@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No problem. The link highlighting can be easy to miss.

@Mitch To be exact, I did attend a class, but it didn't seem worthwhile.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm, if Canada has kept the monarchy out of indifference, then the Australian referendum on the monarchy indicates that the issue is more polarising in Australia.

@samayo Think of it as an event like the birth of each (individual) child. Instead of "happy christening" or "happy baptism", try "congratulations" instead.

I mean, we don't usually see "happy giving birth to your third son" cards when people give their well wishes to the happy parents.

"Congratulations on the birth of your third son." would be more idiomatic.

@MetaEd Uhuh. Too bad it's so expensive: if they could sell a million, I'm sure it'd be cheaper.

@Lawrence I wouldn't say we've kept it out of indifference. I'd say we've kept it out of inertia, and because there doesn't seem to be a clear value proposition in changing it, and because some people are sentimental about it.

If the issue was forced to a referendum in Canada, you'd get some people excited about change or maintaining tradition and those people would loudly state their cases. But most people wouldn't care at all as the monarchy is simply not relevant in their lives.

They'd just look at the costs to change, and the risks.

\o

@DEAD Haha :) . Hmm, in the event that voters can't be bothered to research who they are voting for (or to at least read even just what the candidates claim about themselves), is there any reason to favour compulsory voting or non-compulsory voting?

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in link text in body, pattern-matching website in body: Smart Life had been administered as a ring-fenced life-insurance license by a large South African insurance company by Robert B on english.stackexchange.com

@Lawrence "Active" is not a synonym for "compulsory", and "should" does not actually mean must. When I read that strip, I supposed that it primarily meant engaging in active efforts to inform yourself, especially through studious efforts to verify claims.

@Tonepoet I took the punchline in the US context, where it's said that many citizens already know which party they'd vote for if they decided to vote, and that a large part of the effort in elections is to convince people to vote, which is quite a separate issue from convincing people to vote for them. With compulsory voting, the former is simply unnecessary. My question sprang from wondering whether there was a difference in the net effect, purely on the issue of apathy.

@Lawrence It is quite a separate issue. Separate enough that I'm not sure I can reconcile it with the generalized context of the comic, which suggests censorship as a solution for idiocy, and presumes that somebody is listening to those speeches for some reason. Gullibility seems to be the target vice. It almost makes sense if you consider censorship as a method of preempting the prejudice, but compulsory uninformed voting wouldn't take much time

@Tonepoet Yes, that's what I meant - my thoughts were tangential to the comic itself. The comic was quite humorous; I didn't expect the punchline.

@Tonepoet I was expecting the punchline to direct the machine at its advocate.

@Lawrence I was also thinking that this time around, although I knew better since I've seen it somewhere before, which was almost certainly not on the author's website. XP

@Tonepoet I didn't catch the heavy emphasis on censorship per se, though now that you mention it, it's become obvious :) . The message I thought it was trying to convey was that politicians come up with silly ideas, and those ideas should be nipped in the bud, hence the frame talking about the machine pointing at their mouths. ...

... As I understood it, the artist was saying that it would be best to nip such silly ideas in the bud, but the community would rather someone else spent a lot of time and money on it, than to individually take a little effort to choose their leaders wisely, taking the idea of nipping things in the bud to a more effective point.

It's related to the idea that "there's never enough time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over." (Link to an example)

@Lawrence Hmm, I read the comic in a very different fashion than that. I figured the artist was trying to make that solution seem overly complicated, when it would be better solved by taking the time to do some research.

"Stupid" might be a code-word for lies, darned lies and statistics, or trite nicities. =P

@Færd so how did you learn English?

@Mitch At first, with English scientific books (physics, math, etc), because translations weren't always available or adequate.

Then fiction, audiobooks, sometimes movies, etc.

Did you ever live with English speakers, to get full immersion for a non trivial amount of time?

Except for the time that I spent with the aforementioned British teacher, no.

Unless it counts as trivial.

> agony: Extreme physical or mental suffering

> agonize: Cause mental anguish to

pfft

You may want to consider torture for the "cause extreme physical suffering" thing.

Which is interesting, because one agonises when one tortures oneself (over a particularly difficult decision, for example).

Yes. Just wanted to point out an inconsistency.

But I guess both work for both mental and physical suffering? What makes each specific to one kind of pain?

