English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

alphabet

01:45

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The line degram illutrates the number of overseas visitors in a european country.The charts shows the change in the thousands of visitor to three different areas between 1987 and 2007. Overall,while the visitors in the coast and the lakes increased substantially ,in the mountains it seem to be m...

OK, I don't want to be too harsh to someone who might still be learning the language. But surely they have spellcheck.

One would hope that an EFL teacher would tell you to put a space after, and not before, a comma.

CowperKettle

02:45

Dutch manholes are nice.

Michael Rybkin

Tell me pleas if this sentence sounds good to you guys:

Watching this causes me a lot of mental distress.

M.A.R.

@alphabet most don't because they're stuck in the past century, and I assume not just in the backwater city where I live. Heck, many, maybe even most don't know how to punctuate properly themselves

@MichaelRybkin sounds okay

EFL reminds me of hockey. I prefer ESL (though I know it's much less accurate, I already spoke two languages before English, so it was my third)

CowperKettle

Do they teach Azeri in schools in Iran, if the region is populated by Azeri speakers?

alphabet

@M.A.R. It irks me because you would think it should stand for "English as a First Language" (by analogy to ESL), and thus refer to native speakers

@MichaelRybkin Sounds good to me. You don't need the word "mental," though.

Laurel

03:00

For some reason I interpret EFL as "English Foreign Language" but with ESL I actually remember the small words :p

CowperKettle

In Russia, there are sometimes lessons in local languages, which pupils may choose to attend. In the republic of Tatarstan, all pupils study Tatar in schools besides Russian.

Turns out Tatar was an obligatory second language in schools until 2017, when Putin made it optional kommersant.ru/doc/5536780

alphabet

@M.A.R. Unfortunate. I'm sorry if you've had to become familiar with this system.

CowperKettle

Today is a marathon in Yekaterinburg

e1.ru/text/sport/2023/08/06/72566951

I've slept for 12 hours. From 20:00 to 08:00. I dreamt that I was feeling very tired, and woke up very tired.

Because this feeling of heaviness in the left part of the stomach started again.

M.A.R.

03:16

@alphabet no I know it means "foreign". Well, I assume

Wait scratch that. I misread your reply

@CowperKettle no of course not.

This regime prides itself in seeing shadows in every corner, everyone hell bent on making it fail.

CowperKettle

Ah!

The USSR was better on that count.

M.A.R.

Teach Azeri to Azerbaijani kids? No way, they'll want their own country tomorrow

CowperKettle

In 5 years' time, there will be wearables costing $100 that will instantly translate from any to any language, as you speak (or listen)

> Babel fish, a fictional species of fish invented by Douglas Adams in 1978; see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Wow, a real gullywasher has started. I hope those marathon runners are feeling fine.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle the victim mentality is very, very strong with these people. It's probably the only constantly and consistently used excuse for whatever horrible shit they do. It's not ideology; unlike what some foreigners think they usually don't justify the things they do with Islamic scripture (Quran or Hadiths)

user4539917

Playing the victim needs no religion.

CowperKettle

03:24

Ironic then that Putin's regime cooperates closely with Iran, while condemning Ukraine for not allowing Russian to be the second official language in Ukraine.

M.A.R.

Of course, any official letter that might be perceived as controversial or combative by the receiver or just is so insane that the sender is subconsciously horrified and feels guilty for writing and sending it will be riddled with random-ish verses from Quran.

@CowperKettle A lot is ironic with this alliance. Might even have some other metals involved. I've said it before, Putin is today's Saddam.

CowperKettle

In the USSR, any scholarly work had to contain some quotations from Lenin.

user4539917

So this special operation is about language teaching?

CowperKettle

@user4539917 In theory, yes.

user4539917

wtf

CowperKettle

03:26

The motto has been "Russian speakers are oppressed in Ukraine, they are forced to speak Ukrainian"

M.A.R.

"And God said unto them: You will be punished for putting whoopie cushions on your prophet's chair" used to justify some military budget increase but more importantly, that the sender is very pious by knowing these verses

CowperKettle

While the capital, Kiev, is predominantly Russian speaking.

Ukrainian language was slowly losing ground to Russian in Ukraine up to 2014, because of TV sitcoms, Russian music, Russian books etc.

Ukraine's current predisent was a movie actor, and he took part in Russian-language movies. Because he is a Russian-speaker.

user4539917

Are the languages that different?

CowperKettle

@user4539917 The funny thing is, they are not different. I've memorized 150 words and I can understand so much more

You have to memorize maybe 1000 or 2000 words, and viola, you understand Ukrainian (if you're a Russian)

The grammar is almost the same

M.A.R.

