English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Faheem Mitha

5:00 PM

@Robusto So the level of instruction was generally high?

Cerberus

@Robusto Why would you feel a need to switch to whatever some dictatorship demands?

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Calculus at the computational level, which is all anyone learns in school, is modestly useful for the sciences, even at a basic level. But probably not a strong argument for making everyone learn it.

Cerberus

Say Burma and ignore silly novelties for novelty's sake.

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Yes. I've heard of that. But they didn't have anything like that in India when I was in school. If you take AP class, is your Placement in fact Advanced?

Cerberus

Conga-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa are at least clear.

Who can remember their latest self-proclaimed names?

It is unfortunate enough that they should both be Congo.

Faheem Mitha

5:04 PM

And is the AP stuff actually more advanced?

Cerberus

What kind of problems should I expect when I see "calculus"?

It's such a vague name, I can never remember what it's supposed to mean.

CowperKettle

Lutetia was a great city name

Faheem Mitha

@tchrist Most school education is not very practical. For example, almost attention is given to finance, even in its most basic form. At least here. Maybe it was different elsewhere.

Cerberus

Is it simply differentiation and integration?

@FaheemMitha Finance?

How oddly specific.

Finance is a small part of economics here, which is just one of 13 or so subjects in school.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Calculus in its 17th century form is largely about making calculations about continuous motion and things like that. I'm tempted to say that it's not rocket science, except that rocket science in fact involves that sort of thing. Along with other stuff.

Cerberus

5:07 PM

What does it have to do with rocketry?

Faheem Mitha

It's not super relevant to everyday life, but neither is it very esoteric

@Cerberus Rocketry involves continuous motion.

Cerberus

Is it just ordinary differentiation and integration problems, the kind you learn around ages 16/17?

@FaheemMitha Many things do, but that seems, again, oddly specific.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus To a first approximation. Though that sort of treatment tends to be very mindless.

Formal manipulation.

Cerberus

OK.

Why mindless?

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus I don't know why it's mindless. But from my experience, school maths seldom involves any real understanding.

Based on my personal experience, and that of trying to teach others. Painfully.

@Cerberus So that people don't find themselves homeless at 65, for example.

Not really that odd.

Did anyone ever teach you how to handle money?

Cerberus

5:11 PM

@FaheemMitha I don't know why you say that, but here problems typically involve supposedly realistic problems.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus there's a military camp a mile or so from where I live, so it was probably a military exercise

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha Like how?

@M.A.R. Oh, impressive.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Understanding of the maths. I wasn't suggesting the problems were not practical.

M.A.R.

@Robusto yeah I was looking for that word. In Farsi it's "Bamba'ee"

Faheem Mitha

What is called real analysis is actually fairly simple mathematically, but almost nobody learns it in school. Expect perhaps in Russia and places like that. Hungary, possibly.

Cerberus

5:13 PM

I'm not sure I understand what that means.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus How to make efficient use of it, make sure you could manage your expenses and so forth.

Cerberus

This is a typical problem (in four parts) in Dutch schools.

It is about the degree of difficulty of a text, and how this degree is calculated.

It also involves using differentiation to predict what happens when the number of sentences in a text increases, or something.

M.A.R.

@Robusto we actually live in one of those Japanese huts where the walls are made of paper

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I still call it Bombay. Lots of people do.

M.A.R.

something ticks Wait, that's what "Burma" is?

I had NO idea!

Faheem Mitha

5:18 PM

@Robusto I wonder why they threw the word Unix in there. It looked like a game.

@Robusto Sadly the system here was very rigid. No testing out of anything. Lots of tests, though.

If you tested out of something, that meant you could go to a more advanced class, right? That would have been nice.

Though I don't know where the more advanced classes would have been found.

Faheem Mitha

6:00 PM

@Cerberus @M.A.R. FWIW, @Mitch is correct about India being "conservative". That's actually the word that is used there. I don't think it translates exactly to prudery, though.

