English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2018-07-05 (page 1 of 2)

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12:37 AM

Daniil Trifonov plays Bach-Brahms: Chaconne in D Minor for the Left Hand

@Robusto After that ^^^^ you'll never listen to the Busoni blunderbust again.

1:21 AM

@tchrist Ha! Nice.

user image

It was such an important five minutes that they had to give it an extra minute?

@tchrist When I was at the conservatory there was a young woman with a withered right arm. She played all such pieces, including the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand, etc. It got to be a bit of a pain, frankly, but I solved the problem by closing my eyes and just listening to the music without seeing the handicap.

When I watched her, though, it was impossible not to have the handicap color the performance. Maybe that makes me sound callous, I dunno. I'm not.

1:42 AM

This is good:

The cult of the written score (Academic dubstep, and how sheet music affects how we listen to music)

2:27 AM

0

Q: English word request

What do you call a person who has a great knowledge about internet in general as a hobby and can help people fix their connectivity issues? Thanks.

single-word-requests

1 hour later…

3:29 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: What's the origin of the phrase to "do one"? by Danny on english.SE

4 hours later…

7:17 AM

Hey guys! What's like the best website or book to learn how to write formal letters and formal english and to use proper grammar?

For someone who is good in english but don't have the skills to write formally

8:08 AM

Which one?
- I just start working
- I just started working

1 hour later…

9:09 AM

Second one is very common to me.

Almost never heard the first one.

9:34 AM

@MartinAJ Depends on what you want to say. They're both correct, but mean different things.

"When I get to the office, I just start working."

"I just started working a few minutes ago, I haven't finished it yet!"

@TheArtist amazon.com/Sense-Style-Thinking-Persons-Writing/dp/0670025852

@Robusto yeah I came across Adam Neely like maybe a year ago by complete accident. Binge-watched all his stuff in a week. And haven't missed a video since. He's putting out some quality stuff, and consistently so.

And his last couple videos in particular just amped it up to eleven.

What does music mean?

10:11 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, messaging number in answer: Humans desire riches, fame, power and... (wo)men? by Autase Austin on english.SE

1 hour later…

11:14 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer, pattern-matching website in answer: Comma use before where and in which by Paul Dee on english.SE

11:39 AM

0

Q: Word for "orientation" when talking about things that have two sides?

I am a researcher in computer vision, and I'm dealing with objects that have two sides - akin to coins that have heads and tails or animals which have dorsal and ventral sides: In one setting, I always observe the objects from a particular side, e.g. always look at the dorsal side. In the other...

single-word-requests hypernyms

12:12 PM

@tchrist that was impressive to say the least.

12:33 PM

> I'm usually quite fussy about how the quality of my videos are.

@tchrist @Cerberus can you make it stop please. I'm afraid to go on the Internet anymore.

12:52 PM

0

Q: Using lots of words so as to NOT to get to the point

Suppose you ask a question and the other side says lots of things (too many things) in the hope that he can sidestep the question. The words I found all mean using too many words when fewer would suffice.

single-word-requests

1:25 PM

@RegDwigнt Good find.

He starts to touch on something there which, reversed, applies to language. Each spoken language has its own music, and you can't be fluent in a language, or even understand it much, if you don't understand that.

Feb 15 '14 at 16:26, by Robusto

@tchrist Spoken language is like music. Once you get the melody and the rhythm in your head, you get it.

@Robusto Yeah that's kinda too much credit my way, I just clicked subscribe a year ago and then dude started making stuff like this. I've not moved a finger really (ever since moving that one finger exactly once).

Still, you started a ball rolling.

As I say on my Twitter profile, "one who looks, doesn't find. But one who doesn't look, will be found."
And by "I say" I mean "Kafka said", and by "on my Twitter profile" I mean "not on my Twitter profile and not even on his".

Kafka had a Twitter profile?

That is an interesting metamorphosis.

I wouldn't know. Who reads his shit.

1:32 PM

Yes, people mostly read his written works.

And he didn't even want that, mind.

Here's a Kafka tweet: OMG woke up and I'm like this huge, monstrous vermin!!!

He wanted you to subscribe to his Twitter instead. But you never so much as invented Twitter. And so he died. And is dead now. And now you're all oh fuck fuck fuck let's invent Twitter real quick, but it's too late. And it's like a confirmation of your new dreams and good intentions when at the end of the post Mark Zuckerberg gets up first and stretches her young body.

Eeeuuuuwwwwwww ....

His Twitter handle is JosefK.

@tchrist BTW, that piece always sounds more like a chaconne to me than a canon. A canon at the unison is like a distinction without a difference.

