English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

21:00

@JanusBahsJacquet Hey, did you know the OED has a fulcre?

KitFox

I forced a rollback on the master. How do I pull whatever is there down to my local repo?

Matt Эллен

git pull [url of repo]

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist No, but it doesn’t surprise me. Quite logical. I presume that’s just the ‘normal’ borrowing, through French, instead of the direct path from Latin?

KitFox

@MattЭллен That's it?

tchrist

macbook# oed -A --pos=noun 'cre$'
acre [n.]
 † archdiˈacre [n.]
 † ˈblack acre [n.]
chancre [n.]
conacre [n.]
 ‖ diˈacre [n.]
 ‖ fiacre [n.]
foreacre [n.]
fulcre [n.]
God’s acre [n.]
 † hydrosacre [n.]
 ¶ icre [n.]
involucre [n.]
 † laˈvacre [n.]
 † long-acre [n.]
lucre [n.]
massacre [n.]
nacre [n.]
polacre [n.2]
 † poˈlancre [n.]
 † ˈsacre [n.1]
simulacre [n.]
starve-acre [n.] ← starve
stavesacre [n.]
 ‖ sucre [n.]
white acre [n.]
wiseacre [n.]

Janus Bahs Jacquet

21:01

Huh, no, doesn’t even seem to be; just an “Englishing” of fulcrum.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox yup :)

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist “Involucre: a whorl or rosette of bracts surrounding an inflorescence (esp. a capitulum) or at the base of an umbel.” O…kay………

tchrist

@JanusBahsJacquet Cute word. Better than Anglicization.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

is none the wiser

KitFox

Not git pull master?

I need the address?

tchrist

21:03

@JanusBahsJacquet Do you not know what an umbel is then?

Andrew Leach

That must be something navel-like.

tchrist

Umbel is the shape of a kind of multiflower, like hemlock.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist No. Nor a bract, nor an inflorescence, nor a capitulum. Something to do with flowers of some kind, but beyond that … clueless.

tchrist

These are all botantical terms.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox if you're pulling from the remote, yes. it should default to master

Andrew Leach

21:04

A bract is a petal that isn't a petal.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox or git pull origin

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist That’s why I don’t know them. Me and botany, we don’t mix.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach Right, like on paintbrush.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

My knowledge of botany ends somewhere around being able to tell the difference between a walrus and a flintstone.

Matt Эллен

I tend to mess up setting up remotes, so I end up using the URL

tchrist

21:04

Queen Anne’s Lace is an umbel.

KitFox

Oh. I had origin and master backward in my head.

tchrist

And probably the most common one you’d know.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox yeah, the ordering of the parameters confused me too

Andrew Leach

@tchrist Like on a poinsettia. Or a hydrangea.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist You’re presuming I have a clue what Queen Anne’s Lace is.

tchrist

21:06

@JanusBahsJacquet I thought wild carrot was circumboreal.

Daucus carota

Daucus carota (common names include wild carrot, (UK) bird's nest, bishop's lace, and Queen Anne's lace (North America)) is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate regions of Europe, southwest Asia and naturalised to North America and Australia. Domesticated carrots are cultivars of a subspecies, Daucus carota subsp. sativus. Description Daucus carota is a biennial plant that grows a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, while building up the stout taproot that stores large amounts of sugars for the plant to flower in the second year. Soon after germinat...

Matt Эллен

I want it to be "pull [the] master [from the] origin" but it's something like "pull [from the] origin [to get the] master"

which is more complicated than it needs to be

tchrist

That’s an umbel.

Daucus is the carrot genus.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

Apparently, we have them here too, and they’re called wild carrots here as well. Doesn’t mean I’ve ever heard of the blighters.

But yes, I see what the umbel type is from those pictures and the dictionary description. I’ll have forgotten again by morning, natch. ;-þ

Johan Larsson

@MattЭллен do you use commandline?

KitFox

I can't get it to work.

grumbles

It's telling me it's already up-to-date. But it's not.

Matt Эллен

21:09

@JohanLarsson yes

@KitFox hmmm

does the local repo have the change set you've rolled back to on github?

tchrist

> The leaves were long, the grass was green, / The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, / And in the glade a light was seen / Of stars in shadow shimmering.

KitFox

@MattЭллен Yes.

Johan Larsson

@Jez Teves?

Matt Эллен

@KitFox so you should roll back the local repo. the code is there

Andrew Leach

@tchrist More from the Silmarillion?

Janus Bahs Jacquet

21:11

“In the umbel tumble humble bumblebees”? grumble

Jez

@JohanLarsson yeah i guess

Johan Larsson

I thought it was Suarez

tchrist

@AndrewLeach No and yes.