@Færd The continuous tense returns the physical to its semantic range.

@JasperLoy Hi Jasper.

@Lawrence I'd simply define agonize as subject to agony, and provide other usage preferences (which I guess are absent here) in sidenotes or examples.

Dictionaries can benefit from being simple and straightforward.

@Færd That doesn't bring out the subtlety that you noted previously, which was that while agony can be applied to both physical and mental anguish/suffering, agonize only refers to the mental. I was just pointing out that agonizing expands the semantic range to again include the physical.

So you agree with the differences between the definitions.

@Færd The one I linked to? Yes, I agree that it's accurate.

That gravitar bug has finally hit my gravitar. It's fine in chat now, I think, but on Main it's gone funny.

But only in the black menu bar (at the top of the page).

> agonize: to cause to suffer agony : torture

I like this ^ one better. ;)

I agree that usage tends to associate agonize more with mental pain, but it doesn't mean that it can't be used for physical pain, does it?

@Færd That dictionary entry includes the other forms under the main heading. Can you find any examples that use the word agonize in relation to physical pain?

M-W is a bit shy of good examples. ODO has this problem too.

One might argue that agonize can be used for extreme physical pain only because it induces mental pain. That can be right, but I'm not sure.

@Færd It doesn't have to be a dictionary entry. None come to mind at present, which is why I'm asking if you have (or can find) some examples. A positive example would validate the position that agonize can be used in a physical context.

I'll have to look for it.

@Færd On second thought, it's not the continuous tense that widens the semantic range. It's the use of the word agonizing as an adjective that does that.

Why isn't it sufficient that agony can be used for both?

Is there no logic behind the derivation of agonize from agony?

In a typical native speaker's mind, I mean.

@Færd Since the dictionary entry only includes the mental aspect, it's up to whoever asserts otherwise to demonstrate it.

@Færd I think native speakers tend to go more by familiarity than from first principles when talking about how words are used.

Try translating some of these sentences (above) into your native tongue.

Then check whether you went through first principles to pick the words, or whether they just naturally fell into place.

I'd expect it to be the latter.

Right?

Sometimes first principles are so familiarly used that they become second nature. There's not a sharp boundary between them and familiarity.

@Lawrence Usually the latter, occasionally the former.

@Færd Ok. Well, the point I was trying to make was that if a particular word has a 'usage hole', then the term simply loses that particular sense. This is what makes your initial observation so interesting. The hole appeared in one derivative, then seemed to close up in a further derivative. (However, I expect to be told that agonizing derives from agony, rather than from agonize.)

Hmm. If there is positively a usage hole, I won't argue with that.

@Færd I think there is, so I agree with the dictionary on this count. I'm open to being shown otherwise, though.

I'll have to look for it in corpora, but I have to go now.

Great talking to you.

Bye! :)

What about it?

He's right.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Talking about arbitrariness: it seems the new Nexus phones will be called Pixels instead.

Seems rather pointless and confusing.

@Cerberus So you like his answer?

@tchrist I think his comment is fine, yes.

You don't wonder whether he used the wrong box?

He might have added that there can be pragmatic/illocutionary differences, though.

Oh.

Well, it's short and perhaps a tad simplistic for a full answer.

He'd improve it with time. He often does.

@tchrist Why have you corrected I'm into I'=”m in the original post there?

bcecasue y canned typo.

:)

I hope that wasn't too harsh.

Alas, there is no preëxisting post notice containing that text. I wonder whether I might convince some drunken CM to edit one of ours accordingly.

The intended target might not catch it without you pinging them.

Targets.

What I feel is that the because clause often comes at the end to introduce an unknown reason, while as and since are more apt for reminding about known reasons at the beginning of the sentece.

BTW.

There is something to what you say.

There are some speakers, though, who never use as to mean because under any circumstances.

Just as there are many who never use for in that sense.

Since either?

No, since is commonplace.

Phew the ELU tags are a mess

Always have been, pretty much.

Askers seldom know how best to categorize their questions.

How should they, there are almost no indications how to use the tags

I just tried to enhance the "phrases" tag

english.stackexchange.com/tags/phrases/info

Main problem, I didn't even find proper example questions

The questions are truly all over the place

Unsurpisingly, eh.

