@DavidWallace No it's not that, its' that other thing. But you're close.

No, no, not anklebiting. You're thinking of the stuff you make buildings out of.

Twerp. it's twerp. You little twerp. Not you. I mean "as in 'you little twerp'".

@MετάEd bricks? mortar? pestle?

@MετάEd is it that crumbly stuff made out of older builder material?

I have a doubt about word in language english.

> If there are two indirections, the size of all arrays in the same layout (in the same level of indirection) must be equal.

@RegDwighт Yeah, we can see that.

I want that size to be a sizes, otherwise the sentence makes no sense to me.

@RegDwighт wait, you're not having trouble with 'indirection'?

I dunno, should I? I don't even know what it means, I suppose that's an established term.

I guess @tchrist or @robusto could tell.

but anyway, 'size' 'sizes' really doesn't bother me, the multiple possibly diffferent sizes are equal, the one size is, well, the one size.

Well, "the sizes are equal" means "the sizes are equal to one another". But "the size is equal" begs the question, "to what?"

@RegDwighт sounds kinda mathy or programming, but 'indirection' is a fancy word for side-stepping, not being direct. it doesn't mean 'row or column'.

You can say, "the size of all arrays must be the same", but I would never say "the size of all arrays must be equal".

@RegDwighт right. the size is equal to itself, which is weird but OK mathematically.

Well yes I studied maths, but it's still not helping.

@RegDwighт fine. you're right.

Haha.

Well, now I wonder about indirection, then.

OK. That's totally wrong. What's the context? printing multiple tables on a page?

Static analysis of safety-critical embedded applications by means of abstract interpretation.

You asked.

I don't think I am in the business of fixing whatever weird terminology they are using, but I do want to get rid of obvious grammatical mistakes.

Frankly, I have no idea what an indirection is, much less why it has levels.

so in that paragraph the intention is to say that the dimensions of the matrices are identical?

The sizes of the arrays.

right. So the authors are of what nationality?

German.

ha ha..-obviously-!

I mean, I could just ask them what they mean. It's just that I'd like to have been armed with knowledge before doing that.

So there's an example.

It goes on to say that here, BX are all of the same size, so that's okay.

right, all three arrays are 1 dimensional and of length 2. so same size.

So where does direction come in, or lack thereof?

sighs mod abuse.

Who abused a mod?

I can't think of a single word instead of indirection, and I can't think of anything in German (with dict.leo's help) that sound like what was really in their head.

I would have said 'dimension'

Well. You can speak in sentences to me.

First time I've been called out on account of my nationality.

@Mitch hm. I guess they'd have said that if that was what they meant.

Not the first time I've been discriminated against because of it, though.

@KitFox move to Russia. You'll get called out on account of your nationality much more often.

Oh, but I like Russians so much.

That's completely orthogonal.

You can eat your Russian and like it, too.

It's not if you are inside my head.

Who are you, Kylie Minogue?

cries

I'm very fragile today.

@KitFox I don't even understand where you got that glass from in which you're trying to squeeze a storm.

"You" meaning, the collective you.

What?

Tempest?

Teapot?

@RegDwighт ha ha. No.

Yeah. Sturm im Wasserglas. Learn some German, willya. I thought you were moving, no?

Are you demeaning me or agreeing with me? I can't function this morning.

I am moving, have been and continue to through the next few weeks.

But not to Germany.

@KitFox I am doing neither because I don't even grasp what happened.

@KitFox how is that an argument.

I deleted a lot of angry comments, and now I am being accused of doing it because I am an American.

@Mitch I. Uh. Wat.

And biased. Because non-American wouldn't have been biased, I guess.

Well. You see what happened to George Zimmerman.

Would you please look at the original answer and comment chain and make your own judgement?

Then you can agree with me or not, and this guy can be happified.

@KitFox that whole thing seems to be a use-mention mixup. I say -more- quotes, than less.

Since he's been acquitted by an all-white jury, people say the jury was racist. So what they're saying is a jury cannot be just if it has skin color X. I do wonder who's being racist here.

Well, Trevor thinks it's more than that, it's a whole attitude thing that I am covering up.

@KitFox I thought you were just fine, but then Americans would stick together like that, those bastards.

Because if I say "niggardly" that means I'm racist because the word sounds like it probably is.

@KitFox you are only allowed to be niggardly wit attitudes.

And if I point out that you are mistaken, then I'm an asshole with a superior attitude.

So fuck it gal, let's go bowlin.

Oh please let's.

