English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer (79): "Tipster" in real estate terms by Real Estate Agency on english.SE

Faheem Mitha

7:13 AM

@CowperKettle I'd go with decline over reject. Reject suggests there is something wrong with the products. See the dictionary definition.

Refuse is also ok, I think. Though neither of them sound like a perfect match to the context.

@Færd Feels a bit nonstandard, but not obviously wrong. Personally I'd go with something like "fundamentally".

@skullpatrol Cheery stuff indeed, though in the case of India, the possible variance is huge. Because India is India.

For example, there is some evidence locally (here in Bombay) that the BMC is faking tests in order to get more money from... someone. I wonder if anyone else had this bright idea.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I liked Person of Interest too. Though I didn't make it all the way to the end. Too upsetting watching everyone get killed off.

Not what I'd normally choose to watch, but so much of US TV is people running around with guns, or procedural stuff, or both. Some days I'd like to watch a nice relaxing drama about English Literature critics.

Though, come to think of it, David Lodge already covered that.

But he hasn't got much love from Hollywood, poor man.

Has anyone here read "Small World", for example.

Faheem Mitha

8:28 AM

Is anyone following the Assange case? It's pretty terrible.

terdon

@FaheemMitha This is a very, very good read. It's an interview of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture speaking about the Assange case.

republik.ch/2020/01/31/…

3

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Thank you for the link.

The Assange case is particularly notable because of the light is shines on what the people who run the world are really like, and what upsets them. Very instructive. Not the only such example, but a noteworthy one without a doubt.

@terdon Very interesting article.

This is pretty good too - youtube.com/watch?v=4nbwjpG6O1w

terdon

8:53 AM

That's a 40 minute video.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Yes. So?

Melzer is Swiss but speaks fluent Swedish? Is that common?

terdon

Way, way too long for me.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon You could listen to it while taking a bath or eating, or something.

That's when I tend to listen to these videos.

Anyway, it's a pretty interesting video.

terdon

9:09 AM

It might be. But it isn't something I can do while working :)

Færd

9:22 AM

@FaheemMitha Right

CowperKettle

9:54 AM

Lukashenko's criminals continue to beat up people.

It's good that the Resistance is outing the bastards.

terdon

@CowperKettle Not their wives though. Wow. I can't believe that was retweeted!

CowperKettle

@terdon Their wives also should know that their partner is a criminal.

Maybe that will prompt them to seek a better person as a partner.

KannE

Since when did imitative mean onomatopoeic? If Oxford can use it, I don't understand why I've had to complicate such things all these years...too many words.

terdon

@CowperKettle You are assuming they don't know which is unlikely. But my point is that no matter how unpleasant one spouse may be, that is no reason to also publicly post a picture of the other. What if his wife is now attacked on the street?

They should have blacked out the wife's face as they did the daughter's.

CowperKettle

10:14 AM

@terdon Yes, they should have, but they are a random and poorly organized group of semi-hackers. Belarus has no entrenched organized opposition, so I guess all kinds of things may happen randomly as Lukashenko gets more and more oppressive.

It's good that thus far there was no violence from the protesters.

terdon

@CowperKettle I'm more annoyed at the (presumed) journalist who retweeted that.

Færd

@terdon Text you can skim. Speech you can play at double the normal speed (and also skim).

That's how I save time listening to podcasts and videos in Farsi. In English, I normally can't go beyond 1.5x, unless I'm familiar with the speaker's accent, intonation, and idialect.

Too bad it's not possible in real-time convo.

Oh your text is also a 40-minute read!

@terdon Sometimes I think Twitter should have mods too, like Reddit and SE do.

skullpatrol

10:31 AM

Twitter is a jungle

terdon

@Færd Just one of the many reasons I'm not on twitter or any other social media platform.

skullpatrol

Facebook is slightly better

Færd

I dunno. Twitter has been a real nice experience for me for the past couple years (mostly). On it, I've met good friends (whom I later met in person), had informative conversations, learnt from other people's conversations (and altercations), participated in political activism, put together a book club, and met a girlfriend.

@terdon I do also recognize the cons tho.

terdon

I'm not saying twitter is bad (or good), only that I, personally, am very uncomfortable with how public our lives have become and I don't like participating in any form of social media.

skullpatrol

some people have made their lives totally public

to the point of disgust, actually

live & let live

Færd

10:57 AM

It's their lives, right? You should have the discretion over how much you want to share with who.

It's true that social media have took over the reins of so many people's lives and info. But that's another matter, perhaps.

RegDwigнt

11:10 AM

@Robusto inorite. If I were really charitable, I might fantasize that maybe it's there to help with the "quasi". You can't play the passage too fast if you're forced to play it like a grandpa typing his first email.

But you know as I do that I'm clutching at straws there.

Never attribute to benevolence that which is adequately attributed to Bartók.

CowperKettle

12:16 PM

It's quite cold here.

CowperKettle

12:33 PM

I donloaded a torrent with all Kingston Trio albums and 've been listening them on the jog

Great group

Faheem Mitha

12:58 PM

@terdon Well, that's a very chilling interview.

