English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

00:00

Players earning half a billion a year between them, wearing full-body armor, playing a dumbed-down version for the masses, and forgetting to score but never forgetting to be pricks. Reminds me of certain other "sports" I stopped watching a while ago.

@Cerberus cinema. I would say cinema, and I can't imagine anyone saying anything else.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt How about, "we were sitting in ... number 2, at the top floor"?

I would call the entire building the cinema, but not the room?

I Dutch, I would say zaal.

What would you say in German?

RegDwigнt

Yes, same in German.

Cerberus

OK.

RegDwigнt

Anyway, in the US they call them "multi-theaters", so I suppose you could get away with calling the individual rooms theaters.

That actually reminds me of a Seinfeld episode.

> Elaine: I don't wanna go to a... miniplex multi-theater!
George: It's the same movie! What's the difference?
Elaine: It's not a theater, it's like a room where they bring in POWs to show them propaganda films.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Yeah I was afraid someone would say that...

But I just don't like calling something a theatre that really isn't.

RegDwigнt

00:11

There's another episode still, which is even more fitting.

The Pool Guy

"The Pool Guy" is the 118th episode of NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the eighth episode of the seventh season. It aired on November 16, 1995. The end credit states "In Memory of our Friend Rick Bolden"; Rick Bolden was one of the musicians who worked on the show's theme song. Plot Elaine befriends Susan. Jerry meets his pool guy outside a movie, and then he can't get rid of him. George is worried by Elaine wanting to get to know Susan ("The two worlds collide!"). Kramer's new phone number (555-FILK) is similar to a film information line (555-FILM). When Kramer keeps receiving wrong number...

> Susan, Elaine and Jerry then go to a movie, and George arrives to look for them, using Kramer's information. He hung up the phone before Kramer tells him that the movie is playing at two theaters, so he shows up at the wrong theater and starts yelling for them.

The theater in question being one of the many "rooms" in the same facility. A zaal.

So there you have it.

Straight from Wikipedia.

Cerberus

Right.

I've heard it being called that.

But...

RegDwigнt

> KRAMER: (picks up paper) Chunnel, is playing at the Paragon 84th Street
cinema in the main theater at 9:30 PM.
GEORGE: Yeah, now I gotcha! (hangs up the phone and rushes out the
door)
KRAMER: It's also playing in theater number two at 9:00.

@Cerberus it's "movie theatre" in Russian, too. Probably a calque, but that's beside the point.

Though the deal with the movie theatres in Russia, or at least with movie theatres in the USSR, was that they could in point of fact be used as theatres. They had a scene, and the canvas was hanging above it.

Cerberus

Better.

RegDwigнt

But it still wasn't a proper theatre apart from that. I mean, you didn't have all the backstage apparatus, all the rooms and the dresses and the makeup. It was just a building with a scene you could use to hail Stalin on.

Cerberus

Hehe.

That is important.

Robusto

00:20

@RegDwigнt Yeah, in the old days even the goalies didn't wear masks.

RegDwigнt

So yeah, on 9th of May you'd probably have some kind of concert on that scene, and an occasional amateur play perhaps, but that's about it. Still, not just a room with a canvas for one wall.

Robusto

Don't get me started on pampered athletes, though. Been there, done that.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto never mind masks, I was worried about their teeth. It doesn't take a sport or an opponent or really anything at all to lose some teeth on ice. It just takes the ice.

And of course the gentlemen didn't look like they had ever heard of suspensories, or wouldn't be appalled at the idea of wearing one if they had heard of them.

Whatchacall them, jockstraps?

They wouldn't wear anything that's called a jock strap.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Yes.

That's where we get the term jocks, BTW. Metonymy in action!

Mitch

@RegDwigнt In the US you would call the individual room a 'theater', but you would never call the building 'multi-theater'. You'd call the building either 'theater' or 'theaters' or if it is at a suburban mall, it might be referred to as the 'multiplex'

RegDwigнt

00:26

@Mitch Seinfeld was written in, for, and by the US.

If "multi-theater" is okay for Seinfeld, it is okay for me.

Anyway. My original point was that when saying "I was sitting in the cinema in the back" or whatever, I would say just that, cinema.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt You'd say Kino. Admit it.

