English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:01

Heh.

Happy seeking the other side of the fence.

Robusto

00:12

@MετάEd Is that a parallel-processing opinion?

Mitch

00:42

@MετάEd hey old man, I bet you still 'call' someone on your phone and hen 'hang up' when you're done! Hey old man, I bet you refer to a replicator as a 'kitchen'. ha ha such an old old man.

Spare Oom

00:57

Hey. Could I get some feedback, please. I've got a question that I can't find if it's already been asked or too easy (or boring) of a question. It's regarding the etymology and use of the word pad with the meaning of dwelling place.

Robusto

@SpareOom pad

Spare Oom

@Rob I found that. I used this term with a college student and he was not familiar with the term. I was going to say: After explaining the slang idiom, I realized that it really could be quite outdated. My guess was that it was from the '50s, From etymonline, pad referred to "bundle of straw to lie on," as far back as the 1550s.

(Just off by a few centuries.) This could have migrated to mean the place you sleep and then the dwelling itself. If it is reasonable, I'd like to see that traced out.

Or is that all I'd get anyway?

But also, since this use may be in decline, I'm curious as to when it peaked.

Robusto

It's kind of an old expression now. The term "crib" has pretty much supplanted it.

David Wallace

I don't feel "crib" and "pad" to be synonymous.

Robusto

They are in America.

David Wallace

01:03

Interesting.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd no wonder you look so confident.

Spare Oom

Is it equal to flat in the UK?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

More people would say flat in the UK than would say pad or crib in the US, I think.

Robusto

Flat is not a colloquialism, at least not of the same stripe.

David Wallace

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Stop imagining the rest of the picture.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:04

@DavidWallace :D

What Rob said.

Robusto

"Crib" and "pad" are the same kind of colloquialism as calling your car your "ride" or your "wheels" etc.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Crib is to flat as bird is to woman.

Spare Oom

@Robusto That's what we figured.

@Robusto Agreed.

Sorry about the double @ing.>.<

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

BBS

Robusto

np

Spare Oom

01:08

So is is worth asking about when pad peaked or went out of popular use?

Robusto

To elaborate just a bit more, pad has a distinctively '50s to '60s feel to it. Crib began replacing it in the late '60s, borrowed from black slang, and has survived to this day. If you say pad in that context today it has a retro feel.

Pad is of the same vintage as short (slang term for one's car). More beatnik than hippie, really.

David Wallace

We're still talking specifically about USA usage, right?

Spare Oom

I never heard crib until the mid 80s. I didn't realise pad had mostly dropped from use. I never heard short.

Robusto

@DavidWallace What else?

David Wallace

There are other countries. But I suppose, there is no usage without usa.

Robusto

01:12

Tru dat.

Spare Oom

Was short used in UK too?

Robusto

No idea.

Interestingly, short is older than the beatnik generation. Possibly they resurrected it.

> Slang meaning "car" is attested from 1897; originally "street car," so called based on street cars (or the rides taken in them) being "shorter" than railroad cars.

Spare Oom

I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that I get all my UK slang about two decades late on PBS.

@Robusto Interesting.

@Robusto Did you ever watch Peter Gunn?

Robusto

@SpareOom That's a little before my time. I'm familiar with the theme music, though.

Spare Oom

Well, the DVDs are available now. I have the first series and have watched some recently. I wonder if it's affecting my speech. The show definitely has a jazz atmosphere.

Robusto

01:20

That's the beat generation influence.

Spare Oom

Peter Gunn's girlfriend is a singer at a jazz club called Mother's. The soundtracks are full of jazz songs. Really a nice change from current shows.

I guess it's before my time too, but maybe only slightly. I like that the people aren't always talking loudly at each other. It's not a sit-com anyway, but not like today's detective shows either.

tchrist

@Rob Thanks. Sorry. Coupla crushing 16-hour workdays here. Bit dazed.

FH took off, of course.

I love it when that happens.

