English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

17:00

Turns out that “dead of X” is a formula.

Cerberus

I read your question as "in prose".

In poetry, anything's possible.

tchrist

The Macaulay citation is prose.

> 1840 Macaulay Clive (1867) 25 — At dead of night, Clive marched out of the fort.

Cerberus

"In modern prose", then.

tchrist

1840 is pretty modern.

Do you mean contemporary?

And non-literature?

Perhaps.

Cerberus

Contemporary to when?

Hehe.

But yes, let's say what one would write in a style book.

tchrist

17:04

I have no problem with the first the, but its absence doesn’t bother me either. Thieves lurk in shadows and do their dirty work by dark of night. NOT do their dirty work by THE dark of the night. That just doesn’t sound right.

Cerberus

Now you've added a second the.

tchrist

> He found he could hide from daylight and moonshine, and make his way swiftly and softly by dead of night with his pale cold eyes, and catch small frightened or unwary things.

Where is a second the?

Cerberus

Besides, "in the dead of night" feels more like a fixed expression to me, mainly because of the "in", I think.

tchrist

> Thieves lurk in shadows and do their dirty work by dark of night.

Cerberus

You said, "by THE dark of the night".

tchrist

17:07

Where?

No, I said not to do that.

That was an example of an ungrammatical use.

You misread.

Oh.

Ok.

Two too many.

They do their dirty work by dark of night.

They do not do their dirty work by the dark of night.

Cerberus

books.google.com/ngrams/…

tchrist

They do not do their dirty work by dark of the night.

They do not do their dirty work by the dark of the night.

Cerberus

This is about what I would expect ^.

tchrist

That’s all wrong.

Cerberus

@tchrist This sounds wrong.

tchrist

17:09

All three of "They do not do" sound wrong.

Cerberus

The others sounds less common, but probably used by some.

But anyway, my intuition is even less pronounced when it comes to "dark" and a different preposition than "in".

tchrist

> You see, though still bound by desire of it, the Ring was no longer devouring him; he began to revive a little. He felt old, terribly old, yet less timid, and he was mortally hungry. 'Light, light of Sun and Moon, he still feared and hated, and he always will, I think; but he was cunning. He found he could hide from daylight and moonshine, and make his way swiftly and softly by dead of night with his pale cold eyes, and catch small frightened or unwary things.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I'm a fool to do your dirty work / oh yeah

Cerberus

@tchrist Sure, I would not be surprised at all to read that in literature.

tchrist

That sounds perfectly idiomatic.

Cerberus

17:10

But how about in dead of night? That seems less...likely.

Still possible, probably.

tchrist

@Cerberus wl it trnz owt tht nt al th wrld z 1 v txtspk slnsz & dlrd tlk

Imagine her as one in dead of night
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
Whose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking;
What terror ’tis! but she, in worser taking,
From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
The sight which makes supposed terror true.

At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears
Of her unhappy lord: the specter stares,
And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares

People need to stop spending so much time reading Twitter.

Cerberus

Is poetry really fair?

tchrist

> he assembled his three hundred Spartans, put himself at their bead, marched through the defile, in dead of night, and, with sword in hand, rushed like a torrent upon the Persian camp, overturning all in his course, until he had nearly reached

Yes, it’s fair. And it’s not alone.

> on the other side of the earth's globe, communities thrived under the warmth of an afternoon sun. The moon, she wrote, was, for the first time, a visible token, shining in dead of night, that the sun was still blazing somewhere, in an August sky.

> with a product of the Office of Strategic Services, the legend-making OSS, whose operatives were expected to parachute into enemy territory, slit the throats of sentries in dead of night, and pass pouches of golden sovereigns to bearded men

> in a modern drawing room in Bengal, in a journey during which both mythic and ordinary place-names are made strange: For thousands of years I roamed the paths of this earth, From waters round Ceylon in dead of night to Malayan seas.

> In dead of night, which is that moment between unwinding and winding, your life comes up, waits for you. It says, it is over, it is over, it is over. What have I done, what have I not done, over, over the night breathes, it is over. Someone you have

> The Abbey was torn down by Henry VIII, in a fervour of asset-stripping, and the stone parcelled out to nobles in London to build their fine houses. But a lot was stolen in dead of night, and many old houses in these parts have chunks of Abbey ...