KitFox

@MattЭллен Um...

Well, that's why it won't work, huh?

tchrist

Matt Эллен

21:12

let me just try rolling back a repo, to see how it's done

tchrist

Those are hemlock umbels.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

How disappointing that the adjective to ‘umbel’ is ‘umbellate’. I so wanted it to be ‘umbilical’. :-(

KitFox

@MattЭллен I'll try it locally.

I was just so pleased I figured out how to do it up there.

tchrist

Hemlock umbles were from Crested Butte, Colorado in 2010. But 2011 was better.

@JanusBahsJacquet But then it wouldn’t be shady.

penumbra and all that jazz.

Johan Larsson

@MattЭллен checkout branch reset something, never used commandline

KitFox

21:17

git reset branch

Matt Эллен

yeah, I was looking at reset

KitFox

Then a hard reset.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist An umbilical carrot sounds quite shady to me!

(I love how my insurance company has me down as expecting to finish my studies by 31 December 1752. Sure, that makes sense.)

Matt Эллен

@KitFox a hard reset will remove all history, too

but yeah

tchrist

@JanusBahsJacquet That’s a most peculiar year, you know.

KitFox

21:19

@MattЭллен I wanted that.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox oh! ok then :D

tchrist

macbook# cal 1752
                             1752

      January               February               March
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4                     1   1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   2  3  4  5  6  7  8   8  9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18   9 10 11 12 13 14 15  15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  16 17 18 19 20 21 22  22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 31     23 24 25 26 27 28 29  29 30 31

       April                  May                   June

KitFox

@MattЭллен I decided to nuke it.

!!hello?

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox Hiya.

KitFox

Great.

tchrist

21:20

@JanusBahsJacquet I think you will see that they are doing that because they want to rip you off in September.

KitFox

Brb

Tinkering.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@tchrist But I get it all back in both August and December. Most peculiar indeed!

KitFox

!!refresh

Come on, baby.

!!hello

Can I tinker with the script while it's live?

Matt Эллен

yes

KitFox

!!hello

Jarvis the Bot

21:26

Hello

KitFox

!!why did you stop talking?

Matt Эллен

!!am I awake?

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox No way

@MattЭллен Yes, absolutely

KitFox

!!are you crazy?

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox Yes, absolutely

KitFox

21:27

!!coffee

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox How do you like it?

KitFox

!!coffee black

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox Here go you, sugar.

KitFox

!!coffee trixie

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox I'm not that skilled a barista.

Andrew Leach

21:28

@tchrist That's why the British tax year ends on the peculiar date of 5 April.

KitFox

She seems to be taking longer to process.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!stay or go

Jarvis the Bot

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 stay

How can I forget you, girl?

KitFox

Easy, girl.

OK, well. I guess I can be a little more controlled about the changes.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@AndrewLeach Because of 1752?

Matt Эллен

21:30

@KitFox yay!

KitFox

I think I just found the missing comma though.

Andrew Leach

Yes. The government wanted 365 days of tax, so the year-end moved from 25 March 1753 to 5 April 1753.

Matt Эллен

:-o

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@KitFox Bravo! On line 217,483?

KitFox

2348.

!!refresh

Janus Bahs Jacquet

21:33

Close enough.

KitFox

!!help wordwar

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox wordwar: Returns a NaNoWriMo wordwar widget. Takes two NaNo handles as arguments (no delimiter).

KitFox

ohmyfinggod

Matt Эллен

!!wordwar firefoxkit firefoxkit

Jarvis the Bot

Matt Эллен

21:35

oh. I got your name wrong

oh well

KitFox

!!wordwar KitFoxfire KitFoxfire

Jarvis the Bot

Matt Эллен

you win!

Ima slink off into the horizon

KitFox

Aww. Have fun.

Thanks for helping.

I also just realized I didn't copy the other files I changed.

Oh well.

Andrew Leach

@JarvistheBot So what's a sodium nobelide handle?

Jarvis the Bot

21:37

I don't know, but I bet it's sexy.

Johan Larsson

can you make the bot do vocab quisses for us?
like !!word and it replies:
What does ?? mean [1] fuu [2] meh [3] derp

KitFox

If you can write it, I could do it.

Johan Larsson

not anytime soon, been working 12+ hour days for far too long

KitFox

I like the idea.

Johan Larsson

write it in a way so people can understand it and pin a message?

with some luck someone knows of a source/api for words

KitFox

21:45

There is one for words, hence the hangman game.

