English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Laurel

12:01 AM

@alphabet Heheheheheheheh my work here is done. Did you not see the movie before to not realize that?

alphabet

@Laurel Honestly I'm not even sure. I just know that I listened to the Jump5 version of the song at some point and it got stuck in my head forever.

It is quite possible that I watched the movie and still didn't get it.

Laurel

They were literally surfing as that song played

alphabet

Yes but they keep saying "roller coaster" so there must have been a roller coaster off camera

Simple logic

Laurel

Btw I rewatched the movie as an adult and I was like hey I don't remember it being this terrible. I think I heard they originally had a different plot and changed it at the last minute

But it was the shit when I was little

alphabet

I have no memory of the plot

I have, however, gone on a rant about how The Little Mermaid actually teaches the exact opposite of the lesson it's (supposedly) intended to portray.

Laurel

12:06 AM

Ooooooooo, the little mermaid. Yeah, I love the idea of a mermaid who's a tinkerer but that's not what the movie is actually about

alphabet

The lesson of the little mermaid is: If you leave your fairly comfortable life to pursue true love, you will nearly destroy your life and everyone around you.

Laurel

This also reminds me of the fact that I wrote a short story about mermaids in space

2

alphabet

Also: "true love" is the kind of love that arrives suddenly and for no apparent reason, is directed towards someone you barely know, and seems entirely superficial.

Tl;dr: Ariel should have just listened to Sebastian, stayed under the sea, and maybe worked on herself a bit.

Laurel

I feel like modern Disney is thinking a bit harder about the messages that they're sending at least

alphabet

I predict that they got divorced about 6 months after the movie ended.

Probably because Eric lost interest after she could no longer satisfy his mermaid fetish.

SmokeDetector

12:44 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Obfuscated word in answer (0): Is there a single word for an idea that receives acceptance not due to approval, but because opposing it is risky?‭ by SomeGuy‭ on english.SE

Laurel

> Obfuscated word in answer - "who're" is obfuscated 'whore'

facepalms

Imagine telling someone their mother was a who are

alphabet

That answer is...bad, though. Irrelevant political tangent.

alphabet

1:02 AM

Want to play a fun game? Try to figure out if (in your accent) the vowel "near" is closer to the vowel in "kit" or the vowel in "key." (@tchrist made me overthink this.)

tchrist

knee, kneer, kneest

Laurel

Near nearer key?

alphabet

@tchrist I seem to alternate between [ɪɹ̈ˤ] and [iɹ̈ˤ], but it's usually the former. I'm pretty sure I'm unusual in that respect, though Sound Comparisons suggests both are possible in AmE.

Anyway this hurts my little raccoon brain.

Laurel

I wish I even knew what the upside down r meant and also the small backwards half question mark

Also why is everything dotted?

Robusto

@alphabet Have you read the tale in the original?

tchrist

1:06 AM

I simply cannot possibly say a checked vowel before R. If you strap me down and put a gun to my head, I might be able to force myself to do it just once. Two seconds later when I repeat it, I'm dead.

Laurel

Wow this is the second suggestion of English-related aggregated assault that we've had in this chat in two days

Robusto

This summary is adequate:

The Little Mermaid

"The Little Mermaid" (Danish: Den lille Havfrue), also known in English as "The Little Sea Maid", is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, first published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children. The story follows the journey of a young mermaid princess who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul. The original story has been the subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bøggild and Pernille Heegaard, as well as the folklorist Maria Tatar. These analyses cover various aspects of the story,...

It's not the Disney version, as you may surmise.

In fact, nothing in life is really the Disney version.

alphabet

@tchrist It may be relevant that I have the Mary/marry merger, but (in some words) keep the merry class separate. I hear that's a Northeast thing.

tchrist

Yes, vape and very have the same vowel here.

And coke and Cory.

And Pete and eerie.

alphabet

tchrist

1:11 AM

cat and carry have different vowels, but mate and marry do not.

alphabet

@Laurel [ɹ̈] means the "bunched" pronunciation. The half question mark means your throat tightens up in a way that I can definitely feel but find difficult to explain properly (pharyngealization).

Laurel

This is worse than the time when I learned there was a hard g and a soft g :p

alphabet

@Laurel Wait until you read this question

@tchrist I do think that the exact articulation of the /r/ changes after [ɪ] and [ɛ]. It's also somehow less tense or...something.

tchrist

There is no such thing.

Just [i] and [e] before R.

Laurel

@alphabet hard g

alphabet

1:20 AM

@tchrist The /r/ is different. Don't ask me to explain it.

tchrist

You're coming at this with the assumption that anybody ever learned to say a checked vowel there. This part of the world, they did not.

