English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:35

@TRiG If we start doing that, we’ll need another moderator election in 9 days. :(

TRiG

01:00

in lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks, 2 hours ago, by TRiG

►

Tom Scott talks about grammatical gender and pronouns, and breaks his sacred vow to stick to descriptive linguistics. Rather good, actually.

tchrist

01:24

Of course, the people most guilty of posting so-called answers that are absolutely nothing but copypasted dictionary definitions are the ones screaming the loudest about how much it terribly inconveniences them to actually say where they are copypasting from.

Jason Marsh

02:01

Guys, if someone has a name "Alex Larsen", and I want to call him with a name something shorter, then which one of the following is the best alternative?

1) Lar' or Al'
2) Lars
3) Lex
4) AL

5) Alsen

Cerberus

Lexi.

Jason Marsh

Right

Cerberus

No, wait.

Senlar.

tchrist

Alex.

Cerberus

Noooo.

tchrist

02:03

Skip the Larson.

Jason Marsh

Alex is too boring

Cerberus

Pippi Longstocking might work.

tchrist

@JasonMarsh Hush! He might hear you! Alex conquered the world, you know.

Cerberus

It's not as long as it seems.

tchrist

@Cerberus pp

Cerberus

02:04

Too short. It wouldn't work.

tchrist

Almost better than Peewee.

LA

Cerberus

That sounds Indian.

tchrist

Big-endianly.

Jason Marsh

lol LA

Cerberus

LA is unambiguous.

tchrist

02:04

A note to follow sol

Robusto

A jink with dram or bread

tchrist

The sun is westering.

Jason Marsh

Bread is a whole new different name, innit?

tchrist

@JasonMarsh But shorter!

Jason Marsh

Right

Cerberus

02:06

Dram. Definitely.

tchrist

Bowie.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hardly.

tchrist

@Cerberus Did you know that a kilodram weighs four pounds?

Jason Marsh

LA is a pretty good one though

tchrist

macbook# units '1024 drams' 'pound'
	* 4
	/ 0.25

Cerberus

02:08

@tchrist Dram, or dragm?

Or is dram from dragma?

tchrist

Dram, one sixteenth of an ounce.

Cerberus

Ah, so it is from drachma.

Jason Marsh

Guys, can you please come up with a nickname for me?

tchrist

@JasonMarsh Nicky.

Jason Marsh

cool

tchrist

02:12

0

Q: Kabobs cross-contamination with beef and chicken: is it wise to use the same vegetables and onions?

When making kabobs (beef and chicken), could you use the same vegetables and onions for both?

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about objects existing in two places simultaneously. — user867 10 mins ago

“Onions and vegetables”; I wonder what he thinks onions are if not vegetables?

Yes. I would use onions, peppers, eggplants, and squash -- at least -- with any meat, and also with shrimp, marinated feta, and panir, as well as alone. Tomatoes are fine if there's any danger of drying out. — John Lawler 37 secs ago

So glad Professor Lawler is always there to help out a struggling student.

Feta marionettes. . . .

Yes. I would use onions, peppers, eggplants, and squash -- at least -- with any meat, and also with shrimp, marinated feta, and panir, as well as alone. Tomatoes are fine if there's any danger of drying out. You only hafta worry about beef if you're feeding Hindus, and then a separate grill for beef is required. Vegetarians will require a non-meat grill. Lamb is OK for most non-vegetarians, and pork is OK for non-vegetarian non-Muslims and non-Jews. Got all that? — John Lawler 9 mins ago

Jason Marsh

02:29

Why would a man want to eat vegetables with adorable names like tomato, eggplant and onion? Just eat meat and beer!

^_^...

tchrist

@JasonMarsh The first two of those are fruits.

And one does not eat beer unless it has been dehydrated into a powder.

Jason Marsh

Well, you can "consume" them instead

tchrist

The hard thing with eggplant is that it is hard to scramble.

No consommé required.

Those little Japanese buggers are fun, though.

Or are they Thai? I forget.

Skip the frogs.

Across the pond.

Like stones.

Jumping from one wave to the next.

Cerberus

Do people even check what domain they are on before they ask a random question?

tchrist

Practising your rhetoric again, I see.