Though it's only surprising if one is delusional enough to think that the US and the UK are the "good guys".

terdon

UK and US I wasn't that surprised by, but I admit I had higher expectations of Sweden.

Faheem Mitha

Maybe it's a client state. I don't really know how power structures work in the modern world.

@Færd Something like

> I was telling myself that yoga at its core is a practice of acceptance.

would also work.

Though I'm not sure what that sentence is supposed to mean.

Robusto

@CowperKettle The flowers don't seem to mind.

Faheem Mitha

Question. in the sentence above, what is the technical term for "at its core"?

As a grammatical structure, that is.

Robusto

1:13 PM

@Færd It is directly analogous to at bottom.

@FaheemMitha Same as at root. ^_^

These are all synonyms: fundamentally, at root, at its root, at bottom, essentially, at its core, basically.

@FaheemMitha It's a prepositional phrase. What more do you need to know?

Faheem Mitha

1:29 PM

@Robusto That's sufficient. Thank you.

@Færd I suppose I'd be happier with "at its root", as opposed to just "at root".

So "at" is the preposition, in this case?

CowperKettle

1:46 PM

> All the chemical symbols in the periodic table are sad. That's no laughing matter.

I don't understand this joke.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Context?

Robusto

@CowperKettle It's a pun on the two uses of the noun matter.

Think of physics: matter vs energy.

I just told that joke to a native speaker and it went over her head too.

So you're not alone.

All the elements are different forms of matter, see?

Matt E. Эллен

It went over my head, too

Faheem Mitha

That doesn't explain why the symbols are "sad".

It's not a very good joke, if it's intended as a joke.

CowperKettle

2:03 PM

I picked it up in a joke community on Facebook, and there are a hundred laughing smilies under it.

Ah, I get it. The symbols comprising the table are matter. And this matter is not laughing because it's sad.

Robusto

2:22 PM

@MattE.Эллен At least half the matter in the universe is over all our heads. So yeah ...

Jokes in other languages are hard to fathom.

CowperKettle

> History of the Ancient World. Textbook for the 5th grade.

Mitch

Robusto

@CowperKettle Is that an ad on the cover or are those artifacts of the "ancient world"?

Matt E. Эллен

2:42 PM

@Robusto and the weight of the world on my shoulders

Færd

@Robusto Ah right! I was troubled by root being used as a mass noun there. But that happens in fixed phrases.

@FaheemMitha That'd be more cautious.

@FaheemMitha Right

@Mitch German is so behind. Let up already.

Farsi: No gender bullshit at all.

Robusto

@Færd No genders in Farsi?

Færd

@Robusto Grammatical gender? None.

Robusto

Nice.

Grammatical gender is just the stupidest addition to a language.

Færd

Hehe yeah. We had our fights over political correctness a thousand years ago. And we settled it right.

Robusto

2:57 PM

Same for English, same for Japanese.

Færd

How so? You still have gendered pronouns.

CowperKettle

@Robusto The artifacts

It's a joke

Robusto

I see.

34 mins ago, by Robusto

Jokes in other languages are hard to fathom.

CowperKettle

Cassette players are ancient to today's 12-year-olds

Robusto

I should substitute "cultures" for "languages" there.

But yeah, I did get the joke, it just seemed strange.

CowperKettle

2:59 PM

I still remember the time when in order to listen to some new music you had to physically walk to a store and buy a disk or a cassette.

Robusto

Have you ever noticed that the candies of other countries have their own foreign flavors.

CowperKettle

No, I haven't eaten much of candies ))

Færd

@CowperKettle Also the way a hexagonal pen tube could be applied to cassettes.

Robusto

@CowperKettle And I remember a time when you had to buy a vinyl disc.

CowperKettle

When we were in school, a deskmate said during a history class that in September 1812 Napoleon called Tzar Alexander by phone from Moscow to St Petersburg to demand surrender.

Robusto

3:02 PM

If you had told teenage me that one day I would have a pocket-sized device that could hold and play an entire music collection I'd have thought "What sorcery is this?"

Or that you could play any music from anywhere by anyone anytime you wanted.

The whole "vinyl is better" argument is total bullshit.

CowperKettle

Yes

Færd

If cock-a-doodle-do were a verb, would its past tense be cock-a-doodle-did?

CowperKettle

Yes to all three sentences.

Færd

> My rooster never cock-a-doodle-does.

Robusto

Even if vinyl and digital were equal in sound reproduction, which they are not (digital is decidedly superior), there is the matter of surface noise and scratches and pops.

And the fact that you have to sit yourself in a chair in front of a turntable, amp and speakers.

CowperKettle

3:10 PM

nods

Vinyl is so 2019. Nothing beats a live orchestra.

Robusto

Tru dat.

And nothing beats hearing that orchestra from the inside. ^_^

Mitch

2050 kids: I can't believe in the old days back in the 2020's you had to do this thing called 'downloading' to listen to any music. What does that even mean?

2090 kids: haha those dopes in the 50's with their 'listening' with what they used to call .. haha get this... 'ears'. Wild, what a goofball idea.

