That's a super-duper bird-plane-locomotive-man of steel!

If there was any comic book hero I'd want to be, it'd be Batman actually.

Sherlock Holmes' truest rival for the title of World's Greatest Detective.

Ah hey guys, I think somebody may need to have a little chat with the folk over at E.L.L. 'cause they're trespassing on our property, so to speak. I doubt etymology helps English Language learners comprehend daily conversational English much at all, and many of us seem to be dying for topical questions here.

I think somebody else who has better understanding of the policies of both E.L.L. and E.L.U., and the general Stack Exchange Network, would be better apt. to make a claim of that sort though.

I slept. Now I'm awake.

I lack a regular sleeping pattern.

Perhaps that is the case.

When a bad answer gets highly upvoted, it seems like it's going to be the one that gets voted up to the top. =\

Does anyone really think this kind of question belongs in our site mission?

@curiousdannii I think I would be the most likely person to say yes to these sorts of things, but I think he should just buy a copy of the book.

Or find it in a library.

Wow, I'm surprised that the users people are so tolerant. We're usually quick to close questions for minor errors and this is just such an egregious violation of the rules as I know them that I can't even fathom there being a reason for that topic to remain visible...

Do pseudo-random-generators have a finite period? (even it is very large)

@caub Based on this, which seems implicitly under-girded by Kolmogorov complexity, pseudo-random number generators do look like they have finite periods.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Non-English link in answer, non-Latin link in answer: House keeping or house cleaning? by user191218 on english.stackexchange.com

@curiousdannii The whole category of "What's an English equivalent to this (foreign language) proverb?" seems to have been well-received on EL&U. @Yoichi Oishi's question seems to be asked on that basis, though the wording could be clearer to distinguish the question from Gen Ref.

@Lawrence This isn't asking for an equivalent in English. The equivalent is known to be the same. Other translation questions are off-topic.

If it's edited to be more clearly an etymology question, I'll follow through on my promise though.

@Tonepoet Fair enough, though it's not etymology he's after.

I responded to that.

Does something confuse you about my response?

I know.

That's why it's off topic.

It has no question of grammar, including etymology and no problem that is specific to the English Language.

@Tonepoet No, I understand the comment you posted in reply. It's just that it doesn't address his claim of asking for an English version of something that is close to a Japanese proverb. Note that I'm assuming the original newspaper quote that he referenced was in Japanese, which he translated to English for the question. At the heart of it, I understand that the issue is that the question comes across as "find this quote", when the intent stated in the OP's comment claims otherwise.

I'm confused now. Are you suggesting that he's making a valid translation request for a phrase he already knows?

'Cause "There ain't no such thing as a stupid question!" and variants thereof are perfectly idiomatic.

@Tonepoet I don't think he knew the original English quote verbatim, but perhaps half-remembered it, and had some idea of its source. I'm also not saying that the question as posted is clearly on-topic. However, I am saying that the OP is claiming an idiom-translation request (a category which the ELU community has accepted as on-topic) coupled with a request for the original source.

Oh, I see.

The fact that the 'idiom' asked about wasn't the traditional Japanese idiom, but rather the (assumed) Japanese translation of a commentator's words, those words possibly in English, muddies the water a lot.

I think I might've read a different version of that comment before making mine but I'm not sure now.

I've just checked - the newspaper is accessible online in English. Anyway, for completeness, here's the picture I now have: Oleg Verniaiev said, "It’s a useless question" (presumably in English). It was reported in The Yomiuri (in English or Japanese). The OP (native Japanese speaker) thinks it looks like a Japanese proverb, half remembers an English source, and wants to check the similarity, so posts a question with all his research and prior understanding.

okay, so I've deleted my comment and made a new one.

@Tonepoet I think the new comment addresses the issue properly now.

Bleh, I totally misread. I hope i wasn't too destructive.

@Lawrence So what do you think about searching for quotes in books anyway?

Topical or not? I mean you know my opinion but I want somebody else's take on it.

@Tonepoet By the way, you probably already know that the OP has asked many questions that set the bar for asking good ELU questions (referenced from ELL). Everyone has a down-day now and then. Imagine if we could encourage more people like him to stay on ELU by working through to determine their intent :) .

@Tonepoet My initial reaction is that it's off-topic as Gen Ref, but let me think about it for a bit.

