English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:22 PM

Where do you get the idea that saying something longer will make it more correct? — Robusto 17 mins ago

@Robusto: you can get the idea from Dan Brown, for only $19.99.

He's cheaper than your $3000. I might try him.

Cheapskates gonna skate.

And cheep, like birds.

How is in our today's meeting correct? Is your today different than my today? — terdon 7 secs ago

Cheap and Dale.

@terdon you people are being cruel beyond belief. Just tell him already that it must be "in our the today's meeting" and be done. Jeez.

12:27 PM

:)

This is Strunk and White rule 36: if you don't use a definite article, nobody will know what the hell you're talking about.

Which hell?

The.

See how you suddenly know everything?

The system the works.

Quite.

I was mildly surprised to find out Latin as no articles.

12:30 PM

I was very surprised to find out Latin has no Cyrillic.

Even Mongolian has Cyrillic. Come on now.

:D

@RegDwigнt Japanese doesn't have Cyrillic.

Cyrillic script

The Cyrillic script /sɨˈrɪlɪk/ is an alphabetic writing system employed across Eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed during the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, in parts of Southeastern Europe and Northern Eurasia, especially those of Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages. About half of...

@Robusto Japanese doesn't have vodka, either. Poor, poor people.

@skillpatrol yeah my point exactly. The entire world has Cyrillic, only Latin does not. By the way, why are some parts of the ocean marked gray?

dunno

12:43 PM

Maybe they didn't have enough white paint in their photo shop.

This is what you get for being a non-profit wiki.

@RegDwigнt Has some damn fine Whisky though.

@terdon I have some damn fine Whisky, too. And vodka. And Cyrillic. What is your point.

RexYuan

Hi, guys! Sorry to interrupt I'm reading a novel (the circle) and I have some question regarding the plot of the story and whether there's some metaphor for some actual event. Is these the kind of question allowed here at ELU?

@RegDwigнt That it must be great to be you.

By the way, @reg, are Cyrillic numbers still used today?

@terdon Not only that it must, it actually is.

12:45 PM

lol :)

@RexYuan Not really, no.

@RexYuan thank you for asking here first. Literary criticism is indeed off-topic on the main site.

@RexYuan Depends. If you're asking about the plot, no. If you're asking about how a certain phrase can be interpreted, perhaps but that will depend on the context.

RexYuan

Thanks for the information, guys! May I ask is there some other SE where this are on-topic?

@terdon Maybe in some deserted Albanian village, I wouldn't know. Seems about as likely as someone still using the Roman numbers. Don't mention the Jews.

12:47 PM

@RegDwigнt OK, but certainly not common anyway.

@RexYuan Don't think so. You can discuss plot points of scifi/Fantasy novels on Science Fiction & Fantasy and movies/tv shows on Movies & TV but I don't think there's one for general fiction.

@RexYuan I struggle to think of one. There was a proposal for a Literature site, but it never got off the ground.

To the best of my knowledge anyway.

RexYuan

@terdon, @RegDwigнt Thanks! I'll try my luck

@Mitch, It's misleading. Because it's not at all clear that it's meant to be hyperbolic. — Pacerier 3 hours ago

@Pacerier I apologize for not being direct. To use such technical terms in such dry prose and then imply they are slurs isn't obviously hyperbolic, only obviously incongruous. I'll try to be more deliberate next time.

Faheem Mitha

@RegDwigнt There was a literature site for a while. It was eventually shut down.

Yeah it rings a bell somehow.

12:57 PM

@Cerberus I am very aware that the question is unreasonably broad. But ... it is not stupid question and it stil has an answer (a negative one). In other words I feel like even though it matches the criteria for closing, I don't feel like we should discourage such questions (as long as they're answerable).

Wait, what? There's an open question? Where? WHERE?

@Mitch It would have been fine had the OP split it into multiple ones.

Multiple open questions? You people out of your gorram minds.

:22113707 "yeah right let's take some advocaat and call it Japanese vodka. Yeah, that'll do."

But anyway, if they do have "vodka", all the reason less not to have "Cyrillic".