Robusto

Pretty much. I do think today is the Golden Age of Television, however. There's nothing in the previous history of TV to match The Wire and Breaking Bad or even The Sopranos, IMO.

@tchrist I've been there.

Spare Oom

@tchrist That's too much, but I hear medical interns have it worse.

Robusto

@tchrist FH?

tchrist

01:23

I’m sure you’re familiar with the expression.

Spare Oom

@Robusto. I couldn't say. I've not seen any of those.

Robusto

@tchrist Maybe it's the scotch, but I'm being obtuse just at the moment.

tchrist

I’m not into playing Capture The Flag tonight, so you only get the abbreviation.

Ends with head.

Robusto

Ah, ok.

tchrist

Which is weird, because usually things start off that way.

Robusto

01:24

Tonight's load.

tchrist

Gr.

Grr.

OBAN is my bane, but I cannot tell you or the NSA would shoot us both.

Work project with that code phrase.

Robusto

Ha.

What were the odds?

tchrist

A guy in the group passed along that sort of pick on the mailing list about it.

Robusto

tchrist

Classic.

Robusto

01:27

I bet the code you're writing uses singletons too.

tchrist

Sometimes.

But object-oriented singletons not Unicode ones.

Robusto

Duh.

My son gave me the Oban as a token gift when I gave him my previous car.

tchrist

I just wrote a massive object system, making use of um well, C3 method resolution order. The guys who have to use it only understand depth-first-search.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto nice.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You turned me on to that one. Don't you remember?

tchrist

01:29

So when you call your superclass, you don't, you call the next overridden method, which goes left to right first before going up. It works much better for mixins.

But it's completely new to these C++ and Java people.

Who can’t do that. :)

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto of course.

Aren't the bottles a lovely color?

Robusto

@tchrist I despise C++ and Java pretty much equally, but for different reasons.

tchrist

So if A inherits from B, C, and D, and those three from O, if you call method M and it hits B, the next candiate is C and then D before O.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Ayup.

@tchrist Sounds interesting.

tchrist

I have decided I despise Java more, but only a little.

Python new-style classes all use C3, and Perl does with a pragma. It really works much better for the kind of "roles" where you just add a class with more abilities.

You don’t have to be so anal about subclass superclass stuff.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:31

They would make a handsome bottle tree. Barbara Eden cleavage shot if you scroll.

Robusto

@tchrist How does it affect interfaces?

tchrist

I'll show you.

So the baseclass is at the bottom in the yellow box.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I thought that's how they got pears into those bottles of pear brandy.

tchrist

It has four base classes that it inherits directly from.

There is a decode_raw in the salmon ping Value_Mapper class, and also in the magenta class.

It hits the salmon Value_Mapper first, which then calls NEXT::decode_raw and follows the dotted red arrow.

Robusto

It's a topsy-turvy world.

tchrist

01:34

It doesn’t inherit from it. It can follow it because the original object has that next in its method resolution order.

It is not its superclass or anything, and only works when you combine classes in a particular order.

Robusto

I'll have to try to wrap my head around that fully when I'm not so tipsy.

tchrist

I have to teach this to people tomorrow.

Ah.

It just really works out better.

That way Value_Mapper can be the prefix class for a whole bunch of different decoders.

Robusto

Going for a refill.

tchrist

In a traditional DFS system, you would have to make all these artificial derived classes. Very messy.

This is cleaner.

The original paper extolling C3 method-resolution order for Dylan at OOPSLA 96.

Here’s a python link.

And here’s a perl link.

Here’s another perl link.

I’m actually using NEXT not mro, because I want to use the EVERY:: pseudoclass to get all my initializers and finalizers automatically invoked for me.

Robusto

Starred because bookmarking for later perusal.

tchrist

01:39

K.

Robusto

Good thing my wife is in the house, otherwise I'd be drinking alone. Heh.

tchrist

heh

I hope there aren’t any color-blind people in my team. :)

Robusto

►

tchrist

That’s not Dylan.

Robusto

@tchrist 5% of men have some degree of color-blindness.

@tchrist True.

tchrist

01:40

I know that well.

