English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

« first day (3247 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1674 days later) »

RegDwigнt

11:00 PM

But if you had eight full years of people talking about your revolutionary art, you literally saw it coming.

tchrist

I'm a coward, not a poet. I choose not to speak of things apt to get me shot.

But I'm also a klutz, so I imagine I'll die the same way.

RegDwigнt

It's a false dichotomy.

We are all children of cowards. The brave all fell.

Nothing prevents you from writing a poem and not making every other word be "Trump". If anything, it will only work to its benefit.

tchrist

Our current generalissimo is the least of my fears just right now. You don't want to know.

Cerberus

@tchrist What is happening?

RegDwigнt

Nothing. I'm just putting forth the idea that being brave is hugely incompatible with being alive.

Indeed I would go so far as say, if you're still alive, you're not brave by definition. You must've done at least something at least once to save your ass.

Cerberus

11:12 PM

Well, "alive"?

RegDwigнt

Of course it's not incompatible with having a few children first before going the way of the brave. But even so, without a breadwinner, the children, too will have to be brave beyond what's healthy.

@tchrist it is but an off-the-cuff example. There's more people to offend than just the one.

Oh my. Some people on MuseScore have no sense of rhythm whatsoever. They'll transcribe a well-known song and they'll even get all the pitches right, but the note values are all over the place.

And, like, they can just listen to the playback and hear for themselves that that's not how the song goes. But apparently they can't.

David M

Q: Why do Australians and NZers call snacks/lunch *crib*?

From another question I found out that Australians and New Zealanders call lunch and snacks crib. On the Macquarie dictionary site, there are several (user contributed) theories about why, but nothing authoritative. These all seem to agree that it's a mining term likely from Cornish dialect, bu...

RegDwigнt

Yeah you'll have to be patient with that one.

David M

Is it dirty pool to reform a question off another lower quality question?

RegDwigнt

I asked like one question about NZ English ten years ago. Jury's still out on that one.

@DavidM nothing is in bad taste if you do it tastefully.

It's one of those Justice-Stewart situations.

Everyone just goes with their gut feeling.

David M

11:20 PM

They're like a time capsule of 19th century English with all sorts of Aboriginal words and convict slang thrown in for good measure.

RegDwigнt

So I can't tell. Wait and see how it develops.

David M

@RegDwigнt I attributed it and didn't hide where I'd gotten the idea. So, if the OP wants, I'll delete and let him post it verbatim for the rep.

tchrist

@DavidM And the Hindians the 18th?

RegDwigнt

@DavidM Well there you go. Sounds like a plan.

No idea if people still care about rep.

Especially new people, or people with low-quality questions.

If they cared for rep, they'd make their low-quality questions be not low-quality.

David M

Lower rep people care or people who are trying to get to a level.

RegDwigнt

11:23 PM

Then I can only give them the pro tip to proofread their titles and learn how to spell the word "English" correctly.

It can only help.

Like, we all had to do it at some point.

No one is born knowing how to spell "English".

David M

@tchrist I'm not sure I understand the meaning. The British influence on India would seemingly be current until at least 1947

tchrist

@DavidM They have all these silly old mathoms nobody else really uses any longer, if they ever did.

RegDwigнt

First hoarfrost, now mathoms. Sigh. What is this place.

I was hoping to learn some Azeri.

David M

@tchrist it's not often I learn a new word. Mathom is a good one ....

RegDwigнt

> A trinket or piece of bric-a-brac; a knick-knack, often used in regifting.

Cerberus

11:26 PM

Which reminds me, I need to go to the shop now, I urgently need new mathoms.

RegDwigнt

Jesus Christ. What is that definition.

They explain one impossible word by using five impossible words that don't even exist.

Cerberus

The correct definition can be found in Tolkien.

A think that has no practical use but which you don't want to throw away.

RegDwigнt

What ever happened to professional editors who'd just write it's a thing that goes on the thing that goes boom, and then you'd go ah now I get it.

Cerberus

It is sometimes passed around as a present between hobbits.

RegDwigнt

> Latin mūtō (“change, exchange, barter”).

Well that's ever so helpful.

Yeah you go to the shop buy some knack-a-brics.

I go contemplate what piece to write next.

Cerberus

11:30 PM

Middle-earth objects

J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy legendarium includes several noteworthy objects. The following list includes weapons, jewellery, ships, musical instruments, substances, and other items. == Jewellery == === Arkenstone === A wondrous large white gem, the royal jewel of the Dwarf-kingdom of Erebor (the Lonely Mountain). It was sought by Thorin Oakenshield, the claimant to the kingdom, in The Hobbit. The Arkenstone had been discovered at the heart of the Mountain by Thorin's ancestor, King Thráin I the Old, and shaped by the Dwarves. Thráin ruled from T.A. 1981 to 2190, and the Ark...

RegDwigнt

To each his own. Sorry, their own.

Cerberus

There is this site.

It's called Wikipaedia.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus oh there's enough on Wiktionary alright.

> Borrowed from Old English māþum (“treasure, object of value, jewel, ornament, gift”), from Proto-Germanic *maiþmaz (“present, gift”), from Proto-Indo-European *moyt-, *meyt- (“to exchange”), from *mey- (“to exchange, swap”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌸𐌼𐍃 (maiþms, “gift, present”), Latin mūtō (“change, exchange, barter”). The word survived into Middle English as mathem, madme (“treasure”), but became obsolete thereafter.

> It was revived by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, where it was used by Hobbits as a generic name for items which they were unwilling to throw away, but which they had no use for.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

RegDwigнt

But no entries in other languages, and no translations into other languages, either.

I thought Tolkien got translated into another language or two?

No?

Whatcha call it in Dutch when you go down to the shoppe?

David M

11:32 PM

@RegDwigнt Into English from the original Elvish.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I think they just kept it as mathom.

RegDwigнt

Any sufficiently derelict language is indistinguishable from English.

I need to put it on a T-shirt and sell it to my patrons.

David M

I personally miss spelling magic with a k ....

RegDwigнt

Magik.

There. Found it. You can thank me later.

David M

Magick sounds so much more demonic

RegDwigнt

11:34 PM

It sounds exactly the same. /trollface/

Also, dude. I mean, person, sorry. It's demonick.

Hence the popular female name Monicka.

David M

@RegDwigнt it doesn't sound the same. You put on a haughty British accent when you say it

RegDwigнt

No, you put on a haughty British accent when you say it. And possibly other things.

I never.

I struggle to put on any accent at all. Accents are for the lazy.

ardapedia.herr-der-ringe-film.de/index.php/Mathom

Well apparently the German word is Mathom as well.

It's been a while since I learned a new word in German.

> Viele Smials sind über und über mit diesen Dingen voll. [S]o füllte sich Beutelsend mit der Zeit über und über mit Mathoms. Besondere Mathoms werden im Mathom-Haus zu Michelbinge aufbewahrt und ausgestellt.

Where's that gif of yeah, yeah I know some of them words.