English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwighт

15:00

Jaspers on ELU are also called jawsmiths.

Robusto

@RegDwighт Among other things.

RegDwighт

It's still that time of the day where I strive to pretend to be polite-ish.

Bradd Szonye

Aw, somebody deleted the post before I could offer my helpful advice.

Robusto

Polish?

Bradd Szonye

'This is a reasonable response, but it would be better if you used more formal English (i.e., punctuation) and went into a bit more depth. See How to Answer. Also, see Lynn's excellent answer, which offers roughly the same advice.”

RegDwighт

15:02

@Robusto Yes. It's good for nine-inch nails.

user87637

@RegDwighт Wolverine!

Robusto

@RegDwighт You're a pretty hate machine.

RegDwighт

@BraddSzonye "This is not a response, reasonable or otherwise." FTFY

@Robusto thank you for noticing my princess attire.

Bradd Szonye

I'm a bit puzzled by the Proofreading close vote on that question.

user87637

@RegDwighт Buongiorno principessa!

Robusto

15:04

@RegDwighт How do you "princess" a tire?

Bradd Szonye

Is Proofreading some kind of code for “I don't want to deal with this but none of the other reasons seem to fit”?

Matt Эллен

:D it shouldn't be

RegDwighт

Do not say "sometimes you can't do things". Specify exactly when you can't do which things, and why. Otherwise your "answer" answers the question at hand as good as it does any other.

Matt Эллен

that's usually the rôle of "Too Broad"

RegDwighт

33 mins ago, by RegDwighт

By trying real hard. And then succeeding. Two easy steps.

Robusto

15:05

@MattЭллен rôflmao

@RegDwighт Oh, I'm sure you've tried "hard" before.

RegDwighт

@Robusto and harder still.

Speaking of trying hard, I almost watched the entire Season 5 yesterday.

user87637

0

Q: English I am talking to a guy I like

I feel silly for assuming you would actually call me last night

expressions

user87637

This should be migrated to dating. chuckles

Robusto

@RegDwighт There is no try. There is only do.

RegDwighт

> put on hold as unclear what you're asking by

See, that is offensive.

It is not unclear what he's asking. It is perfectly clear he is not asking.

Bradd Szonye

15:07

@Jasper She asked TWO questions just like that!

Although the other one was a lot less coherent.

RegDwighт

@Robusto three episodes to go. I was going to be watching them now. Instead I'm talking at Jasper. Life's cruel.

Bradd Szonye

Maybe it's not a dating question so much as a Proofreading request for being passive-aggressive?

MετάEd

@Robusto яоӻгмао

RegDwighт

@Jasper this must not be migrated to Dating.SE. This belongs on ClearlyNotDating.SE.

Matt Эллен

I like the fact that they've put English at the beginning of the title. Just in case we were unaware what this site was for.

user87637

15:10

@MattЭллен Perhaps she is dating an Englishman like you!

RegDwighт

They should have put it at the end, too. By that time I had long forgotten what language this was about.

Matt Эллен

I'm not dating an Englishman

user87637

If she was dating me she would need to put Samsara there, lol.

RegDwighт

Matt's is not an Englishman, it's a British hooligan.

Matt Эллен

I'm no hooligan!

RegDwighт

15:11

You are not. Yours is.

Learn to read. Go to school. Do something.

Matt Эллен

oh

RegDwighт

Yeah.

user87637

Votes are a bit like stars, you get them when you least expect them, lol.

RegDwighт

LOLs are like stars, too.

I never expect a lol. I'd rather expect the Spanish Inquisition, frankly.

user87637

Yeah, only when I am the one laughing.

user87637

15:13

I picked up the habit from a beautiful Canadian girl I was chatting with.

RegDwighт

A girl using lol cannot be beautiful. Seriously, look it up in a dictionary.

KitFox

Hey!

Oh.

RegDwighт

Let's go!

KitFox

Did you see the flag on that dating question? Hilarious.

RegDwighт

Was it the Union Jack?

That one really is hilarious.

Or was it the American Mattress?

user87637

15:14

Usually, I answer the trivial questions to get some points. I am good at pulling it off.

KitFox

@RegDwighт spittake

coughs

RegDwighт

Hey not my fault that you use mattresses for flags.

Bradd Szonye

@RegDwighт What if she uses “lawl”?

user87637

@RegDwighт You got the spelling right this time.

RegDwighт

@BraddSzonye then her hotness is 1/2 on the Lawler scale.

Bradd Szonye

15:16

John Lawler?

RegDwighт

@Jasper you did not.

@BraddSzonye you know other lawlers?