RegDwigнt

Then Cerberus came up with the scenario where you had to specifically distinguish between two different salles, by calling them things.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt it is very infelicitous. I would not ever use such a term. It sounds like an intentional 'awkwardness', a word choice that people make mistakenly when trying to compose a sentence on the fly.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto Actually I wouldn't say anything at all. I stopped going to Kino after Django Unchained, and never looked back.

Robusto

You didn't miss much.

Movies have started to suck ass lately.

RegDwigнt

00:30

@Mitch are you suggesting that awkward sentences mistakenly composed on the fly is not what Cerberus is after?

Why would anyone suggest such a thing?

Robusto

But TV, on the other hand, is getting better and better. The new season of House of Cards on Netflix is even better than the first one was. And I didn't think it could get better.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto I am about to finally start watching HoC.

They actually started airing it here, in English. But I missed that boat, so will have to watch online.

Robusto

My wife and I enjoy it very much. We have to keep ourselves from binge-watching.

Mitch

"miniplex multi-theater": she's saying words that don't go together normally to show how weird words like multiplex are and the concept of having many theaters in one .

RegDwigнt

I am a bit busy these days binge-watching Sochi, so everything else has to wait.

Mitch

00:33

@RegDwigнt Um... yes?

RegDwigнt

I actually took the last few days off, and yet I had been getting much more sleep when I was working.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt I am actually about to not watch that.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch you are a rebel, no news to us.

Mitch

Woo hoo! Party! Say no to authority!

RegDwigнt

Anyway. I only really came online to grab my Cuusoo stats for the day.

I should be sleeping, as Sochi will be on again in less than six hours.

Toddles pip, as them Brits say.

Robusto

00:40

@RegDwigнt BTW, I caught an episode of The Colbert Report which featured members of Pussy Riot. I thought they were great. Before I just reflexively supported them, but now I think they're awesome.

Johan Larsson

01:01

ツ

^ nice smiley

Robusto

tsu

Robusto

01:19

@tchrist: The story I was trying to think of was "The Sixth Palace" by Robert Silverberg. Available on Amazon in a collection. Kindle edition.

> I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Amazon will one day own everything.

MετάEd

@Cerberus You can’t say that again.

@Robusto UPS, even.

tchrist

03:09

@Cerberus I guess I could have said short. I didn’t want to say simple. And answerer isn’t short.

Cerberus

03:23

It is nigh impossible to get around French in English.

RegDwigнt

13:13

@Cerberus how is that a surprise given that English doesn't even have a word for "possible"!

> Synonyms for possible: achievable, available, conceivable, desirable, feasible, imaginable, potential, probable, viable; expedient, practicable; hypothetical

Even doable won't work because of the able.

English is not possible. QED.

Cerberus

13:59

@RegDwigнt [That] which may be?

Somewhat likely?

RegDwigнt

14:15

@Cerberus that is four words, not one.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt You damn SWRer!

Hckr

17:15

Hi guys . (1)The world's oldest known bound book is a prayer book. (2) The book is
over 1,600 years old. (3) It was discovered in a child's grave in 1984. (4)The book's
nearly 500 hand-written pages were stuck together. (5) Experts had to separate each
page. (6)The book is now on display in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

Which one is topic sentence in this paragraph 1 or 6?

What do you think?

skullpatrol

1

Hckr

(1) Black ice is an invisible coating of ice that forms on an asphalt road
surface. (2) Black ice is very dangerous. (3) It is caused by drizzle falling on the
frozen pavement. (4) Drivers don't know the roadway is icy. (5) When their cars hit
the ice, they skid out of control. (6) Sometimes cars bounce off of each other like
characters in an video game. (7) Sometimes they skid off the roadway into ditches.
(8) Incidences of black ice have caused numerous collisions and deaths in the colder
regions of the country.

I said 1, too. But the result says one of my answers to these two questions is wrong

For second one?

I said 2?

What do you think?

skullpatrol

1

Hckr

Why?

skullpatrol

what does a "topic sentence" mean to you?

Hckr

17:26

a sentence that expresses the main idea of the paragraph in which it occurs.

skullpatrol

Topic sentence

The topic sentence is a prescriptive grammatical term to describe the sentence in an expository paragraph which summarizes the main idea of that paragraph. It is usually the first sentence in a paragraph. Also known as a focus sentence, it encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the beginning. The topic sentence acts as a kind of summary, and offers the reader an insightful view of the writer’s main ideas for the following paragraph. More than just being a mere summary, howev...

