« first day (2091 days earlier)      last day (2831 days later) » 

12:11 AM
This looks like all he wrote on the matter. and his suggestion is to add the s after the apostrophe, unless it's ce or ss and change the pronunciation alongside it. Am I parsing that correctly? I may be missing something about the context of cases or misunderstanding the word coalesce.
*es, not ce.
It's also possible that the suggestion is incomplete regarding our specific context since perhaps because the s isn't added, the suggestion doesn't even apply. =\
 
12:26 AM
@tchrist I believe many people do write Socrates's.
 
@Cerberus Really? I don't pronounce the possessive any different from the nom/voc. Do you?
 
Yeah, now that makes sense I guess. That's a common linking example in all of your examples. Seri[es], speci[es], Socrot[es], Dirty Kne[es]. So it's written Socrates'.
And it would be Morris's.
 
Yep.
So many folks have forgotten that speech is primary.
 
I'm not really saying it has anything to do with pronunciation though.
 
It has everything to do with pronunciation and nothing to do with anything else.
And that is what people have forgotten.
Because they have come to expect that English may as well be Chinese.
 
12:35 AM
They used to say the written word was primary
Actually wasn't that one part of the French enlightenment?
 
If people forgot it before the time of Webster I don't really care because the man's influence was so pervasive. I mean nobody writes publick anymore.
 
Only in the composite sorts of primary schools.
@Tonepoet Unless they've publicked something.
 
People write 'picnicking'. More felicitous orthographically
 
Jinx
It's the rule.
 
Publicked is a word?
 
12:38 AM
Yes.
When you can't drink another pint.
 
When served by a publickan
 
Publickers are just there for a taste.
 
@tchrist I may.
At any rate, I know both pronunciations are in use.
I seem to remember Fowler has an article about it.
 
Then to thine own self be ever true.
 
I believe the extra s to be a bit more traditional, in certain cases.
 
12:46 AM
Ah, I have Fowler's Modern English Usage 2nd ed. on hand...
 
And, yes, it ought to reflected in pronunciation.
Good.
You know what the problem with many authors of style guides is?
 
Socrateases sounds like something hemlocky.
 
They can't write.
Or, at least, they lack outstanding wit and style.
 
I am too tired to traipse down in search of F.
 
12:49 AM
Hahaha. Doctor heal thyself. Critic critique yourself. Fisherman ... um ... fish for yourself?
 
@tchrist Example from your own region.
 
Nothing about it here. Sobriquet, soccer/cker, sociable social, sociologese, soldier.
 
All I care about is what I myself say. Nothing else will shape my spelling.
 
I let spellcheck check my spelling
 
@tchrist But perhaps you will think it less outrageous.
 
12:51 AM
All I care about is a good meal and a long nap
 
After all, I'm writing down what I'm saying not what someone else is.
 
> "I only speak in quotes"
 
N.s.
 
NB
 
12:57 AM
Have you looked at "possessive s"?
It's not specific to Socrates.
 
Ah, right.
 
Did we discuss 'pizzazz' yet?
Or Thomas Szasz?
You know, if it weren't for global warming, a south seq island doesn't sound so bad.
 
Spellings don't matter. Speech does.
 
Maybe except for a good supply of sunscreen
Also seafood is high in cholesterol.
 
"1. Sepitmus's, Achilles'. It ws formerly customary, when a word ended in -s, to write its possessive with an apostrophe but no additional s, e.g. Mars' Hill, Venus' Bath, Achilles' thews. In verse, and in poetic or reverential contexts, this custom is retained, and the number of syllables is the same as in the subjective case, e.g. Achilles' has three, not four syllables, Jesus' two, not three. [...]
But elsewhere we now usually add the s and the syllable—always when the word is monosyllabic, and preferably when it is longer, Charles's Wain, St. James's St., Jones's Children, the Rev. Sepitmus's surplice, Pythagoras's doctrines. Plurals of proper names ending s form their posessives in the same way as ordinary plurals (the Joneses' home, the Rogerses' Party). For goodness' sake, conscience' sake, etc., see SAKE."
 
1:13 AM
I have never said otherwise.
 
The whole possessive puzzles entry is a somewhat too long to put here.
 
But nobody ever gets it wrong speaking.
 
I wasn't using that as a denial per-se. I just put it up because Cerberus mentioned Modern English Usage. . .
Socrotes' name specifically doesn't appear in this edition. The only other edition I have is the first (1926), which may be of interest since the second was revised by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 but I doubt it changes much. I know there is at least a third, if not more by now.
From the above, I might figure that it depends upon just how much you revere Socrotes though, or at least how much you respect the people who do.
 
