English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user174558

12:01 AM

I only know of two kinds of oranges. The normal ones and Mandarin oranges which are usually very sweet.

Kit Z. Fox

Cuties are kind of like Mandarin oranges.

They are a brand name of clementines, I think.

MετάEd

Hilarious:

0

A: What is the adjective corresponding to Venus?

Some adjectives for Venus is boring,bright,glorious,hot,lonely.These reasons are some of the answer because there is nothing to their because their is no life and obviously no internet but seriously their is nothing to do their to explore only dust and rocks.I think the sun is glorious because i...

Kit Z. Fox

cutiescitrus.com

MετάEd

The punch line is at the end.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox @terdon Done.

user174558

12:04 AM

There was a shooting in California.

user174558

14 people are dead.

Mitch

@JasperLoy Breaks are the best. Snacks and drinks.

terdon

@Mitch Really? How does that work, I've never requested such a thing. Did you post on meta or is there some nifty trick to it?

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch You're supposed to post the link so we can upvote you.

user174558

@Mitch Sometimes, lunch is free as well.

Mitch

12:07 AM

@MετάEd as good as:

english.stackexchange.com/a/161566/4972

argh! it doesn't one box deleted answers!

> I am a beautiful, agelic queen that goes throught life as a being

MετάEd

@Mitch The link works though.

I see dead answers.

@JasperLoy Well, shit.

Mitch

@terdon I did what Kit suggested which was post to meta. So if any thing goes wrong, at all, we can blame her.

@KitZ.Fox oh

1

Q: Chat-room one-boxing for Etymonline and The Free Dictionary

The chat room can one-box lots of things, like wikipedia links and youtube videos and Google ngrams, making nice neat messages. In ELU chat it would be very useful to be able to one-box Etymonline entries and The Free Dictionary entries using links. I'd like to post a link like this: http:/...

feature-request

terdon

Yeah. You're supposed to give us the link so we can blame you instead.

Mitch

shit goes back to delete

@JasperLoy nice. lunch.

I'm still having thanksgiving leftovers and I'm not sick of it yet.

I think it is the cranberry sauce. It's tart and sweet and cuts through all the carbs

Anonymous

@I'mmostlyjustanidiot There's probably a question somewhere on the site about that. Dictionaries will tell you that prove has two past participles, though: macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/prove

MετάEd

12:12 AM

@KitZ.Fox Well played.

Mitch

@JasperLoy ugh. I'm hearing about it on the radio. Like the fall of 2001 where all sorts of bad suff happened in the news starting with 9/11

24

Q: What is the difference between "proven" and "proved"?

My question concerns when to use which of the above.

differences similarities

Kit Z. Fox

@MετάEd The comment? nods

MετάEd

@KitZ.Fox yes

Mitch

mitten

Noun: mitten ‎(plural mittens)

A type of glove or garment that covers a hand with a separate sheath for the thumb, but not for other fingers.
mitten

Adverb: mitten

In the middle.

shit. I was hoping that wouldn't work.

Have I mentioned that I think wiktionary sucks?

Anonymous

Wiktionary is kind of like Wikipedia. It's a fairly large, useful resource, but you can't trust any of it.

Anonymous

12:27 AM

attributive noun

Noun: attributive noun ‎(plural attributive nouns)

(grammar) A noun that modifies another noun attributively and that is optional (that is, it can be removed without affecting the grammar of the sentence); a noun used as an adjective.
(grammar, when referring to a language other than English) A noun denoting bearer of a quality or an attribute of a subject, in reference to the lexical morpheme from which it is derived.

Anonymous

shakes head

Mitch

Have you heard that wikipedia, which I think doesn't suck, is slowly losing writers/editors?

OK, it's kinda old news

@snailboat It's like they're making stuff up!

I wish they would copy paste from a real dictionary so that at least it might be closer to right.

I found this quiz on 'date of word origins' really hard

Who knew that 'railway' was that old!

