English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-09-15 (page 1 of 2)

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12:56 AM

@tchrist Apparently, Burning Man is a bit of a copyright troll: techdirt.com/articles/20150914/00134532249/… How sad.

> ... Quizno's (long known for their amusing internet-ready commercials), released a pretty funny commercial mocking the commercialization of Burning Man in a way that pokes almost as much fun at Quizno's itself as it does at Burning Man. It does, certainly, mock the event for becoming pretty commercialized and "a place for rich people to check off their bucket list."
And, it appears that the Burning Man organization has absolutely no sense of humor and is trying to find some way to sue Quizno's over this, claiming it's "theft of intellectual property."

They don't want to be mocked.

Which practically guarantees more mockery.

Thing is, they're really anti-commericalism.

1:12 AM

@tchrist That won't save them in this day and age, unfortunately. Choosing not to play won't guarantee not being played.

0

Q: Where did we get the "fours" in "on all fours"?

To walk or crawl "on all fours" means to get about on hands and knees like a four-legged animal. The word four can be used as a determiner to describe a quantity of items, in which case the noun is plural: four bricks, four beers, four colors. But somehow, in the expression "on all fours" the pl...

Anybody want to hazard an answer on this one?

@tchrist Apparently, Techdirt thinks they aren't.

It’s a bullshit article. Why are you buying into it?

> "We are pretty proactive about protecting our 10 principles, one of which is decommodification," Graham said. "We get a quite a number of requests each year from companies wanting to gift participants with their product or to capture imagery or video of their products at the event, and we turn them all down."

I have no idea what that last paragraph means.

Proves he is an idiot. Ignore.

Am 3x multitasking. No time to bicker.

@Robusto I am glad my lines make you think.

@tchrist I don't get what Graham means either.

At any case, copyright trolling is trolling.

> "We get a quite a number of requests each year from companies wanting to gift participants with their product or to capture imagery or video of their products at the event, and we turn them all down."

What part of that do you fail to understand?

6 hours later…

7:29 AM

[ SmokeDetector ] All-caps title: VOCABULARY - HOW MANIETH by O.Abootty on english.stackexchange.com

2 hours later…

9:44 AM

@Cerberus actually, only my patented copyright trolling is trolling. All other copyright trolling is not trolling!

Caveat emptor.

Matt E. Эллен

Cat eat hat emperor

The cat eat hat emperor strikes back.

Sorry, I meant, Episode V: The cat eat hat emperor strikes back.

Matt E. Эллен

That would be a blockbuster

Good, I was sort of worried it might be a bustblocker.

Matt E. Эллен

no one wants that

10:05 AM

::slow clap::

;-)

10:25 AM

Good morning

11:08 AM

Хеллоу. Из ит ми ё лукинг фо?

11:38 AM

0

Q: Comma rule with 'however' - is this pedantry?

I have seen, on the website of an illustrious university, the use of 'however' which I always thought to be wrong. It is used twice in the same way, which makes me think it isn't a typo. Changing the context a little, the sentence is: You are not required to take exams for this subject, howe...

punctuation however-placement

Dupe.

punctuation & pedantry are synonyms

Said the man who never punctuates or capitalizes.

11:58 AM

@JohanLarsson not really: punctuation are the rules, while pedantry is how closely you follow the rules.

nice :)

@RegDwigнt Caveat troll.

What is troll in German?

@Cerberus Ist das nicht der Kobold?

@Robusto There are many words for somewhat similar beings.

That's the one I remember from D&D type video games.

12:09 PM

To know how each language or region uses them is...it's hard to predict.

In Dutch, a troll is a trol.

Then what is a trolley?

a female troll

Wagentje.

Little wagon.

@Rigor Look who's talking!

:'(

Trolling Saruman

This one never gets old.

12:12 PM

he certainly is

@Cerberus So -tje is the Dutch suffix comparable to -chen in German?

Yes, the basic suffix is -je.

From -jen, I think.

So they are cognates, I believe.

