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12:01 AM
@Criggie ROT13 in Sanskrit would be novel. Reminds me when my kid was 6 we had fun exchanging messages using a letter substitution cipher he developed himself, better than ROT13!
12:28 AM
Cinq à sept (French: [sɛ̃k a sɛt], literally 'five to seven') is a French-language term for activities taking place after work and before returning home (sometimes using overtime as an excuse), or having dinner (roughly between 5 and 7 p.m.). It may also be written as 5 à 7 or 5@7. == In Quebec == In Quebec French, the term stands for a social gathering. It may bring together friends or colleagues or may be organized around a specific event, such as a book launch or vernissage. Wine, beer, and cocktails are served along with finger foods and other hors d'oeuvres. Such a party held later may...
So, "beer o'clock" ?
> In France, Cinq à sept originally referred to a time for a tryst, and consequently is a metonym for a visit to one's mistress, an extramarital affair, and the mistress involved. It derived from the time of day French people would make such a visit. It is still commonly considered as the time of day to meet one's mistress or lover, and the term implies a sexual liaison (as opposed to the Québécois habit).
I was about to write it.
12:41 AM
Former president François Hollande cinq à sept made the headlines when they were disclosed in 2014.
@tchrist Nowadays called, "overtime".
Or 'overtime'?
Yes.
1:04 AM
Maybe "overt time" as well.
1:35 AM
Better than "over time", I suppose.
1:46 AM
Now I know the Spanish word for company: empresa
From Italian impreza, Deverbal, formed with the feminine past participle of imprendere, a less common alternative for intraprendere (“to undertake”).
In Russian we have the word impressario for a business person who manages concerts, theater plays etc.
Verb: hundir (first-person singular present hundo, first-person singular preterite hundí, past participle hundido)
  1. (transitive) to sink, engulf
  2. (transitive) to ruin, destroy
  3. (reflexive) to sink, sink down
  4. (reflexive) to collapse, cave in, subside
  5. (reflexive) to break down, go to pieces, fall apart
Inherited from Latin fundere, fundō, from Proto-Italic *hundō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd-. Doublet of fundir (“to cast, to melt”). Compare English found (“to cast metal”), founder (“to sink”).
@CowperKettle We have this word too.
@CowperKettle Company as in polite company, or as in enterprise, business?
@Cerberus Business
Sounds like enterprise.
This is Poul Anderson, riffing on the AE Housman ballad:
> The Queen of Air and Darkness cried softly under sky:
‘Light down, you ranger Arvid, and join the Outling folk.
You need no more be human, which is a heavy yoke.’

He dared to give her answer: ‘I may do naught but run.
A maiden waits me, dreaming in lands beneath the sun.
And likewise wait me comrades and tasks I would not shirk,
for what is ranger Arvid if he lays down his work?
So wreak your spells, you Outling, and cast your wrath on me.
Though maybe you can slay me, you'll not make me unfree.’
@Criggie More ballad meter there.
I coupled up the 4+3 lines to make it shorter to paste. Here's Housman's, uncoupled to still look like a ballad:
> Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,

The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.'

O Queen of air and darkness,
I think 'tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
But you will die to-day.
2:04 AM
Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until his death in 2001. Anderson also wrote historical novels. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, and was nominated many more times for awards. == Biography == Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania to Danish parents. Soon after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, relocated the family to Texas, where they lived for more than ten years. After Anton Anderson's death, his widow took the children...
@tchrist Housman is great
Indeed.
> He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck.
I memorized this poem a long time ago.
And parts of this one:
> Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;
Breath’s a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey’s over
There’ll be time enough to sleep.
Ballad meter makes for a catchy, memorable verse.
And it gives the poet more freedom with unstressed syllables, so the feet can vary.
@CowperKettle This one has "head rhyme" (alliteration) not just "tail rhyme".
I don't understand my Russian colleagues translators who say that they last read English poetry in University. To master a language to perfection, and not enjoy the language's most exquisite parts (poetry, songs etc.) is odd.
> A gypsy rover came over the hill
Down through the valley so shady.
He whistled and he sang 'til the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady.

