English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

SmokeDetector

12:57 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (93): What does "with your horns up" mean in this sentence? ✏️‭ by ketch‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

1:13 AM

Criggie

1:24 AM

Gonna have to start numbering the failed attempts.... Was this the first, second, or third ?

Don't need to number the successful attempts.

CowperKettle

1:38 AM

@Robusto I've been keeping a time usage diary for the last 23 years, and since November 2020 it hasn't been helping much

I record everything I do on small pieces of paper.

Since November 2020 I wasn't able to translate fast enough to earn a living, because my brain gets tired and loses attention

I was sent an abstract to translate, just a couple of paragraphs, and I so much want to say 'no' because it might take me a whole day to translate, instead of 20 minutes or even 10 minutes, like it used to do

I could hop on the bike and earn more in half a day delivering food.

That's why I will try ADHD meds, if I can concentrate my attention enough to somehow procure them.

Robusto

2:24 AM

@CowperKettle I've tried them and they worked for me. I could code for hours without distraction. But I couldn't do overtime, because if I did it would be too hard to sleep well. On the other hand, the amount of work I'd get done during normal hours was amazing.

tchrist

3:23 AM

@Robusto Absolutely. And Adderall works better for that than Ritalin for some if not many people. I almost never take any stimulants after twelve o'clock noon, not even coffee. Otherwise I can't sleep but am still exhausted at my normal time. I’ll drink ice tea even in the afternoon, evening but that delivers far less stimulant. But I rather suspect some other reason than ADHD for @CowperKettle because of the 2020 onset. Presumably not long covid but I dunno. Still could help him, again dunno.

alphabet

To my knowledge, ADHD being a developmental disorder, it isn't possible to suddenly develop it in adulthood.

Robusto

3:41 AM

@alphabet No, but it's possible to discover it in adulthood.

Robusto

4:15 AM

@tchrist Adderall was way too speedy for me. Ritalin just made me feel calm, relaxed—in control and productive.

M.A.R.

7:02 AM

@Conrado hey, what are chat friends for, if not for judging each other severely about superficial stuff?

6

When we know a drug can't reach a target, we don't prescribe it. The problem with drugs is not that they don't reach their targets, it's that they have too many.

And drugs that alter brain chemistry have even more targets than ones that don't.

jlliagre

9:40 AM

@CowperKettle He doesn't look real, too waxy complexion. Here is an authentic picture:

tchrist

12:22 PM

@Robusto I think it's normally prescribed in a broad range of possible dosages, ranging between 5 and 60 mg per day either divided in two doses or in a time-release formulation: The FDA sets the maximum for Adderall (IR or XR) at a dose of 40 mg/day for adult ADHD. However, they allow up to 60 mg/day for more severe cases of ADHD. I suspect—but do not know—that people who abuse this drug in search of some meth-like buzz may well exceed, possibly greatly, even that figure. SHUDDERS

What always surprised me about it is that it's surprisingly less sketchy than caffeine is.

For me. I can't speak for others' personal neurological proclivities.

If I consume more than like 400 mg of caffeine in a day, it makes me not only a bit jittery but too aggressive in word and deed, and too choppy in my thoughts, and of course also interferes with sleep. At higher doses still, around 1,000 mg a day, it feels like your entire life is completely out of control. A lesser form of tweaker madness, as it were. I learned all that the hard way, way back in high school, and it has always been that way. Today I generally aim for 125 to 250 mg daily.

Just look at the crazily jagged and disjoint patterns created by spiders subjected to caffeine by experimenters.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in body, potentially bad asn for hostname in body, potentially bad keyword in body (75): Can a coupon management system integrate with my existing e-commerce platform?‭ by Promote ABHI‭ on english.SE

tchrist

Caffeine is without a doubt the world's most popular and frequently used psychotropic drug. It's just a pretty rough one in many regards.

MetaEd

1:00 PM

Wordle 1,186 3/6

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

1:28 PM

Wordle 1,186 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩⬛🟨🟨⬛
⬛⬛🟩⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Huh!?

Conrado

@M.A.R. (Cue arguments about "mind altering" vs. "brain altering")

2 days ago, by Robusto

Wait, are those the same thing? Discuss.

