English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:00

See what I mean now?

I didn’t understand what was controversial about the thumbnail that I thought was all that was there.

Ice Boy

00:17

Have they never watched the discovery channel?

terdon

00:45

@tchrist seriously? Someone complained? Not only is it not shocking in the first place, when you actually do manage to see the thing it is the only part of the animal that is actually red!

tchrist

@terdon Yes, someone complained. I thought they were being childish. But I never saw what they apparently saw, either.

@IceBoy The dingo stole my pickie!

terdon

Yeah, I found the meta Q. I'm sorry but I find the whole thing hilarious. People really will take offense at anything.

At least the OP was both polite and restrained. I love your disclaimer about sheltered children though. Made me chuckle.

Ice Boy

Lol @tchrist :D

tchrist

Chuckling is good.

Ice Boy

The best medicine.

tchrist

00:55

Maybe it was a dik-dik not a dingo.

Ice Boy

Perhaps.

tchrist

@terdon Shock and awe.

terdon

Indeed. Shame there were no sheep there, you could have gotten in a pun about shock and ewe.

tchrist

I think the Brits don’t get ewwwwwwwwww.

21

Q: Eww! Has it crossed the pond yet?

I hear eww (sometimes spelt as ew) fairly regularly on American sitcoms, usually uttered by a scatterbrained beautiful blonde girl when she sees or hears something disgusting. I don't recall it ever being said when I was a child living in London, in the 70s it was common to utter yuck or ugh, the...

Robusto

02:03

I'm afraid this doesn't answer my question, which originally was: "Is it grammatical in certain regions of the UK to use "too" instead of "either"? — Luis 2 hours ago

Then why did you add the part about "Imagine"? You should have left that out if it had no bearing on your question, or else tied up the relationship better. — Robusto 2 mins ago

We forget that people who ask dumb questions about English may not necessarily express themselves all that well.

tchrist

02:20

> Imagine that there’s no countries, and imagine that there’s nothing to kill or die for, and also imagine that there’s no religion too.

No negative-polarity there. Imagine X and Y and also Z too.

Not sure why he ever thought it was wrong.

The negative polarity would trigger an either only if it began Don’t imagine . . .

user116848

@tchrist Oh, JOHN LENNON's song. Although a very old song for me but I liked it when I heard it :-)

user116848

I don't get your "Don't imagine" part though :)

tchrist

02:35

VERB X and Y and Z, too.

do not VERB X or Y or Z, either.

It is a very old song for EVERYONE.

tchrist

04:08

Well, I think a certain experiment has run its course long enough to present results.

I wanted to find out to what degree “naughty” words in titles attracted views.

I intentionally masked shag in an ambiguous fashion so that its sexual connotation would not be immediately apparent compared with its scatological one.

And look at the views results: the titles with the sex-related naughty word in the actual title all drew many more views than it has.

@KitFox This is interesting.

This suggests, to me at least, that the title can prove a view-attractor if it contains a “wicked” word in a way that if it is masked off, it does not.

Hm, I seem to have discovered an unrevealed UI change. Checking through meta now.

Darn, not testable.

tchrist

04:41

> 2014-09-08: "Too minor" was removed of the suggested edits reject reasons list.
2014-09-05: Suggested edit review offers a new button “Reject and Edit”.

Well, that wasn’t what I was looking for, but interesting nevertheless.

tchrist

04:51

Completely different question: What is the bookmark facility in chat good for?

Mr_Green

05:14

Hi guys

good morning

"Her spouse is a Software Engineer and they have 3 year old twin boys"

^ Is this sentence correct?

tchrist

05:41

@Mr_Green Not especially.

> Her spouse is a software engineer, and they have three-year-old twin boys.

Mr_Green

06:02

@tchrist ok thanks..

Will Hunting

@tchrist It is good for bookmarking a conversation you find important.

hey

09:23

hey, hello everyone.

Matt Эллен

hey hey hey

Matt Эллен

09:35

@AndrewLeach I'm having a crisis of analysis: It what the subject or object in "What is a car?"

does that have an inversion of subject and object?

Or @Cerberus or @tchrist if you're awake...

Andrew Leach

I would parse that as [pronoun=subject-complement] [copula] [subject].

But I'd happily be corrected.

