English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:23 AM

@tchrist As does Dutch.

1:03 AM

@Cerberus It appears that writing for an educated audience is now considered élitist and exclusionary. Who would have thought literature was meant for the illiterate?

Mitch

@tchrist ha ha...no.

tchrist

It’s difficult to derive an “average reading level” when so many adults (nearly 25% in some areas) are functionally illiterate, because averaging in those zeros throws things off. Most newspapers aim for a 5th-grade level, although the New Yorker falls closer to 7th-8th grade.

Outside of peer-reviewed technical journals, the only periodical that targets an educated readership is the Economist.

There’s no need to burn books or ban them. You simply cultivate a population who are neither willing nor able to read them. This is not what the founders of our republic envisioned.

Mitch

@tchrist Time and Newsweek... ugh... like People magazine now

tchrist

@Mitch Those are a national embarrassment.

Mitch

@tchrist ha ha that's like the difference between Orwell and Huxley.

tchrist

1:14 AM

@Mitch Yes, Mr Postman.

Cerberus

@tchrist Are you talking about the smit answer?

tchrist

I am.

Cerberus

Right.

You know what?

tchrist

And the low-scoring answer who says it’s too highbrow to use a word like that.

Mitch

Newspapers are OK (except for USA today which is worse that Time/Newsweek)

Cerberus

1:15 AM

I was talking to my friend this evening.

tchrist

@Mitch Not really.

Cerberus

She told me her Dutch had suffered from teaching foreigners.

Mitch

@Cerberus You start to think the weird things the students say are OK.

Cerberus

Because teaching requires so much simplification at that level, it simplified her own language a bit.

@Mitch Mm she didn't say that.

Mitch

I say that

Cerberus

1:16 AM

But that is another possibility, to be sure.

tchrist

Short words only. Simple sentence. No compound or complex sentences. 250-word vocabulary. Fit in twitter length. No thinking.

Cerberus

So this person who commented on my answer saying that suggesting a rare form is bad advice had probably fallen into a similar trap.

@tchrist Something like that.

tchrist

It is a mistake to treat people like children, including children.

Cerberus

I avoid certain words that I think the children will not know, but I will not dumb down my syntax.

It is only good for them to not get everything, to be always on edge, to learn.

tchrist

But talking down to them like they’re drooling morons will lose you no elections. Because for the most part, they are.

Cerberus

1:19 AM

I rule over them. They do not get to elect me.

tchrist

One clause per sentence.

Cerberus

Luckily, the Latin and Greek they learn does not stick with single-claused sentences either, at least not after the first year or so.

tchrist

Use lots of periods. Three in a row, if possible.

Cerberus

> 12. a sentence, especially a well-balanced, impressive sentence:
the stately periods of Churchill.
13. a periodic sentence.

In other news:

> Mark Udall's Open To Releasing CIA Torture Report Himself If Agreement Isn't Reached Over Redactions

As we were worried might happen, Senator Mark Udall lost his re-election campaign in Colorado, meaning that one of the few Senators who vocally pushed back against the surveillance state is about to leave the Senate. However, Trevor Timm pointed out that, now that there was effectively "nothing to lose," Udall could go out with a bang and release the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report.

It is sad that one should have to lose an election to publish the truth.

Mitch

Ok I will have to say something for the Time and Newsweek style that is somewhat... high in thought content.

tchrist

1:28 AM

We are come to a unique point in history in which being unlettered and unmannered, uncultured and unreasoning, is a condition that draws neither pity or contempt but is instead lauded far above the contrary conditions, which are universally scorned and ridiculed.

The Marching Morons

"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy in April 1951. It was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965. The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia, is revived in this future. The world seems mad to Barlow until Tinny-Peete explains the Problem of Population: due to a combination of intelligent people not having...

Mitch

They both do the storytelling trope where they have a headline, say, Lacto-herpetobacillus causes blindness.

Cerberus

It's bed time...

My computer will shut down any minute now...

tchrist

Good night.