Mitch

@Cerberus Poetry is not fair. It cheats all the time.

tchrist

> My homeland, I cannot bear to think of you in dead of night. Lustrous stones are rooted there still while my sap's gone dry. You ask, my friend, How deep this grief? Simply a spring swelled river too eager to ...

Mitch

17:17

Stupid cheating poetry.

tchrist

> He seemed to see such cars everywhere. Driving past the man's house, he wondered whether he might be able to steal back in dead of night and destroy the car, dismantling the wiring, and then make it back to his own house undetected.

Cerberus

@Mitch I know!!

tchrist

> Then, on by deluxe personnel carrier in dead of night to Best Eastern Hyangsan Hotel in Myohyang for a refreshing debriefing in the internment spa. Your final day in the DPRK is awash in the sights and sounds of Panmunjom in the heart of ...

Note that all these citations were written in the last 5 years.

The poetry was not. The prose was.

> Asia described the frenzied manhunters: “It was like the days of the Bastille in France. Arrests were made suddenly and in dead of night......Detectives, women and men, decoys, and all that vile rabble of human bloodhounds infested the city.

> The man who had stood high on the armoured car in dead of night had not been a lone wolf; he was part of a pack that would get noisier and stronger. Bolshevism was finding its confidence again. A leader had returned to Petrograd who ...

> At least one keg of gunpowder was missing from the powder cave. Zanja waited there until a summer downpour had lightened to a mist, then she traveled east in dead of night and slipped into the river valley under cover of darkness.

Mitch

'Twerk'.

now discuss.

tchrist

> ... beds vacated by adolescent males yearning for women, rising in dead of night, tiptoeing in fear of the slightest resonance of chattering bones, tomblike silence, barely disturbed by complicit barking, serving as go-between in lovers' intrigues.

> I should sneak into a barracks at an unguarded moment or in dead of night and loot someone's footlocker for a pair of leather gloves. Next I'll have to remove a gas mask that hangs on a peg over somebody's bunk and hang it over mine.

Mitch

17:19

adolescent males don't do that.

tchrist

This is all from published books, not Twitter(pated) feeds of the post-literate.

Mitch

isn't there an ngram version for twitter?

tchrist

> A man on a "bed of terror" lulls himself with the vivid chronicle of a journey perhaps never taken, when a solitary cyclist rolled down an eerie street, reading a newspaper in dead of night. Ubiquitous bicycles glisten in the mind, in the reader's ...

> He himself is always in the pure cool mountain air and beholds the sun when all below is still engulfed in dead of night. But there is more than a pull toward the heights motivating Schopenhauer; there are pushes from below. Two other traits ...

> Now, in dead of night, I wake again and again to the screen door caterwauling its accusing silence. That cat's a conjunction cut from my poem in one fell swoop of your pen, it's gone, but it's left a trail of blood on the unprotected page and I can ...

It’s clearly an established idiom in Modern=Contemporary English prose.

> Others, like David Carriere of Ottawa (geocaching handle “Zartimus”) go caching only by dead of night. “It was the only time I could find to go,with the kids and all,” he tells me, but I'm not entirely convinced by his innocent explanation. Zartimus ...

> And, if they were fleeing by dead of night, at least they were running toward help, and not into greater danger.

> Margaret did not know he was at home: had he stolen like a thief by dead of night into his own dwelling? Depressed as Jem had often and long seen him, this night there was something different about him still; beaten down by some inward ...

> So, accompanied by the Pope's own envoys, a party set forth by dead of night but had no sooner opened the tomb than they were interrupted by revellers returning fromone of the patriotic banquets whichhad becomeso popular in recent ...

> By dead of night, maybe that same night Jaruel had come to see his older brother , Nahum's bags were packed and his brother took him to the docks in Boothbay. If there wasn't a ship moored there that was hiring on, they would spend the ...

Mitch

There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings.

tchrist

Are they always loud?

No rest for the wicked?

> By dead of night I dumped the suit into a garbage bin, and it was never mentioned again. I'm not sure that Oxfam, in the late sixties, was as yet accepting discarded clothes, but even if it had been, I still would have hesitated. The thought of ...

> ... of any illegal substances. Scotty's marijuana plants had been uprooted and mulched and carried off the property by dead of night, smoking paraphernalia had been deep-sixed, and the library and computers had been scrubbed of Twelve ...

tchrist

17:41

> 3 Utah sisters have 3 baby boys in July

Wonder who the lucky father is.

