English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2015-12-14 (page 2 of 3)

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Matt E. Эллен

5:00 PM

@KitZ.Fox Girl Thor?

@MattE.Эллен Girl Hammer?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Matt E. Эллен

Stop time

Maybe the hammer just found a new MC ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

When it found him, it stopped

@MattE.Эллен No, just Thor. But yes, she's a woman.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Thorette. Thorina. Thora the Explora.

Matt E. Эллен

5:14 PM

What is this question about numbers?

Thora Craft

Matt E. Эллен

0

Q: Saying a number digit by digit

Is it ok in an informal conversation to say a number value digit by digit? E.g. "two five six kilobytes" instead of "two hundred and fifty six kilobytes"?

Thor Birch

Is it about English?

Technically

The English usage of numbers

Matt E. Эллен

but does the answer change if ask it about any other language?

Likely

Every language processes usage of its words differently

Matt E. Эллен

5:18 PM

I disagree. If a language uses digits, then they will accept single digits to combine into bigger numbers

Of course

I mean the concept of listing digits one by one might be treated differently

Matt E. Эллен

Seems unlikely.

Unlikeliness is what everything thrives on

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен There are different ways to group/pronounce numbers in different languages.

Chinese, for example: they don't group in 3s (thousands, millions, billions) but by hundreds, thousands, 10 thousands

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 sure, there's a variety of ways in English, alone. but the point is that people will say the individual digits when they want to make it clear what the number is

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:26 PM

Also I'm not sure that other languages allow the same contractions as we do. I've never heard a French speaker give the equivalent of "nineteen eightyfour", it's always "mille neuf cent quatrevignt quatre"

Matt E. Эллен

again, that's not the question

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, the question is about how to pronounce numbers.

there are rules

they are language-specific

Matt E. Эллен

it's about if big numbers can be said as their constituent digits in informal contexts (whatever they may be)

that's literally all

@KitZ.Fox As a child me and my sister's assessment was that the tacos from Jack-in-the-box were better even though they seemed like they had been freeze dried in some shipping container in New Jersey for a couple years.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен it's about if any numbers can be said by their digits. Again, there are rules in English. or, at least, strong convention.

5:28 PM

@Mitch Ouch.

@MattE.Эллен Even if it's a language universal, it's still about English.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's not idiomatic to spell numbers out digit by digit in English.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 right, but that's not about grouping or anything about what you're bringing up. It's asking "Is it ok in an informal conversation to say a number value digit by digit?"

@KitZ.Fox I know!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yes. it is

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:29 PM

@MattE.Эллен Sure, but that's just part of the smaller question about how to pronounce numbers.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Or Dixneuf cent quatrevignt quatre.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but this a small question. widening it is off topic for the OP, and would make a more interesting question

omg can't spell French no mores

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен "I went to the concert. There were over five zero zero zero zero zero zero people there!"

Nobody would ever say that. It's not even understandable unless you can keep track of the zeros, count them, then mentally reconstruct what the number was.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What was that you said? forty? No fourteen, one four

there and informal context, right there

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:31 PM

@MattE.Эллен That's totally different. Sometimes you have to spell things. You have to ess pee ell ell them oh you tee. Doesn't make it idomatic to do that on a normal basis.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 that's totally the same. you're trying really hard to make this question more interesting than it is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен I didn't say it was interesting. I said it was on-topic and language-related.

Matt E. Эллен

In fact, I spell out numbers all the time in informal contexts, mostly when I'm talking to myself. E.g. reading my gas metre

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

People just don't go about saying numbers digit by digit except in certain specific circumstances. "informally" you could also just hold up as many fingers as the number and say "this many".

Is the answer "No, except for clarification?"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:34 PM

@MattE.Эллен That's because you are transcribing the number.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 so what?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен So that's basically the exception: you want to prevent a transcription error so you go digit by digit. It's the equivalent of saying punctuation when dictating.

People don't say "comma" when they pause or introduce a parenthetical clause

Except yes they do, when dictating

That doesn't make it part of regular English.

Matt E. Эллен

Then you're saying that, e.g. 2,5,6,kb as in the example would be a transcription, and the same in any language?

