English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:43

@MετάEd I assume you 'ate the Balrog', as they say?

MετάEd

03:01

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I left a bit.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You never know if you might want a hair of the Balrog in the morning.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd Is it true that if you bite a Balrog in two, both pieces will keep living?

MετάEd

03:23

!! /mustache DavidWallace

Caprica Six

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 It's true.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Tee hee!

MετάEd

That is remarkable.

!! /mustache MετάEd

Caprica Six

MετάEd

03:24

!! /mustache JohanLarsson

Caprica Six

MετάEd

!! /mustache cornbreadninja麵包忍者

Caprica Six

MετάEd

Nice.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd oh, very noble.

MετάEd

03:36

I call it "Ninja sporting invisible mustache".

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I bleached it.

It's the ladylike thing to do.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Sure.

Amazing how well it places the thing.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Truth.

!!/mustache Caprica Six

Caprica Six

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Mustache me once, shame on you. Mustache me ~~twice~~ 12 times...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!/mustache Caprica Six

MετάEd

04:01

My turn.

Take that, Caprica Six.

David Wallace

04:59

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You bleached it black?

Stack Exchange

10:49

Limerick Machine: Music to sooth the soul

posted on July 13, 2013 by sgdi

A Singaporean fellow Was taking some time out to mellow He was taking a break For his sanity’s sake Perhaps he will take up the cello

Mahnax

12:24

Darn it, I finally get wifi on this train and no one's here.

Mitch

12:56

@simchona: wow really? Deleted so soon? It seems like such a legitimate question.

english.stackexchange.com/questions/119138/…

tchrist

@Mitch It’s automatically illegitimate if it is by AsHo.

The overlap between peer-reviewed journals and spammage is growing.

its_me

Hello, can somebody tell me which of these two usages is right? (I feel both are absolutely right, but that isn't the case.) -- "You have to mend your grammatical mistakes" or "You have to set right your grammatical mistakes"

tchrist

Neither is optimal, but neither is forbidden.

One normally mends one’s ways, or one’s shirt, not one’s mistakes.

One corrects one’s mistakes.

Or fixes them.

its_me

13:12

But doesn't mend mean fix/repair?

tchrist

Sure.

It just doesn’t get used on mistakes.

its_me

okay

Thank you.

tchrist

And setting things right speaks of greater wrongs than grammatical peccadillos.

Mistakes are corrected or fixed.

People would know what you meant, but it is not the typical collocation.

its_me

ah, hmm

makes sense

tchrist

More than 2,000 demonstrators filled the Capitol building in Austin to oppose the bill, and state troopers drug six out of the Senate chamber for trying to disrupt the debate.

Drug out, really AP?

I guess they’re trying to provide a local Texan accent, but sheesh!

Nobody knows fricking English anymore.

That’s just plain embarraskin.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

13:40

@MετάEd your avatar reminds me of the MLB, NBA, &c silhouettes.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Right! Probably no accident, either.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hmm.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 And that MLB logo reminds me of Thoth.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Not Thoth. You're thinking of that frozen planet.

MετάEd

No, no, not Hoth. You're thinking of the guy who sang for Van Halen.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

13:49

No, no, not Roth. You're thinking of soup without chunks.

MετάEd

No, no, not broth. You're thinking of that word for Lord of Armies.

Mitch

@MετάEd No no not Sabaoth (ha ha...I cheated with google. I mean how am I to know some obscure bible reference). You're thinking of what you do to your spouse.

@tchrist Oh. It just doesn't look like an NS post. OK then.

tchrist

It did, had you but looked closely. I shan’t disclose my alert criteria in public, but suffice it to say that the bells were a-ringin’.

I wonder whether my irony will be misapprehended as sexism.

Yes, singular they is just fine, and anyone who uses English as a native speaker naturally finds it works for them in virtually all situations. Sure, now and then you’ll chance upon some old knickersnitter of little education who cannot abide it, but ignore her: she knows nothing. — tchrist 8 mins ago

Mitch

14:09

How... dare you!

tchrist

I was trying to show that use she makes it too definite, makes you think of some particular woman.

The woman we all remember.

Mitch

Wait...what is a knickersnitter? is that someone who snits knickers? or knits knickers?

tchrist

Somebody who gets their knickers in a snit over nothing.

Or her knickers, if you will. Or won’t.

It’s currently a Google Whack, but doubtless that day shall soon pass.

Mitch

Calculating total humor coefficient...would have been better with 'him ' and 'he'.

tchrist

It might not jump out as quite so out of place with the male.