@RegDwighт cut and paste.actually the English makes much more sense to me, and is not the same as the German, but I think they both give the same idea.

I am such a pile of useless goo today.

Something like " People just say stuff hoping it means what they want it to mean."

@Mitch yeah that's the gist of it, but it's phrased in the most backwards way. It doesn't help that the umlauts are missing.

Of course it's poetry, and archaic to boot, but still.

@RegDwighт Oh that took me a while .." la la la, la la la-la la; la la la, la la la-la la"

My MiL has a nice phrase that I like "I heard what you meant."

@KitFox oh dear god now I've seen the question.

I should have deleted it when I still had the chance.

I'm not blaming you.

Those comments must go wholesale. That answer must go. And again, if you ask me, the question must go.

The fact that it has 32 answers says everything.

Why must the answer go? And did you make it community wiki?

@RegDwighт I'm now realizing the translation to English is taking all sorts of liberties (saying stuff that just isn't even there at all, and it is the translation that I first saw).

coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist36.htm

You were the one who protected it. I thought you didn't care.

@KitFox I would guess it's been CWed automatically because of the many answers.

@KitFox I protected it to stop more half-assed one-liners from new users from pouring in.

@RegDwighт I am not equal to the task of explaining it to you.

That is something I will do on many MC questions.

@RegDwighт Yeah, but you protected, not closed it.

You might need to look up the meaning of "not" in a dictionary of your choice, honey.

I'm not! I was explaining why I am confused.

There. Killed.

Kthx.

For lack of a nail, a mod was accused of racism. FFS.

Write a clear question, or a clear answer, or stick in chat to be unclear. If you can't do any of those things, get the hell out.

Now back to our sheep.

@DavidWallace I don't even understand your angle.

I'll preemptively say "tnx".

@RegDwighт The product of this is zero.

Maybe "indirection" = "dimension"?

Did we cover that already?

@KitFox No but we did cover the lyrics:

Or maybe vectors?

The source is not that mathy, it's more about matching array sizes.

so 'dimensions' works better for me

What was the original sentence again?

Jack Ryan's answer was edited very many times. It's hard to know which version anyone was or wasn't offended by.

In C programming (and that looks like a C program), "indirection" just means referring to some value via a pointer, rather than via a non-pointer variable. "Two levels of indirection" means you've got a pointer to a pointer.

There are some rules I used to know about how you can make a two-dimensional array out of one-dimensional arrays of the same size.

If there are two dimensions, the size of all arrays in the same layout (with the same dimensionality) must be equal.

is what it sounds like to me.

What it means is that [[a b c][d e f][g h i]] is OK, but [[a b][c d e]] is not.

But it could just be gibberish.

No, it's not.

@DavidWallace His very first submission is kind of ... lacking in substance.

It's kind of true but badly worded. It makes sense to C programmers.

@DavidWallace 'two indirections'? But that is a bad way to say 'two levels of indirection'.

If that is indeed what they meant.

Yeah, not disputing that.

My apologies all around for using the word 'indeed'.

Your apologies are indeed accepted.

@DavidWallace Excellent. It is decided then. They will be reported to the authorities.

I would like to apologize for the previous apology.

I apologise for butting in like this.

I apologise for spelling apologise the same way as Cerberus.

@DavidWallace Your acceptance is much obliged. I shall endeavor to ... shit shit shit. Now I've use 'that' word. I am so sorry.

@DavidWallace There's no apologizing for that.

You'll have to be contrite instead.

I didn't apologize. That word is not in my vocabulary.

Oh. My apologies.

@DavidWallace writes down hint for next game of scrabble

Actually, I am capable of apologizing too, because it's apologizô in Greek.

Or perhaps apologizomai.

@Mitch Scrabble is easier if you're not American. You don't need as many Z's.

Your capabilites don't concern me. It's what you're doing right now.

But you DO need more U's.

@DavidWallace If you're all-american, it's no problem at all.

@Mitch Don't make me go hippopotamus on your arse.

They're are not enough z's in scrabble to say what I want.

@DavidWallace uncomfortable feeling

remembers to not turn back on David

@Mitch I apologize for spelling apologise before.

It would be better if you apologised for spelling apologize.

@DavidWallace Lets move on to greengrocers' apostrophe's.

But that would be impolite!

I have a few extra.

eyes fall out

The people responsible for the previous apologies have been sacked. We now return you to your previous inane chat, already in progress.

One greengrocer that I know of advertised "nectarince".

@Mitch That is so extremely bigoted. As though we all ought to just crave being around if we're square or something.

