English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

phoog

00:24

@Shafizadeh @Mitch "not at all" doesn't always mean "it is not at all possible"; it could mean "it is not at all true." Example: Q: Are you hungry? A: Not at all.

Indeed, a better expansion of that answer is "I am not at all hungry."

Mitch

00:51

@phoog Yes.I agree

Færd

01:56

Is there any word sharing roots with brilliant that also has to do with shining in meaning?

Or doesn't have to do with shining in meaning. That might work too.

Mazura

02:18

@ SE - There's a user here that needs some... <cough> direction.

sumelic

02:46

@Færd You mean aside from brilliance, brilliancy, brilliantly? I didn't know this word before looking it up, but apparently brilliantine is a type of oil you put on hair to make it shiny.

brilliantine

Noun: brilliantine ‎(countable and uncountable, plural brilliantines)

A hair pomade, making the hair shine brilliantly.
1921 "I wouldn't regret it," said Linda, "if I took Eileen by the shoulders and shook her till I shook the rouge off her cheek, and the brilliantine off her hair, and a million mean little subterfuges out of her soul. Gene Stratton-Porter, Her father`s daughter Chapter 4.
A smooth shiny, luxurious fabric, often of alpaca or vicuña.
Sunday June 11, 1916 No. 112. Bathing Suit of Brilliantine in Navy Blue and Black, trimmed with white mohair braid and buttons (no bloomers). Special 3.95 — The New York Times, *.pdf

Verb: brilliantine ‎(third-person singular simple present brilliantines, present participle brilliantining, simple past and past participle brilliantined)

To apply brilliantine to the hair....

Cerberus

Brille?

sumelic

@Cerberus: is the following Wiktionary entry right? I am very doubtful that the "ei" in cuneiformis was pronounced as a diphthong in Latin:

cuneiformis

Adjective: cuneiformis m, f ‎(neuter cuneiforme); third declension

cuneiform

Færd

@sumelic Thanks. I just don't know why when I thought about brilliant I just knew it was originally related to light and shining. I thought maybe it was because of its relatives, but apparently it has no famous relatives.

Probably because it's similar to bright.

Cerberus

03:10

@sumelic The Romans did not treat it as a diphthong.

Are you saying there should be a dot there in the IPA?

As to how they pronounced it exactly, I don't know...

I just know it counts as two syllables in poetry.

Which is why I think they never translitterated Greek ei as ei.

Damkerng T.

03:44

@Færd Like those gl- words perhaps, e.g., glow, gleam, glisten, glimmer, glitter, glory, glamour. (Hey, glamour is related to grammar!)

Færd

07:29

@DamkerngT. Quite possible. Thanks.

Or maybe grammar is related to glamour? ;)

(No, it's the reverse.)

phoog

08:26

@sumelic the word appears to have been coined in the early modern period so it was probably pronounced variously according to the native language of the speaker.

latin-dictionary.net/search/latin/cuneiformis

@Cerberus the word was unknown to the Romans; see my previous message.

sumelic

@phoog: I see. In that case, it's pretty ridiculous that Wiktionary lists a "classical" pronunciation in the first place!

Damkerng T.

09:43

@Færd Things like related to have no real direction, I suppose. :D

RegDwigнt

11:18

terdon

@RegDwigнt ismart? Brilliant!

Shafizadeh

11:35

Which one?
- So no need to an UNION in the query.
- So no need an UNION in the query.

Færd

@DamkerngT. Technically, yes. But you're more apt to say I'm related to the King than The King is related to me.

@Shafizadeh no need to do something or no need for something

Shafizadeh

thx

Damkerng T.

@Færd That's another kind of relationship, I think.

Generalization can be dangerous.

(Probably not dangerous-dangerous.)

RegDwigнt

12:02

@terdon well done. Now solve this one:

terdon

@RegDwigнt I found my dream room!

Færd

@DamkerngT. I'm just conjecturing that when people say A is related to B, the possibility of A being stemmed from B (however tiny it might be, say 0.001) is higher than the reverse.

Damkerng T.

I had the opposite feeling, but maybe it was just because I'm more familiar with abstract relations in math and programming.

(Note that by the opposite I didn't mean the opposite of your proposition. I meant that I don't think your conjecture is universal.)

Færd

Well, you may be right.

Damkerng T.

I didn't and don't claim that I was right or am right or anything. Using relations like this is probably just my idiosyncrasy.