1:48 AM
It has nothing to do with that at all.
 
Well perhaps not directly but it suggests traditionalism is the rule which affects the pronunciation even. There doesn't really seem to be much of another reason to make a distinction between Jesus', Thomas's and to borrow an example from the other day sis's.
 
@Tonepoet I knew it!
*Socrates
Thews is a nice word.
 
How many Mercedes do you know?
 
How many Medes do you know?
 
Two: One's a goddess and the other's a car company named after her. =P
 
1:53 AM
Fewer than I know Persians.
But that's the answer right there.
Knowing one Mercedes is good, but knowing two Mercedes is much better because it shows what's really happening here.
Those sorts of words don't change their sound for a plural inflection. And therefore neither do they for a possessive one.
 
A goddess?
 
Surely you cannot imagine anyone talking about Aristophanesneeze’s plays!
 
I can.
 
Aristophanes?
 
Gesundheit.
 
1:57 AM
Well, not nesneeze.
Aristophanes's.
 
I've never heard anybody add another syllable to those.
That's all I'm saying.
I certainly don't.
 
I do hear for goodness es sake though, even though Webster's rule seems to suggest it should be spelled goodness'.
 
What was the fate of Ulysses? Ulysses’ fate was to wander lost for twenty years returning home from Troy.
@Tonepoet Impossible.
Nobody but nobody but nobody says for goodnesses sake.
I'll believe Socrateases before I believe goodnessessesses.
ake
 
Well if I find a recording, I'll be sure to take note and show you a nobody then.
That'll be a long time from now though.
 
The straws want to be free.
 
Because that's what people say.
What confuses you here?
 
They pronounce Jesus' name differently depending on the context?
 
Well of course.
We very often pronounce things differently depending on phonological context.
Your fundamental error is thinking there is an answer to be found in writing. There isn't.
If I had an apple for every person who wrote a apple and said an apple, I'd be in cider heaven.
It's like how two lives and life’s end are pronounced differently. Same with wolf and moth and house.
Unpuncted: nobody says for jesuses sake they say for jesus sake so that is what they write
 
Pluralization and possessiveness are different though so there's a semantic distinction to be made with those latter examples.
 
aN apple
 
2:45 AM
Hence why I said latter.
 
This is all about language not writing.
Think about the Pyrenees’ highest peaks. Nobody adds another /iz/ there.
Which is why it isn't *Pyrenees’s.
 
All of this Greek gives me a headache. XD
 
It's all about speech.
If you have one Japanese and another such joins them, you now have two Japanese. You do not have two *Japaneses.
 
Except the Pyrenees mountains aren't greek.
 
Neither are all those Japanese.
Or several slobbering Pekingese.
 
2:53 AM
Japanese is an adjective really, with the people lopped off. =P
 
You're not even trying.
 
Well I suppose we do say Americans so.
 
Just give it a few decades; pretty soon you'll think you were nuts ever to write something that didn't line up with what you actually say.
 
Bleh, part of the problem is what I actually say seems inconsistent with what other people actually say, somehow...
What is the plural possessive of Japanese anyway?
 
And that somehow matters?
 
2:58 AM
Given that I don't know what could've possibly influenced me except for other speakers, yes.
 
1. the kiss touch
2. the kisses touch
Which do you say for the possessive?
 
2...
 
So why wouldn't you think you should write the kiss’s touch again now?
 
Because it ends in a double s, apparently.
 
In a month you shall have forgotten this week you have struggled with the possessives’ simplest spellings.
 
3:04 AM
@Tonepoet The reason is probably that the next word in this fixed combination, sake, begins with an s. For Jesus's sake would be many s's.
 
@tchrist If it was that simple, I wouldn't be lamenting over why the word is spelled colonel but pronounced kernel.
Or why lecher won over letcher.
 
@Tonepoet We have always said it that way.
 
@tchrist Tonepoe is right: one generally does not add 's to an adjective to make it possessive if the adjective itself can also express that possession.
 
Funny how people who don't know how to read and write still manage to pronounce things right. :)
 
I always spell it letcher just to bring it in line with the pronunciation anyway.
Since I know that was a valid spelling at some point.
 
3:08 AM
> But elsewhere we now usually add the s and the syllable — always when the word is monosyllabic, and preferably when it is longer
 
Species and series are not monosibs.
 
