English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

1:04 AM

I dreamed that I operated a specially designed shallow-water midget submarine to get supplies to guerrilla fighters living in a half-submerged cellar. The cellar was huge, the size of a city.

In some part of the cellar there lived a tribe of people whose chief was Sechin, who in real life is a Russian oligarch and Putin's close friend.

I managed to covertly infiltrate the tribe's gathering during which they were worshipping the tribe's goddess.

The goddess was represented by a woman who slowly danced on the scene while everybody watched.

Sechin had his own personal half-closed suite at the end of the room. His right hand was bandaged, because a cellar rat bit him and an inflammation developed.

Cerberus

Elaborəte.

CowperKettle

Yes, I also was amazed. This was a week ago. I posted the description on Facebook and my friends were rolling on the floor laughing.

Because Sechin does look like a funny kind of a tribe chief

This night just before waking up, I dreamed that I worked in a Russian bath-house and there were several women who asked me to rub them with soap.

This was better than dreaming about Sechin.

And there came one of my friends, who happened to visit the bathhouse. And she said that she loved being rubbed with soap, then with snow, for a contrast. It was in the winter. I said that I will do my best as she completely undressed.

So it was a kind of erotic dream. But inside the dream it all felt just like ordinary life.

Russians love to have a banya (common bath with high heat) and then go and jump and roll in the snow outside, then go back to the heat room.

Cerberus

1:30 AM

Haha.

Just like ordinary life: that would seem to contradict erotic?

I mean, if I had a dream like that, it might seem completely normal in the dream, but still erotic.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus I mean I was not surprised to see naked women and my bicyclist friend just casually coming in the room and undressing stark naked before me, all the while chatting with me.

Inside the dream it felt just like part of the job.

She is a nice woman, although very simple. She believes that everything's okay, and Putin's regime is just fine. But she asked me to give her the Us book by Zamyatin this year, and read it. Before that, she took the book 1984 by Orwell and read it.

She liked Orwell better, but even better she liked Ray Bradbury, if I recall correctly.

I last read "Us" as a child. It seemed a dreary book.

@Cerberus I read about a neuroscience research in which women's brain reactions to erotic imagery were assessed. Unexpectedly, women turned out to have a sexual arousal reaction to images of nude women. While men did not have a reaction to images of beautiful nude men. I don't recall the particular kind of test they used.

But the research said that these women were normal, I mean heterosexual, not gay. And that their reaction was not towards the naked women in the images. It was just that the images made them aroused towards men, although no men were in the pictures.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Makes perfect sense.

@CowperKettle Ah, yes, I think I have We on my phone, ready in my e-reader programme.

Do you recommend it?

@CowperKettle Perhaps women find it easier to identify with other people, so they identify with the naked woman and thus imagine a sexual situation in which they take part?

M.A.R.

4:17 AM

@CowperKettle Ooh, very Mad Max-y vibes, yeah

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. How Israel is an enemy of Russia? For what reason?

However, how did you celebrate your Eid? If you don’t mind would you please share what special food did you have?

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn Hey. Israel is the US' pet mercenary state. In light of that it's pretty obvious why American politicians look the other way when Israeli war crimes are taking place. And why Russia would want to oppose American influence in the most war-riddled region in the world

@ConGovDeIn I don't remember, it must not have been special. I just remember I was generally happy

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. Oh! But is it correct to say that Israel and Russia are enemies? Coz Pakistan is also a US’s pet but Russia in these long years have not given a single look at that nation.

@M.A.R. wasn’t it just yesterday :-)? No problem. Does Shia and Sunni celebrate Eid differently from each other?

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn Well I dunno much about the involvement of Pakistan in the international scene. I expect Russia would give them the customary grimace but they just seem hell bent on fighting India. Also you and I seem to have different definitions of "US' pet"

@ConGovDeIn I really doubt Shia and Sunni people differ much practically in the modern world

Almost all of the feud is ideological

Or really just "who really was the Imam 1300 years ago"

It's not a distinction that you'd think would be that important today, unless some Saudi Wahhabi mufti wants to find a target population to declare genocide halal for

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. Why would someone follow the orders of genocide? Military is okay (like in case of Hitler or US army in Afghan as they will be paid for it) but how come a common be so much enticed by some leader so as to kill people just because they are off another community?