RegDwighт

17:52

500 supporters. Five percent down, 95 to go.

MετάEd

@tchrist Mormon women sharing a man? Never happen. :-)

Robusto

18:06

@tchrist "Because it turns out you don’t even need that first article, either. You can just write in dead of night and be done with it Shakespeare did." Maybe you need some more punctuation there?

tchrist

18:17

@Robusto A conjunction.

Robusto

Whatever. I'm just trying to help. Don't get all pedantic about my definition of your comma-splice-sans-comma.

tchrist

Thank you.

I wasn’t reacting at all. Just trying to see what I couldn’t see. It is impossible to proofread your own stuff when your wicked brain just keeps interpolating the very same as you left out in the first place.

KitFox

Well. It's been an interesting day.

MετάEd

@KitFox That's generally not good.

KitFox

I can't decide if it's been good or not.

It's been unhappy for my friend, but I feel like I've been a good friend and also I got rewarded with ice cream.

Cerberus

18:33

Unhappy as in death or ruin?

Moderately unhappy is OK, because it can strengthen your bond.

KitFox

She was told last minute, by surprise, and quite bluntly that she would be changing offices.

It's not actually a surprise; it's been an ongoing drama amongst the staff here. But that it was decided today and unilaterally was a surprise.

The uberboss is really bad with people too.

Cerberus

Ugh.

That sounds like you're allowed to feel good.

Unless the office is inside the ferocious-animal cage.

KitFox

I feel bad for her, but I think I did a good job being a supportive, empathetic listener.

She was cheered after our outing.

It made me feel like a successful human being.

Which is something that is pretty important to me.

Cerberus

Good.

I know you can be like that.

tchrist

@Robusto Fixed. Maybe.

Robusto

18:43

I thought a period would have sufficed: "You can just write in dead of night and be done with it. Shakespeare did."

KitFox

Or a like.

Matt Эллен

or you can go overboard with the in the dead the of the night the

Cerberus

Haha.

The more, the merrier.

Matt Эллен

I'm a the all over the place

Cerberus

The.

Matt Эллен

18:48

thethethethethethethethethethethethe

Cerberus

@tchrist Am I allowed to complain when it's 35 degrees?

tchrist

@Cerberus If the wind is blowing, but you still have 3 to go before it freezes.

matthew spear

whay

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto our earlier conversation left me wondering about CSS selector "rules" in IE. I tested our existing website and found that the basic stylesheets use over 1000 rules according to IE8.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: I once ate a big treacle tart Soon after my stomach did smart A deep griping pain It sent me...

posted on July 31, 2013 by sgdi

I once ate a big treacle tart Soon after my stomach did smart A deep griping pain It sent me insane Until I let out a great fart

Matt Эллен

18:49

baycurz

KitFox

applauds

Matt Эллен

bows

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

arrows

Matt Эллен

shields

tchrist

@Cerberus So long as the sum of the temperature and the humidity minus the wind velocity isn’t over 100, you’ll be fine.

So, 90 degrees + 15% humidity - winds at 25 < 100. You’re fine. Just keep your nose to the breeze.

KitFox

18:53

I think my least favorite part of this job is the icons.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ICONS?

KitFox

Augh!

Matt Эллен

No no, not icons. you're thinking of those oak seeds.

KitFox

No, no filberts. You're thinking of what Americans call them.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

did you ever see one of those? :) I am led to believe they were isolated to Ontario schools.

tchrist

18:56

Eggcorn

In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect (sometimes called oronyms). The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context, such as "old-timers' disease" for "Alzheimer's disease". This is as opposed to a malapropism, where the substitution creates a nonsensical phrase. Classical malapropisms generally derive their comic effect from the fault of the user, while eggcorns are errors that exhibit creativity or logic. Eggcorns ...

@Cerberus Given what your current weather is, no, you have absolutely no cause for complaint, neither now nor in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I could go for a cup of tea right now.

tchrist

Contrast that @Cerb happy land with these poor folks:

Do you think they’re complaining? No, probably not.

Cerberus

@tchrist I'll be in my cellar on Friday.

tchrist

O'

Besotted, no doubt.

Cerberus

@tchrist My weather forecast says 35 on Friday.

tchrist

19:09

@Cerberus No, it says 75.

Now, which of the people in the table above do you think are complaining?

Hm?