What's really going to be ironic is that if the questioner asks the question he wants answered, I think the others are going to want it shut down. =|

@Tonepoet Here are the principles I think are relevant, established from prior meta posts I recall. First, the question should be of interest to etymologists, linguists or serious English enthusiasts (ELU's target audience). Second, 'general references' don't include web searches. They do, however, include dictionaries and the like. Third, 'research' refers primarily to checking the ELU database for prior questions and answers on the topic. (cont'd ...)

@Lawrence Okay, I'm waiting.

(... cont'd) Based on these principles, (1) straight 'look it up for me' quote searches are off-topic because they aren't of interest to the target audience; but (2) quote searches that couple with topics that are of interest to the target audience are on-topic. (cont'd ...)

(... cont'd) So my conclusion is that plain quote look-ups can legitimately be closed with a custom close reason (the canned reasons don't really fit - including Gen Ref and No Research), but if there's something more, then the quote-lookup would be part of the fuller discussion. The look-up itself should be somehow integral to the 'something more'; the extra shouldn't just be an excuse to get the lookup through.

@Tonepoet Your thoughts on this line of reasoning?

So just to be clear, you don't think Gen. Ref. would include looking in a common book, if it's specifically named?

Or were you speaking more generally?

I agree with #2 by the way, since that's more like the nature of corroboration and research fulfillment.

@Tonepoet I think Gen Ref refers only to reference material, as the term implies. If a specifically-named book (I assume you mean things like Great Expectations and the like) isn't reference material, then by definition it isn't general reference material.

@Tonepoet Sorry, I don't follow this bit - 'more generally' than what?

Than the case at hand, I meant. Anyway, I was just wondering what sites other than E.L.U. and E.L.L. consider Gen. Ref.

@Tonepoet Yes, good answers to questions of this sort would probably include the original references anyway.

'cause if I recall correctly, that's a network-wide close reason.

@Tonepoet Oh, yes, I took your question to be one of general policy, rather than simply about Yoichi Oishi's question.

Would you have the same opinion if it was named "not-sufficiently-interesting" rather than General Reference?

I guess the addenda would remain the same come to think of it.

@Tonepoet Yes, you're right. Here's the accepted answer to the post requesting Gen Ref as a close reason. As you can see, just because something is 'general reference' doesn't automatically disqualify it from being on-topic. It's trivial general reference that is off-topic SE-wide. What counts as legitimately general reference material depends somewhat on the particular community.

I wonder who heads the site right now.

@Tonepoet I think the operative word is trivial - i.e. you can just look it up in a repository that the target audience of that SE site should be familiar with (hence dictionaries and the like, for ELU). If that's all there is to it, then it may be closed as Gen Ref. Calling it 'not sufficiently interesting' would open a huge can of worms due to the subjective element.

@Lawrence That makes sense. The Primarily Opinion Based close reason already irks me for that reason.

I mean I know we need something like it, but it's read far too liberally.

@Tonepoet I'm not sure. But I like the structure of reasoned policy-making as well as the practical application of those policies, and hope that continues regardless of who's in charge.

@Lawrence That's a nice wish, but keep in mind the (\$-$/).

@Lawrence yes that's what they say too here, thanks. If I was bored I'd try to bruteforce that period

@Tonepoet Someone recently claimed that there is a limit to the number of close reasons that are allowed on the list. I agree with the sentiment that all the close reasons on each site's charter should be allowed on the list. There is the custom close-reason, which voters can select (and provide details for) if the question is off-topic but the canned reasons don't apply.

@Tonepoet The mods and the regulars do a pretty good job of it at ELU. That's also one of the nice things about this particular community.

All I'm saying is that whomever pays the bills ultimately makes the rules, but they're presently thoughtful enough to defer that decision to us, sans the terms of service.

@caub The idea is that the period can be made arbitrarily large - say, longer than the time to the expected remaining life of the universe. :)

@Tonepoet Ah, but it doesn't cost anything to have volunteers who like to maintain the rules maintain the rules. :)

well the 'period' is just a number there, with some incredible computing speed, it might be done before you die :). But it's not easy to a period from a sequence

@Tonepoet But yes, Meta.SE extends this idea one more level, but they need to have someone overseeing the whole thing at some stage. Maybe even pay them.

@Lawrence That's true and an element of genius for the design, but nobody can volunteer to moderate a website that doesn't have a host, and I doubt any of the free webhosts would provide for S.E.

Just how do we get ad revenue anyway? Or any for that matter? I know people used to buy S.E. sites, but they don't anymore.

