English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

terdon

16:00

I remember a Q on the main site where someone posted what I considered to be a horrible sentence that turned out to have been written by one of the greats. That did not make it a better sentence.

user4550

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution

Matt Эллен

@terdon he mispells honour :Þ

terdon

@MattЭллен chauvinist :)

Matt Эллен

:D

user4550

that is by Thoreau.

clearly ungrammatical

terdon

16:01

@user4550 Where's the mistake in that? Apart from the lack of a full stop that is.

user4550

long ago and present perfect

Robusto

Thoreau wrote 160 years ago. You could find hard-to-understand (by today's standards) passages in any authors of the period.

@user4550 You don't know what you're talking about.

terdon

That.

user4550

back up your claim

terdon

Back up yours.

user4550

16:03

present perfect and ago can't be used together.

ago implies past

Mitch

@MattЭллен There's also 2/3. Think about it. It's pretty cool.

terdon

Says who? Why?

Robusto

What!

user4550

grammar book

Matt Эллен

@Mitch mind = asplode

user4550

16:03

you can't say

terdon

@user4550 change it

Mitch

@MattЭллен Clean up on aisle 10.

terdon

I have long ago decided to mistrust grammar books.

user4550

why do you insist on ungrammatical grammar?

Mitch

@Robusto Uh ... yeah it does... if anything where else would good drivel come from?

Robusto

16:04

Where are you from, user4550, and what is your native language?

Matt Эллен

@Mitch Stop divelling on my shoulder

terdon

dribbling?

Mitch

@terdon I wouldn't trust a grammar book further than I could throw it. Which is pretty far, like 30 yards if I get a running start.

Matt Эллен

@terdon even worse!

Robusto

@Mitch I would pay to see that.

terdon

16:05

@Mitch Dunno, some of the buggers are heavy!

Mitch

@MattЭллен Fine, do it yourself then.

terdon

@user4550 there is nothing ungrammatical about that sentence, and there are very few, if indeed any, "rules" that can be applied to English across the board.

Mitch

@terdon Yeah, I'm exaggerating. Probably could do ten yards with a small one.

terdon

Elements of style could reach a good 50.

Mitch

@terdon don't put prepositions in the middle of words.

@terdon If you put some wrist action in there to spin it.

Matt Эллен

16:07

@Mitch don't insert fucking after the second syllable of a three syllable word

Robusto

@Mitch Hmm ... Tell that to S + up + erman. Wait, you said preposition. Let me think: OK, tell it to T + in + toretto.

terdon

@Mitch Why not? What about Tether? That's a the right there!

Mitch

@Robusto I don't think Joyce even thought to even car about rules. Breaking them implies some sort of worth in them.

@MattЭллен Abso-fucking-lute.

terdon

ly

Robusto

@Mitch Right, he knew what he wanted to express.

@terdon Stop lying.

terdon

16:10

@Robusto Which, after two attempts to read Ulysses is more than I do.

Robusto

He is not widely read, though he is revered by those who do read him.

terdon

> Classic: A book that everyone praises and nobody reads.

Cerberus

Hey!

terdon

dammit

Matt Эллен

Hey!

Cerberus

16:12

There are enough people who do.

terdon

Ho!

Cerberus

That was a hey of indignation.

terdon

I didn't say that, Twain did!

Cerberus

Hrmpf.

Very well, then.

I shall get off your back.

Robusto

@Cerberus Making hey while the sun shines for a change?

terdon

16:12

> I don't believe any of you have ever read PARADISE LOST, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic -- something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
- "The Disappearance of Literature" speech, 20 November 1900

Mitch

HEY! sorry my mute button was on.

Cerberus

@Robusto Is hay not normally dried by sunlight?

@Mitch How dare you!

Mitch

@Robusto There are so many books I've thought were great before I read them.

Robusto

@terdon Hear, hear. I wish Milton had burned that thing.

Cerberus

Surely many of us here have read many classics?

Robusto

16:14

@Cerberus Hay is. And maybe "hey" as well. But you don't normally do things by sunlight, IIRC.

Mitch

@Cerberus Dare I? It was the easiest thing in the world. LIke warm butter off a duck's back.

terdon

@Robusto Should have lent it to Baldrick.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is the sunlight that does.

@Mitch Eww.

Robusto

I think Cerberus is a vampire doggy. He usually only comes out at night.

