English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Cerberus So, I was thinking of a variant of playing 2048. I wanted to know how well of a score you can get. Will you try?

I'm pretty sure I saw snailboat just a few hours ago.

@KitFox It's hard to see what they're doing, but if they're in here, chances are they're coming in here.

@tchrist I consider "first time I see x" to be informal, shorthand, for what is indeed the correct construction, this is the first time I have ever seen x.

12:00 AM

About 4,430,000 results for asqueroso. It’s obviously a loanword of classical origin.

Informal for pineapples, yes.

@tchrist That's sanctorum, as in the sancta sanctorum.

@Cerberus It’s like I kan haz hamburgerz?

@Alraxite Umm OK...what variant is it?

@tchrist Well, not like that.

@Cerberus I left out the c.

12:01 AM

More like...

Try to get the lowest score in 2048.

Haha.

Simple.

@tchrist Yeah and that isn't allowed! You Latin NNS!

No, @Kit is right. It’s very markèd as NNS pattern.

@Alraxite Ah, I have seen that game.

AmE idiomatic like that would be "first time I saw x"

12:02 AM

Nobody expects the Spanish Disquisition!

Not see.

@KitFox Who you callin' a Not See?

@KitFox That's an American pineapple. The simple past would not be possible elsewhere.

I urge you not to click on the Google Images part of the asqueroso returns.

@Cerberus Oh, is there? I didn't know. I tried getting the lowest score on the original 2048.

12:03 AM

Lest you be forever marred by knowledge visceral and indelible.

Worry not.

@kit “This is the first time I saw that” is not a sentence I can generate. Are you sure?

Perhaps the register is beneath you...

I just can’t generate it. It’s as ungrammatical to me as what you said.

@tchrist That's the first time I saw that kind of thing.

12:05 AM

It's funny how people always think their own intuition is universal. Of course I, too, am susceptible to this...

Hm.

“That was the first time I ever saw that.” is ok.

Yeah. Like that.

But “this is...”, well, I cannae do it, keptin.

@tchrist I would probably not say that.

This is the first time I saw something like that.

12:06 AM

No, I can't say that.

And most likely not that.

♫ The last time I saw Paris / he was fleeing the Achaeans ♫

The tenses are bizarre.

first time I seen it, for sure.

This is needs a present tense.

12:06 AM

The bazaars are tense.

This is the first I’ve ever seen it.

This is goes with I have.

@tchrist The only unexceptionable type.

This doesn't need no present tense.

*don't need no.

This just means this one here. This was the first thing he gave me.

12:07 AM

This doesn’t, but This is does.

Oh I misread it.

> Rob -- thank you! I was so surprised when I was given the birthday card with all of your names on it! I am so grateful for every single one of you who took the time to make sure I had a great day. —Nikki Tsongas, in an email to me.

Someone should tell her I didn't sign her frickin' card.

Who's that?

Did someone else sign for you?

The representative from my district.

I see...

12:08 AM

It's the preemptive thank-you.

“That was the first time I (ever) ate sushi.” “This is the first time I’ve ever eaten sushi.”

See, I need to feel bad now that I didn't get her anything.

"is the first time" leads to "have ever ppl".

@tchrist That was the first time ever I ate sushi.

Oh please. She didn't even write that.

12:09 AM

@KitFox Wanna bet?

@Robusto And that one was just fine.

No.

That was the first time I (ever) ate sushi. — this is the direct transformation of this is the first time I eat sushi into the past.

@KitFox Oh. You mean not personally. Yeah, point taken.

But *“This is the first time I ever eat sushi” is not grammatical.

12:10 AM

That's all she wrote.

Ask Rob or Kit or Mahnax.

If you make it a full sentence, there is some...incongruence.

And you have added ever, which makes it impossible either way.

You would never say "this is the first time I eat sushi" unless you were a pineapple.

Jasper Loy

I have diarrhoea, gonna poo now...

12:11 AM

“This is the first time I’ve ever eaten sushi” in the past becomes “This/that was the first time I ever ate sushi.”

Ever really requires the present perfect.

@KitFox Mmmm, sushi with pineapple.

@JasperLoy Make sure you wash your hands.

6 mins ago, by Cerberus

It's funny how people always think their own intuition is universal. Of course I, too, am susceptible to this...

@Cerberus So does “*This is the first time I eat sushi”.

12:11 AM

@Cerberus No it does not.

@Cerberus No, really. Ask any native speaker. Go ahead.

@tchrist But ever even more so.

Ever have I told you this, and ever have you doubted.

@Robusto In this context, it does.

sigh

@Cerberus If you're defining "this context" to mean whatever you want it to mean, sure.

12:12 AM

I don't understand why you are arguing with three native speakers about how we speak.

You only know a limited set of dialects.

@KitFox One per head.

That was the last time ever I saw Citizen Kane. That was the last time I ever saw Citizen Kane.

@Cerberus Bah!

Believe me, I have witnessed discussions like this in many languages...

12:13 AM

We know more than you do.

This you know.

Wake up @Matt.

