English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:03

@TannerSwett not particularly gruntled

Cerberus

You are a body, but you're a such.

Mitch

> Er hat keine furcht. Er hat keine angst. Er hat keine ahnung.

That said, I have keine Idee what you're talking about.

Cerberus

Now, now.

But where are the capitals?

Mitch

It's like I'm about to walk onto a subway train, and right in front of my feet I see a sign that is telling me something very important, some kind of warning, but it says 'mind'? Mind? Yes I'm thinking about that. 'The Gap'? That's a very famous store in US malls. Do they have them here? Now I'm thinking about the Gap and what mall it might be in in the Londen Area. Brent Cross?

Cerberus

@Mitch You're not a nobody, but neither are you a nonesuch.

@Mitch Oh, in what twisted ways your square little mind works.

Mitch

00:13

As these strange new thoughts swirl around my head, I misstep and get my ankle caught in the space between the platform and the train. From there things get worse.

@Cerberus What is 'nonesuch'? Is that a word? I only know it as a record label 'Nonesuch Records'.

Cerberus

> nonesuch (noun) a person or thing without equal; paragon.

Mitch

@Cerberus Square? Squ are? "I see stars"

Cerberus

You know English!

@Mitch Somebody hit you on the heads again?

Oh, wait.

You have only one.

Mitch

@Cerberus the beauty of the world

@Cerberus I almost have the accent down

Cerberus

Mr Shiny's accent was Canadian.

Mitch

00:16

OMG I'm annoyed by people who pronounce the 't' in 'often'.

Cerberus

But not extremely so.

Mitch

Let that be my epitaph

@Cerberus Again

@Cerberus I'm guessing it got better

Cerberus

Too bad.

@Mitch It remained as it should be.

Mitch

A Canadian accent is so subtly different from General American that only a Canadian can tell the difference

Cerberus

Hardly!

There is the characteristic ou.

Which is usually nothing like /u/, but it's still detectable.

And occasionaly, it is like /u/, although I don't think I heard this in his accent.

Mitch

00:18

That's not that common and even if it is it is fairly uncommon in speech that it barely ever comes up, and when it does nobody notices.

The French Canadian accent, that is noticeably different.

Cerberus

@Mitch What is?

The normal Canadian ou is quite common.

The kind that sounds like /u/ is indeed less common.

Mitch

Where is ce mec from? Are they Belgian? From the Pyrenees? No! They're French Canadian!

@Cerberus Supposedly the region I grew up in (Piedmont Virginia) had the exact same sound change 'about'-> 'aboot'.

And also supposedly my dad had it, and likewise a couple other relatives at that same generation

but danged if I ever noticed

Cerberus

And what did I say about that?

Mitch

@Cerberus the /ow/ sound in 'house' 'about' ... and no other words that any sane person would ever use!

@Cerberus I don't know. What _did you say about that?

I know what I said about it. In fact I just said a bunch about it. But I can say more

Cerberus

6 mins ago, by Cerberus

Which is usually nothing like /u/, but it's still detectable.

Mitch

00:25

And what I can say about it is this:

I was mostly oblivious as a child.

I'm only just now starting to figure things out.

Let that be my epitaph.

@Cerberus And I said other things about it. Like it is rare, not necessarily to have the sound change, but to appear at all 'house', 'about' and goddammed if I can't think of any other words with /ow/.

Here I am monopolizing the convo.

Do you have any good books you can recommend?

The only book I've read recently is 'Artemis' by the guy who wrote 'The Martian'.

Artemis is about a moon base in the next hundred years, and some shenanigans that occur there, obviously written as a plotline for a movie.

Jasper Loy

Hiiii

Mitch

So it is classic science fiction writing, where the writing is terrible: characters are chaotic, flat, inconsistent, unreal;

wait, what are the characteristics of novel writing? plot, character, atmosphere, description, dialog, ... um ... emotion level?

Cerberus

Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

►

A random example of the typical Canadian about that doesn't sound like a boot, but it's still a typical sound.

@Mitch Yes, unfortunately much science fiction is like that...

Mitch

@Cerberus I think it's true of all genre writing, that the author spends energy on the genre specifics and forgets about many other aspects.

Cerberus

00:40

In my experience, it is much more common in science fiction. After all, all writing is of some genre or other.

Mitch

Romance, fantasy, chess novels, westerns...

Cerberus

I only know the eponymous chess novel...

Mitch

crime, horror...

athos

hi, may i ask, if a primary school boy is interested in literature, where could he get tuition?