Kit Z. Fox

gekker

Verb: gekker ‎(third-person singular simple present gekkers, present participle gekkering, simple past and past participle gekkered)

To make a series of stuttering throaty vocalizations in the manner of foxes when encountering a rival.

Anonymous

Can anyone point to a modern grammar that uses the term 'noun adjunct'? I keep finding it all over the internet, but no one ever says what framework it comes from.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox That's not a word!

That's not what a fox says!

Kit Z. Fox

12:39 AM

Yes, it is.

Mitch

Shut up!

Kit Z. Fox

Did you see the reference on that entry?

Anonymous

Neat!

Kit Z. Fox

30

Q: What does the fox say?

It is true that as a fox, I should know this, so consider this a spoilers warning. In a recent post, Geek Girl mentions that the mating call of the fox is a series of sharp, eerie barks and that this is called gekkering. This is supported by a citation in Wikipedia, but the reference is not one ...

etymology terminology

Thank the Hat Dash.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox you made that up!

tchrist

12:42 AM

Geckering geckos should be part of a doubledactyl.

Mitch

Well, dammit, I'm going to start making shit up.

also I will have my AI write random papers and submit them to wikipedia with reference to itself.'

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch I didn't actually make the entry. Someone else cited it. I was flattered.

Mitch

@Mitch I starting here by reference things into the future.

Like this

Resulting in pinging myself..

Anonymous

There don't seem to be very many citations pointing to SE on Wiktionary.

Anonymous

This one points to Portuguese.SE: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/recordar

Mitch

12:47 AM

I don't think they should. Despite the transparency of both SE and wiktionary, we can hardly take either as an authority.

Kit Z. Fox

It was Hugo would asked if it would be OK to reference the answer. He does a lot of etymology research, it seems.

Anonymous

'snails

Interjection: 'snails

(obsolete) An oath.
(Can we find and add a quotation of Beaumont and Fletcher to this entry?)...

tchrist

@snailboat Wow.

Kit Z. Fox

Totally gonna start using that.

terdon

@KitZ.Fox Yeah, he beat the OED in an answer to one of my questions:

4

A: What is the origin of the idiom 'all the rage'?

Cerberus describes the evolution of the phrase well, and I'm surprised it's so old - it still feels quite new. Here's some antedatings. OED's own antedatings The rage First, the OED online has shuffled their senses around a bit (the Shakespeare 1593 quote has been amended to 1594; the 1785 has...

That's what I call class!

Kit Z. Fox

1:19 AM

Wow, that is classy.

Anonymous

1:29 AM

@JasperLoy I see people do it all the time, I think because there are so many more resources in English for lots of languages.

Anonymous

Some people are really good at the L2 they're using as an intermediate language, though.

Anonymous

I'd have to imagine there'd be a lot of variables influencing how difficult it is, and you'd have to figure that out on an individual basis – does it seem like a helpful strategy for you in a particular case?

Anonymous

Once you get started, though, you can do a lot of learning in the target language :-)

tchrist

@snailboat Poderíamos, por exemplo, dizer que a língua espanhola é quase irmã gêmea do português; a língua italiana, sua meia-irmã; o francês, seu primo; e o inglês, talvez um primo de segundo grau.

“We could for example say that Spanish is almost a twin sister to Portuguese; Italian, its half-sister; French, its cousin; and English perhaps a second cousin.”

The previous sentence in the original linked to above observes that all European languages can be thought of as being quite close in a global context of all the languages everywhere.

I’m thinking of @DamkerngT. here.

Cerberus

2:12 AM

@JohanLarsson I know! It's funny, isn't it? It doesn't feel like I'm talking all the time, and yet...

tchrist

@Cerberus Notice how many of the first page of megachatters are from language sites.

Cerberus

Yes, unsurprising.

Somehow this photo touches me.

How dignified they look.

The International Atomic Energy Agency.

Wait a minute, that's wrong.

It is the head of the Persian atomic agency.

He still looks dignified, though.

Mitch

2:35 AM

They have the snazzy collars

Whereas Ahmedinejad looked like he worked at the office of an auto mechanic shop.