@MετάEd Phew, just in time.

@DavidWallace Well sure. It's considerate to rinse them before you sell them.

@KitFox And craven. It's also extremely craven.

I dreamed that I needed a mosquito to defend us against certain enemies that might attack us.

@KitFox Are you trolling the hippo?

Are you the hippo?

@DavidWallace yuck. a cross between a nectarine and a quince? mushy and off-puttingly like a bad peach?

Eww, not mushy.

I would have thought that you would have found that obvious, under the circumstances.

@KitFox That makes no sense. There're not enough sides to that argument.

@DavidWallace hippo-lover. And I mean that to sting. I bet you -like- pink milk.

@KitFox In any given situation, if you don't know who the hippo is, you're the hippo.

@MετάEd I actually expected Kit to identify the hippo as soon as the original comment appeared.

Well, then I really ought to ban you for the trouble you have caused.

You really aren't supposed to use sockpuppets.

Do you seriously feel that you ought to?

Yes.

You have caused me a lot of work.

@Mitch Oh, Jesus.

Ban me from where, exactly?

And I DID read the policy on sockpuppets very carefully.

Or are you saying you want to punish me for calling Jack Ryan a bigot?

Ban you for using a sockpuppet to cause trouble.

Would it have made a difference if I had signed my name? I am not ashamed of my views. I simply had the sock puppet handy; whereas there is no "David Wallace" on ELU.

If you wish for me not to contribute to ELU again, I am happy to oblige.

What I wish is for you not to cause problems.

Other than that, do what ye will.

So I am supposed to just let a bigoted arsehole post bigoted arsehole answers without intervening?

He wasn't bigoted. You were mistaken.

His original answer was bigoted. He subsequently edited it (many times) to make it less offensive. I was not mistaken.

@DavidWallace he may very well be bigoted, and may have expressed that by his answer, but the answer is still viable.

The meaning of the word is not bigoted.

@DavidWallace you made a use-mention mistake.

It was not the word itself that I objected to. It was the relationship between the FIRST definition that he cited, and the terms of the question.

I'm sorry if I failed to make that clear.

And your response was heated and ill-considered, inflammatory in its phrasing.

It was very carefully considered actually.

And I was extremely calm as I posted it. Calmer than I am now, in fact.

Then you intended to incite, which is even more annoying to me.

@DavidWallace but he was copy-pasting from a source not his words. yes, his choice, but the bogotry if any is in the source. and there isn't any, it's just reporting how people (in the US) use the phrase.

@KitFox Not in the slightest.

@Mitch No, you have misunderstood me.

My issue was that the question asked for a word that meant having all these positive virtues (I don't exactly remember which one); and he equated that with being "characteristic of the United States" (or whatever the definition was).

For reference:

In other words, the RELATIONSHIP between having positive virtues, and "oh, the OP must have meant he wanted a word that meant American".

@Mitch Yes.

Not a word that meant "American", a word that meant "all-American" which is completely different.

A word that meant "representative or typical of the United States"

The equating of "having positive virtues" with being "typical or representative of the United States". Kit, can't you SEE how offensive that is?

'therefore they must be American' is a non-sequitur, or rather whatever it is that means mistaking a possibility for a necessity.

Sure. An ideal American.

That's not offensive.

Not ideal. Typical or representative. Don't put words in my mouth.

@DavidWallace 'all-american' doesn't mean 'american' (in america). it means well excelling oin those virtues that americans think are worthwhile, e.g. 'Captain America'-like.

Also doesn't mean that no other nationalities have the same qualities.

@Mitch It's not the WORD. It's equating the DEFINITON - "typical or representative of the United States" with "having all the requested positive virtues".

It does.

All-American means those things.

@KitFox I'm not disputing that.

Then I fail to see your point.

It answers the question.

@KitFox I have said it many times now. I will say it again, if you like.

You are upset that the word means those things.

@KitFox It's not the WORD. It's equating the DEFINITON - "typical or representative of the United States" with "having all the requested positive virtues".

@DavidWallace OK it might be an offensive term, but it is a term nonetheless that americans might use. If you must think of it as profanity, and the question is asking about strong alternatives for bodily functions, and he offers 'shit'. He's not -saying- shit, he's saying that some people use the word 'shit'. You may think 'shit' is offensive, but instead you're saying that the answer is itself an offense.

@Mitch It's not the WORD. It's equating the DEFINITON - "typical or representative of the United States" with "having all the requested positive virtues".

Right. And the word means those things. You have an issue with that, fine. But that's your issue with the word.