So it can't "change the R" to have a checked vowel there. We never had it.

alphabet

@tchrist Isn't Mary-marry-merry only like 50% of the population?

tchrist

No, it's almost everyone.

alphabet

From Wikipedia:

> The Mary–marry merger is found alone with 16% of American English speakers overall, with the highest concentration in New England, especially New Hampshire.

See choice (e) on this page

tchrist

What part of "red" do you call 50%?

It's almost everyone everywhere.

We can argue whether it's 95% or 98% or 99%, but below that is foolishness.

alphabet

1:27 AM

@tchrist I'm in the pale green area. I'm not quite sure what the scale on that map is supposed to be.

38

A: How are 'marry', 'merry', and 'Mary' pronounced differently?

Interestingly, this question appeared as number 15 on the Harvard Dialect Survey, so it is possible to give a good summary of the pronunciation differences in these three words as they are spoken in the United States. The 11,422 respondents were asked to choose from five options given the follow...

> a. all 3 are the same (56.88%)
b. all 3 are different (17.34%)
c. Mary and merry are the same; marry is different (8.97%)
d. merry and marry are the same; Mary is different (0.96%)
e. Mary and marry are the same; merry is different (15.84%)

Laurel

@tchrist This explains why I find the question so confusing

tchrist

@alphabet I'm sorry you can't compete with the mass tracts of red geography.

There are always going to be tiny geographics pockets of rare pronunciations that are never heard in most of the country.

Most people never learn how rare their own speech is.

alphabet

@tchrist Anyway, I am in the pale green area. But apparently I'm in the blue category for some words. (The contrast between very and vary is probably where this is clearest.)

Laurel

Where is blue

alphabet

@Laurel It's not a clear majority anywhere so it doesn't actually show up on the chart.

tchrist

1:34 AM

It's hard for me to remember how tiny those states up there are. There isn't a state from out here with the full merger that superimposed on all the hamlet-states would fail to cover them entirely.

Geographically speaking, the areas where the merger is incomplete cover only a few square miles compared to those where it is complete.

alphabet

Why is it difficult? You just...say the word vet and add an /ri/ instead of the /t/. (I'm not sure my realization of it is exactly IPA [ɛ] but it's somewhere around there.)

tchrist

Therefore it is correct to say that most people, and most of the country, do not speak that way.

It is not said that way. That's what you do not understand.

We've never heard those words said that way. So we have no reason to sound weird.

We learn from those around us. We do not learn from people thousands of miles away whom we never speak with.

I am capable of forming those sounds. It takes an immense amount of conscious effort to do so, with every single utterance. There is absolutely no reason to go through that impossible-to-maintina effort, for it gains you nothing and only makes people look at you funny.

To continuously speak in a foreign accent to your own is incredibly difficult to maintain.

So we do not modify our R because of a checked vowel: we never HAD a checked vowel.

alphabet

The Mary/marry vowel is...somehow closer to /eɪ/. I'd need to think about how to transcribe it properly.

But anyway I think that this explains my insistence that the vowel in king sounds like the vowel in kit--it's the same sort of tense/lax neutralization, no?

The claim that [ɛ] is a checked vowel seems kind of meh.

Anyway I spent some time on YouGlish listening to other people saying very. Somehow I hadn't noticed that they're actually saying vary.

tchrist

1:53 AM

Of course. That's the aural trick of your dialect. You hear others through your own mind. And get it wrong.

When you go from May, which has a /j/, to Mary, which lacks one, you simply keep the /e/.

alphabet

I'm not consistent across words, though. I have the merger in error, but not in terrible.

tchrist

It's the same with very and some hypothetical oy veh /oj vej/.

I feel like I'm interviewing an Orcadian.

alphabet

@tchrist Indeed, though there seems to be some sort of glide before the /r/ in Mary/marry; it's not just an [e].

tchrist

So very, very, very many different speech habits that everything is bizarre.

@alphabet Not here.

You need to spend more time in monophthong regions of the world.

I don't know what's going on there. It might be something.

Story and sorry are just plain /o/. There's no /w/ except some curling of your R.

And sorry is just sore plus ee!.

alphabet

Oddly, I do have the nearer-mirror merger, it's just that the merged vowel is often closer to [ɪ].

tchrist

2:01 AM

So plus ree.

If you soar too high, you're sorry.

And sore.

There's are among the first words that we learn have different spellings even when they sound the same. So many like these.

alphabet

This does explain why my pronunciation of here sometimes sounds oddly close to her. [ɪ] is partway between [i] and [ə].