* Ah-dee-doo-ah-dee-doo-dah-day
Ah-dee-doo-ah-dee-day-dee
He whistled and he sang 'til the green woods rang
And he won the heart of a lady.

She left her father's castle gate.
She left her own fine lover.
She left her servants and her state
To follow her gypsy rover.

She left behind her velvet gown
And shoes of Spanish leather
They whistled and they sang 'till the green woods rang
2:11 AM
I heard a version of this song in my jogging mp3 player a couple years back by some US singer of the 1960s
But I don't recally exactly by whom
Ah, I recalled.
It were the Kingston Trio
Their "Tom Dooley" is a great song.
I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday being unable to crawl out of the house for weakness. Today I"m a bit better. I wonder if the non-growing old tumor in my brain can somehow play up the inflammation and cause drowsiness. I should use perplexity.AI to investigate.
Yep.
More ballad meter:
> I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
@CowperKettle I only walked a couple miles today, trying to feel better. I wish your ills were as simple as mine are.
After long runs, I have hazy vision in my left eye, and bad mood, and sometimes these bouts of weakness for days. I wonder -- can physical activity somehow "shake up" a non-growing tumor so that it releases some inflammatory factors? And thus makes a person weak and mentally tired.
@tchrist Nah, I felt so great on Monday and Tuesday that I covered 100+ km on bicycle
@CowperKettle Hazy vision in one eye is really unsettling. You need serious doctors.
> Mr Gong, a 57-year-old man from Shanghai, has systemic sclerosis, which affects connective tissue and can result in skin stiffening and organ damage. He says that three days after receiving the therapy, he felt his skin loosen and he could start moving his fingers and opening his mouth again. Two weeks later, he returned to his office job. nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03209-4
Scientists have come up with revolutionary therapy for immune disorders
> One woman and two men with severe autoimmune conditions have gone into remission after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells
@tchrist It just lasts for several days
And then becomes better again.
I understand that. My position stands.
2:20 AM
I have a schwannoma around the trigeminal nerve in the cavernous sinus just behind the left eye, so it might, when agitated, temporarily decrease vision.
OH.
This is also ballad meter, just coupled up:
> Ent:

When spring unfolds the beechen-leaf and sap is in the bough,
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow,
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!

Entwife:

When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade,
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid,
When sun and shower upon the earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair!
Probably written by Tolkien
You can call it heptameter if you with, but it's classic ballad meter in stanza of 4 lines, 4+3 each, with rhymes on the shorter ones.
Yes.
I was looking for some of his that used ballad meter.
He actually uses common meter more often.
He writes in nearly everything in the books, save for iambic pentameter.
I haven't gotten the new two-volume of his poems, including unpublished ones.
> The majority of the poems of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are in common or ballad meter (lines of iambic tetrameter alternating with lines of iambic trimeter) or long meter (iambic tetrameter), but there are poems in hexameter, heptameter, octameter, amphibrachic dimeter, dactylic trimeter, Old English alliterative meter, and free verse;6 the rhyme schemes range from abab to couplets to more complex forms, including a sestet (Aragorn's song of Gondor).
> It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
> Strange fits of passion have I known,
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befel.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
> Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba
and wandered wandered far
from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night.
Fool of St. Elmo’s fire

In scary night I wandered, praying,
Lord God my harshener,
speak to me now or let me die;
speak, Lord, to this mourner.

And came at length to livid trees
where Ibo warriors
hung shadowless, turning in wind
that moaned like Africa,

Their belltongue bodies dead, their eyes
alive with the anger deep
in my own heart. Is this the sign,
the sign forepromised me?

The spirits vanished. Afraid and lonely
> ‘Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?’

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.
> O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
> There‘s a lady who‘s sure all that glitters is gold
and she‘s buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed,
with a word she can get what she came for.
> Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
And what was the color of his hair?
> He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
I bet he was a redhead.
> I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.
 
1 hour later…
3:52 AM
Word of the day: funkster. " A performer or fan of funk music."
Why does this word sound so bad and annoying? Discuss.
4:37 AM
0
Q: Why is "gangster" sometimes pronounced more like "gankster"?

alphabetAs Wiktionary notes, in American English the word gangster can be pronounced either as /ˈɡæŋ.stɚ/ (straightforwardly "gang" + "-ster") or as /ˈɡæŋk.stɚ/ ("gankster"). For the pronunciation I'm talking about, see this video at 10:15, this video at 6:30, this video at 42:10, this video at 20:05, th...

