English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Lawrence

00:02

@KitZ.Fox Consider office space and office area - the space version does sound more empty, something you might consider leasing, whereas the area version might already be functioning as an office. I think it holds even with user space vs user area, less so with cyberspace, but then there isn't a commonly-used cyber area.

Cerberus

Hello.

considering the example

Lawrence

00:30

The system seems to be on a hunt for old thesaurus questions - all on the main page of questions. Questions from 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Cerberus

The system?

I'm inclined to agree with your characterisation of office space and office area.

Lawrence

@Cerberus The SE system that pulls up old questions and shows them on the main page. They were 4th, 7th and 10th questions on the list when I last checked.

Cerberus

I'm not sure when I would use the latter.

Oh, the unsorted questions, OK.

A large part of EL&U is thesaurus questions, also known as SWRs?

@Lawrence It is true.

Lawrence

@Cerberus Yes, but all 3 questions were asking for lists of thesauruses.

Cerberus

Hmm do you mean, they ask for a thesaurus aka. list?

Not a list of thesauri.

Lawrence

00:36

The 12th question on the list is also asking for a recommendation for a thesaurus.

@Cerberus Not thesaurus entries - they want to know where to find the 'book'.

Cerberus

Yes.

Lawrence

@Cerberus When showing clients about the place, perhaps: "Here is the kitchen; we just passed the reception, the office area is down this corridor, etc."

Cerberus

Yes, exactly.

It is perhaps the less idiomatic term.

It just means what it means.

Adam Uraynar

Hello, sorry to interrupt--but can a moderator delete a chat I created under the wrong subject?

Lawrence

@Cerberus Which is the less idiomatic term?

Cerberus

00:40

@AdamUraynar Sure, what do you need deleted?

Adam Uraynar

chat.stackexchange.com/…

Time

Cerberus

@Lawrence "Office area": it just means what you would expect, an area related to offices or an office?

Adam Uraynar

@Cerberus =) thanks a bunch!

Cerberus

@AdamUraynar I'm sorry, what do you need exactly?

To have one of those rooms deleted?

Or do you want to have the title of one of those rooms changed?

If so, which one, and into what?

Lawrence

@Cerberus Yes, it's just the expected term. The interesting part was the nuanced difference suggested between space and area.

Cerberus

00:44

Indeed.

I don't know why, but somehow I associate "office space" with an empty part of a building, just as you say.

For rent.

Shafizadeh

Is this sentence correct? "Based on updated version of the question, use this pattern"

Færd

No context?

Is the pattern based on the updated version of the question?

(Probably not)

Shafizadeh

context

Færd

in Language Overflow, Jul 10 at 11:45, by StoneyB

Context, context, context! (If I knew how to program my keyboard I would assign a key to that phrase.)

If you don't say where and why a sentence is going to be used, you can get little information about whether it's correct or optimum or whatever.

Shafizadeh

01:07

true ..

Shafizadeh

Is this sentence correct? "All you need is adding a ? after *. So your pattern looks like this:"

Færd

But you just said true!

Shafizadeh

:D

Sometimes I don't follow the rules which are true ;-)

Mazura

@Shafizadeh Based on [the] updated version of the question[;] use this pattern:

That's just my 2 cents. I R not an English major ;)

Shafizadeh

:-) thx

Mazura

01:18

the semi-colon replaces "I would / you should use..."

otherwise is prob a comma splice error or some such non-sense

Full disclaimer: I have grammar on ignore. ;p

Shafizadeh

:-)

Tonepoet

Comma-splice: N. 1. When somebody forgets to dot their semicolon. =P

Semicolon: N. 1. A punctuation mark everybody forgot exists because it's hidden directly beneath their pinkie-finger.

Mazura

I'm just here to help people do their crossword puzzles.

Færd

01:36

Based on blah blah is not an independent clause: a comma does just fine after it, and I don't see how a semicolon can work instead.

Kit Z. Fox

Semicolon is my favorite punctuation. I plan to have one tattooed on my body.

Cerberus

@Færd I agree with you.

But I understand why someone might think of a semicolon.

Færd

So why?

Shafizadeh

Is this sentence correct? "My ipad mini 2 takes 3 hours to be full charge (from 3%), do you think is that a normal thing?"

Tonepoet

I would write "My iPad Mini 2 takes 3 hours to be fully charged (from 3%), do you think that is normal?"

Færd

01:48

"My ... takes three hours to fully charge from 3%. Do you think it's normal?"

Shafizadeh

@Tonepoet thx

@Færd tnx

Cerberus

Sometimes semicola are used after a mere phrase, such as in enumerations with long members.