Matt Эллен

ah, ok. interesting

so, is is a modal, or auxiliary verb in that sentence?

Andrew Leach

09:59

It's a copula, a linking verb.

Johan Larsson

Keep it SFW guys

Matt Эллен

You don't use copulas with your car, @Johan?

Johan Larsson

dunno, kinda hope I don't

Matt Эллен

:D

Johan Larsson

the car, not my (colour)

Matt Эллен

10:02

I see it's a higher car

Johan Larsson

Le fix

Andrew Leach

Ah. The cracked sump.

Matt Эллен

nice handiwork

Andrew Leach

That looks a good job.

Johan Larsson

@Robusto ^^

Note the back wheel, we had to replace it due to a flat tire 100 km before.

Matt Эллен

10:14

Have you tried that stuff you spray into a flat that plugs holes? Does that work for cars?

Johan Larsson

Now I've had three car problems in two weeks. Looking forward to driving ten years without pause now.

@MattЭллен Yep, had to test it last week on my friends car, it did not work.

Matt Эллен

:(

@JohanLarsson fingers crossed! :D

Johan Larsson

It probably works well if it is a nail in the tread. We had a cut in the side of the tire.

Matt Эллен

nasty

I've not tried it. I wonder if it works for bicycles

Johan Larsson

The insurance company said they only covered towing to nearest workshop, 200 km away. We managed to negotiate so the towing guy came with a spare tire so we could continue.

But this weekend we had a proper extra tire, it was even filled with air :)

Matt Эллен

10:21

woo!

Johan Larsson

10:53

in Lounge<C++> on Stack Overflow Chat, 3 mins ago, by Xeo

Matt Эллен

harsh, but fair

Robusto

@Johan: I'm impressed.

So one of our pineapple QA people writes: "the cercle is supose to be spiner but isno't spining." How do I even respond to that? "Hey, this isn't YouTube, it's a place of business"?

Or maybe: "He this isno't youtub its plaice of bisnas"?

Matt Эллен

"kerankle the cercle with a barkwadness until it spines"

Robusto

Makes me wanna smack somebody.

Matt Эллен

their English teacher, presumably :D

Robusto

11:01

At least.

@MattЭллен Car is the subject. It's a question inversion. QED

Matt Эллен

@WillHunting that looks like it would be cold in winter

@Robusto thanks! I have updated my answer to say much the same, hopefully it's not too mangled.

2

Q: What's the matter?

A (1). What’s wrong? A (2). What’s the matter? B. The internet doesn’t work. In A (1), ‘what’ is beyond doubt a subject. But in A (2), Which is the subject: ‘what’ or ‘the matter’? Can it be clearly designated? Or ambivalent?

part-of-speech subject

Robusto

It only works with copulas, however. You can't invert "I eat porridge" into "Porridge eats who?"

Matt Эллен

yeah. no inversion necessary, but you do need an auxiliary: "do I eat porridge?"

eat I the porridge?

Robusto

Eatest thou the porridge?

Matt Эллен

Nay! Mine porridge is too hot.

Robusto

11:13

Thy porridge is at best a five, not so hot as a ten.

Nay, not so much.

@RegDwigнt What makes you think @Cerberus is high? Excessive use of AHK is not indicative of drug use. Quite the opposite, one would think.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Good question. In a sentence with noun - copula - noun, we normally say the first word counts as the subject, even though there could be inversion and you can't really tell. However, with what, I would be inclined to say the subject is a car, because the verb becomes plural if you change it to cars: what are cars?, not ~~what is cars?~~ (unless the asker doesn't know cars is a plural word).

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus oh! good point. thank you

Cerberus

Even so, the plural verb is not conclusive evidence, because it could also be caused by attraction from the complement.

Matt Эллен

bees are milk
that coin is milk

hmmm

@Cerberus what is attraction, here?

Robusto

11:29

@Cerberus I hate it when you're right.

Matt Эллен

(BBL, lunch)

Cerberus

@MattЭллен It is when a word takes on features of a (nearby) word even though, syntactically/functionally, it shouldn't. That happens sometimes in language.

@Robusto bows

But I'm not sure there is right and wrong here.

Robusto

continues hating that

Cerberus

Chew on a lollipop.