Bradd Szonye

“I'd sure like to collocate with you, doll”

user87637

We need the Laura Ramsey scale instead, lol.

RegDwighт

11

Q: Measuring typographical emphasis: the “lawler” and “lawler weight”

RegDwighт said: @Robusto wow, that's formatting to the max. Bold and italics and monospaced and in quotes. John has outlawlered himself.¹ It occurs to me that this is something we can measure. I propose that a single character’s lawler weight (lw) be the standard unit of measure of the typ...

discussion style formatting

Robusto

@Jasper I would bet that all the "beautiful Canadian girls" you have been chatting up on the Intertoobz are actually dudes.

RegDwighт

15:17

Dogs.

Hot dogs.

user87637

@Robusto No, it was only one, and I saw her pic.

RegDwighт

On the internet, nobody knows your picture is shopped.

Robusto

@Jasper Because no one can post a fake pic on the internet.

Jinx.

user87637

Still, you can't shop a really bad photo and make it really good.

RegDwighт

@Robusto Use up your white coke from the last time.

user87637

15:18

On the internet, noone knows you are a cat or dog.

Robusto

@Jasper No, but you can steal a photo.

RegDwighт

Not on the internet.

user87637

I can tell the difference. If the photo is not too professionally taken, it is probably genuine.

Robusto

Jasper, Scarlett Johansson was not chatting with you. Deal with it.

Matt Эллен

On the internet you're cat until proven dog.

Mitch

15:19

3 hours ago, by KitFox

But do you agree that 24 is the biggest number?

RegDwighт

A genuine photo can still be misleading. Look up MySpace angle.

user87637

So I go to F***book and see so many people in my area on it, hahax.

Robusto

That's F***edbook.

user87637

Time for me to join F***book.

RegDwighт

Folk. Folks. You can say Fecebook here.

Robusto

15:20

Jasper meant Fartbook.

RegDwighт

Then why does he star out ART?

Garfunkel will not approve.

Robusto

Because he is artless.

Whoa, I wonder if you can be sentenced to a term of art?

user87637

Amazing that fecebook.com actually redirects.

RegDwighт

You can be garden-path sentenced to a term of art.

@Jasper to two girls, one cup?

user87637

@RegDwighт To a weird address with nothing on it. So it is safe.

Robusto

15:22

@RegDwighт With Jasper it's two dudes, remember? We've been over this already.

RegDwighт

Anyway, this is wasting my time. I'm off to watch Breaking Bad.

BBL

Robusto

Good choice.

RegDwighт

Tnks

user87637

I just broke wind.

Bradd Szonye

15:32

Later all! Nice chatting.

Matt Эллен

CU @BraddSzonye.

"do a take 5" is currently number 2 on the multicollider

MετάEd

15:49

@Mitch You are the biggest number.

Mitch

16:01

@MετάEd No, you are, you flirt!

Robusto

16:19

Photon porn.

MετάEd

@Robusto srsly?

@Robusto Computer controlled laser guns? What could andromeda strain possibly go wrong?

Robusto

16:42

@MετάEd But think how awesome it would be to zap mosquitoes like that.

Mahnax

@KitFox Thanks. What does he think?

KitFox

He's seen it, but offered no comment. He doesn't often speak.

Mahnax

OK. I figured he wouldn't be too impressed.

'tis just a lil old spider.

Matt Эллен

hey @KitFox. do you still want that thing doing?

KitFox

17:15

I would like that, thank you.

Matt Эллен

17:29

It's ready when you are

KitFox

Thank you.

hot, buttery toast

Matt Эллен

mmmmm

MετάEd

Tot huttery boast.

Tossed huttery boat.

KitFox

Bot tuttery host.

I should work on some bad poetry for bad poetry day.

MετάEd

Tottery hust bot.

@KitFox Good poetry is hard. Bad poetry is harder. Good bad poetry anyway.

Matt Эллен

17:45

that's totty, bro [ue]

KitFox

drinks totty

user87637

I have not sipped tea in this chat for long.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox totty

KitFox

Hahaha. I was thinking of toddy.

user87637

@MattЭллен I envy you Brits. You can get an excellent math undergrad education in your own country. I can't.

user87637

17:48

@KitFox I was thinking of t*ts.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox ah! I thought you might be :D

@Jasper oh, um, I didn't really look into it

user87637

So this chat is just Matt & Kit these days huh, hmm...

Matt Эллен

well, @Cerb is here a lot

when I'm sleeping lots of other people chat

user87637

@MattЭллен I mean, you and Kit talk the most to each other, lol.

