English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:05 AM

> The screengrab came from a website called Daily News Reported, which describes itself as "a fabricated satirical newspaper and comedy website."

Laurel

1:06 AM

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. We haven't talked about it. In fact that conversation has only really begun in one of my mod rooms and didn't get very far.

I'm going to have lots of exhausting overtime this week but also signing onto the strike looks like it would be putting a target on my back and that's scary

Cerberus

@Laurel Hmm what do you think will happen?

alphabet

1:28 AM

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. There's been some conversation about it further up in the chat.

Laurel

@Cerberus How they handled things in 2019 didn't leave a good feeling, to start with. And SE has been spending the last few days eroding trust again with how they handled all this. But more specifically I'm talking about comments from SE that made me think that the mods who signed onto the strike better scrutinize the TL and watch their behavior otherwise something will happen to them.

Cerberus

@Laurel Ah OK, like what they did to Monica?

Laurel

I wouldn't rule it out

Cerberus

I suppose not.

Although this subject is less hysterical.

And the conversation in the lounge seemed actually polite and restrained.

Laurel

I'm a person who's very easily stressed and my life outside SE isn't helping (e.g. refer back to the overtime; I've been doing so much of that for the last two weeks too). I'm just very stressed out about things

alphabet

1:32 AM

Wordle 716 2/6

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

That was lucky

Laurel

I wasn't a mod during the Monica thing and I didn't check out the deep dark mod archives from that time because I thought it would be depressing

As for this whole thing now, it just feels so unnecessary. Like SE could have approached it completely different, not made enemies of everyone, and we wouldn't be here talking like this

Cerberus

@Laurel Quite understandable.

tchrist

Don’t you mean when did it become common knowledge that birds are NOT the descendants of dinosaurs? People used to think they were so, and this was the mistake that occasioned the invention of the term you reference. It depends when you started reading Robert Bakker's explorations of dinosaur endothermy starting in 1968. Most of the dinosaurs — both the avian ones and the non-avians ones — went extinct at the K-Pg boundary. Most dinobirds died then and only one tiny branch of them survived: the little, ground-not-tree-dwelling but flighted toothless ones with beaks for cracking open seeds. — tchrist ♦ 11 mins ago

Cerberus

@Laurel You were wise not to.

@Laurel Yes. Like last time.

alphabet

@tchrist Doesn't your example show that they are the descendants of dinosaurs? Or rather that they are dinosaurs themselves, descended from other, non-avian ones.

Cerberus

1:36 AM

@tchrist Well, does that make then "not the descendents of dinosaurs" unaequivocally?

tchrist

@alphabet No, birds are a single branch of the avian dinosaurs.

alphabet

@tchrist Which means that they are descended from other avian dinosaurs, which are in turn descended from non-avian dinosaurs.

tchrist

"Avian" has specific technical anatomical senses here that may not align with your idea of what a bird "is".

alphabet

@tchrist Regardless, one could say: there are birds, there are non-avian dinosaurs, and there are non-bird avian dinosaurs.

tchrist

@alphabet No, there is no "birds descended from avian dinosaurs". Birds ARE avian dinosaurs. There were quite a lot of them at one time, for a very long time. Only one branch survived.

"Avian dinosaurs" is a way of talking about the dinosaurs which are birds.

alphabet

1:40 AM

@tchrist Humans are mammals. Humans are also descended from (other) mammals.

Likewise, birds both are, and are descended from, avian dinosaurs.

tchrist

@alphabet Down that road lies the madness that comes of saying that humans descended from great apes. No, that is not right: humans ARE great apes.

It is the same with birds vs the other dinosaurs.

alphabet

@tchrist Those statements aren't mutually exclusive. One can say that humans are great apes and that they are descended from great apes.

Laurel

Humans are mediocre apes :/

tchrist

@alphabet Only because the apple falls not far from the tree.

Cerberus

But "humans are descended from mammals" sounds odd, does it not?

tchrist

1:43 AM

@Cerberus Yes, it does not sound right. It says we're no longer mammals.

Cerberus

Suggests.

So that is a fair point.

tchrist

I'm descended from immigrants.

alphabet

I am an American. I am also descended from Americans. No?

Cerberus

The only difference is that all other dinosaurs are extinct.

tchrist

@alphabet Oh I don't know, are your parents Americans?

alphabet

1:44 AM

@tchrist Yes (well, for a couple generations).

Not ultimately. Ultimately we're all descended from Africans. But only some of us are (and are descended from) Africans.

Cerberus

So the statement in question is perhaps more similar to this: humans are descended from pleocenic(?) mammals.

No, not quite, because pleocenic excludes humans.

Whereas "dinosaurs" does not quite exclude birds.

alphabet

To avoid misleading implications, one could say "birds are descended from non-avian dinosaurs," just like "humans are descended from non-hominid mammals."

But "birds are descended from dinosaurs" is, I contend, also a true statement, just like "humans are descended from mammals."

Laurel

Hmmm, maybe the issue with "humans are descended from mammals" is that it's not much more useful to say than "humans are descended from humans", like a tautology almost

tchrist

@alphabet That does not mean that it is not misleading to the point of being deceptive. Telling the complete truth in a way that leads the listener to misunderstand and believe something which is not so is still naughty.

Are nautiluses descended from cephalopods like squid and octopus?

That depends on whether I've been careful with my commas. Not a good recipe for knowledge transfer.

alphabet

Eh, I find it at most slightly misleading. But I wouldn't deny it and say that birds are not descended from dinosaurs.

tchrist

1:51 AM

Well they aren't.

They're just a kind of dinosaur.

alphabet

Even if you think "birds are descended from dinosaurs" has misleading implications, it isn't (I contend) false, so one should not respond by insisting that "birds are not descended from dinosaurs."

