English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Matt Ellen Д

19:00

@Fx oooo, thar's something coming back to me. some old internet meme...

aedia λ

@simchona But if it did, oh wow!

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@Simchona that does not make sense

aedia λ

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, no, you can't fix it!

It was perfect!

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu english is not particularly unusual for using a schwa. Romanian uses a schwa all the time for unstressed /a/, spelling it as ă. Russian uses the schwa as an allophone of /o/. reduction to schwa is a very common cross-linguistic pattern

aedia λ

Snot!

F'x

19:00

so now, I have two chats to spend time in and avoid working

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@f'x Veggitales!~

F'x

thanks Stack Exchange, I'll send you the bill someday!

KitΘδς

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No Veggietales!

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Wait, how do you avoid work through this? You have to work.

@Kit why not?

Matt Ellen Д

@Fx pirate sex talk

simchona

19:01

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Yes, yes it does

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

....How?

F'x

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū there are ways to get great at pretending

it's actually called a PhD

aedia λ

@simchona I initially saw that before I saw Chaos' message you were replying to and for a moment I thought you were actually trying to find swine flu songs and were remarking that there were some, but they were lousy.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

..nvm....

aedia λ

I can't stop laughing.

KitΘδς

19:04

> I begin to feel empowered by your femininity.

That's my favorite line.

@MattEllenД The rest is meh.

Matt Ellen Д

@KitΘδς Aye. It was funny when I was younger.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

My favorite line I think I made:

If you think that you can't win, then you already lost.

Did any of you heard about it?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū There's a lot of tense wrong with that

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Do I care?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Jeez.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:08

Sorry. I'm cranky today.

simchona

S'ok. I hormone raged against you last week.

Bogdan Lataianu

@JSBᾶngs Yes, but I still think the schwa is used more in English than Romanian. It is the most common pronunciation mistake that I make when I stress the "a". In English, in long words and within the body of the word "a" is very often unstressed.

Grace Note

Sorry if this was already discussed, but wasn't this addressed in here earlier? Namely by @Kit, I believe.

simchona

@GraceNote It's the Canadian English 'untick/uncheck' question

Is this on topic:

aedia λ

@GraceNote Yes.

simchona

19:10

0

Q: What is a good way to wish someone after health check?

I wish you best health. I hope you best health. May you always live with best health.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@simchona ...ok, that sounds seriously wrong.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū You see, women have these things like estrogen and testosterone that are not always in a happy happy balance.

Bogdan Lataianu

@JSBᾶngs Or let's ask an English speaking person how to say the Iranian names Roshan or Keivan. He will unstress the "a" which is different than how it is said in Persian

KitΘδς

Don't forget progesterone.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Thats why men say women is scary.. There is even Korean saying on Women's anger...

simchona

19:12

@KitΘδς Yes! We are very complicated.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

And we are simple.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Honey, there are sayings about Korean anger in general

KitΘδς

@simchona Women are not complicated.

aedia λ

People's complicated.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Hey, better complicated then simple.

simchona

19:14

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū than is used for comparisons. Then is a point in time

KitΘδς

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū I disagree.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I hate those two siblings. Then and Than. Oh how I hate them...

Oh sorry.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū You'll get it eventually

KitΘδς

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū What? I was disagreeing with you.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I read wrong. My glasses are screwy today.

KitΘδς

19:16

Oh. Fair enough.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū too much SC2?

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu i'm not sure about the overall distribution of schwa's, but it's true that in english any vowel can reduce to a schwa, while in romanian it's only /a/ and in russian it's only /o/ (and possibly also /a/, though i'm not an expert on russian phonetics so i wouldn't swear to that)

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

No. The materials used for structure of my glasses is... Bit soft, lets say. I accidentaly bent it, and I get a funy feeling when I try to look through them.

JSBᾶngs

@BogdanLataianu yes. in english almost all unstressed vowels reduce to schwa, which is not the case in other languages

KitΘδς

@JSBᾶngs Wow, we are a lazy tongued people.