@Cerberus troll in Swedish

@Cerberus What is the pronunciation of -tje vs -je?

@JohanLarsson Are words on -ll common?

12:17 PM

Ending with ll? Pretty common I'd say.

@Robusto -je is /jə/, so like yuh. -tje is hard to express in IPA, something in between /tjə/ and /tʃə/.

Or maybe -tje actually comes close to German -che.

That's what I thought.

@JohanLarsson OK interesting. Words never end on double consonants in Dutch.

@Robusto Just don't tell any Dutchmen!

Now I must leave you.

Dag!

@Cerberus Is that German too?

12:34 PM

he faded quickly today

Kinda like the Raiders, yeah?

@MattE.Эллен A cat can look at a king, not eat him.

@Robusto hey, we were kicking field goals down by 33 points in the fourth quarter pal.

Unless maybe they're not relatives. Then it's sorta ok.

Cannibalism jokes are funny because eating people is wrong.

@Rigor Got the suspense over with early.

12:37 PM

THe very subtly implied bestiality makes it a little creepy I suppose.

@Mitch 'I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.'

@RegDwigнt Aye kin say eat any oar rise

@Robusto A rule book about cats and kings. Cats and kings don't read it because neither of them can be bothered to read

> The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.

That's not much of an arguAUGHHHHH

1:06 PM

You know how we tend to dupclose the questions about the relationship of English tenses to one, since there are hundreds of possibilities and the question gets asked again and again and again? Do we have one of those for conditionals?

Review queue at 309.

Those are almost all for closure.

@tchrist The first second third conditional thing is very foreign to me. I'm sure it is a construction by ESLers as an aid to learning. Can't we just migrate to ELL?

@tchrist HOw do they get there? automatically or by a single close vote to start it off?

@Mitch More than one individual can even make a dent in.

@Mitch I was wondering that myself. It seems foreign to you because it does a very poor job of describing English. You have very few permissible combinations in some languages, but in English, this is not so. It’s been shown that 90% of non-past conditionals used in actual corpora fall outside the little pigeon holes.

1:13 PM

Assume 2 1/2 avg close votes. need 750 to deal with the queue. at 20 close votes per person per day that's ~37 person days

The current question is from an American ESL teacher long-time resident in Japan, IIRC. But he has an ESL background not a linguistics one, so he has gotten himself painted into a corner.

While one could make an argument that we should have CV=40 like SO instead of our current CV=24, or that close votes should scale with reputation the way delete votes do, that won't address the underlying issue of not enough different people voting.

1

A: "should" in conditionals

There are just two ways of using should: one is with the simple infinitive for non-past senses, and the other is with the perfect infinitive for past senses. Those are your only two choices. Key opposing concepts: simple infinitive versus past infinitive deontic modality versus epistemic modal...

@tchrist Or, too many people voting (since only one vote or flag is required to add a question to the queue).

Not saying that that's actually the case, though.

Perhaps mods should go through the queue since their votes would reduce it quite quickly.

But I tend to close the blatantly off-topic unilaterally and would rather the community do the less blatant.

@AndrewLeach Agree.

People already get bothered by duphammer. Then again, sometimes we jump the gun on it.

@Robusto technically, this one got not just old but dead. Technically.

Also, technically, that's a most appropriate song to sing in that situation, as it is titled "I am happy for I am on my way home".

1:28 PM

Then it all worked out.

As was Tolkien's plan.

The plot thickened all along.

> To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

No going home for Saruman.

Only a heathen would offer that interpretation.

@RegDwigнt Plots are like gravy. Yeah, they are.

A schooled scholar will know that Jesus himself spake, "you come from nothing, you're going back to nothing, what have you lost? nothing".

1:32 PM

user image

Thus, dissolving into nothing is indeed the only true way to go home. Amen.

That's Saruman right there.

He went home for Thanksgiving.

@Robusto Phoenix Guards has “Chapter the Eleventh: In Which the Plot, Behaving in Much the Manner Of a Soup to which Corn Starch Has been Added, Begins, at Last, to Thicken.”