I think I mis-used "target".

I meant the desired performance.

Expectations.

Conrado

1:45 PM

An eventual satisfaction with the results.

Robusto

@tchrist Ritalin was always just very calming for me, not jittery at all. The doctor who prescribed it said that was one indication that I did have ADHD.

tchrist

Yes, all these give me a calmness.

They quiet my mind.

Robusto

#travle #643 +2
✅✅🟧🟧🟩✅
https://travle.earth

Hmm, I was thinking this would be the quickest route as the crow flies, but I suppose it's a "fewest countries" thing.

jlliagre

2:09 PM

#travle #643 +0
✅🟩✅✅
https://travle.earth

@Robusto Yep.

GratefulDisciple

@tchrist How do you measure caffeine dosage, is it proportional to the weight of the coffee grounds before being dripped? But then, let's say I drip 6 oz water instead of 8 oz water over the same weight, do I drink the same dosage with the 6 oz water? And then, does "mild" / "medium" / "dark" coffee have different "dosage" for the same weight?

jlliagre

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Sep. 17, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2020
Tightrope #4 "good" answer is bullshit.

and today's Wordle is half bullshit. I fear the worst for the remaining games.

GratefulDisciple

49

A: How can I figure out how much caffeine is in my cup?

I read everyone's answer and did some of my own research to find an estimation method that satisfies me and might be helpful to others too. I think it should be roughly ±20% accurate. For any amount of "good strength" American-style coffee by any brew method, weigh the dry coffee in grams and mu...

Robusto

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Sep. 17, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2240

@jlliagre There are definitely two sets of primary colors, one for print and one for projection.

jlliagre

2:24 PM

@Robusto Sure, but they are all different colors. You can't pick two in one set and one in another and pretend they are a single set of primary colors.

Robusto

@jlliagre Yeah. I think the test makers flunked that one.

jlliagre

@Robusto Stupid Britannica, they do not even seem to have a link to complain.

Robusto

#WhenTaken #203 (17.09.2024)

I scored 801/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 3 km - 🗓️ 17 yrs - ⚡ 164 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 1787 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 152 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 54 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 190 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 6780 km - 🗓️ 3 yrs - ⚡ 110 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 228 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 185 / 200

https://whentaken.com

jlliagre

#WhenTaken #203 (17.09.2024)

I scored 866/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 531 km - 🗓️ 3 yrs - ⚡ 181 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 263 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 191 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 2515 km - 🗓️ 14 yrs - ⚡ 118 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 16 km - 🗓️ 5 yrs - ⚡ 194 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 248 km - 🗓️ 7 yrs - ⚡ 182 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Robusto

@jlliagre You know, you could lose one once in a while just to keep me interested. ;-p

jlliagre

2:39 PM

@Robusto Okay, tomorrow. I promise.

Robusto

Wordle 1,186 4/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

@Robusto Another one pulling my leg today. Is that an English word??

You missed a colon.

Robusto

I'm still struggling to get enough caffeine.

But you read it anyway, so I'll leave it at that.

I have Cerb's AHK turned off because I think it was messing with my Windows PowerToys.

jlliagre

@Robusto No problem for English to borrow French words but to mutilate that one such a crual way is obnoxious.

Robusto

@jlliagre Hey, once we own them they're ours to chew up as we please.

jlliagre

2:54 PM

@Robusto Your right, still obnoxious.

Robusto

Daily Octordle #967
4️⃣3️⃣
5️⃣8️⃣
🕚6️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
Score: 53

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #967
7️⃣5️⃣
6️⃣4️⃣
8️⃣🔟
9️⃣🕚
Score: 60

Robusto

@jlliagre "You're"

Or maybe you mean the possessive.

Ain't English grand?

jlliagre

@Robusto Yes. What I meant is: (It's) your right.

Robusto

1 min ago, by Robusto

Ain't English grand?

jlliagre

2:58 PM

@Robusto $1000 you mean?

Robusto

@jlliagre I thought we were talking about pianos.