@tchrist Are you sure you're not from Canada?

tchrist

@alphabet You know where I'm from.

Wisconsin and Minnesota are monophthongists.

alphabet

@tchrist And basically Canada. Here sorry has the vowel from star, not the vowel from sore.

tchrist

haha

harry harr harr

Your and yore and you're are homophones; ewer is different.

And they all have /o/.

alphabet

I'm guessing that, for Canadians, this has something to do with articulatory effort. If you use the word sorry often enough, you'll end up with whatever pronunciation takes the least work.

tchrist

2:08 AM

You probably rhyme garage with cabbage.

alphabet

@tchrist ...how can you rhyme those? The stress is on the first syllable, so unless you pronounce /b/ and /r/ identically those will stay separate.

tchrist

I thought you said you had a bunched R.

alphabet

Very funny

tchrist

The stress is not on the first syllable. That's the whole point.

alphabet

Ah. I missed the joke

Of course, we only say sorry when quoting non-Bostonians. Or sarcastically.

tchrist

2:13 AM

[kəˈbɑʒ] rhymes with [gəˈɹɑʒ].

alphabet

You can buy it at /tarˈd͡ʒei/

Mitch

kuh-BAHZH

alphabet

In The Garage

►

Mitch

@Robusto The Bambi novel was a Darwinian tragedy.

@alphabet In BrE it's GAIR-idge

tchrist

@alphabet You can't have a coronal trill in contact with the palatalized affricate your propose: it would blow the whole thing out in some fricasseed mush.

alphabet

2:18 AM

@tchrist Those were phonemes. I woulda used square brackets otherwise.

tchrist

And if you could say a proper rolled R, you have no need of a terminal glide.

Because your mouth isn't floozy if you can do that, so you don't have to slack it at the end.

Mitch

Phoneme-shmoneme they all sound the same

tchrist

It's not an affricate.

@Mitch Gay Ridge, you say?

Mitch

Sometimes (most of the time) I pronounce 'your' and 'you're' as 'yer' so they don't always rhyme with 'yore'

tchrist

weak

M.A.R.

3:41 AM

@Mitch "enghelab" = revolution. The revolutionary committee was a bunch of radicals gathering around in every city or neighborhood, deciding who's worth ratting out to the intelligence agency. Did they help restore some order to the hectic two years after the revolution and before Saddam attacked? Probably, if the official story is to be believed, that every other (paramilitary) group was full on pyromaniac, bombing this and that place

The offical narrative is that separatists popped up at every corner, and to drive their point home they were terrorizing their own neighborhood, bombing and pillaging and whatever. It's a bit suspect but I don't have an alternative story.

CowperKettle

4:08 AM

My left iliac bone has been giving me gyp. Just under the iliac crest.

Etymology 3 of gyp - "probably from gee up"

> "Gee up!" The horses roused themselves and pulled the light carriage along as though it were a feather (Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ, chapter 1, in Dead Souls)

CowperKettle

4:43 AM

News for me of the day: The Gread Pan Has Died -- "The great god Pan is dead" refers to an incident during the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37) when a Greek sailor, bound for the island of Paxi, heard a disembodied voice at sea proclaim the news. Pan is the only Greek god whose death is accounted for in the historical record.

I've listened to a Russian song by Umka recorded in 1986, titled "The Great Pan has Died", and never thought it related to this god.

I thought it was just a song about some ruler, since in Poland and Ukraine the name for a wealthy powerful man was "pan", and it gradually assumed the meaning of "mister".

CowperKettle

5:19 AM

> “Nothing said is nothing heard, until its silence, becomes written.”
C. Raynard

I don't get it.

user 726941

In other words, writing is an expression of thought...

CowperKettle

Thank you!

user 726941

np :)

CowperKettle

5:36 AM

Why don't kids like dadjokes when they get older?
Because they're all groan up

CowperKettle

6:45 AM

Indonesian of the day: pramudi -- a person who drives a Transjakarta bus

pramudi

Noun: pramudi (plural pramudi-pramudi, first-person possessive pramudiku, second-person possessive pramudimu, third-person possessive pramudinya)

(neologism, Jakarta) driver: a person who drives a Transjakarta bus.
Synonyms: pengemudi, sopir

Verb: pramudi

inflection of mudare:
second-person singular present indicative
first/second/third-person singular present subjunctive
third-person singular imperative

Xanne

7:26 AM

Wordle 837 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

That was good.

M.A.R.

10:08 AM

@CowperKettle - times - times - makes . . . Positive?

CowperKettle

10:46 AM

Dannyu NDos

12:08 PM

Why these English phonetic symbols are all WRONG

►

Well this is... mind-blowing.