2120 kids: uh uh uh I bang rock uh uh

Robusto

@Mitch 2150 kids: "Damn, it's hot outside."

Faheem Mitha

3:49 PM

When I was a child, there was too little information. Now there is too much. It's overwhelming. Still, I prefer the latter problem.

@Mitch One medium-sized nuclear war, and that will be that for music listening. Possibly most electronic devices will stop working. I'm not really sure of the implications.

I know about EMPs, but that would be a one-time type thing.

CowperKettle

4:11 PM

> But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away

Rioting in Africa (Merry Minuet)

►

> The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The french hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much

terdon

Tom Lehrer - National Brotherhood Week - with intro

►

genius.com/Tom-lehrer-national-brotherhood-week-lyrics

Robusto

4:37 PM

@CowperKettle Yours?

You could use ellipsis in a couple of lines to help the meter:

> The French hate the Germans, the Germans the Poles

etc.

CowperKettle

@Robusto No, it's a song of the Kingston Trio

Why do you want to go to school?

Robusto

@CowperKettle Hahaha. Well, they could have helped the meter as well, unless they were deliberately making it unruly. I'll listen now.

Wrong listen.

Yeah, the first of those lines is a little bit infelicitous, but they do seem to be making it awkward for humorous effect.

So I withdraw my comment.

One Pot Full English Breakfast

►

@MattE.Эллен: England's contribution to civilization ^

Now that is a proper breakfast.

The only drawback is tea. It just isn't any kind of substitute for coffee.

Faheem Mitha

4:56 PM

@Robusto Indigestible.

British food is horrible.

Robusto

For the most part. But you can find good meals there.

Faheem Mitha

I lived briefly in the UK. I have horrible memories of eating the food.

I do like sausages, sometimes. Rarely eat them, though.

Robusto

I think most Brits would agree with you, though, which is why they're always ordering curry and other foods from your country.

I mean, who, given the choice, would eat boiled beef and carrots instead of just about anything else?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Agreed. Though the boiling isn't particularly the problem.

Robusto

It certainly doesn't help.

Faheem Mitha

5:00 PM

Agreed, it doesn't.

I like bacon too. A long time since I've eaten that, as well.

Robusto

Bacon is way more appealing than it has any right to be.

Faheem Mitha

5:14 PM

Bacon is tasty. At least in small doses.

@terdon Tom Lehrer is a fun time.

I hear he's retired.

Gigili

5:51 PM

@Robusto It's the other way around. Coffee can in no way compete with tea.

Robusto

Jul 8 '15 at 15:34, by Robusto

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Mmmmmmmm coffee ... !

@Gigili Maybe it's the context. I can drink tea for flavor later in the day, but to get going in the morning I accept no substitute for coffee.

I do like Japanese ocha (お茶, green tea). But I like its bitterness. I suspect you like sweet tea.

KannE

6:30 PM

When we just downvote new contributors, it makes us assholes; it just does. I've done it before, and recently...I felt I was justified for some reason, but it's a shit move. It really is.

Gigili

7:37 PM

@Robusto No way, I hate to eat anything sweet in the morning.

M.A.R.

@KannE if you don't emotionally detach yourself, you're constantly going to feel like one, and it probably seeps elsewhere too. Content rating is really tricky.

Gigili

@Robusto Right, but I rule the world.

Robusto

@Gigili Then I'm going to need some favors from you.

M.A.R.

I do realize that new users are often unable to detach themselves like this, or find out how to do better, so it feels like a hand came from a time portal and necked me and ran away

Robusto

I downvote if it's a frivolous question or answer. If it's merely awkward I give them some slack.

M.A.R.

7:43 PM

@RegDwigнt just ranting, just ranting

@Robusto I don't do much on any SE site these days, but I've seen too much meta to think of the arrows as anything other than personal quality evaluations. I'd be ashamed if I sympathy-upvote a terrible question, or prevent Roomba from taking care of it by not downvoting it.

Usercards are often just blurry. My mind skips them unless it's meta.

Robusto

@M.A.R. I never upvote a terrible question. There is only so far my distaste for such will allow my sympathy to take me.

But I sure wish I could downvote the bumping mechanism on SE sites.

M.A.R.

@Robusto These days I'm helping take care of my grandma that has short term memory loss and depression, and one of her only enjoyments during the day is a cup of tea. I never drank tea, but I find myself tempted sometimes

Robusto

@M.A.R. Well, it would be churlish to deny her such a pleasure. I would do the same in your position, and would drink tea if it made her happy to share such a moment.

M.A.R.

Wow, Assange's case is effed up

Robusto

8:36 PM

@M.A.R. In what way?

Mitch

8:51 PM

@KannE Wait... 'imitative' isn't some kind of synonym of 'onomatopoeic'?

Also, what's the context?

RegDwigнt

9:12 PM

@Mitch yeah outside of context nothing is a synonym of anything. And in context everything can be a synonym of everything else.

Robusto

9:48 PM

@RegDwigнt: BTW, speaking of the "Gsus chord" and Adam Neely, you get extra points if you can tell the name of the movie that avatar of JC came from, and what that avatar was called.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…