English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

infinitesimal

01:04

I can't believe I didn't know this

in Math Mods' Office, 5 hours ago, by infinitesimal

What does STFU stand for @Internetsheriffabc123?

How humiliating

tchrist

Southern Tenant Farmers Union

The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) was founded in 1934 as a civil farmer's union to further organize the tenant farmers in the Southern United States. Originally set up during the Great Depression in the United States, the reasons for the establishment of the STFU are numerous, although they are all largely centered upon money and working conditions. Predominantly, the STFU was established as a response to policies of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA itself was designed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help revive the United States' agricultural industry and...

infinitesimal

Try an image search ;-)

tchrist

Braille.

infinitesimal

Internet slang

Street talk.

That troll/bully played me for a fool >8(

tchrist

Ask not of a monk the meaning of gutter talk.

infinitesimal

01:10

Indeed.

There be no such utterances within the ivory tower.

Fortunately the mods removed the message and its context.

Cerberus

02:05

@Robusto Hah, I thought it an odd remark, but I was in a hurry.

"Why is he saying art for sculptures and paintings only, as if architecture weren't art as well?"

> I get to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, in three rides. The first one negotiated by a young man I met on the streets who learned fluent English by playing online games.

This is my friend's writing on her weblog.

tchrist

03:35

@Cerberus Difficult to imagine, really. But the world is filled with things unimaginable to me.

Cerberus

04:50

@tchrist So it is.

As always, fluent is vague...

But apparently a lot better than his peers.

infinitesimal

Hi pal.

tchrist

05:48

36

Q: Modernize the close vote aging logic

I've been putting this off for a long time... Close vote aging - the deactivation of votes that haven't resulted in a question being closed - is a critical part of the vote-to-close system, but has something of a troubled history: all too often, it has been more annoying than useful, capricious...

Robusto

13:15

@tchrist: another false friend: éxito.

terdon

@Robusto Ugh, yeah, that one took some getting used to. As did suportar which means tolerate not support.

Robusto

Yes.

I hate those.

terdon

Oh, and eventualmente which means perhaps,possibly and not eventually.

Robusto

Yeah. There are many.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: What does "You are not Irish" mean? by Rev Skip on english.stackexchange.com

infinitesimal

13:20

"Irish" is offensive?

Robusto

@terdon And el juicio is not "the juice" . . . or "the juicy" . . . ^)^

terdon

Ah, yes, I hadn't thought of that one.

I learned Spanish on the streets by speaking it so the ones that don't sound similar never troubled me until I started writing. By that time, I could speak fluently.

Robusto

La unión is "the marriage" which it is in English as well, but somehow I never see it rendered that way except poetically.

terdon

@Robusto Hardly surprising in a language whose word for wife is the same as the word for handcuffs.

Robusto

@terdon Esposa?

terdon

13:30

@Robusto Yup

Robusto

Wow.

terdon

Well, esposas for handcuffs but it's the same word.

Robusto

Well, in America we refer to TOBAC (The old ball and chain). Maybe the idea of marriage as captivity is universal.

terdon

> esposo, sa.

(Del lat. sponsus).

1. m. y f. Persona casada.

2. m. y f. Persona que ha celebrado esponsales.

3. f. Am. Anillo episcopal.

4. f. pl. Pareja de manillas unidas entre sí con las que se aprisionan las muñecas de alguien.

Look at 1 and 4.

@Robusto Indeed, but I've never come across another language that takes it quite so literally.

Robusto

Tell the dictionary editors not to editorialize so much.

terdon

13:32

Then again, they call vibrators consoladores so they do tend to be kind of literal minded.

Robusto

Hmm, they don't allow La edición de hoy to be translated as "the edition of the day" (though that is idiomatic English).

terdon

Huh, the chat bot ate my vibrators.

2

infinitesimal

@terdon who are the most metaphorically minded?

terdon

@infinitesimal No idea.