But I'm not sure how to write one with definitions.

I have a couple of ideas, but meh.

I could pull three words plus definitions and pick one word, scramble the definitions, then check whether the key was correct.

Four might be better.

That could create some really funny questions.

!!what is your first laws?

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox Could not process input. Error: laws is not a function on line 2260

KitFox

I thought that might be a problem.

I meant to put square brackets there.

Johan Larsson

is SAT-test a thing?

KitFox

Oh SATs. There's probably something I could find and access.

Johan Larsson

In Sweden we have Högskoleprovet, vocabulary is a part of it

KitFox

21:54

I found a list of SAT words and definitions.

Johan Larsson

lets do it manually, @AndrewLeach I call you out :)

Andrew Leach

On what? NaNo?

Johan Larsson

ok we are ready

Andrew Leach

I don't actually know what that is. What are we doing?

Johan Larsson

you are about to win a game

Andrew Leach

21:57

Ooh. Really?! Let's go then!

Johan Larsson

@Kit hit us

skullpatrol

she's doing an up date on the bot

in the hang man room right now

KitFox

!!hello

wtf? really? Come on.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

@JohanLarsson You get to play word games for Högskoleprovet? Lucky bastards—we don’t have any of that for our Studentereksamen. :-(

KitFox

!!are you there?

Mitch

22:03

@JohanLarsson derp. It means derp.

Johan Larsson

you know the language, I must assume it is correct 1-0-0-0

KitFox

Well. I have no idea.

!!why are you not talking to me?

Jarvis the Bot

@KitFox Certainly

Johan Larsson

@KitFox post a few?

KitFox

You make no sense.

!!summon 8795

tchrist

22:07

@Mitch Denver Employees Retirement Plan

KitFox

@JohanLarsson Sorry, I have to go. I'll look into making a little word quiz though.

Andrew Leach

I could do with retiring tonight too. I promised myself something of an early night. Perhaps tomorrow.

Johan Larsson

ok @Mitch won tonight's round

tchrist

22:30

Isn’t this one of those questions?

0

Q: What can replace “consists of”?

For reasons I cannot explain, I hate the phrase consists of. Does anyone have an alternative? An example is: Testing consists of continual operation, alternating between random writes and random reads. To me, that phrase just sounds pompous. As a technical writer for international audience...

user116848

Hi guys

tchrist

First, it’s actually a peeve based on a personal hangup about language. Second, it is soliciting writing advice. Third, it can have no right answer. Fourth, it is a list question. Fifth, it is General Reference. Can each of those five be a separate close reason? :)

Yoichi Oishi

@Robusto Robusto-san. I sweated to find my awful mistake – ‘erection race,’ that I’m sure is impossible for 80 + elders can join. As you know, we Japanese cannot distinguish the sound of L and R. We only haveらりるれろsound both for la, li, lu, le, lo and ra, ri, ru, re, ro, and “lace” and “race” are the same sound. So we often make embarrassing mistakes by confusing L and R sound.

I have a book written by Taiwanese English teacher, who ridiculed that Japanese always confuses election with erection, which is a really embarrassing mistake, which I did it!

Robusto

@YoichiOishi Don't feel bad. I've made worse mistakes in Japanese.

user116848

@tchrist So can I use "reach out" to mean contact somebody? For example: I have been trying to reach out to Tommy but he won't pick up his phone.

Yoichi Oishi

22:34

Rubsto-san. Thanks.

tchrist

@Arrowfar I certainly hope not.

Robusto

But I recall a passage from Jack Seward's book "Japanese In Action" in which he claims to have seen a sign in Tokyo during the American presidential campaign of, I think, 1952, which read "We Pray for MacArthur's Erection." ^_^

user116848

@tchrist So what's some best words to use?

tchrist

Using reach out to is on the Forbes list of the most annoying, pretentious, and useless business jargon.

Just use reach by itself, or contact, or get a hold of.

user116848

Okay :D Thanks @tchrist

tchrist

22:39

Yoichi Oishi

I bet at least one third (or, a half) of Japanese mix up 'election' and "erection,' not for excuse of mine.

3

Robusto

Heh, it's hard when you don't grow up hearing the phonemes.

Do you mean it's almost impossible for you to pronounce? I'm a native speaker, and it gives me no trouble at all. Also, what good will IPA representations do you if you're having trouble making the phoneme transitions at all? Your problem seems to be one that non-native speakers of any language have: you simply aren't coding for the precise phonemes. For example, I can't hear the difference between hard L and soft L in Russian. But Russians do it with ease. — Robusto yesterday

tchrist

@YoichiOishi When your own language does not have a phonemic distinction between two phones that another language does, you cannot help but randomly throw them both into the same brain-bucket.