In which I ask the single lowest-stakes question in existence.
5:08 AM
 
1 hour later…
7:08 AM
@tchrist what inspired the decision, I wonder?
@CowperKettle are the lowercase i's and mismatched quotation marks supposed to be provocative? Because they are successful
7:38 AM
@M.A.R. Probably some Indian guy created the meme ))
 
2 hours later…
9:16 AM
> One of Darwin’s favorite books was John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He refers to it frequently on the voyage and even writes in his autobiography that, “‘Milton’s Paradise Lost had been my chief favorite, and in my excursions during the voyage on the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton”.
I never read Milton. Maybe I should try.
9:52 AM
I would, but I misplaced my copy. Paradise Lost^2
10:41 AM
:)
By a Scottish "felt artist".
I like it.
 
1 hour later…
11:59 AM
Wordle 1,206 2/6

⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
12:23 PM
@CowperKettle Oh my!
@M.A.R. Why that gentleman in particular I have no insight on, but in general the pope is trying to "defocus" Catholicism from its default-European assumptions and worldviews by appointing cardinals from all over the globe. Remember how not very long ago at all, most cardinals and nearly all popes were only ever Italian.
To continually emit epistles Urbi et Orbi loses credibility when their authors come only from the urb not the orb.
1:03 PM
How's the knee feeling today? @tchrist
#travle #663 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅
https://travle.earth
@RyderisnotRude. Less awful, but I only walked 5 miles on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Usually I put in a combined 15 or 20 miles or the weekend.
I also wore a patella-isolating neoprene knee sleeve/brace almost continuously.
1:23 PM
@tchrist Is your pain right under the patella, or is it in the interior of the knee, either central or lateral?
#WhenTaken #223 (07.10.2024)

I scored 895/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 70 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 197 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 7209 km - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 106 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 4 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 196 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 4 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 68 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 197 / 200

https://whentaken.com
Wordle 1,206 4/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
1:38 PM
@Robusto I think it's more lateral.
@tchrist Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but that's the kind of pain I started with. The first time I had surgery they cleaned up a tattered meniscus and that lasted me about seven years.
@Robusto I still have a fair bit of knee-padding under the kneecap on that knee, although not quite so much as on the other one. We won't really know much more than this until the MRI.
It's not in danger of being bone-on-bone for years at least.
@tchrist The MRI can't always tell what's wrong. For one thing, it didn't diagnose my torn ACL, which didn't get discovered until I was getting a knee replacement.
darn
@Robusto otherwise it would have been the only imaging diagnostic tool deemed necessary
1:43 PM
@Robusto I do have catching and popping on that knee.
CT and its variations are good at some things, MRI at others. MRI is better at more things than CT.
@M.A.R. Like better at radiation exposure. :)
@M.A.R. And no radiation.
CT also tends to have more imaging artifacts
Jinx.
1:45 PM
There's some gravelly sounds coming out of that knee as well. But whatever it is, it's not bone on bone.
Not yet.
I'd really like to get another ten or fifteen years out of this set.
Are you on any pain killers
I haven't taken any ibuprofen today. I did so over the weekend to get the inflammation down.
@tchrist I went 14 years from first surgery to knee replacement. But the last seven were a real horror show.
1:50 PM
Ibuprofen is pretty mild stuff
Just don't over do the walks.
@alphabet Do you think this is a right-dislocation?
2
Q: Apposition with Auxiliary Verbs

Sam CopelandIn the sentence "She had done it, eaten the cake" the participle phrase "eaten the cake" seems to be in an appositive relation with the pronoun "it." But if we swap in the one for the other we get the obviously ungrammatical "She had done eaten the cake." Likewise, if we do the swapping with "He ...

