English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:00

What do you call a chapstick in Holland?

Scotch tape or sellotape? Neither, thank you.

And styrofoam. People just don't have another word for it.

Thermos is a trademark. Now figure out what you have to call it. Good luck.

No more popsicles for the love of all that's holy. Without popsicles summer is meaningless.

Zippers.

Often people will call any pack with a hydration bladder a camel back, or at least the bladder part of it.

Somewhere there's a misspelled trademark lurking behind that.

I'm sure you've noticed jello before.

The one that got me last year was when my neighbor was talking about their sawzall rather than their reticulating saw. I only knew the generic name, not the brand name.

Because it "saws all the things".

The hail just hit.

Hope kitties go to ground.

Some people grew up on Crisco.

Veggie lard, as it were.

I see you know my old friend Marge.

Cerberus

00:20

@tchrist Lippenvet.

@tchrist Plakband.

Robusto

@Cerberus I'm not sure exactly. But knowing San Francisco studios, I'm sure it wasn't very large. Maybe 36 m²? (About 400 ft²?)

Cerberus

@tchrist I think that is probably either schuimrubber or piepschuim.

@Robusto Ok fairly large for a studio!

I guess that would probably be €2000–2500 here?

tchrist

A square room twenty feet on an edge is not a big apartment.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ok yeah we would call it a teapot, but, if we had to specify, thermoskan, as you say. So that is an exception.

Robusto

@Cerberus That's large for Holland?

tchrist

00:22

I don't think one ten feet by forty is, either. Sounds like a ship's suite.

Cerberus

@tchrist Rits.

@Robusto Yes.

What would you consider average?

tchrist

Well, one cat got back before it the downpour. I haven't seen the other though. They were both playing within 50 or 75 feet from the house last I saw them before I started typing.

Cerberus

@tchrist Not sure what that is: gelatine?

@tchrist Cute.

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, but flavored and sweetened.

Robusto

@tchrist I remember when I was working in Germany and I was trying to ask someone for Scotch tape, which they had no idea what that was, so then I asked for "cellophane" Band. Turns out they have their own brand name tape: Tesafilm.

tchrist

00:25

@Robusto I had the same issue living in Spain.

Cerberus

@tchrist I guess margarine was used by some people? But I would always have called it butter. And I think few people still use the stuff.

@tchrist Ok then we call that drilpudding.

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, it's been a long time since I lived in anything like that small. My living room now is bigger than that. My bedroom is probably about that size, but add the bathroom and walk-in closet and its easily double that.

Cerberus

At any rate, you have no idea why Americans use more brand names?

tchrist

I think I came up with cinta transparente and they finally understood that I wanted cinta adhesiva.

Cerberus

@Robusto I know Americans have large houses!

@tchrist It's just plakband. Sticky band.

tchrist

00:28

@Cerberus Rome likes longer words.

Robusto

@Cerberus Our house here is modest compared to what we moved away from. We were downsizing!

tchrist

Jell-O

Jell-O, stylised as JELL-O, is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert (fruit-flavored gels/jellies), pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert (genericized as jello) is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is a registered trademark of Kraft Heinz, and is based in Chicago, Illinois. The dessert was especially popular in the first half of the 20th century. The original gelatin dessert began in Le Roy, New York, in 1897, when Pearle Bixby Wait trademarked the name Jell-O. He and his wife May had made the product by adding strawberry, raspberry, orange...

"gelatin dessert"

Scary summer salads of half a century ago.

Robusto

Yeah, we call any acetaminophen Tylenol, and any ibuprofen is Advil.

Cerberus

@Robusto Hilarious!

tchrist

@Cerberus People do use "sticky tape" here sometimes, but you never know what they mean when they say that. It could be masking tape, etc.

Cerberus

00:30

I am kind of dating someone who at last managed to get his own place, a studio he is very, very happy with. He pays €1500 for 22 m².

@tchrist Sure, there are different kinds.

But the default is transparent and thin.

Depending on context.

People might say 'tape' for other kinds.