Perception of /r/ and /l/ by the Japanese

Japanese possesses one liquid consonant, a flap that varies between lateral and central . English has two: an alveolar lateral approximant and rhotic consonant of varying phonetic properties centered around . Japanese speakers who learn English as a second language later than childhood often have difficulty in hearing and producing and accurately. Phonetic differences The Japanese liquid is most often realized as an alveolar tap , though there is some variation depending on phonetic context. of American English (the dialect Japanese speakers are typically exposed to) is most commonl...

Robusto

The L and R sounds are particularly fudgy.

tchrist

@Robusto They each have several allophones in English, that is true.

Robusto

22:43

@tchrist So "What's the ask?" didn't even make the tournament?

tchrist

Like try to convince somebody whose language isn’t English that the two instances of phonemic /l/ in little are the same sound. You can’t, because they aren’t.

@Robusto I think they ran that one in 2012. Perhaps the inane ask dog-mess hadn’t yet by then risen so far as it has now.

Robusto

And then there's the whole question of the "Tom Brokaw L" . . .

tchrist

Just don’t listen to Jonathan Ross or Barbara Walters.

Whose own names defeat them.

Then there is the problem of the Latin mass’s opening line being in Greek, with kitty he lays on.

It should of course be lies on, unless he’s laying his paw on something.

Yoichi Oishi

Chinese don't have trouble in distinguishing L and R, as they have R sound. Actually Beijin dialect is known for adding R sound to the end of words. This is called R化　－Ｒｌｉｓｉｎｇ　ｉｎ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓ．Ｔｈａｔ’ｓ　ｗｈｙ　　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ　ｔｅａｈｅｒ　ｒｉｄｉｃｕｌｅｄ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｍｉｓｔ‌ａｋｅ　ｉｎ　ｈｅｒ　ｂｏｏｋ．

tchrist

Oo, double-wide!

Robusto

22:48

@tchrist Those are romaji.

tchrist

@YoichiOishi Ridicule does not sound appropriate.

Robusto

They take up the same space as kanji and kana.

tchrist

@Robusto Trust me, I understand this matter.

Robusto

Just wanted to get it in the record.

tchrist

They have the Unicode character property East_Asian_Width=Fullwidth.

But are in the Latin script nonetheless.

You can abbreviate that to EA=F, as in \p{EA=F}. It’s the Ambiguous ones that can lead to trouble.

East_Asian_Width=A
East_Asian_Width=Ambiguous
EA=A

East_Asian_Width=F
East_Asian_Width=Fullwidth
EA=F

East_Asian_Width=H
East_Asian_Width=Halfwidth
EA=H

East_Asian_Width=Neutral

East_Asian_Width=Na
East_Asian_Width=Narrow
EA=Na

East_Asian_Width=W
East_Asian_Width=Wide
EA=W

I grouped those by synonym.

Robusto

22:53

@YoichiOishi Is R化 pronounced Rka (arka)?? I know it means "R"-ization.

tchrist

I have a feeling that what happened is that Yoichi-san’s browser has some fancy logic about when to use the fullwidth Latin set, and since he just used the EA=W codepoint 化, it switched into wide mode for the rest of the text.

I can see why it would do that in a predominantly Japanese-language environment.

Yoichi Oishi

＠Ｒｏｂｕｓｔｏ－ｓａｎ．　Ｔｈｅｙ　（Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ）　ｐｒｏｎｏｕｎｃｅ　ｉｔ　Ｒ－ｈｕａ．Ｌｏｃａｌ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ｒｉｄｉｃｌｅ　Ｂｅｉｊｉｎ　ｐｅｏ‌ｐｌｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅｉｒ　ａｂｕｓｉｎｇ　Ｒ　ｓｏｕｎｄ．

tchrist

23:20

> Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “According to one poll, nearly three-quarters of smartphone users report being within five feet of their phones most of the time, with 12 percent admitting that they even use their phones in the shower.”

Even the word cellphone is a misnomer, he said. “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, Rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps or newspapers,” he wrote.

I disagree. It is not as easy to call something by a 36-syllable name as it is a disyllabic one.

Cerberus

23:42

Hello.

@tchrist Hence or.

Robusto

./standalone.sh

Ah shit, this two-keyboard stuff is annoying.

tchrist

@Robusto Tell that to the organist.

Cerberus

Who likes making graphs of financial data!!

Or correcting the introduction to an (English) thesis!!

@tchrist Wow, you're 101K now.

Twice my score and a bit.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…