A suit suit is too western looking for them

Cerberus

Hmm guess who helped and encouraged the Persian nuclear programmes from the beginning, and who educated their main nuclear scientists?

@Mitch True, and true.

Mitch

What if people slowly stop editing wiktionary (like Wikipedia) and all the errors and half empty definitions get set I stone? Like a corrupt judge with dementia.

Cerberus

> Seine naturwissenschaftliche Ausbildung hatte er in den siebziger Jahren an der Amerikanischen Universität in Beirut erhalten, seinen Doktortitel machte er 1977 am Massachusetts Institute of Technology in den USA mit einer Arbeit über Reaktorphysik.
Amerika unterstützte damals den Plan des Schahs, Dutzende Atomkraftwerke zu bauen, brachte den iranischen Wissenschaftlern die nötige Theorie bei und schulte sie auch in der technischen Anwendung - von Reaktortechnik bis zu den Methoden der Urananreicherung.

Somehow I am not surprised.

A certain country continuing to create its own enemies...

Although England was certainly just as much to blame.

Mitch

There was a brain drain in two directions after the revolution. Lots of American trained scientists went back to Iran, and lots of scientists who had already been home, left because it was intolerable.

But to 'blame' the UA so directly for creating the Iranian nuclear power tech is unfair. The is expected that Iran would be an ally in the region

Cerberus

Where is "home"?

@Mitch They expected it to be an ally, just like the Taleban and countless other groups...

The Brits were mainly to blame for destroying the democratic government in Persia and instating the Shah dictatorship.

But I believe America agreed with and helped the Brits?

tchrist

2:47 AM

Mitch

Oh. Taleban. Right. I forgot.

I think the Americans were rightly blamed for the cia-led coup that got rid of Mossadegh and reaffirmed the Shah's power. But the Iranians hate the British abiut as much

Then again. That was sixty years ago. Get over it

tchrist

@Mitch Take off your mittens, kitten.

Cerberus

Oh, I thought it was a British coup?

Mitch

Kittens. They'd shoot you in the face if they could just get their cute little paws around the trigger.

Cerberus

It's just so funny.

How terrible many foreign offices are at...their jobs.

Ministers of education are just as bad, at least here.

tchrist

2:52 AM

Mitch

1953 Iranian coup d'état

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name "Operation Boot") and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project). Mossadegh had sought to audit the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now BP) and to change the terms of the company's access to Iranian petroleum reserves. Upon the refusal of the AIOC to co-operate with...

So both

tchrist

strikes a coo de cat

Mitch

Ha ha so herding cats is a real thing.

tchrist

Rough cowboys herding cats in the prairie

►

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm right.

Ugh.

How much has changed?

Damkerng T.

4:10 AM

@tchrist I agree with the idea. From my perspective, European languages form a really close group.

tchrist

And yet to those who speak just one language, that is hard to see — especially when that language is English.

Damkerng T.

I think it'd be easier to see once they learn a non-European language, and want to master it.

user174558

5:49 AM

@snailboat Even books are not perfect.

I'm mostly just an idiot

@JasperLoy Perfect are not books.

Anonymous

@JasperLoy Yeah, if I trusted books blindly, I'd be very confused since they so often contradict one another!

Tonepoet

Forget about books contradicting other books, since it is enough that they will often do that for themselves.

I'm mostly just an idiot

Forget about books contradiction themselves, since it is enough that they will often have only self-contradicting sentences.

This sentence contains all of the vowels.

Tonepoet

Y do you say that? =P

Anonymous

6:05 AM

It doesn't contain /ɔɪ/

Anonymous

That's the least common vowel in English.

Anonymous

Still, no reason to throw out a good source of information just because it's not perfect. You'll be left with only bad sources of information.

Tonepoet

Bad sources aren't perfect either so actually you'd be left with no sources of information. May as well poke your eyes out.

Tonepoet

6:22 AM

Although I suppose the point is that corroboration is usually better than being reliant upon a singular source of information, even if it's the O.E.D. or C.G.E.L...