M.A.R.

4:32 AM

@ConGovDeIn Some people prefer the easy way out when it comes to issues that aren't individual and they shut off their brain and their conscience and listen to what an 'elder' has to say. That sort of elder can be an extremist religious cleric in Islamic countries.

And as for why it's a common tactic for leaders, it's because to maintain power they have to have an enemy, and what enemy better than people off the radar who can't complain about being made out to be the enemy?

It's the same problem in a white middle-class neighborhood. It's too easy to blame the blacks and Latinos that aren't in their neighborhood for their money losing value.

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. Yes. That’s correct, after all types of exploitation and staining the humanity the whites still keep on doing those abominable works.

@M.A.R. But it lowers the overall image of Islam and common people of other religion feels a kind of repulsion with Mosselman ( but then people like you come up and one has to re-think)

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn When all the 'leaders' of these organized religions do is racist or xenophobic whistle-blowing, one cannot complain about the bad reputation of religion in the common world. The moral person that wants to keep their religious faith has to dissociate themselves from these people. As such, on a discussion online, I don't go just saying, "Hi, I'm Amin, 22, Muslim".

So there are only two paths that religious can take: Awkwardly assimilate the modern humanist views on civil rights and such, or go down the drain of history. They're doing a little bit of both AFAIK.

And I cannot identify as someone that listens to them because I don't, and all I can do is hope for a drastic change

There's a third way out for East Asians, and it's been that of treating their religion as sort of a cultural relic. So bald heads and belief in reincarnation are really hip and appealing for the westerners, they might even visit the temples

@M.A.R. *religion

The modern era is where corporations exploit people, and eventually people lose their will, because we have become so dependent on what's produced by corporations. That's a much more straightforward and tangible sort of leverage, so the leaders of the past arguing we still owe them some loyalty out of some ideological responsibility are bound to either adapt or lose.

2

So they will either create problems, Jewish boogeymen stealing from you and your future children, or dirty Arabs occupying land that rightfully belongs to you and being rude about it.

Otherwise, there's no reason for me to listen to some cleric. He's not smarter than I am. He definitely doesn't know as much about metabolic pathways or anti-cancer antibiotics or the fact that cheetahs are the largest cats that still meow

2

ConGovDeIn

4:52 AM

@M.A.R. Yeah, I remember something reading about Prophet Muhammad on abolishing the feudal system or speaking against it, right?

@M.A.R. Thats GREAT! AWESOME

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn no doubt Jesus said the same thing. These people are real, and they didn't really arise from royalty. I mean, Prophet Muhammad did, but he spoke against it, there's no way to twist the initial teachings of Islam to say they benefit the wealthy

In fact, that you can hope for change is precisely because organized religions have at least catalyzed some great deeds in the course of history

Abolitionist movements had lots of Christian ideology behind it, and people arguing in favor of slavery often had secular arguments

So saying things like religion is the worst thing that's happened because you read two Wikipedia pages on some holy war that an exiled prince started to get the throne is kinda an ignorant position to take

But as it is today, it either has to change or go. Will they let go of their pride enough to change?

ConGovDeIn

As people these days have enough to eat, to dress, to wear jewellery and after all enough time to do meaningless tasks so they prepare an argument that religions always give rise to wars.

When it was the first time and in which religion it was said “people of all other religion are sinners” or some more violent version of that?

@M.A.R.

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn There's something to be said about how the war on consumerism is lost for people, but I think it is true that, statistically speaking, less educated people are more religious (don't really know for sure) and thus being religious has been associated with lacking critical thinking since at least Hume

@ConGovDeIn People need to understand that during the genesis of every religion it wasn't about leaving messages in time capsules for posterity. It's pretty obvious that Jews didn't like Christians, and Christians and Jews didn't like Muslims. At the same time, I don't think that scripture makes any sense without context; it'd be pretty paradoxical. In some verse in Quran it's saying 'those damn Jews betrayed you and joined the other side, go get 'em'. In some other verse says

'your biggest obstacle is these people that preach to stones and wood, and Jews and Christians are alright'

So some sort of clash between religions is inevitable. Thing is if people educated themselves about what the holy books say they'd squint hard when a leader abuses the verses that say 'Jews betrayed you' to wage war but ignore the other verses where they were allies

ConGovDeIn

5:10 AM

@M.A.R. Who?

