English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Susan

00:11

Hi, Jasper. You asked me a quetion...

oh, I'm so silly; I thought you were here. I see you're not. I'll come back again.

Mitch

00:34

@Cerberus Oh. Duh. Yeah.

@Cerberus But there are fewer of them.

Mitch

00:51

@Cerberus I will grant you that French verbs are pretty different. But really the big diference, if you remove the finite set of grammatical markers, is the vocabulary. Much of the French vocabulary is mostly transparent. In contrast, German vocabulary is, from formal to basic, opaque. Basic vocab can be decoded knowing some phonological rules but anything more complicated is inscrutable.

Cerberus

01:31

@Mitch Are there really? And does that make reading easier?

@Mitch It all depends on what your goal is, I suppose. If you want to learn basic conversation, I think German should be easier for an Englishman.

For advancing from basic French to reading academic articles, perhaps French is easier.

@Metool Hello! No, it is wrong.

"Councilman Simmons" is not an apposition, so there shouldn't be two comma's around it; the first comma only serves to separate the appositional phrase at the beginning from the rest of the sentence.

Metool

Many thanks.

Cerberus

01:48

Grammar is fun haha.

Mitch

@Cerberus There are fewer used. 'a' and 'de' are the most used and confused and confusing, the rest are pretty narrowly prescribed.

@Cerberus Hm...maybe...OK I'll go with that and your following claim.

@Cerberus Grammar is useless. You could get the same results stringing together some nouns and smashing your fist on the table for emphasis.

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm never thought about it that way, but I see what you mean. On the other hand, you can confuse à with dans, de with par...

@Mitch Why don't you try that next time, then!

@Mitch But anyway, I think German prepositions resemble English prepositions more. In Berlin = in Berlin...

Auf = on, so auf dem Tisch = on the table.

And nobody can ever decide between de and à, ever!

And is it à la table, or sur la table?

À Paris, or dans Paris?

Robusto

02:31

►

@Cerberus I think it's à Paris.

@Cerberus Mais je suis en Afrique, n'est-ce pas?

tchrist

@Robusto Depends on the corpus.

Yes.

You are always "at" a city or small island, and "in" a country or continent or very big island.

Robusto

Makes sense.

@tchrist Any thoughts on American?

tchrist

It’s probably longer than I imagine.

Do you know the answer?

Bonaparte died at Santa Helena, not in Sicily.

I’m not saying that's right for English.

Just French, and such.

Robusto

@tchrist I was thinking 32 characters would put a name into at least the 80th percentile.

tchrist

You must have a practical reason for this.

Robusto

02:43

Thomas Mallory Glendan-Muttonly III

tchrist

Wow, bat signal at 13.

Robusto

@tchrist Of course. String field to accommodate all but the most idiotically long names.

tchrist

Pick one of the three good numbers in computer science, and be done with it.

Robusto

@tchrist You could be talking about Bruce Wayne's bar mitzvah, I suppose.

@tchrist I already chose 32.

tchrist

32 is not amongst the Holy Numeric Trinity.

Which are 0, 1, and as many as I damned well please.

Anything else is subacceptable.

Stupid toy databases.

It’s like the age-old haggle about the answer to "Would you have sex with that person for $100,000,000?"

Robusto

02:48

Not about databases. If it was, I'd just use a varchar.

It's about how long an input ought to be to show most full names.

tchrist

Oh.

That’s different.

Don’t truncate.

Cut out the middle as need be.

Thomas Mall...Muttonly III

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto An input field on a web form?

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Something like that.

tchrist

I don’t know what "truncating the middle" is called.

Robusto

Antitmesis?

tchrist

02:50

Well, sure.

It’s much better than truncating the end.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Most such fields allow text much longer than can be displayed. I usually just go with whatever field length looks good in the context where the field is displayed.

tchrist

Because we have little-endian names in English.

If you truncate the end, you lose the most important part.

Robusto

One little, two little, three little-Endians.

Yes, but you don't know where the beginning of the end may be.

tchrist

Sure you do.

Robusto

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

Apu ... peemapetilon?