I think I might describe is as the culture in general being opposed to sexual freedom, though I've never actually seen it described like that.

Robusto

6:13 PM

@FaheemMitha The priests who taught us were Carmelite, not Jesuit. But no less strict for all of that.

@FaheemMitha Quite high. Several of our students were taking math classes at Northwestern by the time they hit their junior year.

@Cerberus It isn't up to me. If I type in Burma in Worldle or Globle I will get an error.

@M.A.R. More's the pity.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I'm not familiar with Carmelite, but OK.

@Robusto Junior year of high school? Impressive.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha I know. I think I read an editorial in The Economist once upon a time decrying the change, saying there was no good reason for it.

@FaheemMitha Yes.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto The Shiv Sena changed it. I'm not sure why the Economist had an opinion.

Robusto

They have an opinion on everything.

Faheem Mitha

How nice for them.

The Carmelites sound quite monastic. I wonder why they do education.

Robusto

6:17 PM

It might have been another magazine, though. I don't really remember.

Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmelo; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order for men and women. Historical records about its origin remain very uncertain, but it was probably founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel in the Crusader States. Berthold of Calabria has traditionally been associated with the founding of the order, but few clear records of early Carmelite history have survived. The order...

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, I was just looking at the Wikipedia article.

My school was Anglican, though I don't really know what that means either. Awful place.

Robusto

Suffice to say that the priests and brothers wore this wide leather belts, with which they laid on with a will if something displeased them.

Apparently there is a Carmelite high school in India: Kosigi, Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, India

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto That sounds horrible.

Robusto

It was.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto There's probably a bit of everything in a place the size of India.

Cathedral and John Connon School

The Cathedral & John Connon School is a co-educational private school founded in 1860 and located in Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra. It has five sections: Pre-Primary, Infant, Junior, Middle and Senior Schools.The school also controls the 300-year-old St. Thomas Cathedral; CAJCS was founded to provide choristers to the Church. == History == In 1860 Bishop Harding and the Cathedral Chaplain opened a grammar school within the walled city of Bombay which, along with a smaller establishment for girls, were the first of many strands that have joined to form the Cathedral and John Connon School.A Choir School...

That was my school. I really hated it.

Robusto

6:26 PM

It was a harsh medicine.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto What was?

Robusto

Catholic school.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Oh. I thought maybe you meant the belts.

They used to make us sing hymns in morning assembly. It was awful.

Robusto

The belts were part of the harshness.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, I see.

Were the beating ever for doing poorly on a test or something like that?

Robusto

6:34 PM

@FaheemMitha No. They were for real or imagined infractions of the rules.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Like being late? My school really hated that. I used to get terrorized for it. They didn't care if we learned anything, though.

Robusto

The rules were similar to those of the ancient samurai, who could lop off a peasant's head for acting "otherwise than expected."

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto That sounds drastic. Was punctuality one of the things that was expected?

Cerberus

@Robusto Then you cringe and type what they want, but do not comply in your mind.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Yes. But you didn't get a beating for being late. You went to detention, which was another sadistic exploit.

@Cerberus I choose the battles I think worth my time.

Faheem Mitha

6:37 PM

@Robusto Hmm.

Cerberus

But it's the Internet!

Robusto

inorite

Faheem Mitha

I remember they called my parents because I was late so often. It was quite traumatic. They behaved like I had sexually assaulted a classmate, or something.

A tone of horror was present.

Cerberus

Schools often thing their own little rules are super important.

As do other organisations.

Robusto

You got the belt if you sassed a priest, or behaved in a way deemed insufficiently deferential.

Faheem Mitha

6:40 PM

@Robusto Nasty.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha oh, well, that probably goes for almost the entirety of several continents

And my impression was the majority of India's less "conservative" in that regard, so the label would be sort of misleading

CowperKettle

In Kazakhstan, people provide free food for Russian fugitives

And cheap rides to cities farther on, where one could get lodging

Cerberus

Nice.

CowperKettle

There are photos of a movie theater that allowed Russian fugitives to sleep over

M.A.R.

