English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Kit I know you're teasing, and I'm not upset. Just that I'm sad that youth in this world no longer shows the respect in times past, as well as...HEY You said you never giggled!!!!

Vitaly

> You've earned the "Outspoken" badge. See your profile.

@SpareOom Oh, ok.

Third Idiot

@Vitaly Did Kit earn it?

Vitaly

@ThirdIdiot english.stackexchange.com/badges/74/outspoken

z7sg

Argh, curse these timeouts! I want to unvote, why can;t I unvote?

Third Idiot

12:08 PM

@Vitaly Congratulations, my dear man.

Vitaly

Thanks.

Third Idiot

@z7sg Edit the question slightly, then unvote.

@Kit You said you never giggled! I don't understand!

Kit

@ThirdIdiot When?

Third Idiot

@Kit I know that's a good reply, cause I'll have to go back in chat some 20 days and read up over 5000 comments to find yours.

@Kit You have a dilemma coming up in ...six days.

z7sg

@ThirdIdiot Make an unnecessary edit to someone's question just so I can unvote it??? Hmmmm

MrHen

12:11 PM

@ThirdIdiot You could search?

Vitaly

@z7sg Don't listen to that; he said my gravatar is “like a windows sign.”

MrHen

Okay, I am out for now.

Kit

gasp ohfrigfrigfrigfrig Forgot huge meeting in 15 minutes *that I'm supposed to lead*--executive team, etc. Gotta run. @MrHen I want to think on your question more over lunch.

Spare Oom

g2g folks

Third Idiot

@z7sg Slight one, like capitalize an uncapitalized word or something.

@MrHen Search what?

@Vitaly No offence, young man, I was just making an allusion to the Microsoft symbol.

@Kit Good Luck! Hope your baby behaves well during the meeting.

Vitaly

12:13 PM

Mar 22 at 19:15, by RegDwight

Joke

A joke is a question, short story, or depiction of a situation made with the intent of being humorous. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken one in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl). Purpose Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is...

Third Idiot

@Vitaly Ahh! Now I comprehend!

RegDwight

See, people only star my jokes when they get re-told by Vitaly.

Apr 30 at 1:11, by Robusto

z7sg

@RegDwight It's the way he tells em

Third Idiot

@z7sg He has a gentle humour

z7sg

@Vitaly it looks like a wiggly lambda to me dude

RegDwight

12:21 PM

Ugh. I don't wanna see nobody's wiggly lambda.

Third Idiot

@RegDwight He wants to see a straight lambda

z7sg

@ThirdIdiot It's not the practicality that troubles me, it's more whether it's right/wrong thing to do. I have a goofy sort of code of honour with my voting behaviour otherwise I'll start downvoting people because I don't like them or something.

Third Idiot

@z7sg You're right. Actually, the reason you could take back your vote only after the question has been edited is because the answer might have changed so that you no longer think it that bad. So if you wish to take back a down-vote because you no longer believe a post is that bad, it wouldn't be wrong.

Robusto

@RegDwight — I prefer The Silence of the Lambdas.

Third Idiot

Going to sleep! See ya folks eight hours later.

RegDwight

12:30 PM

@Robusto Quid pro quo, Claris.

Vitaly

that Outspoken badge is so difficult to get it should be a gold badge

Robusto

@Vitaly — I weep not for you. Look at the requirements for the Epic badge, then the Legendary one.

Vitaly

oh and by the way @RegDwight, it didn't come exactly as a surprise, since I could see that I got =>10 messages starred and could roughly remember the chat user activity, so I started wondering if I missed something

apparently, the cron process just took its time

Robusto

@Vitaly — Hey, nice gravatar! Is that new?

Vitaly

@Robusto yeah, I changed a pixel in the original one

Robusto

12:35 PM

Nice.

Just the right touch. Although I might have changed a different pixel, now that I think about it ...

RegDwight

Yeah, shopped. I can tell by the pixel and from having seen many gravatars in my life.

Robusto

Yeah, after you look at it for a while it kind of jumps out at you.

Vitaly

May 13 at 19:33, by Vitaly

I am pleased with myself. A single picture I posted results in a whole day of religious talk.

religious^Wgravatar

Robusto

@Vitaly — Careful. You are starting to awaken the iconoclast in me.