> MicroSoft has made a massive investment in developing system functionality, but due to our thousands of little modifications, we are unable to use much of the new functionality, and we are nearly incapable of upgrading.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен I'm not saying it would be the same in any language. Other languages may have different rules for dictating numbers.

And "dictating" is also not usually paired with "informal" either.

Matt E. Эллен

5:38 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 reading a metre is informal, giving out my phone number is informal. how would it ever be formal?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен okay, fine, but my point is that "informal language" allows for essentially unlimited deviance from the rules and conventions.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yes! exactly! this is why the question is terrible

it has nothing to do with English

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен It's still about English.

Just because the question could be tightened up to be more specific about what it's asking doesn't make it less about English

@KitZ.Fox so what should the new question be?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I think it's fair to assume the OP is asking about saying numbers aloud in colloquial speech. And there are ways we do that in English. It's a fairly limited set and we don't deviate much.

And importantly, other languages don't have the same exact rules.

Matt E. Эллен

5:43 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 the fact that it isn't tight means it isn't about English. In every language you ask the question as is the answer is the same "what do you mean informal?"

@MattE.Эллен it's not necessarily about all languages. It's possibly contingent so it is contingent. Ha Ha! My first practical use of modal logic!!

@Mitch Now that you know how to get to chat and use the whizzy-wigs, when should you chat and when should you post or comment? What is chat for, anyway?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен The fact that the answer will be different no matter what language you assume he's asking about makes it about English.

Or something like that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If I answered that question with Chinese as a context my answer would be different.

5:43 PM

So @Matt can describe how to participate in chat.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Maybe similar, but different.

@KitZ.Fox no tempores no mores

@KitZ.Fox What? I don't know that.

Oh. I'm suppose to ask that

:D Yes.

Then you will tell me!

I get this game.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 the answer will be the same as is. only if the question is improved will it start to be about a language

5:45 PM

So how do we know where we are in a spiral galaxy if we're in it right now?!!!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен So you think it's unfair to assume that the OP wants an answer about English?

We can't see ourselves from the outside! There's no mirror!

How do blankets work?!!!

I don't know!!!!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's clearly about English to me. I don't really understand why you think it might be about other languages.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no. I think it's unfair to ask such a bad question. cahen asked here, so it's fair to assume they want an answer about English. But what answer can they expect?

@tchrist Or, rather, there are fewer vowel shifts than in normal English.

Many of the vowels, like a, are more like the other languages.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:48 PM

@MattE.Эллен Honestly I don't think it's that bad a question. It just boils down to "is saying numbers one digit at a time idiomatic" and the answer is "no, except for some limited cases".

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 thanks for being my sounding board.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен no prob! it's what chat is for. ostensibly.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I updated my answer to include your gas meter example.

Matt E. Эллен

yay!

+1

6:03 PM

Hey, I read something earlier about Brits being upset because of what Americans did to the word "billions". What's that about? It was in the context of talking about football/handegg.

Although I don't think it was on Mr. Shiny's answer.

Oh. Guess this explains it:

15

Q: Billion and other large numbers

Traditionally a billion in American English means 109 (1,000,000,000, a thousand million) while in British English it means 1012 (a million million) with milliard meaning 109. Is this still the case or has the world aligned itself to the American way? I'm not a native English speaker and I don't...

american-english british-english numbers

Why would the Brits be so weird? ;P

@MattE.Эллен meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/7415/…

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have no word in my dictionary for 'ostensibly'

Or 'gullible'

Can someone help me articulate here?

Hippie-dippie has been around longer than The Lego Movie. There must be some kind of conventional spelling for it, I should think. Also, seems like it is a compound word rather than something one might think of spelling separately, like a whatdoyoucallit phrasal repeat like "thingy-dingy". — Kit Z. Fox ♦ 2 mins ago

I think there is an interesting question in there somewhere that could be clarified on that question.

@KitZ.Fox Oh. I just said 'Where is the question here?'

Yes. That.

I think it could be refined to something like "what is the convention for spelling words in a tandem repeat" or whatever that is called that I can't think of right now.

The baloney/bologna should be its own question or just thrown out.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch absolutely nothing

say it again!

6:19 PM

Huh. Good god y'all.