Which I wanted it to do.

Mitch

14:11

I have never snit my knickers. I just want to make sure that people are aware of that.

tchrist

That’s what kleenex is for.

Mitch

@tchrist actually I'm just obtuse. I didn't get it at all until you explained.

tchrist

pouts

Oh, I was having more unfun visualizing you with knockers.

Mitch

Well, that's the problem with using 'she' instead of 'he'. 'he' has a history so it is not so remarkable. 'she', as good as the intention is, just sounds too remarkable.

@tchrist ha ha...yeah. Wait...what?

tchrist

That’s why I put her to good use.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

14:15

Se souvenir de la femme.

tchrist

de tes rêves

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Je rêve des hommes.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 What? Lot's wife?

tchrist

Well, there is that.

Some have dreams, others nightmares.

Mitch

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I dream of going to the dentist. It's an anxiety dream. I think it means I'm worried...about going to the dentist.

tchrist

14:19

s/\.\.\./—/

Yup, my irony was misread.

MετάEd

@Mitch No, no, not saponify. You're thinking of those proofs you offer someone, that you really have that degree or whatever.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Mitch prob'ly.

MετάEd

Google offered me "Soya knickers med påsatte nitter."

Mitch

@MετάEd ewww...no that's gross. no no not saponify, I meant 'plight your troth'

MετάEd

Which are possibly "soya knickers with attached rivets."

@Mitch Heh heh heh.

Mitch

14:29

@MετάEd You wear them for comfort, not looks.

MετάEd

@Mitch Possibly you wear them for snacks.

Mitch

@MετάEd comfort clothes, comfort food.

MετάEd

Soya knickers with attached rivets:

tchrist

Leggy.

Mitch

@MετάEd: I can't find a general link to "A New dictionary..."

1

A: 'Take after' usage with abstract concepts

Take after in common usage means that a person resembles an older relative, especially a parent or grandparent. But there is nothing to prevent you from using it as a metaphor, as long as the meaning is clear to your reader. If you feel the relationship between A and B is like the relationship no...

It's basically the OED, right? But there's no 'main' link for all the volumes (and I can't find the ELU post recently with all the links).

O0oO0oOO0ooO

14:42

hey guys, when people first created English, do you think they had series of language updates like programming languages have?

Mitch

Yes. English was created in 1888 with the first publication of the OED.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

For example, one person took an idea of past tenses from Latin and updated this change in to English. But how did rest of people get informed about this changes?

Mitch

Every year they publish updates with new words.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

@Mitch lol

Mitch

The problem with the OED was that they published each volume alphabetically, so in the first year we could only speak with words that began with A or B.

@O0oO0oOO0ooO When do you think English was created then since you ask about when it was first created?

tchrist

14:49

Creationism is a myth.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

I think a group of intellectuals created a foundation of English that we are using today

like Korean language

tchrist

hahahahahahaahhaha

MετάEd

@Mitch To the 19th century NED?

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Those people took ideas from Latin and Greek and made a slightly better language

tchrist

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Absofuckinglutely not.

MετάEd

14:50

@Mitch It's in the meta post for common references.

tchrist

@O0oO0oOO0ooO See previous statement.

What a bizarre idea!

Never happened.

MετάEd

12

A: What good reference works on English are available online?

Dictionaries Useful for finding definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and examples of usage. Oxford English Dictionary (online access limited to subscription¹ only) New English Dictionary (NED)² A–B, C, D–E, F–G, H–K, Q–Sh, Su–Th, Ti–U Kenyon and Knott's A Pronouncing Dictionary of America...

@Mitch I need to look for links to the missing volumes.

L, M, N, O, P, V, W, X, Y, Z. They're probably on archive.org like the others, but the search on archive.org sucks potatoes.

I have been saving links to volumes as I (i) have needed them and (ii) have found them.

Mitch

I thought StoneyB in the past couple days had found all the links to all the volumes.

MετάEd

@Mitch Oh, then those links should be added to that answer.

Mitch

but that's what I couldn't find on ELU

MετάEd

14:55

@Mitch Dang.

tchrist

Ding-dong dang-dung.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

Guys, I was reading about "tenses" and it says there are tense-less languages in the world including Chinese. How would you interpret "I was working in office when she called" into tense-less language style?

tchrist

Who knows?

We aren’t speaking one.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

hmm, I am quite curious about this ...

tchrist

Yesterday I work in office when she call.