Bogdan Lataianu

19:19

it may have to do with seaman speaking and ...pirates

JSBᾶngs

@KitΘδς meh. everyone's gotta be lazy at something

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū take it to a glasses place. You don't want to hurt your eyes

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

You know, one big flaw in Korean langauge is that we don't have exact equal pronouciation with R and L. To put simply, We can't pronounce L and R exactly in words.

Bogdan Lataianu

when pirates were attacked they didn't have time to stress the vowels

2

KitΘδς

@JSBᾶngs Then I guess I should improve my elocution so I can be lazy at work instead.

simchona

19:20

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Neither can Japanese.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Like in the word Rear, the closest we can pronouce it is lear. I hate it.

@simchona huh

KitΘδς

@simchona It's difficult in Chinese as well, because of the retroflexion.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I wonder why?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Talk to native Japanese speakers. You can originally make the sounds as a baby, but once you learn the sounds of your language you generally can't make all the sounds any more

@KitΘδς Oh, true.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

So, I guess we Asians don't need L and R pronounciations XD.

simchona

19:22

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū just R

Japanese uses the same set of characters for "L" and "R" sounds in foreign languages

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@simchona: I always wondered this, How do Japanese write #s in negatives?

KitΘδς

The retroflected R sounds a lot like an L, and interestingly the L is closer to an R sound.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū I'm not sure. I don't speak Japanese.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

dang

simchona

@KitΘδς So they've shifted towards each other?

KitΘδς

19:24

@aedia Hey, you'll be joining the 3K club soon!

simchona

guidetojapanese.org/numbers.html

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

..3000 club?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū You can vote to close

aedia λ

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū It's actually a really cool linguistic phenomenon, that I hope @JSB can describe better than me. In a language, you can have variations on a sound, and for example, one that's more like L might only appear in one context and one closer to R in another, but to speakers of that language, they are the same phoneme. If you used one in place of the other, you would just think it sounds funny, not that it's a different letter.

KitΘδς

@simchona No shift, just the way they've been romanized makes little sense to me.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:25

@aedia Is english the only langauge who has L and R seperated?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Romance languages have it, probably others too

aedia λ

In English, an example would be [kʰ] in Kit vs [k] in Skill. The former is aspirated and the latter isn't, but native English speakers can't tell the difference.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Romance language? Lol.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū French, Italian, Spanish

aedia λ

Some languages distinguish the aspirated version from the unaspirated.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:26

then what lanaguages is Asains langauges?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū ...Asian

KitΘδς

@aediaλ I've never noticed that. Cool.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Oh come on. We need cool names too.

KitΘδς

@simchona Don't forget Romanian and Portuguese!

simchona

@KitΘδς Ah, I didn't know where they fit. I only know the "main" Romance languages

KitΘδς

19:29

@simchona Sino-Tibetan.

simchona

@KitΘδς There's still debate/study about where Japanese came from, though

aedia λ

@KitΘδς A way to see/feel the aspiration is to put your hand in front of your mouth or hold a tissue a little bit in front, to feel the puff of air or see the tissue flutter.

KitΘδς

@simchona Fair enough.

aedia λ

I am shamelessly repeating what I learned from intro linguistics books and podcasts.

I wish I could think of more examples.

simchona

@Chaos--Nobody knows everything about how language works yet, which I why I said that there's debate of Japanese

Just to fill you in

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:30

In my opinion, Japanese ppl thought that Chinese was too hard from them, so they created better version.

aedia λ

List of language families

This List of language families includes also language isolates, unclassified languages and other types of languages. Major language families By number of native speakers Distribution of the major language families. For a legend, see language family. For more details, see . This is a list of the top ten families that are fairly often recognized as phylogenetic units, in terms of numbers of native speakers as a proportion of world population, listed with their core geographic areas. #Indo-European languages 46% (Europe, Southwest to South Asia, North Asia, North America, South America, O...

