English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Mitch

2:00 AM

@DavidM my point exactly. You don't often do such a thing, but it can be done.

David M

80% of answering questions on this site consists of saying "What the hell are you asking?"

Cerberus

True!

David M

2:18 AM

I'm tantalizingly close to 20K. So, I'm trying to answer a bunch of stuff.

Cerberus

Ohh let me down-vote you serially.

I don't like competition.

David M

A: What is an archaic, rare word for a male figure who was there from the beginning, who everyone aspires to be like?

Archetype: a statement, pattern of behavior, a prototype, a "first" form or a main model which other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy, emulate or "merge" into. (Frequently used informal synonyms for this usage include "standard example", "basic example", and the longer form ...

I'm having trouble cracking this one. He wants a word to describe a modern-day Samson. Read the comments on my answer.

Cerberus

This is why single-word requests are often a bad idea.

If what you're looking for is "like Samson", then say that.

David M

They're my favorite part of this site. Basically the only reason I'm here.

Cerberus

Really?

David M

2:28 AM

That's pretty much what I told him. Modern Day Samson works for me

Cerberus

grumbles

David M

I long ago used up my last fuck to give for helping people place commas appropriately. Word origins and LMGTFY are fun, but not as entertaining as stretching my vocabulary to help people.

Cerberus

I have never liked SWRs.

I like commata.

I want to finish the programme I'm writing, but I still feel tipsy.

grumbles more

I can only write sentences beginning with the perpendicular pronoun, apparently.

David M

@Cerberus De gustibus non disputandum est.

Cerberus

If you say so.

Ergo de quaestionibus disputemus!

David M

2:36 AM

I'm not as Latin savvy as I'd prefer to be.

Cerberus

Neither is any of us!

David M

@Cerberus Therefore of the question we dispute?

Cerberus

@DavidM Let us therefore dispute (about) questions.

David M

@Cerberus Ah, yes.

Cerberus

The e in disputemus indicates the subjunctive mood, which expresses a resolution or wish in this case.

David M

2:39 AM

I've only studied Italian and Spanish extensively. French and Portuguese very casually. And, Romanian by osmosis (I can understand quite a bit, but can't produce in it)

Cerberus

Cool.

I can produce nothing.

David M

In residency, 2/3 of my fellow residents were Romanian.

Its similarity to Italian made it so I could pick up the gist of a lot of conversation.

Cerberus

Good.

It also does sound like Slavic, though.

David M

Definitely

Da for yes

That sort of thing

Cerberus

It is 100% easier to pick up bits than from e.g. Russian.

But still.

@DavidM Ah, I'm not surprised.

David M

2:44 AM

One of my co-residents was Aromanian. I used to tease her that she was a Visigoth

Not remotely historically accurate. But it pissed her off no end.

Aromanian language

Aromanian (rrãmãneshti, armãneashti, or armãneshce), also known as Macedo-Romanian or Vlach, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Meglenoromanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vlachs (a broader term and an exonym in widespread use to define Romance communities in the Balkans). Aromanian shares many features with modern Romanian, including similar morphology and syntax, as well as a large common vocabulary inherited from Latin. An important source of dissimilarity between Romanian and Aromanian is the adstrat...

Cerberus

Ah, I had not heard of that.

David M

Apparently her parents were very insistent that she marry an Aromanian, not even a run of the mill Romanian gentleman. I think she wound up married to an American guy of no particular extraction.

Cerberus

3:13 AM

Oh, dear.

Poor family.

The self-flagellation must have been audible from across the border.

3 hours later…

marcellothearcane

6:39 AM

-1

Q: I owe him, big-time

Should a comma precede “big-time” in the following sentence? I owe him, big-time. Thanks.

punctuation

None of the answerers have heard of 'big time'

4 hours later…

RegDwigнt

10:59 AM

> VALZER N° 2 Sostakovic Dmitrj Concert Band

What on Earth kind of language is that.

Swedish? Danish? Faroe?

In the flavour text, the arranger sticks to Italian. And valzer is Italian alright. But "Sostakovic Dmitrj"???

skullpetrol

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (Russian: Дми́трий Дми́триевич Шостако́вич , tr. Dmitriy Dmitrievich Shostakovich, pronounced [ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ˈdmʲitrʲɪjɪvʲɪtɕ ʂəstɐˈkovʲɪtɕ]; 25 September [O.S. 12 September] 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Russian composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century.Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex and difficult relationship with the government. Nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of...

