English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Anonymous

01:02

@DamkerngT. That's most of the point.

Anonymous

Reading is a highly overlearned skill.

Anonymous

We process things quickly when they're in the form we expect.

Anonymous

Diverge from this form, and the reader doesn't process as quickly or as accurately.

Anonymous

To some extent, what that form is is arbitrary, as long as the reader is trained to read it quickly through a great deal of practice.

Anonymous

What if we revised English spelling? (How? Ignore that.) Let's say we made it a much better representation of pronunciation.

Anonymous

01:04

You might expect that makes it easier. But since everyone already knows how to read English spelled the way it is, it suddenly makes it harder for everyone who's already learned to read.

Anonymous

It would take quite a while before people got back up to speed with the new system.

Anonymous

It's not that our orthography is the best possible way to write English.

Anonymous

But if you stick to the way readers expect to see things, you're doing them a favor.

Damkerng T.

Believe it or not, when I tried reading some old Thai documents from around the time typesetting was still new over here, which were typeset with spaces between word boundaries (or supposed-to-be boundaries), I found myself read them a little slower than reading standard contemporary Thai texts (without word-spacing).

Anonymous

01:48

Makes sense.

Anonymous

> 1. 美しくあろうとする女は美しい。美しくあろうとしない女はやはり美しくない。
> 2. 美しく　あろう　と　する　女　は　美しい。　美しく　あろう　と　しない　女　は　やはり　美しく　ない。

Anonymous

The second one is a lot harder to read!

Anonymous

I put spaces at the word boundaries. Sometimes people do use spaces in Japanese, but they don't usually put them at every word boundary, like in example 2 above.

Robusto

02:07

@snailboat I noticed that early on in my study. It even made me think about the equivalent in English, which (much later) I used in a question here:

39

Q: Does the quirky spelling in English actually make it easier to read?

I just finished reading the question asked by Bobnix, in which RegDwight referred to another question with an interesting answer by Kosmonaut. Kosmonaut refers to the great number of pictograms (Kanji or Hanzi) available in Japanese and Chinese, and mentions that the task of memorizing our weirdo...

goofyui

02:49

I am looking for a word similar to Tasteless .. Do we have any other words similar to Tasteless

Faheem Mitha

08:42

@goofyui Would a slang word do?

skill patrol

08:53

Bland...

(of food or drink) mild or insipid.
"bland and unadventurous vegetarian dish"
synonyms: tasteless, flavorless, insipid, weak, watery, spiceless; informal: wishy-washy
"bland food"

Faheem Mitha

I think @skillpatrol has got you covered.

Justyna Nogala

When we go to the dentist and one of our teeth needs removing because it's rotten or diseased how do we call it ?

The dentist has to take the tongs and remove a tooth using great force.

Faheem Mitha

@JustynaNogala Wow, is that how dentists do things in your country?

@JustynaNogala How about torture? And possibly illegal.

Justyna Nogala

:D

I meant 60 years ago

Faheem Mitha

09:09

extraction is the usual word

or "tooth extraction".

Justyna Nogala

The prisoners had their golden teeth removed/extracted ?

Faheem Mitha

@JustynaNogala Either would work, I think. Writing a historical torture story?

Justyna Nogala

yes

This is how the Germans dealt with their prisoners of war and Jews.

Faheem Mitha

@JustynaNogala Oh.

Justyna Nogala

I'm not searching of a medical term I guess "tooth extraction" is a medical term?

Faheem Mitha

09:19

@JustynaNogala Not especially.

Justyna Nogala

I will stay with "removed" ;)

Thank you.

Faheem Mitha

You're welcome.

Faheem Mitha

11:14

"Its impressive ability to learn" is correct, right? As opposed to "It's impressive ability to learn".

Robusto

Its = possessive; It's = contraction of "it is" . . .

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Yes, that's what I thought. Thank you.

Justyna Nogala

11:46

"During the liquidation of ghetto B in Krakow, Germans loaded Jews on 50 cars; I know nothing about those people's fate. Jews incapacitated/immobilized the German soldiers from one car and started to run." Do we have to put definite article before "ghetto B" ?