Not because I do, but I’ve had friends with it.

Spare Oom

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 How did I get along so long without hearing of the glass-type bottle trees!? They look tacky to me.

Robusto

@tchrist Both my sons have deuteranopia. Obviously it's my wife's fault.

tchrist

Heh.

She could have given them two X chromosomes. That would have fixed the problem.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@SpareOom some of them are nice.

Robusto

Well, she could only give them one. Only men have the Y option.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:43

I like glass birds. Those might look nicer adorning a tree than bottles.

tchrist

@Robusto No egg sucking classes.

She could give them two, and they’d be XXY, and still male. But, well, funny.

Not a pretty picture.

All kinds of weird mosaïcs out there.

Robusto

I'm pretty pleased with the way it worked out.

tchrist

Of which XXY is not too rare. Or not so rare as one wishes it were.

Different set of problems from XYY. But those ones would be your fault, not hers.

Robusto

I was kidding my younger son not long ago when we were talking about his deuteranopia. I started off talking about how it wasn't really a handicap, especially since he'd never known anything else. Then I said, "But you know that extra color cone, seeing three primary colors and all? That's just ... well, it's better than sex."

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

That was a fun GIS.

@Robusto theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

Robusto

01:49

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I love The Oatmeal.

tchrist

@Robusto That’s what the damned tetrachromats say. And then hold out on us.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto :)

Had you seen that one yet?

Robusto

@tchrist Ayup. I think only women can be tetrachromats, can't they?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 No. Thanks for that.

Sometimes I forget to check The Oatmeal. Hiatus maxime deflendus.

tchrist

@Robusto Yup, you need two different Xs.

One needs a mutation.

Our color vision isn’t very good you know.

Robusto

I know. Neither are our other sense.

tchrist

01:52

In that they are not evenly distributed by distance.

We forked one.

That isn’t true.

One of our senses is superpowered compared to almost all critters.

This has allowed us to survive where others have died.

Robusto

Taste?

tchrist

Of poison.

Yes.

Robusto

Hmm.

tchrist

We’re really good at perceiving poisonous alkaloids as bitter.

So we spit it out and don’t eat it.

Robusto

I was surprised to learn that cockroaches have a sense of smell that is orders of magnitude better than a bloodhound's.

tchrist

01:54

Now, take your average dog.

They’ll eat shit and die with a smile on their face.

So much for that nose.

Spare Oom

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I saw one that looked more like a stained glass tree that was kinda nice. But I guess i like the natural trees better.

Robusto

But dogs don't die from eating disgusting crap. Somehow they don't.

Spare Oom

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Nice.

Cerberus

@Robusto Neither do we.

The average Western standards of hygiene are rather exaggerated.

tchrist

Spoken like a true European.

Cerberus

01:58

I hadn't even started on Puritan hygiene!

No, European hygiene is already exaggerated from a medical perspective.

Robusto

Europeans have logiene, not hygiene.

Cerberus

But harmless things that stink are still a nuisance and should be avoided, regardless of any medical reasons.

tchrist

I hear they use the same toothbrush all life long.

For polishing their shoes with.

Cerberus

That's bad for the leather.

I think most people I know use a toothbrush for maybe one or two months?

The average person may replace it sooner, I wouldn't know.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I replace mine when the blue bristles are half white.

Cerberus

02:02

I don't think I have blue bands.

Spare Oom

You can get sick from using toothbrushes. huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/…

Cerberus

Or maybe my toothbrush had them a few years ago, I don't remember.

tchrist

You have blue shoes?

Cerberus

So how long do you use yours?

tchrist

2 or 3 minutes.

Cerberus

02:04

Hey, you started this subject.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

heh.

I brush my teeth too hard to brush them for that long.

tchrist

Use one of those power ones.

Cerberus

So how long?

tchrist

I have no earthly idea.

Cerberus

I tried really hard to come up with a time frame.

Days? Years?

tchrist

02:05

Between those somewhere.