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn people that worshipped idols

They were the majority in Mecca. Christians and Jews were tolerated but marginalized minorities

ConGovDeIn

Who were they? Zoroastrians? (I don’t know much about Zoroastrians and if they worship idols)?

@M.A.R. Were Hindus there in Mecca at some 6th or 7th century AD?

M.A.R.

No, the word for them is literally "people that worshipped idols". The chant is that Abraham's worshippers eventually went stray, they built statues of the God they're worshipping, and eventually those statues became the Gods, or people preached to natural phenomena like the sun or the moon

@ConGovDeIn I don't think so. I think Muslims only met East Asians during their conquests at least several centuries later

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. Why would Prophet Muhammad wrote such a thing? I mean Jesus even when he was getting crucified was uttering “Forgive them father for they don’t know what they are doing”

M.A.R.

Zoroastrians (or at least one major sect, I don't know if they have branches of beliefs) believe there's one god of ultimate good, and one god of ultimate evil, but just like Roman and Greek gods, these Gods have quite the entourage of lesser gods

I guess the average farmer didn't mind specifically praying to the god of rain rather than the god of war. That wouldn't make any sense!

ConGovDeIn

5:17 AM

But why Muhammad ignited a kind of hatred (I cannot think of some lighter word) for Jews and Christians?

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn Because historically they did do that? I think you missed my point.

@ConGovDeIn He didn't.

They did end up having to pay a special sort of tax, but they were tolerated.

Heck, lots of Christian (and Jew, but not sure) scholars saw the opportunity to 'educate' people. Preachers on the streets were probably more likely to be or have been Christian during the first Hijri century

ConGovDeIn

I think yes I missed your point. If your leader say that he suffered because of some sect and the leader propounded that you’re suffering and your posterity will suffer just because of some sect then naturally you shall develop a hatred if your leader doesn’t warn you with “Love is the only way”.

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn I don't think "Love is the only way" is anything but a modern Romanticism of apologetics who have nothing better to say while defending their religion.

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. I have this feeling that Saint Paul learned that from Jesus.

(feeling means belief)

M.A.R.

As I said, that's not what happened. People didn't develop a hate for other religions, they had better things to do like conquering Iran and parts of Rome

CowperKettle

5:24 AM

@Cerberus Yes, this is the hypothesis. I asked my friend, and she said she indeed feels sexually excited by looking at beautiful naked women.

M.A.R.

There wasn't a broadcast system or a nation-state system back then. People didn't know or care that Christians are the minority or that blacks are intolerable. Arabs developed a racist attitude towards Persian (the conquered) for many centuries

CowperKettle

But psychological hypotheses have so often been refuted that..

M.A.R.

But religious clashes were just not the big thing then

CowperKettle

Nosite shapki = wear hats

shapka = a hat

shapki = hats

nosite = wear (imperative form, plural)

nosi = wear (imperative form, singular)

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle what's it mean?

CowperKettle

5:26 AM

@M.A.R. It means "do wear hats"

Probably in order not to catch cold

A friendly piece of advice

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle okay I was just wondering what the purpose of the spontaneous Russian lesson was

ConGovDeIn

But friend MAR, if my grandfather while dying on his death bed would say “I’m suffered very much because of that man, and you will suffer too by him and his posterity” I shall naturally develop a kind of resentment for that man.

M.A.R.

Did it have anything to do with naked women or psychedelic drugs

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Why not? It's a language room

@M.A.R. No, it is a graffiti near the entry of a Russian school.

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn The prophet said nothing of the sort on his deathbed.

ConGovDeIn

5:28 AM

But if while dying the grandfather says “but remember love is the only way, war may just end his body not his ideology”

CowperKettle

Schoolchildren left these signs upon graduation from the school

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle well that's hard to remember sometimes heh. Sure, carry on, I just thought it bore some relevance to an earlier context that I missed

@ConGovDeIn He didn't say that either.