Robusto

17:44

@RegDwigнt: So what is it about Eastern European audiences that makes them always clap on the downbeat, even in jazz, rock, etc.? Have they never heard of "back beat"? And why do they feel compelled to clap anyway? What do they think they're adding?

skullpatrol

participation?

like singing along...

Robusto

17:59

Probably. If participation in a piece of music means destroying it.

skullpatrol

like Karaoke

Robusto

Does anybody even pretend to enjoy karaoke?

skullpatrol

the participants seem to

skullpatrol

18:13

@Robusto I read in the news that a gangster shot someone who complained about his Karaoke.

Robusto

So he committed two crimes.

skullpatrol

indeed

tchrist

18:37

French spacing alert:

0

Q: Right adjective for an unexpected solution to a math problem

I asked for help about a mathematics problem on M.SE and someone answered with a valid proof resorting to a reasoning I wouldn't have imagined, without giving details about how he got that idea. Is there an adjective or a phrase that qualifies such a proof ? To a more general extent, how do you ...

word-choice

Hm sorti du chapeau — pulling a rabbit out of a hat? Or an ass-pull?

skullpatrol

Math is infamous for it.

Physics is worse...

...they can do violence to one's common sense.

tchrist

19:20

Hm, did the main site take a nosedive?

Damkerng T.

19:31

I can barely access anything SE now.

It seems like I'm not alone.

tchrist

Chat's ok, but that's it.

And notice how few heads there are up there right now.

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. Exactly!

tchrist

Perhaps we now exist in a parallel universe, and the rest of them are in another.

Damkerng T.

LOL

tchrist

Even chat is flakey.

Damkerng T.

19:35

I don't know what happened.

tchrist

Massive EMP?

Sunspots? Nuclear detonations?

Damkerng T.

No idea.

I've never seen SE like this before.

tchrist

Don’t they have a bicoastal failover server setup?

Damkerng T.

@tchrist Hehe. I just answered a question about that nuclear deal a few days ago.

tchrist

See what you’ve gone and done!

Damkerng T.

19:39

I hope I didn't make anyone push any button.

tchrist

Can anybody get to Tavern on the Meta?

I don’t know its ID.

Damkerng T.

I think I can't. I can access only chat rooms for now.

tchrist

That is a chat room. I don’t know its number.

Outside the Teacher's Lounge, it’s the best place to go for sitewide trouble.

You reach it from the SO main, but I can’t get there.

Hm, I may be able to figure this out.

Got it.

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 22 secs ago, by hichris123

Our network provider is experiencing a bit of increased traffic. We and they are investigating.

Tweeted by StackStatus on February 16, 2014 at 7:15 PM

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 21 mins ago, by ThiefMaster

@EvanCarroll: Stop DDoSing SO.

Damkerng T.

Ah, thanks for the news.

tchrist

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by hichris123

@brianprossi should be minutes; we know the "what" etc; just pushing out reconfiguration

Tweeted by marcgravell on February 16, 2014 at 7:44 PM in reply to brianprossi

tchrist

20:10

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 3 mins ago, by hichris123

We have partially mitigated a DDoS attack against our network. We are continuing to watch traffic.

Tweeted by StackStatus on February 16, 2014 at 8:05 PM

Main site not back though.

SO is back.

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, 54 secs ago, by hichris123

@domurtag we're working our way through the list of domains

Tweeted by marcgravell on February 16, 2014 at 8:11 PM in reply to domurtag

Looks like SO was hors de combat some 45 minutes total.

And we still are.

It’s like slowly crawling your way back on up out of the Abyss.

Which is probably a preposition foul, but this is English, so it’s fine.

21

Q: What just happened to StackOverflow?

StackOverflow was down for a long time here, probably about an hour. Anybody know what the cause was?

discussion stackoverflow downtime

Damkerng T.

20:25

Hope it can rise above the Abyss soon enough.

tchrist

Aye.

This is pretty awesome.

Damkerng T.

Amazingly awesome!

Hey, ELL main has just come back up!

tchrist

20:43

Ironic.

tchrist

21:31

I’m rather disappointed we’re still down.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... I still cannot access the ELU main.