@Tonepoet How do you spell lichen?
Liken?
@tchrist Kiss.
 
No flirting in this chat.
 
If I knew what a lichen was I'd tell you. =P That isn't to say it's my first time seeing the word, but I was never curious enough to look up what it was.
 
I wonder how you say lichyard.
I bet Andrew knows.
 
3:12 AM
Is that like a graveyard full of skeleton wizards?
 
Ever Cerb knows that word.
But he might pronounce it differently. :)
Yes, a lich yard is where the bodies are kept.
 
ich
 
lijk that
 
/'lɪtʃ.jaːd/
If it contains liches.
Indeed, lich = lijk in Dutch.
Or its etymological aequivalent is.
It just means corpse in Dutch.
> Over mijn lijk!
 
hah
 
3:18 AM
I wonder where this expression originates.
 
Over my dead body?
 
Ja.
 
You'd have to kill me to get there.
 
It sounds natural and old to me in both languages.
 
I rather imagine.
 
3:21 AM
So I wonder about its provenance.
 
Well, I come from a background heavily influenced by games so my only concept of a Lich is like Xykon from Order of the Stick. Granted, that's not the only example but it's perhaps the most noteworthy. I would've never thought about the etymology of the word until today.
 
Greyhawk, Gygax and Kuntz, 1975.
Everything after that was strictly derivative.
 
Maybe not that far back. I know Dungeons & Dragons is heavily influential, but I'm more into audio visual entertainment. One of the big reasons why is that finding people to play board games among my friends was difficult, even for just Monopoly.
 
Granted, part of the reason for that is because nobody actually knows the rules to Monopoly, so the games take longer than they should take to complete.
 
3:33 AM
And also because Monopoly was created as a demonstration of why excessive capitalism makes the world a boring place.
 
The story I've always heard is that it was created as a way for people to feel rich during The Great Depression but without a source on hand, I can't proclaim any validity to that claim though.
 
@Tonepoet I meant that I remembered it from there from when it came out about a half a block from me.
 
Ah...
 
Monopoly is a board game that originated in the United States in 1903 as a way to demonstrate that an economy which rewards wealth creation is better than one in which monopolists work under few constraints and to promote the economic theories of Henry George and in particular his ideas about taxation. The current version was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935. Subtitled "The Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game", the game is named after the economic concept of monopoly—the domination of a market by a single entity. It is now produced by the United States game and toy company Hasbro. Players...
 
I was just researching it and apparently there was an earlier version called The Landlord's Game..
The Landlord's Game is a board game patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie as U.S. Patent 748,626. It is a realty and taxation game, which is considered to be the direct inspiration for the board game Monopoly. == History == In 1902 to 1903, Magie designed the game and play tested it in Arden, Delaware. The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners...
And I've got to go. It has been pleasant conversing with you folk.
 
3:54 AM
Vale!
 
 
4 hours later…
7:34 AM
[ SmokeDetector ] Blacklisted website in body: When we organize a team by ylfifacoins on english.stackexchange.com
 
Muphry's Law at work: "it's rare to see people with excellent grammar, and disturbingly large number gets even the basics wrong" – Why do so many native English speakers have poor spelling and grammar?
 
7:49 AM
17
Q: Can a placeholder text be added to the question body box?

curiousdanniiI posted this suggestion to another post, but thought it would be worth its own separate feature request. Is it already possible to add a placeholder text to the question body box, or would the SE developers be able to add this functionality? If so, we can then discuss what the text should be. T...

 
8:33 AM
I wrote an answer under a question on StackOverflow. Now OP leaved this comment under my answer: "Could you please elaborate?" .. What's his mean?
I mean: leaved = simple past of "leave"
 
8:53 AM
left
Guys, if I say "I wish your family is ok", does that include the person I'm telling that? in a sense he is part of his family, but I'm not sure
 
@caub thx for the tip :-)
 
 
1 hour later…
10:27 AM
 
 
2 hours later…
12:33 PM
What is the top right one? foreign exchange?
 
12:48 PM
@RegDwigнt Those look like very genuine children's scribblings.
What with the coat of arms and all.
Hmm, they don't seem to be real. Alas.
 
The ones at the right? They only seem to be too adjusted to the dimensions and design of the bill. They could be real though.
 
1:05 PM
Yeah, I wouldn't have been surprised if Holland or some Scandinavian country...
But no, they're not real.
 
Iguess so too. But why so sure?
 
