English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

19:00

@Mitch I wouldn't know what to say either.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: They made up this new type of plastic That heals itself, ain’t it fantastic? If you punctur…

posted on May 22, 2014 by sgdi

They made up this new type of plastic That heals itself, ain’t it fantastic? If you puncture a spot Stuff’ll ooze out and clot But stabbing too much is quite drastic (source: http://doi.org/spr)

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Kit, Kit, she's the shit

Matt Эллен

She's got an outstanding wit

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

And she doesn't give a whit

If you're American or Brit

skullpatrol

19:15

chat will shortly be unavailable for maintenance reasons; this should only last a matter of minutes

Matt Эллен

Apocalypse! run for the hills!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I've found another way to kill the chat.

Cerberus

@skullpatrol What did you do this time?

skullpatrol

@Cerberus It wasn't me :-O

Cerberus

Suuuure...

skullpatrol

19:19

They had a meltdown last week :(

Cerberus

What happened?

skullpatrol

The whole network went off...

..dunno what happened though.

@Cerberus I just rediscovered a wonderful phrase by einstein...

Cerberus

19:39

@skullpatrol We're back!

Matt Эллен

That's not a wonderful quote

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Saw a notification
that chat was on vacation
I didn't shout
just waited it out
now it needs resuscitation

2

Cerberus

Haha.

@skullpatrol So what is this phrase?

Robusto

20:02

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That is so '90s NBA.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto I'm . . . sorry?

I need to see Space Jam.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Nah, don't be sorry. I enjoyed the reference.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto stuffs sorries in a sack

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 she looked like she learned to dance / from a series of still pictures

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

:D

So like

Robusto

20:07

►

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

My Outlook reminders window is now really small and unreadable after a system lock up the other day. I can't seem to resize it or anything.

Robusto

I would call that a less-than-optimal outlook.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

she's not your satellite / she doesn't miss you / so turn off your smoke machine / and Marshall stack

!!youtube they might be giants twistin

KitSox

►

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 My fave TMBG album

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

20:10

@Robusto caught a Flood show a couple years ago.

Robusto

►

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Sweet.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

John Henry was my favorite for a long time.

Robusto

Yeah, but . . . birdhouse in your soul . . .

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

-_-

My first exposure to Them was my typing teacher. She had a Flood tape and we typed to it.

Robusto

haha, nice

We want a rock.

Someone keeps moving my chair.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

20:13

Aw, you mad, particle man?

Robusto

everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around

Andy

James K Polk!

Robusto

everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

throw the crib door wi-hide

Robusto

let the people crawl inside

They used to have a dial-up service which would play one of their new songs. People got to depend on it when they needed a boost.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

20:17

718-387-6962. Free when you call from work.

It still works. Also, they have an app now. Five free songs per week. You're welcome.

Robusto

I never know what you'll find when you open up your letterbox tomorrow

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 It's impossible not to like TMBG.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto maybe for some robots. Like Marvin.

Robusto

I mean, it would be the depths of churlishness not to make a little birdhouse in your soul.

and so I'm having a wonderful time but i'd rather be whistling in the dark

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

2 days ago, by KitFox

Wow. Just masturbate, ffs.

Andy

Uhh

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

20:21

!!urban whistling in the dark

Robusto

2 days ago, by Robusto

@KitFox What, right now? But my office has a no-wanking policy.

KitSox

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Whistling in the dark To comfort yourself via distraction when you cannot avoid a frightening situation.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hmm.

Robusto

Not that it isn't a great idea, mind you.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

*whistling*
*whistling*
*whistling in the dark*

Robusto

20:22

women and men

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hum.

Robusto

►

Modest Mouse is like TMBG except without the sense of humor.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Bleh.

Robusto

we can't be silent cuz they might be giants

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

and whatterwegonnado unless they are

Robusto

20:25

tabloid footprints in your hair

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

big, big, fake, fake lies

Gaaah tiny reminders window.

Mitch

20:59

Gaah! Tiny dancers! I just stepped on one.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

count the headlights on the highway

Mitch

21:48

Hold me closer Tony Danza! wait... I mean Hold me closer Tony Danza

tchrist

22:39

Is than answer or a comment?

5

Q: How can we distinguish between "I would" and "I had" if someone says "I'd"?

How can we unambiguously distinguish between I would and I had, if the native English speaker used the contraction I'd? For instance, I'd read the newspaper. We can mean the above sentence as either I had read the newspaper. or I would read the newspaper. Any help will be appreciated!!!

contractions

Hm.

