh, I don't know.

It was where it fit. :)

:)

3:10 AM

So just because Italian is at the top does not mean it is somehow a "new" language. Just ask any Roman.

Yes I think Italian is one of the oldest

What's interesting is which languages' borders touch each other for some distance. That indicates some mutual intelligibility.

English has none.

Or maybe it just indicates they ran out of space. :)

hah .. so English is the language of the God .. Because it is alone

@MartinAJ all languages spoken today are of the same age.

@Mitch got it

3:14 AM

a language may be 'conservative' meaning that it hasn't changed much over a given amount of time.

Sardinian.

Italian, of all the romance languages, is probably the most conservative, most like latin.

Ahem.

I don't know much about Sardinian

The phonology of Italian and Spanish are much closer to Latin's.

Than say French.

Sardinian language

Sardinian (sardu, limba sarda, lingua sarda) or Sard is the primary indigenous Romance language spoken on most of the island of Sardinia (Italy). Of the Romance languages it is considered the closest to Latin. However, it also incorporates a reduced Paleo-Sardinian (Nuragic) and Punic substratum, and a Catalan, Spanish and Italian superstratum due to the past political membership of the island, first gravitating towards the Hispanic sphere of influence and later towards the Italian one. Sardinian consists of two varieties, each with their own literature: Campidanese and Logudorese, spoken r...

3:16 AM

also Italian is weird because it is almost a made up language out of all the dialects that have happened over the years in the italian peninsula

"Island Romance" -- doesn't that sound exciting?

> Sardinian is considered the most conservative Romance language,[16] and its substratum (Paleo-Sardinian or Nuragic) has also been researched. A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):

> Sardinian 8%, Italian 12%, Spanish 20%, Romanian 23.5%, Occitan 25%, Portuguese 31%, and French 44%. For example, Latin "Pone mihi tres panes in bertula" (put three loaves of bread [from home] in the bag for me) would be the very similar "Ponemi tres panes in bertula" in Sardinian.[18]

Oh wow.

Ponme tres panes en bolso.

could stay up all night talking about it..but its the staying up all night that's the problem...

@tchrist No, I mean I did make a chat-room, gave a link for it, and the person I made it for didn't seem to join and is continuing to make comments addressed to me. What do I do?

3:22 AM

later

@Mitch night

I know comments are not for extended discussion so I don't want to make direct commentary.

@Tonepoet Have you flagged it?

No because I want input, so I thought I'd ask directly.

I guess I will though.

That's probably best. You don't want to draw it out any further.

3:24 AM

Custom flag or too chatty?

I'd do a custom flag.

Thanks.

> Genetic data on the distribution of HLA antigens have suggested a common origin for the Basques and Sardinians.

That's bizarre.

Sardinian used Latin ipse to make its article from, not ille like most of the rest.

The Catalan in the Balearic Isles also took theirs from ipse.

@tchrist ^Definitive =P

?

3:34 AM

Hmm, I'll link you to an answer I'm planning on making eventually that explains it, later.

> The five vowels /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/, without length differentiation.

Oh that's nice and easy.

You using the words ipse and ille just triggered a memory is all.

4:00 AM

@tchrist They could be remainders of one and the same substrate people.

@tchrist That's funny, not suus?

Is this a correct sentence? "Why that happening happens?"

I'm afraid not.

Paleo-Sardinian language

Paleo-Sardinian, also known as Proto-Sardinian or even Nuragic, is an extinct language (or perhaps languages) spoken in Sardinia (and possibly Corsica) during the Bronze Age, which is thought to have left traces in the onomastics of the island and in the modern Sardinian language. By the third century, Latin had become the language of Sardinia, and the old language(s) survive mainly in toponyms, which appear to preserve grammatical suffixes, and in a few names of plants. == Classification == === Pre-Indoeuropean hypothesis === There is toponymic evidence suggesting that the Paleo-Sardin...

> si stima risalga al 3500 a.C. La stele si trova a Mamoiada, all'interno del giardino privato in cui è stata rinvenuta in modo accidentale nel 1997 durante i lavori di costruzione di una casa. Per via delle sue dimensioni è da ritenersi unica in Europa.[senza fonte]

Il megalito ha un'altezza sopra suolo di 2,67 metri, una larghezza massima di 2,10 e uno spessore di 0,57 metri non uniforme;

It's nice to find a 5500-year-old menhir in your garden.

user227867

7:47 AM

Hi. I just met my friend and got back home.

user227867

@Cerberus Not nice for me. Takes up useful space.