Spare Oom

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You're not supposed to use a hard brush. Only use the extra soft ones for brushing teeth.

Robusto

I use one of those sonic toothbrushes, do Listerine mouthwash after that, and a fluoride rinse after that.

@SpareOom This is true.

tchrist

That’s the right way to do it.

Cerberus

So it is possible that you use your toothbrush for two weeks?

Spare Oom

I used a hard one once and ruined my gums in one area.

Cerberus

02:06

Or 15 months?

But then why do they sell hard brushes?

tchrist

All the better to hurt you with.

Spare Oom

To use to clean grout?

Robusto

@Cerberus To get mud off your shoes.

tchrist

Shoes.

Robusto

Jinx.

Cerberus

02:07

Okay, I see nothing serious can come from this crowd.

tchrist

All of Cerbie’s shoe are blue because he wore all the blue from his toothbrush off on them.

Robusto

@Cerberus You've only just begun to see that?

Spare Oom

Hard toothbrushes are ok for dentures.

When they're out of your mouth.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist I don't feel like it's doing it right.

tchrist

Hard toothbrushes belong in your mouth as much as a qtip belongs in your ear.

Or a toothpick.

Robusto

02:09

@Cerberus solvuntur risu tabulæ

Spare Oom

You put a toothpick in your ear?

tchrist

Only to get the toothbrush out.

mustbecarefulwithyourear.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I've been sticking q-tip brand cotton swabs in there for 30-ish years.

Spare Oom

Famous saying (in my family): Never put anything other than your elbow into your ear.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Only so far, mind you. But I dislike damp ears.

tchrist

02:11

I wonder what the Dutchers have for cutie-tips.

Swabs? Isn’t that like Slavonic?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Swabs and swabs.

Spare Oom

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

swab-its.com

Where people get (where people get (where people get)) what they want!

SWBYPS

@SpareOom the Dutch use pool cues?

Spare Oom

Idk, they're cue tips.

tchrist

I still think a pool cue is something you expect to find at a diving competition.

Robusto

02:14

I have this sudden urge to brush my teeth and go to bed. Night all.

tchrist

Tritto.

Spare Oom

@Robusto 'Night.

'Night for me too, y'all.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

►

chatkillah out.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:29

2

Sudhir

Hi @Cerberus

Good morning.

Noah

07:15

Hi

How's everyone?

Warlock

Hello!

Could anybody help me? I want to write, that I have completed Saratov State University with only excellent marks and was invited to continue education as a postgraduate student. How can I write it?
------
I have graduated from Saratov State University with excellence and continued education as a postgraduate student.
------

Is it correct?

David Wallace

Umm, wait

The tenses are wrong.

I graduated from Saratov State University with only excellent marks and was invited to continue education as a postgraduate student.

Warlock

Ok, I see. Thank you.

David Wallace

"with only excellent marks" is better than "with excellence", in my opinion.

and that's why I preferred your first sentence.

But you shouldn't mix the perfect tense with the simple past, like you did.

So instead of "I have completed" or "I have graduated from", you could just say either "I completed" or "I graduated from".

That way, it matches the second half of the sentence.

@Warlock does that make sense?

Warlock

07:31

Yes, it does.

Thank you!!!

David Wallace

No worries.

Jez

08:39

hangman bot just gave me --e >.<

RegDwighт

08:50

0

A: I lived vs I used to live

I used to live in Prague 5 years ago. I lived in Prague 5 years ago. ------------------------------------. Use(d) to live : Live(d) It's in the dh sound the letter 'd' makes. Linguistics Bradley Alexander Cogswell [email protected] West Palm Beach, FL, United States

Can anyone explain what he's talking about? For someone who studied linguistics he sure is hard to understand...

RegDwighт

10:57

@tchrist 404s for me.

KitFox

11:08

Morning.

Johan Larsson

hej

KitFox

Want eggs for breakfast?

scrambles eggs

RegDwighт

11:25

I had scrambled eggs for breakfast today.

KitFox

I thought you were a vegetarian.

