English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

terdon

13:00

@Robusto My point exactly.

Robusto

I thought you were talking about semicolons in lists substituting for commas.

Mitch

13:27

I would say such a thing

Just to annoy people

Robusto

refuses to be annoyed

Mitch

What life-impacting issue are we discussing?

The addition of Russian troops to the UN peace keeping forces in the Jordan Valley?

You're so into refusing, you'd turn away money from an ATM

Robusto

You would turn away money from the ATF.

Mitch

I would turn away a missive from an ABM

Robusto

@tchrist: Well, duolingo clearly has some motes in its eye. It won't allow Él no sentía eso to be translated as "He didn't used to feel that way" but instead insists it should be "He didn't use to feel that way."

Pineapples everywhere.

tchrist

13:43

@Robusto When the road has blind curves, steep grades, no shoulders, and narrow lanes, it can be perilous to bikers. They’re just warning about that.

Bikers come sailing down at velocity and misjudge curves or else cross over into oncoming traffic. I've seen it too many times.

The newer roads have wider lanes with a stripe separating a dedicated bike lane. It's better that way, but there's no chance of a physically separated lane.

I've seen guys going on 80 bike to the top of Mt Evans, which as the sign says, is the highest road in North America: the peak is 14,260'. It's a wild ride down.

Robusto

@tchrist BTW, the interiors of that hotel were modeled on the Ahwanee Hotel in the Yosemite Valley, though they were built for filming in a studio in England.

tchrist

I knew that.

Robusto

@tchrist I like to bike, but I would never attempt such a thing.

I have seen cyclists with 100 lbs. of gear huffing up the grades to Yosemite in 100-degree heat. I can't imagine going through that.

tchrist

@Robusto Just the in-county rides are daring enough, what with gaining a mile and all. But gaining nearly two miles, and then coming back down again, is nuts.

Mt Evans has never recorded triple digits. Ever. It is 40-50F colder on top than where you start from.

Robusto

Hey, what exactly does 10% grade mean? Does it mean one unit of elevation for every ten units of forward progress?

tchrist

13:49

If it is 105 down here, it will be a lovely 60 up there.

@Robusto I believe that is what it means, yes

Robusto

@tchrist You lose about three degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 ft. of elevation.

tchrist

Yes, that's the general rule. More like 3-5 degrees.

Robusto

When I used to fly in an unheated glider we would get quite cold if we were able to catch a thermal up to 10,000 ft. on a balmy summer day.

tchrist

But there is something nobody factors into the equation.

Robusto

Sun?

tchrist

13:51

Yes.

The higher you go, the less air so less filtering.

So more radiant heat transfer.

Robusto

But the less air, also the lower the ability of the air to conduct heat away from your body.

In the pure vacuum of space you would not freeze instantaneously, as they sometimes show in the movies.

tchrist

You don’t need a jacket at 50-55F just walking around atop a fourteener provided that the sun is high. Is is quite odd.

However, the moment the sun goes behind a cloud or you behind a rock, you lose all that immediately.

The number-one cause of accidental death in the Colorado outdoors is from exposure.

I've had to be "rescued" twice by friends hiking or camping with me, being above 10,000 feet and actively exercising when night fell, and gone into an involuntary shiver. This was more than 20 years ago, but I learned my lesson.

You have to keep layers handy.

Robusto

Yes. True of all mountaineering, even out here.

tchrist

Rescue as in they threw warm things on and in me.

Robusto

People start up Mt. Washington in shorts in July and find themselves approaching hypothermia as they get to the top because the weather changed.

tchrist

13:57

Mount Washington looks like a real mountain, actually.

But that happens constantly here, yeah.

Is it above timberline? Just curious.

Robusto

It is. And it holds the record for highest recorded wind speed in North America, oddly.

tchrist

Yes, that I knew.

Robusto

Is 6200 ft. above the tree line? I don't know.

tchrist

I wouldn't think so.

Robusto

> It rises about 500 meters above alpine tree line.

Johan Larsson

13:59

for sure in Sweden

tchrist

But it is like that in Olympic National Park up the northwest Washington.

Johan Larsson

In the north of Sweden treeline is @450 m

Robusto

> Since 1849 nearly 150 people have died on Mount Washington.[34] William Buckingham Curtis, often called "the father of American amateur athletics" after his death, died on June 30, 1900 during a snowstorm

Johan Larsson

In the southern pats of the mountains it is at ~1000 m

tchrist

Our treeline is at 11.5 to 12 kf depending on whether it is the north or south of the state and whether it is north-vs-south facing, etc.

Robusto

14:00

See? A snowstorm on the last day of June. Another reason I don't go mountain climbing.

> Scores of hikers have died on the mountain[34] in all seasons, due to harsh and rapidly changing conditions, inadequate equipment, failure to plan for the wide variety of conditions which can occur above tree line, and poor decisions once the weather becomes dangerous.