Oh, I forgot to link the page.
I found a page that explains how someone designed it as an alternative.
 
The thickness of the lines don't change. That could be a sign.
Oh, so that settles it.
 
> Quand un illustrateur serbe décide d'imaginer la nouvelle identité visuelle du Dinar serbe, il le fait en rendant hommage à la faune de son pays. Milos Zlatanovic, basé à Belgrade, a conservé la couleur des billets de 50 et 100 dinars et a représenté un ours et un vautour illustrés dans un effet crayon de couleur.

Une idée originale qui casse les codes des tendances graphiques des billets de banque.
 
The bear and the bird are too well-drawn compared to the whatever it is on the back
 
1:29 PM
It's art.
Abstract.
Those paintings are sold for millions.
 
Can you use if nothing as an adverbial phrase at the beginning of a sentence to mean something like among other possible reasons?
 
Example?
 
Mmm...
 
+ Do you think they will get back together?
- Sure. If nothing, they still love each other.
 
1:31 PM
If this can be sold for 50 million...
 
Seriously?
I'm not that surprised though.
 
I don't know how much, but at least for millions.
Nor I.
@Færd I don't know, that doesn't sound idiomatic to me.
If nothing else is an idiomatic phrase, but I'm not sure whether it would fit the context.
 
I guess among other reasons works.
But I wanted something to to correspond with if anything.
Never mind. I guess it's not idiomatic.
 
Perhaps it would help if you first made it clear what you wanted this phrase to express.
 
Let me give you another example:
2 days ago, by Færd
I guess Dutch and German are quite close? If not anything, this one's English name is like that one's German name!
The if not anything part.
That gave me shudders right after I said it.
 
1:38 PM
And how would you explain what you wanted to express by that phrase?
Because there are several possible interpretation of the conexion between those two sentences.
> if nothing else
> at least
 
If there's only one reason for the statement that I'm about to make, it is ..... , but I think there are more.
 
Ah OK.
 
@Cerberus Yes.
 
Then think I those two two phrases could work.
 
Thanks!
 
1:41 PM
I think I would expect a noun group after nothing else, but I suspect other people use it more freely.
The same applies to if anything before after a clause.
 
If nothing else sounds normal enough.
 
I would want it to be parallel with the subject or some object.
Rather that with a clause.
 
I didn't say it was fabulous there.
 
Do you agree with LDOCE where it says:
> if nothing else: used to emphasize one good quality or feature that someone or something has, while suggesting that it might be the only good on
 
I would probably say if for no other reason.
 
1:43 PM
Examples of if nothing else: google.nl/…
 
@tchrist Perfect.
 
@Færd Mmm less than perfect as a description, I would say, but generally correct.
@tchrist Yes, followed by than that if it precedes the clause.
 
Because if for no other reason suggests that there probably are other reasons, but, according to that definition above, if nothing else tends not to suggest that.
 
@tchrist Or if only because.
 
Yes.
 
1:46 PM
@Færd If nothing else can suggest that, but it depends on context: if it is parallel with other things that can be reasons, then yes.
 
Yeah.
 
> So you're going to Switzerland? Are you interested in architecture? I recommend Geneva. You will certainly enjoy the lake, if nothing else.
 
Nice example.
Yesterday and today I went to two reputable English teaching institutes in Tehran, hoping for enrollment in their advanced courses. But instead, they both offered me to take part in kind of a teacher training course for a while and then be employed as a teacher.
I feel as though I cannot learn anything by spending time at those institutions.
 
Hmm.
 
If they don't want me as a student, but a teacher, I mean.
 
1:54 PM
Ah OK.
Well, that is possible.
Have you looked at the advanced courses and what they would teach a student?
 
Yes, I know what books they teach.
Textbooks. Ick.
But it's sad to have to learn a language without using your mouth or ears in a live conversation.
 
It's still much better than not learning at all though.
 
Heh. I'd say so.
 
It depends on what you want to use the language for.
But in general I think a combination of immersion and study, and of production and reception, is the most efficient.
 
What kind of English are they teaching? Simplified English, which is also known as V.C.R. manual speak?
 
1:59 PM
Unlikely.
 
@Tonepoet Is that like Simplified Chinese?
 
I have no idea, since I'm monolingual.
 
No, there are decent textbooks which try to teach day-to-day English in a most normal, natural way.
 
Oh good, because I was imagining that if you had to teach simplified English, it would torture your soul.
 
I believe it.
 
2:03 PM
Thank you.
But as a newbie they will have me teach first graders I guess.
 
