English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

00:01

@Mitch Yeah, "proves" in the sense of "tests" ...

CowperKettle

> A software tester walks into a bar..
..runs into a bar
..hops into a bar
..skips into a bar
..jumps into a bar.

jlliagre

> ..bumps into a jar.

CowperKettle

> He orders:
a beer
a bear
a bier
2 beers
3 beers
65535 beers
π beers
-1 beers
0 beers
O beers
NULL beers

jlliagre

¡Una cerveza por favor!

CowperKettle

> The bartender fulfils the orders that he can fulfil and refuses the others. The tester writes up his results and forwards them to the senior analyst for sign-off.

A live user walks into the bar and asks where the toilet is. The bartender explodes, the bar catches fire and the ceiling falls in.

Robusto

00:07

@CowperKettle Sounds like someone in QA missed a few scrums.

The Kinks - Destroyer

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CowperKettle

> Russian man causes a delay of 120 air flights by screaming "Alla, ya v bar!" to his wife across an airport hall. (Алла, я в бар! = Alla, I'm [going] to the bar!")

Alla is the short form of Aleftina, a female name.

Policemen in Yekaterinburg busted a prostitution joint that was located right across the road from the police office e1.ru/text/incidents/2023/12/07/72994979

A list of fines for prostitutes for violation of work culture/discipline

Point 14 says "Falling asleep during active work" - 5000 rubles.

That rule should be introduced into State Duma.

jlliagre

00:34

@CowperKettle Checkmate at guests?

CowperKettle

00:46

@jlliagre Мат also means "swear language", so it's "swearing in the presence of clients". :)

мат = матерный язык

Русский мат

Ру́сский мат (ма́терный язы́к, ма́терная ру́гань, матерщи́на, устаревшее лая матерна) — бранные слова и выражения, употребление которых не допускается общественной моралью, предназначенные преимущественно для оскорбления адресата или отрицательных оценок людей и явлений. Матерными считаются высказывания, в состав которых входят слова, образованные от матерных корней (список таких корней определяется по опросам носителей языка и традиционно содержит от четырёх до семи общеизвестных корней). Употребление русского мата в некоторых случаях может расцениваться как нарушение закона при ругательстве в...

jlliagre

ебануть, ебануться, ебаться, ебиздить, ёбнуть, ёбнуться, ебстись, въебать, выебать, выёбываться, доебать, доебаться, доёбывать, заебать, заебаться, наебать, наебаться, наебнуть, наебнуться, объебать, объебаться, остоебенить, остоебеть, отъебать, отъебаться, переебать, переебаться, поебать, поебаться, подъебать, подъебаться, подъебнуть, разъебать, разъебаться, съебать, съебаться, уебать!! :-)

alphabet

@CowperKettle You know you're bad at sex when your prostitute falls asleep partway through.

tchrist

01:41

Laurel

@alphabet I feel like that was part of the b-plot of a Dawson's creek episode

tchrist

Notice how messed up the first map is compared with the second.

Because you do not need to know what those Welshmen say, nor Scotsmen, nor Irishmen, nor Manxmen. It makes it seem like there's more officialness.

I guess if I used -men for one that they all needed it.

Just sounds funny.

I wouldn't want folks to worry about the cats.

The map is showing what's happened with the STRUT vowel around England.

> The FOOT–STRUT split is the split of Middle English short /u/ into two distinct phonemes: /ʊ/ (as in foot) and /ʌ/ (as in strut). The split occurs in most varieties of English, the most notable exceptions being most of Northern England and the English Midlands and some varieties of Hiberno-English.

> In Welsh English, the split is also absent in parts of North Wales under influence from Merseyside and Cheshire accents and in the south of Pembrokeshire, where English overtook Welsh long before that occurred in the rest of Wales.

I work with a Scot.

> In non-splitting accents, cut and put rhyme, putt and put are homophonous as /pʊt/, and pudding and budding rhyme. However, luck and look may not necessarily be homophones since many accents in the area concerned have look as /luːk/, with the vowel of goose.

