English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

12:14 AM

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Noted.

Mitch

12:40 AM

@CowperKettle What is vk.com in Russia?

(but also what is 'tmall' in China (probably some amazon like buying thing)?)

(and what is the thing in Finland and Iran?)

@M.A.R. Yes, but not exactly. The thinking is that people thought of -1/4- as bigger than -1/3-.

CowperKettle

@Mitch The largest social network. By the way, Facebook is a shed, haphazardly knocked together, compared with VK in terms of design, ease of use, and speed.

I am always amazed at how billions earned through Facebook have never been spent on making it even a relatively comfortable site.

> A register shall be kept to record the issue and return of keys (there shall never be an identical key on a key ring).

Another cryptic sentense. I've translated it as-is, but what it means I cannot tell.

Robusto

12:57 AM

@M.A.R. That's the idea.

Mitch

But that's silly...noone is comparing these things side by side so you're only working on very vague things. "quarter-pounder' sounds -huge-. 1/3 pound...I don't know"

@CowperKettle lots of these fancy unicorn sites, used by zillions, have old or minimally tweaked interfaces

Robusto

8 hours ago, by Robusto

They shoulda called it a Royale w/ Cheese.

Mitch

@Robusto wait...

BK would steal McD's French name for the 1/4 pounder?

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Facebook is also sloooow.

But who's still using Facebook anyway.

Mitch

a bunch of middle aged people in the US

Cerberus

1:12 AM

@CowperKettle Perhaps something like this: A register shall be kept to record the issue and [to] return keys (there shall never be more than one identical key on a key ring).

Bu the return part I cannot guess without more context.

@CowperKettle I also wonder about this site in Holland.

It looks similar to the ones in Hungary and Moldova.

But it doesn't look familiar at all.

Incidentally, one wonders how relevant Alexa is, these days.

Robusto

@Mitch Who said anything about Burger King? It was A&W tried to come out with the 1/3 pounder.

Cerberus

I mean, have you ever heard of anyone using it?

Mitch

@Robusto Oh

Xanne

1:36 AM

@CowperKettle There shall never be a duplicate key, or never more than one copy of each key.

Issue and return: check a key out and check it back in when it’s returned, so that it is known who has a key to each location.

Very basic security. And protection for someone who returns a key and thus has no access to the place where the goodies are kept.

@CowperKettle A register shall be kept to record the issue and return of keys.

tchrist

3:04 AM

The covid death rate in America has hit one per minute.

2

CowperKettle

5:04 AM

skullpatrol

5:17 AM

@CowperKettle do you have one for blonde hair?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive body detected (43): Meaning of corporatism by user406314 on english.SE

CowperKettle

7:06 AM

Faheem Mitha

8:59 AM

@Robusto Is the suggested meaning that (some) people thought that 1/4 is larger than 1/3?

skullpatrol

Yes.

"most customers thought"

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle VK is a social networking site?

@skullpatrol That sounds... unlikely.

skullpatrol

That is why the product failed to sell.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle I was recently trying to deal with some Indian mutual fund websites. They must process enormous sums of money through those sites, from Indians who imagine that the people who are offering to manage their money know what they are doing.

Anyway, I was impressed by how awful those sites were. I wonder how much money is spent on them. And I tried to offer feedback, only to get responses from people who either were brain damaged, or doing a really convincing imitation of brain damage. Not kidding.

Some of the correspondence I get here is just... mind-boggling. How do these people have jobs? And how can they venture outside their front doors without getting robbed or run over? It's a strange world.

@skullpatrol I used to try to teach math in the US, a long time ago. It was pretty bad, but the kids did know that 1/3 was larger than 1/4.

skullpatrol

Could they figure out if 1/1/1/3 was larger than 1/1/1/4 ?

Faheem Mitha

9:13 AM

@skullpatrol I don't know. It didn't come up. One thing was clear though. They didn't know any maths. Apparently they don't teach that in whatever high schools they went to. Then again, neither did mine.

skullpatrol

How about is —1/4 "larger" than —1/3 ?

Faheem Mitha

@skullpatrol Actually I can't even remember how a fraction like that associates.

@skullpatrol I think they could manage that.

@skullpatrol Never mind, it's just repeated reciprocals, so associativity doesn't matter.

skullpatrol

The word "larger" shouldn't be used with negative numbers; imho.

Faheem Mitha

@skullpatrol larger magnitude. I.e. size.

skullpatrol

Yes, but you need the idea of "absolute value" for that to be meaningful.

Faheem Mitha

9:21 AM

@skullpatrol Yes, of course.

skullpatrol

Kids get too easily distracted by added terminology.

Faheem Mitha

@skullpatrol In my experience, kids have no interest in learning math. With very rare exceptions.

skullpatrol

yup

Faheem Mitha

In the US, specifically, they need to import people to keep the technological side of things running. Because the local people are unable or unwilling to do it.