Robusto

I'm eating seaweed instead.

Cerberus

11:33

Japanese?

Robusto

In this case, Korean: "Seasoned Seaweed Snack with Olive Oil."

Cerberus

Is it true that a certain Japanese seaweed can give you pimples?

Ah.

Is it good?

Robusto

@Cerberus No idea.

@Cerberus Quite.

Cerberus

OK.

Robusto

I have no pimples, so . . .

Cerberus

11:34

Dutch has a special word for seaweed: wier.

Good to know.

Maybe wier is related to weed, but the verb weeding is wieden.

Robusto

I have some Japanese おかずのり in my desk. They're crisper than the Korean treats, but you don't get as much.

Cerberus

Crisp is good.

Robusto

But the Premium Roasted Seaweed (Green Laver), also in my desk, is the best. I'm saving those. I can't tell you the actual name, cuz it's in Korean.

Cerberus

And it even sounds wholesome, except the deep-frying (or isn't it deep-fried?).

> oeng. wār ‘wier’

Robusto

I doubt it.

Cerberus

11:39

So Old English had a word wār meaning "seaweed".

Robusto

I think baked, but I am innocent of any knowledge concerning seaweed-treat production.

Cerberus

Unhindered by knowledge, I see.

Robusto

@Cerberus Quite possible.

I don't recall that one offhand.

There weren't a lot of seaweed treats in Beowulf.

Cerberus

> oeng. wīr

"wire"

Could be related, they say.

Robusto

I'll take their word for it.

Cerberus

11:40

We don't have a word like wire in Dutch, that I know. I would translate wire as "draad", =~ thread.

So perhaps wier is our cognate to wire.

Robusto

@Cerberus So there are no wiry athletes in the Netherlands?

Cerberus

Nope!

Just plump cheeseheads.

> ne. ware

A "New English" word ware?

Meaning "seaweed, beach"?

Robusto

Dunno.

Cerberus

Hmm there is a lot of uncertainty about this word. But they think it may be related to English wire through Frisian.

I presume wire was once pronounced /wir/ in English, before the Great Vowel Shift.

Robusto

Might have been two syllables.

Cerberus

11:47

Yeah?

Hmm.

The Proto-Germanic form had two syllables too.

Something like *waira, I think.

But that would be all right.

Wouldn't mess up the theory.

Robusto

Beorht seomað wír ymb ðone wælgim.

The wire in that case is kind of an ornamental winding.

Obviously not something to connect circuitry.

Cerberus

Hmm what does that mean?

Robusto

@Cerberus Something like "Bright hanging wire around the sword sheath"

Cerberus

Ahh.

Seomað is hanging? ðone is the?

Robusto

Wælgim is an epithet for sword-sheath. "Gem of the dead" or something like that.

Cerberus

11:55

Ahh.

Robusto

@Cerberus ðone is one that resists me. Bosworth-Toller turns up nothing on it, so I just interpolated an article there.

Cerberus

It could be an inflected article?

Or a demonstrative?

Robusto

That was my thinking.

I thought it didn't affect the meaning we were interested in too much.

Cerberus

Right.

Robusto

Could also be a possessive. It's part of a riddle, so you never know.

Cerberus

11:58

Ahh that is not an easy genre.

I should probably learn some Old English.

Robusto

Exactly.

We "learned" the rudiments of Old English over the course of a single semester, and then were plunged directly into translating Beowulf in the second. I'm surprised I lived through that.

Cerberus

That is a good way to learn it, I suppose.

Robusto

Basically, you always have a dictionary on hand.

Cerberus

Naturally.

Was it fun or torture?

Robusto

We had some thoroughly nerdy Old English parties where we could only speak in OE. That was kind of fun.

Someone would make a statement, and then the rest of the party would whip out their Bosworth-Toller editions and formulate replies.

Cerberus

12:01

Yay!

Robusto

We got to drink mead, however. That was fun.

Actually, I thought the whole thing was a lot of fun.

Cerberus

We never were nerdy enough to have parties. But we did and do speak Latin or Greek sometimes.

Robusto

Learning other languages is fun for me. I seem to do it with a fair degree of ease. If only I could keep them active in my life so I don't lose the proficiency, all would be well.

Ice Boy

What would be easiest way to keep them all active?

