English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

11:53 AM

@Cerberus That's probably extruded processed cheese food product.

Q: What is the pronunciation of "Aussie"?

12:28 PM

2

I know that Australians pronounce Aussie like Oz-ee. However, how should Americans pronounce it? I have, in the past, politely corrected Americans when I hear the typical "aw-see" (\ä-sē\). It seems to be pretty widely unknown that Australians say Oz-ee. Then, I came across a website that spe...

pronunciation proper-nouns

I think this question is subjective and argumentative.

The OP is clearly not interested simply in the facts about what is done, but wants the EL&U community to come up with some sort of "proof" that one pronunciation is the correct one, or not.

As you can see from the top-voted answer, all you get is someone's prescriptive opinion.

@Kosmonaut — Agreed. Voted to close.

12:55 PM

@Kosmonaut: Ancient Greek aspirated the initial vowel of Ἑλλάς (Hellas). Do you know if they also ever stuck an "h" between two vowels in what would otherwise be a diphthong?

1:22 PM

@Robusto i very much doubt that they did. the initial /h/ in Hellas is not an insertion, but a retention, as the /h/ was lost almost everywhere but hung around for a little while word-initially, before finally giving up the ghost there, as well.

I don't know.

and Greek /h/ is usually descended from PIE *s, and can be so reconstructed Greek-internally as well

crucially, there are places where we know that there was once an intervocalic /h/, but by the classical period the vowels on either side of the /h/ had run together, indicating that the intervocalic /h/ had completely disappeared. The most common example of this is the 2sg aorist middle ending *-eso, which went eso > eho > eo > o: > u:

(usually spelled -ου)

Ha, I was going to say that there are probably a few other people on EL&U who know a lot more about Ancient Greek — and there you go!

Q: Pronunciation of foreign words in American vs. British English?

1:39 PM

0

One of the differences between modern American and British English is the way in which we pronounce foreign words, particularly those of French origin and/or related to food. For example, Americans… drop the "h" on "herb" and "Beethoven"; rhyme "fillet" and "valet" with "parlay" as opposed to ...

pronunciation american-english loan-words

this question contains a number of false assumptions, but i don't have the references or the wherewithal to correct it at the moment

@JSBangs — Thanks.

1:58 PM

@JSBangs I made a comment about it.

2:28 PM

lol @ US pronounciation of 'Van Gogh'

Martha

@Jez What's wrong with /van go/? Do you prefer that the van not go?

2:46 PM

@Martha — Hahaha. Good one. Take that, Phlegmish purists!

3:13 PM

@Jez Isn't that what bounties are for?

4:06 PM

Yo dudes, there is a new design on LessWrong, now you can read it 10 times as often!

@Vitaly well, since i've devoted myself to refining the art of human irrationality, i'll make sure to stay away from it 10x as often!

There is no “human irrationality,” there is just primate-wide irrationality.

oh, no, i think we humans have some of the best ways of being irrational

for example, i've never observed apes to become involved in a Ponzi scheme

I would now like to ask for a definition of irrationality.

@Robusto: Isn't their UI so neat now?

4:14 PM

@Robusto that implies first having a definition of rationality, which is, i think, the stickier wicket

@Vitaly — Yep, mo' bettah.

once we know what is rational, knowing what is irrational is simply a matter of excluding the rational

@JSBangs — If you've got the one, then the other must be easy to determine.

@JSBangs — “Systematic methods of attaining a map that reflects the territory, or achieving goals.”

It works both ways.

4:16 PM

And:

> Epistemic rationality: believing, and updating on evidence, so as to systematically improve the correspondence between your map and the territory. The art of obtaining beliefs that correspond to reality as closely as possible. This correspondence is commonly termed "truth" or "accuracy", and we're happy to call it that.

Yet you could use that definition to arrive at opposite conclusions about what you should do.

Defend.

Making my map correspond to reality simply means I have a good picture of the real. But I can still make rational or irrational decisions based on reality, because "reality" is and always must be a perception, not an absolute value.

Then (from the same page):

> Instrumental rationality: achieving your values. Not necessarily "your values" in the sense of being selfish values or unshared values: "your values" means anything you care about. The art of choosing actions that steer the future toward outcomes ranked higher in your preferences. On LW we sometimes refer to this as "winning".