Cerberus

Don't make me post pictures of duck penes...

terdon

16:14

@Cerberus Yes, but I doubt we are are a representative slice of the population. We hang out here for starters.

MrHen

Wait, what is senses for?

Mitch

@Cerberus That's how you get it nice and moist.

terdon

@MrHen Smelly posts?

Mitch

@Cerberus Look man...you're taking it that way, not me.

Cerberus

@terdon "We" were never a slice of the general population. Culture was never of the masses.

Matt Эллен

16:15

@MrHen I'm not sure. it's a tag hippy trail seems to be adding every where

Cerberus

(And I don't mean culture in the sociological sense.)

Mitch

@Cerberus I have culture, in my refrigerator.

MrHen

@MattЭллен I just approved a really terrible wiki edit because it was better than nothing...

terdon

@Cerberus You asked for it:

►

MrHen

But I don't really know what the tag should be for

Cerberus

16:16

@Mitch Or biological.

Matt Эллен

@MrHen Is it perhaps synonymous with meaning?

Robusto

@MrHen I have no idea. Unless it's OK to make random nouns into tags.

MrHen

@MattЭллен Or maybe connotations?

Mitch

Which reminds me, they say that the species of mold in roquefort is the same as in toejam.

Robusto

pliers

MrHen

16:17

"For questions specifically dealing with the various different senses of a single word or term."

terdon

> For questions specifically dealing with the various different senses of a single word or term.

eww

Robusto

differences

similarities

opinions

facts

Matt Эллен

@MrHen oh, yeah, could be

Robusto

quasi-facts

MrHen

robustos

Mitch

16:18

@MrHen it's a shame we all live with. Wait...did you say tag-wiki-edit instead of losing children at the department store?

Matt Эллен

incomprehensibilities

MrHen

useless-tags

terdon

queasy-facts?

Mitch

@Robusto That's allowed in only some non-standard varieties of English.

Robusto

question

Matt Эллен

16:19

word

terdon

@Robusto Seriously? And it has loads of tagged, umm, questions.

MODS!

Robusto

I know, right?

thanks-in-advance

Matt Эллен

questions about questions

Robusto

There are already questions about question tags!

Matt Эллен

!!

KitSox

16:20

@MattЭллен I didn't understand that. Maybe you meant: t

Matt Эллен

nope

terdon

t? Why t?

!!t

KitSox

@terdon Input not matching /(\w+) (\w+) (\w+)/. Help: User-taught command: <>http://www.wordreference.com/$1$2/$3

Robusto

25

Q: Punctuating question tags: A question mark is always required, isn't it. (Well, isn't it?)

Consider the sentence: You didn't leave the dog in the car, did you? In oral English, this statement may be spoken with a rising intonation or a falling one. If the former, it suggests that leaving the dog in the car is a bad thing, and might even suggest incredulity and consternation on th...

By me!

MrHen

0

Q: What is [tag:senses]?

senses has approximately 9 questions tagged but I have no idea what this tag is for. Is it basically the same as differences? The tag wiki suggests: For questions specifically dealing with the various different senses of a single word or term. But that hardly clears up the confusion.

discussion tags tag-synonyms

Cerberus

16:20

@terdon Hilarious! Didn't know that one.

terdon

@Cerberus Yeah, isn't it great? She's made quite a few :)

Cerberus

I Googled her, is this the famous Italian actress?

Or is it a common name?

Probably the latter...

Robusto

i-am-joes-smirking-revenge

terdon

@Cerberus Nope, that's her. She apparently went and got herself a degree in biology.

Cerberus

Cool.

Bradd Szonye

16:24

0

A: Which is the older sense of the word "linguist"?

The earliest sense of linguist simply means a skilled speaker, such as a rhetorician: linguist (n.) 1580s, “a master of language, one who uses his tongue freely,” a hybrid from Latin lingua “language, tongue” (see lingual) + -ist. Meaning “a student of language” first attested 1640s. The ...

Cerberus

It doesn't work with apostrophae?

Surely that can't be it?

Robusto

Tags ought to allow for punctuation.

terdon

apostrophae? apostrophae?

MrHen

@Robusto They allow hyphens.

Matt Эллен

tags allow nothing but lowercase ascii letters

Robusto

16:25

Besides that.