> Usually, unrounding to /ʌ/ did not occur if /ʊ/ was preceded by a labial consonant, such as /p/, /f/, /b/, or was followed by /l/, /ʃ/, or /tʃ/, leaving the modern /ʊ/. Because of the inconsistency of the split, put and putt became a minimal pair that were distinguished as /pʊt/ and /pʌt/.

> The absence of the split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the trap–bath split. The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized, and speakers of non-splitting accents may try to introduce it into their speech, which sometimes results in hypercorrection such as by pronouncing butcher /ˈbʌtʃər/.

Laurel

02:04

I was googling frivolously and found this:

tchrist

It's trapped minnows.

> The STRUT–COMMA merger or the STRUT–schwa merger is a merger of /ʌ/ with /ə/ that occurs in Welsh English, some higher-prestige Northern England English and some General American. The merger causes minimal pairs such as unorthodoxy /ʌnˈɔːrθədɒksi/ and an orthodoxy /ənˈɔːrθədɒksi/ to be merged.

Laurel

It's not the trap-bath split, but it might as well be

tchrist

@alphabet It is not true that "BrE has /ʌ/". That's a terribly broad brush truer from gazing down from ten thousand miles away than it is in the field.

alphabet

The Northern Boys - Party Time

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tchrist

> On the other hand, in Birmingham, Swansea and Miami, at least the non-final variant of the merged vowel is consistently realized as mid-central [ə], with no noticeable difference between the stressed and the unstressed allophones.

alphabet

02:06

It's party time, get your dr[ʊ]gs out

tchrist

@alphabet I am completely adamant in refusing to allow rap to abuse my ears.

alphabet

when I say hi, I get sh[ʊ]t down: youtube.com/watch?v=b7Bj1dBMYBE

tchrist

> Some other minimal pairs apart from unorthodoxy–an orthodoxy include unequal /ʌnˈiːkwəl/ vs. an equal /ənˈiːkwəl/ and a large untidy room /ə ˈlɑːrdʒ ʌnˈtaɪdi ˈruːm/ vs. a large and tidy room /ə ˈlɑːrdʒ ənˈtaɪdi ˈruːm/. However, there are few minimal pairs like that, and their use as such has been criticised by scholars such as Geoff Lindsey because the members of such minimal pairs are structurally different.

alphabet

@tchrist I have no clue what genre that even is. It went viral on TikTok, of course.

tchrist

I wonder what that means: the members of such minimal pairs are structurally different.

alphabet

02:11

I think it's because of the word boundaries

tchrist

Then that's the complaint about an ice cream and a nice scream etc.

alphabet

"Bought a transgender man two pints, gonna get l[ʊ]cky and fist him tonight." True poetry.

tchrist

You can't find less aggressive examples?

alphabet

You can't appreciate the beauty of their music?

Next you're going to tell me you haven't listened to the complete Ke$ha discography.

tchrist

Bach Mass in B minor, Parrott, Taverner Consort, 1/2

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alphabet

02:25

@tchrist Only 17,000 views. Crappy lyrics. No rap breaks. Why bother?

I get that you like your older, more obscure artists, but you need a solid understanding of the music that's most central to our society if you want to be considered cultured.

tchrist

@alphabet I have no time for rude provocations.

alphabet

Maybe you'd learn something from those cultural touchstones so central to our collective memory. I suggest starting with Hollywood Undead.

tchrist

Stop it.

I couldn't possibly care less about what sorts of rash trash you choose to wallow in, but stop trying to drag others down into the sewers with you.

It's insulting.

alphabet

I am merely suggesting how you might edify yourself if you want to experience our civilization's greatest and most important works.

You can't really understand yourself until you've listened to One Direction.

Laurel

Why does this chat always seem to get so heated

tchrist

02:36

@Laurel Constant performative disingenuity.