Apu Na ... petilon?

tchrist

02:55

And if her name is Susannah Rosanna-Danna Santa-María-de-la-Pasión Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, you still have an algorithm.

You also have a whacko.

Robusto

I got into an argument with a QA person who fancies himself an arbiter of design.

tchrist

That’s not his job.

Robusto

Tell me about it.

Closet product manager, I guess.

tchrist

Gods.

I am so tired of people bucking for management by being worthless blowhards.

Opinions are their only work-product.

Robusto

But they do love to monopolize meetings.

Especially when others have useful work they could be doing.

tchrist

02:58

meeting <<= 2;

Robusto

Truncating in the middle might be called telescoping.

@tchrist: Actually, ellipsis might very well do.

tchrist

That’s kinda what I was thinking.

Robusto

Or maybe ecthlipsis.

tchrist

Or if it has to be lopsided, maybe an analemma.

j/k

Robusto

Multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
Mult'ill'et terris iactatus et alto

tchrist

03:06

The scribes were lazy.

Robusto

rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/E/ecthlipsis.htm

tchrist

Ask @Cerb.

Scribes had all these now-inscrutable shortcuts for everything.

Robusto

Well, I suppose if one had to illuminate manuscripts by candlelight, one took what shortcuts one could. Especially to make shit fit on a page.

Actually, this might be a good place for syncope as well.

tchrist

Natural light was always the best for that sort of work.

JSBձոգչ

03:46

0

A: How do definitions of words imbue meaning?

Languages are not formal logic systems, and words do not derive their meanings from the definitions in dictionaries. If they did, then your argument would mean something, but as it is what you have is an amusing but pointless exercise. Words derive their meanings from their shared usage in a lin...

supercollider bait. with any luck i'll repcap from this answer alone

honestly, i think the question is sophomoric and a little cheesy, but i like my answer

EnglishMaster

04:51

Jasper Loy

@EnglishMaster Most of the things you post are boring...

@Susan Don't worry about it.

EnglishMaster

Ok sorry

I found it HILARIOUS!

Jasper Loy

0

Q: Is there a plural form of teeth?

Is teeth's a word? Would you say my teeth's enamel is coming off, or my tooth enamel is coming off?

grammatical-number

This question should be nuked, lol.

kalina

08:52

morning!

tchrist

11:29

My god, it’s ten below out. Again.

Matt Эллен

best wrap up warm! Is your boisterous kitten still venturing out?

tchrist

No, neither of them.

I sealed up the cat door very well.

I’m sure they’ve no idea how cold this is.

And the wind is worse.

Matt Эллен

I dread to think

tchrist

Ski-mask weather.

Or lose your nose and ears.

Does it even get this cold where you live?

Matt Эллен

maybe up in Scotland. Not down here

tchrist

11:34

It’s like -25C.

And we're still two and a half hours till sunrise.

Matt Эллен

Oxford's lowest is -16C

tchrist

I did have to bring the longhaired adventurous kitten in last night as it was getting dark. He lurks by the birdfeeder, despite the snow.

He knows no fear. He keeps chasing squirrels high up into the trees.

Matt Эллен

heh. it's lucky he's got someone looking out for him, then!

tchrist

Yes, I’ve had to retrieve him thrice now. He gets up high, then goes out on a narrow limb and can’t turn around to climb back down the trunk.

The lure of the chittering squirrel is too strong.

Once the other kitten came and got me.

To tell me that Lorin needed fetching again.

Matt Эллен

awwww

tchrist

11:43

They look out for each other. They’re very affectionate with each other.

Right now they’re lying on the bed next to my desk cuddling and having a mutual grooming session.

username901345

can you say

some little rice?

Matt Эллен

if the individual grains are smaller than normal

it would probably be more usual to say "a little rice" to indicate not very much rice.

RegDwigнt

Or some rice.

Either works, just not both combined.

(Unless you are after the rather weird meaning Matt has mentioned.)

Looks like I missed a heated discussion about legalese.

username901345

11:58

i see

thank you

Matt Эллен

phrases like "a little", "a lot of", "a bit of" are good for quantifying uncountable things

Cerberus

12:39

@Robusto This is elision.

Robusto

Copula?