Matt E. Эллен

@KitZ.Fox it's that time of the year where everyone is sick from a virus. it's makes us cranky

Please form an orderly queue for the inoculations.

I can't stay away. I really need to go do work.

Matt E. Эллен

I should probably answer Mitch's question

should I mention the current chat philosophy debate?

@Mitch Poor Mitch. Only so-so.

@MattE.Эллен That's entirely up to you.

6:29 PM

@Cerberus I've got the accent down

mostly

Well done.

@MattE.Эллен You could mention the chat universal of 'be nice'

Chat has paid off at last.

Wait...isnt that a universal universal?

Matt E. Эллен

everyone must be nice. unless it's not a suitable way to be. shout at the right people at the right time to get what you want.

6:31 PM

@Cerberus What? I ain't seen no checks

Paid off in kind.

@Mitch But then how are we to teach people the word curmudgeon?

Matt E. Эллен

chatting for nothing and your checks for free

Speaking of "for nothing", I made all these brysselkex and they are not as good as I remember.

Are those like latke but... but not latke?

butter cookies.

6:35 PM

oh

I've just realized that I left off the coarse sugar. No wonder.

just add it in afterwards

I mean, I can't seem to stop eating them anyway.

like as you bite the cookie, pour some coarse sugar in.

@Mitch That's difficult, because they are pretty crispy after they are baked.

6:37 PM

i pre answered you

little buttery morsels.

Matt E. Эллен

that's funny. most people are more mellow after they're baked

As you digest the cookie, pour approximately 5 cups of sugar down your throat

I am having a hard time disengaging today.

5 Star Dleta Tip

6:37 PM

goes to get moar cookies

These cookies are so disappointing.

I went to a friend's house and his mom made cookies for after the dinner

have another. maybe you'll change your mind

She made like 30, so after we ate, I just piled as many cookies as I could in my arms and ran

that's expected.

hey @anongoodnurse medica!

om nom nom

ohai, @anongoodnurse!

6:39 PM

allgone

Sup Doc.

@anongoodnurse We'll wait while you read the transcript

Hey! If anyone here contributed a vote to my highest answer, thank you!

@anongoodnurse link please.

I have a golden pryamid on me head, which I'm very pleased to wear. :)

6:41 PM

That hat fits real good on your picture.

I heard Maths already has the Every! Body! Gets! A hat! hat.

My hat doubles as a new head

100

A: How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English?

The Tironian et and the modern ampersand had different origins, with the Tironian et having been invented as one of ~13,000 symbols/shorthand by Cicero's scribe, Tiro. It persisted until it succumbed to a linguistic witch hunt during the middle ages, when suspicion was cast upon it for appearing ...

@DeltaEscher You're getting closer!

@anongoodnurse already done minutes ago.

6:42 PM

@Mitch Thanks! I like it a lot.

@Cerberus wut

It makes me look like a good witch, instead of the other kinds.

@Mitch I I think she meant "contributed".

the hats take a few moments to register. I think it's script that runs every five minutes or however long it takes to run.

@anongoodnurse That's racwitchst

6:44 PM

Because she's already got the hat.

Or maybe a wizard from Harry Potter, i dunno, but I'm, glad either way.

@KitZ.Fox Oh.

@anongoodnurse mediocre witch. just not that good

I feel bad because I didn't get an Archimedes and I can't get one anymore ;-;

@KitZ.Fox haha, yes. Keyboard skills lacking. :)

@DeltaEscher That's a hat? You get it for taking a bath?

Argh! A dumb song in my head!!

where's.

my.

trepanning

spoon?

Ow ow ow ow ow.

6:48 PM

@DeltaEscher Now you need only one more head to attain the perfect body.

Heads are overrated

NOU

Mine just makes me top-heavy

I honestly prefer the boat

I'm not saying they're not nice, just... you know..

Then maybe you should try three heads, like a proper monster.

6:48 PM

@Mitch Your hat looks quite like mine, only less expensive. ;)

Who wouldn't want a boat for a head

@anongoodnurse wait...does mine look more expensive or yours?