Meh. Same distinction.

1:42 PM

@Robusto Canon, chaconne, passacaglia, ...

Ground ~~beef~~ bass.

Brother Josef, brother Josef, do you tweet, do you tweet?
Are you not on YouTube, are you not on YouTube?
In, sta, gram. In, sta, gram.

I think that's "Frere" Josef.

Feel frere to sing that.

@Robusto He was a middlefrog?

1:45 PM

No, but the tune is.

Also Frère Josef is JosefS, not JosefK. I think you're getting them confused.

I frequently do.

Certainly you mean frèrequently.

I just know that Kafka was a prozess server.

The middling French had bad accents, so they would write frere comme ça, mais les modernistes d'aujourd'hui, ils écrivent frère avec un accent grave.

Very serious frogs.

1:48 PM

BTW, a sudden epiphany: bows for stringed instruments all have frogs. So strings are French? Discuss.

That makes Kafka turn in his circumflex.

@Robusto well. Um. The bow is a French invention. Given away by the fact that it's called the French bow.

G-strings: no thongs in this chat.

Mr Tourte. He also invented the mute.

Well well well ...

@RegDwigнt And Tourette invented the un-mute.

You could take a German bow, and even play that with the Russian technique, but that would actually get you no sound at all.

Maybe I should try that instead, actually. Hm.

Note to self.

1:50 PM

It's been done. 4'33" ...

Yes. I have a video of that.

BTW, I would like to see a piano audition with that piece on the music stand.

Well, there's still a lot to do wrong, mind.

And have one of the judges say, "Play the next piece, but pick up the tempo a little."

Like the type of joker that would do that would probably not know what Cage's specific instructions were.

Closing the lid to play, opening when you're done. That shit etc.

1:52 PM

Do some extra riffs, like scratching your ass.

Haha. A canon for ass with piano.

Actually disregard what I just said, I need to trademark something...

@RegDwigнt Transcribe for obscure instruments like the ocarina

How is ocarina obscure.

Hold it up to the light

Done. It's full of stars!

1:54 PM

No. I filled it with sand and it just poured into your eyes

Seriously ask around how many people know the ocarina and how many know oh I dunno, the cor anglais.

And that won't change until Gabe finally makes Half Life 3: The cor anglais of time.

So you're telling me the ocarina is in the percussion section, right next to the triangle?

@RegDwigнt I think you mean the bassoon of time.

I'd rather have the creme anglaise of donut

I think my point is, if you stare into the ocarina for too long, the ocarina stares into you. Soviet Russia.

@Robusto no, but I will get to that one quite bassoon.

1:57 PM

Oboe, that's too much

I bless the bassoons down in Africa.

0

Q: What would you call the distinction between e.g. 'cow'/'beef', 'pig'/'pork'?

I'm looking for a term to denote the distinction between the name of an animal when it's alive, and the name of the same animal when it serves as food. If such a term exists, I imagine it belongs to psychology or anthropology?

single-word-requests nouns food animal

Wait... that's toto much

Fuck you, Feeds. You are my archi enemy.

This is not Twitter.

haha, i turned off feeds recently and see none of those crap SWRs!

I'm free!

1:59 PM

Jul 9 '15 at 11:03, by Robusto

"I saw a raven" or "I saw a robin"? Which one is correct?

What's a single word for free?

'Free'

Next.

First we had to put up with Mitch tweening, but we said nothing because we were no Mitch.
Then we had to put up with Mitch's tweens getting tweened and it was too late to say anything because you couldn't get a word in.

@RegDwigнt I could move on to pinging

@RegDwigнt A lot

Luckily I don't have sound.

Then you'll be happy to have me tween you

2:00 PM

@Mitch Stick with whinging. Pinging doesn't suit you.

Like why would you turn off feeds but not sounds. What kind of rookie noob are you. That's pathetic.

@Robusto You have no idea what kind of suits I have

Mostly clubs.

resists jinx

I know that for I hold most of the cards.

2:01 PM

Just in time.

Just in beaver.

Selena Gomez? I hardly knew her

Justin Beaver, Justin Beaver, Tailor Swift? Tailor Swift?
Can't you hear no metal? Can't you hear no metal?
Me-ga-deth. Me-ga-deth.

Jul 9 '15 at 11:06, by Robusto

Superman or Batman? Which is correct?

Why can't we answer the important questions here?

The Justice League is still out on that one.

2:05 PM

I'm pretty sure it was decided long ago that Aquaman was lame, but they kept him on to fill out the screen time

But technically, Superman actually is quite super, while Batman isn't a bat at all. So I think the case is clear.