But OO is quite common nowadays. I don't know. Maybe there are more people who think this way than before.

Færd

12:18

When A is related to B, it's as if someone has related A to B, which makes me think that maybe B was the main object or concept.

Damkerng T.

In OOP, the direction of a relationship can be specified or unspecified.

Færd

What are OO and OOP?

Damkerng T.

Object-Oriented Programming

A has B (as one of its members) is about the same as B is in A, for example.

Færd

Technical senses hardly reflect ordinary aspects.

Damkerng T.

Sure

Færd

12:25

@RegDwigнt masochistic piercing.

MετάEd

12:42

I think I'm in the wrong room. Sorry.

terdon

Please close the door on your way out.

MετάEd

@terdon I can't find the door. I think it's a form of cognitive blindness.

terdon

Bash your head against the wall a few times. That usually works.

Both for the cognitive issues and for opening doors.

Shafizadeh

"let you know" is a correct sentence? Or can I just use "me" in that sentence?

terdon

@Shafizadeh Context? It isn't correct by itself. "I will let you know" is fine, for example.

Shafizadeh

12:51

ah ok. your example is what I was looking for

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shafizadeh This should be "So no need for a UNION in the query

Shafizadeh

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 got it ... thx

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

an onion but a union

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Very nice. Apple's true nature shines through...

I'm assuming the i-think is Apple.

And the white plastic.

Shafizadeh

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 are you sure? because U is a letter which we have to use "an" behind it

Cerberus

12:56

@phoog @sumelic It makes sense to add a classical pronunciation, because a classical pronunciation is what many people who speak Latin now are after, and they may also use newer words in their conversation.

@Shafizadeh It depends on the sound, not on the letter. Does it sound like a vowel?

The word union sounds like yooonyen.

So y as a consonant sound.

So a union.

But onion sounds like onyen, a vowel sound.

An onion.

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus yes .. vowel characters are these: a, i, o, u, e

Cerberus

Yes, but sometimes vowel letters don't sound like vowels, but like consonants.

Shafizadeh

Ah I see what's your point

Cerberus

And it is the sound that counts, if you're choosing between a and an.

Shafizadeh

I really didn't know that

Cerberus

12:58

Now you do!

So you say an unknown cat, but a unique cat.

Shafizadeh

yes :-) tnx

terdon

@Shafizadeh Don't worry, many native speakers make that mistake.

Shafizadeh

@terdon :)

Færd

13:11

Which weather is more uncomfortable, muggy or humid? Which is hotter?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Shafizadeh It's one of the most commonly asked questions around here, when to use "an" or "a". It never depends on spelling, always on pronunciation. And the other thing they don't teach in most schools: letter are not sounds, they are just used to indicate sounds. So "vowel letter" is an incorrect concept. There are only vowel sounds represented by letters.

@Færd muggy means "unpleasantly warm and humid".

It's possible to be cold and humid.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would not say incorrect.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus well, incomplete at least. There are letters that are used to represent both vowels and non-vowels.

Cerberus

Yes.

Shafizadeh

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I see

Cerberus

13:14

The term is best considered a rule of thumb.

Færd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Thanks. Doesn't humid (for weather) suggest high temperature and unpleasantness?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Færd To me it just means high moisture.

Færd

Logical.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

high humidity is often found with warm temperature though, and as it reduces your ability to cool off by sweating, it makes you feel hotter. So often the temperature is known, or expected, and can be elided.

Færd

Mhm. I saw somewhere that the two were synonymous. Seemed to me that they're not, as you explained.

Cardinal

13:18

Hi there

Can I ask a question?

Guys couple of days ago I created a question you can see here:
http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/93146/can-can-be-used-to-imply-become-being-able-to

And me and @Tromano discussed about it.

Now, I asked him can "can" be used with subjunctive connotation?

I will be happy to know your comments

Cerberus

13:33

@Færd What Mr Shiny seems to be saying is that humid often connotes high temperature in practice, so it may amount to that in most contexts, but that temperature is strictly not part of its meaning.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, not exactly. What I mean is that the temperature is often known because it doesn't vary much on a day-to-day basis. But the humidity can. So in July I can say "It's really humid today" and I don't need to tell you about "hot" because you would have known that. I don't think "humid" connotes "hot" per se.

terdon

Now that you mention it, I don't think I'd call a cold, wet day "humid". I'd probably go for "damp" instead. Humid does seem to suggest heat somehow.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How about what Terdon says?