Run a corpus search on it.

►

Win! Pay up, @Cerberus. You just got pwned by Roberta Flack.

@KitFox Good idea.

Everyone agrees that x never occurs, and then someone else comes in to tell them it's ridiculous or whatever. I am rarely impressed.

You’re being foolishly obstreperous.

It’s our language.

12:14 AM

He does that.

I would never claim that x is not used in, say, Flemish. But many people would.

A fruitless discussion.

Furthermore, consider which three people you are arguing against.

@Cerberus Um, well, I hope you will try that.

It's only fruitless if you refuse to accept that we are right.

@Alraxite Linky?

12:16 AM

Everyone who thinks @Cerb is right, raise your hand.

But I will take the results of a corpus search as sufficient evidence to prove me wrong.

All opposed?

raises hand

raises hand

A corpus search of Internet chat shorthand?

raises eyebrows

@Cerberus That's, like, six eyebrows. No fair. You're cheating again.

12:17 AM

raises hand

@Cerberus I don't know any version that incorporates that. You can play on the original.

Get thee to a corpery.

What's the difference anyway? It'll only be a Game Over screen instead of the You Win screen.

@tchrist Wouldst thou be a breeder of ... something clever that rhymes with sinners.

But has to do with language.

@KitFox Winners!

Dinners?

Inners?

12:19 AM

@Robusto Hey I have unibrows, I ain't no lap dog!

Grinners!

Spinners!

@Alraxite Oh, but I think such a version exists, or I read about it.

Errs oft made by rank beginners.

@Alraxite Haha OK fair enough.

Someone stuff Cerb into the teapot again.

Jasper Loy

12:20 AM

Phew! That was a good shit, lol.

Aug 2 '12 at 12:42, by Robusto

@JasperLoy Remove the article for an even more pleasant experience.

@JasperLoy Did you wash your hands?

With soap and water?

Jasper Loy

@KitFox Yes, thank you!

For at least thirty seconds?

Ugh the vulgarity.

12:22 AM

@Robusto You know that’s Humpty’s job.

He didn't show up for work today.

Check with the king’s men.

God damn.

I knew there was something I was supposed to do.

gets roll of duct tape, gorilla glue, horse

@Cerberus Well, I found the version: mbrubeck.github.io/2048-AI

But it's exactly like playing the original.

►

12:24 AM

When you lose you get the Game Over screen.

FAIL

And I don't think it even remembers the lowest score.

Yay! I get Cinco de Mayo off!

@Robusto That's the date of my first IB exam!

@Mahnax What's an IB exam?

12:29 AM

@Robusto Oh, you know AP classes? IB is kind of like that. So, final exams for the advanced content.

@Mahnax What subject?

@Robusto English is the particular subject in which I'll be tested on May fifth.

A commentary on an "unseen passage".

@Mahnax Those were always right in my wheelhouse.

I have the gift of gab, especially in writing.

@Robusto As long as it's not poetry, I'm good. The IB people love picking horribly abstract poetry, and I find it more frustrating to comprehend than anything else.

@Mahnax Sounds like you successfully detected the secret door, and went through it. :)

12:31 AM

Thankfully, there's always two choices.

@Mahnax Also right in my wheelhouse. Perhaps even more so.

@Robusto Hah. I'm too literal, I guess. The gift of black-and-white.

The first paper I ever did on poetry, when I was a sophomore in high school, I got an A+ on. Mainly because I socked Sara Teasdale right in the nose over her stupid poem entitled "Blue Squills"!

@Mahnax A cruel muse then, theirs, to present you with no option but bad or verse.

@tchrist Oh dear…

12:33 AM

How many million Aprils came
         Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
         A bed of squills, how blue.

And many a dancing April
         When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
         And the white flame of the tree.

Oh, burn me with your beauty, then,
         Oh, hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
         Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
         O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I through endless sleep

There it is. In all its awfulness.

@Mahnax “Tom” is good enough.

Pretty hard!

It's impossible to avoid the sixteens.

@tchrist >:)

@Cerberus Pfft, you were into the triple digits. A real loser would have kept it under 100.

@Robusto Can you?

12:34 AM

He might be a fake oozer.

@Cerberus Probably not. But I don't profess to be a loser.

Oh you always seem to...never mind.

@Cerberus Glistens, the word you were looking for is glisten, not sweat let alone ooze.

Glister

Interestingly, squill's etymology hearkens back to Scylla. And it's an onion. I wonder if shallot is related somehow. Or scallion.

12:37 AM

@tchrist What?

@KitFox I have some mole skin if you’d like.

caught between the squiller and shalloter.

Right. I have to go.

Shall we have a shallotery?

Whoever wins gets to take a leek.

Shallots are great. So are scallions.

I love leeks!

12:38 AM

Enough scullduggery with unions.

But really. bedtime. nigh!

@KitFox Then by all means take one. Or two.

What a bunch of chives!

@Robusto Why do you think scilla is related to Scylla?

@Cerberus Because I am a fanciful bloke.

