English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:20

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't see it!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

24 hours ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus so, any thoughts on the question of the 7-day week? How long has its cycle remained unbroken?

There are TWO question marks in that message

pick one

Cerberus

I'm sorry, I had a couple of beers, but I feel like I'm talking to an Olmec woman speaking an extinct language.

In other words, I don't get it. At all. None of it.

I don't even know what "it" is.

> the question of the 7-day week

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> the 7-day week? How long has its cycle remained unbroken?

Cerberus

What question?

What 7-day week?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

um.

do you not have a seven-day week?

Cerberus

00:23

I may.

But so what?

Was this question on ELU?

Or some other SE site?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so Ionică Bizău posits that the disagreement about which day, Saturday or Sunday, was the Day that was Sanctified by God when He Rested, is the Final Conflict.

Cerberus

Oh... I didn't see any of that.

The Final Conflict, between whom?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

i.e. those who favor Sunday will burn in Hell, or something, while the True Believers who Remember that it was Saturday will be redeemed. Or both sides will fight it out, I'm not sure, he didn't elaborate on the details of the conflict.

Cerberus

I have never heard of this, I'm afraid...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I posited that it was hard to be sure that in all the time since Creation we hadn't inadvertently skipped a day or two here or there.

Cerberus

00:26

Genesis says God rested on the 7th day, right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

which led me to wonder, how long has Sunday been preceded by Saturday been preceded by Friday etc?

yes

Cerberus

But, in the Middle Ages, Sunday was the first day of the week. But also the holy day.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yes, even earlier

Cerberus

So feria secunda = Monday.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But if you were to assume a chain of custody of Remembering the Sabbath, I wonder just how far back you could reliably assert that nobody fucked it up.

Sure, other groups had other systems

e.g. the Romans had an 8-day market week

but that system was replaced by the current 7-day cycle at some point. They didn't reboot the cycle... or did they? presumably not.

Also, it stands to reason that even calendar changes like the change from Julian to Gregorian didn't interrupt the flow of weekdays

(there have been places with discontinuities, especially around the international date line)

but overall for most places the cycle of weekdays seems unbroken for centuries

tchrist

00:31

@Cerberus e segunda-feira

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I was curious about what evidence there is for the cycle being over 2000 years old; the evidence is scant. But on the internet this question seems to be very important for some Christians.

Cerberus

Ah.

tchrist

Yours was older. :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

there are pages and pages of sites discussing it, however as evidence they are weak because they mainly just cite the Bible.

Cerberus

Well, I wouldn't be so sure. I believe non-week days were used at certain points in even postclassical history.

tchrist

00:32

Nutzbagz

Cerberus

@tchrist That Portuguese?

tchrist

@Cerberus sim

Cerberus

Is that their normal word?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus used in the Julian Calendar?

Cerberus

Not sure.

tchrist

00:33

@Cerberus No. It’s their only word!

Segunda-feira

A segunda-feira é considerada o segundo dia da semana, seguindo o domingo e precedendo a terça-feira. Por ordenação de trabalho, lazer e pela norma ISO , a segunda-feira é considerada o primeiro dia da semana, sendo assim na maioria dos calendários em todo o mundo. A palavra é originária do latim Secunda Feria, que significa "segunda feira", e de mesma acepção existe em galego (segunda feira) , mirandês (segunda) e tétum (loron-segunda). Povos pagãos antigos reverenciavam seus deuses dedicando este dia ao astro Lua o que originou outras denominações, em espanhol diz-se lunes e no italiano lunedì...

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

tchrist

And Friday sounds like seshta feira.

Cerberus

I see.

tchrist

And there they jab at the rest of us for worshiping pagan gods. Again.

They like to do that.

> Os nomes dos dias da semana em português têm a sua origem na liturgia católica. Na maior parte das outras línguas, a sua origem são nomes de deuses pagãos e deuses mitológicos aos quais os dias eram dedicados.

Cerberus

Odd.

tchrist

00:38

What did Ancient Greek use?

> (H)IC.REQVIESCIT.REMISNVERA
IN.KAL(endas).MAIAS.ERA.DC.QVINQVAGIS(ima)
VI.DIE SECVNDA FERIA. IN PACE. AMEN.