@DeltaEscher sheepishly raises hand

I mean, yes, it comes with all this stuff.

and there's the floating part.

firing squad slowly rises out of the earth

@Mitch Yours is a mound (?), mine is a gold pyramid. Same function, different materials!

they drag Mitch underground and have a cup of tea with him

6:50 PM

Anyway, fun, and I'm grateful. :D

This is a great site for hats!

@anongoodnurse um dude... yours is a pyramid of gold no doubt. Mine is the effing city of eldorado, where golden pyramids are the outhouses set away from the nice parts.

@DeltaEscher ow. My boat head is stuck.

@Mitch that was a sick burn

I believe @anongoodnurse requires a healthy dosage of Aloe Vera

@DeltaEscher is aloe vera probiotic or conbiotic

Or is morality subjective?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

@DeltaEscher if ever I hear subjective, I would have pulled out my subjunctive

6:54 PM

Then use it well with a beautiful conjunction

Goebbel's gun was subjunctive you see (explaining my own pun, which is always worse than the pun itself, because there is not even the surprise of recognition, just a bunch of words going on and on probably losing even the train of thought from the beginning, veering as it were in a hooribly mixed metaphor because naturally trains can't veer, which leads me back directly to my point which was that Goebbel's was the guy behind gun control.

Ooh. I got another one.

is confus

I'm all about that bass, no salmon.

You can all use that. no charge.

Of course you have to work it into conversation just the right way.

I made a shirt of a guy dropping a fish

It says 'drop the bass'

@DeltaEscher haha. good one. you should add mine to it.

7:00 PM

I wonder if "I'm all about the bass, no tetra" would work better. Because of the initial sound.

Why am I still in here?

Creating a world for my developing nations project

This is what I have so far

To start with, the world’s name, ‘Vignus’, takes from the word ‘Vignal’ from the Magnarian language, meaning ‘Astronomical’. This name for the large round sphere the world lives off of was adopted in the 46’th Quarter by the current economic superpowers, The Federation of Rhama and Lānska, and stayed as that since, even after Lānska suffered a genocide of their people from Yukäm and the Federation was removed from the Civil Table for alleged assassinations (which the Federation repeatedly claims it did none of, though no proof has been found for either side). In tradition of the civil table…

That is a lot of writing.

electricity is magic

@DeltaEscher Now that you have the timeline, are you going to add individual stories to it?

Not much

The project is that me and my partners each simulate a developing nation in the world

Randomly logged me out when I made the refresh refresh refresh refresh code so it says it was made by anonymous ;-;

@anongoodnurse ohhhh... yours is for a gold and mine is for a silver. get it. Yeah, yours is nicers.

7:15 PM

interesting. have you heard of NaNoGenMo? reminds me some of those entries

@Mitch haha...

user image

What do you think of my new (and probably final) icon?

pooh, I can't upload pictures well.

I swear it's the last one

Anyway, congrats on yours to. El Dorodo, huh? ;)

7:19 PM

Hello,

@DeltaEscher Just fyi (and to take the fun out of your witty remark :( ) aloe has not been shown to benefit burns in any reputable study, and has been shown to be harmful in a few. Sorry, I'm a medical type. It's in my genes now. (When I first heard that word used that way, I literally thought "jeans". I still remember my confusion.)

@anongoodnurse I'm guessing you are a non-good nurse

I'm so funny

I KNOW, Right!!! I love when someone gets that!

and it totally doesn't hurt my feelings

Why would anybody believe a non-good nurse???

@DeltaEscher I'm glad.

7:24 PM

This hurts my soul

twentytwowords.com/…

Actually, I'm a doctor who has never been sued, ever, the only one I know. That can mean a lot of things. ;)

user image

The inside of the latest fusion reactor.

user image

user image

user image

@Cerberus Very impressive!

It is shaped like that because of the natural shape of the plasma to be contained.

user image

nods -- I wonder how they controlled the manufacturing of the reactor; I guess the engineers and the scientists had their way.

Each ring is unique, I suppose?

7:33 PM

Probably!

It took 15 years and €1 milliard.

Wow!

BTW, hello!

Hello!

Oh, you don't participate in the Hats this year?

I never have.

I'm sorry if it's the wrong question.

