English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

15:00

@KitZ.Fox Luckily, the conversation in the US is largely applicable to other countries, and being an English-speaking country, we are mirroring that conversation here, and observing yours. The specifics aren't the same but many of the lessons are.

Kit Z. Fox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I didn't know you had racism there, except for the francophone thing. Canadians are so nice!

Mitch

canada has at least a compariatively liberal immigration policy

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitZ.Fox We have the subtle racism. Overt racism is frowned upon and illegal.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox in addition to immigration they also have the first nation thing to deal with, moreso than the US

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Also we have overt racism in places where it's nothing but white people since they kicked out the injuns.

Mitch

15:01

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 puts away overt

Matt E. Эллен

brings out Calvert

Kit Z. Fox

The gun thing makes it harder. I wish I could find the survey, but it is pretty much just white men who support having guns, the people in power. It couldn't be more obvious that the lack of gun control is an effort to oppress minorities.

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox the francophones tend to be, let's say, less PC than other canadians

Kit Z. Fox

@Mitch whatever, anglo.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен pours down the culvert

Matt E. Эллен

15:03

@Mitch Mac users. tch

Mitch

into the sluice

and finally into the cistern

Mazura

If they're so bad, why did 200,000 people come out to see Obama in Europe?

Kit Z. Fox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh right. The Inuit thing too.

Matt E. Эллен

Ah! the Cistern Chapel. what a sight

Mitch

@KitZ.Fox !!

How did you know?

It was the sunburn, right?

Rathony

15:03

@KitZ.Fox I don't think gun control is possible. Bullet control sounds more achievable.

Kit Z. Fox

@Mazura Because he is a head of state?

Mazura

Gun control means using both hands.

Kit Z. Fox

You've got all the pithy lines today.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен I always wondered where the first through the fifteenth ones were, and if Michelangelo had painted them too. That's a lot of work

Mazura

@KitZ.Fox Did 200k people ever come out for either Bush?

Kit Z. Fox

15:04

Been reading bumper stickers again?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch lol

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitZ.Fox I'm not sure the conclusion follows. White people support guns because it's their culture... I think they would support it even if there were no minorities to speak of.

Kit Z. Fox

@Mazura I have no idea. Did either Bush deign to speak to Europeans?

Mazura

@KitZ.Fox I have the outlaw fake license plate. Not on my car though ;p

Kit Z. Fox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's part of the culture of power and oppression.

Mitch

15:06

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I agree but racism sure helps it a lot.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mazura But you could be racist and still want to see what Obama is like. Kinda like going to a circus to see the bears dancing.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bears are racist?

Kit Z. Fox

Bears are totally racist.

Matt E. Эллен

man

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен no, obama = dancing bear in that analogy

Matt E. Эллен

15:07

I used to like bears

as Tumblr would say: bears are a problematic fave

Mitch

Europe was totally against the invasion of Iraq by Bush. Obama was the anti-Bush and so they love him. turned around the worlds perception of the US as a idiot bully

listens to US primary news

starts crying

Mazura

When I asked my dad that he said, because he isn't Bush.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I love the bears!

Matt E. Эллен

can you imagine if Trump gets elected and Europe falls apart? lol. I'm gonna start building a bunker

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Tumblr would say that

Mazura

15:09

IDK NOT TRUMP THO.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattE.Эллен Better get your guns in the US before they're gone.

Rathony

@Mitch If some of Europe's buildings were hit by airplanes, they would have supported the Iraq war.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony wrong war.

Mitch

@Rathony their trains were bombed but that didn't make them pro-invasion

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

or, if you really meant it that way, wrong reasoning. really, really, wrong.

Rathony

15:10

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 In hindsight, yes. But it was the right call.

Matt E. Эллен

@Rathony I don't think so. even after 7/7 there was no majority support for a war in Iraq, even in the UK

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony No. No, no no. Iraq had nothing to do with al'Qaeda.

Rathony

@Mitch Not 3,000 people died in one day.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен jinx

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Nothing to do with 9/11

Rathony

15:10

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Whoever there was, Bush needed to someone to kick in the ass.

Saladin

hello,

Mitch

OK OK OK calm down everybody. We're really talking about sex, right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony He did, though. Afghanistan.

Iraq was totally separate

Saladin

Does anyone how to put the phrase "to all my comrades" to mean bid-farewell

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It was a big lie, a big screwup from the beginning. The biggest con ever pulled on Americans.