1

Q: What would you call the distinction between e.g. 'cow'/'beef', 'pig'/'pork'?

I'm looking for a term to denote the distinction between the name of an animal when it's alive, and the name of the same animal when it serves as food. If such a term exists, I imagine it belongs to psychology or anthropology?

single-word-requests nouns food animal

Mirabile dictu.

C'mon, hurry up and answer. This is a matter of life and death!

Why would you imagine it belonged to psychology.

Like why.

Why does that make any less sense than its belonging to anthropology?

That tells us something about you.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When the only two fancy words you've heard of is "psychology" and "beef", then that's all you have.

@terdon I didn't even get that far. I tripped and fell over psychology.

2:07 PM

user image

Awww ... I so much wanted pork-buns as a tag.

No probs, I could just make the other six tags synonyms of that.

That'd be epic. pork-buns pork-buns pork-buns pork-buns pork-buns.

Good idea.

cant-you-hear-the pork-buns, cant-you-hear-the pork-buns,

pork, pork, bun. pork, pork, bun.

No apostrophes in tags.

What is this nazism.

2:10 PM

inorite

Can someone please ask a good question about pork buns so I can close the above question as a duplicate of it?

Oh! I just thought of one!

"What is a single word for 'pork buns'?"

You da man.

My posse is on Broadway.

Although I would accept married words for pork buns as well.

Certainly you mean marinated.

A common typo.

Sir Mix A Lot -Posse On Broadway

2:15 PM

Hmm ... now I suspect the origin of marinate involves brine and the sea.

Alas, a lot of water went down the Brine, and into the sea, since then.

> marinate: 1640s, from French mariner "to pickle in (sea) brine," from Old French marin (adj.) "of the sea," from Latin marinus "of the sea," from mare "sea, the sea, seawater," from PIE root *mori- "body of water."

And my suspicion was correct!

It's almost like you played a Dahvid Cahge gahme before.

1

Q: where is If -> Unless basic negative position to put?

1(Q) - **Unless he finds a job soon, his family will starve.** 1(A) - *If he doesn't find a job soon, his family will starve.* 2(Q) - **Unless she leaves now, she will miss the train.** 2(A) - *If she leaves now, she will not miss the train.* 3(Q) - **Unless you hurry, we will leave you behind....

conditionals unless

What.

Where is if unless position to put?

2:18 PM

I'm not making this shit up.

Mar 9 '11 at 3:45, by Kosmonaut

I read through this question a few times and now I feel like I don't understand English anymore.

Someone already upvoted, btw.

Funnily while I was looking for that I also found this:

May 11 '11 at 14:10, by Kosmonaut

"All Russian words are just typos for [sic] English words."

That i did not no

> I want to know the put of "not/negative" according to grammatical theory of If/Unless. Thank you so much for understanding.

Whoa, there, pardner, don't get ahead of yourself. We ain't understanding quite yet.

"The put of not/negative" has such a philosophical ring to it.

As the Black Eyed Peas famously sang, "My head. My head, my head, my head. My head my head my head. My lovely little head."

Also as they sang less famously, "let's get retarded. Let's get retarded in here".

@Robusto and he's not even told you yet that the put is on the ritz.

2:21 PM

@RegDwigнt Your proposition clearly balances on the put of not/negative.

I think you mean clearly falls off.

Falls off on the put of not.

Two sides of the same koan.

I think you mean the Koala lition of the willing.

Let's not bring Bush into this.

It's alright. Nobody even remembers him anymore.

And that is the first non-joke of the day.

2:24 PM

Imagine a president so bad he makes you forget all about how bad G. W. Bush was.

And then imagine that I don't even have to imagine him.

And now think how for the generation growing up today, he's the only President there ever was. Like Merkel for the German youth, and Putin for the Russians, and Erdogan for the Turks. That is literally all the world has ever been to them. All it could ever be.

It's not that people forgot about Clinton. It's that they never even knew.

It's Trumps all the way down.

As Popeye said, "What a revoltin' development!"

O Lybian Oyl!

Hmm, turns out it wasn't Popeye, but J. Riley Farnsworth who developed that trope. But I first saw it on Popeye, so the latter must have been using it as an homage.

@RegDwigнt Thanks legend!

2:38 PM

@OliverMason Thanks. I am just referencing the answers from gov exam guide. I want to know the alternative answers of 2/3 from your comment are grammatically corrected . If it was, I am cleared. Thanks. — Leonar Aung 3 mins ago

Hmm, was he under indictment?