@Tonepoet You seem like the kind of person who would enjoy knowing more languages.
 
And it won't necessarily be a torture. Teaching simple things is not necessarily simple. It can be fun too.
But it may not help me deepen my knowledge of English. Kind of a dead end.
 
Well I would like to know Japanese in particular, because my hobbies revolve around it but I'm somewhat too dense for that. Both of my parents were polyglots at some point in their life, but I don't know my father too well, and my mother forgot her alternate tongues because they fell into disuse.
 
@Tonepoet If you live in a large city it should be easy to find classes, maybe even some good free classes.
 
@Tonepoet To watch animes?
 
2:08 PM
Yeah, it would be to watch anime and play video games mostly.
 
What is your favorite anime?
 
I haven't watched one in a while and there are a few I like but the one I'd recommend most is Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
 
in vano animam suam
Wait, wrong poster.
 
It's called Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika in Japan, but I figured I'd say the English title first 'cause it has bits of Latin in it which might interest Cerberus. =P
 
Is there a manga version of that too?
 
2:15 PM
Actually, one of the things that makes M.S.M.M. so unique is that it's not an adaptation.
I think there is a manga now though.
 
I watched a few animes some years back. Manga are simpler, as opposed to some animes that are too elaborate and want to make you too emotional etc. Manga can be easier on my poor nerves. :)
 
Aaah, well then Azumaga Daioh would probably be easier on you then. It'd make tchrist spew though.
 
Just my taste. Don't mean to impose or judge anything.
 
I thought anime = cartoons and manga = comic books. can manga be animated (i.e. cartoons) too?
 
@DanBron No, your first impression is right.
However, most anime is adapted from manga.
 
2:18 PM
oh, I see
I wish the West had embraced cartoons for adults more fully. We're getting there, but it's an underdeveloped medium.
 
My boys are enchanted that manga are read "backwards".
 
I don't tend to enjoy anime very much. Some are great, but the general melodrama and slapstick turn me off.
It's too exaggerated.
@KitZ.Fox That trips me up sometimes when I see screenshots or whatever on the net. I get the punchline before the setup...
 
Yeah.
 
@Cerberus I think people should endeavor to forget languages.
Two many cooks spoil the broth
 
maybe you should wash the cooks before putting them in the broth
 
2:20 PM
@KitZ.Fox Agnam? That is enchanting!
 
you could peel them, but then you lose a lot of vitamins.
 
@DanBron Point taken, but, then you lose a lot of the savory character.
//jinx!!!
 
@Mitch funneh. It's so they don't have to reset the illustrations.
 
maybe just velcro their pockets shut first. that should keep the vitamins in.
 
That reminds me that Tokyopop used to put little warnings in the front of their translated manga telling you to start from the other side, because they avoided flipping the art.
 
2:21 PM
yes. most manga are like that.
 
couldn't they just mirror-image the pages?
that seems straightforward.
and lossless
 
@KitZ.Fox Reset? It's not like the days of print folios where you had pages printed on 2x2 or 4x4 and had some complicated combinatorial algorithm to place the pages so that when you folded twice and cut, the pages all fall in order.
 
That cook-pealing would make a great manga story.
 
Lossless isn't necessarily true. I vaguely recall there's a painting that's famous for looking awful when flipped.
 
this is the effing 21st century! we can just do the pages in reverse. With numbers and stuff.
 
2:23 PM
it puts the margarine on its skin or it gets the hose again
@Tonepoet Would be interested in seeing that if you can dig it up.
 
@Tonepoet I like to read things backwards anyway. You get the punchline first, then try to figure out how they got there. Then you laugh when you get to the start.
 
Also, people want to see the art as it was originally drawn regardless.
 
@Mitch It still requires work.
 
@Tonepoet I'd like to see that. Any clues for a google search?
 
I'm more nervous when I know the story, like when I'm reading/watching something for the second time.
 
2:24 PM
@DanBron You're a poet and you don't know it.
@Færd Also if you read starting from the end, if the exposition isn't doing well you can give up, satisfied that you know the important part of the story.
 
@DanBron I can't remember enough about it. All I remember is that it utilized sun rays coming from a window, and if I recall correctly they were shining on a sitting woman.
 
So there are a few examples in literature of stories that are presented 'backwards'
Was it Beckett? Or Pinter? Something called 'Be... something'?
 
Nonlinear narrating or something.
 