India is no different, except nobody wants to come here, understandably.

Xanne

9:53 AM

They might have tried “A bigger quarter-pounder”

skullpatrol

10:28 AM

"An 8% bigger quarter-pounder" may have worked

or 8% more meat than a quarter-pounder

but, some people don't like percents.

In fact, a well known high school Algeba1 textbook completely avoids using the word "percentage" when discussing percents

But, I think, that's an English thing.

CowperKettle

10:55 AM

@FaheemMitha Yes

Looks like this. And it has an English interface version.

skullpatrol

@CowperKettle is the red part Bangladesh?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha My sister, while she was in India, once asked me to upload a photo of her to get registered in New Delhi. The Indian website said: "the size of the photo must be exactly 3 by 5 centimeters", and I spent half a day cropping the photo in all kinds of ways, but it won't let me upload it. The moronity of specifying a size in centimeters online, instead of pixels and megabytes and other parameters, amazed me.

@skullpatrol I think it must be so

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Sounds familiar.

Not those exact details, obviously.

In the latest news, the BJP (read RSS), want to combine India, Pakistan and Bangladesh back together, inspired by the example of East and West Germany.

For those who don't know, those are all pieces of what was once British India, and before that was a lot of independent states. Mostly princely states.

Actually, not a bad idea provided the resulting country wasn't run by the current fascist idiot thugs. (Can one use idiot as an adjective, or should it be idiotic?)

Criminal actions of India that I've never heard about - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Hyderabad

skullpatrol

"Idiot thugs" sounds fine to me.

Faheem Mitha

Mentioned in passing in an article I skimmed today.

There was a similar action against Goa, at that time run by by the Portuguese, who were driven out. They weren't happy about it.

The Goa action is probably better known.

Not longer after I heard about it, I met someone who said it was an important part of his thesis. Possibly PhD thesis. I'm not sure. He wasn't Indian, though. Brazilian, I think.

@skullpatrol Ok, thank you. Does such a construction have a name?

skullpatrol

11:11 AM

Dunno, sorry.

Faheem Mitha

That Hyderabad business sounds surprisingly nasty. Why can't human beings refrain from behaving like savages? Why is it so hard?

Matt E. Эллен

@FaheemMitha pretty much any noun can be used as an adjective, it's called a noun adjunct or attributive noun

2

Faheem Mitha

@MattE.Эллен Never heard of it, but thank you.

Matt E. Эллен

no worries

Noun adjunct

In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; it is a noun functioning as a pre-modifier in a noun phrase. For example, in the phrase "chicken soup" the noun adjunct "chicken" modifies the noun "soup". It is irrelevant whether the resulting compound noun is spelled in one or two parts. "Field" is a noun adjunct in both "field player" and "fieldhouse". == Related concepts == Adjectival noun is a term that was formerly synonymous with noun adjunct but is now usually used to mean "an adjective used...

Faheem Mitha

@MattE.Эллен Yes, I see. Thank you, that's helpful. I learned something today.

Matt E. Эллен

11:16 AM

:D

Faheem Mitha

Also, bbc.com/news/magazine-24159594

20 to 40 thousand people dead. Wonderful.

skullpatrol

:-/

Faheem Mitha

My aunt lived in Hyderabad for a lonig time. I wonder if she knows anything about this.

I've spent half my life in this country. But I've literally never heard anything about this.

And Hyderabad isn't that far from here, either. I've actually been there.

CowperKettle

11:40 AM

@FaheemMitha I think that might be impossible provided that India and Pakistan have had a number of wars and there are constant tensions.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Oh, that's not going to happen in the forseeable future, for all kinds of reasons.

Not least that everyone outside India hates and fears the RSS. And rightly so.

You should hear what the Pakistan PM had to say about Modi. And very eloquent he was too. At the UN, I think.

CowperKettle

1:05 PM

tchrist

1:50 PM

Pray compare Can someone please explain this Dalai-Lama joke to me? with this one and tell me why the latter is open but the former closed and deleted?

2

Q: Didn't understand joke about No Child Left Behind

I was watching this video. At around 30:00, Chomsky exaplins that he never went to Chemistry class nor to Chemistry lab and he got a A nevertheless. Then he makes a joke: "This approach has a name. It's called No Child Left Behind" (31:12 into the video). Can you explain the joke to me? I know th...

jokes

Matt E. Эллен

did we change our minds about jokes after the "one with everything" question?

I know jokes are only on topic if they rely on English to be funny

tchrist

I don't think we changed our minds.

But I don't understand the difference between those two questions.

Matt E. Эллен

I would say "no child left behind" is arguably less on topic, because it relies on knowing about a particular USA law, rather than a well known phrase

tchrist

But if you think single word requests are bad, just wait till the explain-me-the-joke requests flood our fields.