I don’t think that counts as Portuguese, though. :)

Dias da semana

Os dias da semana têm seus nomes na língua portuguesa devido à liturgia católica por iniciativa de Martinho de Dume, que denominava os dias da semana da Páscoa com dias santos em que não se deveria trabalhar, originando os nomes litúrgicos: O Sabbatum era originado diretamente do hebreu Shabbat, de conotação religiosa, em uma época em que os hebreus formavam um só povo e uma só cultura. O dia Shabbat era o dia de descanso dos israelitas que por essa razão afluíam com mais frequência à sinagoga, hoje é o sábado, último dia de seu calendário semanal, sendo este o dia de descanso para os judeus....

> Na nomenclatura pagã, cada dia era dedicado a um astro ou a um deus que variava de acordo com a mitologia local de cada cultura e que foram conservados em outros idiomas.

Isto ocorreu durante a expansão do Império Romano. Nesta época, desde o início da era cristã até o período medieval, vigoravam no mundo ocidental as propostas do filósofo grego Aristóteles (384 – 322 a.C.) e do astrônomo egípcio Cláudio Ptolomeu (100 – 170 d.C.), mescladas com a interpretação dada pela Igreja Católica. Acreditava-se que Deus criara o Universo em movimento circular perfeito e eterno.

There criara is pluperfect.

As you might expect. :)

> Até o século XV, no atual território português, era falado um português arcaico, usando-se nomes de origem pagã.

They are REALLY het up about how blessèd and holy they are not to use those evil pagan things any longer.

I guess it’s part of their own national myth.

And talking about Saxon gods instead of Norse gods is just bizarre:

> No início da era cristã, os cristãos primitivos por serem judeus guardavam o sábado, porém reuniam-se aos Domingos para celebrarem a Eucaristia (ação de graças) através da fração do pão em honra e memória da ressurreição de Cristo. A partir de 189 d.C., a Igreja Cristã estabeleceu uma data diferente daquela praticada pelos judeus para suas comemoração da Páscoa e dos dias santos a ela associados.

That’s almost like a change in the day of the week. I can’t understand why there are nutjobs on the Internet obsessing over this.

Well, except Internet.

Cerberus

00:54

@tchrist I never see them use week days.

tchrist

> Representação científica dos dias da semana[editar | editar código-fonte]
A Organização Internacional para Padronização (ISO) estabeleceu pela norma ISO 8601 uma numeração para a representação dos dias da semana.

‘Scientific’!? Who writes this stuff!?

Exactly how is that scientific?

Can you imagine how incensed they would be if somebody edited all that stuff so it talked about “Christian mythology”?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: Is there idiom for "I'm not an expert when it comes to kinds of feces" by Gabbar Singh on english.stackexchange.com

tchrist

Apparently the Basques have their own unique system for naming the days of the week.

Cerberus

I read they are hypothesised to have originally had a "week" of three days.

tchrist

I have, too.

It does make things easier.

Everything is either yesterday, today, or tomorrow. :)

Cerberus

01:11

Hah.

I don't think theirs was so subjective...

Robusto

01:38

@Cerberus Now you're being subjective about subjectivity. Nice.

Cerberus

@Robusto Is that like a double magnifier?

Nicolas Raoul

08:14

An Iranian wrote this restaurant description:
"Modern restaurant offering Burgers, FC, Pizza"
What might "FC" mean in that context?

tchrist

10:11

Fried chicken. But utterly nobody says that. We also stopped capitalizing Nouns several Centuries ago.

Robusto

11:15

Now I see that HTML has been using <div> to poke fun at us all these years. — Robusto 17 secs ago

@tchrist I thought it meant Fight Club, and the reason it's abbreviated was due to the Rules of Fight Club Nos. 1 and 2.

crl

12:27

@tchrist It's probably capitalization for emphasis

Mitch

@Robusto Better than being intolerant about intolerance

Is this a new record for largest negative score on an answer?:

-16

A: Is "women men girls love meet die" a valid sentence?

Just for the record then, 1) "It doesn't [...] make sense" Yes, the first thought of the OP was 100% correct. It is six random words that make no sense. It's that simple. 2) Note that in English (which is infinitely flexible) you can make any collection of six random words make a scan in some...

infinitesimal simplicio

13:06

$user image$

Robusto

13:18

@Mitch I am intolerant about tolerances.

@infinitesimalsimplicio That is still essentially a 2D model.