Matt E. Эллен

15:11

@Mitch no, we're discussing the ablative pronoun

Mitch

flagged as obscene

Mazura

"The hell if I'm going to let a madman control 3/4 of the worlds oil supply" –The movie Cole I think. - Also, I have to finish the war daddy started.

Mitch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 con? They just did it. There was some attempt at rationlization (because of Vietnam) but it was cursory.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Saladin Can you give us an example sentence?

Matt E. Эллен

@Saladin no. I can't see how the opening of a sentence can be a parting interjection

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:12

@Mitch They conned America into doing it.

(they being the administration)

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bush wanted to show to Iran that he could do anything if Iran does something stupid. I think there is more than Al Qaeda or Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Delta Escher

@Saladin farewell to all my comrades

10/10 fixed it

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Saladin

@DeltaEscher I make life so difficult :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony So.... what did that have to do with 9/11 then?

Rathony

15:14

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It contained Iran. And Obama got the results of it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony lol. It totally did not contain Iran.

If anything, it made the US even less likely to invade Iran.

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am not saying the Iraq war was caused by 9/11.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony Yes, you did say that.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен "To all my comrades, brothers in arms, handmaidens to the conception of our plans, the jackbooted octopus of the swarming masses, I bid thee a mixed metaphor"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5 mins ago, by Rathony

@Mitch If some of Europe's buildings were hit by airplanes, they would have supported the Iraq war.

Mitch

15:15

@DeltaEscher "Later dudes"

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Sorry, let me rephrase that. Bush wanted a war. 9/11 gave the right excuse for Bush to wage war in Iraq.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony Except it did nothing of the sort.

And furthermore, Iraq was an unmitigated failure.

If anything, it completely soured America on invading Iran should the need (seem to) arise.

The US will think twice before invading North Korea now.

Mazura

Good.

Cerberus

@Rathony That's nonsense, because everybody knew Hussein was not behind the Twin Towers.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They won't even invade Syria...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, Syria isn't an external threat atm

Mazura

15:17

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Mitch

All this sublimated sex talk. It almost sounds like it's legitimate politics. If we could only bring religion into it, trifecta!

Matt E. Эллен

@Cerberus lol. but they will bomb them

@Mitch thank god trump didn't insult the pope

Rathony

@Cerberus What they believed then, and we see with hindsight are different.

Mitch

@Mazura Unless you're a Mongol. In that case, go for it.

MετάEd

@Mazura Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Delta Escher

15:18

@Mitch Or the Gorkhas!

Mazura

@Mitch Might as well freeze this room right now if that's going to happen ;)

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен IKR! that would just end everything!

Delta Escher

Which were basically the Mongols if they were evil

Mitch

@Mazura Serbian mass rape of Bosnian Muslims.

Done. Bring on the Apocalypse.

Delta Escher

@Mitch What about Herzegovina?

Mitch

15:20

@DeltaEscher I barely knew her!

Delta Escher

I'm sorry sir

Simply your word cannot uphold in a court of law

We found Herzegovina dead

And it has caused much civil unrest

Look at all of the civil unrests

There's like three of them

Mazura

Unless it's to share knowledge, religion is where I draw the line. I'm not, but I refuse to be disrespectful.

MετάEd

@Mazura This room is already freezing. More coffee.

Delta Escher

@Mazura Oh, you

Religion was already disrespectful when it made a special place for non-believers

It's like a hypothetical way of condemning all others than who are like you

Mitch

@Mazura my apologies. It's sometimes hard to keep away from the line between satire and .. whatever the other one is. Earnestness?

Matt E. Эллен

15:23

@Mitch parody?

Mazura

As long as you're not specific IDC ;p You have to hate all religions equally.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен shame? guilt? I could never keep those apart.

so I got them a room.

Delta Escher

Nah, Buddhists are cool

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch so long as it's not this one

Delta Escher

They judge whether you're good or bad

Not if you believed

Mitch

15:25

@DeltaEscher um...Sri Lanka government is mostly Buddhist Sinhala who are the ones bombing the Muslim Tamils.

Delta Escher

@Mitch I mean the religion itself

I judge religion on either a large consensus gathered over time or the content itself

or if people get butthurt about it

Matt E. Эллен

So... how could English incorporate the obviative, so as to lessen the strain on they as the ungendered pronoun that is better than it or one?

Mitch

@DeltaEscher The Mongols religion was pretty cool. something to do with wolves.

@MattE.Эллен How? How? The nerve.

Delta Escher

@Mitch Same with Islam. Something to do with not killing or torturing prisoners

Mitch

The gall.