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, it's à Paris. But I imagine it must be hard for foreigners to learn.

And en Afrique, oui!

Robusto

And dans une chambre?

Cerberus

Yes, I would say so.

(Although in modern French I believe chambre is usually something like "bedroom". We were taught that "room" is pièce. Except that many rooms have specific names with salle, like salle de bains, salle à manger and such.)

username901345

why don't we have the Shakespeare Q&A here?

Cerberus

12:46

Hello.

RegDwigнt

13:09

So I just did a 180 on an answer and got rich out of that.

Hooray for U-turns.

!!wiki U-turn 1997 film

KitSox

U-turn (disambiguation)

A U-turn is a driving maneuver used to reverse direction. U-turn may also refer to: * U-turn (politics) or flip-flop, a sudden policy change * U-turn (banking), a type of international financial transaction * U-Turn Vending, an American bulk vending company * U-Turn (Serbian coalition), a Serbian political coalition In film and television: * U-Turn (1973 film), a Canadian film by George Kaczender starring Maud Adams * U Turn (1997 film), an American film by Oliver Stone starring Sean Penn * U-turn (Weeds), a recurring character on the TV series Weeds * U-Turn (The Amazing Race), a gamep...

U Turn (1997 film)

U Turn is a 1997 crime film directed by Oliver Stone, based on the book Stray Dogs by John Ridley. It stars Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes and Nick Nolte. Plot A drifter named Bobby (Sean Penn) is on his way to pay off a large debt of $13,000 to a gangster in California when his car breaks down, forcing him to drive to the nearest town, Superior, Arizona. He takes the money with him but leaves his gun in the trunk of his car. While waiting for his car to be fixed by the town mechanic, Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton), he...

KitFox

> The game is alright on the xbox and pc but in playstation this game is terrible. Playstation has bad games that are terribly boring and not even fun at all.

RegDwigнt

Spoken like a tru fanboi.

KitFox

boring and not even fun?

RegDwigнt

Except that a tru tru fanboi wouldn't have played it on PS in the first place.

KitFox

13:15

Wow. I should check it out.

I'm trying to decide if I should buy Minecraft for the wee ones.

RegDwigнt

"I have four PlayStations and I can vow that they all suck and Xbox is better".

Matt Эллен

I dont' know. I think that could work. I play guild wars 2. there's a certain amount of boredom involved, but it's fun.

@KitFox I've not played it, but I think you should

►

KitFox

They've been asking, but I've had the convenient excuse of it's not on PS3, and the computer isn't set up.

Matt Эллен

►

KitFox

Oh. That could be helpful. It's hard to find reasonable reviews.

Matt Эллен

13:17

the second one isn't a review

it's pie in the sky thinking, but it's sort of interesting

KitFox

Most are "it's sooo gr8! teh awesum~!" or "Its sooo stoopid and queer!"

Matt Эллен

:D

KitFox

Which doesn't tell me what I need to know to decide for myself.

Yes, yes, go all the way!

Post-scarcity economy looks fun! No! Bad! There's not enough space for it!

I feel horrible today.

Matt Эллен

but if we're post scarcity, we'll just have more space

@KitFox what's up?

KitFox

I don't know. virus or something.

Well, I'm still not sure if I want to pay $20 for it.

I'm such a tightwad.

> The only complaint I have is the controls on the ps3 I really wired, and takes time to get used to. There is 3 different control schemes but it really means wired, wider, and weirdest.

> This game can be fun, once you get around the XBOX fan boys who say "PLAYSTATION DIDN'T DESERVE THIS". Controls are as strange as the XBOX version, no, this is a ripoff, is a PORT. What else can I say?its minecraft, but still, this is BEST played on PC.

What does this mean?

It's fun, but play it on PC, I guess.

Matt Эллен

13:32

@KitFox "wired, wider and weirdest". Such comparative very spell

KitFox

I agree.

Seems the PS3 version is limited compared to the PC version, but that's probably a good thing for these boys.

And there is co-op, which is great. Probably.

RegDwigнt

Stop braking my breyn.

Matt Эллен

sounds good

KitFox

I'd like them to play together, but it is more likely to devolve into "He burned down my house!" "Well, he knocked over my airplane!"