Might be a good question for a racoon?
@Araucaria-Him Please don't feed the animals! They will become dependent on human intervention.
2:10 PM
@RyderisnotRude. Probably because the undead cannot cross running water.
@Robusto Humane intervention may involve your nearest Youth in Asia program.
2:24 PM
@Cerberus Most English-only monoglots will make no implicit connection tying kernel with corn via a shared Proto-West-Germanic root, let alone to its cognate grain via Latin granum by way of French. Only to the highly and rather specifically educated does it become apparent that these three are all doublets of one another that trace back to a single Proto-Indo-European radix which all made their respective ways into modern English via paths diverse in time and place, some prehistoric.
For a good time, you should see what happens to your Englishman when you mention cherry pits. This is the normal term in America, but it derives from the Dutch use not the British one, which differs here.
@tchrist Oh, really, that is funny.
Here, our stone fruit have pits not stones.
@Cerberus Yes, truly.
I suppose I would say stone for larger fruits.
For cherries...I wouldn't know what to say.
You'll hear people use it even for the big ones sometimes: peach pits, apricot pits, cherry pits, plum pits. Anything from Prunus.
Stone being such a silly word.
2:26 PM
Yes.
@tchrist Ahh OK, so there is a distinction in size.
@Cerberus There could be, but stone is rare here for that sense.
P.S. In Dutch, we call a brick a bake-stone.
Note also that our apricots have apps not apes.
Now I am confused.
"You hear people say peach pit sometimes — "stone is rare in America for peaches".
2:28 PM
@Cerberus Our stressed phoneme there is /æ/ not /e/.
Not about that.
@Cerberus It's largely a matter of how old the speaker is now.
But what you said suggests that neither pit nor stone was the normal word.
That's overall in English. If you look at the American vs the British corpora, you'll see an inversion of frequency. But we crossed the line a couple generations back here.
@Cerberus Here peach pit is now the norm. In the nineteenth century it was not.
OK so "sometimes" meant "normally".
2:33 PM
@Cerberus Yes. Unless you talk to "old people".
Which of course the youth seldom do.
Calling them "stones" is something my grandparents would say.
Noted.
Have you ever heard someone say pips where you might expect pits?
For grapes, for example.
It, too, means "seed".
Hmm I don't remember, but I would readily accept it.
I associate pips with symbols.
Like those on a die?
Yes!!!
Exactly like those.
> Apparently representing a shortened form of pippin, from Middle English pipin, from Old French pepin (“a seed”) (French pépin).
It sounds like a phonosemantic cluster.
2:37 PM
But those on a die MAY have a different origin from those in a grape.
Yes.
> From Middle English pippe, from Middle Dutch pip, from post-classical Latin pipita, from Latin pītuīta (“mucus, phlegm, head cold”). Doublet of pituita.
Huh...
Yes, they may be two words here, both pip.
What, then, did pip and pipita mean there?
The latter sounds like pumpkin seeds eaten as a snack by someone with the pin–pen merger who's just bought himself some pepitas. :)
@tchrist I bet J.D. Vance didn't expect his smart alec label backfiring spectacularly into a call to arms for ladies who were on the fence this election cycle.
2:41 PM
Noun: pepita (plural pepitas)
  1. An edible seed from a pumpkin or similar squash, which may - after being roasted (and, if needed, shelled) - be eaten as a snack or used as an ingredient in cooking.
  2. A gold nugget, or pepito.
  3. pepita f (plural pepite)
  4. nugget, especially of gold or platinum
  5. Alternative form of pipita
(4 more not shown…)
Adjective: pepita m or f or n (indeclinable)
  1. Alternative form of pepit
> Del lat. vulg. *pippīta, alterac. del lat. pituīta.
But yes, there's some mental connection between pits and pips based on phonoaesthetics.
I reckon passionfruit have pips if grapes do.
Mangos have pits. Papayas probably have pits as well, but those are getting closer to pips.
But children with chickenpox or measles have pips, and these are different. Perhaps also acne.
Bananas only have pips at most, never pits.
And apples? I'm not sure I can call those seeds pits.
In any event, you're sure to drive the English mad with this. :)
@tchrist Huh then what was the semantic path here.
But I need to go in a minute.
@Cerberus I don't know, and also must go now.
@tchrist We call those pits.
@Cerberus I have semantic satiety, is the problem.
I suppose, for us, anything that isn't easily chewed is a pit.
Otherwise, a seed (zaadje).
And small pits are also still seeds.
2:51 PM
> Apple seeds, also known as apple pips, contain a chemical compound called amygdalin that can break down into hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a poisonous gas....
Okay.
Grape seeds are the worst.
Definitely pitten.
OFFS the Brits say apple pips!
Why not!
They cannot bring themselves to say pits, is why.
"The Five Orange Pips", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the fifth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in The Strand Magazine in November 1891. Conan Doyle later ranked the story seventh in a list of his twelve favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. This is also one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help; the other being "The Adventure of the Dancing Men". == Plot == A young gentleman named John Openshaw visits Holmes one night with a strange story...
2:54 PM
@Araucaria-Him I had that same thought--that the first one is some sort of right dislocation construction--but I wasn't quite sure enough to write an answer, since this is a rather unusual case.
@Robusto Yeah those are pits or seeds here, no? I think of a pit as harder than a seed, though. So citrus might just have seeds. Again, I've come under semantic satiety thinking about this this morning, so nothing seems normal to me right now.
@tchrist Yes, five orange seeds.
@Robusto Free food doesn't taste as good as stolen food anyway.
@tchrist In this state, pits are made of plutonium. Also in Tennessee.
3:28 PM
@tchrist The French have the entire clock covered (@jlliagre):
5
Q: "Le douze quatorze"?