Mitch

14:59

@O0oO0oOO0ooO "I work at office yesterday she call"

!!/jinx

Caprica Six

tchrist

!!/!!

Caprica Six

@tchrist That didn't make much sense. Use the help command to learn more.

tchrist

!

Mitch

Caprica never understands what we really mean.

tchrist

15:00

De veras.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

@Mitch omg, that makes no sense

tchrist

Hie thee to a bureau de change si on a besoin de cents.

Mitch

@O0oO0oOO0ooO What tenses does Korean have?

if any.

tchrist

What’s a tense?

Mitch

About three pounds.

tchrist

15:03

ConLangs don’t count.

Mitch

@O0oO0oOO0ooO are you asking about translation or about 'what people do in a tenseless language to specify tense?'

for the latter, they do nothing, they just talk like they normally do. the things we do in english don't really concern them and they get by just fine. They might ask the same thing of us why we in English make these bizarre distinctions that are irrelevant like tense.

MετάEd

Woo hoo! I found my August holiday.

O0oO0oOO0ooO

@Mitch Korean tenses: past – present – future

@Mitch Yes, I am wondering what people do in tenseless language to specify tense

tchrist

You cannot specify tense in a tenseless language.

Mitch

As to translation, fist you'd have to know what is available in the other language. For Chinese, they have grammatical things that say an action has completed. And they also have words (like in English) that refer to a time in the past or future (like yesterday or tomorrow). So to say something in the past, it might be sufficient for "I was working" to say something about oneself ("I"), something about work ("work") and something about yesterday.

tchrist

15:09

You must be talking about something else than tense.

Like time, perhaps.

MετάEd

This whole discussion makes me time. I mean tense.

tchrist

If a language doesn’t have tense, then it doesn’t have tense and you cannot have a tense there.

If you mean time, say time.

Mitch

Since 'working' is a continuous thing, you probably wouldn't want to say the working was completed. So to translate into Mandarin and then back word for word into English it would be something like "I work yesterday". Then to get the "when she called", you just might say "and then she call". Translation in a perfect sense in the same amount of words is usually never possible. (but you can get close)

@O0oO0oOO0ooO OK. They usually don't. But they'll more likely use 'aspect' whether an action is complete, or they'll have time words, or sequence or causation words (this came first, then that).

@MετάEd The aspect of all this is making me moody.

I'm coming down with subjunctivitis?

tchrist

Optimally.

MετάEd

"Restructuralization".

0

A: Is "restructuralization" a word?

It does exist in the wild, but it is very rare. Structuralize and its derivatives show up in printed works beginning around the turn of the 20th century. The frequency is very low and does not seem to be gaining momentum. Forms spelled with “s” instead of “z” first appear in the 1960s, suggestin...

@Mitch Possibly. Or plethora.

You should take your coloratura.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 In winter, do you ride a Balroggan or wear it?

tchrist

15:22

What would Ra want with his colora?

MετάEd

@tchrist Presumably he would want them for his raccoloreate.

Assuming of course that he matraculated, but that almost goes with saying.

tchrist

I usually just use Tums.

MετάEd

@tchrist New Skittles Tums. Shit the rainbow.

Not worksafe: google.com/…

tchrist

MετάEd

Oooh. September 8. I must do a September 8 avatar.

@tchrist Uh?

Unpack that for me.

Ooh! Didja see the ninja disappear?

O0oO0oOO0ooO

15:43

Do westerners think it's abnormal if a toaster has 4 or 6 or more toast slots?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd Maybe it's like when they tell Mr. Burns that he has so many viruses and diseases that they're all blocking each other from getting through the door.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I'll buy that.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd and I thought these things smelled bad ...

...

... on the outside.

tchrist

16:00

@MετάEd It’s how to diagnose your malaise based on your poop-color.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

So glad I finished my Lucky Charms when I did.

Toodles.

tchrist

16:16

On July 12, 2013, the first subject received their experimental treatment session in our new study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in Boulder, Colorado. It seems that here in Boulder they’re trying MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD victims, approved by both the FDA and the DEA.

Note the use of “the first subject received their session”.

Mitch

@tchrist never looking at my poop again

@tchrist ha ha...it's obviously a dude.

tchrist

Gosh, I wonder where they’d find MDMA in Boulder, eh?

I’m surprised the Feds gave it the go-ahead.

Mitch

@O0oO0oOO0ooO 4 is not uncommon, but 2 is the norm. 6 is not common.

@tchrist wait, so 'OK' is in the middle where all the colors intersect. So you're telling me that al those diseases -prevent color from being added to your poop? What is the white area on the outside?

