English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

15:00

@crl send one copy of the email to each person.

Matt E. Эллен

(blind carbon copy)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен with BCC you won't see your own address in the recipients list.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Because women can only rule over territories they have inherited or conquered themselves.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Rubbish.

RegDwigнt

Not only what @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 says, but also, you will see the To address.

Matt E. Эллен

15:00

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but none the less you'll know you have received it!

Cerberus

Maybe if she had married into lower nobility, she could have ruled over his insignificant fiefdom.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not while he is still alive.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен Yes, but if crl wants each recpient to have their own address in the TO: field, BCC won't work.

Cerberus

Counter-example?

RegDwigнt

Of course you can To yourself, and then Bcc everyone else. But seriously, how retarded is that.

If you want to send a letter to ten people, send a letter to ten people.

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt only if there is a "To" address

RegDwigнt

15:01

This is not rocket science.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You're merely describing the arbitrary rules that existed at the time. A strong enough nation, led by a woman, could make her own rules.

RegDwigнt

@MattE.Эллен if there is not To address, the email will not send.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am describing how everything worked at the time.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@RegDwigнt You can send with only a BCC

Andrew Leach

@RegDwigнt Only in Outlook.

RegDwigнt

15:02

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I cannot.

Cerberus

No man ruling over a large country would marry a woman under such conditions.

RegDwigнt

@AndrewLeach ... and Thunderbird. And Netscape 4.3's messenger whatever it was called.

Cerberus

Both his and her noblemen would revolt if he tried.

crl

@MattE.Эллен Ah, If I send to Alice and Bob in BCC, Alice doesn't see Bob?

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt It will, I just did it.

RegDwigнt

15:03

That's what "blind" means.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You were describing a hypothetical situation where a nation could have become an empire. My point was that you could say that about any nation. "If only blah, it would have been a powerful empire"

crl

great

Andrew Leach

@RegDwigнt Well, if you will use that software. I didn't realise Thunderbird is as bad as Outlook, though.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus What if her nation were much much more powerful?

Matt E. Эллен

@crl yes

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:04

Her nobles might welcome the annexation of Austria.

RegDwigнt

@MattE.Эллен I didn't receive it. Not to mention that I didn't not see Bob in the recipients. You fail, sir.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That is true, but in this case Burgundy was already a first-class empire-like state, and growing in power.

It had good cards.

RegDwigнt

@AndrewLeach I will not, but I will must.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not under such conditions!

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt better to have not bcc'd you than to never have bcc'd at all

Cerberus

15:04

And annexation is not entirely appropriate for the time.

RegDwigнt

@MattE.Эллен That's what she said.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe then, yes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus So you're telling me that her nobles wouldn't want her to remain queen and for austria to become part of burgundy?! They'd prefer to hand their leadership over to foreigners?

RegDwigнt

Wait a minute, what's with this politics talk. Who do I have to ban now, let's see.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's not politics, it's history.

RegDwigнt

15:06

It's not hair, it's splitting.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

or colour theory. Burgundy is a colour, right?

RegDwigнt

My gundy is better than ur gundy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What colour do you get when you mix burgundy with austria?

RegDwigнt

White Russian.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 (Burgundy was not a kingdom: she would become queen of Austria.) What her noblemen would not have wanted was for a woman to rule in a marriage to a ruling king of an equally powerful country. Yes, they preferred handing over leadership to "foreigners"; there were no real nations at that time, so "foreigners" is largely meaningless.

RegDwigнt

15:07

Or Brown Prussian.

@Cerberus after all, that's what "foreign" means: "for reign". Duh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus So her nobles were better at being sexist than at building empires. gotcha.

Cerberus

> During the Hundred Years' War, King John II of France gave the duchy to his youngest son, Philip the Bold, rather than leaving it for his successor on the French throne. The duchy soon became a major rival to the throne, because the Dukes of Burgundy succeeded in assembling an empire stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea, in large part by marriage. The Burgundian territories consisted of a number of fiefdoms on both sides of the (then largely symbolic) border between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

@RegDwigнt You deserve the etymology badge.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, of course.

It was a sexist time.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So anyways, hypothetically speaking, it could have been a great empire if they'd been less sexist.

Just like, hypothetically speaking, anything could have been a great something if only it had less of some undesirable property, or more of some desirable one.

Cerberus

Haha.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, not really: Austria would never have accepted moving the centre of power to Burgundy anyway.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I guess you could consider it all like a chess game, or a poker match, and they lost because by chance their ruler was born without a penis. ooh, bad luck! Austria wins the next round.