The modern Greek words for husband and wife are man and woman so that's out.

infinitesimal

i don't think my question makes sense

Robusto

13:39

> You can now read 74.7% of all real Spanish text

infinitesimal

as apposed to imaginary?

Mitch

Royal spanish text

Literally

tchrist

@Robusto There’s a chain of them there. Éxito means success, but suceso means event and suceder means to happen.

Robusto

@terdon: Also el compromiso.

@tchrist I knew about suceso but not suceder.

tchrist

So, can you tell what exitosamente means?

Robusto

13:43

Seems like it should mean "successfully" . . .

tchrist

Right.

Robusto

They don't allow juego to be construed as sport . . . grr

tchrist

@terdon At least an esposa can have a marido if she wants.

No, un juego is a game. Deportes are sports.

infinitesimal

So that's what "real madrid" means in soccer "royal madrid"?

tchrist

But you can use juego as a game that means a sports game.

@infinitesimal Surely.

Robusto

13:46

@tchrist The distinction is fuzzier in English.

tchrist

It’s just that fútbol is not itself a juego.

At least, I wouldn't call it one.

Robusto

Es sólo un juego.

tchrist

More of a manía if you ask me. )

@Robusto You could probably get away with that, but deporte is better.

Robusto

It's quaint that they say No me gusta tu comportamiento . . . "I don't like your comportment."

tchrist

No me gusta cómo te comportas is easier to say.

I can't even see yet.

Compórtate is a mother scolding her child to behave.

Robusto

13:51

So the -te inflection is imperative?

Curiously, it is in Japanese as well. Well, for certain verb endings.

tchrist

Well, the verb is comportarse.

Robusto

And in Latin: Ite.

tchrist

That’s Go, so Id.

But te is thee, whether in front for (modern) finites, or behind for imperatives, infinitives, gerunds.

Robusto

@tchrist I know. I was Catholic when it meant something. Specifically, that the mass was finally over.

tchrist

Ite, missa est. Yes, I remember. "Scram, it’s all over"

Robusto

13:53

You can imagine with what genuine gratitude I replied habemus a dominum to ite, missa est.

tchrist

Yep.

I always take that sense to mean "leave", which is the reflexive irse.

Not something you use much, but I seem to recall the 2nd pl imperative on that one is irregular in that it is not irregular, so should just be idos.

Imperatives should normally eat the final -d before adding the reflexive os.

But that one is too short. :)

Llamaos américanos aquí < Lost the d in llamad + os.

Robusto

47 out of 66 units done so far.

tchrist

Váyanse is how one would say idos in América.

"Scram", leave, take off, get outta here.

The tú imperative is vete, with reflexive.

I wonder what the remaining units are on.

Robusto

Japanese is funny, but regular. Verbs ending in -u, -tsu, and -ru form their continuous and imperative forms with -tte. Those ending -su, -ku, -gu with a simple -te, and those ending in -bu, -mu, and -nu with -nde.

There are some very hard things about Japanese, but inflections aren't part of that.

tchrist

Well, to be and to go are just bound to be tough in Indo-European languages.

Here’s a short list of faux amis, although its columns take a second to get used to reading:

Appendix:Spanish false cognates and false friends with English

This is an initial list of false cognates and false friends between Spanish and English. They therefore look similar but respectively either they do not actually come from the same root or they have different meanings, despite their similarities....

The second column is what it does NOT mean.

mentalfloss.com/article/57195/…

For some reason I like the second list better.

This one is good: elearnspanishlanguage.com/vocabulary/falsosamigos.html

It has some rather amusing ones that the others don’t mention.

Oxford have their own list: oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com/Public/…

Robusto

14:18

So I'm wondering if /h/ was all that prominent in Latin, since Spanish and French don't pronounce it and Italian has maybe dropped it altogether?

tchrist

I don’t know. It’s a hard sound to keep.

But note that there are two kinds of silent-h in French.

Robusto

Of course.