Cerberus

The Royal Game

The Royal Game (or Chess Story; in the original German Schachnovelle, "Chess Novella") is a novella by Austrian author Stefan Zweig first published in 1941, just before the author's death by suicide. In some editions, the title is used for a collection that also includes "Amok", "Burning Secret", "Fear", and "Letter From an Unknown Woman". == Plot summary == Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the National Socialists, Dr B, a monarchist hiding valuable assets of the nobility from the new regime, maintains his sanity only through the theft of a book of past masters' chess...

Mitch

00:45

@Cerberus Was it semi-autobiographical?

Cerberus

I believe so.

athos

is not for exams, just for interest, e.g. some guidance on picking books and discuss on the style.

Cerberus

You could try the library?

athos

libraries are full of books, but are there "masters" to guide the boy?

Cerberus

They may able to advise your there.

If you want someone to educate him, maybe they will know someone.

athos

00:47

right..

Cerberus

Or you could try the local university, they might have students at the literature departments who will teach him.

Mitch

@Cerberus hm...sounds promising

athos

right!

thank you.

Mitch

chess as a metaphor is a dead metaphor

Cerberus

@Mitch I liked it, and I read it when my German really sucked, but I was still able to enjoy it.

Well, enjoy: it's not exactly a fun book.

athos

00:48

i like the Royal Game, read it in Chinese.

Cerberus

@athos You could also try calling up a local high school: high-school teachers not seldom provide private tuition as well.

Mitch

@athos @Cerberus's suggestion of a library sounds good to me for someone who is younger (still in elementary school)

Cerberus

@athos Impressive.

Mitch

Also an English teacher at school

athos

a similar story is Buchmendel

thanks. yeah looking for teachers or literature students.

Mitch

00:50

@Cerberus how is it a not fun book? Hard to figure out or just gives a depressing impression?

Cerberus

@athos That sounds very depressing!

@Mitch The story is not about happy stuff.

It's not hard to understand.

athos

is about tearing down beautiful stuff.

Cerberus

It reminded me of uhh what's that other book called.

I think it was written by a German but in English.

Something like Dark Night?

No, that's not it.

Mitch

@Cerberus That sounds like a batman movie

Cerberus

Darkness at Noon

Darkness at Noon (German: Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create. The novel is set in 1939 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Despite being based on real events, the novel does not name either Russia or the USSR, and tends to use generic terms to describe people and organizations: for example the Soviet government is referred to as "the Party...

This is it.

Mitch

01:02

sounds more like 1984 or The Trial than like the chess book

There is a genre of chess book, but obviously not chess novels. In the right boookstore you can find a whole case of just books about chess games and strategies.

Cerberus

1984, the Schachnovelle, and Darkness at Noon are all very depressing, but the latter two are realistic and not futuristic.

Mitch

1984 seems quaintly out of date now technologically

TVs that record you also

Cerberus

But it is titled Schachnovelle, so I had to mention it when you said chess novel. I thought you might be referring to it.

Yes, the telescreens are somewhat odd.

Mitch

actually that's about the limit of it in 1984

Cerberus

Why would you need a screen to record people.

Mitch

01:04

@Cerberus Nope. There is so much I don't know.

Cerberus

Secret camera's already existed in 1948, after all.

Mitch

@Cerberus There you go

I'm getting old but slowly realizing that there is stuff that happened after WWII

Just not that good

athos

DaN is more based on the "real world", not as "The File" of Timothy Ash, but quite "real"; while RG has a paint of Freud, zweig was deeply affected by the unconscious mind theory, quite some of his books, e.g. Letter from an unknown woman, I found such kind of exploration sometimes make the narration unbalanced.

Mitch

probably the Greeks of the -300s said the same thing about the -400s

Cerberus

@athos I should probably read more Zweig!

I was like 18 when I read the Schachnovelle, and that was all I ever read.

Mitch

01:07

There's always more to read

athos

@Cerberus wish you enjoy him!

Cerberus

@Mitch The fifth century B.C. was indeed the golden age of Greece!

Mitch

There's lots I was supposed to have read in school but didn't and on reflection made no difference.

Like 'Jude the Obscure'. It's supposed to be some great novel.

Cerberus

Although its silver age was still quite glorious—in fact, it surpassed its golden age in philosophy at least

Mitch

I heard a recording (on a long car trip). I just didn't 'get' it

@Cerberus haha every generation says it, but sometimes they're right, sometimes not.

athos

01:10

today's greece is tin age..

Mitch

@athos haha!