What if your poop is white? I kinda need to know. I have a 'friend' with that problem.

tchrist

Thought that would be obvious.

White people have black poop, right?

Therefore black people have white poop.

Mitch

So my 'friend' is black?

tchrist

16:24

Obviously.

Check for former slave owners.

It often slips into the gene pool there.

Mitch

I'll have to... He'll have to ... I mean They 'll have to check in the mirror.

tchrist

Oh, you can’t tell that way.

Mitch

@tchrist I wear a bathing cap in the gene pool.

tchrist

Remember: white + black = black; white + white + black = black; white + white + white + black = black; white + white + white + white + black = black; white + white + white + white + white + black = black; white + white + white + white + white + white + black = black; ...

MετάEd

Worms = blue poop?

tchrist

16:27

That’s what it says.

Mitch

What connects us all? Our poop is all the same color.

tchrist

Speak for yourself, blacky.

Mitch

@MετάEd Exactly. More reason not to eat worms.

tchrist

@Mitch And they say turnabout is fair play.

Mitch

informs worms that eating people is wrong

tchrist

16:33

You need to start a vegan vermiform movement.

MετάEd

@tchrist Heh. Heh heh. You said movement. Heh heh heh.

tchrist

Do vegetarians eat insects?

MετάEd

@tchrist Only up to the FDA mandated limit.

tchrist

Indeed. Everyone, in fact, eats insects.

Bicyclists may eat more insects than the rest of us.

KitFox

@tchrist I cleaned up stuff, mostly not yours, but I wanted you to know it was in the interest of harmony. Nothing personal. I got the joke, but there were flags all over that thread, so I trimmed it.

tchrist

16:41

Sure.

It wasn’t intended to be sexist, just showing what happens when you write like that.

It makes us all think of some schoolteacher we once had. :)

KitFox

I know. I understood what you were doing.

I just wanted you to know that I knew.

ok, later!

tchrist

Ok. Yeah, Mitch and Fumble didn’t get it, either.

At first.

RegDwighт

Uh. @MετάEd is one day ahead of time.

tchrist

Maybe he’s in Kiwivania.

MετάEd

@RegDwighт It's a lead-up. I'd hate for anyone to miss it.

RegDwighт

16:43

Oh I won't miss it alright.

tchrist

Fireworks?

RegDwighт

Every damn French will be on this side of the border to escape the celebrations on theirs.

tchrist

Bet they bring their own firecrackers.

RegDwighт

Firecrackers are verboten except on New Year's Eve.

MετάEd

The date and a link are in my profile.

Mitch

16:45

@tchrist insect filth sounds worse than insect fragments

RegDwighт

They are not even being sold anywhere, so no, I don't think anybody'll be bringing any.

tchrist

Oh.

MετάEd

ALong with the dates and links for the other days I feature with my avatar.

tchrist

It’s a problem here.

Especially with border states.

RegDwighт

But I have to run again, lest I die of hunger tomorrow.

tchrist

16:46

Because one state will have different rules than the one right next to them.

Don’t eat bugs.

RegDwighт

No potatoes in the house. Imagine that. I'll starve.

Lators.

tchrist

Onions.

Nor gators.

RegDwighт

@tchrist Neither a single onion! Imagine that now!

BBL

tchrist

Can’t.

@Kit Lawler’s comment is really good.

tchrist

17:01

I need to find a three-shaker salt&pepper set.

MετάEd

@tchrist There probably are only three Shakers left.

Wow. I guessed that perfectly.

Shakers

The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, is a religious sect. Founded upon the teachings of Ann Lee, Shakers today are mostly known for their cultural contributions (especially their style of music and furniture), and their model of equality of the sexes, which they institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. Origins The Shakers were one of a few religious groups that formed in eighteenth-century England, and which branched off mainstream Protestantism. New communities of “charismatic” Christians also took shape during this time. One...

"Sister June Carpenter, Brother Arnold Hadd, and Sister Frances Carr."

tchrist

Currently the salt shaker and the pepper shaker are a matching pair, but the one with red-pepper flakes looks different.

MετάEd

Well, that's Sister Frances for you.

tchrist

So I see.

Is there a phallic equivalent to pussy-whipped?

If it were Monday, that would so be on the multicollider.

MετάEd

17:24

@tchrist Cold-cocked?

tchrist

Er, no.

I don’t think, at least.