Matt Эллен

tch. kids!

KitFox

13:36

And then lots of digital retaliation.

muses Of course, that would probably be good for teaching negotiation.

JSBձոգչ

13:47

is this about minecraft? minecraft is on the ps3 now?

RegDwigнt

So, um. @Cerberus, which Civilization game in the Humble Bundle is really worth the one dollar I am willing to pay?

JSBձոգչ

@RegDwigнt 4

Civ V is ok, but Civ IV was the pinnacle

RegDwigнt

Okay.

I'm looking at the graphics and this stuff is overwhelming. I also long stopped playing Sim City for the same reason.

Too complex, too much info in too few pixels.

JSBձոգչ

Civ IV has less graphics, so you've got that

RegDwigнt

Good, good.

JSBձոգչ

13:49

the only thing i like about V is the hexagons. IV has better gameplay and less overall complexity

i should say, less needless complexity

RegDwigнt

Yes, that's exactly what I'm after. No gimmicks. Just the essentials. The barer, the better.

JSBձոգչ

it's still a civ game, though. it's not spartan game design.

RegDwigнt

Yeah a certain amount comes with the territory, I understand that.

JSBձոգչ

maybe you should go back and play this one

RegDwigнt

But what are you thinking playing Civ anyway? Aren't you supposed to be playing Magic?

JSBձոգչ

13:52

i play civ when my magics are on hiatus

RegDwigнt

Yes, but why hiatus. You no pro.

I insist that you have but one interest.

JSBձոգչ

i resist!

RegDwigнt

You have to identify by name the card you are playing in order to resist.

Matt Эллен

JSB's resist is super effective!

RegDwigнt

I roll a 42.

All universe is void. Much bad, very losing.

JSBձոգչ

13:56

RegDwigнt

How French of you.

JSBձոգչ

i'm disappointed that my essay about linguistic meaning only has 10 upvotes

0

Q: How do definitions of words imbue meaning?

How do definitions of words imbue meaning? To give you a gist of what I try to discover, I'll define a collection of sets of words and show that their intersection contains all 'circular defined' words. How do these words gain their meaning? And how can definitions using these words be consider...

meaning logic

RegDwigнt

@JSBձոգչ You have spelled 12 words. That costs you an additional 12.

JSBձոգչ

i thought for sure this was supercollider clickbait

Matt Эллен

it's a linguistics question. what's it doing here?

RegDwigнt

14:04

@JSBձոգչ not with that title, sorry. And three answers is too few.

JSBձոգչ

good point

RegDwigнt

And I can't upvote you twice, I had already pushed you from 9 to 10.

Matt Эллен

I had forgotten to up vote, so, there you go!

RegDwigнt

Oh, but most to the point they seem to have been messing with the Collider lately.

The last couple of days I kept noticing how the questions on it kept changing completely every time I reloaded.

I even got the sex question back a couple times. Which is ancient by now.

The Hot Questions on the SE site are still quite static.

But the ones displayed on the right-hand side of individual sites keep being shuffled.

Which reminds me, I wanted to check on MSO if there was some thread dealing with this change.

JSBձոգչ

@RegDwigнt i observed the same. i think they're making the sort order semi-random rather than a strict ranking

to avoid the "rich get richer" problem

RegDwigнt

14:12

Yeah.

There's a pool from which they pick.

And no thread on MSO. Nothing new anyway.

In fact some ancient requests are still [status-planned] that seem to have long been implemented.

meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/99077/…

KitFox

How dangerous would it be to post my router password here?

bbl

Matt Эллен

@KitFox that's not a very secure password

RegDwigнt

hunter2 is better.

I use it everywhere, and it works.

Matt Эллен

except those crazy places that force you to use upper case but don't allow punctuation

RegDwigнt

Just spell out all punctuationPERIOD

Matt Эллен

14:21

and the crazier ones that have a maximum character limit

RegDwigнt

12345 is too long. Passwords must be 1234.

KitFox

Haha. I can't figure out why my work computer won't connect to the inter tubes, but the wired connection works fine.