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, they had their language too. They actually are more related to...I don't remember, but its not Chinese

KitΘδς

@simchona Korean, I think.

simchona

@KitΘδς Probably

Japanese people adopted Chinese characters at some point, and also learned Chinese (there was a weird relationship there)

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

But you see the difference of Korea and Japanese here. We Koreans created a whole new langauage, while Japanese Created a better version of already existing lanaguge. Like English, for example.

simchona

19:33

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No. Koreans use some kanji too if I'm not mistaken, and the Japanese didn't just "take" Chinese and change it. Japanese is very different from Chinese from a linguistic point of view

KitΘδς

@simchona Back in the Golden Age of China, when it was the dominant economy in that area.

@simchona That's true. There are a few cognates, but the Japanese just adopted characters to represent their own words.

simchona

@KitΘδς I think the Japanese also paid homage to China. Eventually the whole "land of the rising sun" was to spite/split from China. If I remember by Japanese History class right.

KitΘδς

Could be. I don't know.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@simchona I can be wrong too. but isn't this a debate? either of us could be right or wrong.

KitΘδς

I know that Chinese for Japan is "Rising Sun."

simchona

19:35

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Except in this case, Japanese and Chinese aren't that related. Korean did borrowing too (and is closer to China). There isn't really a debate here.

Bogdan Lataianu

@aediaλ Yes, an author writes about this phenomenon "Attempting to transcribe A's speech, I found that, despite extensive practice, I was unable to hear the Bengali dental/alveolar distinction. This amused A, who as a native speaker found the distinction to be utterly obvious."

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@simchona Hey, isn't that the Japanese point of view?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū The debate question isn't whether Chinese and Japanese are close (they're not). Its whether Japanese is close to Korean, or Aleutian, or something else

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, that's the "I study Linguistics" point of view

KitΘδς

Polynesian?

simchona

@KitΘδς I think so? It was something weird and kind of out there

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:37

@simchona we were disccusing about How Japanese langaugae was made, weren't we?

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Ok, you need to understand: nobody knows the exact origins of Japanese. But they do know that it is not close to Chinese. At all.

Matt Ellen Д

@simchona OK, sorry to throw wood on the fire, but I have a book in front of me that says Japanese calligraphy uses Chinese characters. Does that not mean that they use the language?

simchona

@MattEllenД Grammar is different

Matt Ellen Д

@simchona aye

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

all I said was that Japanese adapted their langauge from somewhere else.

simchona

19:38

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, you said they adopted it solely from Chinese

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

We can't see how Japanese was amde from this era's view.

KitΘδς

@MattEllenД They use the characters, but the words are different. It would be like saying that French and English are related because they shared an alphabet.

simchona

8 mins ago, by ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

In my opinion, Japanese ppl thought that Chinese was too hard from them, so they created better version.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Who knows, maybe I'm right.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, you're really not.

aedia λ

19:39

@BogdanLataianu It's a terrible problem! It certainly humbled me when I realized I couldn't tell the difference between a lot of sounds in my practice exercises.

KitΘδς

@simchona Hey, now. No need to be so harsh.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū If Chinese and Japanese were close, they would have similar grammars. They don't. See Kit's point about sharing alphabets.

They may have borrowed someone else's alphabet and changed it, but they did not borrow the language

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

hey, you can't know about everything.

Matt Ellen Д

@KitΘδς I don't think that's a fair to compare the alphabet with all the Chinese characters. Each Chinese character means something, it's not like a letter really.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Look, Im speculuating. we are all speculating.

simchona

19:40

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū I can know what I have put hours into studying. I studied this. Really.

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū No, it's not all speculation. Chinese and Japanese are not related. Really.

aedia λ

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū One way linguists try to know is to look, mathematically, at how similar things are going back in time.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Oh yeah? Just look at how Japanese and chinese are written.

they both use lines in similar way.

simchona

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Look at French and English. Did English come from French because they decided to make a "better" language?

aedia λ

So while it's true we can't know for certain, we can guess at when things broke off in language, the same way we might guess when animal families diverged.

simchona

3 mins ago, by KitΘδς

@MattEllenД They use the characters, but the words are different. It would be like saying that French and English are related because they shared an alphabet.

