English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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00:10

Limerick Machine: I will ate a plate full of yams But noöne has said that I can Noöne will mind If I leave the pork...

posted on January 10, 2014 by sgdi

I will ate a plate full of yams But noöne has said that I can Noöne will mind If I leave the pork rind And then leave in a poof! like shazam!

skullpatrol

01:45

and then silence fell over the land...

TRiG

07:42

> Y'all is plural, but can refer to any subset of the group - "Any of y'all coming for dinner?" All y'all means everyone.

Cool.

Source: Jamoche, comments on Slactivist

Matt Эллен

09:09

@RegDwigнt and I'm on season 1

the little orc that could

Jasper Loy

11:04

Wow, my 14 star message is still on the wall, amazing.

Robusto

11:48

@TRiG Technically speaking, "y'all" doesn't refer to the subset in that sentence: "any of" provides the qualifier there. "Y'all" still means every member of the group addressed.

Cerberus

Morning.

Noah

Morning

@Cerberus

Can I ask you a question?

Cerberus

Sure.

Noah

Can we have a meeting tomorrow at 10:00? We need to go over the log files, card management, etc.

Can we have a meeting tomorrow at 10:00? We need to go over log files, card management, etc.

Cerberus

Both are possible.

Noah

12:01

Difference?

Cerberus

Very little.

Noah

which one do you prefer?

And what is that little difference?

Cerberus

Without context, the difference is too small to tell.

Noah

Suppose you have a computer system and you want to discuss its log files with someone

Cerberus

Without the article, it is like you're naming items off a list or something.

Which is fine.

A third option is using the for every noun phrase.

Noah

12:04

Off a list?

Cerberus

From a list.

Noah

example, please.

Cerberus

On a list.

Noah

Yeah

Cerberus

I meant it as in "naming items [taken] off a list", but the preposition really isn't important. I guess off is colloquial.

Noah

12:07

No, I didnt ask to define that for me. I am asking what that part really means. Like an example might help.

I am still not clear on the difference between my two examples.

Cerberus

The difference is not clear, so I don't blame you!

When you're looking at a list and naming items that are on a list, it is more likely to sound like your example without the article.

Noah

So saying I want to discuss log files with you is the same as saying I want to discuss the log files with you

Cerberus

In this case, yes.

But perhaps not in a different context.

Noah

Like?

Cerberus

Theoretically, the means I'm already supposed to know which log files you're talking about. Without the, I may or may not already know. In this case, that probably doesn't matter.

If you want to talk about the concept of log files in general, not specific log files, that you would normally not use the.

But if you want to talk about the log files from a particular program or something, you would probably use the.

Noah

12:13

What if the items come from a list?

Cerberus

However, you can leave out the even when you are referring to known log files in an enumeration like that. It is a little bit vague.

I'd have to think about it longer.

Noah

Okay.

Cerberus

But I wouldn't worry about this example, I think you really can't go wrong.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: From the spirits of those it had wronged

posted on January 11, 2014 by sgdi

A noise was annoying a sheep It just couldn’t get any sleep It put fleece in its ears But just as it feared The noise came from somewhere down deep

skullpatrol

13:10

!!wiki article

KitSox

Article (grammar)

An article (abbreviated ) is a word (or prefix or suffix) that is used with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and (in some contexts) some. 'An' and 'a' are modern forms of the Old English 'an', which in Anglian dialects was the number 'one' (compare 'on', in Saxon dialects) and survived into Modern Scots as the number 'ane'. Both 'on' (respelled 'one' by the Normans) and 'an' survived into M...

Robusto

13:22

@Noah Saying "I want to discuss log files with you" sounds like a desperate cry for help in finding a way out of an impoverished intellectual environment.

skullpatrol

14:27

or it sounds like the desperate cry for help in finding the way out of the impoverished intellectual environment.

tchrist

14:43

Close queue now up in the 20s. I feel so unmotivated.

KitFox

We made the mistake of leaving the house this morning. It took almost an hour to get back home. Next time, I will remember my ice grippers. Damn you, climate change!

tchrist

Actually, this is more normal.

Climate change has made us forget the old normal of getting a nasty freeze every three or four years.

tchrist

15:14

My goodness the supercolliding MC is luring me into doing the silliest of things!

128

Q: What's this =! operator?

I was surprised by this code: if (a =! b) { // let it be on false ... } But a is never assigned by a value. What's this operator about?

But I also voted to close, which is less silly given the SO closure reason of “it’s just a typo, duh!”. Why don’t we have one of those?

If you like that one, you might be interested in the NAND operator, which is written &~ as in a = b &~ c. — tchrist 10 mins ago

202

A: What's this =! operator?

Long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and C ran on 5th edition UNIX on PDP-11s, =! was the 'not equals' operator. This usage was deprecated by the creation of Standard C, so now it means 'assign the logical inverse', as in a = !b. This is a good argument for always surrounding binary operat...

In elder days before the fall of mighty kings in Gondolin the ancient scribes would also invert the order of assignment operators, writing a =+ b to mean what we now render as a += b. Digraphic operators have a nasty way of mixing up with monographic ones when whitespace doesn’t matter but order does: consider a =- b,a = -b, vs a -= b. Here of old be dragons, but none so great as before after Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black and broke Thangoradrim beneath his fall. I was there when we thought evil vanquished forever, but ever it returns from the darkest of codes to trouble us anew. — tchrist 3 mins ago

Hard not to attach a Youtube clip of the Beatles’ “Let It Be” to that // let it be on false comment, too.

