« first day (3340 days earlier)      last day (1599 days later) » 

RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
11:11 AM
So I'm greeted by not one but two fresh questions on when to use *a* vs. *an*.
The new year and decade are off to a brilliant start.
Also WTF is going on in Baghdad again.
Apparently Trump doesn't want the Nobel Peace Prize, after all.
3
 
 
2 hours later…
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
1:02 PM
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties refers to the decade of the 1920s in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Europe, particularly in major cities such as Berlin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, and Sydney. In France, the decade was known as the "années folles" ('crazy years'), emphasizing the era's social, artistic and cultural dynamism. Jazz blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, and Art Deco peaked. Not everything roared: in the wake of the patriotism...
Are back!
 
 
1 hour later…
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
2:25 PM
you get the art deco and I bring in the flappers
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
2:35 PM
@skullpatrol Well this decade shall be Whining Twenties.
In the 1920s there wasn't any Facebooks or Twitters
 
Mitch
Mitch
3:08 PM
@M.A.R. Roaring Twenties? We can all hope for the Snoring Twenties.
 
 
2 hours later…
Mitch
Mitch
5:25 PM
@MattE.Эллен you get the art, baby, and I'll bring the nappies.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
pampers alright for you?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@MattE.Эллен I'm sure there's an art exhibit somewhere made of used ones.
Some call it the anthopocene, others the plasticene... in a million years when archeologists dig and find a layer marking this age, it'll be called the diapercene.
huggiecene?
poopocene?
 
Secret
Secret
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16403/difference-between-obliterate-and-eliminate
I am looking for words that has the same (or better, greater) strength than obliterate and annihilate. Any ideas?
Probably because of the physics uses of the word "annihilate" it sounds too weak
 
Mitch
Mitch
ewwwocene?
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
"they seemed to prize their excrement, wrapping it in preservative bags, with childish patterns"
time to go!
 
Mitch
Mitch
5:30 PM
@MattE.Эллен Poop you later!
@Secret are you 'dodo' or are you just new to the question and are curious on resolving it?
 
Secret
Secret
I am not dodo, I stumbled upon that link when trying to look for the answer to mine
 
Mitch
Mitch
do you have a similar ELU question?
 
Secret
Secret
not atm
I have asked word questions before, but that is some other topic
 
Mitch
Mitch
Those answers give a very good explanation of the difference between obliterate and eliminate.
obliterate is about the strongest.
(in the formal register)
Are you a native English speaker?
 
Secret
Secret
so there aren't words even stronger than that? (I don't know if complete destruction actually includes removing nonexistent objects like fictional entities and abstract objects)

Nope, I am from a Chinese background
But I have been living in Australia for years so I should be ok
 
Mitch
Mitch
5:35 PM
Annihilate is as strong as obliterate but slightly different connotations for me (as a native speaker of American English)
@Secret so you have a good native grasp of nuances but may be not able to articulate them.
Obliterate connotes things a little more physical, like a bomb flattening a house.
 
Secret
Secret
I see
 
Mitch
Mitch
Annihilate is a little more abstract, more likely to be used when something is made to not exist any more by any means.
So they're pretty close.
 
Secret
Secret
hmm... I see... so if I want to describe some godlike entity in a story that has the power to <> totality, including everything from nonexistence to full existent things, then there is no stronger word than annihilate?
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'm looking at thesaurus.com and I'm having a hard time distinguishing the lists for obliterate and annihilate
 
Secret
Secret
Well as far I am aware, people tend to use them interchangeably, unless you are a physicist, where annihilation has a more specific meaning
 
Mitch
Mitch
5:42 PM
@Secret I can't guarantee there's no stronger, but I'm having trouble thinking of one (and the thesaurus isn't giving me any good suggestions)
 
Secret
Secret
I see, should I make a ELU question on this, or it will be way too close to the dodo question and hence potentially closed as duplicate?
 