Robusto

@Cerberus Wow, that's less than 25 squ. ft.

tchrist

@Cerberus So like a little square that's four or five yards on a side? That's like a cell, right? Or a dorm room?

The rain has stopped, and the other cat came waltzing it completely dry.

Robusto

@tchrist Dorm room. A single, probably. I don't think two people could share that space.

Oops, I didn't mean 25 sq. ft. I meant 250!

d'oh!

tchrist

mac(tchrist)% units '22 m^2' ft^2
	* 236.80603
	/ 0.0042228655

Robusto

I'm not so good with the typing tonight.

tchrist

00:34

@Robusto You were off by a power of ten. You've clearly been metrified.

Robusto

@tchrist I'm lost in the Metrified Forest!

tchrist

@Robusto Bunk beds.

Robusto

But it's better than crashing on someone's couch, or sleeping on the street.

tchrist

@Robusto That's where the metrosexuals cruise the bushes.

@Robusto Yes.

Cerberus

@tchrist It is a spacious room to sit in. Less spacious if you also have a double bed in it. But still large enough.

tchrist

00:38

@Cerberus You need a Murphy bed.

Cerberus

Who?

tchrist

They're those ones that fold up into the wall.

Robusto

An In-A-Door bed!

Cerberus

His bed is high up, with closets and washing machine underneath.

tchrist

Oh like a bunk bed without a bottom.

Cerberus

00:38

@tchrist Ah, one of my friends has those.

I think her house is actually the same size, come to think of it. Almost a studio as well.

Robusto

When I was a baby my parents had a one-bedroom apt. with a Murphy bed.

Cerberus

And look at you using brand names once again...

tchrist

It's what I know it as.

Cerberus

We would simply say a klapbed, or an opklapbed, or opklapbaar bed.

Robusto

Murphy bed

A Murphy bed (also known as a pull-down bed, fold-down bed, or wall bed) is a bed that is hinged at one end to store vertically against the wall, or inside a closet or cabinet. Since they often can be used as both a bed or a closet, Murphy beds are multifunctional furniture. == History == The Murphy bed is named after William Lawrence Murphy (1876–1957), president of the Murphy Bed and Door Company. === Pre-Murphy folding beds === Under the name "bureau bedstead" the fold-up bed appeared in the 18th century, but never gained popularity. When closed, the bed looked like a bureau with ...

Cerberus

00:40

@tchrist Yeah and I am really curious about the why.

But perhaps few people know.

tchrist

Because a fold-up bed is ambiguous. Even some sofas will do that, although probably not a couch or davenport.

Some people might call it a hide-a-bed.

Robusto

I think more people have "fold out" beds nowadays. When you're not sleeping, it's a sofa.

Cerberus

@tchrist Did you understand my question about the deeper causes?

My friend has something more like this. But hers looks fancier.

The table is also larger.

tchrist

@Cerberus I don't know that there can be any deeper cause. It's simple familiarity

Like with conestogas during the settling of the west.

Now replaced by winnebagos. :)

Still a caravan.

Cerberus

My question was, why do Americans use more brand names than other people?

Specific examples are not what the question is about.

tchrist

00:45

@Cerberus And I do not know that that is true. I think you notice what you do not recognize. I'm sure Canadians are no different from us, and the Brits and Aussie not far behind if at all.

Cerberus

You probably don't know, which is understandable: I have no idea either, and probably few others have studiedthis.

@tchrist Oh, so you think what I observe is not true?

I am not the only one to observe this.

Americans seem to use brand names far more often than Brits or anyone else.

tchrist

@Cerberus I have no idea. I merely offered one potential explanation related to confirmation bias combined with the unfamiliar being more noticeable.

@Cerberus The robots would have you believe otherwise.

Cerberus

@tchrist Noted.

tchrist

The American marketplace is rather bigger than, for example, the Dutch one.

Cerberus

It is about all countries versus America.

tchrist

00:53

What would you call Marmite?

Cerberus

> ## You
Why do Europeans call things by their brand names more often than Brits do?
## Copilot
The tendency to use brand names more frequently can vary across cultures and individuals. However, there are a few factors that might contribute to this phenomenon:
- Historical Influences:
- In England, tea has a rich history and cultural significance. The British have a long-standing tradition of tea consumption, dating back to the 17th century when Catherine of Braganza (a Portuguese princess who married King Charles II) introduced tea to the English court.