1:01 PM

Rather too attractive a bottle for vodka, I think.

Tsamina mina eh eh, wokka wokka saki, tsamina mina mina, this time for Africa.

@Robusto dunno, looks like perfume to me.

The aroma might get you laid in Russia, you never know.

A vodka bottle that's not transparent obviously has something to hide, most likely the fact that it's no proper vodka.

In Soviet Russia, vodka hides you!

I wonder if you can get Wokka in Mekka.

1:07 PM

@terdon I think that the multiple questions are all reasonable integral aspects of the main broad question 'Are US idioms understood in the UK?'

@Robusto Wokka Wokka, the vodka of Fozzy Bear

Fozzy logic.

So you say.

You don't say.

@Mitch not really, the OP states that the "main question" is what percentage of idioms are common to both, goes on to ask how one can tell the origin of an idiom and then requests answers for a specific list of idioms.

Methinks you doth protest too much only because you happened to have written an excellent answer.

Excellent answers do not imply excellent questions.

The answer is seven. Seven percentage of idioms. Seven.

1:12 PM

@RegDwigнt Why not? If they let something like Absolut be called Vodka...

No idea what the point of this discussion is when the answer is so clear.

@terdon yeah no shit, and by that I mean yeah it's total shit.

I used to think that was what Vodka was until I made some Polish friends.

Which, coincidentally, is another instance of Strunk and White rule 36.

Me, I'd rather drink scotch. In fact, I'd rather drink some scotch right now.

Hmm, I wonder what micro-distilled means.

@terdon the best vodka I ever had was from Belorussia. The best brands from Poland, Russia, Sweden, Finland, or Czechia are all kerosene compared to it. Because they are.

1:16 PM

OK, I look forward to trying it.

The one from Belorussia was the first one that deserved the friggin name. Vodka. Water. It tasted like water, it smelled like water, it had the aftertaste of water, it inflicted as much heartburn as water, and as much hangover. It's only that you got instawasted, is all.

@terdon as with all good things, especially all good things vodka, the brand only existed for a year or so.

You see, the way Eastern Europe works is this: you make something good, immediately someone makes counterfeit shit, and your reputation is ruined. So every ten months or so you have to come up with a new business and a new brand.

@RegDwigнt I guess that gives "White Russian" a whole new dimension.

@Robusto I wish I had tried it in a White Russian, but then again it was just too good to waste on a cocktail.

Especially since Kahlua has a distinct alcostench.

I mean that's what Belorus means: White Russia. Or am I mistaken.

Now, if the same guys also had their version of Kahlua... I imagine heavens. Heavens.

@Robusto yeah it does.

1:22 PM

So give it up for the cross-lingual pun.

I will give it up for $29.99.

Cheep.

Chee-chee-chee-cheap and Skate, rescue rangers.

Middle of the Road - Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - Totp 1971

►

@RegDwigнt You're telling me. I come from Greece, you know. We have the same system only that it doesn't even need to be good.

1:23 PM

Oh but you see, in your system you at least don't pay taxes.

@RegDwigнt Ha!

In Soviet Greece, the IRS pays you.

We even pay taxes on income we haven't received, how's that for a lark?

@terdon yeah yeah yeah go tell me that now that Merkel has become Hitler you totally do.

But you know exactly that for like the last 20000 years you didn't even have a word for "tax".

If you rent a house, you pay income on the rent irrespective of whether or not your tenant has actually paid it.

@RegDwigнt Oh, we did! We just ignored it.

1:26 PM

@terdon Sounds about as right as pretending to be blind, in masses, like entire villages, entire islands. :P

Hard to believe that band is Scottish.

Everyone wants to sound American in rock.

From the still I thought that was Agneta.

Fältskög, or what's the name.

Agnetha Fältskog. Same difference.

@terdon so anyway, point being, you can get robbed by Zeus himself every living minute of your day, robbed of your liver that is, while tied to a mountain, and you'd still prefer that over having to deal with Russian tax authorities.

@RegDwigнt I have no idea what you're talking about.

whistles innocently

Oh of course. That's because you're blind, I forgot. Sorry sorry. Here's some money.