@DeltaEscher I hope you're being sarcastic.

Matt E. Эллен

15:27

@Mitch Putting some backbone into it could help

Mitch

or parodic

Mazura

@Mitch I wan't offended. It's just the one of the two acceptable things you can talk about at SE, that you can't talk about in a bar. ~~love~~, religion and politics. Anything I have to say about religion is inappropriate for SE.

Delta Escher

@Mitch No, it's really in the Islamic bible.

Do not kill or harm unarmed prisoners.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен or guts below it

I've heard that the bowels have almost as many neurons as the brain.

Rathony

@MattE.Эллен We have a problem user. english.stackexchange.com/questions/4327/till-death-do-us-part

Mitch

15:28

In some people, more.

Matt E. Эллен

@DeltaEscher that doesn't seem related to wolves

Mitch

tittering by old ladies drinking tea

Delta Escher

@MattE.Эллен I like olives

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен spanish olves with pmento? Those are nasty.

Rathony

This user posted 4 answers to the same question, english.stackexchange.com/users/162090/jacko

Matt E. Эллен

15:28

@Rathony thanks. I will look into it

Delta Escher

3/4 of them are stupid answers too

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DeltaEscher You could have written "quran" and saved yourself 8 keystrokes

Delta Escher

I know.

I just forgot the name for a second

Mitch

it's 'a second'

You're welcome

Delta Escher

I randomly corrected a cashier at a store for his grammar once

awkward

Rathony

15:31

@MattE.Эллен I think the question needs protection, too.

@Mitch Wow, you are so fast.

Delta Escher

Prototype cover for my novel

Mazura

I like the name.

Delta Escher

Paint is probably not the best art tool.

Mitch

@Mazura if I get too close to the line just say something. I'm just having fun, but don't want to have fun at the expense of being mean.

Delta Escher

Religion

Mitch

15:33

@DeltaEscher do it after you get your change.

Delta Escher

oops sorry I offended everyone

Mazura

@Mitch I'm just saying it's the one place I don't go there.

Mitch

@Rathony it only took 'a second'

Rathony

@Mitch 200 more rep points. I can do it myself.

Delta Escher

@Mitch ahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahaahhaah i'm so sad

pls stop insults

is offind

Mitch

15:34

@Rathony 222! woo hoo!

it's very underwhelming though. you think all these things wil be possible, and they are, but, meh.

Rathony

@Mitch Just recovered 1 point from downvote.

221

Mitch

get somebody you've voted for to leave and get undownvotes

I think newspeak would be a lot of fun.

Mazura

VTC Religion: not enough information.

Rathony

@Mitch How can you do that? A tip, please.

Mitch

actually toki pona.

@Rathony "1. Read 1984. 2. Learn speaking rules. 3. Profit"

Toki Pona

Toki Pona is a constructed language, first published as draft on the web in 2001 and then as a complete book and e-book Toki Pona: The Language of Good in 2014. It was designed by translator and linguist Sonja Lang (formerly Sonja Elen Kisa) of Toronto. Toki Pona is a minimal language. Like a pidgin, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are relatively universal among cultures. Lang designed Toki Pona to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity. The language has 14 phonemes and 120 root words. It is not designed as an international auxiliary language but is instead inspired by...

basically the same as newspeak but for nice people.

Mazura

15:39

Whenever I hear the term newspeak I think they mean accent-less.

Saladin

I be glad to be of your service.

Mitch

@Rathony to refer to a specific message, click on the down arrow to the left of the comment, and choose 'reply to this message'

Saladin

how can i drop second be from ^ top phrase?

Mitch

@Saladin "I'm glad to be of service"

Saladin

At any time, If anyone of you desire to contact me for professional help or otherwise please do so, I be glad to be of your service

Mitch

15:42

@Rathony It's pretty difficult to get someone to leave. You can badger them and make things uncomfortable for them to be here but that might be cause for being suspended or banned yourself. Also it's uncool.

Rathony

@MattE.Эллен I think this question needs protection, too. english.stackexchange.com/questions/309133/…

@Mitch Ha ha ha.

Mazura

@Mitch When I figure out how SE deals with real trolls I'll let you know.

Mitch

@Saladin "At any time, if anyone of you desire to contact me for professional help or otherwise, please do so. I would be glad to be of service"

@Mazura ignore them?

Why aren't people responding to me?

A lot?

Uh oh.

Mazura

Oh, wow. That never occurred to me. Neat.