@Robusto I dunno why but it reminds me of the Reagan commercial.

Must be the technicolors.

He is going to eat turkey and then watch football. Saruman was American to his core.

1:34 PM

I think that is Regan in the bottom right corner.

No, it's Goneril.

Cordelia is mid-right.

Someone should photoshop a white wizard's robe onto Saruman, though. Looks better than that stupid black suit.

The guy on the left, laughing, looks exactly as a good school friend of mine. At least at this resolution.

Yup, at higher resolution he looks nothing like him.

@RegDwigнt Rockwell photographed all the faces from live subjects and often even the compositions themselves before painting.

That's Rockwell science.

Which by the way was later superceded by Resident Evil science, in which people photographed all the faces from dead subjects and often even the compositions themselves before creating video games.

Progress.

@RegDwigнt You typed "superceded" again. Your pineapple core is showing.

You should put a sticky on your keyboard to remind you to look up the correct spelling.

1:39 PM

At least for the original game they did. With Code Veronica at the latest, they had firmly entered the Uncanny Valley, where everything looks dead all by itself.

And everyone knows it was Vice-Resident Evil, a.k.a. Dick Cheney.

@Robusto my crappy pianist core, you mean.

@RegDwigнt This answers something you mentioned:

1

A: Why am I allowed to omit the verb in "Qual é o seu trabalho?"

TL;DR: The phrase Qual seu trabalho? is allowed because there is loss of meaning by the verb omission but implies a spoken context. In a more formal context, the verb has to be added. The article o also can be omitted because of the casual context, but in some regions may sound odd. It is pe...

Just becasue you keep typoing "teh" doesnt mean your a pineapple.

> What news from Elsinore, my lord?

1:40 PM

@RegDwigнt Thats looser talk!

Becuz UR a looser.

lol pwned!

Yeah I saw that film with Gordon Lewitt in Bruce Willis prosthetics.

It totaly pwnd.

@tchrist Apple stock just dumped two percent, varlet!

Polonius was heavily invested in Apple.

It was a loan, not an investment.

The guy who poisoned the Russian guy in London?

Or the guy who is not allowed to enter the US to show his movies?

Thought for the day: Was Polonius Polish, as his name implies? Was he ever one of the "sledded Polacks" that Shakespeare mentioned later in the play?

1:44 PM

What retarded nonsense. His name implies he was one pole of an onion.

Onions have no poles.

spin it when you throw it

Making a Battery From a Lemon, Apple, and Onion

You are stoopid.

Everything has poles.

Una manzana no es una cebolla.

No pienso y por eso no soy.

1:46 PM

Necesito una café fuerte.

*un

Te hace falta uno bien fuerte.

Congratulations! You have now produced 0.0000000000000001% of all Spanish texts.

0

Q: grammatically correct response to a negative imperative

Can you answer a negative imperative such as, "Don't forget to buy some milk" with a "I will" rather than a "I won't." If so, what would it mean ?

Now Blow is going after a new Jacquet. Calling him out, as it were.

Grammatically, you can answer that question with "red car".

@Robusto Pretty sure it's a little late for that.

Also, if we’re placing bets, I know where the smart money lies.

1:50 PM

@tchrist So do I. And, full confession, it kind of creeps me out when that person writes a comment in support of something I said. Makes me look at it harder, and consider taking it back.

@RegDwigнt Just like a communist to bring up red cars.

Thank you for noticing. I am blushing in red.

Looks more pinko to me.

Oops

No, he's full-on red.

Hm. JB vs JBJ.

1:53 PM

Red in tooth and claw, just like Stalin.

I prefer JBL.

Absolutely valueless explanation :-) — Joe Blow 21 mins ago

@Robusto Lenin! Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov!

You're out of your element.

What a dick.

Wait what.

You don't think that's a joke?

BJ?

1:53 PM

He did use a smiley.

I am the walrus.