So helpful.

The robots have no idea.

tchrist

That's right. But they're happy to agree with you.

> Brits call things by their brand names more often than Europeans do due to a combination of historical, cultural, and linguistic factors.

In the UK, using brand names as generic terms has become a common practice in everyday language. This phenomenon is known as genericization, where a specific brand name becomes synonymous with the general product category it represents. There are several reasons why this trend is more prevalent among Brits compared to other Europeans:

Historical Influence: The UK has a long history of industrialization and commercial development, leading to the establ…

Cerberus

@tchrist Exactly.

tchrist

You'd think Europeans would use brand names more often. Because if you call something by its brand name, then you don't need to learn a new word for everything each time you step into the next county.

It's ok if the Europeans have no word for Marmite. There are awful things from the Nordic countries for which it is best that we have no name in English.

Rakfisk. Hákarl.

Cerberus

I do suspect it may have something to do with the pervasiveness of advertising sowing its seeds, and a culturally fertile ground.

tchrist

01:05

Sherry. Champaign.

Of course it's only called sherry because no Brit can correctly pronounce jerez let alone xérès to save his life.

What do the Dutch call sherry?

Cerberus

Sherry.

Nobody says we don't use any brand names.

It is about the proportion.

tchrist

xereswijn?

Cerberus

We use the English word.

tchrist

I wonder how you would even say that X.

ok.

Cerberus

But I never know what all those drinks are, exactly.

Jenever and gin and sherry and everything.

tchrist

01:09

ew

The first two are distilled.

Cerberus

shrugs

tchrist

The last is a class of fortified wines made using the solera method.

There are four kinds.

You live there, you learn these things. :)

> Products which are often solera aged include Sherry, Madeira, Lillet, Port wine, Marsala, Mavrodafni, Muscat, and Muscadelle wines; Balsamic, Commandaria, some Vins doux naturels,[2] and Sherry vinegars; Brandy de Jerez; beer; rums; and whiskies. Since the origin of this process is the Iberian peninsula, most of the traditional terminology is in Spanish and Portuguese.

Basically, blended.

It's more complicated than that, but good enough. There are vintage ports, though, that are not blended.

All sherries are blended.

Just like there are blended whiskeys and single-malts.

But teasing out the differences between some of those may require more knowledge than is worth obtaining.

A Madeira vs a Marsala, etc.

Solera

Solera is a process for aging liquids such as wine, beer, vinegar, and brandy, by fractional blending in such a way that the finished product is a mixture of ages, with the average age gradually increasing as the process continues over many years. The purpose of this labor-intensive process is the maintenance of a reliable style and quality of the beverage over time. Solera means "on the ground" in Spanish, and it refers to the lower level of the set of barrels or other containers used in the process; the liquid is traditionally transferred from barrel to barrel, top to bottom, the oldest mixtures...

> One of the world's oldest wines, its considerable evolution has been marked by the influence of many of the world's greatest empires and civilizations: the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish and British. Today, while Sherry does not enjoy the level of popularity it once did, it remains one of the wine world's most unusual and historical expressions.

Cerberus

Interesting.

I didn't know about this method.

tchrist

History of Sherry

The history of Sherry is closely linked with that of Spanish wine production, particularly the political fortunes of the Cádiz region, where it originated with the early Phoenician settlement of the Iberian Peninsula. The triangular region between the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda still marks the limits of the modern denominación. One of the world's oldest wines, its considerable evolution has been marked by the influence of many of the world's greatest empires and civilizations: the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish and British. Today...

They range in color and character from bone dry to cloyingly sweet.

And so they necessarily go with very different foods, depending on which it is.

Pic from here.

> Los principales tipos de jerez son el fino, el amontillado y el oloroso, elaborados con uvas de palomino fino, la reina indiscutible en la zona.

Call them dry, medium, and fragrant/sweet if you will.