Matt Эллен

oh, yeah, and hyphens

plus they're limited in length, but I can't remember what to

Bradd Szonye

Pimpin’ my answer cuz the question already has several, and I don't think any of them are exactly on point.

Robusto

drivel

Bradd Szonye

@Robusto Oo we need that tag.

terdon

1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

Not that limited apparently, at least not in chat

Robusto

16:27

pi-to-300-decimal-places

terdon

@BraddSzonye Surely it is the cunning one?

Bradd Szonye

@terdon Exactly.

terdon

One of the best puns in the history of cinema that.

Matt Эллен

@terdon oh! numbers. I didn't realise that

Cerberus

@terdon Hey, it's Greek.

Robusto

16:28

@terdon Which?

Matt Эллен

@terdon oh no, in chat you can make them as long as you like, but the real tags are limited in length

terdon

@Cerberus So why are you using a Latin plural then?

@MattЭллен I see.

Robusto

@Cerb is nothing if not inconsistent.

Cerberus

@terdon Because we always render Greek words in Latin letters in English.

Robusto

Blame it on Latin again.

Cerberus

16:29

-ae is the Latin rendering of Greek -ai.

Matt Эллен

I see! so belicophagery is a valid construct!

Cerberus

@Robusto I am a paragon of consistency.

terdon

Dammit. Should not better than to argue dead languages with you. Still, apostrophae just looks weird.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Alas. No.

@terdon That was my intention!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I'm rendering the greek in the latin alphabet

Robusto

16:30

@Cerberus You are a parahedron.

Mitch

@MattЭллен I have a question about that.

terdon

Παρατήστε με!

Cerberus

@MattЭллен No you're not!

Matt Эллен

@Mitch a question about questions about questions?

@Cerberus I just did

Cerberus

@Robusto What's that, and shouldn't it be par(h)edron?

Mitch

16:30

@MattЭллен Exactly! You noticed!

Matt Эллен

polyhadron colider

terdon

Or parheadon perhaps?

Cerberus

@terdon Is that new Greek?

Matt Эллен

@Mitch yay!

terdon

@Cerberus Yeah, means leave me alone :)

Matt Эллен

16:31

I get jokes!

Robusto

@Cerberus Paragon is to parahedron as octagon is to _______________?

Cerberus

@terdon Aww.

terdon

@Robusto line? Why line? That makes no sense!

@Cerberus :P

Matt Эллен

@terdon lines underscore points

Robusto

@terdon Hey, I don't make the rules. rimshot

Cerberus

16:32

@Robusto Octahedron?

Robusto

@Cerberus Συνέδριον

terdon

Conference?

Cerberus

Planes together?

terdon

And there's no such thing as new Greek! There's Greek and there's that dead language that @Cerberus speaks.

Robusto

@Cerberus Ease up. I'm just indulging in word play.

Mitch

16:33

@Cerberus I'm a polygon of incoherency.

Robusto

I am an inchoate polygon. In other words, a monogon.

terdon

@Mitch Great, an inconsistent square.

Cerberus

@terdon Umm...

Mitch

@MattЭллен I'm rendering a Greek into candles and glue.

Cerberus

@terdon It's all Greek, but one has to distinguish Ancient Greek from New Greek.

@Robusto You made me look up the origin of hedra!

Matt Эллен

16:35

@Mitch you monster!

terdon

@Cerberus Of course, but it seems more reasonable to identify the living language as Greek and the dead one with a qualifier.

Cerberus

Nope.

Because Ancient Greek is of more significance.

terdon

@Cerberus In the circles you move in, perhaps.

Cerberus

Who reads New-Greek literature outside Greece?

terdon

And linguistically speaking, obviously

Bradd Szonye

16:36

@Mitch That sounds like a terrible lye.

Cerberus

Millions read Ancient Greek every day outside Greece.

Mitch

@Cerberus In Russian, Greek is Chinese.

Cerberus

Oh, that table again?

terdon

@Cerberus Millions?

Mitch

@MattЭллен What? They're -scented-.

Cerberus

16:36

@terdon Yes.

terdon

@Mitch Heh, in Greek too.

Matt Эллен

@Mitch scented with death?

terdon

@Cerberus I very much doubt that.

Cerberus

Why?

terdon

Nevertheless, of course Ancient Greek is of more significance, joking apart.

Mitch

16:37

@BraddSzonye No, I'm just knackered.