@caub That number might be huge - I think it's exponential in the number of bits of relevant information. Quantum computing might help since the number of qubits should grow linearly with the number of bits of relevant information. However, I read some time ago that the resources required to make qubits stable might be significant (possibly non-linear in the number of qubits in a single installation), but I don't have the details on hand.

that's really interesting, I heard about them, will read more :)

@Tonepoet Provide services for companies looking to hire people?

@Lawrence Heh, take another look at the question. My first instinct was right, it's not a translation request. Any thoughts on that new comment?

More of an etymology question, I think?

"Both Josh61 and Dreadrat whom I respect as the reputable user of EL&U kindly advised me where the quoted line is from, which differes from the source the Yomiuri's editor quoted, and read by 9 million plus Japanese readers. It was great finding, I believe, only available from knowledgeable EL&U colleagues."

@Tonepoet The "9 million plus Japanese readers" suggests that the newspaper version the OP quoted from was in Japanese, which slants the question back towards the multiple-translation aspect I mentioned earlier. I agree that both answers addressed other aspects of the translation, one of which was etymology. It appears that the look-up was integral to the question, but if someone had suggested a lookup not close to the Japanese idiom, I doubt it would have satisfied the OP.

My brain feels like mush right now.

@Tonepoet :) . I'll invite Yoichi Oishi to look through our discussion and see if it may prompt an edit to make the question more firmly on-topic.

Hmm, I somehow doubt it since he got his answer but like you said, he seems to have a good record of asking questions so perhaps.

@Lawrence Thank you. I though maybe some are unidiomatic, or one is more idiomatic than the others.

@Færd NP :) . "At a bet" is not really idiomatic unless bet referred to an event. For the others, it depends on what you want to express. So ... what did you want to express?

I guess I got the hang of it, thanks to you.

@Færd You're welcome :) .

.

> A/The tulip is the national emblem of Holland.

> The national emblem of Holland is a/the tulip.

I don't know for sure; maybe either one works?

Yeah, but which one sounds more natural? I'd guess the in the former and a in the latter.

Both sound fine to me, using "the". When there is a choice like this, a rule of thumb is that the earlier term is emphasised. Another rule of thumb is to consider the preceding question, if present. E.g. "What is the national emblem of Holland? The national emblem ..." vs "What's so special about the tulip? The tulip is ..."

I see.

I've seen the sentence with a here and there.

@Færd A = One of indefinitely many tulips, hence why it's sometimes called the indefinite article, so unless only one tulip is the one and only tulip that can claim that title I wouldn't use "a".

"The" can be applied to the species specifically known as tulip though.

@Færd It doesn't work with the first, but "The national emblem of Holland is a tulip" can work, but may be taken slightly differently.

@Tonepoet Yes, but not always.

> A tulip can be red, yellow, or even white.

Let me see if I can find the sentences.

I don't understand how that's a counterexample.

It's a generalization, not about only one specific tulip. The can work there too.

That's arguable actually. You see, any tulip has the potential to be those colors if you don't already know what color it is . If the sentence was "A tulip is red, yellow, or even white." then perhaps I'd concede the point.

But I doubt think most people would use "is" in that case.

> A cat is stronger than a mouse.

How about this one?

Ah, you edited it. XP

Yeah!

That means "Any one cat is stronger than any one mouse".

Would you say "Any one tulip is the national flower of Holland"?

I just meant to give a counterexample.

These excerpts are from the Culture note on this page:

It's very similar to the rule I described above though. There's an emphasis on the oneness aspect. Early lexicographers like Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster considered "An" and "One" synonyms, and while there are times that isn't the case, it usually applies when one is being used as a pronoun.

> England's official emblem is a red rose.

> Scotland has the thistle (= a prickly weed) as its official emblem

I'm just talking about cases where "a" can be applied right now. Syntactically most determiners can substitute for it.

Would it be accurate to say there's only one red rose in the emblem?

The emblem itself is one red rose.

@Færd That makes it sound like the emblem is a particular image of a rose, and that other pictures of red roses would not be considered England's official emblem. If it was "is the red rose" then any red rose would be considered England's emblem.

@curiousdannii That's a good point.

I guess it boils down to whether you see the emblem as a representative or as a thing in and of itself.

If it's a representative, then the works better.

I think that's a decent enough way of looking at it, even if I'm not completely sure of the statement's accuracy.

It doesn't make sense that an emblem should be a picture of just one rose.