Cerberus

weatherspark.com/#!dashboard;q=Amsterdam%2C%20Netherlands

Look at this. It's even overlapping with the x axis at the top!

tchrist

@Cerberus That doesn’t load for me.

Cerberus

And the sun makes it even worse: add 8 degrees.

@tchrist Buy a new browser?

tchrist

I don’t buy shit, Pups.

I don’t care whether it’s 75 or whether it’s 85, you have no place to complain.

You’re just spoiled.

Cerberus

It loads for me in FF and Chrome.

tchrist

19:12

Misery loves company, but you won’t get sympathy from people who have it a lot “worse” than you do.

Cerberus

That's 95 °F.

tchrist

Hardly terrible.

But yes, it’s worse than 85.

It’s July 31st. This is to be expected.

I cannot see how my weather forecast says you’ll have 75 and you think you will have 95.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist his weather forecast says 95.

tchrist

I imagine one of those is wrong, if not both.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 This is my point.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

mine says 32, feels like 41 for Amsterdam for friday.

tchrist

19:15

It’s summer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have no idea what the normal temperatures are for Amsterdam.

tchrist

wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/…

Yawnsville.

Pastoral pleasantries.

And yesterday it was even cold there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So if the normal temp is 71 and the forecast temp is 95, surely people there have cause to complain.

tchrist

I see a forecast of 75.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, they only have cause to complain if it is actually challenging.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Run YSlow on it and see how much is actually getting used.

tchrist

19:21

A lot of people would be very happy there.

Anyone should be.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 21 is average max for next Friday.

tchrist

But what about this week?

Maybe next Friday it goes down.

What is it this Friday?

Cerberus

@tchrist If you will arrange for A/C to be installed in my house, in all trams and buses, and in all offices and schools, I will stop complaining. Deal?

tchrist

You have inappropriate maladaptation.

Mitch

@KitFox no no not hazelnuts. You mean the nut that sounds like a sneeze.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:23

@Robusto Well, that CSS file is for the whole site. It's difficult to automatically determine if any particular portion is in use. Circumstances change from day to day. features get turned on or off. etc.

MετάEd

@Mitch No, no, not cashews. You're thinking of that stuff that contains natural mellowing agents.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, I know the CSS file is not in the best shape. But actually, the approach I'd take to minimizing the CSS code would be to generate the CSS file using something like SASS or Less which would probably generate more rules, but with less code.

MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Try CSS Lewis.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MετάEd too preachy

Cerberus

lefty.crupps Says:
September 24th, 2008 at 8:06 am

I totally disagree and I am a native US English speaker. “Next” always refers to the first upcoming instance; “Next time you see him…” never ever means anything but the very next instance.

Dictionary.com says: “Next: immediately following in time, order, importance, etc.”
WikiAnswers.com says: “Q: If today is Monday is next Friday this coming Friday? A: Yes.” http://wiki.answers.com/Q/If_today_is_Monday_is_next_Friday_this_coming_Friday

There is a lot of confusion with this, but Next Friday and This Friday are the same in my opinion and …

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:25

@Robusto My point is that while breaking IE<=9's 4095 rule limit is a code smell, it's not necessarily a problem.

MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Allegory is supposed to be preachy. It's in the grand tradition of Pilgrim's Progress.

tchrist

@Cerberus He’s wrong. Next Friday has to be next week. This Friday has to be this week.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MετάEd yeah, and preaching is supposed to be preachy, doesn't mean it can't be too preachy

MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Speaking of which.

tchrist

Last Friday has to be last week.

Cerberus

19:26

Or you are wrong.

MετάEd

Milton was married when he wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

tchrist

That means that come Saturday, yesterday is not last Friday, because it is the same week.

MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hey, preacher, too preachy!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Lots of native english speakers I know do not strictly adhere to that rule.

Mitch

@tchrist There are appropriate maladaptations?

tchrist

19:27

@Cerberus I can’t be wrong. I’m a native speaker. You’re just a foreigner calquing stuff into English where it don’t not belongest.

MετάEd

@tchrist I'm sorry, this Friday has to be next week. I am too busy for this Friday to be this week.

3

Cerberus

@tchrist See quotation.

I am so surprised at hearing Tchrist say, categorically, "I can't be wrong."

tchrist

@Cerberus Fine, so he’s wrong too. You can both be wrong together. Don’t talk like that, because people won’t know what you are saying. You are being deceptive.