Mitch

and then the article starts off with a young mother with two children and their day...

tchrist

I have 5 new inches of fluffy powder.

And Lorin is a-roaming in the dark.

I turned on his little light though.

Mitch

1:31 AM

and this small thing happens and that small things happens for a number of paragraphs, and only then does somebody die from drinking the popular snake-milk that comes for free in school lunches.

tchrist

I hope Udall does it.

He would be indicted for breaching security.

Hillary never pushed back when she was Senatrix.

Because she had been First Lady. She knew.

And not the way Laura Bush was.

@Mitch Pot. Kettle. Stoned.

@Mitch Since when does Time cover the Indies?

Readability: Talking down to America

There was a good research paper on all this, about why the Economist aims at people who’ve managed to get through high school. I wish I could find it now.

They had some very detailed metrics.

I bet you could find the now-excised referenced article in the Wikipedia history of the Economist’s wiki page. It was once there.

NYTimes on the Economist

Does anyone alive today remember when SciAm was technical?

loiters about the oldsters’ lawns

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:39 AM

@Cerberus "buzz loudly during a memorial service"? "unable to silence it at all"? hyperbole. There are ways under lollipop to silence it. You could disable the vibrate. You could set up a do not disturb. Should alarms puncture the "do not disturb"? That's debatable. What point in having an alarm if it doesn't ring, even when the phone is silent? What point in having do not disturb, if some alarm you forgot about disturbs you? etc.

Though admittedly the loss of the vol-down->vibrate->silent feature is dumb.

Cerberus

11:42 AM

@Mitch That sounds hilarious...but do they really do that? And why?

@tchrist That's not possible: senators have immunity! That is why he could do it.

Cerberus

11:54 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, it can be done, but 1.) you won't even be aware that you can't just use silent the normal way, so your phone may vibrate durinng the service; 2.) it is a lot more work to change all the settings to get it to be truly silent; 3.) you lose the intended function of the new Priority feature, because you can only do it by subverting the Priority thing to only let through alarms; 4.) Priority does not only silence notifications, but the LED won't flash any more.

And perhaps other things happens in Priority mode: I haven't used it, but how are notifications shown in Priority mode?

So if you have just updates to L, there is now warning that you can't easily mute your phone during the service, it may happen if you didn't read up. And, when it happens, you can't quickly turn off vibration with 1 hand in the dark.

You have to wade through menus that you are not (yet) familiar with.

I think that is a rather large betrayal of trust.

Robusto

1:33 PM

@tchrist Does what?

Cerberus

12 hours ago, by Cerberus

> Mark Udall's Open To Releasing CIA Torture Report Himself If Agreement Isn't Reached Over Redactions

As we were worried might happen, Senator Mark Udall lost his re-election campaign in Colorado, meaning that one of the few Senators who vocally pushed back against the surveillance state is about to leave the Senate. However, Trevor Timm pointed out that, now that there was effectively "nothing to lose," Udall could go out with a bang and release the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report.

Jim Reynolds

Cerberus, are you here?

Cerberus

2:11 PM

@JimReynolds Hi!

I am now.

But not for long!

tchrist

3:13 PM

@Cerberus I see.

Jim Reynolds

3:48 PM

@Cerberus Hi. I was thinking that I would have worded one of your answers differently, or that maybe part of it was right and part of it was wrong (I don't remember exactly right now). And I wondered if any of us prefer to discuss such things in here or in ways that are better than disagreeing in comments to an answer or writing alternative answers....

But I will figure out some of that stuff if I hang out in the community a bit longer.

tchrist

5:25 PM

@AndrewLeach You missed only colubrine. :)

0

A: Adjective that means snake-like

You shouldn’t expect the average unstudied English monoglot to know the word, but the OED gives as the primary sense of the adjective colubrine: Of, belonging to, or characteristic of a snake or serpent; snake-like. One citation for that sense is: 1883 P. Robinson in Harper’s M...

> A una Culebra que, de frío yerta,
en el suelo yacía medio muerta
un labrador cogió; mas fue tan bueno,
que incautamente la abrigó en su seno.
Apenas revivió, cuando la ingrata
a su gran bienhechor traidora mata.