That didn’t work right.

0

A: History and usage of "dooryard"

I found this site because I’m reading EGGS IN THE COFFEE, SHEEP IN THE CORN: My 17 Years as a Farmwife by Marjorie Myers Douglas (1994). She moved to her in-laws’ farm in western Minnesota in 1943 after growing up a city-girl in Minneapolis and a two-year career as a social worker in New York Ci...

That one.

Cerberus

Hello!

Jez

evening

Cerberus

Hi.

Hey, do you have any info on British exit polls?

I can't find anything, while Dutch exit polls are pretty well covered.

tchrist

22:54

I swear, from looking at the numbers it sure look like nobody ever votes on the delete queue, because it is not an integrated review queue. Stuff just sits there forever.

@IlmariKaronen How would we know what glyphs wont display though? We'd need a maintained list and update it each time an OS update comes out. — Kasra Rahjerdi ♦ 2 days ago

I agree with the comment, although not its orthography. :)

It just is not a reasonable approach. It requires constantly changing global knowledge.

@Rob Be apprised that you have gained a new set of superpowers.

Cerberus

Hmm why should we allow non-standard characters in names anyway? This is an English website; such characters are bound to result in display errors for some; and we cannot type them, so that we cannot @user or even refer to users properly. — Cerberus 10 secs ago

@tchrist What do you think?

Of course I am all in favour of exotic characters, and I saw the Burmese characters just fine, but...

I presume this is correct.

Robusto

@tchrist Not altogether clear to me what this means.

I have a gold badge in single-word-request and I just now voted to close, yet mine is the only close vote and the post remains open.

tchrist

23:11

@Robusto I think it is when it is a duplicate.

Robusto

Oh. But I duped one the other day and that didn't happen.

tchrist

@Cerberus I think so. Mind you, I have little sympathy for Burma. But still.

@Robusto Odd. Maybe it’s an SO-only thing?

Robusto

0

Q: Expression from "Lord of the Flies" that I cannot understand

All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. English is my second language, my first language is Spanish. I don't understand this sentence at all. Please explain.

phrases

Check it out.

My vote, plus four others (including yours), got the job done.

tchrist

And if we are to advance beyond the 1960s ASCII set, where do we draw the line? British letters? European letters? ‮left-to-right characters?

Let me find the features bit.

326

A: When did I get close-vote superpowers?

Yes, you are now a Superhero, able to wield the mighty Mjölnir. The rules are: You can instantly close as a duplicate any question that was originally asked with a tag you have a gold badge for. You can instantly reopen any question closed as a duplicate that was originally asked with a tag ...

Jez

@Cerberus is it the European elections or the UK local council elections today?

tchrist

23:17

Apparently, superpowers get you very high vote totals.

Jez

looks like the counting's only just gotten underway, and it's the UK council elections

i didn't vote. no party is close enough to my beliefs

Cerberus

@Jez Um you haven't voted? Both.

tchrist

You know, if they would actually let you vote for people instead of machines, you might be more motivated.

Cerberus

@tchrist Why?

tchrist

Voting for parties is bullshit.

@Cerberus I am saying that my political opinions do not enter into the technical discussion.

Cerberus

23:19

@tchrist How about characters that 99% of people visiting SE are able to type without having to look anything up?

tchrist

@Cerberus You know how silly that sounds.

Cerberus

@tchrist Did I suggest that they should?

@tchrist Why?

Jez

@Cerberus course i haven't voted. if I had to, i'd probably go for UKIP.

tchrist

@Cerberus Tyranny of the moronity.

Cerberus

@tchrist We all vote for people. The problem is that parties consist of people and most people (not all!) belong to parties.

tchrist

23:20

Pick the stupidest and least capable as your baseline.

Cerberus

@Jez "Of course", even?

@tchrist I don't understand. Am I a moron?

I don't want to have to look up how type a Greek letter when I want to @someone.

tchrist

I don’t vote for parties. In fact, in many local elections, they are not even allowed to list any affiliation of party.

Jez

@Cerberus huh?

Cerberus

@tchrist We all vote for people.

tchrist

@Cerberus Murine snarf-n-barf will succour you in your time of need.

Cerberus

23:22

What?

Jez

i meant 'course

short for of course

tchrist

Murine murine murine.

Cerberus

@tchrist Okay, never mind, you are not in a sense-making mood.