Village Wedding

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Laurel

It's easier to use humor like that than to not and have other people hating on the stuff that you're mentioning

alphabet

You might just find a song that saves your life

Laurel

My taste in music seems to be just songs that are popular to hate on

Also known as pop, I guess

alphabet

Twiztid - We Don't Die (Official Music video)

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tchrist

We'll always have Tom Sawyer, eh.

@alphabet Not going to get me watch your trash.

Laurel

02:43

Why can't we all just be friends…

alphabet

@tchrist It's an important message about mortality

tchrist

I prefer music.

Some of us here are trained musicians with professional experience. I know you like to insult actual learning. Good bye.

alphabet

(Even I think that last song is...a bit much.)

tchrist

I will never, ever, ever click on anything you post. Ever. You're just trying to abuse and offend. I won't play your game.

alphabet

@tchrist If it's not obvious, I'm just parodying the way you describe my tastes as unrefined.

I promise I won't actually judge you for failing to understand Ke$ha.

Laurel

02:46

This is like the best you're going to get from me with trying to regulate chat

I just don't get why this seems to be actually resulting in hostilities instead of just taking it with the seriousness that it was meant to be taken with (ie little to none)

tchrist

@Laurel Pop rocks in cokes.

alphabet

@Laurel I was being sarcastic in my criticisms of tchrist. Sorry if I came across as genuinely upset or argumentative.

tchrist

Sarcasm seldom works well in writing, let alone with people you don't know.

Laurel

Maybe it's a culture gap? I understood it as sarcasm at least

alphabet

I was parodying the way you'd criticized me for not reading great literature or listening to, I dunno, Bach. Sorry if that wasn't obvious.

Mitch

02:56

Sarcasm is the last refuge of teenagers

@alphabet that only works if you say 'Bach' with a sore.throuat

alphabet

No work of art has changed my worldview so thoroughly as Miracles

Mitch

I'm not clicking on that link either

Probably some Russian crypto bro

alphabet

To this day I refuse to learn how magnets work, on principle

Mitch

How do blankets work?

alphabet

@Mitch Right after the sangha

Mitch

03:02

The youth these days have very strong eye muscles from rolling them so often

Also, what's sangha?

alphabet

How many bands do you know whose fans have marched on Washington?

@Mitch It was a joke referring to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refuge_in_Buddhism

Mitch

@alphabet Buddhists aren't as nice as they'd lead you to believe

alphabet

@Mitch C'mon, it was only that one genocide

Mitch

The Dalai Lama has a lot of skeletons in the closet

@alphabet uh...just one that you know of

alphabet

@Mitch Technically they're mummies

Mitch

03:08

I remember having long discussions about whether such and such recordings was music or not.

Dead Kennedy's was a hard sell

alphabet

The best part of being a raccoon is that, if you want to become a Juggalo, you don't need to buy any face paint

We are born Juggalos

Mitch

Raccoon faces don't take white grease paint too well

I think people mostly become Juggalos for the name

alphabet

We don't need it; we are already proper Juggalo colors

It's my favorite music fandom and/or violent street gang

Mitch

'You' don't have a white face though

alphabet

What's important is the stripes

Mitch

03:12

A shiny white face with wide fat red lips and eyebrows

@alphabet I think maybe you and I have different ideas of what a clown looks like

alphabet

@Mitch Juggalos do not look like clowns

Mitch

@alphabet oh

Nevermind

What? Sure they do!

alphabet

@Mitch They wear this bright black and white face paint in odd patterns

Mitch

Clown makeup and stuff

Laurel

@alphabet I always seem to get that word mixed up with gigolo

alphabet

03:14

Mitch

@alphabet like KISS!

alphabet

Like that crap

Mitch

@alphabet ok that looks like a clown but not a raccoon

alphabet

@Mitch Indeed. The Juggalos just do it in a more...organized way

Laurel

It doesn't help that I can't remember what letter gigolo starts with unless I look up the wrong spelling

Mitch

03:15

@Laurel my solution is usually to avoid it altogether

alphabet

@Mitch ...I haven't seen a clown who looked like that.