@RegDwigнt I'm sure that's true.

Greek cops are pretty bad, worse than any other EU country's for sure. I hope they're not quite at the level of the Russian ones yet though.

1:33 PM

Those guys in the picture, that's not some special forces they have for edge cases when you don't pay five trillion and a judge has issued an order to confiscate some shit.

No, that's their regular, average employee. They don't have any other ones.

And they don't know what "judge" or "order" means.

@terdon never mind cops, the whole mindset is such that the tiniest amount of power immediately gets to everyone's head. Tiniest as in, "I have the power to wipe the floors here", that levels of tiny.

As friendly, genuine, loveable and welcoming as many, perhaps even most, are in private, as horrible monsters they become as soon as they're in any kind of position, even if that position is that of a cashier.

Aug 29 '12 at 0:09, by Robusto

This is the tiniest amount of power I have ever seen go to anybody's head.

Just try saying "thank you" after buying some gum. Or you know, smiling in a store. It is unheard of. You will get very strange looks.

And now imagine, in that climate, giving someone actual power and a rapid-fire gun.

1:50 PM

He really has no middle gear:

terdon, I 10000% understand you now. This is the BEST QUESTION EVER ASKED on here. thanks for posting it! in a sea of crap, it's the only worthwhile question in weeks. totally awesome. I'm flummoxed. I have NO CLUE why you can NOT stick extra words between the "our" and the subject of the "our". i've just seen the other question you picked it up from, also. totally awesome. — Joe Blow 3 mins ago

:)

Middle Gear Solid.

@terdon uh.. how to respond to a compliment that essentially attempts to deny the ability to get said complement?

Here's one good reaction: "NOU".

But yes, if I were someone else, I would totally say I'm saying things just to get me answer out there.

@Mitch You have fallen into my trap pf confusion.

1:56 PM

Plot twist: you are someone else.

Since I'm not someone else (that I know of (I could be someone I don't know)), I wholeheartedly endorse whatever my (or that guy I don't know)'s actions.

@RegDwigнt What about that movie where almost everyone else turned out to be just one guy time traveling a lot.

Nice Saxon genitive right there.

bows

That's how it should be done.

@Mitch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

The adventure excellan of Guy and Edouard

2:00 PM

The Road to El Barad-dûrado.

minus Tirith

2:19 PM

Mkay, what is the author trying to say here?

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[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in body, email in body: Where can i purchase a passport,driver licence or id? by hulton on english.stackexchange.com

@terdon There is some precedent for keeping such questions (bad questions with good answers) But that's mostly @Martha's opinion.

Dead Kennedy's: noise or fertilizer? Discuss.

2:34 PM

@Mitch Closed questions with upvoted answers are never deleted.

By the way, do you have any idea about this?

@terdon I saw it and read the comments and wow Joe Blow has medication issues but some of things he says I agree with his words so I'm not sure what to say. I'll reread.

Oerkelen's answer is as obvious as it is correct, so now my job is to find a counterexample just to spit on your all's parade.

Like, "don't touch our Ben and Jerry's collection".

My devil's advocate level: über pro.

Actually, let's make that a comment.

@terdon yeah. oerk's answer. I have other things to say that I think would be enlightening but 'two possessives bad' is the most salient information (the explanation)

@Mitch Yes, that does make sense. But John's sister's friend.

So there must be a better way of explaining it.

@RegDwigнt Compound noun, no fair.

Hello. I am your devil's advocate. Don't touch my Ben and Jerry's ice or my McDonald's burger. — RegDwigнt ♦ 7 secs ago

2:44 PM

That's not two possessives on friend, it is one possessive, of which internally there's a noun and a modifying possessive.

@terdon you're a compound noun.

@RegDwigнt so those are OK. so two possessive's are allowed?

No of course they are not.

I did say I was devil's and not Santa's.

so 'Ben and Jerry's' is not really a possessive but a fixed idiomatic adjective?

Santa needs no one to advocate for him.

I have no idea. I only know that simplistic rule is simplistic, so you better come up with a better one or else.

