English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2019-10-25

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12:01 AM

@marcellothearcane The Jamaican security guard at my hospital stopped me in conversation this afternoon as I was leaving today. No real hints of Irish there. But, I think I know what you're talking about. Did you watch that Youtube video the other day posted by I think Mitch? It was a dialect coach talking about different accent features. Really well done.

12:19 AM

@DavidM It was Reg:

2 days ago, by RegDwigнt

Accent Expert Explains Similarities Between Different Accents | WIRED

But also, Carribean English and Irish English (=Hiberno-English) both have th-stopping.

And th-stopping is pretty distinctive (I think).

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

thtop that

@Mitch Right-o

@Mitch Coward!

That was a perfectly respectable answer.

I was thinking of migrating the kit over to ELL, and if I do, I would think that your kaboodle should go with it.

3

Q: What are the correct pronouns for referring to someone whom I have never met in person when the gender is apparent?

I want to mention someone whom I know of only by references on the Internet such as forums and blogs. This person uses a username of a woman’s first name with a lady’a photo as an avatar. Also, in some comments the person was referred as Ms by others. Can I therefore by default use she/her/her/...

personal-pronouns contemporary-english singular-they antecedents grammatical-gender

He is fled.

12:45 AM

@tchrist haha. totally a coward. I tried to write it disinterestedly, but then I thought, people are idiots.

@tchrist I think it works in both places.

@Mitch There, look at all your reps!

Best delete the comment over yonder though.

@tchrist done

anything I left out or got wrong? I started off with trying to be historical but I can't remember if I maintained the pattern.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me.

But I am often a poor judge of these things, so ^@,--EOF

I have this weird feeling we just had an entire conversation without saying anything.

2

Good talk.

1:04 AM

Well this is neat: Never knew this existed.

eggcorns.lascribe.net

nice

8 hours later…

8:50 AM

> [redacted] posted discussion "Urgent🙏🙏🙏seeking help for composing sheet music of some holymass songs in my country(different laguage)" in "Piano Compositions" 3 hours ago
> I want beautiful sheet music of christian holymass songs. Its urgent. I want to read it in this christmas. Please help me... contact me... on fb as [full legal name].

Well. If you want to compose beautiful music and it's urgent, I suggest you start composing beautiful music now.

2 hours later…

10:22 AM

0

Q: The intelligible sphere

Alain de Lille (12th Century): God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumferance is nowhere. What have been the most significant reprisals of this thought, in the intervening years?

expressions idiom-requests

Matt E. Эллен

ok

sure

intelligible sphere

that's something that has an idiom

just like everything else people in the 12th century said

11:21 AM

@MattE.Эллен whoa there dude. Some of my ancestors are from the 12th century.

Matt E. Эллен

11:37 AM

@Mitch oh yeah? well some of my ancestors were killed by people in the 12th century

check your privilege

(j/k if it's not clear)

12:24 PM

@MattE.Эллен I don't have any cash for a tip, so I'm keeping my privilege with me.

1 hour later…

1:48 PM

Okay this is not for a very major thing, but I'd really appreciate it if a mod could privately message me for a minute?

(cc @MattE.Эллен)

Or, I could email you if you shared your email address with me.

Is it about the English site, or about Stack Exchange in general / about chat ?

Oh, I think Matt is already trying to contact you.

Yep, resolved. Thanks.

Good.

4 hours later…

5:45 PM

Both of the examples of UK punctuation in this answer are incorrect. It's a myth that in UK style, punctuation always goes outside; it doesn't. There are very specific guidelines. Even in UK English, the punctuation in these sentences should go inside the quotation marks. On the other hand, this answer is correct in terms of the question itself and the specific phrase being discussed. (I just wish you'd picked a legitimate example of UK punctuation.) — Jason Bassford 12 mins ago

Based on his profile, I assume Jason knows what he's talking about, but I don't see any error. Help?

@MattE.Эллен, you around?

@terdon I would say, at this level of detail, that it depends on which style guide you consult.

@Cerberus I'm wondering what style would consider those wrong though.

Perhaps some would put the full stop inside the commas when quoting a complete sentence including capital (which I think is bad practice anyway).

Jason seems to be a professional editor, so I'll happily assume he knows more about this than I do. I just don't know what I got wrong.

Or he may have his own ideas.

@terdon His statement that both examples are "incorrect" is certainly wrong.

5:54 PM

@Cerberus That's what confuses me. Oh well. I hope he answers my comment with an explanation.

Either I'll learn something new, yay!

Or I get to be correct on the internet, yay!

win-win

One might argue with some parts, but I am certain that most editors in Britain would not call your comma example "incorrect".

By the way, "professional editor" should be taken with a grain of salt.

should that hyphen be there?

> I am a freelance editor and a member of Editors Canada. Previously, I was a technical editor at the software company VMware. Before that, I was a senior technical support engineer at VMware.

That seems to qualify.

A quick question: is having a period outside a quote mark acceptable in American English? Example:

5:58 PM

@terdon Qualify for what?

> This page requires the following privilege: "access to moderator tools".

@gparyani you might want to read the transcript :)

@gparyani I can't speak for Americans, but I'd say: just do it!

@Cerberus For being called a professional editor.

But the question is, is it acceptable in AmE to have the period outside the quote, or is it outright unacceptable?

6:00 PM

I suspect that the large majority of Americans would find it acceptable.