Not mine.

However, culebra is why I knew it.

The Google translation is close enough for you to get a sense for what it means even if you cannot read or rhyme it.

Cerberus

5:47 PM

@tchrist Exactly. That was also in the article referred to.

@JimReynolds Welcome!

You are welcome to discuss anything here in chat, including your criticism of my answer (which I welcome!).

Hmm I think I have used welcome thrice.

tchrist

“Thrice-welcome!” sounds like something Stephen Fry says when he plays the Master of Laketown in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies.

Oh, and lest this be flagged, I hereunder record it for posterity:

Newer OED additions with the solidus (slash) in them include nav/com and the crappy s/he, which I dislike for leaving out the poor neuters of this world and which should therefore be spelled s/h/it just like it sounds. :) — tchrist 2 mins ago

Interestingly, Jackson stole that line from the Elvenking’s mouth in the book to place it in the Master’s for the movie:

> The Elvenking looked at Bilbo with a new wonder.
"Bilbo Baggins!" he said.
"You are more worthy to wear the armour of elfprinces than many that have looked more comely in it.
But I wonder if Thorin Oakenshield will see it so.
I have more knowledge of dwarves in general than you have perhaps.
I advise you to remain with us, and here you shall be honoured and thrice welcome."
"Thank you very much I am sure," said Bilbo with a bow.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hah, you forgot the e.

tchrist

Moi, forget? :)

You have no idea how hard it was for me to write “a herpetologist” instead “an herpetologist”.

tchrist

6:10 PM

@Cerberus I can’t figure out what Greek word or pieces eusuchian (for crockish) comes from. Eu- is good, but is there some larger root there?

Was is just a gator?

Modern Greek seems to have ερπετά for crocodilians, so that doesn’t help.

Hm, that’s reptile in general.

At least chelonian for turtlish is clear.

Oh.

Greek should have (Latinized) souchus for crocs. Maybe the Eusuchians are “true” crocodilians.

Can’t find συχος, probably because I don’t know the diacritics or mis-reverse-transcribe the Latinized form back to Greek.

> Plesiosuchus is derived from plesios (πλεσιος), "near" or "close to" in Ancient Greek, and suchus (συχος) which is the Latinised form of the Ancient Greek word for the crocodile god of ancient Egypt.

Well, there’s one instance.

But that it should have come from an Egyptian crocodeity is a surprise.

I suspect that Eusuchian and You suck, Ian! are homophones.

There are doubtless easier ways of typing this than murine catch-and-release, but at least that much was possible:

macbook# perl -Mcharnames=greek -le 'print "\N{sigma}\N{upsilon}\N{chi}\N{omicron}\N{final sigma}"'
συχος

Sobek

Sobek (also called Sebek, Sochet, Sobk, and Sobki), in Greek, Suchos (Σοῦχος) and from Latin Suchus, was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and fluid nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile and is either represented in its form or as a human with a crocodile head. Sobek was also associated with pharaonic power, fertility, and military prowess, but served additionally as a protective deity with apotropaic qualities, invoked particularly for protection against the dangers presented by the Nile river. == History == Sobek enjoyed a longstanding presence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon...

Cerberus

6:30 PM

@tchrist Then why not write an?

I would.

tchrist

@Cerberus Death of a thousand cuts.

I hate how the Egyptian hieroglyphics have no more useful an official name than the Chinese glyphs do.

Makes it impossible to search for crocs no matter what word you use.

So I have to visually scan them for a match.

Cerberus

@tchrist That seems to be correct, it is from Egyptian.

But I can only find souchos, not suchos, in Greek.

tchrist

Like this just does not tell me it about a man riding two giraffes:

‭ 𓀬 1302C EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A039

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

> ‭ 𓃓 130D3 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E002
‭ 𓃔 130D4 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E003
‭ 𓃕 130D5 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E004
‭ 𓃖 130D6 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E005
‭ 𓃗 130D7 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E006
‭ 𓃘 130D8 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E007
‭ 𓃙 130D9 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E008
‭ 𓃚 130DA EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E008A
‭ 𓃛 130DB EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E009
‭ 𓃜 130DC EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E009A
‭ 𓃝 130DD EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E010
‭ 𓃞 130DE EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E011

Lotsa critters. Haven’t got a croc yet.