Matt Эллен

bbl, eating

KitFox

18:03

@Jasper That's because we like each other.

user87637

@KitFox Great! I will try not to interrupt you two too much then...

KitFox

I'm sure it's fine if you want to interrupt.

user87637

wonders how to get into Kit's good books

KitFox

Did you think you weren't?

user87637

Hey @mah!

Mahnax

18:14

Hiya.

MετάEd

@Jasper Spell check won't help you there.

KitFox

Yay, my icons look good!

Robusto

@KitFox But do they look awesome?

KitFox

Uh, no.

I'm not awesome. Can't expect my icons to look that way.

These are all fake names.

Not bad for an amateur with one afternoon to make something look OK, huh?

The icon is blue without the New circle if there is a plan, grey otherwise.

squinches face up

It will be fine. I'm sure it will be fine.

For now.

pushes icons off plate Moving on to more important things...

Robusto

18:34

What could be more important than icons? Dude, they're fucking iconic.

KitFox

Haha.

I tried to match the blue tones. groans

Robusto

A rookie move.

KitFox

Close enough, I think. And that's all they will see at the demo. "Oh, look, pretty icons!" Then the inevitable bikeshedding.

And I will bite my tongue and think about how they should hire a fucking graphics person if they want something that looks right.

Robusto

Yes. Make sure you specify "fucking" because otherwise they will miss that important skill.

KitFox

Interface design is really not my thing.

Matt Эллен

18:41

@KitFox pretty!

KitFox

Thank you.

Now I am looking for a satisfactory comment icon, i.e. paperclip.

Sexy.

Maybe a talk bubble is friendlier than a paperclip.

Robusto

I was going to suggest a voice balloon.

KitFox

Or maybe...

Something like that?

Or that?

I don't like the shiny, but I could probably find something like it.

Matt Эллен

woo! rep capped :D

KitFox

aedia λ

18:55

Urgh. Your icons just reminded me that I'm supposed to remake a logo for a thing.

Matt Эллен

curse those things and their logo needs

KitFox

Down with things! Up with stuff!

aedia λ

I miss having a graphic designer in the cube next to me.

KitFox

How can you do this stuff without going mad?

aedia λ

Me? I don't think I can.

KitFox

18:56

So what do you think, talk bubble or bookmark on page thingy?

Or paperclip?

Mitch

@Jasper how do you know that yours isn't as good?

aedia λ

I can spend like 12 hours straight in Lightroom processing photos I took but I get bored right away when I have to make a single icon or something.

@KitFox What does it stand for?

KitFox

It's an indicator that there are comments on the record.

aedia λ

The talk bubble is good if it means "add a comment here" or something.

Hmm.

If it just distinguishes whether there are notes or not, and you don't click it to do stuff, maybe a marked page is better?

Not the paperclip. That seems like "attachment".

MετάEd

Talk bubble, or maybe a post-it note? Those are commonly used to leave notes on a document.

KitFox

19:05

A sticky seems too informal, so I guess a talk bubble is most popular.

But it's true you don't actually click on it.

That's example with the talk bubble.

I hate this stuff. Think I'll go home instead.

MετάEd

What about the way SE does it? A comment box and a "save" button right where the comment would be displayed?

Oh. I looked at the screen shot. My idea is not going to work with a grid.

The talk bubble says comments or discussion. The bookmark says I want to bookmark something.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: *Wolf whistle*

posted on August 15, 2013 by sgdi

There once was a girl in a rush To get out and visit her crush She put on some slap And a darling red cap The cut of her dress made him blush

David Wallace

The more I think about it, the more I think it was macaroni.

KitFox

19:21

@MετάEd I know, right? It's making me crazy.

aedia λ

The bubble is a better icon at the small size. The bookmark is hard to recognize.

I would just use the bubble and make sure when you hover over it it clearly identifies what it is, like "this record has comments" or something. No matter what you put there, in the busy grid view users aren't going to know what it means and are going to try to interact with it to find out

KitFox

OK, I can do that. Thanks.

David Wallace

I don't like the dark square around the light talk bubble. It's one more layer of noise. Can you just choose a colour for the talk bubble that contrasts sufficiently with its background?

Unless it's supposed to look like a button that you can click, which it almost does.

KitFox

Yeah, I plan to make the colors happier later.

@Matt, what does "put on some slap" mean?

aedia λ

Landscapers are almost done! brb

David Wallace

19:36

@KitFox make-up

Matt Эллен

@KitFox aye, slap == make-up

KitFox

Charming

MετάEd

@KitFox s/^/Prince /

KitFox

Commute. Later, my friends.

Thanks for your help today.