If anglophones had to justify all the usages of the articles, we'd all speak French. — Edwin Ashworth 3 hours ago

Jason Marsh

02:43

Guys, which surname with "burn" ending is more popular in USA?
1) Marshburn
2) Mashburn
3) Houseburn

tchrist

nfi

Jason Marsh

Hmm what?

tchrist

gtfoohihnfc

Cerberus

@tchrist What?

tchrist

@Cerberus asking rhetorical questions

Cerberus

02:45

Well, obviously.

What were those lines you removed?

tchrist

Failed attempts to link to Edwin’s comment.

Cerberus

Ah.

Mitch

@TRiG Nice. He has a lot of good stuff.

Wait.. is he a linguist or a TV personality?

tchrist

03:22

0

A: Correct usage of replacing cuss words with symbols

Don't fuck with the African buffalo.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@TRiG ugh. Don't link to Islam.se or Christianity.se! They are like quicksand! Trainwrecks! Trains wrecking in quicksand!

tchrist

03:38

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I’m thinking they might not survive.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I'm not worried about them. It's me that gets trapped in the spectacle, whenever I click there.

In case you didn't notice, I'm a bit anti-religious. And the religion SEs are like a gold mine of headdesk opportunities.

So many strange things too. Like, Shog closed a Q about evolution, because the OP phrased it as "how do people who believe X reconcile it with Y?" It seems valid to me: anyone who believes X can answer, but Shog seemed to feel that it was too broad or something.

But meanwhile the question already had all the answers it needed: 1. evolution is reconciled with creation as metaphor, 2. creation is just a poem, 3. EVOLUTION ISN'T EVEN REAL, WHY YOU ASK THIS Q?

btw how did you find the answers that lack attribution for your list of good/bad/ugly?

Jason Marsh

I worked out too much so I might break my keyboard while typing because I'm fully pumped and strong right now.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 just a sec, on phone

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist okay, whenever you have time. I am wondering if there's an easy way to find my own answers that might need cleanup.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Just went through SWR q's with the most a's.

Damned Freud!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:46

@tchrist ah. oh well, I was hoping for a SEDE query to magically do the work. Guess it's up the the ol' manual search.

Jason Marsh

"Clean code is when you look at a routine and it's pretty much what you expected"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasonMarsh That depends a lot on a person's expectations.

Jason Marsh

I think it's true, a nicely organised set of ifs to solve a problem looks cleaner than code squeezed into lesser lines of code.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Does this meet the standard?

121

A: Is “the girls are want to gossip” correct?

It should be "are wont to gossip", which means they are likely or inclined to gossip. Oxford Dictionaries Online gives (Of a person) in the habit of doing something; accustomed: he was wont to arise at 5.30 every morning

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Sure, that’s fine. I just think people should say where they get their citations from is all. A bunch of the people who routinely give nothing but a dictionary citation as an “answer” are arguing that it’s too much trouble on Meta.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:57

@tchrist Okay, thanks.

tchrist

I did a bunch of editing of things that I knew where were from.

I left comments mostly only in the places where there was not even a link.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t expect all ancient references to get fixed.

I would like to see the future postings include a named citation.

But there is a cadre of people who think that is not needed, and that they should not have to bother with it. They think the link is the citation, but that is not how I read the help center message, the Shog posting, or my own intuition.

I honestly do not understand the resistance.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I, personally, am fine with a link being considered an attribution for a short quote. It's a very common thing on the web. But I also see your other points as valid, and rules are rules. So I'm going to edit a few of my answers.

tchrist

Short quotes are one thing, but most of these are almost nothing but dictionary copy-outs.

14

A: Is there a word or phrase for the feeling you get after looking at a word for too long?

Based on Martha's accepted answer, I offer: Orthographic Incredulity

Now, that is a different issue.

It doesn’t copy, but it doesn’t really offer much of the author’s own words, either.

20

A: Idiom or word for a very crowded place

How about "chock-full"? adjective [predic.] informal filled to overflowing: my case is chock-full of notes And the British term "chock-a-block". adjective [predic.] informal, chiefly British crammed full of people or things:

Not that I’m free of sin.

But these SWRs tend to draw nothing but those sorts of answers.

Actually, that last one is a good example of a bunch of different approaches, some good, some nasty, some so-so.

