English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Anonymous

21:00

I'm a lot better now than I used to be. I've spent a lot of time with dogs trying to get over it

skullpatrol

!!wiki peacock

Ice Girl

@snailboat and also snake

Jarvis the Bot

Peafowl

Peafowl are two Asiatic and one African species of flying bird in the genus Pavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, best known for the male's extravagant eye-spotted tail covert feathers, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen, and the offspring peachicks. The adult female peafowl is grey and/or brown. Peachicks can be between yellow and a tawny colour with darker brown patches or light tan and ivory, also referred to as "dirty white". The term also includes the Congo peafowl, which is placed in a separate genus Afropavo. In common with other...

Andrew Leach

Apparently I was bitten when I was two.

Anonymous

Yeah, I got attacked when I was little

Andrew Leach

21:00

My mother only told me that twenty years later.

Everything suddenly made sense.

Ice Girl

@skullpatrol Like me

skullpatrol

:D

Ice Girl

@snailboat Really?

@skullpatrol and also like you

:)

Anonymous

It's funny because certain childhood traumas seem to have lasting impressions, and others don't seem to, and I have no idea why or why not

skullpatrol

timing

Anonymous

21:02

@IceGirl Yeah, sort of. The dog wasn't really trying to hurt me, but it did anyway.

Ice Girl

:)

OK

Anonymous

And I was in an enclosed space with the dog and couldn't get away

Ice Girl

@skullpatrol What time is it there?

skullpatrol

time to sleep

Ice Girl

@snailboat Oh, hard situation

skullpatrol

21:05

bye

Ice Girl

@skullpatrol OK. Go to bed and sleep.

@skullpatrol Bye bye :)

@snailboat I hate dogs, cats, snakes, .....

I want to sleep bye all

Stack Exchange

21:24

Limerick Machine: The Internet doesn’t give bruises From people who don’t have long fuses But words can...

posted on July 24, 2014 by sgdi

The Internet doesn’t give bruises From people who don’t have long fuses But words can still hurt When they violently spurt Afterwards everyone loses

tchrist

@MattЭллен Why don’t the limryx ever scan proply???

Matt Эллен

they do, you just need to know how to read them

tchrist

Too many syllababbles. Which ones am I drop?

The first two lines should have the same count.

They don’t.

Huh.

Now it does.

Ok, this must be drugs.

I did just put a lot of hot sauce on a burrito.

Matt Эллен

:D

tchrist

9 = The Internet doesn’t give bruises
9 = From people who don’t have long fuses
5 = But words can still hurt
7 = When they violently spurt
8 = Afterwards everyone loses

Matt Эллен

21:33

dangit my mic isn't being picked up. I should really make recordings, so that people can hear how it's supposed to sound

tchrist

You see how those counts are not what I am expecting.

Matt Эллен

I do read the all out loud to myself. admittedly sometimes I just give up and post anyway, but this one honestly works

vi'lently

tchrist

9 = There once was a man from Nantucket,
9 = Whose cock was so long he could suck it.
5 = He said with a grin,
5 = While wiping his chin.,
9 = If my ear were a cunt I would fuck it.

Andrew Leach

I wonder what I did with my Edward Lear book. So many books, so little space...

tchrist

ba DUMP ba ba DUMP

For the short lines.

Andrew Leach

21:36

@tchrist I don't think Lear would have written that one.

tchrist

I can't do that with "While they violently spurt".

The long lines should be "ba DUMP ba ba DUMP ba ba DUMP ba".

And "Afterwards everyone loses" doesn’t fit that.

It needs a leading "And".

Or "So". Or some such unstressed syllable.

Andrew Leach

While WIPing his CHIN ~ While they VI'lent ly SPURT. You can use an anapaest instead of an iamb occasionally.

<aside>We seem to be losing people. I wonder why.</aside>

tchrist

Perhaps I should have chosen a less infamous matrix limerick.

Andrew Leach

Oh, I have a week singing in a cathedral next month for which that example will be perfectly suited.

tchrist

> The defining "foot" of a limerick's meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but catalexis (missing a weak syllable at the beginning of a line) and extra-syllable rhyme (which adds an extra unstressed syllable) can make limericks appear amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).