Vitaly

OK I have to go and visit a barber. I hope I will at least like my brand-new beard style, after that disappointment with cracked lambdas.

CU.

RegDwight

12:43 PM

Laterz.

Robusto

Hey, you rep hounds. If you really want SO rep, consider learning C#. Check it out:

5

Q: Why does C# allow {} code blocks without a preceding statement?

Why does C# allow code blocks without a preceding statement (e.g. if, else, for, while)? void Main() { { // any sense in this? Console.Write("foo"); } }

23 upvotes for the top answer in less than 2 hours. We may only guess where it will go from there.

RegDwight

Oh, oh, may I, may I? It will go... up??

Robusto

Hmm ... hard to say. Science has pondered this question for milliseconds.

RegDwight

Wow, I got an accept for an SO answer I posted Jan 28 '10 at 11:44.

Robusto

Linkies.

RegDwight

12:46 PM

0

Q: Block Zoom in IE 6

How can I block the zoom-function of the Internet Explorer 6?

html css internet-explorer-6

I mean, if passive rep levels like that aren't pathetic, then nothing is.

Robusto

Hahaha. It's hard being the underclass on SO. I mean, CSS is so not C#.

RegDwight

@Robusto I don't even remember the question. At all. Even after having re-visited it just a minute ago.

This is how old and useless SO is to me.

Robusto

Well, I upticked you, so there's +25 passive rep in just one year.

Hummm ... things are going slightly crazy in chat atm, as the banner promised.

I think you should give the OP a reach-around at this point.

RegDwight

@Robusto OMG. That's almost not-even-tenth-way-there to my third Yearling badge.

Yeah, stupid chat kicked me out.

Robusto

Prat chat.

RegDwight

12:51 PM

Apparently it takes five attempts to post a simple OMG.

That's plat, you pineapple.

Robusto

Oh well ...

RegDwight

Yeah, I liked how that stupid NS came around and "fixed" plat into prat. As if that makes sense or something.

Robusto

Hahaha.

Interesting that Oichi-san transliterated prat into plat.

Since there really isn't any "L" sound in Japanese. Although they do use the "R" sound to express it.

RegDwight

There's a question for that, even!

13

A: Is it true that Chinese speakers have troubles with 'r's and 'l's in English words?

As I understand, in at least some major dialects of Chinese (maybe all, I don't know), the /l/ and /r/ sounds exist but are prosodically restricted. The /l/ can only appear syllable-initially while the /r/ appears syllable-finally. This means that a Chinese speaker would have more trouble with ...

Robusto

And, OK, it's not really an "R" sound, either. But it's closer than it is to an "L".

RegDwight

12:54 PM

Oh well, I thought it would be about Japanese as well. Turns out it's Chinese-centric.

Robusto

Well, both cultures use chopsticks.

RegDwight

Also, they are both cultures.

And most importantly, both of them are both!

That proves that they are the same.

Robusto

Your logic is inescapable. But I'm running for the hills anyway.

RegDwight

Schon wieder?

The hills have eyes.

Robusto

As long as they don't have legs, I'm fine.

RegDwight

1:02 PM

Legs is for hoi polloi. Moving is for minions. Big Brother is not running after you, he's comfortable with just watching.

Robusto

That's so ... comforting.

RegDwight

Well, I see nurses in drag, I watch. How else am I supposed to react?

Robusto

Our C# answer is up to 25 upvotes now. Who could have foreseen this?

RegDwight

Well, certainly not me. Don't look at me. Me, I would've never foreseen that.

Robusto

What, never? No, never! What, never? Well, hardly everrrrr! Hardly ever would RegDwight foreseeeeeeee!

RegDwight

1:15 PM

Nice edit, you pineapple.

Robusto

I had so many e's in the first version it blinded me.

RegDwight

The apple does not fall far from the pine.

Robusto

I pine for the days when it did. When mortals were asked to judge the beauty of goddesses — oh, wait, we still are.

27 and counting.

I wonder how many C# accepted answers on SO don't hit the century mark in 24 hours. Can't be very many.

And to the "What's the opposite of the 'sub' prefix?" question, I am so tempted to answer: "I dunno. The 'sub' suffix?"