2 hours later…

RegDwigнt

1:32 PM

@Robusto So we've started rehearsing The Messiah now.

And I know I mentioned it briefly before in passing, but: Jesus Christ, what a world of difference to Bach.

Even just the Hallelujah that everyone has heard a billion times. Not to mention the other 50+ pieces.

Basically you only know WTF you're doing if you're at the very top with the sopranos singing the melody, and maybe down below in the bass (for the most part).

Everything else, you're in no man's land.

Like, usually that fate is reserved for the altos, but here it's the tenors, too. You never even know where the tonic is.

I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, even when I have two pros who do, singing into both my ears at once.

Ugh.

Dig this:

During this last rehearsal, one voice were working on a line, I believe it was the altos, and the choir master asked the piano player to just play it for everyone to hear. Just the two bars of sixteenth notes.

And he's, like, the best piano player in the world. That sort of guy. Really astonishingly good.

And he played it and he screwed it up.

Everyone laughed heartily. He laughed heartily, too.

Then he played it a second time at half the tempo. Screwed up two notes still.

A third time, perfect now, but yeah everyone was still shaking with laughter.

So naturally when I came back home, I sat down at the piano and played those two bars.

You'd say nothing to write home about, normally. Just from looking at the score. Just 24 sixteenths, and in a middle voice that does not even matter.

But sure enough, I fucked it all up. Every other note was like, WTF is happening, how can anyone write this, have they sat at a keyboard before. Literally unplayable.

So yeah.

There's that.

Give me Bach, or give me death.

1 hour later…

RegDwigнt

2:37 PM

@Mitch pfft. None of my ancestors are from the 12th century. You're old.

musescore.com/user/30906161/scores/5815070

Now dig this.

And do read the description. It does say "PLEASE READ", after all.

And keep in mind that's the most comprehensible thing posted on MuseScore in the last two weeks or so.

2 hours later…

David M

4:44 PM

-3

Q: How is the sentence Fish fish fish eat eat eat grammatical?

I read that "Fish fish fish eat eat eat" is a grammatically correct sentence in English. I can't quite seem to parse it properly: "Fish that fish eat are tasty" is valid English sentence. "Fish that fish eat eat." is also valid English sentence, although it's getting confusing. "Fish that fish...

grammar commas definite-articles

I think my edit rescues this question.

Any thoughts?

@marcellothearcane This OP is actually a known troll. He went underground for like 5 years and then resurfaced. Look at some of his questions from 5 years ago . . .

1 hour later…

Mitch

6:02 PM

@RegDwigнt I think you are making that up.

2 hours later…

marcellothearcane

8:12 PM

@David As you may know, the primary interest of linguists is "language as used by native speakers", so there's no such thing as "bad English" or "good English" in linguistics as long as the utterances under examination have been produced by a native speaker. — ðulfiqaːr 5 hours ago

@DavidM huh okay

David M

@marcellothearcane That's toward a different David. I'm considering changing my screen name b/c I hate being confused with him . . .

Meanwhile, OP on the fish question reverted it back and it's already gone down 4 votes again. Some people refused to be helped.

marcellothearcane

Also, I think I've worked out what some of the irish/carribean crossover vowels are

/eɪ/ as in raised or later

@DavidM its their own funeral

Mitch

@marcellothearcane by hand, or by looking at IPA for English Dialects

...which sadly doesn't have Caribbean.

but surely there's a list somewhere

wikipedia isn't the truth but it sure does have a lot of interesting info.

and it's spotty (lots of info for one language but little for a nearby one.

Bajun (Barbados English) probably has a lot in common with Jamaican English.

(and that entry gives a list of IPA for each lexical set. not in the best format, but it's all there to compare with the table in the other link I gave.

@DavidM people get upset over having their stuff touched.

I know I do.

Stop touching my stuff

David M

8:48 PM

@Mitch I asked if he minded if I edited. He said no.

marcellothearcane

9:00 PM

@Mitch ear, actually

@DavidM maybe you conflicted with the author's intent of getting downvotes

Try doing 'you raise me up' in both accents

David M