MitchI have recently been trying to listen to RFI and noticed that they mention le douze quatorze often. But I' having difficulty following everything around it. I can't tell exactly what they are referring to. It seems they are naming their midday news program with a bit of word play around th...

@tchrist I wonder how Brits would call "seedless" prunes. I see in American stores they label it "pitted prunes", "pitted dried plums", BUT they also say "seedless grapes" and "seedless watermelon". We are not being consistent!
@GratefulDisciple If you're looking for consistency, language (especially English) is the last place you want to look.
2
@Robusto Still an order of magnitude better than assigning existing Chinese characters to represent western words based on similar sound; talking about corrupting the original meaning of the Chinese character!
@alphabet When you're a kid, all food except white bread tastes funny.
As an adult, you remember how much you loved all that other food.
As an older adult, you try your favorite kid's food again and wonder what all the fuss was about.
As a dead person, you wish you could eat anything again, even that gross white bread.
@GratefulDisciple The original meaning is nearly worthless. That same problem exists ad infinitum within the original language as well. Japanese solves the gairaigo (foreign word) problem by using kana (phonetic symbols) to approximate the original, heard word and then butchering it into something like an 8-bit transfer, often with hilarity ensuing.
3:36 PM
@GratefulDisciple No worse than transcribing Chinese characters to quasi-English spelling, that then gets mispronounced -in- English.
Jinx-ish?
@Robusto Sure, I'll let you have it.
You are too kind.
I -am-.
I was thinking of Chinese though not Japanese, each has their own hilarity.
#travle #663 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅
https://travle.earth
#WhenTaken #223 (07.10.2024)

I scored 903/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 83.4 metres - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 7209 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 104 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 644.0 metres - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 2 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 138.6 metres - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 200 / 200

https://whentaken.com
Too bad #2 location was unguessable.
4:00 PM
@jlliagre Close
We had the exact same idea as to where it was located.
Also when, apparently.
4:14 PM
-1
Q: ADDRESS ENTITY NEGOTIATING TITLE Detour WASH ST VS WASH WAY

Angela CorraroASSASSINATION SUPERINTENDENT PUBLIC INSTRUCTIONS WASHINGTON STATE LEGAL BAR ASSOCIATION REGISTRATION Accreditation CERTIFICATION VITAL INFORMATION PRIVACY PRIVACY MATTER ASSAILANT ACCREDIT STIHL ASIDES AGING ASIAN NETWORK SATELLITE DARE DRAKE FRAMES GRAPH MCDONALD'S MCLOVIN YOUTUBE COMPENDIUM BA...