Now, shiites believe that his main preoccupation before passing was to announce that Imam Ali is his true heir and should rule.

Lots of elaborate speeches etc.

But sunnis say he was just expressing his friendship.

A cynic would say shiites are right actually, but because Imam Ali didn't have a white beard he was readily dismissed and Abu Bakr was appointed as the leader by a small group elites

ConGovDeIn

So, you’re of the view that what Prophet said was valid and true for his time or for some half a century after him but not now, eh?

@M.A.R. What? It is seeming like a jest to me that a man was dethroned just because of his beard’s color

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn I think it's always valid to say "screw 'em" to a side that betrays you in a war. And I also think that twisting that to justify murder after the war is over is ridiculous.

@ConGovDeIn Obviously I mean that he was around 30 at the time and considered too inexperienced to lead, when other close companions of the prophet included old men

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. But betrayers change with time, don’t they? But if Prophet called Jews as betrayers they will always be for Mosselman.

M.A.R.

5:34 AM

@ConGovDeIn No they won't. Whoever says that is clearly either a moron or has malicious intent. And it sounds to me like whoever keeps saying "BUT HE DID SAY IT ONCE!" from the other side is also looking to incite hatred.

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Yes, haha ))))

M.A.R.

As I said, the holy books always seem paradoxical if what's in them is taken at face value without any further considerations. That's the exact sort of shutting your brain out that I was talking about.

Now I don't understand what you're getting at, because Muslims after the Prophet didn't start any crusades against the Jews or Christians, they also didn't wonder "huh, I think they're all sinners and deserve to go to hell, huh"

ConGovDeIn

Yeah yeah, yeah. The holy books need to be studied by keeping the present the time coordinate in mind.

CowperKettle

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle yeah there was even that fat general, what was his name

ConGovDeIn

5:38 AM

@M.A.R. That’s a good point, yes Mosselman never started a crusade after Prophet, it was Jews who enticed the Muslims to force convert the Christians after conquering them in Spain.

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn Oh, now I feel like I wasted my time talking to a wall. You were indeed asking all these in bad faith.

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. What? I didn’t expect those insolent words from you.

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn I dunno, it does seem to me that atrocities at a war that takes place more than a century after the prophet is dead by the people in power who happened to be the prophet's mortal enemies being twisted to say the prophet incited hatred on his deathbed does sound like the worst interpretation possible.

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. I know it is quite sensitive topic to talk on, there is always a probability that the other will take you as in “bad faith” when you go deep down in his religion or any other thing affecting his life.

M.A.R.

Now if you're really looking for how I look at it, as I said, Arabs at the time did have a pretty racist attitude towards "anyone that's not an Arab". The word for that in Arabic is 'ajam'. That includes Persians, Spaniards, Romans etc. Persian people were promised freedom from a tyrannical dynasty that threw away lives at meaningless wars with Rome (the Sassanid empire was theocratic BTW), but they were instead sold into slavery, and it took I think two centuries for Persia

to recover from that.

@ConGovDeIn It's not affecting my life, it all happened more than a millennia ago. I do want to be sure I'm not wasting my time though.

ConGovDeIn

5:48 AM

@M.A.R. How would you be sure?

M.A.R.

If you wouldn't act snarky by saying "it was Jews who enticed the Muslims to force convert the Christians after conquering them in Spain."

Now, there's no theological basis for this racism. It was just a rather persistent attitude from a people who, before Islam, had never left a harsh desert to meet other ethnicities.

ConGovDeIn

@M.A.R. I didn’t say that, I quoted it (without mentioning the author) it is written in a book by the author CR Haines.

And please clarify how it made you think that I’m in “bad faith”?

M.A.R.

Huh, I have a hard time believing that

Though it does sound like a familiar claim

ConGovDeIn

And did you take that as “joke” and as I was mocking your point?

M.A.R.

@ConGovDeIn My apologies, I thought you were being sarcastic when you were saying that.

@ConGovDeIn yeah pretty much

I still can't believe it.