Oh, that makes it all better.

Too chatty.

I don't post on Shabbath.

@RegDwigнt It was a sarcastic smiley, though.

If it is a joke then it's not very good.

"You suck."

"Just kidding!"

1:54 PM

@Robusto ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@RegDwigнt Shi-sh.

@Mitch yeah so? My whole shtick is jokes that is not very good. Ask Robusto.

This whole room is a joke that is not very good.

Wait, that´s tsu, not shi.

You want a room that is a joke that is very good, you gotta turn to Tommy Wiseau.

@Robusto Your pineapple core is showing.

You should´ve used shi there. Looks more sarcastic. ¯\_（シ)_/¯.

Or ditzy or something.

1:57 PM

Haha you fell prey to the same aggro SO algo as I did.

@Robusto Keyboard broken?

@tchrist No. The backslash is there, but somehow it doesn't show up. IDK what is wrong.

@Robusto ¯\_(Ф)_/¯

s/´/’/ || die

Apostrophe != Acute

You have to escape the backslash, duh.

The aggro algo eats your backslash.

1:58 PM

Oh, there we go.

Now they reaped off your arm.

How the hell am I supposed to keep up with what may or not need escaping in this chat?

Yes.

A clear yes.

@RegDwigнt OK. But JB's schtick is usually being a dick. So at least we're all consistent.

Yo mama is so consistent five planets revolve around her.

Matt E. Эллен

1:59 PM

ツシアンヅザバンシス

Ho, ho, ho-chi-minh.

@Mitch This is consonant with a vocalic pair of dice.

¯\_(ПУТИН)_/¯

There. I win again.

Finnegan.

And his wake.

2:00 PM

@MattE.Эллен tsushi andzu el banshisu? Cómo?

Finn, again.

Sushi arigato, mister balkono.

Matt E. Эллен

pytin

I haven't had enough coffee to keep up with this.

You haven't had enough of this to have coffee.

Sushi and zoo the banshee Sioux.

2:01 PM

Keep up with coffee, or keep up with this, there is no try

@Robusto Finn, again, returns again.

try { keep_up_with(coffee || this) } catch { grave(cold) }

keep(sanity || Justin Bieber)

@RegDwigнt That always evaluates to false, unfortunately.

Someone has to do it.

2:03 PM

Has no one thought of the women?

Matt E. Эллен

Which women?

A droll is a troll who thinks he's funny.

Who is women and why should I think of him?

Haven't they been covered long enough?

raging golf clap

2:04 PM

@MattE.Эллен the women whose stuff we cover now

@Mitch Just their stuff.

Oh

And nonsense.

Matt E. Эллен

Oh

Never forget the and nonsense.

2:04 PM

-2

Q: In a Single word, how can you describe something that is made for women?

We're starting a blog that will completely cover the women stuff. And we're brainstorming short, brandable name for the same. According to you what will be that one short, brandable word (Can be a mixed word) that we can use here. Waiting for your replies. Any help will be highly appreciated.

single-word-requests word-usage american-english

I only have enough change for the and

Trash.

Is that a single word?

snap!

I might need to ask on ELU.

women stuff = lady parts?

2:05 PM

Ugh. No horrible Tom Hanks movies in this chat.

so ... pants?

Name a Tom Hanks movie that is not horrible.

Apocalypse Now.

THere was that one... no...how about.. no...

He wasn't in that one.

2:06 PM

Exactly. You did say it had to be not horrible.

Toy Story

He was very hard to see in that one

@RegDwigнt But it has to be a Tom Hanks movie.

And even if you find a Tom Hanks movie that sorta kinda doesn't suck, the specter of Forrest Gump will bleed over and taint everything.

Hm. The Thin Red Line?

Nor in that one.

@Robusto yeah about that. You're like that one guy on this planet who hates on that movie. And I will defend with my life your right to do so, but I'll not forget to mention that you're just that one guy.

Matt E. Эллен

2:08 PM

I'm the one guy who hasn't seen it

See.