Can we clean up the mess on Aisle ELU?
@tchrist @Laurel
@Robusto Yes. I was slightly intrigued by a man in the background who didn't look like a native, but not enough to change my mind. Nobody is native from that place anyway ;-)
@jlliagre Spoiler
4:33 PM
@AndrewLeach ^^^
4:46 PM
@Robusto poof
@Robusto and here I spent all this time and effort coming up with a wekl-readined and insightful answer
@tchrist Gracias.
I mean, say what you will, but the guy was trying. He even attempted to answer his own question
@Mitch snort
> You dare use my own spells against me, Potter?
4:50 PM
Cursed be they who said our own words before us.
@Robusto I'm a little too late to do anything (good riddance), but I just wanted to say that you can report spam/abuse/nonsense in Charcoal HQ to find a broader array of people who can help flag. (It only takes 4 red flags from regular users to delete something like this.)
Anyway, as suddenly as I appear, I must vanish
@GratefulDisciple We use "pit" where Brits use "stone". I don't think they consider anything but Prunus fruit to have stones, but I may be wrong there. It's the Prunus genus who provides us with all our "stone fruit".
The Dutch also use pit, which is where and whom we got it from.
5:18 PM
@tchrist What about cherrystones?
> I gave my love a cherry that hath no stone
Etc.
6:01 PM
@jlliagre Spoiler
@Robusto Old fashioned?
@Cerberus Yes, for the most part. Its use in "cherrystone clams," for example.
The hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), also known as the round clam, hard-shell (or hard-shelled) clam, or the quahog, is an edible marine bivalve mollusk that is native to the eastern shores of North America and Central America from Prince Edward Island to the Yucatán Peninsula. It is one of many unrelated edible bivalves that in the United States are frequently referred to simply as clams. Older literature sources may use the systematic name Venus mercenaria; this species is in the family Veneridae, the venus clams. Confusingly, the "ocean quahog" is a different species, Arctica islandica, which...
Right.
@Mitch If you're referring to pinyin transcribing system which is based on pronunciation, at least it's "downstream" from the original language. My concern is that the original character (that itself already has a diverse way to pronounce it, depending on the dialect including Korean) is "re-tasked" to approximate a Western word.
Thus not only there is a corruption of meaning, but speakers of another Chinese dialect wouldn't be able to see AT ALL the connection with the sound of English with that character since they pronounce that character differently than the one who originally re-tasked the character.
@Robusto In contrast at least the Japanese use another set of characters for transcribing imported words.
Apparently OxfordLD transcribes syllablic consonants as e.g. /əm/ rather than /m̩/ in part because--seriously--"the syllabic consonant marker is easily confused with a smudge or mark on the page in printed form."
That whole document is just...strange. Very odd reasoning behind their choice of symbols for phonemes, which (like those in many dictionaries) seem intended to confuse learners in as many ways as possible.
In the Indonesian language, since they use roman letters, foreign words are clearly imported, with some letter substitution to match local convention. See this article for example. contract -> kontrak, volatility ->volatilitas, August -> Agustus, percent -> persen.
> In print, representing the <goat> diphthong differently for [General American] would entail 4500 extra transcriptions. Leaving aside whether the degree of detail is appropriate for the OALD, an increased number of GA-specific transcriptions would cause the pronunciation information to take up more room on each printed page.
Even when prefix/suffix are added (part of Indonesian grammar), it's quite easy to detect. "its economy"-> "ekonominya", expectation -> ekspektasi, exporter -> exportir.
6:45 PM
Apparently OUP can't afford printer ink, and they need to ensure that their online version is never any better than the dead-tree one.
> OALD6 (2000) made explicit some previously implied GA detail by transcribing the RP diphthongs /ɪə eə ʊə/ as monophthongs /ɪr er ʊr/, explicitly noting rhoticity in GA transcriptions
@tchrist Recently I came across an article for the etymology of "in a pickle". One false lead (according to the article writer) is its Dutch origin but he argued against it. Another false lead is from Shakespeare (The Tempest).
But he argues it has a lot humbler origin: American hot dog, referring to the relish which has the connotation that if you're that relish, "you're in a state of jumbled disarray."
"Ok, we have to make it at least somewhat not-totally-wrong, but we're only allowed to change one letter per phoneme, so let's use /ɪr/ instead of /ir/ because it's closer to /ɪə/. That makes sense, right? It's not like the /r/ is a separate sound from the vowel preceding it, right?"
They hafta start putting warning labels on dictionaries with American English transcription systems designed by Brits.
Do you consistently distinguish between foregoing and forgoing things?
(Sorry for going on a rant parallel to the other conversation in this chat.)
Of course, they also borrow the RP transcription system everyone's been using for decades even though nobody talks like that anymore. Why? "the symbols associated with Gimson have become so accepted in ELT that to vary them risks confusing learners or seeming ‘incompatible’ with other ELT products"
The other ELT resources are confusing and misleading, so we have to be confusing and misleading also, otherwise we might confuse and mislead people.
@alphabet It's interesting contrast to see a modern English dictionary still optimizing for print while the Middle English Dictionary is now optimizing for web
"We have also continued the long process of removing artifacts of its print origins from the Dictionary, in favor of data that is more amenable to being searched and manipulated by computer. We are expanding some of the implicit and contracted spellings given in the print MED…"
7:06 PM
Their approach seems to be: to get transcriptions for General American, you take the transcription for RP, then apply a special list of tweaks to make it more Americanish, then say that any remaining issues are intentional.
@alphabet I don't like that. I really hope that's not the case
@Laurel They think that Mary and merry are homophones in GA, but marry is different.
Also OxfordLD uses different symbols for the two vowels in greedy in American English, because King Charles talks that way.
@alphabet Is there some dialect where that's true?
7:22 PM
@Laurel Google tells me it is found in Louisiana.
In any case I guess this does answer some questions I had about how they're able to compose this huge book of all these words (they're using shortcuts). Kinda disappointing tho
I wonder if they're taking any shortcuts with the actual definitions too
I think it's mostly an issue with people writing transcriptions for a dialect they don't speak.
7:48 PM
@Robusto Spoiler
8:01 PM
@Mitch Ha ha, I remember that question. I had the 7-Eleven chain in mind when I wrote As we commonly use 24 hour based time.
8:35 PM
@GratefulDisciple As I say, an 8-bit transcription. The hardest time I have with Japanese tends to be the gairaigo (foreign loan words), which sound very little like the original.
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Oct. 7, 2024