Matt E. Эллен

22

Q: Are questions about ununderstood English-language jokes on-topic?

In a song video made by an American acquaintance, there is a joke that I don't understand. I am not a native speaker, and I guess most English speakers would understand what makes his joke funny. Is it on-topic to ask what is the meaning of his play on words? As asked by Jeff Parker, here is...

discussion on-topic-off-topic

RegDwigнt

1:59 PM

@Robusto oh the song was hands down the best part about it all. Not just the music is like a proper folk song, the lyrics, too, are about drones and robots, but the way countryfolk would sing about them. Inventive and poetic and melancholic. Very, very well done. "A quadcopter is a bird without a nest".

Matt E. Эллен

that was posted before the dalai lama joke

tchrist

@MattE.Эллен Very good!

blames @RegDwigнt for all this

21

A: Are questions about ununderstood English-language jokes on-topic?

Well, we do have these: What does the joke with the punchline about Chrome and Hollandaise mean, and why is it funny? What does it mean, 'Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink'? Why is it funny? Don't understand the joke: my milk's gone bad… Analyzing Will Ferrell's “I Though...

Let those who have not not understood jokes cast the alpha and omega close vote.

> "No jokes please, we're vegans."

@FaheemMitha Indian massacres have been hidden or otherwise misrepresented by powerful state interests and their history book writing lackeys for centuries and centuries. Custer deserved what he got.

flexes his nominal adjunctionals

Mitch

@tchrist Vote to undelete the Dalai Lama question.

And the vote to close the NCLB because of what @MattE.Эллен said

tchrist

@Robusto So what then is the English-language counterpart to Japanese kwōtā? Single word request!!

@Mitch bides, for moderation is for monks

Mitch

2:18 PM

@tchrist I'm a bit peeved at Chomsky for this rare anti-intellectualism hidden behind contempt for Bush and faux self-deprecatiion. Of all people, just to get a jab at Bush, he flaunts his disdain for a scientific pursuit.

@tchrist Dude.

I don't mean that in any way. It's just that you aid 'abide' so I had to make a locally required cultural reference.

I think it should be locked, not deleted.

tchrist

I don't think that question is even a joke per se, at least, not in the customary fashion.

@Mitch Disdaining chemistry is anti-intellectualism? Or Bush?

Mitch

@tchrist Yeah it's totally a language joke, depends on two totally different parsings. Also pizza and nirvana.

tchrist

If I'm biding, it means I'm waiting. Just like Biden is our President in Waitin.

@Mitch No no, the other one, the Bushlet dig.

Mitch

@tchrist Disdaining chemistry (or confessing lack of interest in it) is antiintellectual.

@tchrist Oh

tchrist

> 1937 V. Gollancz in ‘G. Orwell’ Road to Wigan Pier p. xviii, Mr. Orwell..is at one and the same time an extreme intellectual and a violent anti-intellectual.

Mitch

2:28 PM

No not anti-intellectual. Though someone who is not intellectual and doesn't understand Chomsky's implications about the law (I actually don't remember anything about the law except it having something to do with Bush who I don't associate with intellectual), I would claim that that person might call Chomsky's jab at NCLB to be anti-intellectual.

@tchrist anti-intellectual or anti-snobbery/anti-elitism?

(because I don't see the anti-intellectualism)

tchrist

I don't see it either.

But disdaining NCLB is not the same as not fancying a chemistry postdoc.

Mitch

Right.

I didn't actually watch the video.

so I don't know the full context

tchrist

It's probably in braille anyway.

Mitch

just watched it... he's more -bragging- about how he understood so well the subject matter (read ahead in the books) that he got an A on exams without attending class, and the grade for the labs was similarly from a questionnaire which asked what happened which he also knew by reading ahead.

So instead of being anti-intellectual he's bragging.

and then makes the quip about NCLB. Which is funny because it is such a whiplash change in direction.

Captain Bohemian

sleepy

I have tired Covid-19.

CowperKettle

2:53 PM

Robusto

@tchrist Do you mean クオータ?

CowperKettle

A village teacher in Russia was fined 5000 rubles for staging a protest against the closing of the only school in the village, and dismissed.

Robusto

More frequently used, apparently, is ノルマ, taken from Russian (transliteration: norma), to mean the same thing.

But much more common is 定員 (teiin) to express that concept.

@tchrist Ah, you mean クォーター. English quarter. Another 外来語　(foreign loan word). It's pretty difficult to suss Japanese transliterations (and botched pronunciations) of English words. Again, katakana and its devilish approximations. It is like trying to reproduce an Impressionist painting with Lego blocks (and damn few of them).

Note that クォーター can also mean "person with one non-Japanese grandparent." Which is odd, because you'd think it would be the other way around.

Faheem Mitha

3:15 PM

@tchrist What?