A seinfeld episode based on it
@Færd actually purely linear just in reverse
 
@Tonepoet Most stories I like can't be judged by how they end.
 
2:29 PM
Call no story happy till it is ended?
 
@tchrist Rather, you can't judge a book by its back cover.
 
Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship, face-saving, dishonesty, and (self-)deceptions. Inspired by Pinter's clandestine extramarital affair with BBC Television presenter Joan Bakewell, which spanned seven years, from 1962 to 1969, the plot of Betrayal integrates different permutations of betrayal relating to a seven-year affair involving a married couple...
 
Sometimes the whole thing gives off an atmosphere that can't be absorbed and appraised by just knowing the ending.
 
@Færd With movies, sometimes you're not sure while watching if it is going to be good or bad, but need to reserve judgement to see how it ends before the real judgement.
for a movie driven by plot
when you can't tell if it's cliché or not until the knot tying it off comes at the end.
 
Plot is not as much of a limiting factor for literature as it is to cinema.
@Mitch But if the rest of the story is good enough, you can think of a better ending for yourself, and then you've got yourself a great story.
 
2:34 PM
The problem with Cinema is the high entry cost. After-all, who can afford to drop. 11 mil. without guaranteeing a good return profit on the investment?
 
@KitZ.Fox I'm thinking naively, there's a file format that presumably (if it is not already formatted by page) to reformat algorithmically for the other direction, and also presumably, that algorithm is not that complex, and presumably some one (the publisher's formatting software) has programmed that once.
 
Um. OK.
 
@Færd Well, that's a moral hazard for writing good stories. If the author thinks "oh well, I'm tired thinking about wrapping up this plot whole. Forget it. My readers will figure out a better one."
...then why bother writing at all. In fact, there will be just readers, with nothing to read.
 
@Tonepoet That's why so many great movies are made in less wealthy areas of the world. Lower stakes.
 
Wait...
hahahah. I just made up a whole story. Funny. Except everyone dies at the end.
I just wrote a tragedy where everyone survives at the end. That's how bad things are.
@Færd More constraints breed creativity
Counterexample: serial music
@Færd Or also if you're only gonna make one work of art because of resource constraints, you're gonna try to make it great.
 
2:39 PM
@Mitch We've got a regular Douglas Adams here!
 
I'm off for my afternoon nap. Let's continue in my dream.
 
@Tonepoet Adam Douglas by written books the love I
 
Yeah, that sounded wrong to me so I was looking it up. XP
 
Which is almost the right grammar for a fully right branching language that no one ever would want to learn.
Or is it left? Probably left.
@Færd If you see a flock of seagulls taking off from a beach and then you walk into the house you lived in when you were 5 years old, that's us at the table.
@KitZ.Fox What kind of work?
 
Mornin.
 
2:49 PM
G'morning and top o' the day to you.
 
And the rest of the day to yourself!
 
And now I"m wondering why the time of the day we most often call good, is a homophone for a synonym for grieving.
 
is it a cooincidence?
 
Mr. Etymonline suggests that it is.
However, given that it apparently took 100 years for the morning to first be described as good, well, maybe it's not as coincidental as the etymology suggests. =P
 
To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I were selling buttons at the door!
 
3:12 PM
Hi all, I have a resource request which I figured I'd throw up here after reading this meta post: meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/2253/….
I am looking for a fairly comprehensive txt or pdf list of English idioms (and maybe also proverbs) which I can use in constructing a dictionary for a program I'm writing. I wouldn't necessarily need definitions in the list, although I wouldn't mind them. Does anyone have any suggestions of where to find such a list, or an easy way to generate one?
 
3:25 PM
@Silenus Well it's tricky because many things are protected by copyright. If you don't mind something a little over a century old I think perhaps Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable might be a good place to start though. It probably won't be too problematic in my opinion, since most idioms are "old sayings".
Granted, since it's a dictionary of phrase and fable, it might still have noise.
 
@Tonepoet do you mean mourning vs morning? I think if you read carefully, or even cursorily, there is not the slightest suggestion of mourning or anything so depressing. Also, what 100 years? What start and what finish?
 
@Tonepoet, thanks for the suggestion and links... These are very helpful!
 
@mitch Well, less than 100 years. Morning: "Mid 13th century" Good Morning: 1400
And yes, I mean morning and mourning.
@Silenus You're welcome to it. I'll try to see if I can think of anything better. Brewer's dictionary looks like it's more fable than phrase. Hmm...
 

« first day (2091 days earlier)      last day (2831 days later) »