But if we see the emblem itself as a rose (not a picture of something else), then it's a rose, not the rose.

@curiousdannii So wait though, does that mean any tumbleweed is Scotland's emblem?

I'd think their emblem would also be a specific picture of a tumbleweed.

I guess not: the kind, the species is the emblem.

@Færd Well for something like the Tudor rose it's a very specific symbol. Any old red rose would not count.

As I tried to say earlier, the form "A [whatever] is the emblem of [country]" is not idiomatic, but "The emblem of [country] is a/the [whatever]" are both fine.

See you all in the transcripts. Bye!

Bye.

So it would be more appropriate to say "the Tudor heraldry is a red rose" than "the red rose", but it's more appropriate to say "The symbol of Valentine's day is the red rose" than "a red rose". Well, that's what I'd say at least. They're not too unnatural.

@Lawrence That's what my intuition tells me, and I guess I expressed it at the beginning.

But, all the same, I think "A [whatever] is the emblem of [country]" can be justified.

@Josh61 Oh, as long as you're here, I wasn't sure what you meant by this question: "Wouldn't that require competent knowledge to provide referenced answers on all those topics?" Would you please clarify?

@anongoodnurse I've always wondered why humility is such a big deal. I mean lack of it in others is pretty annoying but I feel like there are other worse things that should be complained about first. How about face punching? A humble face puncher or a boastful pacifist? Passive aggressive or aggressive aggressive?

@anongoodnurse If everyone is beautiful then no one is beautiful.

I want to be an example for everyone else to feel proud about how humble they are despite being better than me.

> Four years ago, Jane was twice as old as Sam. Four years on from now, Sam will be 3/4 of Jane's age. How old is Jane now?

@Mitch I hope you're kidding, but I don't know. I don't think a truly humble person would punch someone in the face, unless it was to defend self or other.

@caub White. The bear is white.

good answer

@anongoodnurse Um. I have no idea why you would connect humbleness with an aversion to violence, but can we take this to the main room? We really should only be discussing election stuff here.

@caub not necessarily. But I think almost all currently in use, which have the additional property of being repeatable, probably do. If they're based on a deterministic recurrence, then yes they must have a finite period.

@caub setting up the linear equation is painful mentally, but just trying some ages, and seeing if the criteria match, then updating your guess appropriately is much easier to do.

← 7 messages moved from 2016 English Language Moderator Election

@anongoodnurse So, why would a truly humble person be less likely to punch someone than a less humble one?

I'm gonna ask wolfram, I'm too lazy to solve a 2 unknown/2 eqs system

2 and 4

(twice as old)

in four years, 6 and 8, for 3/4

easier to check a guessed answer than it is to find the correct answer from scratch

nah it's t-4 and t+4, so a 8 years gap

@terdon dealing humility and aggression are very important parts of moderation.

is there a meta-election room?

@caub oh.

@Mitch Dealing them as in "three for a nickel"? Did you forget a with there or should that have been doling?

4 and 8 then?

@terdon haha. yes. both would work.

Jane is 12 I think

oh sure J=12 and S = 8 now

8 and 4, 4 years ago and 16 and 12 4 years from now.

easy to check, hard to specify the linear equations.

or hard er

haha jinx

Because of this discourse I've made a little chatroom to discuss the difference between E.L.L. and E.L.U. if anybody's interested.

@JasperLoy Ah sorry. I know the Buddhist lingo. is a little more rigid than typical English. If I was to say "Well, that was an enlightening experience" in a Sangha it'd probably be taken to either mean something that was necessarily profoundly divine, or blasphemy... Or maybe not, but I think probably.

@Tonepoet Is there blasphemy in Buddhism? "If you meet the Buddha in the road, you should at least say hi, I mean don't be schmuck"

Arguably, one eighth of the whole religion is "Right Speech"‌​.

Say kind rather than mean things things, speak honestly, &c.

So I guess you could say violating the tenet is blasphemy in a sense, albeit not in the most traditional one.

Maybe Heresy is a better word for it.

^ Buddhism in a nutshell.

Of course the "what to do" bit, usually comes after the why to do it bit, which is the four noble truths:

Hmm, either the system's stopping me or I just posted two more images and can't see it. I don't really need a graphic for that though I guess. The Fact that there is suffering. What Cause of suffering is: (essentially desire). The fact that suffering can be ended, and what we can do to achieve that goal which starts with that eightfold path up there.