KitΘδς

19:42

@simchona Ease up, honey.

Matt Ellen Д

also, English does share things with French, and you can see that in the morphemes of the language.

I'd say morphemes are comparable to Kanji

KitΘδς

@MattEllenД That's true. But think of it this way. The Chinese word for music is yinyue. The Japanese word is something completely different. But they use the same characters to write "music."

simchona

@MattEllenД But you can't use that to say one came from the other.

JSBᾶngs

gah! i missed all of the discussion of phonemics

Matt Ellen Д

@simchona not overall, no. But bits do

simchona

19:44

@MattEllenД Kanji are full words in and of themselves. Japanese and Chinese read them differently

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Alright, so you studied. then if you insist on Japanese and Chinese langauge wrong, then where id Japanese langauge came from?

JSBᾶngs

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū japanese is descended from its ancestor, which was not a sinitic language. it appears to be distantly related to korean

KitΘδς

@JSBᾶngs Thank you!

JSBᾶngs

but neither japanese nor korean has any relationship to chinese.

simchona

@JSBᾶngs Thanks!

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:45

Alright.

Whateves...

Matt Ellen Д

Careful guys. We're on topic

simchona

@MattEllenД Oh snap!

Matt Ellen Д

remember

Aug 9 at 0:51, by random

This room was placed in timeout for 2 minutes; the topic of this room is "aka The Incomprehensible Room" - conversation should be limited to that topic.

JSBᾶngs

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū the fact that japanese borrowed most of its kanji from chinese does not establish a relationship, since the grammar and vocabulary of the languages are completely different and don't show any particular relationship to each other. a comparable situation is English and Hungarian, which are both written in the Latin alphabet, but which have no relationship to each other

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@Matt We talk about what ever we want.

KitΘδς

19:47

Twealing softly rewan ern digga nautch

aedia λ

@BogdanLataianu The first time I learned about this, something finally clicked for me. Until then, I hadn't studied anything about phonetics/phonology. I thought English sounds were easy (because I make them natively, right?) and something in the back of my mind still made me think it was silly that non-native speakers couldn't just "get" them. Then I realized I couldn't even hear all these other sounds. Kind of a watershed moment.

Matt Ellen Д

@KitΘδς good save!

KitΘδς

@JSBᾶngs This is what I'm saying.

JSBᾶngs

@MattEllenД bah. this is historical linguistics of east asia, which is off- topic

Matt Ellen Д

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū aye, 'twas only sarcasm :)

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

19:47

oh crap...

Gotta go. can;t explaiin I ahve to gio. see Ya1

Matt Ellen Д

@JSBᾶngs so it is, so it is. Carry on then :D

JSBᾶngs

bye, @Chaos

simchona

@JSBᾶngs It's still wildly interesting

aedia λ

Hasta luego @Chaos!

JSBᾶngs

ha! there's a whole wikipedia article about the classification of japonic

simchona

19:48

So...OT:

JSBᾶngs

Classification of Japonic

The classification of the Japonic languages (Japanese and Ryukyuan) is unclear. The group is traditionally considered to consist of dialects of a single language isolate. The possibility of a genetic relationship to the Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) language has the most currency. Goguryeo itself may be related to Korean, and a Korean-Japonic grouping is widely considered. Independent of the question of the Korean-Japonic subgrouping, both the Japonic languages and Korean are sometimes included in the Altaic and hypothetical Eurasiatic proposals by proponents of these linguistic macrofamilies. ...

simchona

0

Q: Suggestion for reading material

I am not a native English speaker, but I have a good overall command over English. I would like to improve it to be able to talk and write more fluently, in official as well as casual environments. Can anybody suggest some reading material or tutorials? Please remember that this is for an abov...

resources

Matt Ellen Д

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū hope you get that train / put out the kitchen fire

simchona

@MattEllenД or walk the dog.

KitΘδς

@MattEllenД Avoid the authorities.

Matt Ellen Д

19:49

@simchona That can be urgent, at times, I've heard

@KitΘδς Which my downstairs neighbours failed to do yesterday

aedia λ

@simchona Arrgh, I can almost taste the power! So close!