I can't believe I just cooked on to a no-stick pan.

RegDwighт

I am a vegetarian, yes.

KitFox

Oh. Eggs don't count?

I guess I knew that.

RegDwighт

For most vegetarians, eggs, milk products, and honey don't count.

KitFox

I'm just being a little dense this morning.

RegDwighт

11:31

Others still are comfortable with caviar (= fish eggs), or just with fish outright.

KitFox

want an English muffin?

RegDwighт

But the point is, everyone should just eat whatever they want.

KitFox

Pescatarian. And I'm not so classless that I don't know what caviar is.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You really should start pulling them back out about now.

KitFox

@RegDwighт tru dat

RegDwighт

11:33

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone who overheard I was a vegetarian took that as an invitation to explain me in meticulous detail what I am and am not supposed to eat (while they themselves of course were no vegetarian by any stretch of any definition).

Mitch

Gah!!!

RegDwighт

And of course at parties the first thing that's out is vegetarian food. Non-vegetarians will always eat my veggie pizza. Fuckers.

KitFox

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone just assumed I was vegetarian from the way I look.

Mitch

Cuz they know it's the good stuff

RegDwighт

That never happened to me. I look, um, very healthy.

KitFox

11:35

If it makes you feel better, I usually serve vegetarian entrees.

RegDwighт

I used to be way skinnier, but that was due to insane amounts of cycling, not due to food.

KitFox

You don't look very thick in your pictures.

RegDwighт

These pictures are ten years old though.

KitFox

Not veggie-skinny, but still.

Mitch

Yeah a little two dimensional if you ask me

Robusto

11:36

I made myself an omelet. Second day with the new range.

KitFox

How does it cook?

Robusto

It cooks great.

Nothing like a gas range for precise heat control.

KitFox

I wish I could take ours with us.

RegDwighт

Back then I'd stuff my face with pasta and fast food and what have you day in day out, every day. Now I eat much, much less, and always cook fresh, and in fact I couldn't eat much even if I wanted due to my gastric problems, but still I've put on quite some weight simply because I don't cycle 50 miles a day anymore.

KitFox

And now your knee.

RegDwighт

11:38

Yeah tell me about it.

This whole "summer" sucked, and now it's like two full weeks of sunshine and I can barely walk.

KitFox

Gastric problems will do it every time. You just can't process effectively.

Robusto

I'm well versed in knees.

@RegDwighт What's the diagnosis?

RegDwighт

18 hours ago, by RegDwighт

Capsulitis

Capsulitis refers to inflammation of a capsule. Types include: * Adhesive capsulitis of shoulder * Plica syndrome, which is an inflammation of the articular capsule of the knee joint See also * Articular capsule References

Jul 4 at 23:03, by RegDwighт

Robusto

Treatment?

RegDwighт

I thought you were around yesterday.

Robusto

11:40

I can't read an MRI.

RegDwighт

18 hours ago, by RegDwighт

BTW I was at the doctor's today and he rammed a giant syringe full of milky white substance right into my knee and emptied it all inside me.

Robusto

Synvisc?

Cortisone?

RegDwighт

Nah. That syringe, plus 2 times 25g of ibuprofen daily, plus no movement at all.

KitFox

My children are already fractious and it's a rainy day.

Robusto

25g of ibuprofen? That's a megadose.

RegDwighт

11:41

Wait, I mean ketoprofen. Stupid @Cerberus. Keeps confusing me.

KitFox

Only 25g?

Hahaha.

RegDwighт

Jul 4 at 23:18, by RegDwighт

Oh, mg of course.

Sorry.

Robusto

Over-the-counter ibuprofen is 200mg tablets.

That would make 125 tablets.

RegDwighт

I was translating into Imperial on the fly.

Robusto

Grams are imperial?

RegDwighт

11:42

*50mg of ketoprofen. There. Fixed.

@Robusto well, they are no longer milli, that's a start, no?

Robusto

@RegDwighт Well, that certainly clears things up.

KitFox

That's some good stuff. I like it better than ibuprofen.