Funny how they have a fancy Greek word for a dropped beat but none for an added one.

Matt Эллен

21:44

fsck it, I can't find drivers for this blasted headset and I don't have a mic port. I'm going to bed

good night!

tchrist

Night!

I’m used to double-dactyls, which are stricter.

Andrew Leach

Night.

tchrist

Meanwhile over on GLU, we have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, or something like that.

Cerberus

What?

tchrist

I already dismissed it, but that’s what stuck in my head.

I don’t recall what it said.

Something like that.

Cerberus

21:47

0

Q: relative clauses and relative pronouns

I want to combine 2 sentences with a relative pronoun. Example: Ich habe einen Hund. Mein Hund hat den Briefträger gebissen. Result: Ich habe einen Hund, der den Briefträger gebissen hat. So "den" is the relative pronoun, but what is the "der" ("der den Briefträger") exactly? What fu...

I only see this one.

tchrist

Must have been edited. That wasn’t the popup title.

Andrew Leach

Um. Isn't der the relative pronoun there?

Den is the definite article on the object, isn't it?

Or is German so different from English?

tchrist

@AndrewLeach I think so.

Andrew Leach

My German is only slightly less rusty than my Latin.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach I thankfully have inverse rustiness.

Andrew Leach

21:51

That just means it's all reduced instead of oxidised.

Same difference, I think.

tchrist

I haven’t worked in Germany for going on 15–20 years, and even then it was never more than two weeks at a time. I last studied German um heck like 28 years ago.

Little retention now.

Andrew Leach

Apparently we were right.

2

A: relative clauses and relative pronouns

The relative pronoun is "der". It refers back to "der Hund". "Den" is the article for "Briefträger" in Accusative, just like in your single sentences. Here's a verbatim translation and a normal one Ich habe einen Hund, der den Briefträger gebissen hat. I have a dog, who the mailman bitten h...

tchrist

Ah.

Andrew Leach

And apparently I have a GLU account, so I've upvoted that.

Matt Эллен

figured it out. I just needed to look harder

me reading a limerick

sorry for the dropbox

tchrist

21:54

tries

Matt Эллен

but I really am tired. good night 4 reelz

Andrew Leach

Night.

Meh. VLC needs an upgrade.

tchrist

You sound out of breath!

I had VLC on autoreplay, so I was treated with a bunch of them.

They seemed to get faster and faster. :)

Cerberus

@AndrewLeach Yes, absolutely.

@tchrist You should brush up your German and read some novels!

tchrist

22:09

@Cerberus There is nothing new under the sun.

Cerberus

Genau.

tchrist

For Romans aren’t new.

I’ve only ever read Spanish, French, and Portuguese books in full, plus large stretches of Italian ones.

Well, and English.

The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi question now has 11 answers, few of which are any good.

And 20 hours before it can be protected by mortals. Is it worth protecting, or shall we let it play out?

It is one of those ones that draws random burnt offerings.

Rather ironically.

Andrew Leach

Protection wouldn't have protected it from very much, so far. Most of the answers are from people with 10 rep on this site. And one answer from someone with just 101 isn't as bad as the rest.

tchrist

I know.

Yeah.

That’s why I was just musing.

I call it ironic parce qu’ils ne savent pas.

So it gets a lot of dunno answers. :)

Hey, maybe dunno is the answer! :)

This has just been edited, but not redeemably so:

-1

Q: Why do people put 'had' in front of past tense verbs?

As can be seen in any English language newspaper or novel, people do at times put had in front of past tense verbs, both regular and irregular past tense verbs. Why is this done? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many people seem to object to my simple question, but no one answered it. If you can't see 'had...

grammar

> So, will someone, can anyone, answer the simple direct question in the "Title" above? I can't make it any more clear that what you see: why do people put 'had' in front of past tense verbs?

Sorry Charlie.

Andrew Leach

It's grandstanding.

0

A: simple past vs past perfect

For myself I kept a solitary piece of china, one of the few remaining plates from the set my grandfather bought my mother for her wedding. This sentence is correct the way you stated it. (There should be a comma after 'myself', but the error is slight. Test: can one properly say or write: I kept...

tchrist

22:23

Anyway, people don’t put had in front of past-tense verbs.

They put it in front of past participles.