Tonepoet

Well, actually, I would capitalize the I instead of the P but that's a personal idiosyncrasy...

Færd

Lists of lists?

Cerberus

@Tonepoet +1!

Don't give in to commercialese.

Tonepoet

01:50

Exactly!

Cerberus

Just use normal punctuation.

And capitalisation.

@Færd Not even necessarily lists of lists.

But of course I agree that the present example contains no enumeration.

Shafizadeh

@Færd What's your field of study? Is it English?

Færd

I'm learning English leisurely at home.

Shafizadeh

Well good for you .. usually Iranian people cannot be as good as you are in English ..

Færd

Many are. Many of my friends in high school and college were way better than me.

Shafizadeh

01:58

Oh ..

Færd

way better = much better

Shafizadeh

got it

Færd

But I didn't know as much back then, so maybe now I'm getting closer.

Shafizadeh

cool

Færd

@KitZ.Fox Make sure you use it correctly, because it won't come off easily.

(Really though?)

Shafizadeh

02:16

Is "the robot" subject in this sentence? "Why the robot has pinged PeeHaa? Is she the owner of it?"

subject = who do anything

Færd

That's two sentences. The subject of the first one is (the) robot.

Shafizadeh

good

still "the robot" is subject in this? "Why the robot is pinged PeeHaa? Is she the owner of it?"

Færd

That's too ungrammatical to have a subject, I guess.

Shafizadeh

ah ok thx

Færd

In A is B, A is the subject.

Mazura

02:51

My iPad Mini 2 takes 3 hours to be fully charged (from 3%); normal? (semi's FTW!)

My iPad Mini 2; 3 hours: charged (from 3%); normal?

Use more colon!

Tonepoet

@Mazura This strikes me more like being the first time the behavior exhibited itself.

Mazura

The OP wouldn't ask if it wasn't.

Unless, well, trolling...

Shafizadeh

@Mazura funny

Mazura

Oh, what. They think their battery is better? Perhaps ;)

@Shafizadeh That's kinda how I talk.

Tonepoet

Maybe that, or maybe they've been having the problem for weeks and are wondering if it's something that happens to all iPads.

Shafizadeh

02:58

@Mazura short and pretty .. :-) good for you

Mazura

I know how to pronounce a semi colon ;)

@Tonepoet Not enough information. VTC

@Færd IIRC, you're ESL, which would explain why you know what that means, and I don't ;)

You actually had to learn the language.

Tonepoet

Today I learned phoneme is a two syllable word, and I'm disappointed.

Mazura

I don't know what that means, nor can I pronounce it.

- looked it up: still nothing.

/ˈfoʊniːm/

eh...

lol

Tonepoet

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus is useful for learning pronunciations.

Mazura

I can't read IPA. Half of it's in Greek...

Tonepoet

03:08

'cause they have recordings instead of international phonetic gibberish.

Mazura

Youtube has some good ones too.

Never failed me.

Yesterday I learned that there's one BILLION (!!!) users of that whatsapp app. 1984 anyone?

Cerberus

Howjsay has the pronunciation of almost any word you can think of, in good quality.

Tonepoet

What's that?

Cerberus

@Mazura Does that surprise you?

Mazura

That scares me.

@Tonepoet It lets you do free SMS messages. And stuff.

Cerberus

03:13

@Tonepoet howjsay.com/pronunciation-of-telegram

@Mazura What should scare you is that its owner is Facebook!

Mazura

And that they paid $20 per user for it O.O

Tonepoet

I'm not going to lie, S.M.S. is also a mystery to me. It's probably some of that wise telephone related related nonsense. =P

Mazura

$19B

Cerberus

OMG I'm worth $20!

The first time anyone has every said that to me.

Mazura

To them, yes you were.

And so is all your contacts...

Shafizadeh

03:15

Is this correct? "How much time iPad needs to be fully recharged?"

Cerberus

@Tonepoet Do you own a so-called intelligent telephone?

Tonepoet

Actually, Facebook wouldn't buy you for $20 if that was all you were worth to them.

Cerberus

Were → would ever be

Mazura

It's lets them see your contacts.

Tonepoet

No, I'm a total N.E.E.T. recluse.

Cerberus

03:16

Wise.

Mazura

That's worth it all day. Especially if they get to quash the competition in the process.

Cerberus

Do you own an intelligent telephone, but with a larger screen and lacking GSM capabilities?

Also known as a computer?

@Mazura I must confess I, too, have yielded my contacts to Whatsapp. I wish I didn't have to, but I just can't do without Whatsapp's functioning normally.