How could French get by with only a single version of silent h?

tchrist

In French, there’s the one silent-h you don’t say on one hand, and then the other silent-h that you don’t say on the other. Number 2 also makes things earlier things silent (or rather, suppresses their liaison).

Robusto

English may be crazy, but it got that largely from French.

tchrist

Green beans are des haricots verts. That is the second kind of a silent-h, so the /z/ on des is suppressed.

But winters are les hivers, which is the first sort, so you say /z/ in les.

It’s really really annoying.

You have to learn each type separately, and there are no clues.

They called the one that stops the glottis "aspirated", but it is a funny way to talk about it.

> Since the phonological behavior of aspirate h words cannot be predicted through spelling, prescriptively correct usage requires a considerable amount of memorization. Hence, they are often used to demonstrate one’s education and social status.

Robusto

14:26

And French is about nothing if not prescriptively correct usage.

tchrist

In a way, h is a flaw in Spanish orthography. There is no excuse for it.

At least, that’s what the Italians think.

However, it allows one to connect to etymology better. honor, hombre, humedad.

Robusto

Seems like hic and hoc have gotten the bum's rush, yes?

tchrist

I started to cite ici but that’s French. :(

But actually, they are in aquí and acá.

Robusto

Then where did allí come from?

tchrist

illic

illic = ille + ce, over yonder

Robusto

14:33

I'm having trouble with the whole reflexive pronoun mess. Sometimes you use it, sometimes you don't, and sometimes you add extra pronouns (a él) even when you use the reflexive ones.

tchrist

And ahí is from Vulgar Latin’s ad ibi.

@Robusto That looks like dative doubling. Can you give me an example of reflexive doubling?

Robusto

Off the top of my head? Let me think a bit.

tchrist

I can’t think of why you would add a él to a reflexive.

El hombre se afeita. I guess you COULD add a sí mismo, but that would have to be contrastive.

Robusto

@tchrist Otra lo mira a él.

tchrist

That’s not reflexive.

Robusto

14:36

OK.

Whatever it is, that is one thing I'm having a problem with.

tchrist

And technically, that would be accusative doubling. Accusative doubling is mandatory when the direct object precedes the verb.

Robusto

39 secs ago, by Robusto

Whatever it is, that is one thing I'm having a problem with.

tchrist

Al hombre lo miran los otros.

Los otros miran al hombre.

Robusto

Feels like my toes have left the ground when I see these constructions.

tchrist

Those sentences mean the same thing. The first emphasizes the object, the second the subject.

Robusto

14:39

You must understand that the duolingo course is about exposure and repetition, not grammatical analysis. So it's the opposite of the way a school in America would teach it.

tchrist

Al hombre lo mordió el perro is "dog bit man". El hombre mordió el perro is "man bit dog". :)

Johan Larsson

I'm in subpixel land

tchrist

Naiads?

Johan Larsson

dunno

tchrist

@Robusto Harder to extrapolate rules, in some ways.

@JohanLarsson I meant sea-pixies.

Robusto

14:41

Yes, but easier to get some fluency, I would think.

tchrist

Yes, that’s the idea. Berlitz method.

A Beautiful Mind

It seems that the Berlitz books are not really sold on Amazon anymore. Their new products are inferior.

Johan Larsson

A circle has a center point not a centre right?

tchrist

So Denver set a new February record of 22" of snow. How quaint!

A Beautiful Mind

@Robusto In this way, maybe you naturally assimilate the language like a native speaker.

tchrist

14:44

@JohanLarsson You’re asking the wrong people. :)

Johan Larsson

why?

tchrist

Because all centers are centers to us. There is no *centre.

A Beautiful Mind

@JohanLarsson Either term will do. Just use centre for simplicity.

tchrist

The Brits would say the other way around to confuse you.

Johan Larsson

so Centre is BrE?

tchrist

14:46

Yes.

Johan Larsson

Centre it is then

A Beautiful Mind

@JohanLarsson The centre and the radius will define a unique circle on the plane.