I now cannot trust my dicts.

CowperKettle

12:29 PM

Why was the linguist sad?
Because the past was imperfect!

Robusto

12:44 PM

#Worldle #621 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

tchrist

@DannyuNDos Correct.

Robusto

🌎 Oct 4, 2023 🌍
🔥 50 | Avg. Guesses: 4.29
🟨🟧🟨🟥🟩 = 5

globle-game.com
#globle

Robusto

1:13 PM

Wordle 837 3/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟨⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Quordle 618
7️⃣4️⃣
6️⃣5️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/

Daily Octordle #618
9️⃣5️⃣
8️⃣🟥
🕚🕛
🟥🕐
Score: 86

What a blivet

Daily Sequence Octordle #618
5️⃣6️⃣
8️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 74

Robusto

1:40 PM

0

A: How common is it for "windmill" to be pronounced rhyming with "wheel?"

The pronounciation at the end comes down to the "ill" and "i" remotely is also sounded like an "e". For a person who speaks multiple languages "ill" and "eel" will sound same by extending the sound of "e" by a bit. Shortly, they dont rhyme on Face level but do rhyme when pronounciated a bit diffr...

What is this person on about?

tchrist

75 mikes

1

Q: Usage of "bubble wand" vs "bubble blower"

I've seen both the term "bubble wand" and "bubble blower" refer to the same thing in online translation dictionaries. Do these terms have the exact same meaning? Are there regions where one term is used more often than the other?

word-usage

NSFW

CowperKettle

2:01 PM

Mitch

2:14 PM

@Robusto @MetaEd @whoever_else_does_lego

but note that the graph is from 2000 to 2008...who knows if that trend is consistent still

M.A.R.

3:28 PM

@CowperKettle bit of a loaded question though innit. I feel like it's violating some sort of principle

And besides the conclusions you could draw from the data are suspect. Does it mean 53% of the Russians in the survey support the special war, or they support the return of some Russian empire, or what?

M.A.R.

3:45 PM

@Mitch and in 2008, with the housing crisis and people rushing to make LEGO houses, it would become an even bigger return

Mitch

@M.A.R. I think you are in effect telling me there are Lego modules for plumbing.

Instead of the Japanese style coffin hotels, we'll all be living in plastic houses that are remodellable down to the inch.

or less

alphabet

4:25 PM

@Mitch Like minecraft houses, but with smaller blocks. Bit of an issue during earthquakes, though.

Vikas

4:51 PM

@CowperKettle Couldn't get it.

Robusto

7:06 PM

@CowperKettle I don't get it. Maybe this means something in Russian?

Cerberus

7:21 PM

It looks a bit random.

The men want to know irrelevant things about it.

The woman has fun.

user 726941

Yeah, looks like a meme.

Robusto

Memes are for showing you're in fashion even when people can't see what you're wearing.

user 726941

Sure, some of them have a sense of being "cool."

Robusto

More like "In the know" ...

user 726941

"hip"

Robusto

7:35 PM

Except it's unhip to say you know what "hip" means these days.

user 726941

✅

These are definitely different days.

Robusto

9:20 PM

Rootl game #125

🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

CowperKettle

@Robusto It was made by an AI engine, which was asked to "generate some funny memes"

Robusto

Oh FFS ...

Still not clear on the concept, I guess.

CowperKettle

Yes

Or maybe it's already smarter than all people, and this meme is only funny to those with an IQ of over 180

Robusto

Don't worry about your job anymore.

CowperKettle

hepster

Noun: hepster (plural hepsters)

Dated form of hipster (“follower of the latest trends, fashions, styles, such as jazz and Bohemian culture at the time of usage”).

@M.A.R. Yes, they might crave for some other bits. Maybe a bit of Kazakhstan, or a bit of (or the whole of) Belarus.

Older people are nostalgic for the times when all lived in a united country.

MetaEd

9:26 PM

Wordle 837 4/6

🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩
🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

D: D: D:

Robusto

@CowperKettle Yeah, and if those people like the taste of horseshit, I'm glad I'm not one of them.

MetaEd

@CowperKettle this is a 3am meme

CowperKettle

Indeed, maybe a lot of people will come to see in AI something that it does not have.

Robusto

@CowperKettle When was that ever true?

CowperKettle

I mean the USSR, not the Garden of Eden :)

So not "all", but "all Soviet people"

Robusto

9:38 PM

All slaves of Stalinism.

CowperKettle

In the 1950s to 1970s life was quite good, especially compared with previous times

Robusto

0

Q: Are 'biggity' and 'briggity' kin?