It's what everybody uses.

Mazura

@Cerberus That's scary.

Tonepoet

A computer is just a synonym for calculator. I don't know if I have one but I'm pretty sure I saw one at my friend's house. It was a funny looking thing that resembled a child's toy, with wooden rods and sliding discs.

Shafizadeh

"bought" is pp ?

Cerberus

03:18

I try to get people to use Telegram in its stead.

Which is open source and non-commercial.

@Tonepoet But calculating very fast.

Mazura

@Cerberus Yeah, cell phone companies don't like that.

Cerberus

Like video to show on its screen.

@Mazura I'm not sure whether manufacturers care whether you use Whatsapp or Telegram?

Mazura

Tele companies going to lose a projected $300B (or some crazy made up number) of revenue to Skype and their ilk.

They care, $300 B dollars worth of care.

Tonepoet

@cerberus When I said it was just a synonym, I mean it's just a synonym. The word appears in Noah Webster's dictionary and my 1968 New Universal Standard Encyclopedia even has a picture of an abacus in it, under the accounting entry, with images depicting various computers throughout over the years.

Mazura

Maintaining hard-lines is expensive (so are private jets).

Cerberus

03:22

@Mazura Oh, those companies. Yes, but they still don't care whether you use Whatsapp or Telegram.

@Tonepoet Of course! One must take a word from somewhere.

Mazura

"Forbes predicted that between 2012 and 2018, the telecommunications industry will lose a combined total of $386 billion because of OTT services like WhatsApp and Skype."

WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform, encrypted, instant messaging client for smartphones. It uses the Internet to send text messages, documents, images, video, user location and audio messages to other users using standard cellular mobile numbers. As of February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of one billion, making it the most popular messaging application. WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, United States, was acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$19.3 billion. == History == === 2009–2014 === WhatsApp Inc., was founded in 2009 by Brian...

Tonepoet

@Cerberus Hey now, don't disrespect the Proto-Indo-Europeans! =P

Cerberus

It is they who gave us the word calculator, no doubt?

Tonepoet

They have something called creativity! =P

Originality even. . .

Cerberus

Incidentally, I'm very surprised to see you, of all people, use those S.M.S. signs!

Mazura

03:27

Comcast, ROX, RCN, whomever - doesn't care, they've got you hock, line and sinker (and will benefit to a degree). It's the "telecommunications industry".

Cerberus

Whatsapp = Telegram

Mazura

You know... that other thing your phone does? ... make phone calls ;)

Shafizadeh

@Cerberus they aren't equal ..

Tonepoet

@Cerberus Calling emoticons S.M.S. signs is putting the cart before the horse.

Cerberus

They both make S.M.S. obsolete, so it doesn't matter to a phone company which service you use.

@Tonepoet As you as you beat the horse.

Mazura

03:29

@Shafizadeh One billion users against a few million at best, agrees.

Cerberus

Telegram is not that small.

I should think they have between 0.05 and 0.1 billion users.

Shafizadeh

@Mazura Heh ... Telegram is the best chatting app ever ..

Mazura

That one seventh of the worlds population!!! Holy freaking cow!

Cerberus

Tonepoet

My chatting habits developed mostly during the Microsoft Network Messenger era of chat and of course, before that there was I.R.C.

Cerberus

03:30

So did mine.

But I stopped using those signs.

Mazura

I just do it here and in games. That's enough for me. Chat, that is.

Cerberus

I now associate them with S.M.S.

> In February 2016, Telegram announced that they had 100 million monthly active users, with 350,000 new users signing up every day, delivering 15 billion messages daily.

tchrist

parvenus, tous

Cerberus

Of course any such statistics should be taken with a grain of salt. But still, Telegram is hardly small.

Shafizadeh

50% of telegram's users are from my country (Iran) :-)

Mazura

03:32

The numbers are like a bad SFF book... We're doomed!

Tonepoet

I associate them with gesturing and more importantly, a way to mark tonal inflection, which is something the traditional writing system neglected, possibly in part because it was designed to record information over long periods of time, rather than give instant responses.

I mean sure you have the exclamation point, but that only goes so far!

Mazura

Things were written, so that they might be said once again. REMEMBERHOWWEUSEDTOWRITE?

You'd better used to know how it was said.

Tonepoet

I remember how we used to write. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't punctuate my abbreviations.

Cerberus

I associate them with...my youth!

@Shafizadeh But how do you know? I've seen similar claims, but Telegram does not keep track of where its users live?