David Wallace

bye

Matt Эллен

19:49

CU

Robusto

20:01

0

Q: Pronunciation of "Great" vs "Treat"

Why pronunciation of Great is like: /greit/ while other words containing ea are pronounced differently? like the word Treat: /tri:t/. Why tow words with the same number of vowels and consonants and the same syllable structure are pronounced differently? Is there any way for people to guess a word...

pronunciation

Why indeed? And why has this question not had the begeezus migrated out of it already?

Robusto

20:16

After you get through with those, consider teat (tɪt) which can be pronounced to rhyme with sit. The point is, English spelling and pronunciation are capricious and unpredictable. So we can't give you simple rules that will always apply. You just have to learn the variations as you go along. — Robusto 32 secs ago

aedia λ

The sod is sodden!

Now I just have to keep it that way for weeks.

user87637

@Mitch Just by comparing things like syllabus. I know some rankings are very good, but rankings don't mean much to me.

aedia λ

I should have taken more recent and detailed before pictures. The after pictures are kind of unimpressive if you don't realize what a badly graded dirt patch was there before. It just looks like lawn.

Robusto

@aediaλ Do you mean the sodding sod is suddenly sodden?

And why is solder pronounced like fodder and not bolder? Hey!

user87637

I am confused by the alliteration.

Robusto

20:24

Doesn't take much.

user87637

Robusto is too deep for me, lol.

aedia λ

@Robusto More like sluggishly sprinklered.

Robusto

@aediaλ I like it.

aedia λ

I have to figure out why my water pressure is low.

user87637

@aediaλ Maybe some construction work.

aedia λ

20:30

I'm hoping it's just the water filter and not somewhere else along the line getting suddenly sodden.

@Jasper Nah, 'cause next-door is fine. Good guess though.

I'm stealing their hose right now to water the biggest lawn area.

Robusto

Suddenly sprinklered     the sodding sod
Lay in the lawn          on Aedia's land
Grown green now          with great effort
But richly rewarded      now she can rest

MετάEd

@Robusto Suddenly I feel as if I'm in Hengist's country.

Robusto

@MετάEd Was it that horsay?

MετάEd

Tell that bastard William he can have six feet of Aedia's land, no more.

And we'll plant him deep.

aedia λ

@Robusto Ooh!

Robusto

20:34

@MετάEd I think you mean Harald.

MετάEd

@Robusto Depends on what century I'm talking about.

Robusto

@MετάEd You could be talking about the same year.

Dust off your Heimskringla, Snorri!

Harald Hardrada

Harald Sigurdsson (Old Norse: Haraldr Sigurðarson; c. 1015 – 25 September 1066), given the epithet Hardrada (harðráði, roughly translated as "stern counsel" or "hard ruler") in the sagas, was the King of Norway from 1046 to 1066 as Harald III. He also unsuccessfully claimed the Danish throne until 1064, and the English throne in 1066. Prior to becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kievan Rus' and in the Byzantine Empire. When he was fifteen years old, in 1030, Harald fought in the Battle of Stiklestad together with hi...

He's the one to whom Harold Godwinesson said, "You can have six feet of English earth, or as much more as you are taller than other men." (He was a seven-footer, by accounts.)

MετάEd

@Robusto I'm remembering the song wrong.

But William is still a bastard.

Robusto

That's why we go over this stuff.

Jan 29 at 18:05, by Robusto

@Cerberus I believe you mean Willelm. Check out the Bayeux Tapestry again.

Jan 29 at 22:24, by Robusto

aedia λ

21:00

Blast you for enticing me down the rabbit hole that is Wikipedia. I even left my coffee downstairs, that's how much I apparently wanted to learn about the Bayeux Tapestry.

runs off to fetch lukewarm coffee

Robusto

@aediaλ The 11th century beckons. It cares nothing for your coffee.

MετάEd

@aediaλ Use the force. Luke, warm my coffee.

aedia λ

groans

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

21:40

time goes slowly / but carries on / and now the best years / have come and gone / you took me by surprise / I didn't realize / that you were laughing

Jez

22:45

gizmodo.com/…

maybe it's because i'm late, but i'm having trouble parsing "hold phone straight up & down"

can anyone elucidate this imperative?

MετάEd

23:20

@Jez Do they have your size?

Jez

they don't even give a size, apparently

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

23:45

@Jez the way it would look if you dangled it on a string in landscape mode.

Jez

why does "straight up & down" mean that?

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You are an American Woman for sure.

MετάEd

DHCP. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto hangs around your door

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I knew it.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

23:59

@Jez the idea here is to make the face/screen/camera parallel with the boobs.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…