Heh, Kris didn't downvote my latest answer. Instead he made cosmetic edits to it, which I rolled back. Perhaps he wanted to call my attention to his having the forbearance not to click the down arrow. Or perhaps he felt some response of his was necessary, given that it was an answer of mine. Whatever, I rolled back the change.

Johan Larsson

13:34

@Robusto Yeah, PC can be offensive.

terdon

13:47

@Mitch Nope, but it's second. This is the worst:

-24

A: 'Enjoy the rest of your day'. What is the name for such expressions?

I would never say "enjoy the rest of your day" (ETROYD) to anyone. If a sales assistant says this to me (it always is a sales assistant; their manager obliges them to do it), I think: -- how impertinent of you to suppose that the enjoyableness of the rest of my day depends on your wishes -- h...

Robusto

14:14

Wow, Firefox just went apeshit on me. It started interpreting my scroll wheel as a cursor for the history queue. Weird. Had to put the bastard out of its misery.

tchrist

Snow, snow go away
Come again no other day
Till the year is spent and gone
Let no flake conceal my lawn.

Andrew Leach

Coo. I've never seen lawn rhyme with gone.

tchrist

14:29

It does in my accent.

Also, that was a rather dovelike response.

I don’t have the cot–caught merger, just the cloth–caught merger. That means both gone and lawn have the CAUGHT vowel for me. Also Lawler and Rob.

If you say it that way, it rhymes. :)

terdon

It rhymes in my bastard accent as well.

tchrist

I guess it rhymes in Californian, too, but only because they have lost all rounding altogether and say nothing but the unrounded sound of FATHER in any word like those.

terdon

I can think of at least a few British accents where it would rhyme as well. Where are you from Andrew?

Andrew Leach

It would rhyme in RP, I suppose, where gone sounds like a non-rhotic gorn.

terdon

It would rhyme in posh wouldn't it?

I meant RP, of course :)

tchrist

14:35

@AndrewLeach Yes, that’s the vowel.

Andrew Leach

I don't do posh. I'm from Sussex.

tchrist

Neither do I. I’m from Lake Geneva.

terdon

@AndrewLeach Ah, OK, don't know what that sounds like off the top of my head. I'm more familiar with the northern ones.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It rhymes in my accent too.

Andrew Leach

@terdon It's a sort of watered down rustic. The i in light often sounds like oi.

tchrist

14:37

THE WIZARD!

Andrew Leach

?

tchrist

WE’RE AWFF TO SEE THE WIZARD OF AHHHHZ

right mate => roit mite

In Oz. :)

I suppose they have to have gotten it from somewhere. Now we know where. :)

They have a diphthong shift.

crl

I'll be scared to take a plane now, with those crashes..

tchrist

It’s more pronounced (so to speak) with some speakers than with others.

Andrew Leach

@tchrist Sline Squeer is apparently a Tube station.

tchrist

14:41

Um, whose loin are they calling queer? :)

This is a good illustration why we shouldn’t have everybody “just write it like they say it”: we’d never have any idea what they were saying.

Well, writing.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Have you ever played the game "Mad Gabs"?

tchrist

Nope.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You have to read aloud a card that says something like "May Reek Wrist Moss" and figure out what it is you're trying to say. The people who listen to you can't see the card, so they usually hear what it is, but they need to get YOU to say it properly.

So listeners can hear you say "Merry Christmas" as if you have some funny accent

"write it like they say it" is, essentially, what the authors of the game did, only, they did it evilly

tchrist

Moist Comp Lex.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Another example: Abe An An Appeal

Answer: a banana peel

tchrist

14:48

Alas, no.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

People get hung up on pausing between words, stressing words properly, inferring meaning from the words on the card, etc, that they can't hear the sounds and guess the phrase

tchrist

I’ll ass the ease yores brink Todd’s meth ink Cree sin knot.

—John Bennet

I could use some spring tides about now. These yuletide scenes chill me.

Mitch

@Robusto notifies Kris of his omission

tchrist

@Mitch Sin knot.

Mitch

@terdon wow. and with 29 down and 5 upvotes. somebody had to try real hard. Except that particular answer doesn't seen so reprehensible. (there have been much worse).

@infinitesimalsimplicio hm...how did they get the shadow of the ball to work right on the right side of the upper bar?