Tonepoet

How do you sing a message at somebody's door without knowing where they live? >_>

Cerberus

03:40

@whiteboxamir @Tfour_Me This picture is plainly false. About 20% of Telegram users come from Iran, not 80%. Do you verify your sources?

Tweeted by durov on January 13, 2016 at 12:47 PM in reply to whiteboxamir

@Tonepoet You send the file to someone's Internet address.

As you are doing now.

Tonepoet

But... but... that's in their bedroom! Not their door!

Cerberus

That makes it O.K., hmm?

Mazura

top-10-apps-in-the-world- May 2016 : #1, Whataap (why? because it lets you circumvent something you have to pay for, using something you're already paying for and underutilizing)

Tonepoet

Nothing makes it O.K., because Old Kittens don't exist by definition. ;-)

Mazura

04:22

Common people. This question has a comment with 90 upvotes that says, here we speak English. VTC for the love of god. Please.

27

Q: Should we refer to a female "senator" as a "senatrix"?

I saw an article today that prompted a thought. I only took a year of Latin in high school, so I want to run this by some other people. The article referenced a female senator so-and-so. However, I think that senator, with the -or ending is in the nominative, third declension, which is not gende...

#this is embarrassing

Mazura

04:35

At ELU, we discuss the specifics of linguistic 'gender', not the specifics of gender neutrality. All of that is neither here nor there though. Here we DO NOT ask should questions.

Tonepoet

@Mazura If it was "May" instead of "Should" would you still have the same objection?

Mazura

It does have a good answer that would address what would be a good edit for the question but until the question is focused to be answerable it needs must be closed.

@Tonepoet Both are POB. - Do we / Why don't we ?

Not if we should.

why is the heart of SE

And why not? 'cause it's English, not Latin.

Tonepoet

04:54

@Mazura I asked in part because "may" is as closer to a "do" question than "should". Also "do we" permits answers like Senatress even though the general consensus deems that sort of word inadvisable for whatever reason.

Mazura

The question offends me on all fronts.

Equality wise, and SE wise.

@Tonepoet If the only place you can find it is Wiktionary, it's extremely questionable, IMO (!)

Tonepoet

@mazura It's not.

Mazura

@Tonepoet None of the top results are a dictionary. That's what I meant: it's not a word, if it is, it's a neologism.

Tonepoet

1820 is too old to be a neologism I.M.H.O.

Mazura

And if it does exist, it's unnecessary, and only places us backwards.

I don't put much stock into one man's neologism in some old book.

@Tonepoet It never seemed to catch on , thankfully. There's absolutely no reason to distinguish a person's gender when you're talking about people's jobs. It is the perpetuation of this, by people that think it is a 'must' for gender equality (though it only rubs salt on the wounds) that is the problem. IMO. ;) Also, POB: VTC

Tonepoet

05:14

What places us backwards, or forwards is arguable, which is what I believe your primary case against the question as a matter of policy is.

Mazura

No that's my personal personal problem with it, but it's still POB.

Tonepoet

05:31

Well I can't seem to say that it's not a rare word but if we look at how its been trending on its own it looks like its had some use as a nonce word on several occasions a steady increase of usage since about 1985. I wonder how people are using it and why.

Mazura

I would only subject that it's for the reasons I mentioned above. Which is backwards thinking.

You can never proceed to become an equal, if you demand 'yours' first. That's not how you make a compromise.

And if you're unwilling to compromise, this will never end.

I'm willing, as a male, to compromise to just about anything you can think of. But I am unwilling to concede.

That would do neither of us any good.

I subject, is that right? :'to put forth' ?

Tonepoet

I'm not sure off hand.

Mazura

05:46

I just think it's nice, that there's a place on the internet, that I can discuss all that, and then turn around and ask about my grammar... ;P

I don't get people who only do one SE site.

I came here to brush up on my usage, so that I could do better Se

But the above lends to my point (which would be on-topic on the main site's question) that chat is the place to ask should questions. V.T.C.

It's not a bad question, just worded poorly, and IMO (ironically, yes: IMO ;) receiving many answers (and a comment list too long to read, to boot) that are focusing on the... shall we say, "hot button issue'.

Are we here to discuss morality or linguistics?

Tonepoet

Part of the thing though is that the P.O.B. close reason is somewhat backwards. It's based, at least partially on the type of answers a question will receive.

I don't see the sorts of answers it's designed to prevent being posted there.

If it was flagged as P.O.B. early I think it would've had a better chance of being closed than now that it has all of those referenced answers. You might have better luck with a Gen. Ref. closure.

Mazura

Hmm. It's been cleansed. Or I'm delusional. You're right about the answers there.