Daily Sequence Octordle #967
5️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
🕐⓮
Score: 82

That was a letdown.

jlliagre

@Robusto Still struggling with it.

Daily Sequence Octordle #967
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
🕐⓮
Score: 84

Robusto

Ouch.

I have two sets of starter words. My oldest works best for getting the letters out, but the other is better at the common words. But if the words are weird-ish, then the older one works better. But that can sacrifice more turns through fishing.

Vikas

3:27 PM

@Robusto Your words, give them to me.

GratefulDisciple

4:26 PM

@Robusto I wonder what's the original meaning intended when the first English speaker adds the adjective "grand" to piano. Should I ask the question? I still remember my mom refers to it in the Dutch language as vleugel which has nothing to do with "grand". In German it's Flügel. Only after I moved to the US, I learned that the English term is "Grand piano". @Cerberus

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple It sounds like a good question to me. But you know how hostile a few people on EL&U can be, so maybe the cabal of 3 will close it "because it's obvious" to them.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus Thanks for the warning. I'll navigate around them :-) and sharpen my diplomatic skill.

Cerberus

Good luck!

GratefulDisciple

4:43 PM

Here it is (phrasing it to be on topic, keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best):

0

Q: Why do English speakers use the name "grand piano" instead of "winged piano" like in Dutch/German?

I wonder what's the original meaning intended by the first English speaker who added the adjective "grand" to "piano" to refer to a type of pianoforte where the frame and strings are horizontal, which in turn was a development from the 18th century Fortepiano. Was the original meaning of "grand" is

Conrado

@Vikas Live long, you could not, after from under seven locks you had pried this secret.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple +1.

CowperKettle

5:00 PM

Free books, shared by neighbors inside a flight of stairs.

Cerberus

That is nice.

We have those too, all around the city.

The value of books has plummeted.

GratefulDisciple

5:22 PM

@Cerberus Thanks for the support. Already one close vote, so I updated it with more objectifying criteria.

Cerberus

@GratefulDisciple It was to be expected.

The only way to get a question reopened is by posting it in chat...

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple Wanna bet whose close vote that is? I'd put my money on KT.

Cerberus

Who is that?

I am terrible with abbreviations.

Robusto

@Cerberus It's what you do to the clock when you have too much of it ... rhymes with "swilling lime" ...

Cerberus

Ehhh what!

Oh I think I know.

Robusto

5:35 PM

Yes.

Someone who's in on practically every close vote.

Cerberus

Alas.

Robusto

BTW, the close vote reason was "opinion based" ... which can be refuted by a good citation. Was there a piano maker who called their piano "grand"? Some other source?

@ColinFine Would you please post that as an answer? I think it would settle things and forestall closure of the question. Thanks. — Robusto 19 secs ago

@Cerberus Alas. Books, I can confidently say, have been one of the main pillars of my life's happiness, right beside music.

Mitch

5:55 PM

@Robusto to be fair, they are very active in voting to reopen.

I haven't noticed that person voting to close but I only look at the reopen queue.

Cerberus

@Robusto Nowadays, they are often read electronically.

@Mitch Really??

Mitch

Really.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Not that worried about closure, it's just 1 vote (whether it's KT or someone else). Thankfully, it takes 4 votes to close, so as long as a moderator doesn't hammer-close it, I trust the community enough.

Cerberus

Isn't it 3?

The problem is that if 99.997 people want the question open, but 3 people pass by who click the close button, it is closed.

2

Robusto

@Cerberus Books are books, whether paper or electrons; music is music, whether live or recorded.

Cerberus

6:11 PM

I meant physical books only.

Robusto

@Cerberus But I'm embroidering a bit to suggest that the value of books to the masses has ebbed in any form.

Call it a lagniappe.

Cerberus

Maybe a bit, but the free books everywhere is more about the physical objects.

Mitch

@Robusto Or as Irma Rombauer used, a cockaigne.

@Cerberus electronic books are missing everything in the physical context. And there's little new context to replace.

Cerberus

6:27 PM

@Mitch That is a cryptic statement.

Robusto

@Mitch I love me some electronic lit. The trouble with physical books is that you have to store them somewhere. If you read the way my wife and I do, we wouldn't have room to walk around in our house.