Mitch

@Mazura You so want to correct them and tell them to shut up and fix whats wrong with them. but mostly they just want the attention.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

15:49

@Saladin You probably don't want to say "I be glad".

"I am glad", "I will be glad", "I would be glad"....

Matt E. Эллен

"Be glad that I would be of service to you"

"or else"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Arr matey, I be glad to throw thee overboard!

Matt E. Эллен

Yarr!

Cerberus

16:24

@Rathony That is not true. Nobody thought Hussein had anything to do with the Twin Towers, not even the American government.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Syria is much more of a threat to them than Iraq ever was.

Nothing has ever been an existential threat to them, of course.

Rathony

@Cerberus I understand that. But they believed Hussein funded and supplied weapons to Al Qaeda.

@Cerberus Hussein might not have been involved in the decision making, but if he had funded the operation, what is the difference?

Cerberus

Funded the operation? I've never heard of that.

Rathony

I mean, supplied money to the organization, not for the specific 9/11 attack.

Cerberus

That is too weak a link: tens of countries did so.

Mazura

@Cerberus You're over estimating the average American's IQ.

Cerberus

16:30

I don't think so!

Rathony

@Cerberus I agree that is not a strong link compared with Weapons of Mass Destruction

terdon

@Rathony Umm. Actually, Al Qaeda was very much against Hussein whom they saw as a secular leader.

Cerberus

What I'm saying is that the Americans never said they were invading Iraq because it supposedly funded 9/11. Bush only said that shortly after 9/11, but by the time they invaded Iraq, that claim had been dropped and they only talked about the supposed chemical weapons and such.

The Americans had been trying to oust Hussein before 9/11.

After the first Gulf War, I mean.

Mazura

@Cerberus No, it's just what many people thought. The war on terror yo.

terdon

Hell, Bush even came out and said he wanted to kill Saddam because "he tried to kill my Dad." (here's a CNN article quoting that)

Mazura

16:34

1 hour ago, by Mazura

"The hell if I'm going to let a madman control 3/4 of the worlds oil supply" –The movie Cole I think. - Also, I have to finish the war daddy started.

Rathony

@terdon We should not forget that they shared the same enemy.

terdon

@Rathony Well, yes. Both ended up being against the US. Ironically, both had started out as being funded by the US too.

Rathony

Yes, exactly.

terdon

Nevertheless, Al Qaeda was never friendly with Saddam, he represented everything they hate. Well, many of the things they hate, anyway.

Rathony

Hussein invaded Kuwait. That brought him down, not an association with Al Qaeda.

Matt E. Эллен

16:37

@Mitch "later, dudes".

Mazura

No pause, no comma.

Rathony

And I think it is a joke to blame Bush for starting a war without clear evidence of WMD.

How many people Hussein gassed to death?

Kanth

Hey everyone!

Mazura

Sup.

user13267

hi

I need help understanding a sentence

is anyone free?

Mazura

16:43

The problem was we went in without the backing of the UN. Because there were no WMDs...

@user13267 Shoot.

Rathony

@Mazura It depends on how you define WMD.

terdon

@Rathony How is that relevant? If the US went against every murdering bastard out there, that might have been a valid point. They don't though. I'm not saying they should, but you can't use "but he's a bad guy" as an excuse when you're only picking the bad guys who disagree with you while happily funding those that don't.

Kanth

I have a doubt on using chock-a-block

Can we use it like this? --> during a chock-a-block

or during a chock-a-block situation?

user13267

What does this sentence mean?

There was less bullying in secondary schools, with about one in twenty-five percent suffering bullying, but these cases may be particularly recalcitrant.

what is recalcitrant?

terdon

A word that is not particularly well chose in that instance.

Rathony

16:46

@terdon Sometimes, you hit the weakest bad guy to show a stronger bad guy that you can hit them later.

terdon

@user13267 In this case, I guess they mean that these cases are hard to analyse but I wouldn't have used recalcitrant there.

Rathony

Hussein was not lucky in that sense.

Mazura

@Kanth I wouldn't use it at all. But it's an adjective so it needs to modify a noun, like you did with situation.

Kanth

@user13267 I googled, I found that it is trouble making attitude

terdon

@Rathony Or, sometimes, you hit the guy who has all the oil and ignore the murdering bastards who don't happen to be rich.

user13267

16:47

Google meaning is having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority or discipline.

terdon

@Kanth Context?