I wouldn't call a cold day humid either, even when it is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon I'd probably go for damp first, but not necessarily.

terdon

Not necessarily, no. Perhaps if I were living in a cold climate where all days were cold, I would use humid for the wet ones. However, in the absence of context, it was a humid day suggests heat to me, while it was a damp day suggests cold.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

13:49

There are lots of ghits for "cold and humid". I guess in the total absence of context I might think a "humid" day was warm (a damp day would never be warm unless otherwise specified). But also I think damp is wetter than humid.

English subjunctive

The subjunctive in English is used to form sentences that do not describe known objective facts. These include statements about one's state of mind, such as opinion, belief, purpose, intention, or desire. It contrasts with the indicative mood, which is used for statements of fact, such as He speaks English. In Modern English, the subjunctive form of a verb often looks identical to the indicative form, and thus subjunctives are not a very visible grammatical feature of English. For most verbs, the only distinct subjunctive form is found in the third person singular of the present tense, where the...

> The English modal verbs do not have present subjunctive forms, except for synonyms such as be able to as a subjunctive corresponding to the indicative modal can. However would, should, could and might can in some contexts be regarded as past subjunctives of will, shall, can and may respectively. (They may also be described simply as the past forms of the latter modals, or as modals or auxiliaries in their own right.)

@Cardinal I'm not an expert on the subjunctive but maybe this answers your question?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: One word for witches and wizards by dgbcxdhhnnc on english.stackexchange.com …

Færd

14:21

Helpful discussion. Thanks all.

MετάEd

15:24

@terdon That didn't work. And I'm awake again and I have a bad headache.

Shafizadeh

15:53

Which one:
- go sit of there
- go sit of the there
- go sit on the there

Matt E. Эллен

@Shafizadeh none of them

you're looking for the word over

Shafizadeh

But I heard that in the movies ..

Matt E. Эллен

"go sit over there"

Shafizadeh

oh .. you are right .. thx

Matt E. Эллен

no probs

Cerberus

16:05

@Shafizadeh Note that over there is informal. The standard expression is just there without a preposition.

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus Like this? - go sit of there

Cerberus

No: go (and) sit there.

Sit of there is always wrong.

Of is a preposition.

Shafizadeh

I see

MετάEd

17:10

@Cerberus Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the preposition “of”.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Umm you're ending a sentence with a preposition.

That's wrong.

MετάEd

That's a pronoun.

terdon

@Cerberus So did you.

user208178

hello

MετάEd

@VitaminC Hello. Linus Pauling says hello too.

Cerberus

17:20

@terdon Did not!

terdon

Did too!

Cerberus

I ended with a preposition, not with a preposition.

MετάEd

Did three!

terdon

You ended a sentence with "a preposition.".

Cerberus

D'oh.

terdon

17:21

Sneaky, huh?

Cerberus

Surely you see the difference between a preposition and a preposition.

Besides, it ended with a full stop.

MετάEd

Surely you see the difference between a preposition at the end of a sentence and a preposition at the end of a sentence at the end of a sentence.

Cerberus

Exactly.

It's pretty clear.

user208178

@MετάEd lol. Hi!

MετάEd

Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

terdon

17:25

@Cerberus Damn! True, I missed that.

Foiled again.

@MετάEd That hurts.

user208178

@MετάEd So it is just a name off the top of my head. I'm not pro or against vitamin C.

Cerberus

@terdon I've fixed your line.

Now I am again open to your accusation.

terdon

Ha!

MετάEd

@terdon Then I'll hurt you more.

Cerberus

Whenever you're accused of something, it's always best to ameliorate the evidence.

MετάEd

17:36

5

Q: Is this compound sentence grammatically correct?

So, I’ve stumbled upon this really long sentence, and now I’m wondering if it is grammatically correct. So they figured since I’m a real person and I’m in the movie and I’m actually me and they wanted to use me as me in the actual movie and I didn’t even know yet that I was me in the movie a...

grammaticality

Cerberus

@MετάEd God.

terdon

Holy crap

Cerberus

I see I had already voted for your answer.

skill patrol

:O

19 simple sentences

Cerberus

Jihadi terrorist attacks in Europe.

Kit Z. Fox

17:42

It would be interesting to see a graphic of violence against "foreigners" to compare that to.

Cerberus

Green means foiled, grey failed, red carried out successfully, half-red partly succeeded.

