English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user19161

6:16 PM

@reg I am curious what present you have for Kit, and I just learnt that you are Justin Bieber.

user19161

@matt Checked out your website. The avatar is pretty accurate, except for the two locks of hair below.

@JasperLoy Thanks! yeah the photo on my website is quite old. 2005 I think. I've had a few different beards since then. Also my hair is longer now, about the same length as my avatar.

user19161

OK I took the vocab test above, and my score is very low, compared to Cerberus. 14,400.

user19161

And to be accurate, the test takes about 5 min, or maybe I'm just taking too long to think about whether I should check the box.

user19161

6:37 PM

To recap: z7sg 32,900, Cerberus 34,400 and me 14,400 at testyourvocab.com. Do post your scores here!

RegDwight

@JasperLoy @Kit's got my present already, and it's up to her to show or not show it around.

in War Metal Tyrant, 53 mins ago, by RegDwight

So we have Vitaly at 25k+, myself at 30k+, z7sg at 33k, Cerberus at 34k+ and Rob at 42k+.

Robusto

testyourvocab.com/?r=68255

F'x

@RegDwight 33,300

RegDwight

Wow you beat @z7sg

F'x

but I'm amazed at the number of words which come from Latin roots (which helps a lot, of course, as I tend to memorize those much more easily)

RegDwight

6:41 PM

Surprise, surprise.

in War Metal Tyrant, 2 hours ago, by Cerberus

The Greek and Latin words just aren't that hard for me, while I must shamefully admit to finding certain short, Germanic words very hard to define out of context, like nib.

F'x

@RegDwight what I mean is, it's probably easier for me to dissert on the striation of felids’ vibrissae than to describe snowfall

RegDwight

48 mins ago, by Jasper Loy

One syllable words are the hardest.

@Fx Fair enough.

This, however:

54 mins ago, by Cerberus

If only they had included a few common vegetables, I'd have gotten a much lower score...

is probably true of native speakers, too.

Matt Ellen

I scored a mere 30600

RegDwight

At least I know that I can't tell fish and vegetables and mushrooms apart in any language.

I mean.

Wait.

Well, you know what I mean.

Matt Ellen

They all look quite different

user19161

6:46 PM

Maybe my low score is because I'm being honest with myself. If there is any shadow of uncertainty, I would not check the box.

RegDwight

I know how to fix that. Go check all boxes!

Matt Ellen

Yeah! skew their results!

Make sure to mark yourself as under 15 years old, too

RegDwight

Exactly. They should probably publish the exact number you would get for checking everything, because otherwise people are just curious and won't stop wanting to see.

On the other side of the spectrum, I wonder what happens if I check just the first five words.

Grace Note

34,100

I missed almost the entire last column of the second page, though

user19161

I retook the test, and got 14, 800. So I hereby declare that my score, taking the average, is 14, 600!

user19161

6:55 PM

And I would not want to check all the boxes and mess up their research big time. Please people!

Grace Note

@JasperLoy I think the back end of it notes that if you don't fill in the very last section, it will not count the survey (and suggests that you skip it, if you lied in the previous sections)

user19161

The first time I did it by column and the second time by row. Maybe that makes a difference too. But, as I always say, the real experts have limited vocab as they can express themselves clearly using few words!

Grace Note

@RegDwight This puts you at a distinct disadvantage at certain testing procedures.

Oh, good, mine was less than @Cerberus.

user19161

@GraceNote Mine is embarrassingly low.

Grace Note

@JasperLoy How long have you known the language?

user19161

7:01 PM

@GraceNote My whole life. But I was never really into expanding vocab.

Grace Note

@JasperLoy Well, that'd do it.

Comparatively, I play a wide range of video games and listen to lots of foreign music (which is where I personally learned "pabulum". When you play games like those titled Subterranean Animism, you start to pick up a lot of unusual and random words in your travels.

user19161

@GraceNote Which is why I did not know what is swag and sharpie, when Jeff announced the T-shirts, if you remember!

Grace Note

@JasperLoy I cannot recall that which I had not perceived.

RegDwight

@GraceNote Noob.

Alenanno

@RegDwight I hope no-one ever translates them.

Matt Ellen

7:16 PM

Don't get me wrong. I've just finished Puzzle Agent, and Ben there Dan that, and enjoyed them well enough, and I enjoy a good round on DoW II Retribution's Last Stand game mode.

But do you know what game I keep going back to?

Freecell

user19161

@Alenanno Translates what to what?