@RegDwigнt Someone has to stand up for good taste and tell the world that it is wrong.

Haha. This just in: World cares about Robusto, taste

That was my point.

Cannibalism jokes are funny because eating people is wrong

2:09 PM

Eating people is funny because they tickle your funny bone from the inside.

So go watch your Real Housewives of Düsseldorf or whatever you have over there.

@Mitch Stop that. It doesn't get funnier the more you repeat it.

I don't even know. The three-headed self-licker has contaged me with not watching any tees, vees, or combinations thereofs.

Matt E. Эллен

@Robusto Nordwestmecklenburg shore

Little do you know how close you are to the truth.

That's where the Merkel comes from.

@RegDwigнt it took me a while to figure out what you meant. i've been away too long.

Matt E. Эллен

2:11 PM

:-o

@JSBձոգչ have some coffee with @MετάEd in the children's corner.

bmmmmmmm coffeee

@RegDwigнt And you fell for it! Tell me, are you reading Ovid in the original instead?

I am become the Ovid, destroyer of TV.

@JSBձոգչ Sounds more like a long bm.

2:13 PM

My bmmmmmmm is on your lips.

coffee gives me that, too

(my god, was this place always so filthy?)

i leave for a few months and the whole thing goes to hell

Only with you in it.

@JSBձոգչ It was born in hell and never left. So what's your point?

free || die

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

2:15 PM

@MετάEd warning: expression is always true

@JSBձոգչ core dump: your fault

The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”

In other words, the angel invited Joshua to bare with him.

@RegDwigнt Obviously foreshadowing of the one where the disciple that Jesus loved drops his trou.

There are angels, but there never was a Joshua.

Joe? Sure.

2:17 PM

Biblical humor is funny because blasphemy is like potty talk for people who believe in magic.

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

A student once asked him: "If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?" Joshu replied: "Throw it out." "But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?" continued the questioner. "Well," said Joshu, "then carry it out."

Got it? All things such as. God will kill you if you don't extrapolate to the correct extent.

i have gotten stupid in my old age. nothing in this conversation makes sense.

God is a commie.

2:19 PM

@JSBձոգչ solution: get young.

Also, spoiler alert: these are all words from the Bible. So of course they make no sense.

most of the things you're saying sound like they're from the bible, but aren't actually from the bible

Frank Zappa - Camarillo Brillo

much like you sound like an English-speaker but are actually a pineapple

> 2:2. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in.
2:3. Then the bartender says, why such a long face?

lol

2:24 PM

@JSBձոգչ lifted from the bible verbatim. NIV.

I am not Quentin Tarantino.

Matt E. Эллен

No! I'm not Quentin Tarantino!

They should put at a Holy Bible for Dummies . . . oh wait, they have.

@MattE.Эллен No way! DUUUDE! We should be friends or sumtin.

Matt E. Эллен

yay!

Okay so my observations are telling me this: JSBangs has become Jasper, and Matt has become Cerberus.

2:25 PM

@MattE.Эллен You should keep that on the q.t.

@RegDwigнt QED

Matt needs to misspole things a lot more to become Cerberus.

Matt E. Эллен

Also, I should forget more

and also to accidentally the word

And get two more heads.

2:26 PM

@Robusto Well. Matt misspells Dutch at the level of two Cerberae.

Matt E. Эллен

true

Your orc avatar is somewhat deficient in the, um, heads department.

Unless the other two are perfectly stacked behind the first.

Matt E. Эллен

I decided to only show my good looking head

A wise policy.

Matt E. Эллен

I've never know more Dutch than @Cerberus will ever forget

2:30 PM

I already know more about you to know that that is wrong.

“I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty.
“I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness
and the kingdoms your shame.

I will pelt you with filth,
I will treat you with contempt
and make you a spectacle.

HOTT

i see that Reg is into the kinky Lord of Hosts hardcore

Or to the tho to the dox.

@RegDwigнt No doxology in chat.