Matt Ellen Д

or maybe they got away, I don't know

JSBᾶngs

intuitively it feels like japanese and korean should be related, but the evidence is so skanty

simchona

@aediaλ How far away are you?

Matt Ellen Д

@KitΘδς Or maybe his girl/boy friend walked into the room naked. That would be enough for me!

KitΘδς

19:53

@MattEllenД Hmm. I don't think I'd talk the time to type that I couldn't take the time to explain.

Matt Ellen Д

@KitΘδς :D

good point

aedia λ

@simchona 103 away. I haven't had much time for answering this week (piles of work since I got back from vacation) so haven't been rep-capping or anything.

simchona

@aediaλ When you get close maybe Kit will give you a present...or i mean..."an unknown fairy will give you the rep you need"

aedia λ

Tee hee.

JSBᾶngs

people, I was learned that the entire yeniseian language family has been reduced to a few hundred speakers of a single language. will you shed a tear with me?

Yeniseian languages

The Yeniseian language family (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) is spoken in central Siberia. Family division 0. Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BC; split around 1 AD) :1. Northern Yeniseian (split around 700 AD) ::1.1. Ket (100-500 speakers) ::1.2. Yugh † (2 or 3 non-fluent speakers in 1991) :2. Southern Yeniseian † ::2.1. Kott–Assan (split around 1200 AD) :::2.1.1. Kott † (extinct by the mid-1800s) :::2.1.2. Assan † (extinct by 1800) ::2.2. Arin–Pumpokol (split around 550 AD) :::2.2.1. Arin † (extinct by 1800) :::2.2.2. Pumpokol † (extinct by 1...

simchona

19:58

@JSBᾶngs Let us have a moment of silence for this fallen language family

KitΘδς

silent

Matt Ellen Д

There is something oxymoronic about saying you're silent

JSBᾶngs

way to ruin the mood, @Matt

Matt Ellen Д

@JSBᾶngs It's a skill. Plus I hadn't read what simchona said.

or what you said

JSBᾶngs

i will feel better if i can learn an athabaskan language. they are distantly related to the yeniseian language

simchona

20:05

Save the Athabaskan...Save the world!

KitΘδς

Azkaban? Isn't that what the Dementors speak?

Matt Ellen Д

Good evening Mr. Loy, how is the weather in Singapore?

user19161

@MattEllenД Invisible. 4 am.

Matt Ellen Д

@JasperLoy Ah, the best kind of weather.

simchona

@Jasper huggggg

user19161

20:20

@simchona Thank you.

simchona

@JasperLoy You're very welcome. Now go to sleep.

user19161

@simchona Haha I just woke up. What is your time?

simchona

@JasperLoy 10.31AM

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

20:58

@Jasper my dear boy!

Wait, I'm too late :(.

dang. Whateves. anyhow welcome!

aedia λ

Meetings! Endless meetings.

This ought not to be allowed, really.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

I hate meetings too. Pointless.

Matt Ellen Д

@aediaλ see if you can get your friends to come along and bring cake. Then have a meeting about something else entirely. Meetings won't be dull anymore!

trg787

i`m listening to = a night in tunisia

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

MOONWALKER....

I'm watching it right now.

*Fever, Temperatures Risin' Now
Power (Ah Power) Is The Force The Vow
That Makes It Happen It Asks No Questions Why (Ooh)
So Get Closer (Closer Now)
To My Body Now Just Love Me
'Til You Don't Know How (Ooh)*

user19161

21:08

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Hello.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

YO! WHAT'S UP MY MAN!

I missed ya!

user19161

@trg787 What kind of music is that?

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

@Jasper Moonwalker is not a music: it's movie of MJ.

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū Which I never knew about. I don't listen to his music either, not my type.

user19161

0

Q: A word to encompass an object's x location, y location, width, or height?

Basically the word (if it exists) could mean either its location or size. It would probably have to be rather vague.

single-word-requests

user19161

21:13

Voted to close as not a real question.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Ok, question itself is confusing....

user19161

@ChaosGamerΕΛΥēelū There are many confused people here, including myself.