It seems odd to assert "humans are not descended from mammals." Sure, "humans are descended from mammals" may mislead the listener, but it isn't a false statement.

tchrist

Birds are a kind of dinosaur unlike, say, pteranodons or dimetrodons or plesiosaurs, or even basilosaurus. :)

Laurel

Aw, look at this: insider.com/birds-that-look-like-dinosaurs-2019-2

I just felt the need to see pictures of birds

Can't believe that they put Canada Goose on the list

What a menace

tchrist

The popular press has never been careful.

alphabet

Do T Rex's also taste like chicken? Does that mean that dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets are also dinosaur-flavored?

Laurel

1:55 AM

Asking the important questions

tchrist

When's the last time you ate a non-dinosaur archosaur?

alphabet

I just realized: chicken nuggets are made of dinosaurs. Humans are truly the apex predator.

Cerberus

Oh, ages ago.

tchrist

Only the last time you ate a crocodilian, not the last time you ate a bird.

Cerberus

Or perhaps I should say, eras.

Birds are dinosaurs-survivors.

tchrist

1:57 AM

Eras?

Eras quod sum?

alphabet

Teach your kids that McNuggets are made of dinosaur meat

tchrist

Doesn't everybody??

I'm serious. Among my family and friends, it is thus.

You'll have to eat gators to avoid eating dinosaurs. Sorry, Charlie.

Cerberus

Hmm it seems aera is actually plural.

tchrist

like aevum is singular?

Cerberus

Perhaps from bronze counters.

tchrist

1:59 AM

That rings a distant bell.

Cerberus

My belfry is empty.

tchrist

Trying to remember. It's from Wolfe.

Wolfe uses an aes to mean a copper coin in the Book of the New Sun. That's what it was.

tchrist

2:55 AM

Banishing casuistry, clarity emerges. The fossil record shows that birds are feathered dinosaurs. Nearly all palaeontologists regard birds as coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. primitive birds, particularly the Enantiornithes, ... became extinct due to the K–T extinction event. All but a few groups of the toothless Neornithes were also cut short.

Laurel

Wait, hold up, does saying "birds are feathered dinosaurs" mean that dinosaurs weren't feathered?

Have we actually made any progress here???

Cerberus

No doubt you know that many dinosaurs had feathers?

Laurel

I only know that they grew feathers sometime between now and when I was reading dino picture books as a child :p

OH I FOUND THE BOOK

The book I'm remembering

For some reason I thought this would be harder to find or maybe I'm just good at Google

CowperKettle

3:15 AM

@Cerberus Oh!

Cerberus

@Laurel Those illustrations are probably outdated, though.

CowperKettle

> I can't believe Donald Trump is still claiming he won in 2020.
Who would have believed a man in his 70s could maintain an election for so long?

Cerberus

It is believed that many dinosaurs had feathers.

CowperKettle

The Russian forces have reportedly blew up the Nova Kakhovka Dam

There are videos of inundation.

But the news is not confirmed by good sources.

alphabet

@CowperKettle Some Western analysts claim Ukraine may have done it to allow an amphibious assault across the Dnipro. Seems unlikely given the number of civilians potentially killed in the resulting flood.

Laurel

3:20 AM

@Cerberus None of them had feathers in this book and I think that they still had long-necks as two different types of dino (can't remember what they were called). In the same vein does anyone here remember The Land Before Time?

CowperKettle

Yes, I'll wait until the BBC covers it. Too much fake news.

alphabet

Wait, nvm, it seems like those Western sources were just quoting Russian ones

Cerberus

@Laurel Ah, cute, I actually saw an episode of that on Youtube recently.

CowperKettle

"The Land Before Time"? No.

Laurel

I had some VHS's when I was young (which are at my parents' to this very day) and I watched them enough that I still remember the plots of the few I had. A friend told me that they still thought it was a solid franchise, tho I haven't watched them in years and I'm afraid to see if they would hold up

CowperKettle

3:28 AM

Dinosaurs (TV series)

Dinosaurs is an American family sitcom television series that aired on ABC for four seasons from April 26, 1991, through July 20, 1994 (preempted episodes that had never been allowed to run also aired as a second part of the fourth season from September 6, 1995 through November 10, 1995), and repeats were shown on Disney Channel. The show, about a family of anthropomorphic dinosaurs, was produced by Michael Jacobs Productions and Jim Henson Television in association with Walt Disney Television and distributed by Buena Vista International, Inc. The characters were designed by Henson team member...

I remember this.

Семья динозавров - Ты не мама!

►

Laurel

@CowperKettle That's a series before my time (heh)

CowperKettle

:0)

Laurel

Wow, the first Land Before Time had both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as executive directors

alphabet

Anyway Russian media is supposedly putting out the message "everything is fine, we already won," which means the situation is truly dire

Cerberus

3:50 AM

@Laurel It didn't appear to me.

A bit like an American high school but with dinosaurs.

Little humour, no subtlety.

Laurel

A few years back I re-watched a movie I had a lot of nostalgia for from my childhood, and realized it was actually really bad. Like there were still some good parts but I'm trying to forget watching it all the way through again

CowperKettle

> Study on Danish population found that living in dense inner-city areas did not carry the highest depression risks, rather the highest risk was among sprawling suburbs, and the lowest was among multistory buildings with open space in the vicinity. science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf3760

CowperKettle

7:02 AM

Etymology of the day: psychedelic -- irregularly[31] derived from the Greek words ψυχή psychḗ 'soul, mind' and δηλείν dēleín 'to manifest', with the intended meaning "mind manifesting," the implication being that psychedelics can reveal unused potentials of the human mind.