Cerberus

And you are being incestuous.

tchrist

@Cerberus I am describing how I speak. I cannot be wrong.

There are no wrong descriptions of what people actually do.

If you want to slap my hand with a ruler like some old school biddy dictating Right and Wrong from under a nun’s habit, that is something else entirely. But it is not language.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:29

@tchrist and what percentage of people using "next friday" to mean the next coming friday, irrespective of what week it falls in, would it take to make YOU wrong and THEM right? or maybe BOTH of you right, and the sentence is ambiguous?

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Infinitely many. I can’t be wrong about my language.

By definition.

Ask Lawler.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Well then that quoted person cannot be wrong either.

tchrist

Or shall I go find the citations?

Go be ninnies, see what I care.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

you're trying to have it both ways here.

tchrist

Your goal is clearly not communication.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:31

I wasn't aware that I had stated any goals here.

I have observed many people using "next Friday" to mean whichever Friday arrives next.

tchrist

Go outside right now. Ask 10 people what they’ll be doing next Thursday. None of them will tell you what they will be doing tomorrow. That is completely nutjobbed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

even if that Friday is this week.

tchrist

Tomorrow is not next Thursday.

Next Thursday is.

Cerberus

Haha, "infinitely many".

tchrist

Tomorrow is this Thursday.

Next Thursday is a week from tomorrow, and you know it damn well.

Go out in the street and ask people what they will be doing next Thursday. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:33

No. Actually, I don't know it damn well. So many people do this one way or the other that I no longer assume they use the same convention I do.

Cerberus

I can't be bothered for anything other than triple.

tchrist

Go outside.

Talk to real people.

Mitch

@MετάEd No no not ketchup. You're thinking of what they used to make tennis rackets out of.

tchrist

Ask them whether they’ll be around next Thursday.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I am reporting on my observations of real people.

tchrist

19:34

Not a single one of them will be thinking of tomorrow.

Cerberus

I'm talking to the voices in my head, all saying "next Friday it's going to be 35 degrees and you're going to dieeee!".

tchrist

Come back when you have your answers, and I shall do the same.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway there is no one outside where I am.

tchrist

Not English.

MετάEd

@Mitch No, no, not catgut. You're thinking of that boat that you can't tip over.

tchrist

19:34

Tomorrow is not next Thursday.

Elephants.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Why is it so hard for you to believe that some people use a different convention?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I agree. You are all figments of my imagination, and we probably appear as figments of yours to you.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Next Thursday is my birthday.

Newts.

pouf

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why does the moon rise?

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Because it is not true.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:35

@Cerberus Ask Bill O'Reilly.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Aww. But you have no big 0 approaching to bemoan, do you?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Whom?

tchrist

I have never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever heard anyone refer to tomorrow as next anything. It simply cannot be next anything.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist So it is your assertion that all the people I have observed doing just that did not do what I observed?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Cerberus naw. I like approaching big Os, however.

tchrist

I think you’re lying or wrong.

Cerberus

19:36

Or maybe you live in a rather peculiar neck of the woods? Just a suggestion...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist okay please stop changing the example. We were talking about next Friday. In my experience it matters how close in time the "next" thing is to today.

tchrist

Tomorrow is not next Thursday anywhere in the English spekaing world.

Nope.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

eg nobody refers to tomorrow as anything BUT tomorrow. Not even "this X".

Cerberus

How well travelled you are!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

8/2 is this Friday. 8/9 is next Friday.

Cerberus

19:37

And how many are the circles you have access to!

tchrist

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That’s what I keep telling these numbskulls.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist so, name-calling now?

tchrist

Frinny people.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist Fight the good fight.

tchrist

Frins.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

19:38

Politely, if possible.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 For me, tomorrow means two weeks from now.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

poofs for real

Cerberus

Bai!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

:x

Hiroto

Damn, I get here and the party's over

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

19:39

There's a freelancing.SE?

Hiroto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 yup~

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

goes

tchrist

A free lance is a mercenary for hire, eh? :)

A roving knight.

Hiroto

well, they can be

Cerberus

@Hiroto In Mr Shiny's defence, Tchrist was being very annoying. I am sure he will admit this himself.