2:46 PM

@Mitch That's what I meant: there's a better way of explaining it.

He does need someone to pull him out of the chimney flue. That guy has got to cut back.

So it could be ostensibly grammatical, but it's just too complex to be processed. Like 'the horse raced past the barn fell'

You can't say "my Mitch's comment" for the same reason you can't say "the my comment" or "two my comments". Except when Mitch starts making burgers or ice, then you totally can.

I'm making burgers right now, but I still can't say either.

So, my the solution is: make Mitch's my today's ice happen.

can we do cake instead of ice? I made cookies yesterday, so I think cake today would be nice.

2:51 PM

Bonus round: "today's" means nothing other than "current", or "upcoming", or "latest", depending on perspective. So how come you can say "our current meeting, our upcoming meeting, our latest meeting"?

Discuss while I enjoy my Mitch's ice.

@Mitch you never heard of ice with cake bits in it? Are you Unamerican? Are you? Are you?

@RegDwigнt What is wrong with Oerkelens' explanation?

I only read the first couple of line, I have to admit, but one generally cannot use multiple genitives to modify the same word.

There are exceptions.

The only thing that's not possible in the greatest country on Earth is ice cream with ice cream in it. But ice cream with shit is mastered to perfection. USA. USA.

@Cerberus there is nothing wrong with it. But what is wrong with my comment, then? It can't be that we are both right at the same time!

@Cerberus aye, there's the rub. So we're trying to figure it all out all at once.

@RegDwigнt Well, it answers your question.

So why ask again?

Now I'm confused.

Who answers whose question.

Who asks again.

@RegDwigнt I'm not sure that is a rub. There are always exceptions.

2:58 PM

You're an exception. An unhandled one.

You asked a question just now.

If you read Oerkelens' answer, that should have answered your question; so why did you ask it, if you had already read the answer?

Which one, "what is wrong with my comment?"

No, the one I replied to.

7 mins ago, by RegDwigнt

Bonus round: "today's" means nothing other than "current", or "upcoming", or "latest", depending on perspective. So how come you can say "our current meeting, our upcoming meeting, our latest meeting"?

Oh, that.

Current is not a genitive, so there are no double genitives.

2:59 PM

I thought you were talking about devil's advocate.

Stop confusing me.

Oh, no.

Stop confusing.

Think straight.

But to answer your question: the questions I ask here are a service for the people here so they don't have to read the main site.

@Cerberus Why, you never think straight!

@terdon Hyperbolize much, Joe?

Everything I write you can read elsewhere. But you're here, so apparently you're expecting something.

So in the short siestas between my power naps I do you the favor of posting shit.

3:01 PM

@Robusto Perhaps a smidgeon. No, wait, hang on, are you implying my question is not the all time bestest ever asked? For shame!

El abogado del Diablo!

El avocado del Diablo III.

@terdon I'm with you 10000%. At least.

Wait, make that 9999.85%.

I want to save something for later.

I think terdon's question is only 1% not the all time bestest, and 99% all time not the bestest.

@RegDwigнt How generous of you, for who would want that?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I do! Gay is not the way.

3:03 PM

@Cerberus well you're typing in this room and not Google, so I have to assume the answer is: you?

@RegDwigнt Make sure the siestas aren't too long, lest you tire out!

It's called burn out, you ananas.

@Cerberus Sure. Sexual relations between men doesn't make anybody gay.

It's only gay if the beams cross.

It's only gay if Putin or his designated appointees catch you.

3:04 PM

Putin on the ritz.

Ritz pudding!

Shah Rezah Pahlavi.

Pahlavi français?

@RegDwigнt No, I mean, who would want to read the main site? For one thing, it is too long.

There's a main site?

Who allowed that?

Certainly not Putin.

3:06 PM

@RegDwigнt Verb 1. tire out - exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stresstire out - exhaust or get tired through overuse or great strain or stress; "We wore ourselves out on this hike"

I'm sure SE is on your the Rozkommador's list.

How do you spell that?

Google refuses to correct that.