Cerberus

Probably about 5 % of Europe have studied Ancient Greeks for years in their lives. Then there is the rest of the world.

terdon

Nevertheless, if you were to say "I speak Greek", most people would understand modern, not ancient.

Cerberus

@terdon OK good.

@terdon That is because of "speak".

terdon

@Cerberus Yes, of course, but they don't read it every day.

Cerberus

Ancient languages are not often spoken.

terdon

16:37

@Cerberus Indeed.

Mitch

@MattЭллен Ha ha... no more like bacon...if you do it right.

Cerberus

@terdon Five percent of Europe means 35 million people. If one spends a couple of years of one's life reading Greek every day in school...

Matt Эллен

@Mitch maybe you'd like bacon flavoured vodka

terdon

@Cerberus hmmm. Maybe.

Mitch

@Cerberus I've heard that a long time ago.

@MattЭллен Yechhhh

Matt Эллен

16:39

!!youtube grace bacon vodka

KitSox

►

terdon

Still, would you call Italian (or French, or Spanish or any other Latin derived language) "New Latin"?

Mitch

Yeah, if you were trying to be misleading.

terdon

Exactly

Cerberus

@terdon It is in a way New Latin, but we happen to not call it that, because there is another, unambiguous name in common use.

Not so for New Greek.

terdon

16:40

Perhaps it is because I'm Greek, but I've never needed to qualify that with "modern" to specify neither my origins nor the language.

Speaking to non-Greeks of course.

Cerberus

You are Greek?

Mitch

@Cerberus What label is that? Novo Palabray?

terdon

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

I thought you were American?

terdon

Half Greek, half American

Cerberus

16:41

@Mitch Yes, Latin is a Slavic language.

@terdon Ah, where were you born?

terdon

Dad's from the States, Mom's Greek, but I grew up in Greece.

Cerberus

Ah OK, cool.

Well, I imagine it must make more sense in Greek to use "Greek" to describe the modern language.

terdon

And I'm not in any way sensitive or nationalistic about it, so no need to pussyfoot around the subject.

Cerberus

Don't worry, I am not one to pussy-foot hehe.

Doggy-foot, perhaps.

terdon

@Cerberus Of course, in Greek, it is not an issue. But it has never been an issue in English or any other language either, unless I'm speaking to someone with a background like yours.

Mitch

16:42

@terdon I'm sure we can come up with -something- that you're sensitive about.

Matt Эллен

@terdon (and probably even then)

terdon

@Mitch Oh sure, just not nationalisms or linguistic chauvinism.

Cerberus

@terdon It all depends on context!

Mitch

Like toenails. Everyone is sensitive about them.

terdon

Yes, but without any, people will assume the modern language. Perhaps cause I'm not wearing a toga.

Cerberus

16:43

When I am in Greece, I will absolutely say "that sign is in Greek", never "in New Greek".

terdon

@Mitch Oy! Leave my toenails out of this!

Matt Эллен

@Mitch if you would stop treading on them all the time, maybe we'd be less so

Cerberus

Or whenever there is no ambiguity.

terdon

@Cerberus Lol, you should try. Then run away. Greeks are very sensitive about this kind of thing in general.

Cerberus

However, we have the departments "Greek and Latin" and "New Greek" at university, not the other way around.

@terdon Yay!

terdon

16:44

@Cerberus Well, yes. You would.

Cerberus

Newer states are always a bit more nationalistic, I guess...

Mitch

@Cerberus Everytime I've ever been in Greece, I always say ' Holy Crap, that sign is in New Greek'. I'm always astounded.

Cerberus

And you live?

Mitch

@MattЭллен Don't put your toes there then.

@Cerberus Is your university in Greece? point proven

terdon

@Cerberus That is precisely the kind of (true) statement you should avoid! The Greek is the oldest civilization in the world!

@Cerberus In France at the moment.

Mitch

16:46

@Cerberus South Sudan?

Bradd Szonye

Has anyone made the obligatory “It's all Greek to me” joke yet?

Cerberus

@Mitch Hah, alas, no.

terdon

@BraddSzonye Twice

Cerberus

@terdon The civilisation is, but not the political entity.

terdon

@Cerberus Good heavens, neither one nor the other are even close!

Mitch

16:46

@terdon If by 'world' you mean at the tip of the Balkan peninsula.

terdon

@Mitch Exactly

Bradd Szonye

I've never been in here at this time of day before. I see now why it's called the Incomprehensible Room.