But if you find one labelled seco, understand that that's not used for the driest varieties. It's sweeter than they are.

The section on that page called Tipos de jerez explains all this much better than does anything on at least the English Wikipedia. I haven't looked at the Spanish one.

Cerberus

01:31

> - Brut, een zeer droge champagne met een dosage van minder dan 15 gram per liter.
- Extra Sec, met een dosage van minder dan 20 en meer dan 12 gram per liter.
- Sec, met een dosage van minder dan 35 en meer dan 17 gram per liter.
- Demi-Sec, met een dosage van minder dan 50 en meer dan 35 gram per liter.
- Doux, een zoete champagne met een dosage van meer dan 50 gram per liter.

jlliagre

@Robusto There is another one on the right more identifiable:

Cerberus

I think people normally drink brut.

Robusto

01:52

@jlliagre Yeah, those all escaped my notice.

@Cerberus When I was in Mallorca one of the women in our group of cyclists was Dutch, named Lous. Is that the Dutch version of Louise?

jlliagre

02:05

@Robusto Loes?

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, it's a weird system where sec isn't the driest.

@Cerberus Yes, we always drank only the brut at department parties long ago when that sort of thing was the rage.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is a short form!

Usually spelled Loes.

Pronounced like French Lous or English loose.

tchrist

We always bought cavas not "real" champagnes; usually Freixenet or sometimes Campo Viejo.

Cerberus

I think the spelling Lous must be very uncommon.

And I think nowadays people can be names Loes or Marloes as their full names.

tchrist

Marloes looks odd to me because I don't know the morphology. What's the cognate, Marla? I trust it's not the Welsh one.

> The name appears to derive from Old Welsh mail 'bare' and ros 'moor' or 'promontory', identical to Melrose in Scotland. It is locally pronounced MAR-loh-z.[1] A part of Little England beyond Wales, it has been essentially English-speaking for 900 years.

Or is Melrose its cognate?

I bought my house from a woman name Marlon.

Or maybe it was Marla. For some reason I remember it as Marlon, though, which is normally the male version.

Cerberus

02:16

@tchrist Marie-Louise, I think!

tchrist

@Cerberus Ahah, yes, more sensible that!

Cerberus

See, people often don't recognise its origin.

Dutch people.

tchrist

Oh, like ELU's Mari-Lou.

Cerberus

Ding!

At least, so I assume.

tchrist

> Marla is a female given name in English. It is a variant of the name Marlene, which comes from Mary Magdalene, the biblical woman to whom Jesus Christ first appeared after his resurrection.

> Marlon is a French baby boy name of German, Welsh, and British origin. ... Marlon is a name of English derivation, possibly from Marc, Marion, or Merlin. The meaning is unknown.

The male version is less clear in its origin.

Cerberus

02:20

That's a lot of options.

tchrist

Marlena is of course totally from Mary Magdalene.

But Rome has always had a Marius, and a Mars, so who knows.

Cerberus

I don't expect Marius to be from Mars?

tchrist

Agree.

Merlin/Marlon akin to clerk/clark and Berkeley/Barkley is a nice invention but I don't know that there's anything solid behind it.

Marius should be a nauta. :)

> Most evidence suggests that Marlon is a French name and a derivative of Marc, which was born from the Roman God Mars.

Sure, sure, sure. :)

> Or else the name comes from the French “merle” (“blackbird”) with the diminutive “-lon” suffix to mean “little blackbird”.

Didn't we just talk about French merlons in here?

Crenelations.

> The name Marlon means 'small hawk'.

Yeah, sure. That's a merlin, which is a little falcon.

People make stuff up and don't know.

> Marius is a boy's name of Latin origin. This name translates to “manly” or “dedicated to Mars,” referring to the Roman god of war.

Still would rather he were a sailor.

Marius (name)

Marius is a male given name, a Roman family name, and a modern surname. The name Marius was used by members of the Roman gens Maria. It is thought to be derived from either the Roman war god Mars or from the Kalabybiškis root mas or maris meaning "male". It may also derive from the Latin word mare meaning "sea", the plural of which is maria. In Christian times, it was syncretized as a masculine form of the unrelated feminine given name Maria, from the Hebrew Miriam, Aramaic variant Mariam, and used alongside it. Today, the name Marius is a common given name in Romania, Norway, and Lithuania. The...