@KitFox It's not the WORD. It's equating the DEFINITON - "typical or representative of the United States" with "having all the requested positive virtues".

That's your problem.

I have no issue with the WORD.

Yes, you do.

Because you are objecting to the word meaning what it means.

I have an issue with saying "being typical/representative of USA" == "having positive virtues".

So you have an issue with the politics of it?

No true Scotsman would say that.

If the answer had said "the answer is 'thongle' because the word 'thongle' means 'typical or representative of USA'", I would have had the same issue. I do NOT object to the word "all-American".

All-American: "possessing qualities characteristic of American ideals, such as honesty, industriousness, and health."

you object to the meaning?

@DavidWallace yes, that is precisely right.

"Representative of the people of the United States or their ideals; typically American:"

"selected as the best in the United States, as in a sport"

I object to the equating of "being typical or representative of the United States" (which is the first definition that Jack Ryan cited) with "being bah blah blah, all the positive stuff".

Still, I have now discussed it with just one additional support person, and basically I'll be rewriting everything from scratch.

@KitFox Both those definitions appeared in Jack Ryan's answer AFTER I made the original comment.

@DavidWallace I do. I think it's excessively silly.

@DavidWallace So what?

So you want me to preserve the fact that you flew off the handle about a poorly worded answer?

But hardly "offensive".

I dunno about into line.

@KitFox What do you mean "so what"? As I have now said four times, it's not the WORD that I object to. It's equating the DEFINITON - "typical or representative of the United States" with "having all the requested positive virtues". Are you not reading what I'm saying?

I have only ever encountered "All-American" in the title of a porn movie by Suze Randall.

These girls had not much honesty, industriousness, and health on display.

@KitFox I did not fly off the handle then. I am flying off the handle NOW about a person who is trying to argue with me without actually READING what I am saying! Are you being deliberately abtuse?

I have. Many times. So he quoted the first definition he found. So what? The actual definition fits.

The definition does not match the question. That is my point.

@DavidWallace That's what I was going to say.

The definition does. The one he chose did not, but now it does.

No, it introduces additional constraints.

@KitFox Now. Because he edited the question after I posted the comment.

Then he edited it again. And again. And again.

It's far less offensive now.

Wait, the question or the answer?

The question said "find me a word that means X". The answer said "the answer is Y because it means Z". That implies X == Z, and Y becomes irrelevant.

Holy crap, 13 edits on that answer.

If Y is to mean X, where Z is the definition of Y, that means that X => Z AND Z => X.

In other words, one can ONLY have these virtues if one is typical or representative of the United States; and also the converse.

It insults 7 000 000 000 minus 300 000 000 people in one hit.

Well yes. I voiced a similar concern when the question was still fresh, though I was talking about the mensch answer.

Anyway, it's closed now, for as long as it is the free-for-all that it is.

@DavidWallace Annoy, I can understand. But insult?

@Cerberus Yes. It says - "if you are not typical or representative of the United States, then you do not have these positive virtues".

Well that's only insulting if you don't know how many people in America have these virtues.

I contemplated flagging the answer when I saw it, but I thought it would be more useful to explain WHY it was so offensive. I guess I did an inadequate job of the latter.

And how is that anything more than just silly?

@Cerberus silliness can be offensive.

Naaah.

I am insulted by silly on a regular basis.

I've got better shit to do with my life than spending it on silly.

@Cerberus Look at how many people agreed with it though. There are people out there who think that it's OK to say these things. And there are people IN THIS VERY ROOM who think that the answer was correct. Both of these circumstances sadden me.

@RegDwighт You might consider cutting off your toes, then. Part of them, like the first 10 cm.

Anyhoo, I must be off soon for some bbq.

@RegDwighт Have fun.

@DavidWallace I haven't read the question. But people are allowed to say silly, self-indulging things, aren't they?

@Cerberus Boo! Bad advice! Hey everyone, this guy is giving BAD ADVICE!

@RegDwighт Happy cancer!

@Cerberus And other people are allowed to point out that they are offensive.

And yet, I come here and find a moderator threatening to ban me for it.

Very sad.

@RegDwighт Don't vote me down, it was honest advice!

@Cerberus I'm a vegetarian. I'll stick around just long enough to tell them how I must be going.

@DavidWallace Silly, not offensive.

@Cerberus No, offensive and bigoted.

@RegDwighт Beware, they will light up lots of ochre slabs made of obscure fungi and deforesting plantation soy for you...

I must attend a wedding tomorrow. For that, I need to iron some pants.