'Zorba the Greek' is not bad

Cerberus

@Mitch Every generation? How so?

Nobody in Holland would call any century golden except the seventeenth.

Mitch

Every generation says 'Kids these days just don't create anything good or interesting. But when I was younger, it was so full of life!'

@athos Do you have any books you'd recommend that you don't think I've read?

athos

01:23

wow.. i almost only read dry stuff like linear algebra in the last ten years... but if there is a free afternoon, i might read "the wrong box" of stevenson again, it's a nice plot and much fun.

Cerberus

Sounds interesting.

@athos Have you read The Way We Live Now by Trollope?

Is the atmosphaere at all similar?

athos

unfortunately i haven't got the chance to read that yet.

Cerberus

It's fun.

But it seems as though, if you have read that book, you're read all of Trollope...

That is, I have tried a few of his other books but found them meagre dilutions of it.

Mitch

@athos Hm... I had never heard of that and wondeed if that was a new novel by Neal Stephenson, but it seems 19th c by Robert Louis Stevenson. Very different.

@Cerberus Wait... who did 'Vanity Fair'?

Cerberus

01:38

Thackeray, that's older.

Mitch

The title 'The way we live now' sounds eerily like a science fiction novel.

Cerberus

@Mitch I started it bit couldn't get into it.

@Mitch No, more like satire maybe.

Mitch

I tried Tristram Shandy. Gave up.

@Cerberus I vaguely remember finishing it. I thought it was interesting. But it was a bit mean about all its characters, even the nice ones.

Cerberus

@Mitch Reading about it, that does sound like the kind of novel that would suit you...

@Mitch I remember something about guests at a house where the daughter of the family played an instrument.

Mitch

@Cerberus Yeah, it's supposed to be a big mix of stuff. The movie was horrible.

I just don't get Steve Coogan.

@Cerberus It's funny how there were probably thousands of novels being written and published at the time, but these were the ones whose names kept being repeated and others not as much and they just fell away.

Cerberus

01:45

Well, probably thousands of novels from the 19th century are still read.

And from other centuries.

There is no doubt some arbitrariness in it, which also explains why e.g. Van Gogh was not super popular during his lifetime but later became immensely popular.

This also happens in music and literature.

Mitch

Over the entire world? I'd say under a thousand novels from before 1900 are still published.

Cerberus

I doubt that.

Mitch

Sure there are graduate students at this moment reading a number of 16th c. Korean/Zulu manuscripts that are precursors to the modern detective novel, but it'll never leave the graduate library

Cerberus

If you go to e.g. the Wikipaedia page on French literature from the 18th century, you will find tons of books that are still read.

Though probably not by most people.

Then got to the page on Danish literature.

Etc.

Mitch

There are all the novels that students are forced to read in school. That is a bizarre subset motivated by 'teachability'. But then there are the 'great books' and I'd wager there are under a 1000 total.

For every '100 best books ever' lists, there always seem to be no more than 10x things that are missing. er.. 9x things

KannE

01:54

@MetaEd That would be the coolest tee ever! But I won't steal your idea...I'm going with my first one, conditionally..."I agree with me...when I'm right, wrong, or in a grey area."

Screen-printed on heather grey 100% cotton if possible...keepin' it real.

KannE

02:09

@Cerberus I wanted to love his sunflowers. I tried hard; I really did, but they make me feel nauseated...like throwing up in a vase.

Cerberus

@KannE Well, he has made many sunflower paintings...

google.com/…

CowperKettle

03:37

> "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

I don't understand this.

Cerberus

04:01

@CowperKettle Context?

KannE

@Cerberus Someone planted a sunflower garden for me once, so I could cut them and put them in vases, but he didn't realize that packets that just say sunflower seeds on them mean at least 6 ft tall sunflowers. There were so many rows of them, north-south rows. They faced east towards our home in the morning and turned towards the sun, straining it seemed to face west in the evening...a perfect unison; it was gorgeous.

I guess any still life couldn't compete with that...but his colors are still...yucky; they are.

Jasper Loy

04:19

Wow, my word play has two stars, miracle.

KannE

04:45

@Cerberus Oh, I forgot to mention, I clicked on your sunflower link and almost rolled off the side of my Tempur-Pedic...like I was programming in COBOL for 8 hours straight and paged-down 30 years...out of my chair. So, it's not just yucky...it's off balance too.

Færd

05:31

@RegDwigнt Nichts zu danken man.

Feeds

06:26

0

Q: Adjective for thing that can be replaced later because you have better thing?