First I hear that we have an open question, and now I hear we have a main site. This is a sad minute for a man, and a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for mankind.

@Cerberus who would that be, please?

Rozkommador and Conquer?

Roskomnadzor.

Took me a while to find the right spelling.

WTF, I would have never guessed that.

Haha why not?

@Cerberus What is it anyway?

3:09 PM

It's pretty close.

I thought you were trying to spell a German word.

Rotzkommando or I dunno.

You deceived me.

@terdon A Russian censorship office, in between a copyright office and a Vatican blacklist (evil + evil). Oh, perhaps they also do some good stuff, but that is never in the papers.

Ouch

@RegDwigнt The howmanieth time is this that I have to teach you Russian?

The minus oneth.

3:11 PM

Learn the language already, geesh.

@RegDwigнt How about for doghood?

Sorry, first things first, my Dutch is not prachtig enough.

Janus to the rescue:

Oh, it’s probably worth noting also that today(’s) acts as a deictic, which is why “our today’s meeting” doesn’t work. Deictics always add definiteness to a noun phrase, and so do possessive pronouns and determiners; and you can’t mark a noun phrase for definiteness twice (or mark for both definiteness and indefiniteness). That’s why neither “the/an our meeting”, “the/a today’s meeting”, nor “our today’s meeting” works: today’s makes it definite, so you can’t add another (in)definitiser. (This doesn’t go when today is used as a simple, non-deictic noun, as in @GEdgar’s example.) — Janus Bahs Jacquet 5 mins ago

I agree that Dutch should be more important to you.

@Cerberus doghoods don't have sad days. Doghoods have sad 3-hours-25-minutes-43-secondses.

That is...specific?

3:13 PM

@terdon there. Was that hard?

@Cerberus look up dog year, then do the math.

So as for your Russian lesson, let's start with pectopah.

It wasn't when I looked up WTF deictics are.

Repeat after me: pec-to-pah.

That is so wrong on so many levels.

Like pectoral, but with a pah!

3:15 PM

Like that guy a couple months ago who for some reason wrote to my platoon mate, "npoctu".

Deictics—who doesn't hate them?

@RegDwigнt I have now. I'm a latter-second American.

@JanusBahsJacquet: But if it is definiteness, instead of genitiveness, then what about the last word, the only time? I agree with your and Oerkelens' explanation in general, but I have a feeling it is either more complicated or more arbitrary. — Cerberus 17 secs ago

@RegDwigнt What's that, nrosti? Irostn?

prosti?

@Cerberus it took me easily three full minutes to have my mate spell it to me, scratch my head in disbelief, ask him to re-spell and re-spell again, scratch my head in disbelief, start typing it into google even (to no avail!), bump my head against some walls, give up, resume, give up again, and then suddenly realize they mean "ПРОСТИ".

3:23 PM

@Cerberus Either more complicated or more arbitrary: great, fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

What's worse, you're probably right. It might even be more of both.

So that guy basically lost some fight alongside our platoon, and he apologized for not having played better, and he did so in Russian using Latin letters that sort of looked similar except when they didn't.

For whatever reason he would pick Russian in the first place, as my mate's profile clearly states he's located in Germany.

@RegDwigнt Oh, of course, a p!

@terdon Hehe yep.

@RegDwigнt He must have used Google translate, then copied the words by typing letters on his keyboard that looked vaguely familiar?

Nah, there is a widely used approximation of Cyrillic using Latin, it's just that this guy's is different.

Normally you'd just write "prosti".

So basically a transcription of pronunciation.

I know.

But he approximated the looks of the letters, and it's not like that's never done at all, it's actually quite common in screen names, but not really in conversation.

3:31 PM

So only someone who couldn't read Cyrillic would do it like that, which led me to believe he was copying Google Translate in that way.

So for example, there's a famous player called зверь тьмы, and he writes himself as 3BEPb TbMbI.

Three-bepb-tbmbi.

Right.

But you'd not do that in casual conversation since this kind of conversion takes forever, it's much easier to just say "zver tmy".

What does that mean?

Naturally.