@AndrewLeach What the heck?

Andrew Leach

He knows what the answer is.

tchrist

If at first you don’t succeed, ask ask again.

Andrew Leach

That's an answer on a different question. Perhaps we should just direct him to that answer.

user116848

Hello! peeps

tchrist

What the bloody hell is this allegation is that this book he cites has all these errors?

Nonsense, I am sure.

Andrew Leach

22:27

Needs at least one example.

But perhaps it's his book, and he's touting for sales.

tchrist

Heh.

Andrew Leach

@Arrowfar Hi Arrowfar. I'm afraid it's 23:30 and I'm off to bed.

user116848

@AndrewLeach Oh, Hi. Yes good bye! then :)

tchrist

-1

A: "At the Drop of a Dime" Origin

I don't see how this explains the origin of the term. Even if one concedes "drop of a hat" and "drop of a dime" are synonymous, there's no explanation as to how "hat" --> "dime" – njboot Jun 5 at 16:22 1 I think a dime drops faster than most hats. Discuss. – RyeɃreḁd Jun 5 at 16:29 I hope ever...

Dummy. Not a forum.

Mahnax

22:53

@Cerberus I have started Dutch on Duolingo. Just for the hell of it.

And I am at level 5 of Spanish.

user116848

@Mahnax So you speak little bit of both Spanish and Dutch?

Mahnax

@Arrowfar A tiny, tiny bit.

I can say "a woman" in Dutch: "een vrouw".

Dutch is so weird.

I keep giggling while reading things.

user116848

Yeah? haha.
Do you know how many countries Dutch is spoken in?

user116848

I don't know.

user116848

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 How is your softwares learning going on?

tchrist

23:02

@Mahnax It’s just a funny way of saying eine Frau. :)

Mahnax

@tchrist Don't mess me up with all this Germaning. I'm not here for that.

:)

Cerberus

@Mahnax Well done!

tchrist

@Arrowfar Three: the Netherlands, Flanders, and Suriname.

Cerberus

@Arrowfar Depends on how you count!

Mahnax

I'm going to struggle with de and het. Just wait.

Cerberus

23:03

@Mahnax Naturally.

@tchrist Flanders is not yet a country. You might also count South Africa.

And Namibia.

And possibly Indonesia...

tchrist

Don’t tell that to Flanders. I shan’t count South Africa, despite the mutual intelligibility.

user116848

@tchrist , @Cerberus I see

Cerberus

@tchrist I have shown you the dialect map and ranking, haven't I?

Afrikaans ranks closer to standard Dutch than many dialects in Holland and Belgium.

tchrist

Dutch is spaken by 32‱ of the world population.

Cerberus

0,32 percent?

tchrist

23:06

Pick one.

Cerberus

One of what?

tchrist

Either 0 or 32.

Cerberus

I pick 0,32.

tchrist

That’s two numbers.

Cerberus

Nah-uh!

tchrist

23:07

Speak Englisc, wilst thou!

Cerberus

Why??

This is the incomprehensible room, not the English room!

Tsk.

Johan Larsson

@tchrist Localization

tchrist

searches for strong-language for the occasion

Johan Larsson

just say it

Cerberus

The battle is ongoing...

tchrist

23:10

for (i = 5.0, j = 1; i + j < 2**50; i++, j << 1) { ... }

@Cerberus What’s that, the countries at war versus those at peace?

You cannot win.

Programming languages defeat you.

We write the rules.

The world is run by floating-point numbers, not by floating-comma numbers.

Johan Larsson

:)

tchrist

The world is not run by floating-comma numbers. but by floating-point numbers,

Johan Larsson

I don't like the comma btw

tchrist

So. how’s that working out for you. eh,

You are not expected to like this.

You are simply expected to conform.

Like is immaterial.

Johan Larsson

@tchrist I am

tchrist

23:14

Yes m’Lord.

Dutch has 21 million native speakers and French 74 million, compared with English at 360 million, Spanish at 405 million, and Portuguese at 215 million.

Come to think of it, the price of the fish & chips suggests this may be a Middle English question. — Rupe 34 mins ago

@Mahnax Does Edmonton actually have a Spanish-speaking worker class cutting lawns and cleaning hotel rooms?

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…