8:07 AM

Hey guys, I've got a question. How many people does it take to close a question currently?

I think it's 5, assuming that a moderator doesn't intervene?

user227867

8:27 AM

@Tonepoet Yes. It seems you never sleep.

Yeah!

user227867

Are you sick or something? Is that why you don't sleep properly?

I am robot.

user227867

I am superhuman.

user227867

Today is Debian's birthday, and I am using Debian now.

8:37 AM

I'm on Ubuntu.

A Debian derivative.

user227867

I hope the next Debian release is good. This one is not so good.

Though I don't know much about Linux other than it's free and it works until I can get my next windows computer working.

Hey Jasper, have you ever played The Battle for Wesnoth?

user227867

Nope. I have never played any computer games, if that is what it is.

I know it's a relatively popular game among the linux users. It's included in a few distros. if I recall correctly.

Yeah.

I guess that's one major difference between us.

user227867

I feel very lonely these days. I think I need a girlfriend.

user227867

8:40 AM

But I can't find one until I'm well enough.

user227867

I currently have 24 math books. I hope to study them all from cover to cover soon.

user227867

They take up exactly one row on my shelf.

Hello.

I have question, wether saveable is a word or not? e.g. in context as is it saveable?

@Eugene dictionary.com/browse/saveable

If it's in the dictionary, it's a word. If it isn't, it might still be a word but it's harder to check.

Is it trustworthy resource?

user227867

8:45 AM

I prefer checking reputable dictionaries.

I'd drop the E.

The American Heritage Dictionary 5th Edition accepts either spelling though. The A.H.D. is probably the most trustworthy dictionary of the modern era I.M.H.O., due to the usage panel's efforts.

user227867

I think if I were to buy one big hardback dictionary, it would be Collins English Dictionary.

user227867

It is available at collinsdictionary.com though.

user227867

I currently have a paperback Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

user227867

It is available at oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com.

8:49 AM

Collins says: Derived forms -> savable (ˈsavable) or saveable (ˈsaveable) adjective

@Tonepoet so it also seems, that both are okay or you still think, that E should be droped?

user227867

The good thing about collinsdictionary.com is that you get the French, German, Italian, and Spanish dictionaries there too.

user227867

@Eugene When the dictionary says both are OK, it means both are OK.

I still think the E should be dropped but let me check my Webster's New International Dictionary Second Edition to see what it says about E dropping.

user227867

Different dictionaries will of course have different entries.

I know there's a section regarding orthography (the art and theory of proper spelling) in the front.

user227867

8:51 AM

But following any single reputable dictionary will do just fine @eugene.

user227867

Words change over time. Dictionaries are a reflection of the changes.

Okay. Thank you guys

@Eugene For the most part, yes. My main point is that if searching for "define WORD" brings up several dictionaries with entries for that word, that's as good an indication as it is possible to get that the word does, in fact, exist.

user227867

I am very proud that I can spell pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

user227867

Also, floccinaucinihilipilification.

8:54 AM

Brain...error...404...brain not found

This is too much

user227867

@Eugene I lost my brain long ago.

I'm not sure whether language should be so complicated :)

user227867

You misspelled whether twice.

If a person tries to tell me something in one word and during, that time I go to sleep, well....

@Tonepoet Huh, it looks awful to me without the e. Also consider shareable, for example.

8:55 AM

@JasperLoy darn. You are correct sir.

I found the orthography section in my Webster's.

user227867

The spelling of diarrhoea looks awful to me too.

And the spelling ain't the worst of it. . .

@terdon shareable has a very different meaning in comparison to saveable.

@Eugene Yes, but a similar spelling and is a word constructed in the same way.

user227867

8:57 AM

If you are not comfortable with the spelling, rewrite the sentence to avoid using the word.

@Tonepoet on the other hand, apparently, savable is slightly more common than saveable.

@terdon 10 Yeah, I just wanted to be sure. The silent e is usually dropped when the suffix starts with a vowel.

@Eugene you might also want to consider salvageable which is a more common word and has almost the same meaning.

user227867

There are often simple solutions to complicated problems.

It makes an example of salable. (Sale-able)

8:58 AM

@Tonepoet Is it? I was trying to come up with examples but only found share.

user227867

I use very simple words in all my writing.

Salable is a good point.

user227867

That's why I won't do too well on the verbal section of SAT or GRE, because I know only very few words.