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8:50 PM
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Wordle 1,206 4/6

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⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
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Daily Octordle #987
4️⃣🟥
7️⃣🕚
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Score: 68
Daily Sequence Octordle #987
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 71
Le Mot (@WordleFR) #1002 3/6

⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://wordle.louan.me
La palabra del dia #1005 3/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://lapalabradeldia.com/
Latin Wordle 280 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
https://game.latindictionary.io/
9:55 PM
Overheard in dev work slack: You can't never not make it begin without a nondigit.
3
@Robusto Yes, 8-bit transcription is an apt term for gairaigo (learned about it here). Wasei-eigo seems more hilarious and possibly even more confusing.
In contrast, the Indonesian import process is either 1) quite straightforward (see examples above), or 2) use native words altogether (which language police pushed the people and students to use).
Category 2 examples for those in the Japanese wiki articles: "remote control" becomes "pengendali jarak jauh" but most people simply say "remot" (category 1, i.e. gairaigo). "department store" becomes "toko serba ada" (literally "general store") which they abbreviate to "toserba". "word processor" becomes "pengolah kata" (kata=word), "steering wheel" becomes "setir mobil" (setir from the Dutch word "stuur", "mobil" = car), etc.
I cannot recall words in Indonesian that are equivalent to Wasei-eigo, maybe there are some.
10:20 PM
@tchrist wow, quintuple negative.
10:48 PM
It's confusing. That's a probly-not. And it's not colloquial English to say "will not" and "does not"; native speakers say "won't" and "doesn't". That makes the sentence a little more accessible, but not enough. Horn's rule is Simplex Negatio Negat; Duplex Negatio Affirmat; Triplex Negatio Confundit. Single negative negates; double negative affirms; triple negative confuses. — John Lawler Dec 5, 2013 at 17:27
> 1. Simplex Negatio Negat.
2. Duplex Negatio Affirmat.
3. Triplex Negatio Confundit.
4. Quadruplex Negatio Stultificat.
5. Quīnquiplex Negatio Dementat.
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