@Mitch She might have called it a garnish. I dunno ...

Mitch

6:52 PM

@Robusto carrying physical book collections around are literally back breaking.

Robusto

@Mitch It is backbreaking. When I was young, when you called friends to help move, I never wanted to help fellow bookworms move for that reason.

Mitch

@Cerberus I mean that a lot of reading a physical book has the context of the physical thickness of the pages read so far, the location in the physical page a passage appeared on, the color of the book jacket, the font choice.

Cerberus

Right, electronic books can be disorienting.

Mitch

@Robusto it's really good full body exercise, if you're into that kind of extreme sport

Cerberus

On the other hand, you can long-tap a name and look it up automatically in a second.

Robusto

6:57 PM

Well, I've done it. All things equal, I'd rather ride my bike.

Mitch

@Cerberus I can't remember where I am. If the machine lost my last place, I'd never be able to flip through fast enough to find it again.

GratefulDisciple

@Cerberus Wow, didn't realize that it can be different from one stack to another. English is 3 but Math is 5 and Christianity is 5 too.

Mitch

Or... I want to go back to a passage...how far back? In a physical book no problem

Cerberus

@Mitch Right, but it won't lose your place.

Mitch

@GratefulDisciple we had a vote to change it to 3 a couple years ago specifically because of the difficulty with closing and reopening

Cerberus

7:02 PM

@GratefulDisciple Yes, I have no idea why someone wanted to make the problem even worse on our site.

Oh, well.

@Mitch Well, you have a slider that you can drag.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm never confident of that.

Cerberus

@Mitch It is as reliable as a bookmark in a physical book.

Mitch

@Cerberus I don't think I have that on my kindle

Cerberus

Then use a better reading-application.

Mitch

@Cerberus reliable in a different manner and I'm used to dealing with problems of the physical bookmark

@Cerberus my phone I find too small to read a book on

Cerberus

7:05 PM

Really, I don't think I have ever lost it. And my reader also has a function to go back to the previous page you were on, when you accidentally or on purpose flip to a different page.

@Mitch Plenty of larger devices can use better applications.

Robusto

Feb 18, 2011 at 21:30, by Robusto

But I'm a fairly happy Kindle owner.

Kindle's only gotten a lot better since then.

I had the first Kindle that came out in 2008, and I loved it then, despite its flaws.

Mitch

Also seeing a physical book on a bookshelf reminds you constantly of the feelings you had reading the book, memories I don't get from just the list of titles.

Robusto

@Mitch I only have reference books on the shelves now. Other physical books we generally get from the library, and if we buy them we donate them to the library once we're done with them.

Mitch

The location in the library, which row of shelves which shelf and pattern of heights of books next to it

Cerberus

@Mitch True.

Laurel

7:16 PM

@Robusto People conflate questions that need "expert opinions" with questions like "what's your favorite…", and really only the latter is supposed to be closed

Cerberus

Agreed.

Dannyu NDos

Fun fact: The only e-book I have in Kindle is about linear logic.

I spent over 100k KRW for that.

Conrado

7:31 PM

do not climb

I forgot how to post images.

jlliagre

Robusto

@Laurel Yup.

@DannyuNDos What's fun about that?

Araucaria - Him

8:02 PM

Araucaria - Him

47.9k 14 113 201

grammar syntactic-analysis pronunciation grammaticality prepositions verbs word-usage

M.A.R.

@DannyuNDos KRW sounds like an energy unit

jlliagre

@Conrado es:subir != it:subire = fr:subir; es:salir != it:salire != fr:salir

M.A.R.

@Araucaria-Him wow who's that guy

Araucaria - Him

@M.A.R. Hey, MAR. Long time, no type!

o/

M.A.R.

@Araucaria-Him howdy

How's everything with you?

Araucaria - Him

8:04 PM

@M.A.R. All good thanks. Still doing the PhD. How's stuff with you?

@M.A.R. Any news?

M.A.R.

Same old. As in, I've been the same since four years ago

@Araucaria-Him nothing too interesting

Still doing the lab work for the undergrad thesis

jlliagre

@M.A.R. I've heard he's a guy famous because of whores and a horse.