Cerberus

15:13

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That may be closer to the truth.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Everything I say is closer to the truth.

Cerberus

That is a paradox.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Even my paradoxes are closer to the truth.

crl

but your truth is paradoxal

Cerberus

Than each other?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:17

They are arranged in a non-euclidian space, so they're closer to everything all at the same time.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus I have two. In silver and brass.

You don't answer a problem. You solve it. The solution already is an answer, and expressly labeling it as such is awkward to say the least. The OP is really looking to say "solutions to big problems are always small", or simpler still, "big problems have small solutions". Coincidentally, that would also help him in his brevity-is-wit endeavor. — RegDwigнt ♦ 3 mins ago

I really had to spell it out for them after all.

sighs

Anyway, let's have a look at greener pastures. What does @Robusto mean as a noun?

0

Q: "Robust" as a noun

Can an adjective "robust" be a noun in a sentence? And if it can't how would you say with one word "robust fellow" that can be applied to both man and woman? Because as I understand "robust fellow", we say about a man.

tchrist

And you guys wonder why some people want to blacklist questions with titles like that "grammatically correct" bullshit!

The damned title is fricking useless!

-1

Q: Which version is grammatically correct?

The answer to big problems is always small solutions. or The answers to big problems are always small solutions. I believe these are both correct grammatically, but the singular ("is") sounds more concise and brevity is preferable. Can I get a language ruling on this?

word-choice grammar grammatical-number

But it sure draws a lot of flies.

To wanton boys, who kill them for their sport.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist I've edited ten thousand such titles. And I begin to come to the realization I might have better things to do with my life.

crl

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Seen your profile, may I ask you what is J2EE exactly? I may apply to a J2ee job, I know a bit of Spring, servlets, but I'm loost when it comes to explain what is a Java Bean and other core J2EE components

And this name is weird, why not abbreviating it J2e since there's already a 2 before the 2 e's

tchrist

Bennet - Weep o mine eyes - The Cambridge Singers

►

@RegDwigнt blacklist blacklist blacklist

Mitch

15:29

@MattE.Эллен I was late to the convo. Reg already did it better with t-fucking-mesis. But mine is PG at least, so I can use it at kindergarten.

RegDwigнt

Okay, the Robust question is drawing crap responses as well. What is wrong with the site?

What is wrong with people?

tchrist

déjà dit dit dit

crl

spell -> spelt or spelled?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch that's good. you'll finally be able to explain tmesis to kindergarten children

tchrist

@crl como quieras

crl

15:30

@tchrist vale

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен abso

crl

My Chrome spell checker only accept spelled :)

Mitch

no fucking lutely

RegDwigнt

@crl spolen.

tchrist

@crl It’s toopid.

RegDwigнt

15:30

11

A: "Spelt" vs. "spelled"

From Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: spell (FORM WORDS) /spel/ verb [I or T] spelled or UK AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH ALSO spelt, spelled or UK AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH ALSO spelt This means that you should say "spelled" in US English and you can use both "spelt" and "spelled" in UK/Au...

crl

ok

Matt E. Эллен

@crl svelt

RegDwigнt

Also,

56

A: Why do some words have two past tense forms (e.g. "dreamed" vs. "dreamt")?

I did some research using the Corpus of Historical American English to see if I could track the history of these words. Each of these words has a different story to tell. DREAMED and DREAMT See the raw data (Google Docs) In the early 1800s, dreamt was more common than dreamed but by the mid...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@crl J2EE is Java 2 Enterprise Edition. It's a collection of Java technologies such as servlets, JSP, EJBs, etc

RegDwigнt

Also, ed-vs-t

Mitch

15:32

@crl in the US spelt and learnt and dreamt (and whilst and amongst) are just not used. Elsewhere I don't know.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch and yet you had to replace lighted with lit.

America makes no sense.

crl

@MattE.Эллен :)

@Mitch Thanks, good to know

Mitch

@RegDwigнt everywhere else too. But we're exceptional at it.

tchrist

@Mitch Liar liar pants on fire!

Mitch

@RegDwigнt I didn't have to. It's my own affectation.

crl

15:35

spelt<spelled

RegDwigнt

Spolen, folks. It is spolen. Learn English.

Mitch

@tchrist not in newspapers

tchrist

@Mitch Who the fuck cares about fish wrappers?

Mitch

spelt is the more healthy alternative to quinoa

RegDwigнt

How much is the fish?

Mitch

15:37

I'll pay you to take the fish away

tchrist

@Mitch In America, nobody writes more healthy — we write healthier.