Mitch
Mitch
exterminate - has strong connotation of killing insects.
extirpate, abrogate - these are fancy words that I might understand with a lot of context, but out of context I'm kind of unsure what they really mean other than 'something bad'
@Secret It is very similar to the obliterate/eliminate question so yes, there may be some who decide to press that button because they can. On the other hand, it's comparing a different word to obliterate, so it is a unique question that doesn't address 'annihilate'. So it's a 50/50 chance it might get closed.
 
Secret
Secret
I see
 
Mitch
Mitch
If you ask it, you may want to give all these details (the thesaurus suggestions, a sentence with a blank for where you'd put the word, a link to the obliterate/eliminate question, to help forestall closing (though no guarantees)).
@Secret most words have their weird unexpected contexts. a good answer on ELU will try to bring those up.
 
Secret
Secret
Fun fact: I was so used to the physicists usage of annihilation which is why before I check dictionary, I never knew it has the same strength as obliteration
 
Mitch
Mitch
5:50 PM
what is the physicists usage?
 
Secret
Secret
Because particle annihilation is really creative for something that is supposed to mean complete destruction

Annihilation is physics is when particle-antiparticle pair get completely converted to energy. There is a chance it can produce two new pairs of lighter particles depending on how much energy there is initially
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Secret I see, a very technical meaning.
 
Secret
Secret
As for "obliteration", I sort of guess it is very strong because to me pronouncing "o-bi-lit-" gives me a scene of someone punching very very hard on many walls such that they crumble all at once as if something tunnelled through them
I don't know if that is a non native thing or just some emotion thing, but certain English word's pronunciation sometimes hint to me at the strength the word is, though no guarantee the intuition is accurate
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Secret That sounds similar to my impression. Like the rubble that is left over is gravel rather than large boulders.
@Secret I think it's universal, to any language. In that words that -sound- like other words can get their meanings a little unintended overlap. And sometimes you have no idea where from.
That's the source of malapropisms and puns and eggcorns.
which happen in every language.
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:25 PM
@RegDwigнt I'm starting to watch "The Americans" a TV series about a Russian spy couple who lives as an entirely American family with two teenage kids in the Washington DC area doing spy stuff like assassinations and obtain plans for biochemical weapons and such while still having to deal with groceries and school and commuting to work...There's a lot of Russian spoken, with subtitles.
So here's the question: I thought Russian was pro-drop (optional pronouns). But (of the only Russian I can recognize), they -always- say 'Я знаю' or 'Я не знаю' instead of 'знаю' or 'не знаю'. So which way would people normally say it? With or without 'Я'?
 
 
4 hours later…
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
9:59 PM
@Mitch both are possible but usually not equally idiomatic. Typically one will be preferable over the other. Sometimes one will be so wrong as to blow your cover. Other times both are interchangeable (as long as your prosody and stress are on point).
I can't provide even the vaguest guidelines because I don't believe there are any. It's Russian, after all.
It's different between the negated and the non-negated version, too.
And remember that word order is very free. So there's a third option as well:
Знаю я. Не знаю я.
That one is usually used for emphasis though. Definitely not interchangeable with what you have.
You can pile up even more emphasis by using a particle, да знаю я! Да не знаю я!
And then you can shave off some of that emphasis right off again by then dropping the pronoun. Да знаю! Да не знаю!
It's intricate. The vowel length then plays a role, too. It can become quite sing-songy.
Overall, I think (I think!) if you don't know what you're doing then your safest bet is to yes, drop the pronoun and just say знаю, не знаю.
But I can't really extrapolate from that that that is the normal way.
2
And it is with that triple that that I'm calling it a day today.
Dress rehearsal and concert tomorrow.
Nighty-night.
 
KannE
KannE
10:45 PM
@Mitch That was the worst fireworks show ever...is what she meant. People are suing for hearing loss, I'm sure.
 

« first day (3340 days earlier)      last day (1599 days later) »