It means to be totally entranced by the object of desire, charmed into submissiveness and obedience, because you’ll do anything to keep your addiction supplied.

Maybe cock-walloped?

MετάEd

It seems that cock-whipped is occasionally used.

@tchrist No. There's always a joke before the serious answer. I respond to queries like Paul Lynde.

tchrist

Ah, Paulie.

MετάEd

Gives me time to finish the Google search. :-D

tchrist

For those who just can’t get their fix often enough, Bachelorettes comes to the rescue.

Way too many of these.

Mahnax

18:18

Hi.

Matt Эллен

18:31

Lo.

tchrist

19:58

I keep thinking of the Muppets’ Rainbow Connection when I see “colored nurses” now: red nurses and orange nurses and yellow nurses and green nurses and blue nurses and violet nurses and ultraviolet nurses. :) — tchrist 2 mins ago

> Microsoft Corp, which won a ban last year on importing some phones made by a Google Inc subsidiary, filed a motion in a U.S. court on Friday asking the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to enforce the measure. The U.S. International Trade Commission, which hears a long list of high-tech patent complaints, said in May 2012 that Google's Motorola Mobility infringed a Microsoft patent for generating and synchronizing calendar items.

A patent.

On generating calendar items.

And syncing them.

That’s bullshit.

Reference

Robusto

Yes. Well, so was the whole Eolas brouhaha:

Eolas

Eolas (, meaning "Knowledge"; bacronym: "Embedded Objects Linked Across Systems") is a United States technology company. It was founded in 1994 by sole employee Michael David Doyle. His University of California, San Francisco team has claimed to have created the first web browser that supported plugins. They demonstrated it at Xerox PARC, in November 1993, at the second Bay Area SIGWEB meeting. The claim that this was an innovation, advanced to justify their patent application, has been contested by Pei-Yuan Wei, who developed the earlier Viola browser, which added plugin capabilities in ...

What if someone could patent for loops in code? Software development would grind to a halt.

Caprica Six

20:14

HAMMERZEIT!

Robusto

Cease.

Desist.

Halt.

Caprica Six

HAMMERZEIT!

Robusto

Arrêtez-vous

tchrist

None of this is about innovation.

It’s about abuse.

Robusto

Ayup.

tchrist

20:16

Why can’t we call spades spades anymore?

Robusto

Because of euphemism creep.

tchrist

So now they’re shovels and hoes?

Everybody knows this patent situation is beyond sane.

But there is too much money behind for it to ever be fixed, just like our government.

Trillions of dollars is always right.

Robusto

And it's apt to get worse.

tchrist

How?

Robusto

Use your imagination.

Every day sees a new power grab, and a new reduction in our liberties.

Money is always more important than people. We're all headed for the sausage grinder, but the people in back of the line are still thinking, "Hmm, this isn't so bad."

tchrist

20:21

I can’t imagine it. I thought Bushlet would be worse than I imagined, and I was right. My imagination is never outrageous enough.

Robusto

You never imagined Obama could be worse than Bush in any respect, though, did you?

Yet he is.

Worse mainly because Bush never said he was going to set things right with the Constitution. Obama did.

tchrist

It’s the position that is poison.

Robusto

Then he presided over the abolition of the 4th Amendment.

And signed the bill abolishing the right to due process.

tchrist

Pretty sure that was there a long time ago.

We’ve been spied on for a lot longer than the 9/11 attacks.

Robusto

Yeah, but not as a bald-faced, unapologetic instrument of policy.

And think about it: as bad as Nixon was, these guys are worse, because what he wanted to do, these new guys can do. There will never be another Watergate investigation because the White House would just declare everything involved with any malfeasance to be a state secret.

tchrist

20:31

A matter of [genuflect] national security.

Robusto

You have to ask yourself what's worse: a dog that bares its fangs and growls and would bite you if it could so you keep it on a leash, or one that pretends to be your faithful companion and then one day clamps its jaws firmly on your privates. And at that point it's too late to do anything about it.

MετάEd

21:43

@tchrist You don't want to call a spade a hoe.

MετάEd

22:24

!! /mustache Robusto

Caprica Six

tchrist

22:54

This is really good:

2

A: Why did the old pronouns and their respective endings vanish from daily usage?

In the European languages during the age of nobility, it was almost always a wise thing to flatter one's addressee with noble terminology, including subjunctives, plurals, third persons, abstractions like Reverence, and assorted short subjects. Essentially, the idea went, nobles are more ethere...

Robusto

23:25

!! /mustache MετάEd

Caprica Six

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…