Mitch

that's alternativer to you

crl

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But EJBs do you really understand them and use them sometimes?

tchrist

Graffiti by the illiterati are no measure of American belles lettres.

RegDwigнt

Heal thi er, make it a better place,
for me and for you and the entire human race.

tchrist

15:39

Cura te ipsum.

RegDwigнt

The ipsum of all fears.

tchrist

Numophobe.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@crl not lately.

Matt E. Эллен

the sum of all beers

RegDwigнt

Have I sold you lately that falafel?

Matt E. Эллен

15:40

lol

mikeonly

Hi.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist those Yale people just won't stop using the n-word.

mikeonly

I am now here for a different purpose.

poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/cities_thrones_power.html

Could anybody please help with an understanding of the last few sentences here?

RegDwigнt

> Negative concord can be instantiated in a number of configurations:
- The occurrence of postverbal n-words with sentential negation
- The occurrence of preverbal n-words with sentential negation
- The occurrence of n-words in an embedded clause with sentential negation in the matrix clause

@mikeonly gah, nazi poetry.

mikeonly

So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

Particularly this lines:
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

RegDwigнt

15:46

Yeah no I pass.

tchrist

Ozymandias.

mikeonly

@tchrist, what about you? I bet you can handle that.

tchrist

Man, make those dickwads stop.

@mikeonly He was talking about the flags that you can't see.

RegDwigнt

Jasper's getting flagged in Maths.

tchrist

@mikeonly Which thing do you need on those two lines?

RegDwigнt

15:48

I for one do not know who shadow is.

But that is sort of the point.

tchrist

The dead.

Two dead people.

RegDwigнt

Well yes, but who was dead people.

tchrist

Legion.

RegDwigнt

And who was them persuaded.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt You deserve platinum.

RegDwigнt

15:49

Most importantly, where was phone?

Seriously now, that thing Mr Kipling got there, that is a very very very needlessly very complicated way to say something in English.

Cerberus

Burgundy. Which is, oddly, purple.

tchrist

@Cerberus Please don’t plat in ’m.

Cerberus

Platjes are an STD.

terdon

@mikeonly One shadow, having been convinced, says to another shadow: see how our works endure!

RegDwigнt

In German, they call this "rhyme yourself or else I'll eat you".

tchrist

15:51

@RegDwigнt If you’d spent — or spended in Mitchelvania — your whole life being kippled, you too might some tortuous verse crank out.

RegDwigнt

Reim dich oder ich fress dich

Reim dich oder ich fress dich ist ein geflügeltes Wort, das Lied- und Gedichtverse beschreibt, die sich schlecht reimen. Die Redewendung findet vor allem bei Kinder- oder anderen geselligen Liedern Anlass. Der Ausdruck hat seinen Ursprung in Gottfried Wilhelm Sacers 1673 unter dem Pseudonym Reinhold Hartmann erschienener Satire Reime dich, oder ich fresse dich: das ist, deutlicher zu geben, Antipericatametanaparbeugedamphirribificationes Poeticae oder Schellen- und Scheltenswürdige Thorheit Boeotischer Poeten in Deutschland. == Literatur == Claudine Moulin: Orthographiereform und Orthographische…

mikeonly

I have understood nothing.

Except for the fact, of course, that it is extremely hard to understand.

crl

Are EJBs behaving like multi-agent systems?

tchrist

@mikeonly The spirit of a dead person has been convinced of something. That spirit then tells some other spirit: Look at how the things we did in life last longer than we do.

Which, all in all, says little.

RegDwigнt

Yeah and then the Sun collapses and nobody gives a wet mop whether the "things" you "did" lasted "longer". There is nobody to give anything about it.

And that's for Kipling, mind you. For regular folks, everything you do lasts way shorter than yourself.

Like, I ate a sandwich, and it didn't last.

And now I'm writing this shit, and not even the NSA will remember it by tomorrow.

tchrist

16:00

> I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

RegDwigнt

Cf also Breaking Bad.

Cerberus

@tchrist That's nice.

tchrist

I cannot keep up with the mobs of morons, let alone the dickwads.

Cerberus

What's the source?

tchrist

@Cerberus Shelley.

Cerberus

16:07

Reminds one of the pyramids.

Ah.

tchrist

Aye.