If not, why was he "cleared"?

My head hurts.

@Robusto get some paracetamol

3:03 PM

@TheArtist I've tried that, but people still keep asking stupid questions on EL&U anyway.

Matt E. Эллен

3:16 PM

@Cerberus that's Kylie Minogue song, right?

@Robusto get some nukes in orbit, then.

3 hours later…

6:20 PM

@MattE.Эллен Umm if you say so.

@RegDwigнt Wow, Andreas and Ulrike have really got to you, haven't they?

They can be bitches.

6:46 PM

Who?

I guess tchrist is Andreas and you're Ulrike?

7:16 PM

@RegDwigнt That's flattering, but no.

Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.

You're slow today!

7:42 PM

Oh I really haven't drawn that connection. WTF. I should've.

Then again nothing I said related to them in any way. Nothing I said in the last couple months, anyway.

Glad we are agreed.

NOU

Not everything I say you can look up in your 1001 little open tabs.

That's a myth. I don't even have a single tab open. I've transcended.

By naming them 'sections' rather than tabs?

How transcendental.

7:45 PM

No, by naming them Andreas and Ulrike.

All of them?

No, some of them are the one, and the others are the other.

Oh, I see.

Is there a pattern?

Even if there isn't, your brain will take all of five milliseconds to find one.

I can only find patterns that I somehow have an interest in. I suck at puzzles.

7:47 PM

How patternizing of you.

Hah.

I don't begrudge those who do like puzzles their pleasure.

You just reminded me that I should finish building the LEGO rollercoaster before my godson comes over tomorrow to play with it.

Have fun.

Won't he want to help?

We started together, and I plan on doing the last couple pieces together as well.

But in-between these two points there's over 4000 individual parts and that's just too boring for him to sit all the way through.

It might be nice, having children over that you can actually do something fun/interesting with. I'm surrounded by babies.

Ah, makes sense.

7:50 PM

I connect with children much easier and better than with adults.

Oh, wow.

Because they don't bring any baggage, and don't care about yours.

I did not necessarily expect that.

They don't judge.

True, up to a certain age.

7:50 PM

That's why they're only called children up to a certain age.

Judgement can begin at puberty.

Yeah I'm curious how that will turn out. That could be a rough ride. But as the Russian saying goes, "if we just live on, we'll see".

They often want to hang out with their peers.

Yeah.

There are plenty of highschoolers that are still good company, I think, at least under the right circumstances.

But they are able to judge!

Well it's not about being a good company, it's that at that age everyone goes out looking for an all-new company no matter how good the current one is.

What I meant by that was that they might still be interested in doing stuff with you.

7:55 PM

Yes I got that.

OK.

My point in reply was that they likely won't because of the "still" part.

Out of principle.

Perhaps.

I don't really know.

I think I would still have liked to do fun things with an adult.

Like something with computers, or nature, or food, or Latin.

@RegDwigнt Children of a certain age

You know what I mean

@RegDwigнt Children are just as judgy as adults, but they can't do anything about it.

That's why I get along with cats

They judge you to the depths of your soul, but frankly what are they gonna do about it?

@Cerberus What about Astrid and Gudrun?

BMW pfft. The next getaway car will be a Tesla.

8:12 PM

Did they, too, lead a terrorist group that you keep coming across in media?

The crime? Shortchanging on Venmo.

like for a bunch of friends

like both of them

@Cerberus I think they were hangers on of the BM group.

wait

of course one of them was the journalist...

Argh! Ulrike was the journalist

But don't those name of yours sound rather...

You know...

Gudrun was ... Siegrfried's girlfriend after Brunhilde?

Scandinavian?

They all sound greater Germanic to me

8:17 PM

@Mitch Sounds like it was a gudrun indeed

@MetaEd Astrid her trusty steed

I say, Scandinavian!

ulrike ... oh pardon my eructation

@Cerberus is that what they sound like to you? DanSweNorwan?

Yes?

Also known as Scandinavian.

Hm...

I've only ever heard them wrt Baader Meinhof

8:20 PM

@Mitch Which UNIX exception does she throw.

SIGKILL

deadly

@Mitch Not SIGURD?

You can't expect me to keep all those german soap opera characters straight

SIG Gunter?

SIG Fried and Roy

I'm SIG to my stomach

8:44 PM

0

Q: "Sunset at <place>" or "Sunset in <place>"

I'm on a vacation in Helsinki for example, and while in there I take a picture of a sunset over the sea. Little to nothing of Helsinki is visible in the picture. I now add a summary to the photo, should it say Sunset at Helsinki or rather Sunset in Helsinki

single-word-requests prepositions

@Mitch Oh, I didn't know they were in it too!