Johan Larsson

in the plane?

tchrist

February had 10 days over 60 of which 3 days were over 70.

We’ve had 52.5 inches of snow, and it is supposed to start up again this afternoon for 1–3" more. This is why Denver seems quaint.

You have to admit, the combo of 10 days you could wear shorts with more than four feet of snow is odd.

Johan Larsson

We will have flowers soon

A Beautiful Mind

14:47

@JohanLarsson Plane just means the x-y plane, you know. Horizontal and vertical axes.

tchrist

@JohanLarsson I had (a few) flowers. They are very buried.

Johan Larsson

ok

les fleurs

A Beautiful Mind

Center is AmE. Centre is BrE.

tchrist

And the xz plane, and the zy plane, and the xyzzy plane.

Johan Larsson

@ABeautifulMind *Centre is correct

Robusto

14:50

I hate the irregularity of contar.

tchrist

But it isn’t really irregular.

It’s an o > ue stem changer, that’s all.

There are more of those than I can begin to list.

It has no other "irregularities".

Robusto

That one is enough.

Contó, cuentan, wtf.

tchrist

Because it's a stressing effect.

Robusto

Well, just takes some getting used to, I guess.

tchrist

It only diphthongs under stress.

Robusto

14:52

Same here.

crl

@Robusto Conoces la diferencia entre "ser listo" y "estar listo"?

tchrist

Common ue stem-changers include almorzar, aprobar, colgar, contar, costar, devolver, dormir, encontrar, envolver, morder, morir, mostrar, mover, probar, recordar, resolver, rogar, sonar, tostar, volar, volver.

Robusto

@crl Sí.

crl

ok

Robusto

Hey, right clicks suddenly stopped working for me on the main site. I can't copy link locations anymore.

This is in Chrome on the PC.

Firefox works fine.

tchrist

14:58

Then there’s jugar, the only u > ue stem-changer in the language.

Robusto

Heh, closing and reopening the browser worked.

A Beautiful Mind

Chrome is the worst Google product.

Anyone uses Chrome OS?

tchrist

@ABeautifulMind Hardly.

Unless you mean morally, but that’s something else.

A Beautiful Mind

Are they going to make Google Docs into another Microsoft Office for sale?

tchrist

Why would you pay them to gather data on you?

Google Docs is a royal pain.

In 2014, Colorado sold five million candies and chocolates laced with cannabis extracts.

Munchables.

Five million seems very high.

But that’s what they just said on Colorado Public Radio.

Ok, I guess maybe. If each of 50,000 people bought 100 pieces of candy.

A Beautiful Mind

15:07

What drugs are legal there? Marijuana?

tchrist

Or 500,000 bought 10, which is more reasonable.

@ABeautifulMind It’s not a drug now that it’s legal. :)

Lots of drugs are legal here.

Alcohol. Caffeine. Aspirin.

A Beautiful Mind

Lots of drugs are illegal here. Chewing gum.

crl

anti-psychotics are legal, and they are the worst thing someone can take

A Beautiful Mind

@crl My uncle took them and then got dementia.

crl

yes, sad

A Beautiful Mind

15:09

He had schizophrenia, then had dementia, then had cancer, then died. Poor life. Like me.

tchrist

You shouldn’t assume the medication caused the dementia.

Nor the cancer.

Nor the death.

A Beautiful Mind

OK, but it is a known side effect.

tchrist

Antipsychotics are harsh chemicals.

When I picked up some pseudoephedrine at the pharmacy, they had a big bottle with a pump handle labelled Seroquel right next to the check-out. I asked whey they were dispensing antipsychotics through a pump bottle. So, it was hand sanitizer with marketing.

crl

hehe, well I'm preparing a message on cogsci.se to try to get some answers

Johan Larsson

<- afk sauna

user116848

17:29

Hi!

Robusto

18:20

@Cerberus: This one has you written all over it.

0

Q: Mycorrhizae: how the heck do you say "zae" in greek?