The easy answer is because I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what.

and my ear hurts so my brain can't think very well.

mein brain ist ein Berliner.

skullpatrol

what are "inter tubes"?

RegDwigнt

Tubes from Milan.

Matt Эллен

Tubes that go between each other

KitFox

14:38

This is really annoying. There's something very wrong with my router configuration, I think.

skullpatrol

Matt Эллен

@KitFox you can't connect via wifi?

KitFox

I wonder if I should do a hard reset. If I try to connect with my work computer, it messes everything else up.

Then I have no webs, nowhere.

Matt Эллен

wired

KitFox

Not if it's wired. Works fine that way.

Matt Эллен

14:42

wider

KitFox

It's like there is an address conflict or something, but there oughtn't be.

Matt Эллен

so when you connect via wifi from one computer, it borks your net connection?

but not other computers?

KitFox

Um, yes. If I connect from the work computer via wifi, it kicks my iPad and my other computer. Not sure about the ps3.

Matt Эллен

hmmm

KitFox

And also connects, but I can't access the internet.

Mitch

14:49

@Cerberus The table is broken. Jabbing the air is for losers.

@KitFox Gah, I hate that, boring and not fun. One or the other would be tolerable.

KitFox

15:03

I am soooo frustrated!!!

RegDwigнt

And I just can't hated!!!

I know I know I know I know you like it, like it.

KitFox

15:20

At least I remembered the router password.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

was it K1tF0x?

RegDwigнt

No, hunter2.

KitFox

...no...

RegDwigнt

She couldn't use capitals.

@KitFox sorry, right. It was "bbl".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Wh4td035th3K1tF0xS4y?

RegDwigнt

15:22

But I still insist that "hunter2" is safer.

KitFox

I'm trying again. Brb

RegDwigнt

Brb is not much stronger.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Actually Wh4td035th3K1tF0xS4y? is a good password. I'm changing my wifi AP to use that.

RegDwigнt

It's a bad password because you can't possibly remember which letters you unlettered.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

All of them, except the S in say

RegDwigнt

15:24

It's like every third most of the time, except for the other times when it's not.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

every letter that has an obv number sub

RegDwigнt

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I do see two ts that are no 7s.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

oh, I didn't do T's

RegDwigнt

See.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

vowels.

and one s.

RegDwigнt

15:25

You are not 1337, dude.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah and then there's that.

What's the deal with the one S but not the other.

Combinatorial assplosion.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You do know the purpose of passwords is to make them hard for attackers to guess, right?

So. Google takes pictures you've taken and adds snow to them.

RegDwigнt

Yes. Attackers. Not yourself.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The next day, we get 15cm of real snow.

Thanks, Google!

RegDwigнt

Just another cheap trick to get ahold of your images.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, they already HAVE my images.

RegDwigнt

15:29

QED

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's just another cheap trick now that they have my images.

RegDwigнt

They get more images from people who now want to add snow to everything.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So in lego api news, I got the rebrickable guy to set up CORS access, so you can call rebrickable's api from javascript.

RegDwigнt

That's a very basic loop, by the way. A clear pattern, and of less than a second.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 oh good thing you reminded me of Rebrickable.

I was meaning to look up OVER 9000 parts.

I need to finally fill my gratis bucket, from the PAB wall.

And yesterday they finally added new stuff to the one in my store.

So I wrote it all down and now I have to look up how much of each stuff I have/need.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I've made a little JS ui that, given the html content of my entire parts list, sorts the parts by various categories and makes tables so I can analyze the collection.

@RegDwigнt ah, my little utility can do that

with a bit of JS coding and a smidge of copy/paste of html

It has an array of part ids (currently hard-coded). It iterates over the collection (which it scrapes from the copypasta html all-parts grid export) and makes a table showing how many of each part you have in what colours.

KitFox

15:36

Ima throw the whole thing out the window.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If you mouse-over the coloured bricks on the left it shows you the colour name

What it doesn't do, yet, is use the api to get the actual parts list from rebrickable

RegDwigнt

15:56

+ 1 I was about to say more or less the same, but was distracted by a telephone call. — Barrie England 6 mins ago

So that is how you beat Barrie.

You just call him while typing up your answer.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…