Kit Z. Fox

Particularly Muslims.

skill patrol

Today is Muhammad Ali's funeral :'(

and they still haven't finished the autopsy on Prince.

MετάEd

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

user208178

Hello @KitZ.Fox!

Kit Z. Fox

17:48

@VitaminC Hello.

skill patrol

nice @MετάEd

Cerberus

I'm surprised about Egypt.

Don't know how reliable this poll was, though.

Same for this one.

user208178

@Cerberus I agree with Kit. Also Jihad isn't terrorism, it's a very broad word. I mean many muslims get offended when they see "Jihad" and "terrorism" being used side by side.

user208178

Just saying.

Cerberus

@VitaminC The map does not equate Jihad to terrorism.

user208178

17:57

No you wrote "Jihadi terrorist attacks in Europe."

skill patrol

In the same way as a Christian would get offended if you used the word crusade?

Cerberus

Another map could have said, left-wing terrorism in Europe.

Using one word to specify another doesn't mean you equate one to the other.

user208178

@Cerberus I don't know about Christians. I am a muslim and it is kind of hurtful to see people equate Jihad to terrorism.

Cerberus

How about "left-wing terrorism"?

user208178

Yeah ok maybe.

Cerberus

18:00

crl

probably already spammed it, but made this small web editor

Cerberus

Nobody thinks all left-wingers are terrorists. That's simply not what that means.

Some left-wingers are terrorists, just as some Jihadis are.

Some Christians as well.

And Jews.

Atheists too.

skill patrol

Politicians too :P

Cerberus

Luckily, very few people are terrorists among any of those groups, so we're pretty safe.

(Unless terrorists get large numbers of nukes.)

@skillpatrol Probably...

user208178

@Cerberus Well I wouldn't call them Jihadists if they kill innocents. "Terrorists" plain and simple. Jihad is a sacred thingy for many muslims.

Kit Z. Fox

18:04

The equivalent of a sacrament, iirc.

And I don't think this is an appropriate place to discuss terrorism. You can go chat about it in the Latin room if you want.

Cerberus

@VitaminC Them how would you specify them?

People often conduct terrorism in the name of x.

Those people say they do so in the name of their Jihad.

skill patrol

In the name of god.

Cerberus

Matt E. Эллен

I think Vitamin C's stance is clear, as is yours, @Cerberus. There's no need to labour the point.

Cerberus

One of the most horrific acts of terrorism of this century was committed by a blond European, just saying.

skill patrol

18:07

I think you spell labor without the u :P

Cerberus

Luckily, the threat is minuscule in stable countries for now.

But it's still interesting.

Kit Z. Fox

I'm trying to finish off the first Percy Jackson series, but there's this other interesting series called "the Blackwell Pages", which is basically Percy Jackson except Norse myths instead of Greek ones, which keep sinterrupting me.

I didn't think I'd much like Percy Jackson, but it's not bad as far as middle grade fiction goes.

Cerberus

@VitaminC By the way, of course I wasn't trying to say Muslims are bad or anything. Almost all of them are peaceful; I wasn't trying to insinuate anything. I know and like many Muslims myself in real life.

Kit Z. Fox

I think I just prefer Norse mythology to Greek mythology is what it boils down to.

skill patrol

I meant no offense @VitaminC with my Christian analogies :-)

Kit Z. Fox

18:10

The problem being that I'm way more familiar with Greek myths than with Norse ones, so I'm sure I'm missing half the fun.

Matt E. Эллен

Norse myths are a lot colder

skill patrol

Analogical reasoning can get so...messy.

Matt E. Эллен

I like the Germanic myths, too

Kit Z. Fox

I'm not at all familiar with those, aside from a few random things I picked up from Neil Gaiman.

Matt E. Эллен

like the ring of the nibelung

no, I don't know a lot, but what I know I like

Kit Z. Fox

18:13

Kobolds are from Germanic culture, aren't they?

Come to think of it, we spend a lot of time on Greek mythology in school and pretty much no time on other mythologies. I wonder why that is.

Matt E. Эллен

yes!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Kit were you sneaking around my neighbourhood yesterday?

Matt E. Эллен

@KitZ.Fox because "the classics" are Latin and ancient Greek

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Kit Z. Fox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh! Haha. That's my cousin! So that's what she was trying to tell me. I couldn't tell over all the giggling.

Just mind your rubbish, is all I'm going to say about it.

@MattE.Эллен Yeah, but why? I mean, most of the people I know are Germanic or Scandinavian.