> ‭ 𓃬 130EC EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E022
‭ 𓃭 130ED EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E023
‭ 𓃮 130EE EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E024
‭ 𓃯 130EF EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E025
‭ 𓃰 130F0 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E026
‭ 𓃱 130F1 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E027
‭ 𓃲 130F2 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E028
‭ 𓃳 130F3 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E028A
‭ 𓃴 130F4 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E029
‭ 𓃵 130F5 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E030
‭ 𓃶 130F6 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E031
‭ 𓃷 130F7 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH E032

Huge section of birds.

Found some.

> ‭ 𓆊 1318A EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I003
‭ 𓆋 1318B EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I004
‭ 𓆌 1318C EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I005
‭ 𓆍 1318D EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I005A
‭ 𓆎 1318E EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I006
‭ 𓆏 1318F EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I007
‭ 𓆐 13190 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I008
* 100,000
‭ 𓆑 13191 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH I009

The first four there.

Suggestion: don’t try to make out hieroglyphs at 7 points.

At least with CJK glyphs (what the Japanese call kanji) there is a database where you can look up the Romanization in any of several East Asian languages. Not here.

Here’s a vulture and a snake:

> ‭ 𓅒 13152 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH G016

There, that’s just in case anybody from the future doesn’t have a font for Egyptian Hieroglyphics installed — although I can’t imagine how such a lapse could long endure. :)

The naming system is weird. H008, I001, I005A.

Ok, so there are (or were) both pseudosuchians and eusuchians. So as I had suspected, they appear to be opposing pseudo- with eu- here.

This happens in taxonomy.

Consider the Eutherians — the good beasts, the placental mammals.

Apparently platypodes do not count as good.

Cerberus

6:50 PM

Hmm.

tchrist

Wikipedia is using images for those code points, so it is hard to find them the easy way:

Cerberus

That's annoying.

tchrist

It’s so people who have no proper font installed can still see them.

But it makes it impossible to grab it as text with your mouse.

So it looks like the one with just the croc-on-a-rock is the god’s name.

“a protective deity with apotropaic qualities”— man, English is hard enough without Greeking it so much. :)

Andrew Leach

7:09 PM

Greeked text is a bit hard to read.

Iplodman

Gud' evening all! :)

How's life?

terdon

@tchrist modern Greek has κροκόδειλος for crocodile but that is probably a direct translation from crocodile or similar words. Makes sense, there ain't too many of them buggers in Greece. We also don't have an ancient Greek word for kangaroo.

tchrist

Now come on, the ancient Greeks knew the Nile!

Croc ≠ Roo.

Cerberus

@tchrist "Turning-away"?

tchrist

@Cerberus Warding from harm, I believe.

Cerberus

7:16 PM

Right.

@terdon Umm Ancient Greek has krokodilos.

@Iplodman Good evening!

How fare the Iplods?

I-plodding along nicely?

tchrist

That’s just what I was wondering!

They are doubtless yplodden.

Iplodman

I'm already confused by such a large mass of clever in one place!

tchrist

Or a typo for iPlowmen.

Farmers.

Iplodman

But other than that, good. :)

tchrist

Not um, the other thing.

Iplodman

7:19 PM

Badum-tish

:D

terdon

@Cerberus Really? From δειλός (coward) or δειλινόν (evening) I wonder?

Evening I would guess.

Cerberus

@tchrist *geplodden

I don't even know what the Dutch cognate is. Perhaps ploeteren, "to plod, drudge"?

@terdon I was hoping it might be, but the dictionary doesn't say.

I can look it up in Hofmann...

(Or is it Hoffman?)

It's Hofmann.