12:40 AM

And by "Why do you think scilla is related to Scylla?" I mean "no".

But if they're related, it's probably only by marriage.

Haha OK.

Oh, Scylla!

Better.

@Cerberus Yes. The thing is, if you try to keep the 2s and 4s (and some other tiles you've made) into a gridlock with the oncoming tiles, then it's very hard to to not have them cascade into a single tile!

12:40 AM

We can make an ode.

@Alraxite I know!!

@tchrist Make a node instead. We're all of us geeks here.

@Cerb could compose Scylla’s Ode to Boy.

I dream of spaghetti bolognese now.

Tips his momma gave him.

12:41 AM

@tchrist Stop shilling for Schiller.

Or praises bestowed.

Btw, what would be a word to describe the pattern of having alternating tiles between each other?

Like,

@Alraxite Intratesselation? If it's not, it should be.

@Robusto I’m afreud I can’t.

2424
4242
2424

12:42 AM

@tchrist You're putting Descarte before the hearse.

@Robusto Isn’t that some illegal maize miscegenation?

@tchrist Nah, too corny.

@tchrist What?

@Alraxite Checkered.

@Cerberus Please try to keep up. Or we shall be forced to sing to you.

Sing in a chat room?

12:44 AM

knock knock

@Cerberus Oh, that works! Thanks.

Is this thing turned on?

Damn it, yes we have no lightbulbs today.

@Cerberus Like your past.

I'm not a thing, and I'm too tired to be turned on by anything right now.

Well, that's just great. We've been working hard to turn you on all night, and now you just want to roll over and go to sleep.

12:45 AM

@Robusto My past is spotless, but my fur is mottled, whence my name, Kerberos.

Better we turn you on than turn on you, ne?

Yet but that could be his better side.

@Cerberus You are indeed maculate, sinner.

Ne? That's German!

More accessible at least.

12:46 AM

@Cerberus Japanese.

@Robusto Better sin than sing here.

@Cerberus Thou art more singed against than singing.

Sieg hier?

@Robusto Really? What is it, a kind of interrogative particle?

@Cerberus Exactly that.

It's a one-syllable question tag.

12:47 AM

@Robusto Nothing can singe my divine pelt.

Now you're getting the idea.

@Robusto Okay, this is odd. Latin has that too, and so does German.

ne /niː/, adv. and conj.[entry#1] Now only arch. Also 1 ni, 4-5 ny.

Etymology: OE. ne, ni = OFris. and OS. ne, ni (MDutch ne), OHG. ni (ne), ONor. né (for ne), Goth. ni = Lith. nè, OSl. ne-, L. ne- (in nefās, nequeo, etc.), Skr. na, related by ablaut to Goth. nē, Lat. nē, Gr. νη-, Skr. nā.


A adv. = not. 1 As simple negative.

C. 725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) N 199 - Numquid, ne huru is.
C. 825 Vesp. Psalter iii. 7 - Ne ondredu ic ðusend folces ymsellendes me.
A. 900 Leiden Riddle 3 in O.E. Texts 150 - Ni uuat ic mec biuorth[n]æ wullan fliusum.

But you didn't compliment me for maculate. I need some love for that one.

Estne canis in camera? "Is there a dog in the room?"

12:48 AM

Quoted Tom archly.

Archangels calculate arcsines and then fly off on arctangents.

I think you need atanh for flight.

Thought for the day: Does @RegDwigнt speak German with a Russian accent?

I doubt it.

But I bet he could if he cared to.

@Robusto You're high maintenance, aren't you? Yes, well done, have a macchiato.

12:50 AM

Stained?

Yes.

You just stained him?

Ick!

The milk did the coffee.

sips macchiato

Brush your teef after.

12:52 AM

So you sea that maculae aren't always bad.

Albumin stains are a challenge to get out of textiles.

@Cerberus You have lacunae between your maculae.

@tchrist Santorum is probably worse.

> Are your brains scrambled over what to do when breakfast gets out of hand?

@Robusto Otherwise, how could they be maculae?

Breakfast of champions.

Leaves messy stains.

12:54 AM

By the way, it appears macula is actually from malus "bad".

@Cerberus i no rite

But breakfast of champignons makes any man moan with pleasure.

@tchrist As long as it's not champignons.

@Cerberus Spots are bad. Naturally.

Beatcha!

12:54 AM

Jinx. And yuck.

@tchrist Mushrooms can be positively psychedelic.

And erotic.

@Robusto Indeed, the Latin word means "spot, blemish, defect".

And aphrodisian.

Disgusting.

12:56 AM

wonders whether Aphrodite ever went on an Afrodate

No, she is from Cyprus.

Cypris.

APENECK SWEENEY spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.

@Cerberus Asquerosos los champiñones jamás son.

Kupris?

I got a lot of words from Eliot. @Mahnax, take note. You can learn things from poetry.

@tchrist Mais si, ils me dégoûtent.

@tchrist Yes, "she from Cyprus, Aprodite".

12:59 AM

@Cerberus Practice, dear: it takes but practice.