Or Gaulish.

Matt E. Эллен

18:17

@KitZ.Fox snobbishness?

Kit Z. Fox

shrugs

It reminds me though that I was going to write Hades/Persephone as a love story, after that "Heart of Pluto" writing exercise.

Matt E. Эллен

do it!

Kit Z. Fox

Nobody broods better than Hades.

And we all know how sexy that is.

Even if it's his niece...hmm. I may have to re-think that.

skill patrol

Is that your pickup truck? @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skillpatrol no. it's from a house a few doors down on another street. But it's very close by... there were two foxes there that time, but the one with a squirrel in its mouth ran off while the other posed for pictures

skill patrol

18:27

I see. You never struck me as a pickup truck driver :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh. What do you think I drive?

Kit Z. Fox

Prius or a Honda.

Maybe a Toyota Corolla.

skill patrol

I'd say Honda accord.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

not serial-killer-enough.

Matt E. Эллен

some kind of volvo

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:28

Ford Escape. Just like Dexter.

Kit Z. Fox

Huh.

I thought you'd drive something more fuel efficient.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Why a Ford Escape, you ask? Because I care nothing about cars, and my parents had one, and I drove theirs, and it was okay, so I just copied them.

Matt E. Эллен

"like my father before me"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitZ.Fox yeah... I like having cargo space.

Kit Z. Fox

Makes sense. We have a minivan. It's awesome.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:31

I hope my next car will be an electric car, but we'll see.

Kit Z. Fox

Hey, can anyone explain to me why it's apparently some kind of sick burn that Hillary tweeted "Delete your account" at Trump?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Me too! We're looking at a union-built Volt.

I figure there must be some kind of cultural reference there that I'm totally oblivious to.

Matt E. Эллен

18:52

@KitZ.Fox Was it in reply to something? I heard about it too, but didn't think anything of it

@KitZ.Fox knowyourmeme.com/memes/delete-your-account

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:09

"Delete your account" wow, so witty, so insulting.

Matt E. Эллен

yeah. what's next? "I'm rubber, you're glue, what bounces of me sticks to you"?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Matt E. Эллен

le sigh

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That "dated" one was in response to GOP tweets that used the Doge meme in 2014. At least that comeback is funny.

Matt E. Эллен

it is better than "delete your account", I'll give it that. shame they've regressed in two years

Færd

19:20

Is there anything missing from the expression to have time alone? As in:

> I'm going to go to my room and have time alone with myself.

There are a dozen hits in COCA for it. I guess it's kind of an idiom.

Or maybe nothing's wrong or unusual about this use of time at all.

Matt E. Эллен

it seems normal to me. anything you can have, you can have alone (until someone shows me a counter example)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Except a tango. It takes two to tango.

Matt E. Эллен

curse you, @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇!!!!!!

Færd

Yeah, I don't know why I'm not comfortable with it.

skill patrol

I think the "with myself" is a bit redundant

Matt E. Эллен

19:29

yeah, I agree

Færd

Me too. :) Unless:

Me and myself, the two of us

skill patrol

Perhaps it's used for emphasis, like "last and final call"

Only with myself do I have time alone.

Færd

It was with my thoughts in the sentence that I'd heard. I misquoted.

skill patrol

That makes more sense :-)

I need to have time alone with my thoughts

Færd

Now I need to have time alone with my dreams.

I'm sleepier than this jaguar:

skill patrol

19:38

Sweet dreams :-)

Færd

See you later :)

skill patrol

Later.

Shafizadeh

19:55

Is there a word like "holding" which describes "a big shopping center" or "a high-class business company" ?

Matt E. Эллен

Holding company

A holding company is a company that owns other companies' outstanding stock. The term usually refers to a company that does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies to form a corporate group. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow the ownership and control of a number of different companies. In the United States, 80% or more of stock, in voting and value, must be owned before tax consolidation benefits such as tax-free dividends can be claimed. That is, if Company A owns 80% or more of the stock of Company...

it doesn't really mean either of those two things, though

Shafizadeh

Oh I see ..

skill patrol

20:15

You could say that a company that is a large holding is a high class business worth a lot.

Shafizadeh

ah

MετάEd

20:59

@KitZ.Fox Sinterrupting. My new word of the day.

RegDwigнt

22:46

@Cerberus Ukrainian alcohol at work:

Проходь, я сказав, проходь! Да ты заєбав...

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…