28 and counting.

RegDwight

Obviously, the opposite of the 'sub' prefix is the xıɟǝɹd ,qns,.

Robusto

Hey, your last two words fell over. Let me help you get them on their feet.

Being on SO and not using C# is like watching the people come and go in an exclusive nightclub while you're standing on the other side of the velvet rope.

RegDwight

1:31 PM

Who said the rope was velvet? I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.

Robusto

@RegDwight — OK, Woody.

JSBangs

please make that picture go away

woody allen gives me nightmares

so we now have both word-requests and single-word-requests

was the former created on purpose by someone?

because i'm just about ready to retag all of them

(there are only 3)

RegDwight

@JSBangs Your wish is my command.

Robusto

Maybe you're this kind of Woody.

JSBangs

@RegDwight so much better

RegDwight

1:37 PM

@JSBangs Don't want no word-requests round here. Kill it.

Robusto

There's another kind, but I can't post that one here.

JSBangs

sorry @Robusto, i prefer @Reg's woody to your woody

2

Robusto

Swordfight!

JSBangs

in the meantime, this is an older question but it really needs to be killed with fire:

2

Q: Slangs use for immigrants?

What are slangs do british/american use for (poor) immigrants?

slang humor word-requests

actually, not that old

RegDwight

Old? 9 hours?

JSBangs

1:39 PM

i had gotten confused and thought it was several weeks old

Robusto

@JSBangs — You get confused a lot. Like when you said you prefer @RegDwight's woody to mine.

You've never even tried mine. But I'll allow that you have tried his.

Vitaly

Any phrase-requests?

JSBangs

@Vitaly those are allowed

Robusto

30 and counting.

Vitaly

oh I didn't actually follow my own tag link

thought it wasn't there

JSBangs

1:41 PM

ha! i pre-emptively foiled you (since i created that tag a few weeks ago during the Great Retagging)

Unreason

is english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/rhetoric tag ok? i am quite new here...

RegDwight

It could be. How is it different from, say figures-of-speech?

We also have speech and conversation.

Robusto

I think it's useful. Rhetoric is more than just figures of speech.

Vitaly

and spoken-english

RegDwight

@Vitaly Yeah, I left out a bunch of obscure ones, such as speech-acts

Vitaly

1:52 PM

don't forget ugandan-english (by the way, are there tags more obscure than ugandan-english that are still legit?)

JSBangs

ugandan-english is perfectly legit

so is hawaiian-english

and any other [tag:$national-english] that get created

RegDwight

Apr 8 at 13:41, by RegDwight

Well, we could always go with 8ritish-3nglish.

Nobody likes my suggestions. Evar!

Robusto

@Kosmonaut: I'd appreciate your considered response, if you have one, on my origin of "try and" question: english.stackexchange.com/questions/27008/…

Vitaly

How do you come up with a question that would require creating another obscure&legit tag?

Kosmonaut

We also shouldn't marginalize 1337-Americans by not recognizing their dialect of English

RegDwight

1:55 PM

Absolutely! There are so many — like, so many! — questions we could tag 1337!

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — Are there still as many as 1337 leet-speakers left? I thought that was an endangered language.

JSBangs

we should add pineapple-english for all of those NNSs

RegDwight

@Robusto They are just masquerading during the day. They only come out at night.

Robusto

pineapple hits the mark all by itself. The "-english" is redundant.

RegDwight

@JSBangs I think someone's already suggested me-no-speaky-english.

@Robusto also, pineapple should be just a synonym. It should automatically resolve to we-h8-u-go-away.

Robusto

1:57 PM

Good point.

Look, there's one now!

RegDwight

Yes. Looks quite leet to me.

JSBangs

all of my l33t friends look just like that

Unreason

@RegDwight, rhetorics is a bit wider than figures-of-speech and a bit more formal. I think most importantly it can be used to mark the questions that look at aspects of ethos and pathos in translations

RegDwight

@JSBangs You have non-l33t friends? That's so not kewl.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Well, he likes your woody. How uncool is that?

RegDwight

1:59 PM

Get ready for some severe thwacking.

Robusto

Promises, promises ...