ConGovDeIn

5:53 AM

@M.A.R. No friend, I was not sarcastic. It was the side effect of non-vocal conversation.

M.A.R.

I knew about the force conversion of Muslims in Spain after Christianity took foothold (this was centuries later), and I suspected the Muslims forced the natives to convert during their conquest

But Jews enticed Muslims to do it? Why?

Oh I gotta have some breakfast now, BBL

ConGovDeIn

Bye.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Yes, it must be a good book

CowperKettle

8:01 AM

Russian guy stopped by traffic police, insists he just "stopped the Armageddon" youtu.be/_7Vn-wF0oTg

Either psychosis or drugs, but his performance is better than that of 99% of Russian movie actors.

He really lives in it.

The comments section is hilarious.

M.A.R.

-10

Q: Can we get a internet culture stack exchange?

I would like it if a meme stack exchange was made. a few tags could be meme identification, what does a meme mean (like "pog"[just an example]), and a few more ideas I have.

CowperKettle

Pavel Felgengauer said that Russia might invade Ukraine. And this was the only commentator whom I trusted. Has he gone bonkers, I wonder. rosbalt.ru/world/2021/05/13/1901114.html

I thought that the situation had cooled down

Pavel Felgenhauer

Pavel Eugenievich Felgenhauer (Russian: Па́вел Евге́ньевич Фельгенга́уэр; born 6 December 1951) is a Russian military analyst known for his publications about Russia's political and military leadership. == Biography == Felgenhauer was born in 1951 in Moscow, the Soviet Union and graduated from Moscow State University as a biologist in 1975. He served as a researcher and senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and received his Candidate of Sciences degree in biology from the Academy in 1988. He is based in Moscow. His stepdaughter, Tatyana Felgenhauer, is a journalist...

I highly doubt that Russia will risk attacking Ukraine now.

Putting myself in Putin's shoes, I see no benefits. The economy might just tank. That will bring people to the streets.

M.A.R.

8:41 AM

@CowperKettle when was the election again?

CowperKettle

9:58 AM

@M.A.R. 19 September 2021

I would bet money that Russia will not attack Ukraine.

CowperKettle

11:16 AM

- You have procrastination.
- Will I live?
- Yes, but later.

CowperKettle

11:46 AM

The wonders of science.

"Wisdom enough to leach us of our ills is daily spun".

CowperKettle

12:11 PM

CowperKettle

2:05 PM

Word of the day: takotsubo syndrome sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1752928X20301645#!

CowperKettle

2:27 PM

> MAOIs are also very effective but there's no pharma money in it (except Emsam) so they're not pushed by KOLs since there's no money it.

I wonder what KOLs mean here

medscape.com/viewarticle/…

Mitch

4:27 PM

@CowperKettle key operating leaders?

Srijan M.T

5:03 PM

I like to learn vocabulary by writing it down in a notebook than simply copying the text and paste it on your phone notepad. When I revise from phone , it just doesn’t look nice and calm and kind of feels like cluttered. It’s making we waste time on when I write down ion notebook . Any suggestions?

M.A.R.

5:29 PM

@CowperKettle I just know MAOI is the demigod in Moana

@CowperKettle key opinion leaders

@SrijanM.T Why not try Anki? Anki feels anything but cluttered

@CowperKettle which is probably a nice word for grumpy old critics

Oh, that MAO. Which is a key enzyme in adrenergic and other neurons, besides having a part time job as a dead communist leader

user21820

Anyone here knows garden path sentences that involve heteronyms?

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" is a humorous saying that is used in linguistics as an example of a garden path sentence or syntactic ambiguity, and in word play as an example of punning, double entendre, and antanaclasis. == Analysis of the basic ambiguities == The point of the example is that the correct parsing of the second sentence, "fruit flies like a banana", is not the one that the reader starts to build, by assuming that "fruit" is a noun (the subject), "flies" is the main verb, and "like" as a preposition. The reader only discovers that the parsing is incorrect...

^ This is a fun garden path sentence, but it does not involve heteronyms.

user21820

5:52 PM

Aha I just thought of one: "Does all love to eat acorns.". Anyone got any others?

tchrist

9:20 PM

@user21820 That's not a sentence.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…