Probably something like Farsi vs. Kurdish.

CowperKettle

03:30

I can fluently read Ukrainian Wikipedia. I can guess the meaning of "unknown" words.

user4539917

Coolio

M.A.R.

Or the half dozen Persian languages they speak in Pakistan and central Asia

CowperKettle

But Putin is not against Ukrainian, his real goal is to retain Ukraine within the sphere of Russian influence.

It's just a useful propaganda trick, for simple folk.

user4539917

Thanks TIL.

M.A.R.

Why can't folk be complicated

CowperKettle

03:38

Ukrainian billionaire Medvedchuk is Putin's close friend en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Medvedchuk

M.A.R.

It seems to me deporting simple folk is way more beneficial than deporting immigrants

Vote for me

@CowperKettle Putin likes people with "Medved" in their name huh

user4539917

Simple societies produce simple folk.

CowperKettle

Medvedchuk's family was deported to Siberia until 1960, because his father took part in the Ukrainian nationalist insurgency during WWII

@M.A.R. Yes, funnily

"Medved" means "bear" in Russian. Med = mead, honey; ved = vedaty (to know)

"Medved" = an animal that knows where honey is.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle so all those memes of him riding bears are quite accurate, hmm

CowperKettle

))

> Compare Sanskrit मध्वद् (madhvad, “honey- or mead-eating”).

Oh.

user4539917

03:43

So simple folk are the ones who only speak one language, right?

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle we have an oldish word for mead, "may"

می

@user4539917 it helps

CowperKettle

Must be also part of the PIE

An ingredient in the PIE

user4539917

All you need is the square of r to get the area.

CowperKettle

@user4539917 A woman in a hospital queue said that "if we lose in Ukraine, Americans will come here, and put us Russians into concentration camps"

user4539917

LoL

CowperKettle

03:47

The level of madness is insane. Or the level of insanity is mad.

user4539917

They will use Russian prisoners of war to build the wall between Mexico.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle the Americans fought the nazis too though. Someone should tell her that

user4539917

The Americans had their hands full with Japan though.

CowperKettle

Sinking of the Reuben James - Woody Guthrie

►

user4539917

They did put Japanese immigrants in camps.

CowperKettle

03:52

Yes

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle we just pretend to be intelligent, using words. When you're scared enough, you'll be screaming like a chimp in so many words, just like that lady

CowperKettle

Yes

M.A.R.

@user4539917 WW2 is such a dark spot in history. It's gotta be when people like Churchill are its heroes. One is terrified to hear about the villains.

user4539917

Yes

CowperKettle

04:21

Word of the day: virago (a woman who demonstrates abundant masculine virtues. The word comes from the Latin word virāgō (genitive virāginis) meaning vigorous'[1] from vir meaning "man" or "man-like" (cf. virile and virtue) to which the suffix -āgō is added, a suffix that creates a new noun of the third declension with feminine grammatical gender.)

user4539917

More commonly a screaming woman.

CowperKettle

user4539917

I like the bread crust around the scholar's neck :D

alphabet

04:35

@M.A.R. Interesting. The picture you get from American media is that Iran is a cartoonishly evil theocracy.

I recently learned about how the phrase that American media translates as "Death to America" is arguably a mistranslation

CowperKettle

04:51

> If I start snoring in my sleep, just push me..

Cerberus

05:18

@alphabet Hmm that is not the picture I get.

@alphabet Thanks, that is interesting, and it makes sense.

CowperKettle

06:23

Chandrayaan-3 has successfully entered Lunar orbit; the next step is landing the lander, on 24 August.

> Dutchman Boas Kragtwijk started on July 22 and plans to cover the 2,500 km from Amsterdam to Kiev by running around 50 km each day for 50 days. The aim is to raise money to buy ambulances that Dutch charity Zeilen van Vrijheid (Sails of Freedom) will take to Ukraine.

A marathon a day for 50 days.

Four years ago, Boas rode a motorbike from Amsterdam to Singapore

He is having all kinds of fun.

> An experimental XQ-58A "Valkyrie" drone has officially been flown under artificial intelligence control, the Air Force Research Laboratory (ARFL) announced. Conducted on July 25 at the Eglin Test and Training Complex in Florida, the test flight saw the drone entirely AI-controlled for around three hours.

Shield AI, Kratos to Integrate AI Pilot With XQ-58 Valkyrie Drone

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SkyNet is getting closer.