And it’s Thangorodrim, damn it.

Yesterday sitting at the worktop computer, I was getting pelted by icy snow in the face despite all the doors and windows being closed, a blue sky, and temperatures outside above freezing.

I had to tape up the back of the house again. The 80mph winds were driving blowing snow through the miniscule cracks around the French doors (double closing-in-the-center doors) that face north.

Matt Эллен

15:33

I hope your kittens are keeping you warm then!

Cerberus

15:58

Hi.

Robusto

hi

Cerberus

Do you like wet dough, as in dim sum?

Robusto

16:21

@Cerberus I like dim sum, but I wouldn't describe it as "wet dough" necessarily.

Cerberus

It's steamed, so watery...

Jasper Loy

@Robusto I hate dim sum.

Cerberus

What do you hate about it?

Jasper Loy

@Cerberus Well, it just doesn't taste nice at all.

Cerberus

@JasperLoy What about the steamed dough?

Robusto

16:49

@Cerberus I would not use that word. I might say moist, but watery implies dripping with water.

Mitch

that's sopping wet

Robusto

@Mitch watery 1. Filled with, consisting of, or soaked with water; wet or soggy: watery soil. 2. Containing too much water; diluted: watery soup.

Mitch

@KitFox rookie move. that's why old people never leave home. They've figured out how to troll other people into leaving. "honey, do you mind picking me up some ensure from the pharmacy on your way to Game Stop?" Sucker!

@Robusto You've just put me off my soup.

Also, my soil.

Robusto

Oh, BTW, @tchrist, can you pick me up some bud at your local herbal emporium? I'm too old and lazy to drive to Colorado to get it for myself.

Mitch

Oh context....yeah that would be nasty to eat... watery steamed buns.

Robusto

16:59

When knights poop do they create knight soil?

Mitch

@Robusto Nice! See, you got it now. (mention something about your knee troubles too)

Robusto

A better question might be: Do knights poop?

Mitch

Always remember to go before you put on your suit of armor.

Robusto

@Mitch Yes. It would very much help my, um, knee.

KitFox

17:30

It's not the freeze. It's the near-constant ice storms this year. Very unusual.

Johan Larsson

17:42

We had -10°C today, might be first day this winter with sub-zero.

Robusto

18:06

@JohanLarsson Pfft. Your "sub-zero" is stupid. We have many degrees above above zero that are still warmer than that.

Johan Larsson

in C# on Stack Overflow Chat, 25 mins ago, by Steve

NSFW: http://us.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/01/10/hln-vo-three-hour-orgasm-em‌ergency-room.hln.html

you also have that^

Glen The Udderboat

Why do American book publishers think it fancy not cutting the pages after binding? Who is responsible for this idiocy?

Cerberus

@Robusto Exactly.

That is the intended effect.

Because it's gross!

Robusto

Not if it's done right. You just haven't had good dim sum.

Cerberus

Oh, it was good dim sum.

I just don't get why people like that horrible dough.

But now I must away.

Adieu.

its_me

18:24

Hi, is there a word that describes best, a person who has an ability to notice/understand a person's feelings (especially even when others don't)? E.g. People are joking around, and at a particular point, I notice that the person being teased is no longer liking it (others don't notice this yet), but is still managing a convincible laugh. What am I called?

Robusto

Wait, I didn't read your text fully.

its_me

:)

Robusto

I think empathetic covers it.

its_me

@Robusto Nice! Thank you very much. From my searches I also came by "Perceptive".

Robusto

@its_me I would say perceptive is a little more general.

its_me

18:29

Well, yes

Jasper Loy

19:02

@matt Boo!

Matt Эллен

hiya @Jasper

Eric Auld

19:25

Hi, looking for some poetry recommendations! I am a huge fan of Whitman and Frost, and I'm looking to branch out. I'm a little sick of everything being free/blank verse like in some modern poetry I've read (perhaps Whitman ruined it for everyone). Any recommendations?

Jasper Loy

@mitch Boo!

Mitch

shocked!

tchrist

@Robusto Northern Wisconsin got 29 below: its ash-borers are now dead.

Mitch

@tchrist so that's good?

tchrist

That’s good.

It’s normal to have deep freezes every three or four years.

Or was, up till the 90s, since which we’ve had only one.

Mitch

19:31

yeah, I think the news has overblown the whole cold thing. It's not every year, but it happens.

tchrist

A lot of the bug creep is due to not having real weather.

@Mitch Of course they have.

Mitch

@EricAuld So you want it to rhyme?

tchrist

They’re one set of hysterical children speaking to more of the same.

They didn’t take Winter Is Coming seriously enough, so perish they shall.

Darwin wins again.

Eric Auld

@Mitch No, not necessarily. If you show me some more modern stuff that will convert me, all the better. :)

Mitch

I think Darwin needs some comeuppance, you know pop that balloon.

tchrist

19:33

Well, there isn’t a lot of epic poetry written these days.

Mitch

@EricAuld I'm not the person to ask. I don't particularly care for poetry. I don't know much about it.

Robusto

21:02

@tchrist Good news. There is a plus side to winter kills.

RegDwigнt

21:17

I have nothing good to say about any of today's questions. So I will say nothing at all.

Robusto

21:47

@RegDwigнt Paradoxically spoken. Well done.

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