@Jez Yes, I know that.

tchrist

Oh for fuck's sake if anybody in this room besides me and Rob knows what murine has to mean, it must be you.

Cerberus

I was just wondering why you said "of course I haven't voted", while every single person I know here would say "of course I have voted".

Robusto

23:23

Are ye men or mice?

Jez

@Cerberus where is "here"? NL?

Cerberus

@tchrist I know what it means. But you are just not making sense.

tchrist

Mouse mouse mouse.

Cerberus

@Jez Yes, or any other European I know. So I was wondering why "of course not".

Jez

maybe you have parties worth voting for any/or a voting public that isn't braindead?

tchrist

23:24

Knowing how to “type” something is irrelevant and immaterial.

Jez

we don't.

tchrist

When you have mouse.

Cerberus

@Jez Are you sure? There were many parties on my ballot whose names I had never heard. Anyone can register, basically.

Robusto

It's like urine, only with an m.

Jez

@Cerberus oh, well i mean parties that actually stand a chance

Cerberus

23:26

Look, voting is symbolic anyway. The chance that one vote should change anything is negligible anyway, but we still vote.

tchrist

Why the hell would you type something when it’s sitting there for your mouse buffer’s pleasure?

Jez

i did used to vote. then came the AV referendum, and the UK voted No to AV. at that point, i just gave up on British democracy. what am i to do surrounded by fucktards?

Cerberus

AV? Is that the change in the voting system where you could vote for second and third preferences?

Jez

it's symbolic of supporting the current voting system, which i don't, so my symbolic action is to give it the finger

yes.

Cerberus

Okay.

Jez

23:28

the EU parliament is proportional, but the whole trouble with the EU is that we have very legitimate immigration issues there

Cerberus

@tchrist I vaguely understand in which direction your argument must lie, but it is too indirect for my taste.

Jez

so while i like their voting system i actually want us outof the EU (since it seems staying in prevents a sane immigration policy)

tchrist

I am utterly transparent.

Use your mouse for shit you don’t know how to type.

Cerberus

@Jez I thought the influx of Romanians had been far below what was expected...

tchrist

Everybody else does.

There is no indirection.

I am utterly direct.

Jez

23:29

@Cerberus our population is growing rapidly and we're constantly having to build 100,000s of houses. we're already very densely populated.

we need a total stop on population growth, now

not some minor cutback

Cerberus

1o I don't want to have to use a mouse several times while I'm typing a name. 2o there is no alpha button on the page.

@Jez I thought you didn't have much immigration.

What your immigration balance, and to/from which countries?

Jez

migrationwatchuk.org/latest-immigration-statistics

looks like a net 200k a year

Cerberus

> Of the 131,000 Net Migration from the EU, 60,000 was from the EU15 and 48,000 was from the A8.

tchrist

@Cerberus If there is a name to type, then you grab it and paste it once. It’s in your paste buffer. You don’t do it letter by letter.

Cerberus

@Jez Who are the A8, and did their number increase significantly after certain policy changes?

tchrist

23:32

And anyway, if we were meant to be forbidden from using post-1960s characters, we would be.

Jez

> The independent Office for National Statistics (ONS) projects that the population of the UK will reach 70 million in 2027 compared to 63.7 today and that the population will increase by almost 10 million over the next 25 years. Nearly all of the increase will be in England.

tchrist

And we are not.

Cerberus

@tchrist I do not have MetaEd in my paste buffer.

Jez

see, that's why the Scottish nationalists can get away with calling UKIP "racist" - they don't have to deal with rampant immigration at all

they're hypocrites that would have a very different attitude if they actually had to deal with it

Cerberus

I do not even have Reg in my paste buffer, especially not when I'm typing a comment to a question or something that he did not participate in.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

23:33

@tchrist They have to have been in here somewhat recently, I thought.

Cerberus

@Jez You haven't answered my question yet...

tchrist

@Cerberus Well, go ahead and open a bug on the real Meta that non-typewriter keystrokes are allowed in usernames, and that This Needs To Be Fixed because it bugs you. I triple-dog dare you!

Cerberus

@Jez The underlying question is, what evidence do you have that the EU caused a large new, net influx from Eastern Europe that would not have happened otherwise?

tchrist

waits

Cerberus

@tchrist I have already suggested just that, in the comment I posted here.

Jez

23:35

@Cerberus erm, we've had like a million immigrants from Poland, Croatia, etc.

tchrist

Comments have no testicular fortitude, because they cannot be downvoted.