CowperKettle

06:43

I wonder how the word شیت sounds in Iranian

M.A.R.

08:02

@alphabet yeah, I've been thinking about it ever since I saw this attitude in English media. IMO it has at least three different reasons: 1) Either the olive branch-toting white saviors of English media can't help but be a little bit antagonistic to foreigners themselves (don't wanna say xenophobic but yeah), or

2) there is some deliberation involved and nobody in western governments minds if hostile actions towards Iran (e.g. sanctions) remain low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking whenever the approval ratings get a bit fidgety, or

3) Iranian officials like to project the image of ideologues themselves; they otherwise have no 'right' to rule the people, and besides, there was no point in time when they could stop pretending to be against the evil imperial materialistic capitalistic values of their predecessors during Shah.

Now, of course it's probably a mix of all three, plus whatever I can't think of right now, and there is some overlap here.

The real crazies still wield some power of course; there are quite a few mini-Soleimani's in IRGC and similar organizations that would talk about wiping I s r a e l off the map, the sort that histories love to quote casually talking about genocide.

The cartoonishly alien theocracy that would feel like right out of a dystopian novel, in my speculation, ended around the time The Holy Defense or The Imposed War ended. (Those are the only two phrases ever used to refer to the Iran-Iraq war, and it would actually be trippy for the average Joe here to hear it referred to in another way, which should tell you something)

What I'm getting at was there was a war criminal of a powerful enemy to unanimously hate. This foreign enemy's existence justified blind submission, squalor, religiosity, and the necesssity for a leader.

People born after a certain period didn't experience any of that, or were too young to understand what was going on, so this at least explains some of the generational gap in religiosity and loyalty towards the regime today. One generation fought a war "to keep the heart of the regime pumping", the other sees corrupt bearded old people reaping undue benefits from their contributions from a bygone era.

M.A.R.

08:33

Once there was no enemy to fight, of course you have to make one. I s r a e l was and is a good option, they love hating Iran and Iran loves hating them. The vicious cycle of fear and bravado can continue. But it's far from a real enemy shooting rockets at Tehran. So people were no longer super scared. Part of 'going back to normal' was squalor and hardship becoming unacceptable.

@alphabet honestly it's a bit complicated. The gist of it is the average person chanting "down with the US" does it with the passion of a DMV clerk. Who's also a zombie. I dunno, it doesn't feel right to say there is enough thought process going on for either of those interpretations. No one is horrible enough to wish all Americans dead, but once again there's that fear and paranoia that could be whipped up to make people malicious and savage. Think the post-9/11 hysteria.

I was three years old then and not an avid reader of NY times of course. But what I hear sounds close to whatever causes horrified Caucasians every once in a while, hearing about an apparently popular movement in country X where everyone is advocating for kicking puppies

It's also why I'm generally a bit optimistic about, uh, democracy and whatever. Sure, Kremlin can make old ladies squeal in fear about what Americans would do to them if Russia lost the war, but it won't last. Never does. It's more like a cycle, so not without its damage, not at all, but common sense tends to prevail.

M.A.R.

09:33

@CowperKettle not a commonly used word, the authentically Farsi version. So if you ecnountered it it's likely literally someone saying "shit"

CowperKettle

09:49

@M.A.R. Google Translate translates it as "leaf" into Russian.

I encountered it here:

Shit, Mazandaran

Shit (Persian: شيت, also Romanized as Shīt) is a village in Estakhr-e Posht Rural District, Hezarjarib District, Neka County, Mazandaran province, Iran. At the 2006 National Census, its population was 948 in 180 households. The following census in 2011 counted 1,307 people in 337 households. The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 959 people in 279 households; it was the largest village in its rural district. == See also == Wikipedia:Unusual place names == References ==

Xanne

@M.A.R. What happened to the women’s protests? Were they repressed or did they just fade out?

CowperKettle

On Google Maps, someone marked a building in Shit, Mazandaran as "Golden Cum Temple" -- must be some troll? Or maybe only Google is allowed to mark buildings?

Sorry for profanity.

I just think that I should send a complaint to Google Maps if this was trolling

Vikas

@CowperKettle I don't know but I've seen such edits.

CowperKettle

I sent an error report to Google.

Vikas

It's from past. The Hindi text says "The temple will be built here only".

It was removed by Google later.

Xanne

10:03

@M.A.R. Iran frightens the West because its goal is the elimination of Israel and perpetual anti-Western policy with no inspection of nuclear program to ensure it’s not meant for aggression or at least threat thereof. Easy to fo

Easy to fix, that is?

Xanne