A doxology (Greek: δοξολογία, from δόξα, doxa, "glory" and -λογία, -logia, "saying") is a short hymn of praises to God in various forms of Christian worship, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns. The tradition derives from a similar practice in the Jewish synagogue, where some version of the Kaddish serves to terminate each section of the service. == Trinitarian doxology == Among Christian traditions a doxology is typically an expression of praise sung to the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is common in high hymns for the final stanza to take the form...

That's what he said.

2:36 PM

Noun: doxy ‎(plural doxies)

(archaic) A sweetheart; a prostitute or a mistress.
1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:
2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate 2010, p. 328:
doxy ‎(plural doxies)

That’s what she said.

:D

Sep 7 at 14:00, by RegDwigнt

You am deόχιribonucleic.

Is there a general way to combine (overstrike) in Unicode?

@MετάEd What does that mean?

No, not with Grapheme_Base code points.

So you cannot overstrike A with W, for example.

Too bad. That would let me do a lot of bad things.

2:43 PM

You can only have a single Grapheme_Base in an extended grapheme cluster.

@tchrist Grapheme Clusters! Great name for a new candy.

Graf M. Kloster.

user image

The structure of pure grapheme:

user image

LOL

i've seen worse

Matt E. Эллен

2:54 PM

@MετάEd interesting shape. I can almost make out words in its structure

Okay it's my turn to wonder if I understand anything.

All I'm seeing is "STOP! HOTLINKING !! The Originally Image Can Be Found At:"

Matt E. Эллен

me too

me too too

Interesting. Archaeologists will find it curious how In the 21st century, some people still didn't get how the whole Internet thing worked.

DO NOT LINK TO MY INTERNET SHIT IT IS MY PRIVATE SHIT

Matt E. Эллен

aye. also "only view my shit if you're in a particular country"

3:02 PM

Do not link to stuff on my server cos I pay for bandwidth used by your users.

I think I will start a revolutionary movement: Legalize Links.

Legalize Rights.

Matt E. Эллен

@AndrewLeach true. that's a fair point

That's not a fair point.

Bandwidth costs zero.

Matt E. Эллен

that is not true

3:03 PM

If you are paying any more than that, take that up with your fucking provider.

Matt E. Эллен

if you a re hosting something and it gets on a popular site, you will get screwed

@MattE.Эллен it is true. There is a reason the verbs "to cost" and "to charge" are two different words.

Bandwidth might cost zero up to a point, and then be charged exorbitantly.

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt and I see you've misunderstood that one person's charge is another's cost

It's like with texting. Which costs zero. But they still charge me 39 cents. Which is why I never text so they get 0 cents, the original and fair price.

And the rest of the world texts over WhatsApp, which again costs 0 cents, because surprise surprise that's the cost of bandwidth.

Matt E. Эллен

3:06 PM

I think what's app costs £0.69 per year after the first year

@MattE.Эллен I have charged you $3000 many many times. So far that has caused exactly $0 of costs on your part.

39c is a lot for a text.

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt that's because I charge you for charging me

@AndrewLeach mind you, that's after the EU stepped in and said "whoa, 10 Euros from one country to the next? nah, take it down a notch".

@MattE.Эллен yeah and then I WhatsApp you the The Lord Of The Rings trilogy in chunks of 160 characters, and that's still half a terabyte and it still costs you as much as if I texted you just once saying "I love Cameron a lot".

Matt E. Эллен

@RegDwigнt lol

3:12 PM

@RegDwigнt Not half as much as that one text would cost you

In credibility terms.

Economics 101: it can't cost me something I have lost.

4:12 PM

1

Q: What are modifiers? How do they work?

Can someone please help me decipher this sentence using the four step procedure? I need help finding modifiers and what they modify. I am really confused. I know the core part subject is war. The verb is 'is' War, in other words, is too complex and collective an activity to be accounted for ...

grammar modifiers

How do blankets work?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:39 PM

"unclear what you're asking"

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Sep '1515

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

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