Rathony

@terdon Yeap. rich and the weakest.

user13267

so means more of a rebellious attitude I guess but what does it mean in this context?

terdon

@Rathony Hardly the weakest! Pick a random African leader, for example.

Mazura

@user13267 Neat, a new word for me.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:48

@user13267 "one in twenty-five percent" seems like nonsense.

Rathony

I don't think there was any African leader who gassed his own people with chemical weapon

user13267

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Sorry I mistyped

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 it was supposed to be 1 in 25

terdon

@Rathony Maybe not. But who killed thousands? Sure. Who displaced ~3 million? Ditto. Oppressive regime? A dime a dozen.

Mazura

Was and suffering in the same sentence? having suffered?

terdon

Saddam had fewer ties to Islamic terrorism than Saudi Arabia, for example.

Kanth

16:50

@Mazura Okay, so the second one seems okay, right?
@terdon Let's say people are stuck at some task when they face issue, they reach a good knowledgeable person in order to get his help and resolve it. I just wanted to rephrase it like this --> People approach him during a chock-a-block situations

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony Hitting the weakest bad guy just proves you're stronger than the weakest bad guy. It proves literally nothing about your ability to hit the strong bad guys and in fact suggests the opposite.

terdon

^^

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 If you have an internal reason to hit anybody (wage war), you tend to hit the weakest.

terdon

@Kanth wordnik.com/words/chock-a-block

Cerberus

@Mazura I don't know who those people would be, but it wasn't what their government said at the time. And I knew nobody then who believe that, nor was it in any newspaper I read...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:52

@Kanth chock-a-block means "crammed full". I have no idea what a chock-a-block situation would be. Why do you want to use this word?

Mazura

@Cerberus I don't expect anyone in this chat room to have ever thought otherwise.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony I'm sorry, I don't agree. Why not hit the strongest? That would scare off the rest.

Kanth

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I have heard few people here using it during the situations that I explained above.

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You have to minimize your cost and casualties. Cost against benefit.

terdon

Yeah, that worked out well.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:54

@Rathony If you hit the weakest, that just leaves the strongest ready to fight you. You end up weakening yourself while leaving the strongest enemy at full strength.

Whereas, if you can take out the strongest, you can actually make the rest fear you.

terdon

But OK, 20-20 hindsight and all that. Point is, as you said yourself, the reason for the war was internal. It had nothing to do with WMDs and even less to do with how Saddam was treating his people.

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeap. That's exactly what happened after the war.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony lol. Not really.

Mazura

oil.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Iran is not worried that the US will invade.

terdon

16:56

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I wouldn't put anything past Trump.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Iraq was terrible for the US. Iran would be worse.

Rathony

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Iran is really worried. I don't agree with you.

user13267

Any ideas on my sentence?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony After Iraq, not a single US military fighting unit was at full readiness.

Rathony

Iran knows the U.S. might need another war soon and it could be their target.

user13267

16:56

There was less bullying in secondary schools, with about one in twenty-five suffering persistent bullying, but these cases may be particularly recalcitrant.

terdon

10 mins ago, by terdon

@user13267 In this case, I guess they mean that these cases are hard to analyse but I wouldn't have used recalcitrant there.

Rathony

That's why they agreed to the deal.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@user13267 I would guess it means these cases of bullying may be difficult to solve.

Rathony

Actually the U.S. didn't need to invade Iran because the sanctions worked.

Mazura

@user13267 - Are you writing it or trying to understand it?

Rathony

16:58

That's even scarier than the physical war.

terdon

@Rathony Define worked.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Rathony The US doesn't need a war at all. It's extremely costly and provides basically no benefit.

user13267

@Mazura trying to understand

Mazura

Link to more context?

terdon

Iran is still there, still ruled by an oppressive, religious regime and went on developing nuclear technology throughout the sanctions.

user13267

16:59

Here's the full paragraph for context

A Bullying can take a variety of forms, from the verbal -being taunted or called hurtful names- to the physical- being kicked or shoved- as well as indirect forms, such as being excluded from social groups. A survey I conducted with Irene Whitney found that in British primary schools up to a quarter of pupils reported experience of bullying, which in about one in ten cases was persistent.

There was less bullying in secondary schools, with about one in twenty-five suffering persistent bullying, but these cases may be particularly recalcitrant.

Cerberus

@Mazura OK.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, but does provide lots of profit.

user13267

or the whole article is here
http://www.ielts-mentor.com/reading-sample/academic-reading/823-ielts-academic-reading-sample-153-persistent-bullying-is-one-of-the-worst-experiences

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…