Robusto

I guess grammas are metric too then.

So are the Grammy awards.

RegDwighт

Jul 4 at 23:16, by RegDwighт

This is ibuprofen.

The stuff Kit doesn't quite like.

KitFox

I like it, just not as much.

RegDwighт

11:44

@Robusto well have you seen a Grammy award? "Metric" is the mildest way of expressing it.

KitFox

I take 600mg almost every day.

RegDwighт

Seriously now?

KitFox

Yeah.

RegDwighт

Well. Bon appétit.

Robusto

> Ketoprofen is a common NSAID, antipyretic, and analgesic used in horses and other equines.

RegDwighт

11:45

I can ship some ketoprofen over in exchange for your apple pie.

@Robusto yeah sorry I forgot to mention that I'm a stud.

KitFox

I probably ought to take some this morning, what with the rain and dampness.

RegDwighт

The profile picture is a tad confusing.

KitFox

Hahaha.

Robusto

@RegDwighт You had it right the first time.

RegDwighт

Yeah, but the LEGO terminology is stud. Sorry.

KitFox

11:46

This has been a nice breakfast.

RegDwighт

TIL that on the Internet, nobody knows you're a horse.

KitFox

My boys are being adorable ...

and my children are being sweet.

RegDwighт

So there was a car on fire right in front of my window, in plain sight above my monitor, but I only noticed it after the firefighters put it out. Talk about perception bias.

Robusto

You were just waiting for it to be on YouTube.

RegDwighт

There were like four fire trucks and a police car and smoke. I didn't notice. Now there's still one firetruck and a pick-up tow truck but nothing much to see.

Also a colleague mentioned that another car went up in flames in the parking lot to the left only yesterday.

Coincidence?

KitFox

11:51

I think not.

must be on account of the giant magnifying glass they installed on the roof two weeks ago.

RegDwighт

They did catch that arsonist in Berlin.

And it's not like he's alone or something.

In Berlin, it's Volkssport to put expensive cars on fire.

KitFox

Good thing you don't drive.

RegDwighт

Good thing I don't park, you mean.

KitFox

Set on fire.

RegDwighт

Oh in Berlin they do it every which way, put, set, you name it.

KitFox

11:53

Your wife must be disappointed that you don't park.

Robusto

> In retrospect, Fenn says, "One of George Washington's most brilliant moves was to inoculate the army against smallpox during the Valley Forge winter of '78." Without inoculation smallpox could easily have given the United States back to the British.

Hey. I thought Pasteur invented the smallpox vaccine.

RegDwighт

Yeah and he was French.

KitFox

Um, yeah.

RegDwighт

Do you want to have some French fries with your French lies, traitor?

KitFox

No, Jenner.

Well after the war.

Mitch

11:55

Bruce Jenner was a traitor after the war?

Robusto

The American Revolution owed its success to France. Which precipitated the French revolution.

RegDwighт

Oh so now you're interested in actual history, la-dee-da.

Traitors gonna trait.

KitFox

Oh, but the practice of variolation had been around forever.

Robusto

@KitFox Yeah, 1796 was the end of Washington's first term as president.

So I guess the idea of inoculation against smallpox was amazingly brilliant.

RegDwighт

It all makes sense now!

Robusto

11:58

Smallpox vaccine

The smallpox vaccine was the first successful vaccine to be developed. The process of vaccination was first publicised by Edward Jenner in 1796, who acted upon his observation that milkmaids who caught the cowpox virus did not catch smallpox. Before widespread vaccination, mortality rates in individuals with smallpox were high—up to 35% in some cases. History before vaccination Before the introduction of a vaccine, the mortality of the severe form of smallpox—variola major—was very high. Historical records show a method of inducing immunity was already known. A process called inocul...

KitFox

Huh. Also helps protect against HIV.

Robusto

So there was actual inoculation well before the Revolutionary War. I did not know that.

KitFox

Well, much like parents having chickenpox parties.

Anyway, I must be off. Later!

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