I did go to a school that was funded by this religious organization

But they were quite pleasant times

The only thing out of the ordinary was I recited a lot of Quran

Without understading anything, of course

Cerberus

6:56 PM

Of course.

M.A.R.

Not that understanding it changes much. "People, don't be jerks, remember Moses when he told the sons of Israel not to be jerks. But they were jerks."

And every dozen verse or so something pretty controversial by modern standards is casually mentioned and glossed over

Mitch

@M.A.R. Most of the Old Testament is not good for kids.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Makes sense.

M.A.R.

@Mitch actually, ours is Testament V2

I don't recall anything about foreskins though

Mitch

Someone is slaughtering someone else for no reason. 'Knowing' relations between unmarried relatives. People sent to war so that the wife can be made a widow.

Cerberus

7:01 PM

gasp

Not knowing!

Mitch

@M.A.R. There's a scene where someone has himself circumcised so he can marry someone else, but then someone else's brothers massacre the first guy.

Dinah?

@Cerberus Yes, knowing. shudders

M.A.R.

@Mitch I meant Quran dude

Also, I'm intrigued

Mitch

@M.A.R. OK. But I don't know the stories there, and I do have some little familiarity with the OT, and I have something to say because it is the internet.

@M.A.R. It's not entertaining in a good way.

wait

that can be parsed in at least two ways

I only meant one of them

Cerberus

@Mitch Ouch.

@Mitch Hyphenate artificially?

Use square brackets?

M.A.R.

@Mitch well, told you, those sons of Israel did some nasty crap god had to talk about

Destress

Mitch

7:05 PM

@Cerberus I mean getting circumcised as an adult is probably 'an experience' (especially with non-modern methods of surgery and anesthesia (which means none))

but -then- to be massacred anyway

Cerberus

Quite.

M.A.R.

@Mitch they were just trolling him

Mitch

I think part of the story involves the guy -and- all his friends to be circumcised, you know as a show of loyalty.

not some polyandry situation.

M.A.R.

People were more hands-on back then with their pranks

Mitch

@M.A.R. I got that vibe too. Uncool man. Uncool

M.A.R.

7:08 PM

They were 90's trolls. 490 B.C.

They meant business

Mitch

@M.A.R. "Stick your hand in this new contraption I made. It's called a guillotine. It'll be fun, you'll see"

haha more hands-off!

M.A.R.

"Lmao loser"

Robusto

@FaheemMitha And yet somebody is producing a whole lotta offspring in India.

Theroux talks about being accosted by an old woman who had several children in tow, including a girl missing part of her arm; it turned out she wasn't begging, but trying to pimp the children for sex.

Cerberus

> I solved today's Redactle (#173) in 11 guesses with an accuracy of 63.64%. Played at redactle.com

The first time in ages I manage to solve a Redactly in fewer than hundreds of awful guesses.

M.A.R.

Mariupol - previously rather pro-Russian - spent 6 weeks of hell being Stalingraded by the Russians rather than surrendering. If you think people are stupid enough to think that a referendum there accepting Russian annexation is anything else than a sham, don't think we have much to talk about. — Italian Philosophers 4 Monica 14 hours ago

Faheem Mitha

7:56 PM

@Robusto Sexual activity within marriage is generally accepted, though the culture is very sexist about it. The wife is generally supposed to accept what the husband wants to do with her.

By sexual freedom I meant the freedom to do what you want outside the bounds of marriage.

@M.A.R. No, India is not accepting of sexual freedom. In particular, sexual activity among the young is generally not accepted outside very privileged circles.

As I already said, inside marriage it's accepted. Including generally abusive behavior.

This causes various knock-on effects. Sexual violence against women is very high in India.

Also, female infanticide is very high. Though that is only somewhat related.

There was just the other day the case of a receptionist in Uttarakhand. Her boss tried to force her into prostitution and when she refused she was murdered. Probably by her boss. It's been all over the news.