Ahh

7:42 PM

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in body: What is the correct usage of 'consumption' by user2465036 on english.stackexchange.com

realised I've never asked a question on ELL so here's a bash for the Explorer hat: ell.stackexchange.com/q/75931/35

@anongoodnurse even for sun burn it's not good?

@Mitch Not shown to be, honest.

Kinda like butter in the old days.

Which one is preferred: "I am really surprised as to why he has refused to get it fixed" vs. "I am really surprised why he has refused to get it fixed"

8:00 PM

@Gigili You're surprised at the reason he has not gotten it fixed, or you are surprised that he has not gotten it fixed?

@KitZ.Fox Well, I am confused now.

The reason vs. the action itself?

Is that what you meant by the question?

@Gigili I am surprised that he has refused to get it fixed. = You're surprised at the refusal.

@Gigili I am surprised as to why he has refused to get it fixed. = You are surprised that he hasn't gotten it fixed because he thinks aliens will invade as opposed to just not having the cash for it.

@KitZ.Fox Your sentence is different from what I wrote above,

I am surprised why he has refused to get it fixed

I am surprised as to why he has refused to get it fixed

Yes. it is different, I know. That's what I'm asking you. Is that what you are trying to say?

what actually causes your surprise?

8:15 PM

In which case why is probably better than as to why because I dislike unnecessarily convoluted sentences.

@KitZ.Fox I actually am trying to ask if adding "as to" to the first sentence make any difference... "I am surprised (as to) why he has refused to get it fixed"

I am really surprised at the reason why he has refused to get it fixed.

@Hugo The refusal and the reason behind it

@Gigili It emphasizes the why.

That clears it up.

Thank you

8:16 PM

Also generally hand-wavy includes other things that might related to the reason that are not otherwise specified.

Why = whatever his reason was
As to why = whatever the situation is that caused or contributed to his refusal, including his refusal.

imo

@anongoodnurse then what? Is there any thing that makes things better?

I've personally found aloe vera soothing for sunburn. And random aloe taken from a Swiss garden very painful and needing a swift shower to remove it!

8:32 PM

Also, don't forget you can see the Tumbleweeds: english.stackexchange.com/help/badges/21/tumbleweed

So you know where to go to work on getting the Weed Eater hat.

Can I get an algorithm that finds questions with accepted answers?

I really want Copernicus

Which one is Copernicus?

The one with the spinning planets

Get +3 on a question with an accepted answer

Oh. Well. You can look at the list of questions. The ones that have a green box around the answers means it has an accepted answer.

I just answered something on ELL but a question in a comment has made me reconsider: http://ell.stackexchange.com/a/75936/35

is this some idiomatic use of *doubt* meaning *believe*? whereas a literal reading would give the opposite meaning?

8:42 PM

@Hugo sarcasm? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

not sarcasm, I answered how I'd interpret it, but then re-reading I can see it could be taken to mean the opposite if read literally

have I mis-interpreted?

mind = blown

OK. I think he is saying that the "hardly ever" somehow modifies the doubt.

I didn't get the double negative thing at first, but I after looking at it a bit, I think that what he means.

hmm, this is why it's a good ELL question! something that seems obvious to a native speaker, but then you look again and aren't so sure!

@terdon Do you suppose that twig is related to tweak, as in to pinch something? The grabbing-hold-of sort of fits that meaning.

@Hugo It reminds me of the Jane Austen question actually. Where is that. Let me look.

17

Q: Jane Austen's use of a double negative in 'Pride & Prejudice' (Chapter 28)

Jane Austen once said: When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Now readers of the book will know Mr Collins is pretty shameless and socially inept, yet if we remove the do...

double-negation

This one.

certainly was not unseldom.

yup

so the answer there is "not unseldom" is idiomatic

8:54 PM

Gah! I'm out of votes!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Hugo I'm with Hellion on that one: the quote seems to simply be an error, or else I have to parse it as that the author does not believe that people "hardly ever die of gunshots", that is, they DO believe that people die of gunshots (often? frequently? usually?)

Person A: "People hardly ever die of gunshots." Person B: "Oh, I doubt that." what does B believe? -> People often die of gunshots.

I was rather expecting the question to hinge upon the common Indian-English usage of "doubt" to mean "question".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Hellion yeah me too, but I don't think that's the case.