@aedia The trouble with bounties is they only last a week. It may well take longer for someone to come up with an answer to a word's obscure origin.

4:20 PM

I'm awake, I'm awake! What's all this about a map? I think I lost my map.

@Vitaly — But you can lose by winning, and win by losing. I can make a mistake in poker and wind up winning the pot. Or I can play my cards perfectly and lose.

> because "reality" is and always must be a perception, not an absolute value
-- i'm not sure i agree with this

(and i suspect that @Vitaly agrees with my by not agreeing with this)

@JSBangs — All right, name me something that is unequivocally true.

anyway, if your goal is to lose, then it is instrumentally rational to follow a losing strategy

I have to run an errand, have fun arguing about rationality for the next few hours. :P

4:23 PM

@Robusto this is a silly game. i could say something like 1+1=2, and you would come back with something about alternate constructions of core mathematical axioms. the point is that reality is not a perception -- there are real things whose reality and unreality are not merely determined by perspective.

@aedia Map? What?

@aedia Hi!

@JSBangs — I agree, it is a silly game. It is silly to try to define rationality as well. That's all I'm saying.

@Robusto that was a bad answer, though, as i merely reiterated my conclusion. let me think on this some more

it may be the case that the objective nature of reality is something which we have to assume, not something we can prove.

@Jez Hmm. Well, I think unsolved doesn't really add anything, though: it's probably a meta-tag. It could apply to anything. Bounty's at least a way to draw attention to an old question, if you don't think you can answer the question yourself.

which is fine by me, so long as we acknowledge that fact. i, for one, am happy to add "reality exists" to my list of philosophical axioms

@aedia, unsolved is totally a meta-tag. Don't use it. kill it with fire if you see it.

4:26 PM

Hi Kit!

@JSBangs — I think the nature of reality is subjective, not objective. All reality is viewed through the filter of human perception.

@JSBangs Don't worry, this was only a theoretical discussion of a meta-tag that doesn't exist.

@Kit The map corresponding to reality. Or something.

@Robusto but that's a different matter. it's possible (probable, actually) that reality exists but we are unable to apprehend it directly

@JSBangs — In that case it is of no use to us.

@aedia There's a map for that?

4:28 PM

12 mins ago, by Vitaly

@JSBangs — “Systematic methods of attaining a map that reflects the territory, or achieving goals.”

I still dun gets it.

@Robusto an interesting possibility. anyway, i too am going to go to lunch now, so i'll leave you to consider whether my absence for the next half-hour or so is a matter of your perception or is objectively real

@JSBangs — I have no way of knowing whether you are actually going to lunch or just camping out here. But enjoy!

@aedia I saw that, but why are they talking about reality?

@Kit Um, I think because a website got un-uglified?

@JSBangs so what to do if a question hasn't really been answered, but an 'answer' has been accepted?

seems to me it would be better for the site if these answers could be unaccepted or something

4:32 PM

@aedia This is so confusing; I think I better get back to programming.

@aedia — wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_territory

@Robusto — lesswrong.com/lw/om/qualitatively_confused

@Vitaly — wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

@Vitaly I'm trying to read it, but I keep confusing myself. I want to go back to the comforting safety of Marshall McLuhan's Medium is the Massage.

@Jez nothing. just write a better answer, or upvote the best answer if there already is one

it's not too uncommon for a high-upvoted answer to outrank the accepted answer. if necessary, leave a comment on the accepted answer pointing out that it's wrong, wrong, wrong

@aedia The Medium is the Massage ? That sounds like the sort of medium i could get into

The Medium Is the Massage

4:55 PM

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, and coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published by Bantam books in 1967 and became a bestseller and a cult classic. The book itself is 160 pages in length and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror (see mirror writing). Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photographs and images both modern and histori...

5:56 PM

@Martha szervusz!

Martha

@Kit: Hola!

Q: Close reconsideration - what constitutes "subjective and argumentative"?

8:39 PM

1

My question What is the pronunciation of "Aussie"? has been closed as "not constructive": This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, argume...

discussion closed-questions

This person is honestly making my head spin. How many ways do I have to explain this?