Chris's sis the artist

Greetings

"It's a good chance that it will be there" or "It's a good chance it will be there"?

Do I have to use that?

SmokeDetector

12:05

[ SmokeDetector ] Email in answer: Politically correct substitutes for (fe)male and (wo)man by angela jachura on english.stackexchange.com

skill patrol

@Chris'ssistheartist no

Chris's sis the artist

@skillpatrol You mean that I can use it or not?

skill patrol

@Chris'ssistheartist you don't need it

Chris's sis the artist

@skillpatrol Great, thank you.

skill patrol

np pal

Chris's sis the artist

12:13

@skillpatrol I still wanna know if the other form is wrong.

Robusto

No. Not wrong.

skill patrol

neither are "wrong"

Robusto

Sometimes you will want to use that in some constructions, especially longer ones, to avoid ambiguity and confusion.

skill patrol

well said^

Chris's sis the artist

@Robusto Ah, I see. Good then. :-)

@skillpatrol OK

Justyna Nogala

12:16

Do we write the dimensions with spaces?

skill patrol

such as?

Justyna Nogala

50 m x 50 m and 3 m deep or 50m wide x 50m long and 3m deep

skill patrol

a space is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol

Justyna Nogala

12:33

therefore, 3 km not 3km and 6 ft deep not 6ft deep right?

skill patrol

correct

#_unit

_^space

tchrist

6′3″

6ft deep is hard to fathom.

skill patrol

here

tchrist

It’s a yolk, son.

skill patrol

I know pal :)

Justyna Nogala

12:42

I got a lecture for tonight.

skill patrol

about?

Justyna Nogala

I meant a lecture about transcribing Values of Quantities ;D

Johan Larsson

13:02

ok, I need a word, one single word

I have a construct that aggregates events for a specified time, then it signals the batch

I call it DeferredView but dunno if it is a good name

ThrottlingView?

skill patrol

aggregator?

Johan Larsson

maybe

did my description make any sense btw?

skill patrol

sorta :)

collector?

Johan Larsson

The use case is: If the view is expensive to render I don't want it to render one time for each if I add 100items to a list.

In that case I signal one reset after adding the 100 if they are within the throttling treshold

tchrist

@Robusto So what’s this about you being overused? :)

0

Q: Is there a site where I can check if my writing is right?

I am glad I found this website. As a someone who learned English as a second language, I am not quite confident in writing. I usually Google idioms and expressions to see if they are used by other people. Google does a good job but I wonder if there would be a better way. Would there be a webs...

grammar

Those are unconnected.

When I type man Carp into my shell, I feel like I’m trying to summon a werekoi.

Johan Larsson

13:13

Looked up defer, throttle is probably better

tchrist

@JohanLarsson I didn't scroll back, sorry.

Collector?

Buffer?

It isn't like a buffer that flushes when it's full though, is it?

It's some sort of holding-pen or queue that flushes one the clock strikes midnight (or whenever)?

Or is indeed like a buffer that waits until it’s full and then goes?

I hate buses like that. :)

Johan Larsson

It works like this:

tchrist

I think maybe just maybe I’d call it an Event_Buffer, but I might need more clarification.

Johan Larsson

var throttled = notifyingCollection.AsThrottledView(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(10));

then throttled signals one add event after 10 ms if you add one to notifying collection.

If you add another one within 10 ms it resets the timer and signals a reset event when 10 ms has elapsed after last

tchrist

Oh, so this is more time-related after all.

Johan Larsson

13:24

yeah

it is an optimization for when a view is bound to it

render passes can be expensive

tchrist

Sure.

Johan Larsson

Also it has a nice proeprty that you can pass in a sceduler so that the work is done on a background thread and only the notification is posted on the ui thread

but that does not affect the name

it is just api bloat

tchrist

If a user wants a view into a dataset whose entirety is too large to view in limited real estate or whose individual elements are too expensive to calculate upon demand for good interactive performance, it is best to show them a partial view into the dataset, perhaps using a moving window.

This is true for all sorts of data processing needs.