Mitch

@BraddSzonye I did. It was subtle.

terdon

But seriously, most Greeks believe this, fervently.

Cerberus

@terdon Hah, no I meant, "you have said New Greek to a Greek, and yet you live!", instead of, well, dying.

Mitch

16:47

11 mins ago, by Mitch

@Cerberus In Russian, Greek is Chinese.

Cerberus

@terdon Hmm what?

terdon

@Cerberus Yeah, but I said in in new Greek and that kind of takes the edge off.

Cerberus

@BraddSzonye Haha, then you have been...baptized.

terdon

@Cerberus There are many civilizations that are thousands of years older than any that can be considered Greek.

Cerberus

@terdon I was addressing Mitch, in fact.

Bradd Szonye

16:48

Last time I was baptized, it wasn't so sticky.

Cerberus

@terdon Of course.

terdon

@Cerberus Just don't tell that to any random Greeks you meet. It pops their bubble.

Cerberus

Although "thousands" is contentious...

If you count the earliest palaces on Crete...

terdon

@Cerberus Egypt, and any number of minor African ones. The civilization might take some defining of course.

Cerberus

Indeed.

Mitch

16:49

@terdon THat bacon flavored vodka will put a little edge on

terdon

@Cerberus Yes, Cycladean are probably older but they go to ~4000bc if I remember correctly

Cerberus

Huh?

You mean 4000?

terdon

@Mitch It's 18:00 here, not yet :)

Cerberus

It all depends on your definition, as you say.

terdon

@Cerberus yes, sorry

Mitch

16:50

@BraddSzonye Well played! I have no idea what that means!

Cerberus

But Egypt in 4000 BC was not much to look at either.

terdon

No, but the phoenecians were, weren't they?

Cerberus

Then again, counting Minoan as Greek is questionable (don't tell that to a Greek, of course).

terdon

@terdon No they weren't. Idiot.

Cerberus

There are some very old cities in Phoenicia and Syria.

Jericho springs to mind.

Mitch

16:52

Damascus

Cerberus

No doubt.

terdon

I am referring to civilizations that occupied the same geographical area. Not implying cultural continuity.

Mitch

Tyre, Sidon

Cerberus

@terdon As what?

terdon

Still, they are considered Greek, in that they have very much influenced what is modern Greek culture even today.

Cerberus

16:52

@Mitch Not sure how old those are.

terdon

@Cerberus As "Greek"

Cerberus

Again, contentious...

terdon

@Cerberus Really? Why?

I mean, yes, the Dorean invasion and all that, but still.

Cerberus

Counting a civilisation that occupied a similar areas as the same civ?

Mycenaean is Greek. Minoan was not, I believe.

terdon

@Cerberus No, that's what I mean. No continuity implied. I would call each of them Greek but not at all the same Greek if that makes sense.

Mitch

16:54

You're misusing the word 'summer'. Your metaphor is not only mixed it is wrong. Also, you should have used an em-dash instead of an en-dash. — Mitch 10 secs ago

terdon

@Cerberus They have about as much connection to modern Greece as Minoans do: very little.

Cerberus

Okay, well, if no continuity is implied, then it might be contested by some, right?

@terdon I'm talking about the language.

terdon

@Cerberus Ah, no, of course not. Completely different. I was talking about the cultures and how they morph into one another.

Mitch

@terdon like chinese

terdon

As far as my (very limited) knowledge goes, there is no linguistic connection between the stone age languages of Greece and Greek.

@Mitch Really know nothing about them. But they are very old so I assume something similar.

Mitch

16:57

@terdon They're basically Greek.

terdon

True :)

Mitch

Without feta

terdon

Your native language is Russian right?

Mitch

That's about the only difference

terdon

Or is it that you just speak it?

Cerberus

16:58

I thought Mitch's native language was Chinese?

Mitch

Yes, If you're asking @RegDwight

Cerberus

No, Moldau Romanian.

Mitch

@Cerberus shut up shut up shut up

@Cerberus Don't speak of them. I may have to spit.

Cerberus

I don't understand you, is that your Chinglish playing up again?

Ah, are you Transnistrian, then?

Mitch

@Cerberus Is that transdniestrin or cisdniestrin?

Cerberus

16:59

Cis is Moldavia, Trans is Transnistria.

Different countries.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…