RegDwight

Furious, merciless, extreme.

I'm just building up the momentum.

K pipls, gotta go. Corporate BBQ.

CUlaterz!

Robusto

Mach' Spass.

RegDwight

Hab' Spaß.

I never am fun. I only have some.

I'm out!

Robusto

Danke.

Und danke Gott!

But I did think it was "Spaß machen" as in "Wir machen Spaß."

JSBangs

2:04 PM

btw, @RegDwight, i'm still pondering your question about lots of overlapping tags for curse words. i think we should merge them all with cussin or [tag:do-you-kiss-your-mom-with-that-mouth]

@Unreason i'm not against using rhetoric if you think it's useful and distinct from existing tags

there's no problem, in general, with low-frequency tags, unless we wind up with a whole lot of basically identical low-freq tags

Kosmonaut

@Robusto I'd have to do some research, because I don't really know the history of it either.

Kit

@Robusto I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Robusto

@Kosmonaut Thanks. It just struck me as odd the other day and I realized I have no idea how it got started.

Kosmonaut

@Robusto It's a really really interesting question.

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — Thanks.

@Kit — I think that was the intended reaction.

Kit

2:13 PM

@Kosmonaut I agree. It drives me bonkers.

z7sg

@Robusto I always say Spaß machen but the dictionary says both dict.leo.org/…

Robusto

@z7sg — So @RegDwight is gratuitously correcting me. Again.

Kit

Egad! How did all these stupid meetings end up on my calendar today? TTFN. Thanks for the puke pic. Pretty much sums up my day.

z7sg

@Robusto Yep. I tried to speak German in here the other day and he corrected pretty much every word. :(

I'm sure they weren't all wrong!

JSBangs

2

Q: "People like you" versus "people like yourself" ?

In the latest South Park episode, I noticed a line: We have so many abandoned babies and not enough people like yourself who care. Which kinda struck me, because I'd expect it to be people like you. Is the original quote broken, or are both correct, representing a different meaning?

sentence

this is actually a really interesting question

z7sg

2:20 PM

@JSBangs Yes it is. I've always believed that it was non-standard, if you look in a grammar book or dictionary it is frowned on or not listed. Yet I heard the chancellor of the exchequer on the radio doing it, it is all over google books and it's nothing new, it has been used extensively over the years.

Don't have time to attempt a proper answer right now but not satisfied with the existing ones.

JSBangs

me neither

i started writing an answer, then started doubting my answer and deleted it before i finished. the rabbit hole appears to go pretty deep here

z7sg

Yes indeed. The question leaves something to be desired too tbh and it has been overlooked.

z7sg

2:36 PM

I favour this answer: english.stackexchange.com/questions/1176/…

Unreason

2:48 PM

@z7sg, yes that's a good one... I ended up writing something similar under the current question

Boob

@z7sg They can often be used interchangeably?

JSBangs

woohoo, just got Outspoken

i guess that means i'm spending enough time in chat these days

Boob

@JSBangs Lucky you, I have to sleep less then.

z7sg

@Boob I'm sure they mean something different... I mean it's clear they're not 100% interchangeable but I want to know when you can use each

hippietrail

most of people are in most wonderful chat room

Boob

3:01 PM

The most wonderful people are in most of wonderful chat room*

@z7sg Aha, that's what we are looking for.

hippietrail

the most of grammatical errors are mostly unsure about most indefinite articles most of time

Boob

Wah, You're trying to gaslight me.

hippietrail

I am most hungry and the most tired.

z7sg

3:37 PM

@Boob to gaslight sbd, never heard that one before. safe

hippietrail

to gaslight or not to gaslight, that is some question

Boob

4:03 PM

Should we up-vote an answer among others, even though it doesn't satisfy us?

z7sg

@Boob Link us up?

Boob

In general

z7sg

Good question for meta.english

Boob

Good idea

z7sg

Myself prefer to comment on the deficiency because your vote gets locked after a couple of minutes and you can't reverse it.

hippietrail

4:11 PM

yeah i wanted to change my most of the vote but it was locked

Vitaly

@Unreason: in reply to this answer of yours: link 1, link 2, link 3

Seriously, proper use of Google Ngrams is worth a FAQ linked to in giant red font on the main site

Boob

@Vitaly I think it's reliable .. When something is largely used, it's 99.999999% correct

Vitaly

yesterday, by Kosmonaut

@Robusto Look, I can compare apples and oranges: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=apples%2Coranges&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

yesterday, by Kosmonaut

Looks like I should use apples instead of oranges.