I thought you were just adding arbitrary names.

Andreas is Greek anyway.

Only Ulrike sounds truly German OR DOES IT.

It does.

Names.

Like 'trash panda'

for a raccoon

Is that derogatory or is it cute?

I can't tell. My raccoon friends, maybe they're just being polite

Why not both!

> Historically, the runic alphabet is a derivation of the Old Italic scripts of antiquity, with the addition of some innovations. Which variant of the Old Italic family in particular gave rise to the runes is uncertain. Suggestions include Raetic, Venetic, Etruscan, or Old Latin as candidates. At the time, all of these scripts had the same angular letter shapes suited for epigraphy, which would become characteristic of the runes.

Look what Wikipaedia articles you made me read.

what was the path that led you to runes?

First it was just a sip of wine, then maybe a whisky sour. Then one night she didn't come home until the next morning with a smile on her face and tiny blood stain on the inner elbow of her blouse.

user image

Upwards.

8:56 PM

@Cerberus that's not a rabbit hole it's a worm hole

from one universe to another

but back to German names

Oh, it was nice.

Maike, Silke, Monika. Udo, Joachim.

And I was able to close tabs faster than I opened them.

Oh sure a Franz here, a Maria there.

@Mitch Like Uroboros?

8:58 PM

An in the millennial generation...

Anna? Sophia? Those work in the US now too.

I don't think I've heard of any Caitlin's or Colleen's from Germany though

I remember a Caitlin who was my friend's friend in primary school.

Of course we didn't like her name.

@Mitch That's generally followed by a coredump.

@Cerberus only if youwent directly from Runes to Red Faction

@Cerberus Because it sounded funny? or was too hard to write?

@Mitch Core Dumped (your fault)

@MetaEd Code Brown - You better change your pants.

9:03 PM

@Mitch I probably should have.

@Mitch Well, even at that age we must have realised that most English names are bad news in Dutch.

And probably because she was annoying.

9:34 PM

@Cerberus it's all bad news if it's in English

@Cerberus it's all annoying news if it's in English

Annoying, bad, or both

Maybe some neither

Some are OK, like Andrew and possibly Alice.

room topic changed to English Language and Usage: Incomprehensible since forever — now with bikeshedding! meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/chat-faq [phrase-requests] [pronunciation] [single-word-requests] [synonyms]

@Cerberus But obviously it doesn't have to.

@Robusto we shouldn't have bikeshedding in chat. It is unproductive.

We can't help if it bleeds over from the main site, sorry.

Go ask Alice. I think she'll know.

@Robusto Indeed.

@Mitch All right, then let's discuss the room-topic text.

Has a study been done regarding the preferences of chat users?

9:48 PM

@Cerberus No, let's discuss the font of that text. How do we feel about italics for that?

I'm willing to discuss the font at an agreed upon time.

Have we established yet which committee will set the date?

We'd have to have a quorum of all the stakeholders.

Sounds like fun.

Perhaps Jeff Atwood would like to join.

Is Dracula a stakeholder? Just wondering.

> It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter.

Must. Feed. Cats.

Heh.

It would indeed be wrong to write a function that's inflexible.

You would regret it come WWIII.

10:13 PM

@Cerberus No, I don't think we should be discussing bikeshedding at all. It's too small an issue, with little impact even if decided.

I'm not talking about any given bikeshedding argument. I'm talking about whether we should allow bikeshedding at all.

What arguments have you prepared?

@Cerberus Oh. That topic is totally on.

It's the worst

Italic is so lame. Just stick with <H2> or <H3>

@Cerberus I've already made my case clearly.

The buriden of proof is now on your ass

however anatomically uncomfortable that may be

You've made your bed. Now lions are in it and you'll get dogs with fleas. Also, lambs.

@Mitch How dare you discuss with outside committee!

I already have dogs with fleas.

What is in those flea preventing dog collars that kills fleas? Not that fleas are any great thing, but what kind of chemicals? Asking for a friend who likes to chew on dogs' flea collars.

> organophosphates, which can cause toxic reactions in dogs, cats, and possibly people if exposure is prolonged. Permethrin collars are also popular and cheap but can be very harmful to cats.

ew

stops chewing old flea collars

reads more about toxic things

read moer

more links

reaches runes

10:58 PM

Hm. Can I do Instagram here?

instagram.com/p/Bk3YDFgDoCX

Well that's better than nothing. @Cerberus.

And @Færd

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