You have your own style. There is much to be said in favour of this usage. So how much do you care anyway?

But I have to go.

@Cerberus The SE system uses AmE, and SE's position is that system UI pages should be acceptable in American English.

@Cerberus cya pal

@terdon I didn't mean to say he wasn't, just that perhaps it doesn't mean as much as you might think.

And a technical editor in Canada is not the same thing as a literary editor in Oxford anyway.

2

@Cerberus Oh, tell me about it. My father is a professional editor and if you think I take his word as gospel, you have another think coming!

So if AmE's format rules explicitly disallow it, even if it's used fine informally, SE will not implement it.

6:03 PM

@gparyani Well, there is no Académie Americaine, so it's hard to give a definitive judgement as to acceptability. I can only put it in perspective for you by suggesting that most Americans would find it acceptable, some even preferable. But, if you feel uncertain, why not put the full stop outside the quotation?

@Cerberus Of course, one could argue that a technical editor will have the expertise more than a literary one. This is a technical document we're discussing, after all.

11

Q: Make it possible for localized sites to correctly translate privileges on the pages, which can't be accessed by a member with low reputation

As we have discussed here, it's OK for English sites in the SE network to place dots and commas inside quotes, because it's correct in US English, and in the interface US English is used. But for Russian, it's incorrect. Commas and dots should be outside the quotes. https://ru.stackoverflow.com...

feature-request privileges localization russian-stackoverflow

@gparyani you do realize that we have been discussing that very post all this time, right?

@terdon I generally don't think technical writers are as much concerned with style at all. Style is much more important in a novel.

@skullpetrol Adios!

@terdon I scrolled up and I didn't see any links, so I didn't know.

6:04 PM

@Cerberus You have a lot to learn about technical writers then. Many are from a programming background, so syntax is extremely important.

But that's not truly style.

@gparyani Ah, sorry, the link was in the comment I posted which was posted under my answer to that very question.

Well, bai!

But for context to other later chatters: basically on one specific page, the system hardcodes a period into a quotation, which is correct in American English, but is incorrect in the Russian language (in which the period has to be outside the quotation).

If it's acceptable in AmE to have the period outside of the quote, then it might make better sense to just change that network-wide rather than having to implement a more complicated system for this localization change.

The site UI uses American English and the SE developers refuse changes that violate its specs, so that's why I'm asking, before I propose it.

@gparyani You kinda have to though. Punctuation styles vary significantly between languages. French, for example, adds a space before a question mark: Looks weird, doesn't it ?

@gparyani It's more like "this is correct, so we won't change it" which seems reasonable.

They have more important things to worry about right now, anyway.

Matt E. Эллен

6:15 PM

@terdon I'm guess you've got enough help :D but my 2p: unless it's part of what is being said, I put punctuation outside of the ""

@MattE.Эллен So you don't see how either of those examples for the UK style could be "wrong"?

Matt E. Эллен

@terdon they follow the rules I know

I lied

I just checked stuff I wrote

@terdon the comma goes in the quote

@MattE.Эллен oh?

Really? Any reference for that?

Matt E. Эллен

no, just how I write dialogue, sorry

I gess it's what I was taught at school

speach is all there is, I've been putting the full stop inside the quotes, too

Well, the Oxford Guide to Style gives:

> 'Have you any idea', he said, 'what "dillygrout" is?'

eng-lang.co.uk/ogs.htm

user image

Ah! He meant the double vs single quotes!

Matt E. Эллен

6:27 PM

interesting. I guess I was taught American style!

@MattE.Эллен It might also be that your pristine English has been forever tainted by the uncouth Americanisms you spend your days reading online.

Matt E. Эллен

@terdon lol. yeah, sounds plausible :D

1 hour later…

7:44 PM

hello

i have had in my mind a few times that we can use parable to convey the same meaning as tangent

i might have heard/read it somewhere in that context, or just being deluded

any idea?

8:00 PM

@Luyw Are you asking if those two words are synonyms? Or are you asking if in some discourse one can use a parable instead of a tangent to give the same meaning?

8:25 PM

i'm asking if in some context tangent and parable are exchangeable

for example, I say "I might have done bla bla bla", then I add "or a parable (something tangential) to that"

They're not synonyms, they mean distinct things. A parable is an allegory/ling metaphor. A tangent is an aside. Of course when explaining something, at some point you may make an aside, and the aside is not some detail that is interesting but not necessary but instead is some short story which is a parable.

But that's like saying is a joke a tangent.

sure a joke can be used as a tangent, but not all tangents are jokes.

thank you for the elaborate answer :) I knew the meaning of a parable, I was just curious about whether what I was "feeling" was true or not :')

but parable and tangent are not synonyms at all.

'exchangeable' implies that that is what you're thinking.

yes yes, I just had a feeling

Is desk lamp exchangable with weapon?

8:35 PM

perhaps it has to do with french

like it's reminding of some word

Oh

How so?

oh I am not sure. maybe the word parable is unconsciously making me think of some other word that resembles its spelling in french

i'm just speculating, I don't why i felt it was right to use it in that situation in the first place, so i'm looking for reasonable explanations :)

EXACTLY

for some reason, the word parable in french (parabole) also conveys the meaning of making two things close to each other

"rapprocher"

i couldn't find a word in english

I get it. makes sense (similar sound gives a hint of possible similar meaning)

9:30 PM

@Mitch It depends upon how well you swing it.

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