Mitch

15:22

@tchrist Ha ha! Same to you! (???) Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage

tchrist

Bennet - Weep o mine eyes - The Cambridge Singers

►

Thomas Morley - Now is the Month of Maying {Cambridge Singers}

►

That one has boney asses in it.

It also liked tenors so much it took two (SATTB).

One more most excellent paean to spring:

Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone - Farmer

►

Would that it were springlike instead of Donner Pass–like.

Mitch

15:37

@tchrist Donner Pass? They're just kissing.

Jez

16:22

@HackToHell hello

HackToHell

hola

Jez

@HackToHell wanna join the health proposal? we need O N E more committer:

199

Health

Proposed Q&A site for medical specialists, students, dietitians and anyone with health-related questions

Currently in commitment.

HackToHell

okay ! :D

Jez

so you are committing?

HackToHell

Done !

Jez

16:34

cool! now we wait

terdon

> "Top Gear," fronted by Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, has made a name for itself globally with risky stunts and a brand of blokish humor that often toes the line and regularly steps over it.

Is it just me or does the author not know what toeing the line means?

Robusto

0

Q: How to ask a girl out

I make silly mistakes and people are like omg u don't know that. In angree way but not too angry. I found my type she likes Art but things in I love it too but I don't know much about Art. I don't know what to talk about. I really want her but I make silly mistakes in everything. No one helps ...

british-english

OMFG

Jez

heh

200

Health

Proposed Q&A site for medical specialists, students, dietitians and anyone with health-related questions

Currently in commitment.

user116848

Hi world!

Jez

hi

Mateon1

17:23

I need a synonym of the word "Literally" that isn't misused as emphasis

terdon

@Mateon1 Use literally that's what the word actually means. For other synonyms, you'll have to give more context.

Mateon1

"For some reason, this style of indentation literally makes me mad." Referring to programming.

I guess "angry" would be more appropriate in this context

Jez

@Mateon1 well, it doesn't help that the US has redefined "mad"

to me, that reads that the indentation "literally makes you insane"

terdon

Well, yes. You're using literally as emphasis there. Otherwise, you would mean it actually makes you insane.

In other words, you are misusing it as emphasis.

Mateon1

Well, I am, literally, becoming angry at the person who wrote the code, therefore it is literal

terdon

17:32

Unfortunately, you are not alone.

Well, obviously. Why would you need to add literally?

Why would you say This door is literally red? What else would it be if not literally?

Mateon1

I am using the word literally, because people say something like that and don't mean it

terdon

You only use literally to specify that while the term you are using is often metaphorical, here, you are using it in its literal sense. Alternatively, these days, you can use it as an intensifier but that doesn't seem to be what you're after.

@Mateon1 Just use really: For some reason, this style of indentation really makes me mad. Or actually.

Mateon1

Well, alright. That seems fine.

terdon

Or use angry instead of mad. That only has one meaning and is only ever used literally.

Mateon1

Yes, I noticed that as I posted this, and pointed that out

"really makes me angry" might work

terdon

17:38

Personally, of course, I would just use literally. That's what the word means after all.

Robusto

Wow, Microsoft . . .

I just Skyped someone about a jsp file and MS autocorrected my jsp to asp.

No squiggles, just "you meant asp, stupid."

It's this kind of bullshit that gets people hating on the Evil Empire.

Cerberus

Wow.

So was ASP invented by M$ or something?

Jez

yes

then again, asp is an improper noun

Cerberus

Improper?

Jez

yeah

Cerberus

17:53

What do you mean?

Jez

it's a grammatical term, look it up

Cerberus

I doubt it...

Proper noun is a grammatical term.

But never mind.

Jez

your doubt is misplaced

Cerberus

shrugs

Robusto

@Cerberus JSP means "Java Server Page" and ASP means "Active Server Page." ASP is Microsoft's rip-off of JSP.

Cerberus

18:03

Ah, I see.

Is the rip-off better or worse?

Robusto

@Cerberus It depends on your point of view.

For example, whatever Apple does you would not be a fan. But plenty of people would be fawning all over the new whatsit.

Cerberus

Okay, but let's suppose a veil of ignorance.

If you didn't know who had made it.

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, but you couldn't get far enough into it to understand the differences without knowing who made it.

Let's just say that ASP is more expensive than JSP because Java is "open-source" . . . (though not really any longer).