@terdon Look!

terdon

Nice! Stone worm!

Which also explains why it's cocodrilo in Spanish.

Though not why it's not crocodrilo.

Cerberus

Right, as I read that, I remembered there was an extra r in some languages...

terdon

Italian and Spanish have cocodrilo

Cerberus

7:29 PM

Perhaps dissimulation?

@terdon Is that easy for you to read, by the way?

I must confess the abbreviations often confuse me, such as "proell.".

Proelleptos or something?

terdon

I get the gist, not everything. Proell, is probably proeleysi, origin.

αβεβ : uncertain, αβέβαιο.

Cerberus

Ahh.

See, your vocabulary is much better.

But proell. standing for proeleusis with one l?

I guessed abeb.

And what is bdellai.?

@terdon I wonder what they mean by exellenisthen: I would think "translated from Greek", but it is in Greek!

So proto-Greek.

terdon

7:47 PM

@Cerberus I understand that as "Greekified"

perhaps translated into Modern Greek?

Cerberus

But it's not modern Greek?

Why "Greekified"?

The "ex" being "entirely" or something?

But what you mean would be "written in Ancient Greek", then, which would make sense.

So that's probably it.

I'm just wondering why you read the ex- like that.

terdon

Well, εξελληνίζω means "to make Greek". Can't tell you why, but it does.

And the -σθεν suffix is something like -ied. So...

My guess is that that is an Ancient Greek dictionary, made into Modern Greek by Mr Papanikolaou.

And that's not quite modern Greek. It is the language my grandfather spoke but not I.

It's καθαρεύουσα as opposed to δημοτική.

I can understand kathareyousa with no trouble but I can't speak it.

tchrist

8:03 PM

@terdon Probably because once Troy fell, Achaeanize, Argivize, Danaanize, and Cretanize just never caught on the way Hellenize did — at least for that sense.

terdon

@tchrist Cretinize did, unsurprisingly.

tchrist

For some speakers, Cretans and cretins have a different stressed vowel.

I think.

terdon

I always get a kick out of the closeness between crétin and chrétien in French. They sound extremely similar and I've always wondered if it's on purpose. Left over from the revolution perhaps?

Patrick Bassut

8:45 PM

Good afternoon(somewhere) guys!

Mitch

Somewhen

People from Crete are idiots.

terdon

@Mitch Perhaps, but all Cretans are liars.

Mitch

Says you

You're not from Crete are you?

terdon

@Mitch How can I answer in a way you would believe?

No.

Mitch

How can I answer that question with anything but a question?

skullpatrol

9:06 PM

By not answering a question with a question, that's how.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: Writing is taking its toll I’m stuck at the base of a hole I can’t clamber out Noöne...

posted on November 16, 2014 by sgdi

Writing is taking its toll I’m stuck at the base of a hole I can’t clamber out Noöne hears me shout I don’t think that I’ll reach my goal

Cerberus

9:28 PM

@terdon I know the suffux! It is the passive suffix -th(e)- plus the neuter participial ending -en (gen. -entos).

So it is katareuousa, I didn't even realise it! I knew katareuousa looked much like Ancient Greek.

I don't think the dictionary was ever written in modern Greek: probably in German.

And then translated into Greek.

> ἐξελληνίζω, turn into Greek: ἐ. ὄνομα trace it to a Greek origin, Plu. Num.13; put it in a Greek form, J.AJ1.6.1.

II. intr., to be good Greek, Anon.in SE63.37.

Turns out the word already existed in Ancient Greek!

> C. IN COMPOS. the sense of removal prevails; out, away, off.

2. to express completion, like our utterly, ἐκπέρθω, ἐξαλαπάζω, ἐκβαρβαρόω, ἐκδιδάσκω, ἐκδιψάω, ἐκδωριεύομαι, ἐξοπλίζω, ἐξομματόω, ἔκλευκος, ἔκπικρος.

D. As ADVERB, therefrom, Il.18.480.

Ah, I knew it!

2 hours ago, by Cerberus

The "ex" being "entirely" or something?

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…