CowperKettle

That's sad

Good that it's being discussed openly in the news

Robusto

8:12 PM

@FaheemMitha Yeah, but the overpopulation problem isn't strictly from legitimate offspring, is it?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto I don't know. I know that the Indian population problem is out of control, but I'm not an expert on the topic.

Robusto

Keerist, it's no wonder women are pissed off in this world.

There is no end to the stories you hear about women getting fucked (literally and figuratively) seven ways from Sunday.

CowperKettle

I remember 10 years ago there was a horrible story in India with a girl raped in a bus, also widely discussed.

Faheem Mitha

Supposedly Bombay is one of the safer places for women. In Delhi supposedly it's not safe for women after dark. Or maybe single women. This is corroborated by various guests I've had from Delhi, though I haven't had that conversation recently.

North India is generally pretty bad, I think.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha I'm not entirely sure what you mean: how could sexual activity between husband and wife not be 'accepted'? Or did you mean sexual activity during marriage, but with a third person?

Faheem Mitha

8:19 PM

@Cerberus That was poorly phrased.

I meant that (of course) sexual activity within marriage is accepted, but not outside it, by and large. Except for very privileged people.

No deep insight here. I lived off and on in India, and other places. Though only the USA and the UK. So I do have some idea how things work.

Cerberus

OK.

Faheem Mitha

In particular I grew up in Bombay, which was quite unpleasant.

Also, I think variants like homosexuality are very poorly tolerated, though that's not directly relevant.

Part of the overall picture, perhaps.

And on that topic, there was also the Bilkis Bano case, which caused even more of a stir.

I think that one even made the international news.

CowperKettle

Court-martial of William T. Colman

U.S. Army colonel William Truman Colman (born October 10, 1903), commandant of the Selfridge Army Air Base, was court-martialed in 1943 for the May 1943 shooting and wounding of Private First Class William R. McRae. Colman shot McRae, an African-American driver, without provocation. He was convicted only on a reduced charge of careless use of a firearm and being drunk and disorderly, leading to protests over lenient treatment. The decision of the military court to reduce Colman's rank to captain led to protests over the leniency of the sentence. After a further review by the Secretary of War,...

> Colman shot McRae, an African-American driver, without provocation. He was convicted only on a reduced charge of careless use of a firearm and being drunk and disorderly. After a further review by the Secretary of War, Coleman was removed from military service.

solastalgienitsyne

Hey hi! When the King of England gave his first address he said "And to my darling mama, as you begin your last great journey to join my dear late papa, I want simply to say this: thank you.". I'm a learner and I found it striking he would use mama/papa. Do you? Is it about endearment (there already is darling) or just more typical with BrE than AmE maybe or old-fashionnned/older?

Cerberus

@solastalgienitsyne It is endearment, to be sure. Possibly combined with other factors.

Faheem Mitha

8:33 PM

@solastalgienitsyne It's a fairly standard diminutive/endearment.

Cerberus

It can be a bit 'bourgeois' to avoid informal words in the right situation: the bourgeoisie are always afraid of seeming lower class than they are, and so they avoid informal words needlessly.

Faheem Mitha

Nothing surprising, really. Middle class English people also say (or said) Mummy and Daddy, but perhaps that would be considered too informal or childish, especially for the occasion.

solastalgienitsyne

Yeah I see mommy as more "childish".

Faheem Mitha

Mama/papa is also a bit more old-fashioned, yes. I bet you could find examples of Austen characters using it.

Cerberus

And Charles is decidedly not bourgeois.

Faheem Mitha

8:36 PM

I imagine these people have their speeches written for them. Including careful word choices, probably.

Cerberus

I should expect Charles to write such a personal speech himself.

solastalgienitsyne

With darling I guess I expected mother.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Maybe he did. Maybe he got help. Who knows.

Robusto

"Papa" is not the most common term in AmE. "Dad" and "Daddy" are more common.

Faheem Mitha

The first chapter of Emma has a whole bunch of "papa"s.

@Robusto Well, it's British English.