Robusto

To live in a place where they're spoken all the time.

Ice Boy

12:05

Which is?

Cerberus

Ye Olde Englande.

Robusto

Yeah, for OE it would be hard.

I was pretty fluent in German after only six months there. It helped that I'd had high-school and college-level German instruction, but the rapid assimilation of full immersion is what I credit for my spike in competence.

But knackered only works in BrE. In AmE we'd probably say used up or spent, but more likely outdated or obsolete. Still more likely: "I junked my shitty old phone and got a new one." — Robusto 1 min ago

Cerberus

Yay Android.

Matt Эллен

more of your shilling, I see!

Ice Boy

Do you guys like Samsung?

Cerberus

12:13

@MattЭллен Hey, the android put it in my contract, so I have to obey it.

Matt Эллен

Yesterday you make video promoting android, today you're randomly proclaiming their name aloud!

Cerberus

@IceBoy It's okay. Like many other brands.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I can't argue with that, I suppose ;)

Cerberus

@MattЭллен It's the chip, I can't help it!

Planted in one of my brains.

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

12:14

But I have to go.

Robusto

@MattЭллен Just don't mention The Phone That Dare Not Speak Its Name in chat. (Hint: the company's corporate headquarters are in Cupertino, CA.)

Cerberus

Adios kiddos!

Matt Эллен

CU

Cerberus

@Robusto Shhh!

poof

Ice Boy

Later pal.

Robusto

12:15

Jun 16 at 12:15, by Robusto

@Cerberus This is much adieu about nothing!

Mitch

@Robusto Do you mean 'iPhone'?

Robusto

36 secs ago, by Cerberus

@Robusto Shhh!

Ice Boy

The iPhone is made for baby fingers.

Matt Эллен

s/for/from/

evil!

Mitch

12:28

@MattЭллен s/ev/ve/

Cover yourself!

Matt Эллен

12:41

@Mitch s/ve/unve/

discover yourself!

Robusto

@MattЭллен s/ver// Disco yourself!

Will Hunting

Today I found another nice shopping centre to walk in. It has 8 storeys.

Matt Эллен

\  0
 \_|_
   |_|
   |
  / \
 /   \

Mitch

@Robusto s/(\w*) yourse(.)f/\2et's \1!/

Robusto

@MattЭллен O you rascal you!

Matt Эллен

12:50

yourseet'sf s/ver// Disco!

Oh

let's s!

tchrist

@MattЭллен Normally, what is the interrogative pronoun, the one which corresponds to the demonstrative pronoun that. Abnormally, What is the name of the second-base player in a baseball game. What was originally used only as a neuter impersonal singular, but was extended to plural use following the revelation that the shortstop didn’t give a damn.

Mitch

What?

Yeah. That's weird. The name of the shortstop didn't come up.

@WillHunting does it have stairs/elevator or is it a continuous spiral?

Robusto

@Mitch Who?

@tchrist In "None but the brave deserve the fair," how would you rephrase that as a question? "Who deserves the fair?" or "Who deserve the fair?"

Mitch

They did a study and there is only (so far) one linguistic universal and that is 'huh?' Well, maybe they spell it funny elsewhere.

Robusto

@Mitch Huh?

Mitch

12:56

@Robusto I wouldn't even bother with the question. Too much pressure. What if they don't get what they deserve? Will the brave turn to violence?

Robusto

Well, if you can't handle that pressure, how are you ever going to deal with pineapple English?

Damkerng T.

I have a question about how SE works: Can the OP of the question see the reason people gave for voting-to-close on his or her question?

Robusto

With sufficient rep, they can before the fact. And anybody can afterwards.

Damkerng T.

I mean before the question becomes on hold.

Mitch

@Robusto Really? How?

Robusto

12:59

Oh, wait. Do you mean as individuals?

Mitch

Only by voting to close yourself do you see other people's close votes.

Damkerng T.

Yes. As the original poster of the question.

Andrew Leach

You can see the reasons if you have a close-vote because the dialog shows how many votes there are against each reason.

You can't see who voted for which reason.

Robusto

With sufficient rep they can see the number of votes for this or that close reason. But as Mitch says, you have to at least initiate the close-vote process (which doesn't mean you have to vote to close yourself).

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…