@Helmar Enhancing tags is a killing task.

My advice, go answer some SWR's. Your time would be better spent.

Jaded veteran.

SWRs. shakes fist

:D

@tchrist Veteran, hardly.

renames single-word-requests to gone-fishin

We have three tags in our top 20 that are completely interchangeably used: expressions, phrases and idioms

And that's not even in the depth of taxonomy hell where such things as request reside

That shows you're still not frustrated enough.

That was totally accidental, I wanted to see what kind of request tags we have and that bugger came along too.

> It would seem, therefore, that if we allow our readers, by virtue of being in the company of the historian, to eavesdrop on this interchange, we will have, in one scene, discharged two obligations; a sacrifice, if we may say so, to the god Brevity, whom all historians, indeed, all who work with the written word, ought to worship. We cannot say too little on this subject.

Does the god of brevity have a hell? ;)

Is not the comma the paramount punctuation mark?

@Helmar You can ask a question on Meta suggesting that [request] be burninated. First, though, there should be no questions using it. (Over to you to retag)

@tchrist No, no; thrice no!

@tchrist Yes, it, is.

With punctuation there's usually a mountain of commas involved.

I feel like, adding random, commas for, emotional, effect.

Hmm... you may just have destroyed your case.

Each of Paarfi’s multitude is better placed than all of yours combined.

Well, if, i, have, trouble, breathing, those, commas, appropriately, show, my, speech, pauses.

But it destroys the grammar. Use ... proper ... pauses.

That is (and watch my lips): Use. Proper. Pauses.

Commas, schwommas.

You have to be orderly when you pile up that many clauses at once; otherwise they’ll fall over.

> It is partly an homage to Alexandre Dumas, père's novels about the Three Musketeers, and is five volumes long, following the pattern of Dumas' series. The books are presented as historical novels written by Paarfi of Roundwood, a Dragaeran roughly contemporary with Vlad. Paarfi's old-fashioned, elaborate, and highly verbose writing is explicitly based on Dumas', ...

Can mods rename tags?

@Helmar s/the ELU//g

@DEAD The emotional effect being... asthma

@Helmar Yes.

If memory helps

@Helmar wit is more of a purgatory for those who've heard all those puns before. sigh

@Mitch :D

@tchrist Gilded lily

@AndrewLeach Is burninate SE slang?

Yes. It means completely destroy, possibly even to the extent of being blacklisted.

@Helmar Yes. It means . . . burninating a tag.

Nuclear option for tags, perfect :)

@AndrewLeach Can't mods just burn the tag with one click?

I guess then it would be easier to go to [untagged] and tag those.

I'm usually more comfy doing it that way anyway.

That's not the way it works though. We can't remove tags in use.

Or rather, a tag in use remains in use.

@AndrewLeach You can't?

Weird. That's not how I remember it to be.

Now you can ;)

Burnination and blacklist requests always escalate to the Community Team.

Oh, you haven't got the two keys.

Hm, okay

Should we add the SE meaning to this question?

@Helmar Where should we add it?

hm, second answer besides a 30 accepted looks strange, on the other hand I kinda feel like elu.se should hold that information

@AndrewLeach If you kick out half the question, kick out the tags too ;)

@Helmar There you go.

:)

@Helmar I think it would be better to post a comment to the answer suggesting an edit, perhaps with the addition of a "destroy it with fire" definition, rather than forcing it through. Justify it as the answer being incomplete otherwise. If it's never added, the comment will never become "obsolete". The alternative is to try and see if there's anything that used it before Homestar Runner, although that would prove difficult...

@Helmar It's not that tags are totally and entirely worthless, I suppose there must be some redeeming quality to them. I guess. They could very well be central to something that is useful for people. But whatever those good reasons are, the execution is just not doing it for me.

@JasperLoy I hate to nitpick but Oxford is terrible at naming, so I feel compelled to note that the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is not to be confused with the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. One is a huge book with fine print that contains the whole O.E.D. 2nd Ed; the other is a small hardcover that's even smaller than the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and largely the work of Catherine Soanes.

Oh geeze, I didn't even think of that! XD

Naaaah... They probably just ignore the titles and go by the International Standard Book Number. =P

I don't normally buy new books.

Well, even if you were rich, you'd need to find my address. =P

@Tonepoet I'll do that