Does that usage extend to being a verb? "I have a doubt about blah" is "I have a question about blah", but "I doubt blah" -> ? "I question blah"?

I'm not really versed enough in Indiglish to say.

fascinating, on first reading I thought the speaker does believe "civilians hardly ever die from gunshots". good examples of the ambiguity of English, and tone of voice or more context would definitely help here

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:02 PM

yeah me neither.

(Most of what I know about it comes from ELU, actually.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Hellion same here! high fives

@Hugo I agree that he does believe that, he just mistyped while he was expressing it.

(And I don't just agree because I saw the comment about him coming back and fixing his wording!)

user174558

9:16 PM

I now have 2 hats.

@KitZ.Fox I just looked. Online: Gutenberg has 'certainly was not unseldom' but Bartleby has 'certainly not seldom'.

So it was changed.

When I read it, I read it corretly even though it was wrong.

@KitZ.Fox huh, perhaps. In fact twig also means "To twitch; to pull; to tweak.". Apparently.

@Hugo and in paper (Penguin Classics) has 'certainly was not unseldom'

alas P&P isn't in Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition janeausten.ac.uk/index.html

9:22 PM

@KitZ.Fox so with minimal scholarship... I don't know what the hell is going on!

LePressentiment

Following this comment, may I ask here: Why might a linguist desire to return English to its Latin roots than the Anglo-Saxon ones? I know that English is a Germanic language and featufes few Latinate roots, except from borrowed words (eg: from French or Latin).

@LePressentiment Which linguist?

LePressentiment

@Mitch User Tim Lymington?

He's a linguist?

> The beloved novelist — author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma — is known for her polished prose, her careful phrasing and her precise grammar. "Everything came finished from her pen," Austen's brother, Henry, said in 1818, a year after his sister's death.

> But now — though it may pain die-hard Austen fans — it turns out that Austen may have simply had a very good editor. Kathryn Sutherland, a professor at Oxford University, has been studying more than 1,000 original handwritten pages of Austen's prose. She's found some telling differences between t…

9:23 PM

(I consider 'linguist' to be an academic who studies the theories of language)

LePressentiment

@Mitch I agree with your definition of 'linguist'. Maybe he's not then. I'm not sure; I know only of his contributions to ELU.

@LePressentiment frnkly, it seems something of a labeling problem. English doesn't really have Latin roots

from his bio: "I live in Lymington, Hampshire, and work in the Law Courts, which may have made my English slightly pedantic."

it is germanic at its base but with an overlay of Old French vocabulary, and then another later overlay of Latin and Greek technical neologisms

LePressentiment

@Mitch Right. So did he mean a preference for Latinate words rather than Germanic?

9:26 PM

@LePressentiment people who contribute to ELU are mostly technical/programmer types (with language interests). Theere are a small handful of linguist types: Barry England, John Lawler, nohat, ... um... probably others I can't remember

LePressentiment

I am curious because one of my former teachers asserted that Latin and Latinate languages is more structured than English.

@LePressentiment I found his comment weird. maybe he meant that. I don't know

Hey @TimLymington, what did you mean by that comment? We're dying to know. We're just guessing randomly right now but you're the only one who actually knows what you meant.

@LePressentiment all languages are structured. I could make a case that Latin is less structured than English. And also win. But I could make the argument in the other direction too.

but if you're talking about word roots, that is sort of irrelevant to what I imagine is meant by structure

Latin (and the Romance languages) might be called 'structured' because they are highly inflected (in comparison to English) and one can set up all these inflections in a structured system. But those inflections would not travel over into English words.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@LePressentiment That's how I interpret it.

LePressentiment

OK. Thank you all then. I might have just overthought his comment.

When I said 'English doesn't really have latin roots' that's sort of wrong because of the great number of late borrowings from Latin.

@LePressentiment but 'a return to its Latin roots rather than the Anglo-Saxon ones' sounds weird because, even if roots is metaphorical, English still started off Anglo so its metaphorical roots are there, not in Latin.

9:49 PM

delete? english.stackexchange.com/q/151442/9001

@Hugo done

@MattE.Эллен meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/7417/4972

someone beat you to it.

@Mitch You could say that.

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