So, I'm trying to sound smarter than the people to whom I'm pontificating about no-till gardening, and I'd like to include a pronunciation of "mycorrhizae" (which is, of course the plural of mycorrhiza: my-co-RY-zuh) that's, like, correct. my-co-RY-zay? (which I'm inclined to say) or my-co-RY-z...

pronunciation greek

Mitch

@tchrist Next year OCD meds will be through hand sanitizer.

@Robusto You're saying that @Cerberus has a fungus all over him? Nice.

A Beautiful Mind

18:39

Hi.

Stack Exchange

19:05

Limerick Machine: There once was a black and blue dress That left the world wide web a mess It’s not white and gold…

posted on February 28, 2015 by sgdi

There once was a black and blue dress That left the world wide web a mess It’s not white and gold So I have been told I can’t see it though, I confess

tchrist

@infinitesimal Del albo marfil luminoso no fueron construidas nuestras torres del monasterio, sino de piedra vieja, sobria y austera: colores de arena y de polvo, color de ceniza.

I’m sorry but my Latin is not good enough to do justice to the poetry that is intended to invoke. Perhaps @Cerberus would do better.

user116848

@tchrist Nice pics!

user116848

Google translator: Albo light ivory towers were built our monastery, but old, sober and austere stone: colors of sand and dust, ash color.

tchrist

For refulgent ivory towers gleaming in the distance, we must turn to fantasy of one sort:

Or another:

@arrowfar Of shining white marble were not our towers built, but of old stone, sober and austere: colors of sand and dust, color of ash.

user116848

@tchrist Ah, I see. It is Google translator after all :)

Cerberus

19:12

@Robusto Thanks!

0

A: Mycorrhizae: how the heck do you say "zae" in greek?

In Greek, it would have been spelled -ai and pronounced -/aj/ or -/aʲ/ (I think there is debate about this subtle distinction, which does not matter for us here: it sounds like English eye). In classical Latin, it would have been pronounced the same as in Greek, -/aj/ or -/aʲ/. Almost all Greek ...

tchrist

I could have used cándido for albo and skipped the luminous part. But the rare albo and even rarer cándido occur only in poetry; níveo for niveous would have worked as well, but really, normally only blanco occurs in normal non-poetic language.

Cerberus

@Mitch It's part of my natural defence system.

And can be a nice snack.

tchrist

@arrowfar Google translator is not very good with poetic patterns or old words.

Cerberus

@tchrist Superb. Too bad it was so badly damaged.

tchrist

@Cerberus That one is from el Monasterio del río Piedra en Aragón.

Monasterio de Piedra

Monasterio de Piedra (Stone Monastery) is a monastery, hotel and park complex in the Iberian System mountain ranges, near Nuévalos, province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. The monastery was founded in 1194 by Alfonso II of Aragon with thirteen Cistercian monks from Poblet Monastery, in an old castle next to the Piedra river, and was dedicated to St. Mary the White (Santa María la Blanca). On February 16, 1983, the entire complex has been declared a national monument. == History == The Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de Piedra (Monastery of our Lady of Stone) is located besides the Piedra (Stone) River...

In Caesaraugusta, no less.

Cerberus

19:17

Muy bien.

So rarely do I get a chance to pester a speaker of Spanish with my rudimentary pair of words.

We did speak German yesterday, with this girl who did her master's in logic here.

tchrist

Which pair?

Cerberus

Well, I exaggerated, but only slightly.

tchrist

The Catalan page is a bit more discursive:

Monestir de Piedra

El Monasterio de Piedra és actualment una zona turística situada en un paratge solitari i feréstec que ocupa la zona dominada per un antic monestir situat a la Comunitat de Calataiud, Aragó. == Història == El monestir fou fundat l'any 1194 per tretze monjos de l'Orde del Cister provenents del Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Poblet. Al moment de la fundació el monestir fou dedicat a Santa María de la Blanca. El monestir de Santa Maria de Piedra està situat en una vall frondosa del municipi de Nuévalos (Saragossa). L'emplaçament, si considerem el paisatge desèrtic que l'envolta, esdevé un autèntic...