(Motivated by the question How common is "biggety" in Southern and Midland US?) The DARE entry for briggity has the following (edited): briggity: (also brickaty, brickety, brigaty, brigetty, briggaty, briggety, briggidy, briggoty, brigity) chiefly South Appalachian, adj. Restless, aggressive...

etymology colloquialisms phonology historical-change southern-white-vernacular-english

Whoa.

@CowperKettle You mean like compared with the world wars?

CowperKettle

Especially since in Russia, freedom of speech existed only in 1906 to 1917.

Robusto

I guess life was so good that Hungary tried to revolt.

CowperKettle

Yes, in 1956 life for Soviet citizens was much better than in 1946. Simple people don't follow international news.

Robusto

9:41 PM

Hungarian Revolution of 1956

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by the government's subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR). The uprising lasted 12 days before being crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country.The Hungarian Revolution began on 23 October 1956 in Budapest when university students...

CowperKettle

There was no option to protest, for common people. You'd be taken to jail immediately. So people went into internal emigration. Reading books etc.

Robusto

@CowperKettle You ought to watch the film Icarus.

Icarus (2017 film)

Icarus is a 2017 American documentary film by Bryan Fogel. It chronicles Fogel's exploration of the option of doping to win an amateur cycling race and happening upon a major international doping scandal when he asks for the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017, and was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award (Orwell Award). Netflix acquired the distribution rights and released Icarus globally on August 4, 2017. At the 90th Academy Awards, the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary...

I just watched this the other night. It's pretty interesting.

CowperKettle

People all around probably still believe it was all Anglo-Saxons plotting against poor Russia.

The doping case.

Nikolay Yemelyanov, a simple man who was helping Lenin hide from the police in 1917.

He later spent 10 years in the GULAG.

Managed to survive the camps.

Емельянов, Николай Александрович

Николай Александрович Емельянов (20 декабря 1871 (1 января 1872), Сестрорецк — 13 августа 1958, Сестрорецк) — русский революционер. == Биография == В партии большевиков (РСДРП(б)) с 1904 года, занимался перевозкой оружия и литературы из Финляндии. С 1905 года знаком с В. И. Лениным. Весна-лето 1917 г. депутат Петросовета. Известен как один из организаторов подполья В. И. Ленина с 10 июля 1917 года в посёлке Разлив под Сестрорецком, там же укрывал и Г. Е. Зиновьева. В настоящее время это памятники Сарай и Шалаш. Участвовал в штурме Зимнего дворца. В 1919 году председатель Сестрорецкого горсовета...

In the summer 1917, the Provisional Govt printed out some details from the ongoing criminal case against Lenin, showing that he was receiving help from Germany. Lenin promptly disappeared to Finland. A number of peasants, workers etc helped him hide

He was dangerous to Stalin, because he also helped to hide Zinovyev and other top Bolsheviks, whom Stalin decided to denigrate and destroy.

So off to the GULAG for him.

Yemelyanov was naive enough to speak out in favor of Zinoviev, saying that Zinovyev was an old Bolshevik and not a traitor.

Or principled enough

Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky; 23 September [O.S. 11 September] 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. An Old Bolshevik, Zinoviev was a prominent figure in the leadership of the early Soviet Union, and served as chairman of the Communist International (Comintern) from 1919 to 1926. Born in Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) to a Jewish family, Zinoviev joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901. He sided with Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks in the party's 1903 split with the Mensheviks, becoming one of...

jlliagre

11:26 PM

Wordle 837 3/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

CowperKettle

@Robusto I will add it to my IMDB to watch list, but I'm afraid I'll never get to it. I downloaded 100 movies a year ago, and watched only three. My brain gets tired easily, despite all the venlafaxine.

I think this might not be depression.

Venlafaxine helps with the mood, but the brain doesn't work properly.

> Repeated low doses of psilocybin increase resilience to stress, lower compulsive actions, and strengthen cortical connections to the paraventricular thalamic nucleus in rats | Molecular Psychiatry [Oct 2023] nature.com/articles/s41380-023-02280-z

That's what I should take.

But here, I would get jailed for years if I do.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Move to Oregon. They just legalized it there.

Dannyu NDos

🍄🍄🍄

Though here in South Korea, all we got are boozes and tobaccos. And I don't smoke, I only drink.

Does coffee count? I don't drink coffee tho.

Laurel

11:54 PM

@DannyuNDos This reminds me, I just had soju for the first time a few weeks ago

Coffee does not count, though you can mix it with alcohol and that counts

Maybe not a great idea tho

Did it anyway

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…