Boob

XD, Got it got it

Cerberus

@RegDwight: We are under attack! I am trying to keep the bastards off, but so far we are about 300 against their 500 points. This Alpha guy has a decent deck. I haven't lost to him yet, though.

Vitaly

4:26 PM

@Boob, @Unreason ok, but just in case: comparing on to upon is like comparing apples to oranges for several reasons: these are not completely interchangeable (upon belongs to a different register), you can say mile upon mile but cannot say mile on mile, once upon a time but no once on a time, etc, etc.

Cerberus

True. In those examples, on is probably not possible because they are fixed expressions.

z7sg

@Vitaly It's OK to compare 'on which, upon which' though I would think.

hippietrail

mile on mile sounds acceptable to me

Vitaly

@z7sg I cannot come up with a counterexample, so I will agree; but then on which becomes less frequent in that ngram just like upon which, so no point in that ngram either

z7sg

@hippietrail ngrams.googlelabs.com/…

Vitaly

4:32 PM

Hmm

OK, bad example then

z7sg

Google wishes to change it to "mile one mile" for reasons unknown

once upon a time is a solid example

Boob

@Vitaly But comparing in same sentence interchangeably would work

hippietrail

once upon a time is too quirky and idiomatic though

try to think of parallel constructions: twice upon a time, once upon the time, once upon some time, once upon an era...

Vitaly

@Boob What?

“I tried on a few jackets” — “I tried upon (?!) a few jackets”

“I haven't got any shoes on” — “I haven't got any shoes upon (?!)”

JSBangs

new topic: is there any legitimate use for sentence? as far as i can see it just looks like junk

Vitaly

4:39 PM

“Turn the power on by flicking this switch” — “Turn the power upon (?!) by flicking this switch”

There are literally thousands of examples like those ^, so I guess I made a point

Boob

"upon closing the door" - "on closing the door"

hippietrail

ought i ask what is the difference between synecdoche and metonymy?

Boob

@Vitaly Agreed.

hippietrail

our entire tagging systems needs a big dose of evolution

there's no clear right tag for asking what to call some concept

Vitaly

@JSBangs I think it would be useful for Linguistics.SE, I can't see any use for it on our site (OK @Cerberus found something here)

Cerberus

4:40 PM

@JSB: On the first two pages, I found only one question that would warrant this tag:

4

Q: Forming valid one word sentences

I remember my English teacher saying that there are only two valid ways to make a one-word sentence: A question: Why? Where? A command: Go! Stop! Is this correct?

sentence

Because it is actually about the concept of what makes a sentence.

hippietrail

by the way you can play this game with prepositions in all languages that have them, there is a similar game for languages with case systems instead of prepositions

Boob

@JSBangs I can't think of any independent usage of this tag.. It should be related to other tags, somehow .. right?

@Cerberus It's grammar

Cerberus

@Boob: Yes, but it deals with the question "what is a sentence?".

I suspect that there might be more.

JSBangs

@Boob,, @Cerberus, @Vitaly sounds like we mostly agree about it being junk. i may look into retagging

Cerberus

@JSB: Yeah. It could be made useful, but it isn't in its current state.

Kit

5:22 PM

@Vitaly "I tried a few jackets upon my torso." "I haven't got any shoes upon my feet."

Vitaly

different syntax

Kit

5:38 PM

@Vitaly Point taken.

Kit

5:49 PM

@MrHen I edited my answer for you. I hope you like it.

Martha

This question got multicollidered when we weren't looking. That's an awful lot of votes for a simple answer, and an awful lot of answers for a simple question.

18

Q: "True" is to "false" as "truth" is to... what?

If I were to reverse the sentence, "I care about the truth" I would want to say: I care about the false. Is that correct? It seems awkward at best: He speaks the truth! / He speaks the false! This one truth is important to all / This one false is important to all

meaning single-word-requests antonyms

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…