It has 39 answers!!!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist This one, at least, provides links to the dictionary where the answers come from. So in my mind it's not that bad, because it quotes the content (answer is relevant even if the link rots) and it also links (provides attribution, partial credit)

@tchrist The top one is mine. I didn't want to edit it right away because I want it to lie low until the hat-dash, when I might get a gold badge.

tchrist

I just would like to be able to tell the difference between Urban Dictionary and Oxford without poking through.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Doesn’t really need editing, IMHO.

@Mitch Be careful what you wish for: I lay the blame for this at your feet.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

04:33

4

A: Why "homophobia" and not "sexualism" or similar?

From the etymology homophobic by 1971, from homo- (2) + -phobia. Related: Homophobe; homophobia (which is said to date from 1969) it points to the second meaning of homo, which is the slang version comb. form meaning "homosexual," abstracted since early 20c. from homosexual ...

It's amusing that that answer is accepted, and all it does is list the bare etymology and then refer to my own answer.

tchrist

You are easily amused.

This is not a bad thing.

Consider the contrary proposition.

Cerberus

Hello.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

you, again!

Shog9

04:49

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 didn't realize you had an interest in Islam; FWIW, I try to explain my rationale a bit better here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So out of my first page of answers I've only edited two of them so far to improve attribution. Guess I'm not as bad a plagiarist as I thought!

Shog9

(tl;dr: the question wasn't about Islam. It's the usual "what do folks who like X think about Y?" that shows up on every site - "what do programmers eat for breakfast", etc.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 Well, my interest in Islam is akin to morbid curiosity, and really I'm not familiar enough with Islam.SE to really judge the closing of that particular question. My first impression is that it was fine, but I try to avoid going to islam.se and christianity.se.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, you!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You try, but you know you cannot resist the pair.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 I don't really see it that way. To me, it assumes that there are muslims who are okay with evolution (a fair assumption, I know some myself) and then it asks for an explanation of how evolution gets reconciled with creation.

Shog9

04:54

there's a long history of these on Christianity.SE - a lot of folks thought they were fine when the site first launched; it didn't take very long for the cracks to appear though:
1. anyone can self-identify as "Christian" - you don't have to pass a test or show ID
2. anyone can have any opinion on anything
3. therefore, anyone can ask a question about anything or anyone if these questions are allowed.

The rules were eventually tightened up to be closer to "you must ask about the topic, not the people".

I'm not surprised to see the same sorts of problems cropping up on Islam.SE

13

Q: Is "Some Christians say..." a valid justification for a question?

We've had a few questions lately that present an argument from a vague or ill defined set of "Christians" and ask for reasons why said group believes what they do: Why do some Christians believe it is moral to be a homosexual? Atheism is the default position. Isn't the burden of proof on the Ch...

discussion on-topic-definition

> So if a question asker wants to know why there are some Christians saying "they believe X", they should at a minimum provide information about who those Christians are or a source for the claim. That minimum baseline of notability allows for everyone to be on the same page: to be answering the question the asker intended to ask instead of speculating about any potential group that might fit the mould.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 without that ^^^, you just get folks speculating

and trust me, these questions do not age well. They're like magnets for everyone in need of a soapbox who happens to wander by.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shog9 Yeah. Well, afaic the entirety of islam.se and christianity.se and judaism.se are magnets for soapboxes and speculation. But I'm an atheist, so. ;)

So I guess what you're saying is that you closed that question because of SE-format rules, really... it needs to be answerable.

Shog9

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I understand. But you might be surprised to learn that even some believers will indulge in soapboxery given the opportunity.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yup

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The evolution question, I feel, could squeak by, because there will be a core set of rationalizations that link evolution to the koran. But by that token I'd say the first evolution question, which the OP even linked to, already answered it. In which case I'd close it as a dupe.

But I can appreciate that they have rules on how to formulate questions; we do too.

Theodore Broda

@Shog9 I am not on Christianity.SE, but closing such questions seems prudent. Firstly, it is a loaded question, as the question presupposes a certain belief is held by Christians. Secondly, by not attributing the claim to anyone, it makes the claim unfalsifiable, as the asker can just say that it is the belief of another arbitrary denomination if someone attempts to refute the claim. This applies to other religion SE sites as well.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

05:18

wow it's 1:20am here. Time for bed! bye

Theodore Broda

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bye! It's 1:20 here too, so I will be retiring to bed as well.

Jason Marsh

06:50

Alraxite

07:46

Haha

Cute!

Robusto

09:06

@Shog9 What, true believers indulging in soapbox oratory? Go on.

TRiG