The comments too, I think, gone.

Not that I like the things that must be said in the comments that are left. But so be it. Maybe someone will learn something. Either way, it's written in a way that invites discussion, that's what I don't like... what the question? Why don't we use the word? 'cause it never 'really' existed. --- gah, and that makes it a viable question. Vote redacted. Damn you ;p

Tonepoet

06:08

Well that's noble of you.

Mazura

I believe in SE.

ones and zeros for all

I also like the concept of w/e those games are called that help sort data.

It's like the same thing as rep here, or the endorphins they provide, take your pick.

Getting people to want to help, is what it's all about.

Also, drunk ;p laters

Tonepoet

Later.

SmokeDetector

09:06

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword in answer: Ipa vowels relationships by menglanfang on english.stackexchange.com …

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword in answer: What are some less ambiguous words for "choice," "decision," "option," etc.? by menglanfang on english.stackexchange.com …

[ SmokeDetector ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword in answer, blacklisted user: Meaning of "Mythical Distance" by menglanfang on english.stackexchange.com …

Færd

16:55

Do you think it's a good idea to use Ngram Viewer to find commoner stylistic choices? For example cellphone vs cell phone, no-one vs no one, etc.

Cerberus

@Færd Why wouldn't it be?

Just be aware that frequency is not really related to style.

Færd

I don't know. Perhaps its collection of books is not a good representative?

@Cerberus True.

Should have said commoner practices.

Cerberus

It depends on what you want represented?

Færd

Maybe they have something about this on the about Ngram Viewer page.

Goes to check

Cerberus

I still don't quite understand your question.

What is your ultimate goal here?

Færd

17:58

@Cerberus I want to know whether most people write no one or no-one.

Cerberus

Most people don't write books.

Færd

Yes.

Cerberus

It's hard to predict to what extent books mirror what people write in Whatsapp and Facebook messages, which I think comprise the bulk of what people write nowadays.

But are you sure you care about those messages?

Færd

Ngram Viewer says the no one prevails by a factor of 60.

Cerberus

In other words: why do you want to know what most people write?

Is it because you can't decide how to spell it yourself in formal English?

Or for some kind of linguistic/literary research?

Færd

18:01

Okay. An example: I like no-one better, but if that's how much we're outnumbered, then maybe I'll rethink my choice.

Tonepoet

@Færd Be careful with nGrams. There might be other meanings of no one being factored in...

Just what those might be, I have no idea because I was sleeping just a moment ago. XP

Færd

Another example: I like every-one or every one better than everyone, but since no-one's with me, for now I will write as everyone does.

@Tonepoet Yes, false positives.

You can cut them out with some tricks: books.google.com/ngrams/…

The peculiar thing is that a simple Google search gives three times hits for no-one as it gives for no one.

Complete reverse.

And I bet most Whatsapp and Facebook users don't think twice before choosing no one.

But they don't set the norms for stylish writing. That's good.

Or maybe one should care less about large-scale statistics when it comes to stylistic variations, and some other things.

Tonepoet

18:34

Part of the thing that needs to be taken under consideration is that people don't really know what to do with the hyphen anymore. Most phrases that can be noun adjuncts are just assumed to be that, regardless of its presence for instance.

Hence Ice Cream instead of Ice-Cream.

Færd

It tempts me to assert my own taste; see if I can find a consistent style of my own after a while.

Tonepoet

Which isn't to say that no one is a noun adjunct, but it's vaguely similar.

Færd

But that might end up shockingly different from the common practice.

Mitch

@Cerberus most people have at least one good novel in them.

Probably through accidental ingestion of book dust and ink particles over the years

Tonepoet

@Færd That's not necessarily a bad thing if you can demonstrate you have a consistent reason for doing it.

Færd

18:45

I don't have the audacity to do it in English yet.

Mitch

@Cerberus at least! Like maybe $22?

Færd

@Mitch That is not impossible in the long, long run.

Tonepoet

Well, that's a fair point. If you want to follow the popular trends, then the answer is probably just to ignore the hyphen.

Unless there's an ambiguity without it.

Færd

As a general rule?

Tonepoet

Yeah, as a general rule.

Færd

18:50

That's so sad. I like the hyphen.

Tonepoet

Yeah, it's vaguely painful for me to even make that suggestion.

The more important matter is knowing whether the word should be compounded into one or not.

Færd

Which again there is no universal rule for.

Tonepoet

When the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 7th edition comes out, you may want to consider investing in that. I wouldn't suggest buying the 6th at this point, since abridged dictionaries usually come out once every 10 years, meaning that it should be on its way out.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…