Laurel

@Mitch I wasn't the one who started this conversation :p

alphabet

A pale imitation of the real thing, which can only be achieved by being a raccoon.

Laurel

@alphabet This is practically the same image that comes up when you search "old fashioned clown": ebay.com/itm/124692819864

alphabet

What is it with people who wear leather collars around their neck?

@Laurel Are juggalos appropriating clown culture?

Laurel

03:21

@alphabet I think that's a different subculture, especially if there are spikes on it

alphabet

@Laurel Is it some sort of alternative fashion statement, or is it some weird sex thing, or both?

Laurel

I think both, or rather there's at least one subculture with each

alphabet

I should buy a studded leather collar. Would turn heads at the local Target.

Personally I think those toddler leashes should come with studded leather collars, so it looks like a fashion statement.

Laurel

My parents used to put my brothers on toddler leashes when they were little. No studs tho

alphabet

I find those things incredibly creepy.

Just...ick. People do not go on leashes.

Laurel

03:36

You're not people tho :p raccoon

Mitch

@Laurel ooh that burns

@alphabet I once tried to take a cat for a walk on a leash

I no longer have the physical scars but ..

😹

Or rather 😢

CowperKettle

04:39

Five more days of cold weather.

Cerberus

For us, the cold should end tomorrow.

Is westerly winds why you're behind us?

CowperKettle

At -16°C, it would be possible to go for a jog without the risk of burning one's throat

Cerberus

Hmm.

CowperKettle

I was coughing yesterday, so I'm wary of jogging at minus 26°C

Cerberus

It does sound rough.

We seem to have left the realm of freezing.

Thought it still 'feels like' -1.4.

CowperKettle

04:45

Wow. It's a great weather for running :)

Cerberus

Perhaps!

Even better weather for sitting inside.

CowperKettle

Cerberus

05:01

Quelle tragédie.

CowperKettle

07:05

Dinosaur of the Day: Borealopelta markmitchelli, named after Mark Mitchell, who spent several thousand hours reconstructing it.

> Examination of the specimen's stomach contents indicates that ferns were a major part of the animal's diet. The fact that ferns made up the majority of Borealopelta's last meal suggested that it was a highly selective feeder.

It died 110 000 000 years ago, and they managed to analyze its stomach contents

Cerberus

Wait, that can't be an intact fossil??

Surely no fossils are found that well praeserved?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus I was also amazed, upon coming across this on Facebook (of all sources). I've noticed, after peeking into Facebook after months of absense, that it somehow rewired the feed, making it less hysterical.

Medical slang of the day: eminence-based medicine (blind reliance on the opinion of a senior doctor by his subalterns)

Cerberus

07:33

@CowperKettle Perhaps it was heavily 'restored' with speculated parts?

jlliagre

Borealopelta

Borealopelta markmitchelli is een plantenetende ornithischische dinosauriër, behorend tot de Ankylosauria, die tijdens het vroege Krijt leefde in het gebied van het huidige Canada. Het in 2011 gevonden fossiel van Borealopelta, een "dinosauriërmummie", is het meest complete dat van de Nodosauridae bekend is en toont de pantserschubben in hun natuurlijke positie, nog voorzien van hoornlagen en de min of meer oorspronkelijke kleur. == Vondst en naamgeving == Ten noorden van Fort McMurray in Alberta exploiteert Suncor Energy de Millennium Mine waarin teerzand in dagbouw voor de winning van o...

M.A.R.

7

Q: Should Politics SE posts conform to the IHRA suggestion and updated APStylebook regarding "antisemitism" vs "anti-Semitism"?

We now write antisemitism (n.), antisemitic (adj.), without a hyphen and with no capitalization. This is a change from AP's previous style: anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic. APStylebook, Apr 23, 2021 Also, IHRA suggests no hyphen. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) would lik...

CowperKettle

08:49

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Modern doctors are stupid

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@M.A.R. Wow, hair splitting.

Dannyu NDos