Robusto

8:42 PM

@FaheemMitha He asked "... or just more typical with BrE than AmE maybe or old-fashionnned/older?" I'm giving the American side of that.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Ah, sorry. I missed that.

solastalgienitsyne

In Star Trek, I remember Seven of Nine saying something which sounds like "poppa". I've heard stuff like pop.

Robusto

In rural/Southern areas of America "pa" is fairly common.

solastalgienitsyne

So I guess mama/papa sound Southern to this learner. It's most likely why I find it striking or surprising, I must be much more familiar with American stuff than British.

Something.

Thanks all btw.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is also a matter of class, though.

Faheem Mitha

8:47 PM

@Robusto Yes, Clark Kent is commonly depicted addressing his parents as Ma and Pa. He's supposedly from Kansas.

Robusto

@Cerberus Class is not as codified in the US as it is in Europe.

@FaheemMitha Yes. See also:

Ma and Pa Kettle

Ma and Pa Kettle are comic film characters of the successful film series of the same name, produced by Universal Studios, in the late 1940s and 1950s. The hillbilly duo have their hands full with a ramshackle farm and a brood of rambunctious children. When the future comes a-callin' in the form of modern houses, exotic locales and newfangled ideas, Ma and Pa must learn how to make the best of it with luck, pluck and a little country charm.Originally based on real-life farming neighbors in Washington state, United States, Ma and Pa Kettle were created by Betty MacDonald in whose 1945 best-selling...

solastalgienitsyne

In the movie Snatch, Brad Pitt's character uses ma (imdb.com/title/tt0208092/characters/nm0000093: It's not for me. It's for me ma. ), but I know lots of it is made up...

Mitch

@solastalgienitsyne It sounded strange to me too (I'm AmE, say mom and dad).

I've only ever in my life heard ma and pa, or mama and papa, in books or Movies/TV.

I would have expected him to say mother and father (because I'd expect royals to be a bit more formal). So mama and papa sounded weird coming out of his mouth.

Also 'darling'

that's for ... other kinds of relationships than child to parent.

'Dear mother' maybe as an address, but 'darling' sounds creepy to me.

Which is not to say that it is what the royals used everyday, who knows.

@solastalgienitsyne That was specifically 'traveler' English, which is maybe like Irish English?

solastalgienitsyne

Using darling makes it very British for me (learner). Thanks for the feedback.

Mitch

And pronounced /mæ/ and /pæ/ or the weirder to me /dæ/.

solastalgienitsyne

9:01 PM

But I know at first they wanted him to speak BrE but he just can't... so they made up stuff so I just don't know,.

Mitch

@solastalgienitsyne do you mean Brad Pitt? I can't tell if he's really good at accents or if he is totally awful and just very confident.

solastalgienitsyne

Yes Brad.

Mitch

because he is playing people from very unusual backgrounds

solastalgienitsyne

I found him truly amazing and he made me laugh immensely with that movie there, a blast really.

Mitch

I thought that movie was a lot of fun too, but Pitt's accent (while it may have been very accurate) was very distracting.

Whereas everyone else was naturally Cockney (Jason Statham and his partner) and... I can't remember the other characters. A lot of cockney.

solastalgienitsyne

9:06 PM

Language was a delight in that movie indeed.

Mitch

Snatch (film)

Snatch (stylized as snatch.) is a 2000 crime comedy film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film contains two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small-time boxing promoter (Jason Statham) who finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless gangster (Alan Ford) who is ready and willing to have his subordinates carry out severe and sadistic acts of violence. The film features an assortment of characters, including Irish Traveller "One Punch" Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), referred to...

@solastalgienitsyne Also the plot

solastalgienitsyne

A gem, really.

Mitch

oh which reminds me also the dog

solastalgienitsyne

"Look inside".

Cerberus

@Robusto I think that is partly true, partly a myth.

At any rate, this was Charles.

@Mitch That's exactly it: "I would expect royals to be more formal". That's not how it works!