Matt E. Эллен

11:09 AM

a friend of mine has a neat tool for looking into political language used in British and American media

You can map mentions of gun control in US politics to mass shooting incidents. Expect a blip over the next few days. http://www.languagespy.com/politics/us/trends/gun-control?startDate=2015-09-06&endDate=2015-12-03

Tweeted by LanguageSpy on December 3, 2015 at 10:45 AM

fathom

Noun: Wikipedia

fathom ‎(plural fathoms)

Verb: fathom ‎(third-person singular simple present fathoms, present participle fathoming, simple past and past participle fathomed)

(transitive, archaic) To encircle with outstretched arms, especially to take a measurement; to embrace.

@KitZ.Fox @Mitch yes, Wiktionary one boxes ^^

user174558

11:48 AM

@matt

Matt E. Эллен

12:06 PM

@jasper

skill patrol

@_@

Matt E. Эллен

I've just noticed that wiktionary's definition for the noun Wikipedia is fathom. great work, guys.

to be fair, that's the fault of the one-box mechanism not the wiktionary definition

skill patrol

great work, ~~guys~~ mechanism

Matt E. Эллен

:D

skill patrol

:-D

@MattE.Эллен why are we to expect a blip over the next few days?

Btw, US gun control was one of the last topics I found in the ashes of the SciFi room.

I'm mostly just an idiot

12:27 PM

@skillpatrol There is a SciFi room?

skill patrol

@I'mmostlyjustanidiot chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/198/mos-eisley

Yup.

I'm mostly just an idiot

@skillpatrol Horrible background coloring.

skill patrol

Yup.

@MattE.Эллен the "bubble cloud" option is even neater.

Not to mention the comparison between the U.S. and the U.K.

Matt E. Эллен

12:47 PM

@skillpatrol Because of the shooting in California yesterday/today

skill patrol

I see, thanks.

Cerberus

1:09 PM

Oh, I thought Mos Eisley was closed?

Glad they reopened, I got some good recommendations there.

skill patrol

Yup, they were closed for about five days, I think.

Cerberus

Oh, I see.

skill patrol

Shog9 read them "the riot act," and it was over.

From what I could tell from the ruins.

Cerberus

Were you active in ME?

skill patrol

Nope.

Cerberus

1:15 PM

OK.

skill patrol

Just curious what happened.

Cerberus

Do you read science fiction?

skill patrol

Nah, do you?

Cerberus

Yes.

Though not always; I have my periods.

Hah!

skill patrol

:-)

Cerberus

1:17 PM

Manstruation, I guess.

skill patrol

Are all three of the heads in your avatar the same gender :P

tchrist

Mucho Macho Mojo.

Take your pick. :)

Cerberus

I think so!

Or their glands wouldn't work out.

Gland-sharing is difficult.

I have to run, adeus!

skill patrol

Later pal :-)

@tchrist do you happen to know if there any way to "rollback" the updates on my mini iPad?

I want the original iOS 9 back.

The 9.1 doesn't support my favourite app :(

Kit Z. Fox

1:48 PM

@MattE.Эллен Yeah, thanks.

Matt E. Эллен

no probs :)

Kit Z. Fox

Good morning.

Matt E. Эллен

hello!

I'm mostly just an idiot

@KitZ.Fox Bonjour!

Kit Z. Fox

@I'mmostlyjustanidiot Guten tag.

I'm mostly just an idiot

1:54 PM

Comment ca va?

(That's 'how are you' in French without the special characters)

[Or it might be a bastardization of the above. :P]

Kit Z. Fox

ça va bien, merci. Et tu?

I'm mostly just an idiot

Ich bin gut

Kit Z. Fox

Je ne sais pas que tu peux parler français. Es-tu francophone?

I'm mostly just an idiot

I can't read that one :D.

Kit Z. Fox

Oh, it's because I typo'd.

I'm mostly just an idiot

1:59 PM

I know only a few words haha.

Not because of a typo hahaha.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…