Alenanno

@JasperLoy

-1

Q: Why nobody tries to replace Italian music terminology with English terms?

In music we have many terms like Andantino, Allegro, and similar terms which are mentioned here. These terms are really misleading and far from intuitive and cause learners to concentrate on terminology instead of concentrating on music itself. Why nobody has translated these terms in era of Engl...

Matt Ellen

Every evening, I start thinking "I know, I'll do something productive" whether that's a blog thing, or a programming thing, or a reading thing. but in the end I just put some music on and play freecell.

user19161

@Alenanno I would actually close it as off-topic.

Alenanno

Well it was about English usage after all, but not put in a good way

no?

RegDwight

7:19 PM

@JasperLoy I would have migrated it to Musical Practice and Performance, but it's not constructive in its current form.

82

Musical Practice and Performance – music.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for musicians, students, and enthusiasts. Topics include practice & performance, composition, technique, theory, and history.

Currently in public beta.

user19161

@MattEllen Since I don't play computer games, I even had to look up freecell.

RegDwight

Haha, the OP has asked another question already. @Alenanno

He's on a roll.

Matt Ellen

@JasperLoy If you like logical puzzles that are not language based, you'll like freecell

RegDwight

Wait... is it the same guy who answered that water cooler question?

For sure he is!

user19161

@MattEllen If you really want to do something, just try to be disciplined and put your heart into it. Motivational psychology!

Alenanno

7:23 PM

@RegDwight lol anyway he replied on the comments

Matt Ellen

@JasperLoy This is true. I guess I have a hard time deciding! there are so many things to pick from.

user19161

@MattEllen But really, just do whatever makes you happy. Don't feel obliged to conform to anything, but your own interests, passions, values etc.

Matt Ellen

@JasperLoy Today i was trying to get myself to read The Pragmatic Programmer, because I want ot give it back to my boss, and I want to learn from it. But I really wanted to read Gödel, Escher, Bach, because I've started on the first chapter and it's really caught my interest.

So I was trying to get myself to do the "right" thing (right to my mind) and, during the struggle, by some sort of reflex, I ended up playing Freecell.

It's not even a conscious decision :D

RegDwight

@Alenanno I replied back, and now I gotta run. Laterz.

Alenanno

7:39 PM

@RegDwight I saw it, I agree and replied. See you :)

user19161

@MattEllen One way to resolve this is to order your list of activities first by urgency, and then by importance. At least that's what the gurus say.

Matt Ellen

@JasperLoy If I knew what wanted from life I could tell you which was more important ;-)

user19161

7:57 PM

@MattEllen It sounds like what you may need is some meditation or stilling of the mind or quietness to achieve some clarity of perspective then.

Matt Ellen

@JasperLoy It certainly couldn't hurt

user19161

@MattEllen How did you create the free backgrounds on your website?

Matt Ellen

8:14 PM

@JasperLoy Well, a couple are screen grabs from Google maps that i made into tileable images

Some are pictures that I drew and then edited with GIMP

And the others are just images I creates with GIMP and my mouse

Oh, and there is one computer generated tile, too

I wrote a small programme to make that one

user19161

@MattEllen Well, you can create lots of diagrams with LaTeX, if you ever learn that. Not only can you do text, you can also do mathematical diagrams, projector presentations, general graphics and function plots using different packages. LaTeX currently comes in over 2000 packages. Of course any one person would only use a few for his particular needs.

Matt Ellen

8:37 PM

sounds like a complex language!

user19161

@roland I see you have changed your picture again.

Roland Taylor

yep

user19161

@RolandTaylor Do you have any idea why 13.04 is marked as LTS in the schedule? I was ignored in the other room.

Roland Taylor

@JasperLoy not quite sure about that one; 14.04 should be the next LTS to my knowledge.

user19161

@RolandTaylor Which is why I was surprised. I thought Ubuntu decided to change its cycle. Personally I would prefer a yearly but more polished release.

user19161

8:47 PM

@psmears Do take the test at testyourvocab.com and post your score here!

Roland Taylor

@JasperLoy there probably is a very simple reason for the change, such as needing a stable version with Unity.

user19161

@RolandTaylor Ya to be honest, I'm thinking of switching to Debian with Unity and all, but of course, 11.10 will come with gnome shell already.

Roland Taylor

9:06 PM

@JasperLoy Awww... my message in reply did not go through because of my internet :(

Matt Ellen

goodnight you funky gibbons!