I just can't seem to remember this word. Please help me, thank you so much

single-word-requests

SmokeDetector

06:39

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, offensive answer detected, toxic answer detected (248): Using "have ran" or "have run" by araba on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-latin answer, non-latin link in answer, pattern-matching website in answer (217): Correct word for "The person who post a comment" by دانلود تحقیق on english.SE

Feeds

08:00

0

Q: Name of the category of foreign words with no english translation

What is the name of this type of word which does not have a one word English translation. Words such as: Waldeinsamkeit (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods. Some Hansel and Gretel or Red Riding Hood reference, I bet! Tartle (Scottish) If you’ve ever been talking to someone you’ve ...

single-word-requests

Jasper Loy

Should I enable or disable hardware acceleration in Firefox? I have always enabled it, but when I watch some movies Windows will tell me that Firefox has been blocked from accessing the graphics hardware, and my movie will freeze for a few seconds.

I have already updated the graphics driver, which in this case is Intel UHD 620.

CowperKettle

09:01

@JasperLoy I know nothing about graphics. Maybe you should ask on Superuser.SE

user2236

09:48

in Mathematics, 1 hour ago, by Leaky Nun

The phrase "add oil" which originates from Hong Kong English is now an entry in OED

bookmanu

10:12

@MetaEd @Cerberus Thanks for your help re. comments message

Jasper Loy

@user2236 OMG

Mitch

11:55

@KannE now I'm going to wonder about every painting of a vase.

Cerberus

12:29

@bookmanu De nada! I didn't really help...

user2236

12:43

I always thought the word "chinglish" was racist until I read the OED link

I still think it sounds too much like "chink"

Feeds

0

Q: I will be uploading my result or I will upload my result

Which one is the correct statement -I will be uploading my result or I will upload my result.

single-word-requests meaning word-usage grammaticality meaning-in-context

Mitch

@JasperLoy Would you use any of those versions, Cantonese ga yaa, Mandarin jia you English add oil?

@user2236 Depends on context, right? If people use it disparagingly against a subculture. But then it seems that there's a version of X-lang-lish for all X's. Franglais, Denglish, Singlish, Spanglish, etc.

@CowperKettle I've never heard that before ever, but I suppose the implication is that a funny smell in your milk is only a funny smell and not very conclusive, just a hint that things have gone bad. But a dead fish in your milk, while also still not direct evidence that the milk has spoiled but I don't know anyone who would want to drink it now.

It's not a perfect metaphor but it convinced me that it must be a quote from some comment about the Khashoggi affair.

user2236

13:14

Yes, but the sound of it is too "chinky" to my ear @Mitch

Mitch

13:58

@user2236 I don't disagree. 'chinglish' seems to be often used for the off-sounding way Chinese use some English phrases. But I guess what you're saying is that 'Chinglish' sounds a little like 'chink' which definitely is derogatory.

user2236

yup

Mitch

I'm annoyed by people, who I can only surmise don't actually know anything, who downvote things that are factually correct but are things they've never seen before, which I surmise given that they downvoted something that is factually correct. I don't think that is self-supporting.

No names.

I don't want to be self-promoting

Because, it should be obvious by now, that downvote was for one of my perfectly factual academic-like answers.

It's like people voting for their despicable friends, and voting against people not from their hometown.

user2236

Sounds like the politics of the orange Godzilla

Mitch

@user2236 It's funny how we all have these chemicals oozing and electrifying around in our brains but somehow we can disturb the airwaves and somehow share similar thoughts, that are of course also only more oozing electrical signals.

user2236

:-D

Mitch

14:04

@user2236 I read that as 'the paradox of the orange Godzilla' and thought 'Gosh, I've never heard of that paradox before, now I'm intrigued'

user2236

I heard susskind call him that

Mitch

@user2236 haha. I was reading something about how introspection as a method of science is entirely unfounded because any justification of it is made by introspection. But then I realized that the only way we know any thoughts by other people is, haha, also by introspection. Well, and then we tell others about it.

@user2236 I've heard worse.

"tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon"

I don't see why we need to insult ferrets in all of this.

(gibbons deserve everything they get)

@user2236 Then again, we could both be mistaken, and are wrongly stating that we agree with each other.

user2236

True true.

Feeds

14:33

0

Q: Word meaning a piece of fiction about a work of art

I'm seeking a single English word I recently learned (and then promptly forgot!) meaning fictional writing focused around the depiction of another work of art (e.g. a painting, piece of music or a play). Example: Walter Moers' ______ book The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books really strongly evoked t...

single-word-requests

Robusto

@Mitch Pfft. Who cares about scientists? Many programming languages have introspection. And a select few also possess reflection. And they don't do it with mirrors.