Cerberus

Si, no, muy, bien.

tchrist

Si no, muy bien. Pero si sí, aun mejor. :)

Cerberus

19:20

Hey, I would not have been able to come up with aun.

Although I can guess what it means.

tchrist

still, even

Cerberus

Yeah, I read "all the".

tchrist

There’s also an aún but I always have to look up the difference. Not much.

@Cerberus That’s a better idiomatic translation.

Cerberus

Right.

So why the accent on aún? Is aun pronounced áun, then?

tchrist

To #2, yes.

> Con tilde cuando:
- Equivale a `todavía´ (valor temporal).
- Equivale a `incluso´ con valor ponderativo (delante de más, menos o con cualquier comparativo sintético).
Ella sabe aún más que yo
Pedro es aún mejor que Vicente
Juan es más complicado aún que ella
Es mejor aún de lo que esperaba

Sin tilde (monosílaba y átona) cuando equivale a `incluso´, `siquiera´ y con valor concesivo.
Aun así, no reacciona
Aun estudiando, no apruebo

Nótese la diferencia:
Aún enfermo, aprobó (todavía enfermo)
Aun enfermo, aprobó (incluso enfermo)

So aun has one syllable and is unstressed, and generally means "even". The two-syllable stressed aún is better for "still".

Only studious native speakers routinely observe this distinction. :)

Cerberus

19:25

I see.

tchrist

> aún (con tilde diacrítica) → adverbio (significa todavía):
Aún no lo saben los niños

aun (sin tilde diacrítica) → adverbio (significa incluso):
Aun los niños no lo saben

#1 is “The kids still don’t know”, while #2 is “Not even the kids know.”

(it)

Oh joy, Justo Fernández López, the guy who tries to teach Germans Spanish, has taken up this torch:

hispanoteca.eu/Foro-preguntas/ARCHIVO-Foro/…

Cerberus

Okay, so now it's three.

tchrist

3?

You’ll be hard-pressed to extract three syllables from a word with only two vowels. :)

Notice how he says that many American speakers don’t really distinguish these two.

Frankly, any nuance between "even better" and "better still" is subtle at best.

@JanusBahsJacquet The frustrating thing is that other traditions virtually reverse those two pronunciations, instead saying alumni and alumnae each as it is spelled rather than saying alumnae for alumni and saying alumni for alumnae. — tchrist 1 min ago

tchrist

19:51

No tilting at strawmen, please.

Cerberus

@tchrist No, three words in my vocabulary.

tchrist

@Cerberus The critical thing to understand about syllables in Spanish is that only the high ("weak") vowels I/Y and U can only form a syllable by themselves or when written with an accent. Otherwise they merge into a diphthong or triphthong when they abut A, E, or O, all three of which are "strong" vowels capable of forming a syllabic nucleus. The other two aren’t.

@Cerberus haha

So Mario has two syllables in Spanish while María has three.

The first being MA-RYO, the second being MA-RI-A.

Cerberus

@tchrist I happen to know what you mean, but you do not indicate pronunciation at all, so it will be utterly incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't already know.

@tchrist OK.

tchrist

@Cerberus Really?

Cerberus

"Alumni is pronounced like alumnae" means nothing unless you indicate which pronunciation of alumnae you mean.

tchrist

19:58

As it is spelled.

Cerberus

Pronunciation is unspellable.

Especially since we are looking at words with very different spellings variants.

tchrist

In English, alumni is often pronounced as though it were spelled alumnae and alumnae often pronounced as though it were spelled alumni. The thing is, other traditions actually pronounce those two words the way they are spelled, each letter a separate phone.

Cerberus

@tchrist That only works if you have a word where everyone knows more or less how you would pronounce it.

tchrist

/alumni/ vs /alumnae/

Cerberus

I don't think the latter exists.

But now at least you use IPA, not spelling.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…