Go for the gold.

Jez

in 10 years

Cerberus

@Jez That is neither an answer nor evidence.

Jez

it is an answer

tchrist

Make an actual suggestion/bug-report. That way we can all vote on it. Comments are not real. They are ephemeral fly-by-nights.

Cerberus

23:36

@Jez It is not an answer at all.

@tchrist Why should I?

tchrist

To show your quality.

And to show that you actually believe what you’re saying, rather than just being contrarian in an ephemeral way for the sake of pure argument, not honest contribution.

Cerberus

I care just enough about it to say so here, not to post a useless Meta question—nothing ever changes when I ask SE anyway.

@tchrist Nonsense. It mildly annoys me.

tchrist

Then you have failed to provide a convincing argument.

That is not their fault.

It just means that your argument is not one whose banner enough will flock to.

Cerberus

This is not about fault.

tchrist

You could work on eloquent persuasion, the tools of rhetoric.

Cerberus

23:39

I don't care.

Jez

@Cerberus so you're asking why having over 100,000 immigrants from the EU per year is causing an influx of migrants?

Cerberus

I'll just not address people who won't tab.

tchrist

As I thought. Windpissing.

Cerberus

@Jez No.

But never mind, this, too, is a fruitless discussion.

tchrist

Oh, that’s manifestly untrue.

click . . . click . . . click

Jez

23:41

@Cerberus well dont expect people to think you somehow got the moral high ground

sounds like you're just dismissing the immigration control argument

tchrist

Just wait until Wales and Scotland won’t be able to cross-migrate any longer.

Jez

they're mainly uninvolved in migration anyway

tchrist

Ethnic inertia or pleasure of locale?

Cerberus

@Jez No, I am just asking for facts.

@tchrist Where do I click?

Jez

read the Migration Watch website, it has reams of facts

Cerberus

23:44

I asked you about it: you wouldn't explain their statistics.

But, as I said, never mind, this is not working.

tchrist

@Jez They use radar for that here.

Jez

then there's "Scrap ... wind turbine subsidies"

good luck finding another UK party who will do that

tchrist

We also use high tech scans to track Mexican nonavian migrants.

Cerberus

@Jez You are against those subsidies?

Jez

@Cerberus yep. we should be throwing our money at nuclear power, not those wind monstrosities

the French are evidence of nuclear right on our doorstep yet we ignore them

Cerberus

23:52

Why can't we do both?

And why do we ignore France? We all know they have lots of nuclear power.

Jez

because a) wind subsidies take away money that could be used for nuclear and b) wind turbines are ugly and ruin massive swathes of the countryside

I don't ignore France. you tell me why others seem to

Cerberus

We are buildings lots of wind turbines at sea.

Jez

like, i dunno, Germany

yeah, we're building a lot on land

ruins my view when im driving

Cerberus

And there is no direct connection between money for wind power and money for nuclear power, any more than there is between money for healthcare and nuclear power.

I agree that wind turbines on land are somewhat ugly...

Jez

that's a cop-out. they're both subsidies for power; obviously if one power source were defunded the money would probably shift to the other sources

Cerberus

23:54

But then so are roads and cars and power lines and most buildings built after the War.

@Jez There is no reason why that would be necessary...

Jez

most of those things don't tower into the sky

and they certainly don't tower into the sky and move which is really distracting

Cerberus

But they are still very visible.

More so than the turbines.

Jez

i disagree

the turbines are very noticable to me

the rest isn't so bad, though we have too many signs

Cerberus

I see cars and roads more often than wind turbines.

Jez

but i can be driving thru the country roads and the only thing ruining the view is wind turbines

yes but they're small, you can look past them

Cerberus

23:55

They take up a large part of my retina all the time, whereas wind turbines are small and far between.

Jez

roads are on the ground

well, it's the opposite for me

Cerberus

I normally move on ground level.

Jez

anyway, i want to be concentrating on cars when i am driving

Cerberus

I don't normally look up most of the time.

Jez

i don't want to be concentrating on turbines

Cerberus

23:56

I am not driving.

Jez

well maybe you should, the sky can be beautiful

as can the horizon

Cerberus

I'm usually busy doing stuff on the ground that I have to look at.

Like reading or watching traffic...

Jez

well, you guys are obviously more urban than many of us

so maybe you don't appreciate the problem so much

same goes for people living in our cities

though i live in a town and i still appreciate the countryside

Robusto

Even the llama / Must stick to mama

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…