Mitch

Self-modifying code sounds like a lot of fun until you want to debug it.

Robusto

14:48

Tell it to debug itself, you're too damn busy.

KannE

16:24

@Mitch LOL! They can be deceptive.

Mitch

18:51

@KannE Just looked in one. Ew.

Robusto

19:07

This should die a horrible death:

5

Q: "Oracle Migration": How do you understand the meaning of this title as a native English speaker?

How do you understand the meaning of the title 'Oracle Migration' as a native English speaker? Are there any contradictions or ambiguity in its understanding? Which of the following meanings of this title is most correct: 1. migrate to Oracle; 2. migrate from Oracle; 3. migrate to and from Or...

meaning phrase-meaning ambiguity

Close it, delete it, burn it with fire.

WHO GIVES A SHIT IF IT'S MIGRATION TO OR FROM ORACLE? This doesn't belong on the multi-collider as representing EL&U.

KannE

@Mitch IKR! Look away! Look away!

Mitch

@Robusto picks two words at random

Elephant

Denial

"Elephant Denial": How do you understand the meaning of this title as a native English speaker?

It could be denial of elephants, of their mere existence.

It could be denial by elephants, that they don't really remember the circumstances under which that mahout's head was crushed like a watermelon

It could be denial about elephants, that how they got into my pajamas I do not know.

You know how they got into them. You. Know.

@Robusto Sven or @sumelic could totally make a good answer (and then question) out of this.

Jasper Loy

19:40

@Mitch I will not use add oil, but I do use jia you. Add oil is just absurd. QED.

@Cerberus What does de nada mean?

Today, I watched the movie 'Last stop on the night train' (1975) originally Italian and dubbed in English. The main song 'A flower's all you need' is the most beautiful song I have heard in a long time. Maybe I will learn it and sing it in future.

Mitch

20:43

@JasperLoy You might also like this:

Allain Leprest - Le Dico De Grand-Mère (Nu, 1998)

►

It is all about a dictionary.

Really

Just use google translate to find out what it means.

> Des Papous, des coloquintes
Des rois, des ornithorynques

I liked how he rhymed that.

> C'était plein d' fautes d'autographe
Y avait trois "f" à "girafe"

and that's just classic

Jasper Loy

20:58

@Mitch You have become a bull?

Mitch

@JasperLoy For the moment

All the pictures I like look really good when zoomed in, but are really boring as a thumbnail

Long ago someone had a transparent gif as avatar. I aspire to that, but am looking for other ideas

RegDwigнt

21:47

@Mitch I understand "elephant denial" as the denial from elephants, though possibly also to.

Depends on the elephant version really.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Denial from elephants: you're in prison and the warden is committing a human rights violation by preventing you from having your own personal elephant.

Denial to elephants: Never ever say no to an elephant, it won't end well.

Denial like an elephant: if an elephant says there’s no reason whatsoever not to trust the guy, I believe him.

Denial on elephants: this one is easy, you're just standing on an elephant and denying something. Could be elephant related or not, whatever.

Feeds

0

Q: What do you call an "item" in a museum?

Since I don't know the answer, I'm having a hard time writing the question... An artifact is a specific object. I want the name of the artifact (if existent) and the plaque describing it, and the video, etc. An exhibit, while used in courts (at least on TV) to describe one item, seem to be use...

single-word-requests phrase-requests

RegDwigнt

23:05

@Mitch got it. Thank you. But what about denial instead of elephants? I have very doubt about word.

SmokeDetector

23:17

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly punctuation marks in answer, repeating characters in answer (136): "Are you having a good day?" Is it about me or about the weather? by Yusufbablola on english.SE

Chappo

23:44

I recall reading a suggestion a year or two ago, probably on our Meta, that posts like the smoky one above should be flagged as "rude or abusive" as (1) such a post treats our site's standards with contempt, and (2) it gets a quicker response. Any thoughts?

BTW, I flagged it as VLQ. Is that the preferred option? It's not exactly "Spam".

Cerberus

@Chappo I suppose either would be all right.

It's been deleted.

Chappo

It can be hard to pick the right flag sometimes, even when a post clearly needs deletion.

I've had a small number of declined flags where I chose (say) "off-topic" and it's been deleted anyway (presumably for a different reason). The result is the same, but I feel like my own effort to flag it was wasted.

@Cerberus forgot to link to your comment.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…