M.A.R.

How about you? Anything exciting happening?

Araucaria - Him

@M.A.R. you're about to finish your degree?

That's crazy.

M.A.R.

@Araucaria-Him hopefully in less than a year

@Araucaria-Him I wish

Araucaria - Him

8:07 PM

@M.A.R. Well done. Big milestone coming up! :)

M.A.R.

Can't wait to be done with it. I feel like I'm in some sort of limbo

Araucaria - Him

@M.A.R. What are you going to do after? Any ideas yet?

M.A.R.

Then I'll officially be a sort of doctor and look down on people, yisss!

@Araucaria-Him go for a PhD, definitely

Robusto

@M.A.R. Remember, we knew you when you were just a punk kid.

M.A.R.

With how things are in Iran I might have to invent lab instruments from scratch

"Self-sufficiency" is a big thing here. I will build an NMR machine using a hairdryer, pocket calculator and a paperclip

patriotic music in the background

@Robusto I may have been a punk but I was never a kid!

Robusto

8:12 PM

Lies!

Do you dox docs at the docks? Discuss.

M.A.R.

It's all the rage these days to sue people

I will sue the judge if he votes against me

alphabet

11:01 PM

@Cerberus According to my badness chart, 11.09% of that user's close votes (since the start of 2023) have been overturned by a subsequent reopen.

That is too high.

Those close-reopen cycles are a waste of people's time, and one can assume that a number of their other close votes, though never overturned, were also of dubious validity.

Note that, while that user's percentage is actually better than that of many other users, in terms of absolute numbers they've cast the most overturned close votes, and that's what's relevant in terms of the amount of trouble they create.

Cerberus

11:18 PM

@alphabet Indeed, a much larger proportion must have been bad votes to close.

@alphabet True.

alphabet

@Cerberus I've suggested as a solution that the mods take the worst of those users ~~out~~ aside for quiet conversations, but I don't think there's a way of doing that without creating more problems than it'd solve.

Speaking of close votes, what do we do with this one?

0

Q: Present Continuous: Is there an oughting to, shoulding, or musting?

I just tried to say "I detest my bed oughting to stay clean" before my brain short-circuited. Naturally the structure of the sentence works if "ought to" is replaced by other verbs: I detest my bed having to stay clean. I detest my bed needing to stay clean. Yet using the verbs "ought to", "sh...

grammar verbs tenses present-continuous

On the one hand: I don't think a native speaker would genuinely be confused about whether those sentences are correct, but I also think many wouldn't know the reason why they aren't.

There's probably a case for moving it to ELL. Dunno.

Hey, there was a kinda-sorta duplicate!

Cerberus

11:41 PM

@alphabet Hmm yeah, that would seem difficult.

The number of votes requires to close a question ought to scale with the total number of users who can vote.

tchrist

@Cerberus You don;'t want to see the private moderator graphs of active users.

Robusto

"He should be asleep by now": Lawler puts this as an epistemic use of the modal, but I think it could also be deontic. Without elaboration it could be either.

Xanne

@tchrist Why wouldn’t we want to see them?

tchrist

@Xanne Fewernesses

Xanne

We would be amazed by how few people actually interact in a given day or week? We would be surprised that some people seem to want to just be disciplinarians?

tchrist

11:53 PM

@Xanne The latter is the greater of those two issues in the immediate term.

25k users have access to some limited site analytics, graphs of things. Moderators have a far better version.

Cerberus

@tchrist What does it mean? What are the measurements?

tchrist

Oh huh. There seems to have been an uptick in the past 4-6 months. Odd.

Cerberus

@Robusto Agreed.

tchrist

On visitations not on posts.

I have no earthly idea why. Maybe measurement issues.

Xanne

Well, users get feedback on comments—they get informed about errors or what others consider inappropriate. They get flagged. But CVers don’t. This would be a task for moderators—to come in quickly on a poor close vote and question it as a comment, which alerts others. I think you could change behavior rather quickly.

Folks really are sensitive to feedback.

tchrist

11:59 PM

Maybe we need another meta post.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…