Cerberus

Okay, suppose Microsoft relinquished all rights to ASP and opened its source.

And JSP were open source and free as well.

Which would you probably rather use?

Robusto

Neither. I'm not a back-end programmer. ^_^

Cerberus

18:13

Tsk.

Robusto

@Cerberus There's probably not a lot of difference. It's just that the Microsoft way is more channeled, perhaps. There are fewer alternatives, less chaos. It's less opinionated or something.

Cerberus

You prefer the front end, eh.

Robusto

Yes. I like dealing with stuff I can see.

Jez

you can see code

Cerberus

Hmm.

I see.

Robusto

18:15

But at the end of the day code is just code. I can see front-end code too, but I can also see the effects of it.

Cerberus

And you can't see the effects of back-end code?

Robusto

@Jez This is purely subjective of course. I have no objection to you finding beauty in whatever it is you find beauty in.

@Cerberus I'm stating a preference here. I like to see front-end web gizmos do their stuff. Always have. Well, ever since there's been a Web with front-end gizmos, that is.

Jez

i can live with front end, but i find the most boring part of programming to be tinkering around with html and css until things look just right

Cerberus

Okay.

I only vaguely know what the difference is anyway.

Robusto

@Jez It can be tiresome at times. But sometimes it can be exhilarating when you realize you can use those things to make your app more performant.

At the end of the day, it's all just tools.

Jez

19:16

how long does it take a proposal to go from 100% committed to a site? i forget

i vaguely remember with french language... maybe it took a week or something

maybe even shorter

Mitch

20:23

@terdon Yeah, that's a weird use of that phrase. Maybe he saw that movie with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman where he was fist fighting and they give the phrase its literal... wait is that visual... etymology, where they draw a line on the ground and the two pugilists put their toes behind it. Whatever the provenance, the phrase means 'follow (uspoken) orders'.

Robusto

@terdon From the context I think he thinks it means coming just up to the line, i.e., flirting with the boundary.

crl

21:03

What's the best word for French "arnaqueur"? We can't decline the word rip-off which means arnaque, robber is a not exactly the same meaning, scammer maybe? or swindler

Johan Larsson

time for some Finnish?

Jez

21:16

hmm

what's that word that sort of means "fascination with"?

as in, "you really have a ... for cars"?

predisposition?

tip of my tongue

Johan Larsson

not affection?

Jez

no no

i think it's pre-something

propensity, maybe

Johan Larsson

proneness, prference, predilection?

crl

allure, attraction, captivation, charm, enchantment, enthrallment, magnetism, temptation, romance?

Jez

predilection is close

i guess i'll use that but im sure there was another word

Johan Larsson

21:19

no idea what it means, may I suggest thesaurus?

thesaurus.com/browse/predilection

förkärlek

^ somewhat strange Swedish word for the sameish thing

crl

fascination, one perfect French/English matching translation :)

Johan Larsson

21:43

in Lounge<C++> on Stack Overflow Chat, 54 mins ago, by Cat Plus Plus

> In this paper we use code inspired by real, production software

tchrist

22:21

How inspirational.

infinitesimal simplicio

22:58

I was amazed at how good that hacker is @tchrist

It makes me wonder how "secure" the Internet is :-/

Including stuff like direct deposit

Most companies force their employees to use it nowadays

tchrist

There doesn't seem to be a plague of folks paying other people's bills. Well except in California where if you manage to pay somebody else's property tax fo like 4 or 5 years in a row, then you own that property.

mike

hey, can anyone explain the term 'defacilitation' (or maybe give a german synonym)

tchrist

@mike Sounds like making something harder.

mike

I have to translate a document which has 'EQUIPMENT DEFACILITATION AND DECONTAMINATION FORM' and 'Defacilitiation Declaration' in it -.-

tchrist

That or closing down the shop.

Ug.

No idea what that means.

mike

23:06

it has sth to do with closing down. the company closes and is dismantling/selling everythink

*everything

tchrist

No! Not the Sith Lords again!

Liquidating.

mike

hmm, I guess it's just a fancy artifical word for 'disposal'

tchrist

Selling off.

mike

thank you @tchrist

infinitesimal simplicio

23:23

Deactivated

That^ would be my guess :-)

mike

23:34

I like that one, it fits the context more

I'll take the german equivalent for shut-down as translation

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…