ChaosGamer ΕΛ-Υ ēel-ū

Lol..

aedia λ

@MattEllenД That's what I've been doing wrong! No cake!

Matt Ellen Д

@aediaλ cake is a drug!

user19161

21:21

@MattEllenД Like pot and coke. Drugs have interesting names.

Matt Ellen Д

@JasperLoy (p.s. this is satire)

user19161

@MattEllenД Oh OK.

aedia λ

@MattEllenД Shatner's bassoon! HA! You're killing me.

Matt Ellen Д

@aediaλ It was fantastic comedy

user19161

Is 6-8 weeks really a code for an undefined period of time?

user19161

21:29

2

Q: Has anyone received their swag package?

I got an email from the team for EL&U swag on June 14, 2011. I really appreciate that; thanks. Has anyone received their package yet? It's been more than 2 months and I just wanted to check if they were dispatched.

support swag

Matt Ellen Д

haha, I think that's what it feels like to people waiting for things

are you talking about swag?

oh, you are :)

user19161

Yes about Grace's comment there. But I didn't request for mine because I won't be using any of the items.

user19161

So no point wasting stuff.

Matt Ellen Д

Companies often say x to y weeks, just to fob people off

after about 6 weeks a lot of people will forget how long they've been waiting for

user19161

I think it is not really standard meaning of the phrase then, just an often used expression.

Matt Ellen Д

21:31

yeah

aedia λ

@MattEllenД Sounds dirty. Do you really fob people off, on your side of the pond?

Or are you just trying to get me to say that?

Matt Ellen Д

@aediaλ all the time

user19161

@aediaλ You call that the pond?

aedia λ

@JasperLoy It's my ocean! I can call it what I want ;)

user19161

@aediaλ Oh ya, I forgot you owned all the oceans!

Matt Ellen Д

21:33

@aediaλ It does sound a bit risqué, now you mention it!

@aediaλ I thought the best part was that it actually got raised in parliament :D

The MP was livid when he found out it was all a joke

aedia λ

@MattEllenД Oh my! Seriously? That is funny and sad at the same time.

user19161

The EU wanted to take out all sexist language like policeman, fireman, waiter, waitress that seemed to imply one sex and not the other.

user19161

But I think nobody followed the proposal in the end.

Matt Ellen Д

@aediaλ Yeah. I thought the give away might be "Cake - it's a made up drug"

@JasperLoy good. newspeak shall not pass!

aedia λ

@MattEllenД The only fobs I know about are keychain fobs, most often used here to refer to the ones with the button you press so everyone can stare at you setting off your car alarm when you're trying to load up the groceries.

Wiktionary says Shakespeare used "fob off" so apparently my education is lacking.

Matt Ellen Д

21:38

@aediaλ yeah we have key fobs. in fact I think we use fob and dongle interchangably

@aediaλ etymology is fun :) I love learning about English.

I don't mean to fob you off, but - time for bed!

aedia λ

@MattEllenД Oh, dongle is something else to me. I don't use it to refer to the car keychain thingamajiggers, but only to things that don't go on like... a keychain or things like that. Something you wouldn't clip to your belt, necessarily. Like a USB stick or something.

@MattEllenД Sleep well and don't let your dongles dangle!

user19161

@MattEllenД Goodnight!

user19161

0

Q: Short word that means the say as some one who takes notes

I have stenographer, secretary and recorder already (but they don't seem to be precise enough) and I'm hoping to find a shorter word if possible please.

synonyms

user19161

Not sure how short OP wants.

aedia λ

21:55

I tried to answer. I thought of "scribe"...

I can't come up with anything better. 4 characters. Eeesh! This is English. We can barely curse in that many letters.

user19161

@aediaλ +1 for you. I thought of noter which doesn't exist, it's actually notetaker.

aedia λ

It's kind of a thesaurus question, but it doesn't exactly seem gen ref, 'cause it does seem the OP looked it up already and didn't find anything.

user19161

Good observation.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…