Robusto

9:12 PM

Madonna - Papa Don't Preach (Official Video) [HD]

►

Cerberus

Formality and informality each have their place.

Robusto

Ha, the "papa" in that video is Danny Aiello.

She also calls him "Daddy" later on.

Mitch

Kate Middleton Meets the Real Royal Family - SNL

►

solastalgienitsyne

The Cambridge online says old-fashioned in the UK and informal in the U.S. for mama (dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mama).

Mitch

yeah... once two groups of people split off there's no accounting for what will change.

mama seems old-fashioned to me too (Cambridge Dictionary is primarily British English oriented so there's some leeway in the US nuance).

Cerberus

9:26 PM

Dictionaries don't always get things right when class is involved.

solastalgienitsyne

I understand, I was presenting it because it shows a difference which would provide a simple explanation for my perception. But there's just many factors etc. And my experience is limited.

Reminding me that language is complicated. Cheers!

Cerberus

@solastalgienitsyne In short, it is not surprising that this usage should have seemed odd to you. You're not crazy.

At least not in this way.

Xanne

9:49 PM

To me mama and papa are more formal than mom and dad, but more in-family than mother and father. The British and people in personal contact with ER called her ma’am, which meant Madam, and was pronounced Mum. The romantic use of darling is a sexualization of a word that means, sort of, cute and sweet, e.g., a darling little girl, a darling kitten, a darling boy. These usages no doubt vary over time and among classes. Charles would not need advice on such matters—he’s the trend-setter here.

Cerberus

ER?

To me, words like ma'am and milady sound like what servants would say.

Robusto

@Cerberus Elizabeth Regina.

Cerberus

Ah.

Xanne

He is Charles Rex (his choice), thus CR—for stamps, stationery, towels, etc.

Cerberus

10:07 PM

OK.

Xanne

@Cerberus Those are Latin. Gotta keep up the traditions.

I solved Redactle Unlimited in 5 guesses with an accuracy of 80% and a time of 00:04:57. Play at redactle-unlimited.com #173

Why have a monarch if you can’t put their picture on stuff?

We don’t put U.S. presidents on stamps until they’re dead. There’s a Trump in your future.

Cerberus

10:34 PM

@Xanne Oh, is that Latin.

tchrist

@Mitch I don't know why you think asking for underlining and colored text is reasonable. All these things have been asked before, and Stack Exchange has come down very hard against any of that.

3

A: How I can use coulours in Markdown Syntax?

You can't. They're annoying. There's no reason you'd ever need to do that. The only text coloring that Stack Exchange supports is through the syntax highlighting features for code blocks.

47

A: Why can we format text with bold and italic but not underline?

Underlining as a typographic means of emphasis is a relic of typewriters and handwriting. I'm not saying these two are dead (at least not both of them), but underlining is far inferior to bolding (for emphasizing and having it stand out from the rest of the text) and italicizing (for emphasizing ...

Those are both Staff answers saying NFW.

I can dig up more.

8

A: Can we change the color of comments or questions' text?

You can't. There is a very large downside to having colored text (i.e. it's very distracting) and very little upside.

31

A: Having font color option in Stack Overflow question editor

No, seriously. Having colors would enable people to abuse them. Of course, we also have a possibility for people to abuse headlines or subscripts, but colors can be very distracting if not used correctly. In order to highlight stuff, we already have boldface and emphasized text. If you can't...

5

A: Underline and color picker

Underline can get confused with a link - which are the only source of underlines on StackOverflow right now. This could make users think that your underlined portion of text were a link instead of emphasized - of which there is already bold, italics, caps, and code styling.

-4

Q: Underline and color picker

Possible Duplicates: Having font color option in SO question Editor Why can we format text with bold and italic but not underline? A feature request: I would like to have an "underline" button in the edit window. Because I am asked to explain why I want this feature: I think this can...

feature-request

I have dozens more where those came from.

Nobody needs that.

7

A: How can I color text in my post?

It is not possible. There's a feature request for it, but as you can see it was fairly unpopular.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…