"Animal of the darkness".

Again, I even typed the thing into Google, and the way I remember it, not only did it return no meaningful hits, it also had no did-you-mean suggestion.

Which by the way goes to show that this kind of creativity is way beyond Google Translate's capability right now.

It was a native Russian speaker typing Russian in a fancy way. Why he'd do so when his interlocutor was not Russian, and why he wouldn't have Russian letters in the first place, are questions I will leave as an exercise to philosophers.

As to Google Translate, I got a Google-Translated message just this night.

It was really funny, using English syntax, grammar and idioms, but with German words. Well, I don't need to explain, you know how Google Translate works. The usual thing.

So anyway, I found that very lovely and touching in a way. Because this is not PC, this is console, so you can't just Google-Translate shit on the fly, you have to go fire up your PC, input your text there, and then type off the "translation" letter my letter, using your Xbox gamepad.

3:42 PM

Doe it translate мaть well?

That word is untranslatable, which I guess is what you're alluding to, because I won't quit saying it.

Speaking of quitting saying: gotta mute commies in a minute or five.

@RegDwigнt The same happened to my Roxkommador.

@RegDwigнt That's cute, by whom? An ally?

5:20 PM

Time to remove simchona as mod? She ain't been here for half a year.

5:46 PM

The plot thickens

I upvoted Janus's comment, which is certainly "worth noting". But I don't have a problem with our last week's meeting and many other variations on the theme, so I'm not convinced it's a matter of "Multiple deictic qualifiers are inherently invalid". — FumbleFingers 11 mins ago

6:05 PM

I have wisely laid off that question.

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6:40 PM

@terdon our last week's meeting = the meeting belonging to the last week belonging to us

You're allowed to nest possessives

our today's meeting doesn't nest: today doesn't belong to you

my brother's wife's last week's meeting = the meeting on the last week which belongs to the wife of my brother. Here, a week might belong to someone if, say, you're renting a meeting room by the week, and you're referring to the last such week you rented.

if our last week's meeting is meant to refer to your meeting that took place last week, then I'd say that's an ungrammatical way of saying that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 My today is different from your today.

Our todays are different.

7:10 PM

Your todays might be different but in my meeting tomorrow we will preemptively disallow any difference at all.

also, pun about 'wisely laid off' and 'your grandmother'

7:33 PM

@Robusto Yes. After you introduce a concept like that, then I have no difficulty with "Our today's meeting". But absent that initial redefinition of what "today" means, it doesn't work.

Weird how that happens.

Jez

8:13 PM

hey guys

i need some food suggestions for tonight

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto Jeez.

@Jez fry some cooked rice in salsa.

serve with chicken.

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8:45 PM

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8:59 PM

as hell

9:12 PM

> . . . and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. (Shakespeare)

9:35 PM

I'm new here to the English Language & Usage Exchange, a stranger from stackoverflow. I notice that comments are exchanged here more than there. Is there a page detailing commenting best practice?

10:02 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nice! brown boneless chicken thighs, then pour a jar of salsa over them and simmer. serve with rice. so easy!

@mikeyreilly what do you mean 'exchanged more'? There are more comments? or people have discussions in comments?

10:30 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah, maybe that's what makes our last week's meeting less grating for me. It might be the double meaning of last (previous) and last (ultimate). Interesting.

10:59 PM

@Mitchi I meant more discussion. But It seems to me there are more comments generally too. It could be that on stackoverflow I noticed the comments less because once I found a solution that worked I was satisfied and delved no further.

@mikeyreilly Yes, this site is particularly permissive with respect to comments. More so than any other of the ones I frequent.

I don't think there's any guideline. And the mods still regularly delete them. It's just that more discussion is allowed here.

@Mitch the above. My current smartphone far surpasses previous models at alienating me from other people.

Each site has its own culture. You need to hang out there a while in order to get it.

11:14 PM

Thanks folks. I sometimes see comments that I don't wholly agree with. It looks as though I'm free to voice my misgivings and if I'm torn apart for doing so it won't be because I failed to read the "before you comment read this" notice that everyone else has read.