Cerberus

I knew I had seen it before.

tchrist

Ozymandias

"Ozymandias" (in five syllables: /ˌɒziˈmændiəs/, oz-ee-MAN-dee-əs; or four: /ˌɒziˈmændjəs/, oz-ee-MAND-yəs) is a sonnet written by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). First published in the 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner in London, it was included the following year in Shelley's collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems (1819) and in a posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826. "Ozymandias" is regarded as one of Shelley's most famous works and is frequently anthologised. In antiquity, Ozymandias was an alternative name for t...

Cerberus

The removal of such much art and even architecture from the orient presents an interesting dilemma.

tchrist

Frank, do not meddle in the affairs of lizards, for you are crunchy and taste good in milk.

@RegDwigнt It little profits that an idle king, / By this still hearth, among these barren crags, / Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole / Unequal laws unto a savage race, / That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

@RegDwigнt Be careful with Frank: he’s trying to make trouble and trick you into saying something so that he can do bad things.

RegDwigнt

16:25

I don't know about that, but I'm careful with everyone.

I'm channeling the official wording there, word for word.

tchrist

16:38

Expect flags.

20

Q: Exact meaning of the Gandalf quote, "He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."?

What is the exact meaning of following quote (it belongs to Gandalf the Grey): He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. I have a problem especially with understanding what it is has left.

meaning quotes syntactic-analysis

RegDwigнt

Flags? Man, and there I've been sitting around expecting patronum.

I am always getting the two confused.

@tchrist omg so many trees i cant c teh forest lol

sry i meant tree's

tchrist

@RegDwigнt forest. lovely. dark. and deep. and full of cherries.

RegDwigнt

tchrist

Pas si cher.

RegDwigнt

I get lovely dark and deep, but cherries must be some kinda slang.

tchrist

16:46

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

RegDwigнt

Cherries the love we have, we should cherries the life we live.

Seriously though, what kind of name is that. It's like his parents wanted to one-up Roundtree.

tchrist

I think they whitewashed the original Nigtaker.

RegDwigнt

Everything is a possibility.

I wonder if somewhere someplace there's someone actually called Forest Roundtree.

But I must mute them commies. CU arounds.

tchrist

Hasta, Lily.

crl

@RegDwigнt Who is it?

There's a guy with an arrpixel avatar in JS room, I made him this jsbin.com/qapixo/4/edit (click run)

well "made", it's using a library made by some genius

Matt E. Эллен

16:59

@crl the url says his name

crl

@MattE.Эллен Ow I'm a noob

Matt E. Эллен

:D

crl

Well too much used to imgur hashes

Mitch

18:02

@Cerberus Matjes are a TFD (t=Tasty Fish Dish)

Cerberus

@Mitch Zure matjes are candy.

Very sour.

Such a charming message!

Matt E. Эллен

18:17

using unicode to evade spam filters. I'm surprised this still works

oh, I see it didn't evade the filter

good

@MattE.Эллен As far as I can see you are not a native English speaker and it shows. — aaa90210 4 mins ago

I've been outed!

terdon

@MattE.Эллен lol

Matt E. Эллен

I can't have word getting out! I shall hide the evidence...

terdon

@MattE.Эллен Dammit, I didn't have time to read it! What was that in answer to?

By the way, you were outed by someone who said "as far as I can see", instead of tell. That has to hurt.

Mitch

18:35

@Cerberus Gummi fish?

@Cerberus 19 miles? Forget it.

@MattE.Эллен Yeah, I wanna know what said you, that gott that response

Cerberus

@Mitch What are those?

@Mitch I know!

A half-decent dating app has people available at 50 metres.

@MattE.Эллен Poor Mattie. Of course we knew all along.

Or perhaps it was a compliment.

Matt E. Эллен

18:56

@terdon the comment that is currently there

terdon

19:20

@MattE.Эллен What's wrong with you? Can't you count?

Mitch

19:37

Swedish Fish

This article is about the candy. For real fish in Sweden, see List of fish in Sweden. Swedish Fish is a fish-shaped wine gum candy, originally developed by the Swedish candy producer Malaco. == §Ingredients == According to the USA distribution packages, the candy is made out of the following ingredients: Sugar Invert Sugar Corn syrup Modified corn starch Citric acid White Mineral Oil Artificial flavors Coloring (FD&C Red 40 for the red color) Carnauba wax == §In Sweden == In Sweden, large amounts of confectionery are sold every year, and a substantial part of it is sold as pick and mix...

they have colors!

Cerberus

20:24

@Mitch So basically wine gum?

Zure matten are way more sour than wine gums.

Mitch

wine gum? chewy candy made with wine? Ewww...

Cerberus

22:19

@Mitch Nooo.

Just gum with various flavours.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…