Better.

Don't iron your toes again.

I can't be spending time on bbq while unironed pants are waiting.

@Cerberus I couldn't, now that I've cut them off.

You've followed my advice? Wonderful.

@DavidWallace It doesn't say that. Only you say that.

I'm surprised you don't have another 10 cm left, though.

@Cerberus sharks don't have the first 10 cm.

Are you bringing balloons?

@DavidWallace As I said, I haven't seen the question...but why care?

@KitFox I doubt that.

@DavidWallace That's faulty logic.

The more weddings I attend, the less shit I give.

@KitFox No, that's what a DEFINITION is.

Especially since the last one I attended, I gave everyone I had, so now I deserve a break, like.

How many people did you have to begin with?

@DavidWallace Well, there's your problem right there. A implies B does not mean B implies A.

@Cerberus Seven. Maybe eight.

And people still give away daughters in your culture?

@KitFox hah. But that's the exact problem with the answer that started it all.

How very all-German.

@KitFox You are NOT reading what I said. If A is the definition of B then that implies that A implies B and that B implies A.

@Cerberus not if they don't have any, then they give away others' daughters.

That's why I wrote "AND" in capital letters, so that you'd see it.

@DavidWallace you are making a use-mention error.

To say that the answer that said "Oh, those ideals are all-American" meant that "Only Americans can be described by those terms" is just wrong. You are wrong.

I'm not even really following at this point. It didn't help that I dropped out for like thirty minutes.

I trust you to iron this out about as well as I iron my pants.

@Mitch No. This person said Y is the answer because Y means Z. That implies that Z is equivalent to the X that was sought. That is, X=> Z AND Z=>X.

Same.

Oh cool you iron pants too?

Maybe we going to same wedding?

@RegDwighт That'll make them stiff.

Maybe it's ours?

@KitFox Of course you think I am wrong. You are only reading about 10% of what I am saying.

@KitFox But the implication is that it applies more to them than to others.

Not that it matters.

@Cerberus Implications are meaningless.

I don't want to be in this discussion. Someone pull me out, quick!

pulls self out by neck hairs Phew!

If I say "Ideally, my children will be happy, smart, and dedicated" that doesn't mean "Only my children should have these wonderful traits!"

@Cerberus first result for "pull cerberus out".

Haha

The file name being, cerberus-suing-paul-hastings-for-55-million-over-loan-advice.jpg.

@KitFox Who said ideally? If I said "give me a word that means happy" and you said "Japanese", that implies two things. It implies that all happy people are Japanese, and all Japanese people are happy.

Haha, the equity fund.

Cerberus wins!

@DavidWallace Give me a word that means "clear".

Anyway. We've put Cerberus out of Paul Hastings, and we've pulled American troops into Syria. My job here is done.

Lators.

@KitFox I'm tired of this. I have repeated myself over and over. I am losing the will to stay here. Ban me if it would make you feel better.

@DavidWallace It implies that the Japanese are happier than other people, not that all happy people are Japanese or the other way around.

@Cerberus It does not.

@RegDwighт I thought Merkel was against.

@DavidWallace If I say Dutchmen are tall, does that mean all Dutchmen are tall?

It just means they're taller on average.

@Cerberus No. But if I said "give me a word that means tall" and you said "Dutch", it would.

@DavidWallace Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this.

And it certainly doesn't mean that only tall people are Dutch.

@DavidWallace Well, you're taking it a little but too literally.

@Cerberus But that's what it means if you say "give me a word that means X".

You could say "Dutch means tall". It just would be less literal as an answer, more like...playful.

And that's what a SWR is.

If I said "Give me a word that means 'clear'" and you said "transparent"...

That would mean that all transparent things are clear, and all clear things are transparent.

But that's not true.

And also not offensive.

Which is why I wouldn't say "transparent".

And also a correct answer.

I think it implies "Americans possess virtue x more than other people", and I think it's silly, but it is hardly offensive. Dixi.

Because transparent is a word that means clear.

@Cerberus No, it's worse than that.

Nah.

KitFox is right. "Transparent" would be a perfectly reasonable answer.

It says that to HAVE those virtues, you must be American.

@DavidWallace No, it doesn't. You say that.

@KitFox OK, ban me for knowing what a definition is. If that's how you want to run the site.

Mind your sarcasm.

You don't seem to understand what a definition is. That's why we keep explaining it to you.

I have better places to be. Ban me; don't ban me. I don't give a fuck. Good bye for now.

You can persist in being offended, but you have no grounds for it.