Mitch

19:41

@MετάEd No no not catamaran, catalog, category, catastrophe, catalepsy, catabolic. You meant all words that start with another carnivore.

tchrist

thinks of words that start with coon

Hiroto

@Cerberus while I agree that in some countries "next thursday" means the following week...

@tchrist calm down; you can quite easily get a 30 minute chat ban for ripping into someone

tchrist

I wasn’t the one who resorted to profanity.

Cerberus

Can't you unblock Mr Shiny? He says he has put Tchrist on ignore anyway.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Mitch dogma? wolfbane?

Hiroto

19:44

I didnt scroll back very far

Cerberus

Why is profanity worse than being rude? Is profanity so terribly hurtful?

tchrist

It is offensive.

Cerberus

Offensive is not something that "is".

Hiroto

@Cerberus @tchrist actually, we do not have a zero-tolerance policy on profanity

Cerberus

It is subjective.

Mitch

19:45

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Unless you forget that.. holy shit, tomorrow is already Thursday?

Hiroto

we do, however, have a zero-tolerance policy on people being jerks

Cerberus

@Hiroto Then there is a moderator that I'd like you to ban. He told me to "shut the fuck up" several times.

tchrist

@Hiroto The deleted quote was something like “fuck you and shove it”. I find that offensive.

Hiroto

@Cerberus links to the removed post?

Cerberus

It was a while ago, and it was deleted, I believe.

No way to find it.

Hiroto

19:46

still has a permalink, and i can see them

(link me the day's transcript)

Cerberus

But I can't access the permalink.

It was many months ago, actually.

Hiroto

Oh.

tchrist

He’s talking about shiney’s, which is still here.

Cerberus

I am not.

tchrist

Just click on cornbreads link on the starboard.

Mitch

19:47

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 My karma ran over your dogma.

tchrist

I thought Hiroto was.

@Mitch Cute palindrome.

Mitch

Huh. I hadn't thought of wolf-.

tchrist

thinks of words that start with weasel

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Mitch visualize whirled peas.

Mahnax

@tchrist "Weasels".

Hiroto

19:49

Anyways, if you guys think the odd curse is bad, you should probably try reading some of the IT security starboards (as of right now we prefer the community chats to police themselves as to what is acceptable, within reason, but we still have global rules)

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

My other car is a Zamboni.

tchrist

@Mahnax Or weaselship.

Hiroto

bye~

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

My other car is a weaselship.

Mahnax

Wait, is someone cracking down on profanity?

Johan Larsson

19:50

Was mod here to bring order?

Matt Эллен

"order"

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I wish mods would bring doughnuts.

Mahnax

Perhaps try ordering doughnuts.

Johan Larsson

@MattЭллен can't phrase it better

Matt Эллен

@Mahnax lol

Cerberus

19:53

When I moved from Ireland to the USA I noticed that I was always getting into misunderstandings with Americans over "this" vs. "next". There was some subtle difference in usage between the two sides of the Atlantic that I never quite pinned down. I now consistently never use "this" or "next" alone. I will always say "this coming Tuesday" or "Tuesday of next week". — Eamonn O'Brien-Strain Nov 29 '12 at 6:36

It has also struck me that the written form disguises two spoken forms: one contrastive, with emphasis on "next", the other unmarked and evenly stressed. I think that I'd almost always use the contrastive form for seven days from today, for example, or otherwise when there is perceived scope for confusion. When both the-next-Tuesday and the-Tuesday-after-that are referred to, "this Tuesday" and "next Tuesday" may be used together. And most of the comments relating to "next" can also be applied mutatis mutandis to "last". — Albert Herring Oct 9 '10 at 23:20

tchrist

Does that make you feel better?

That other Europeans are also confused by American use?

Cerberus

Or Tchrist is confused about European use.

I think Albert is right.

About the contrast.

tchrist

Anything that makes you right is right, I know how that works.

Cerberus

17

A: Which day does "next Tuesday" refer to?

This clearly has no definitive answer - usage varies between speakers. To me, "next Tuesday" means (strictly) the next instance of a Tuesday, although I just wouldn't use it on Sunday or Monday (preferring the day after tomorrow/tomorrow or an unqualified "Tuesday", which generally refers to the ...

Several speakers already, without even going out the door.

tchrist

Don’t come to our part of the world, or you’ll never make your flight out next Friday.

Johan Larsson

19:58

there is a Friday after next

what is the third?

Cerberus

@tchrist You have nothing to worry about!!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Welcome back!

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…