Johan Larsson

@tchrist 39° N

Robusto

Mount Washington (New Hampshire)

Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288 ft (1,917 m) and the most prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. It is famous for dangerously erratic weather. Until 2010, the world's highest windspeed of 231 miles per hour (372 km/h), was recorded by the Mount Washington Observatory atop the summit on the afternoon of April 12, 1934. Before European settlers arrived, the mountain was known as Agiocochook, or "Home of the Great Spirit". The mountain is located in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, in the township of Sargent's Purchase, Coös...

Johan Larsson

The southern parts of the swedish mountains are at ~60° N

Robusto

Hmm, apparently it no longer holds that record.

tchrist

On July 3 1994 or so, maybe 95, I and two friends from Wisconsin walked up the Mt Evans road from its snow-closure at Summit Lake@12kf. I wore trousers with hat and gloves handy. They were visiting so didn't understand, and were in only shorts and t-shirts. It was in the low 50s but one doesn't notice. We blizzard ensued at the top, and we along with a score of others took shelter in the johns. NPS drove up with a plow and enclosed pickups and rescued us. I'd've survived, but many wouldn’t’ve.

Robusto

14:04

> As of January 22nd, they have certified the reading and we have a new World Wind Speed Record! This takes the prize away from Mount Washington, NH (see links at right) who gusted to 231 mph in 1934. 253 MPH - Australia 1996 - Cyclone Olivia, On Ground, By Cup Anemometer (NEW OFFICIAL WORLD RECORD!)

tchrist

@JohanLarsson Well, I’m at exactly 40° 0' 0" N, but yeah, it varies of course.

Robusto

That was during a cyclone, apparently.

tchrist

And yet one never counts the wind speed of a tornado.

Robusto

Probably the only reason Mt. Washington had the record was because there was an observatory up there to record it. There are plenty of mountains with no observatories.

Johan Larsson

Variation is probably not that great down there by the equator

Robusto

14:05

If the wind blows in the mountains with nobody there to record it, does it make a record?

tchrist

@Robusto Very few 14ers have ’em. Mauna Kea. Mt Evans.

infinitesimal

only if a tree falls

tchrist

Trees?

What trees? :)

Robusto

@tchrist I believe there's one on Mt. Haleakalā on Maui.

tchrist

The observatory on Evans is completely unmanned except during summer when the road is open. It has line-of-sight waldo control from CU Denver.

> Colorado's highest-ever recorded wind gust came in at 201 mph atop 14,259-foot Longs Peak in 1998. In 1971, the city of Boulder recorded a wind gust at 147 mph.

I’ve been here for winds over 120 before.

My friend Larry Wall was staying with me for a week back in the late 90s. He’s from the West Coast, so doesn’t get tornadoed (much). There'd been a lot of ’em out by Denver that summer, so he asked before he got here whether to worry. I told him no, they "never" came as close to the mountains as I live. The week he was here we broke 120 on two non-successive days. He said something like ok so the tornadoes don't get to you but the wind still rips everything apart.

Some dumb Hawaiians were building a home cross the field from me. The entire frame was up. It blew completely down.

Robusto

14:14

They only time I've been in a 120 mph wind was while riding a motorcycle into a 20 mph wind.

tchrist

Then they painted it hot pink, Hawaiian style, which we all abhorred. It is of course no longer any discernible color: the sun has fixed the problem for us.

They are only here two weeks a year, too.

@Robusto Heh.

The mountain towns up at 8-10+ kf are famous though for the intense colors they use. I think it is because of the light.

Lots and lots of buildings with colors like those.

Also, the white balance is super high in blue.

It's enough blue to counter the yellowing in the agèd lens of the eye, so you quite literally see the world as a child again.

Ghosts:

Johan Larsson

your house?

tchrist

The Stanley, in Estes Park. Shining.

Robusto

0

Q: difference between these two sentence

thank you for reading this question. I wonder these two sentences are different? 1) these looked very different. 2)they looked very different. I think these are same. But is there any difference of meaning? "These" is a pronoun. So it can be a subject, can't it? If there is some difference,...

grammar

Kill it with fire.

Lo podemos matar con fuego.

@JohanLarsson How could you live in such a small dwelling. It's practically a hut.

Johan Larsson

14:35

Maybe just Tom & poolboy lives there idk.

afk out of battery

tchrist

@Robusto It angered me, so I answered it.

But in a way that works for a linguist site.

I doubt he will be happy.

If he wants baby-words, then he’s come to the wrong place.

Robusto

@JohanLarsson So you're only at 39° north longitude?

@tchrist Well, I upvoted you if we're not going to kill this, but I went ahead and edited his post to replace much of the sclerotic language.

tchrist

It needed it.

And I didn’t say not to close it. I just think it would look bad if I were to CV it.

Robusto

Well, I'm stuck because I already voted and edited. But there you go.

tchrist

No, that’s fine.

Reg does it a million times.

Robusto

14:55

The Beatles - 'I'll Get You" Stereo Remaster

►

tchrist