Damkerng T.

21:55

Hoo-ray! ELU main is up now!

Stack Exchange

22:25

Limerick Machine: I’m afraid that I have to confess My nose is a bunged snotty mess My head is a-pounding My...

posted on February 16, 2014 by sgdi

I’m afraid that I have to confess My nose is a bunged snotty mess My head is a-pounding My mood’s a resounding “Bleh!” with a side of distress

Cerberus

22:36

Hey!

Who are those people DDOSing us?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@JohanLarsson yay Sweden!

Johan Larsson

did you watch it?

The women race was pretty insane

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

No, we were out but just caught the end.

Is it a relay? I hope it's a relay.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto the second question is the one I keep asking. I hate them so much for thinking it's adding something.

Johan Larsson

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 relay?

RegDwigнt

22:47

The first question is trivial, actually. Your back beat shit is way too recent. The down beat has been around for ages, It's engraved in the musical tradition. Engraved indeed since there was no other musical tradition in the First World, and there was no other world but the First.

"One two three four" (backbeat) is a very American thing. It's the spine of jazz (and rock), but not of classical music. "In music that progresses regularly in 4/4 time, the first down-beat is usually the strongest accent in the melody and the likeliest place for a chord change, the third is the next strongest: these are 'on' beats." That's why it's so hard to teach, say, a German to clap on two, four, six, eight. Their musical tradition is very different. — RegDwight May 4 '11 at 23:01

And of course you know all that, and in point of fact half of that comment was lifted verbatim from a chat post of yours in this very room.

Feb 16 '11 at 10:59, by Robusto

Seriously, clapping on the downbeat? Is that an Eastern European thing?

See there. We discussed.

And I'm out for tonight.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

23:04

@JohanLarsson yeah, like there's a team of five and each person skis a fifth of the race.

Johan Larsson

oh, yeah, they are only four though

LeSam

hi

I would to know, does the expression : "I want your head", means I want to kill you ?

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Then we're agreed.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Heyyyy, it's cornbread!

Ain't seen you around for a while.

@RegDwigнt I bow to your many open browser tabs.

It just kills me every time I watch something like the Olympics where an EE crowd feels obliged to clap to the music.

Johan Larsson

23:20

What does this ^ mean?

Robusto

@JohanLarsson It is a caret. It means the beginning of a string in a regular expression (and is also the not operator inside a bracketed group of tokens).

Johan Larsson

ok but what about the clap to music thing?

Robusto

I was watching the Olympics, the ice dancing, and one couple's music was Henry Mancini's Theme to The Pink Panther. Whereupon the entire stadium started clapping on the downbeat. Which is anti-idiomatic for that music.

►

Listen for yourself. If you were to clap along, where would you clap?

Also, let it be noted that the crowd couldn't find the downbeat—literally—with both hands. They clapped all around it, mostly late.

Johan Larsson

I would probably clap wrong :)

Robusto

I figured.

►

Bach used backbeat. ^

Johan Larsson

23:41

watching a movie here

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Heeeere's cornbread!

@JohanLarsson Okay, swell.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That is corny.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

All work and no play makes cornbread something something.

Robusto

Cornbread should be eaten while hot out of the oven.

tchrist

@Robusto Picardy third at the end, like the world has a happy ending after all.

Robusto

23:54

@tchrist Well, if you're listening to Bach how could it not?

tchrist

If you want strange clapping, try the asymmetric meters of eastern Europe. 7 games and such.

Robusto

I don't begrudge the Slavs their polkas and what have you. I just wish they wouldn't try to clap to the downbeats in jazz and rock.

tchrist

They probably don’t know how not to.

Robusto

I know it's difficult for them. I just wish it were impossible.

Dec 1 '12 at 14:46, by Robusto

But I'm reminded of Samuel Johnson's comment when he heard a violinist playing a piece poorly. Someone objected to his criticism, saying the piece was very difficult. He replied, "Difficult? I wish it were impossible!"

tchrist

And now one knows why the Little Fugue in Gm is called “the little”. The Great Fugues are truly grand.

Robusto

23:58

They're all great.

►

Were you the one who pointed this one out to me?

tchrist

To sit amongst the pipes and watch a master’s fingers fly.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…