More tangles.

Robusto

02:36

@Cerberus Yes! It's Loes. I was misrembering the spelling.

Cerberus

@Robusto Understandable, and I have seen Marlous, so it is not impossible.

@tchrist That looks like vandalism.

tchrist

@Cerberus "Usually" those get reversed, but hardly always.

Cerberus

I have reverted it.

Writing on the user's page now.

tchrist

Thanks.

Cerberus

02:51

And reported to administrators.

Is that normal procedure now?

I noticed the option.

MetaEd

03:35

Wordle 1,086 4/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Xanne

07:28

Wordle 1,086 4/6

⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

07:43

Wordle 1 086 3/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Xanne

Nice.

Xanne

08:01

@jlliagre You travel often to the United States?

jlliagre

08:53

@Xanne Not often and not anymore. I used to travel once or twice a year in the nineties but I've been there only once this century excluding a few connections where I didn't leave the airport.

Xanne

@jlliagre Oh, I thought you said you were in Coney Island a few months ago. Probably I misunderstood.

In, at on. Whatever. Eating a hotdog.

M.A.R.

@Xanne it is a tremendous relief that prepositions trip native speakers as well.

jlliagre

09:13

@Xanne You didn't misunderstood. I was in NYC this past April but I hadn't been in the US in the previous 20 years.

Unless Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos qualifies as being 'the US' too ;-)

Xanne

Actually. @M.A.R., they all work for slightly different purposes. People probably eorry too much about this stuff.

@jlliagre So I did not misread. Mexico doesn’t count. :-;

alphabet

12:42

From the NYT: "No one has ever done this, and if someone ever tries to AirDrop you a file on public transit, do not accept it."

Interesting. Apparently "AirDrop" is a newly coined ditransitive verb.

@M.A.R. Normally you'd say "on an island," but Coney Island isn't actually an island. An odd edge case.

Robusto

13:14

Wordle 1,086 3/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

13:25

Daily Octordle #867
9️⃣🔟
8️⃣3️⃣
6️⃣🕛
🕚4️⃣
Score: 63

Daily Sequence Octordle #867
3️⃣4️⃣
6️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 63

jlliagre

13:45

Daily Octordle #867
🕚🕛
7️⃣3️⃣
8️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕐
Score: 73

Robusto

#WhenTaken #103 (09.06.2024)

I scored 774/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 896 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 171 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 5 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 191 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 75.2 metres - 🗓️ 11 yrs - ⚡ 182 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 524 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 175 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 5887 km - 🗓️ 24 yrs - ⚡ 55 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Screwed up the last one.

jlliagre

14:49

Daily Sequence Octordle #867
4️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 70

jlliagre

15:02

#WhenTaken #103 (09.06.2024)

I scored 733/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 3730 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 129 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 927.3 metres - 🗓️ 12 yrs - ⚡ 179 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 7.1 metres - 🗓️ 12 yrs - ⚡ 179 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 599 km - 🗓️ 12 yrs - ⚡ 161 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 6189 km - 🗓️ 15 yrs - ⚡ 85 / 200

https://whentaken.com
Pas mieux.

jlliagre

20:17

French expression of the day: élections anticipées (snap election).

Mitch

21:30

To be more honest than I should, but when I see 'Chick-fil-a', I know how it is supposed to be pronounced like 'Chick filet' but I -want- to say 'Chick Filla'

Sorry if that's more information than you were expecting

@jlliagre huh

It's literal meaning seems to be the exact opposite of what is intended.

A snap election is very much -not- anticipated

jlliagre

@Mitch Anticiper seems to have more meanings in French than anticipate in English.

Here, anticipée means 'early', 'advanced in time'.

jlliagre

21:47

All romance languages use cognates of anticipate for snap elections (e.g.: elecciones anticipadas).

@Mitch Ces élections anticipées n'étaient pas anticipées :-)

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…