Johan Larsson

Yeah, that is already handeled by the framework I think

Will write a Paging/ChunkingView if needed

tchrist

Things like database cursors, Google results paging, and even just viewing a larger text a page at a time all work this way.

Perhaps your timing aspect is somewhat different, though. It reminds me a bit of stochastic profiler snapshots.

Johan Larsson

13:31

I have a view for a work thing, not allowed to be specific but it is a 3D rendering of some data. A layout pass takes ~200 ms

Would be a really poor user experience if adding 100

Now it will be just one refresh

tchrist

I see.

Or at least, I perhaps begin to make out a hazy outline of your problem-space. :)

Johan Larsson

haha

I'm renaming to ThrottledView now

problem-space sounds so enterprisy

Robusto

@tchrist ¿Cómo?

fahdijbeli

13:48

Hi

skill patrol

hello

fahdijbeli

@DamkerngT. why the other room was frozen ?

Damkerng T.

@fahdijbeli They voted to freeze it.

skill patrol

lack of heat?

fahdijbeli

@DamkerngT. lol but why please?

Damkerng T.

13:49

@fahdijbeli Some think having two public rooms is too much for people to cope with.

By people, I mean users. Each of the users.

fahdijbeli

hummm

good

so this room is its switch?

Damkerng T.

This room belongs to another stack, EL&U (English Language & Usage).

tchrist

0

Q: I feel robust is overused

I feel robust is used too often and incorrectly when describing processes and systems. What would be other possible words to describe processes and systems besides: effective, efficacious, and sound?

word-choice word-usage

fahdijbeli

@DamkerngT. okay thanks

Damkerng T.

The other room you were in belonged to ELL (English Language Learners).

fahdijbeli

13:52

humm okay

could you please give me its switch ? @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

Here is the current ELL public room: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/22937/ells-cabin.

fahdijbeli

@DamkerngT. thanks a lot

Damkerng T.

You're welcome!

skill patrol

don't be shy to come here :D

Robusto

I think of robust as a synonym for "godlike." ^_^ — Robusto 1 min ago

tchrist

14:06

I know this chick Arabica who’d disagree with you.

Robusto

> A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

tchrist

Oh, Monica!

crl

washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/03/…

skill patrol

they'll be building a skytram soon

crl

I believe in some decades there will be a cable car to the summit

skill patrol

14:16

and shuttles to the moon

skill patrol

14:44

terdon

@tchrist is this legal/endorsed by you or O'reilly?

tchrist

Seldom.

What can you do?

terdon

I'm asking because I had a flag raised on U&L against an answer that linked to one of the books there (not yours) and I was wondering how legal it actually is and whether it really was pirated as claimed by the flag.

I take it the flagger was right, then?

Faheem Mitha

Hi @terdon. How are you doing?

terdon

@FaheemMitha Hey. I'm extremely worried but at least am leaving for an island for a few days in half an hour. Whohoo!

Faheem Mitha

14:51

@terdon Island vacation?

terdon

Yup

skill patrol

have fun pal

@terdon :-)

terdon

Cheers!

tchrist

16:17

@terdon I presume it's illegal.

Nicholas J.

21:09

Hey, there!

I've been struggling trying to understand this specific sentence: "Seeing the number, the night shift worked hard to top it, marking its own figure down"

If any of you can shed some light on what it means, I'll appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

skill patrol

21:40

Let's say the day shift produced 50 units. Now, seeing this number, the night shift worked hard to top it, the night shift marked its own production figure down to see by how much they can improve on it.

Nicholas J.

Oh. I get it now. Thank you so much!!

skill patrol

Thanks for asking :-)

Robusto

22:39

@tchrist: I think you need to change your gravatar to something more personal. Else I'm going to go on being confused when someone who looks a lot like you answers very elementary questions. Surely you can find a Unicode character or something to set yourself apart.

6

Johan Larsson

22:59

yeah, what is your favorite unicode guy?

maybe a square? You post a lot of those :)

skill patrol

What about the hacker symbol?

Or maybe, a bunny rabbit :P

Johan Larsson

23:14

what is the hacker symbol?

skill patrol

23:49

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(Conway%27s_Life)

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…