CowperKettle

3:37 PM

I wonder why none of the US states have tried the ultra-harsh Chinese lockdown scheme, if the deathcount is so severe.

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch It's not "anti-intellectualism". He's just making fun of the moronic Bush-era fixation on standardized testing. Something that Republicans are not alone in loving. They adore tests here. They are also quite fond of them in the UK.

Not hard to understand, especially if one is familiar with Chomsky's style of humor.

I've actually heard Indian parents describe their child as a "99 percenter". Or maybe a "90 percenter". Believe it or not.

Though no matter how many percent they get, you can be assured they still wouldn't be able to write correct grammatical English.

(That last bit is just some gratuitous nastiness I threw in.)

CowperKettle

3:51 PM

0

Q: What is "authorized signature competence"? (business language)

From a document I'm translating. The document lays down requirements for a company to comply with in order to pass certification: Authorized Signature A list of authorized signatures shall be kept including the name of the employee, the authorized signature and authorized signature competence an...

phrase-meaning business-language

in Mathematics, Nov 19 at 20:06, by Mike Miller

@BalarkaSen hegelian dielectrics

user91500

Hello everyone. I came back here after 5 years!

Matt E. Эллен

4:06 PM

welcome back

CowperKettle

@user91500 Welcome back!

Captain Bohemian

4:27 PM

even condemning others for finding excuse is an excuse to refrain from helping others if you ask them how are you.

Captain Bohemian

4:47 PM

I think having empathy to some people is difficult. I also feel I don't need to have empathy to some people.

M.A.R.

@user91500 Now I want cotton candy

@Mitch yeah that's what I meant

@Robusto Wow

I have nothing to say to that.

So I'll be that Mitch and say I'll instead say "I have nothing to say to that".

Captain Bohemian

I think people from mainland China are really rough.

actually you don't need to find a proponent for a position you adopt to feel confident in insisting your position.

deploring others as finding excuse for their difficulties is far easier than helping them solve their difficulties.

this can be called meta-excuse.

M.A.R.

5:36 PM

What you're describing sounds universal

BUT

I've heard stories of restaurant chefs and customers getting into fights.

Captain Bohemian

I think people from mainland China are generally rough.

I have experience their rough behavior when I was in Beijing around SARS outbreak.

now I experience their rough behavior again.

it's very easy to ask others how are you then when they talk about their difficulties, deplore them as finding excuses for their difficulties.

I never ask others how are you because I am afraid they tell me their difficulties I cannot help solve.

I hate those who ask others how are you then, when they talk about their difficulties, deplore them as finding excuses for their difficulties.

these people meta-excuse to refrain from solving others' difficulties.

either you don't ask how are you or you don't expect others to tell you their difficulties.

there are only scientific problems are economical problems.

if I cannot perceive a person has scientific background, I usually only talk with them about economical problems when they ask me "how are you".

I don't really understand why that Chinese likes to often visit my room and leave soon.

Captain Bohemian

6:15 PM

if she has no time, just don't visit me.

I don't desire her visit much.

I think economists are not compatible with theoretical scientists.

CowperKettle

6:29 PM

Did you know that elephants can swim up to 40 km far from the coast?

Cerberus

Seriously?

That's too far.

Captain Bohemian

because scientific theories don't contribute to economy according to economists' concept.

CowperKettle

6:52 PM

> Researchers have used cutting edge technology to bioprint miniature human kidneys in the lab, paving the way for new treatments for kidney failure and possibly lab-grown transplants. medicalxpress.com/news/…

@M.A.R.

tchrist

7:09 PM

@CowperKettle Apparently because many Americans would rather die than ever be forced to follow any rules at all, even ones designed to save their very lives, or those of their fellows.

Mitch

7:22 PM

@M.A.R. but also people aren't always total idiots. if you gave them on a test "Which is bigger 1/4 or 1/3?" I don't think as many people would get it wrong as those who chose the quarter pounder over "1/3 pound of beef".

@M.A.R. I have nothing to say to that.

I'm looking back and forth and there's really no difference.

So I'd really have to say I don't really know what I would say to that if it ever made sense to say that at all.

@Cerberus In elephant distance it's really only 5 miles.

skullpatrol

7:35 PM

@Mitch what does that notation mean?

–1/4–

–1/3–

Mitch

7:50 PM

@skullpatrol it's just emphasis

It's not any math notation. Others were saying that people were having trouble understanding that 4 is bigger than 3, and I was emphasizing that people were just confused about the fractions, not the respective integers.

skullpatrol

Like (1/4)?

or [1/3]

Mitch

instead of using italics with underscore, I just use dashes.

skullpatrol

ok, thanks

@Mitch it is good to emphasize that it is 1 divided by 3

I.e. The quotient of 1 and 3

or the result of dividing one number by another

the same goes for subtraction

Robusto