Schnellsprechregeln

Is it offensive to refer to a black person as a black?

Hmm, sounds like it is.

Never mind.

@Færd I would advise against using the indefinite article with racial nouns generally.

@Will You're almost at 50 upvotes for your question.

@Tonepoet unless they are white. Can't insult a white.

@RegDwigнt I'd guess you know better than anybody. Judging from your picture, you're white as snow!

@tchrist this just in: this world has more than two cats. You do not own 100% of all cats in this world. © 2016 Reuters.

@RegDwigнt My cat also wasn't crying though! Doesn't that cover the remainder?

My cat never cries at all, because I do not have one, so technically I am the one covering the remainder.

@WillHunting Hmm, I've had grape juice before but I doubt I've had kyoho grape juice.

@WillHunting Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you that the American Heritage Dictionary and Webster's New World dictionary have alphabetical indexes on the Your Dictionary website.

@WillHunting I think I read something to that effect on the Your Dictionary website. I think it's some sort of exclusivity deal or something like that.

@WillHunting Why would Houghton Mifflin need two american english dictionaries?

@WillHunting Maybe they did it to acquire rights to the other dictionaries. I noticed Webster's New World had specialty dictionaries too. Also hi @Arrowfar

Even just the A.H.D. is amazing in that regard...

On the Oxford Learner's website?

@Arrowfar Yeah, it's quite convenient most of the time.

@Arrowfar Well it's mostly just me and Jasper talking about it. . . >_>

@Arrowfar I've been listening to recordings on Cambridge's site in particular. The others often sound like they use speech synthesis software, which might not pronounce the word very well at all.

@Arrowfar I think it's actually based upon a printed one, with a buyable C.D. R.O.M.

That's why I always cite the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus when I link to their website. That's what it links to under most of their definitions (for the "British" entries) .

I don't have the fullest of faith in any speech to text transcription system to be fully lossless.

Thank you @WillHunting.

Good morning.

@Arrowfar OED is dreamy. I can barely mention AHD since I saw her exchanging IPA with Collins. Langenscheidt? Yes, I had some wonderful times with her and she had such great proverbs, but that wasn't serious, was it?

@WillHunting Seriously, IPA is great, but it just really doesn't give you the feel for an accent.

Dude!

What's up?

@Arrowfar that's all I do. except when I write

@Arrowfar Forvo has longer sentences, not just single words.

But usually an accent is only apparent with a paragraph.

It usually takes a longer passage to find that one single phoneme that is obviously different.

Yes, youtube and movies. The problem there is that no one says "This is an X accent" so even if you can get a consistent idea of how it sounds, it's not always obvious to label it is it Scottish or irish English? That kind of thing

@Arrowfar The trick is to think of what the most exaggerated, stereotypical, almost insultingly racist accent is of what you're trying to mimic.

It feels bad, but that tends to be closest to the accent you're trying to match

@Arrowfar I'm always annoyed by foreigners who come from some poor country and not necessarily well-educated or in a position to do much foreign communication or has very difficult circumstances, and then they apologize for there slight accent and rare grammar mistakes.

EG In the English news, they're always talking to some poor Syrian refugee who was in Turkey for a year learning Turkish, and then is in Norway, and speaks to the reporter in English. No time or money for language teaching in any of those places, but speaks well.

@Arrowfar It is on topic. Usually we don't talk about English. You should see the math room. all math all the time.

It just seems strange to hear someone be so modest about something they're actually very good at.

It's a talent.

@Arrowfar That's the difficulty. What sounds exotic and humorous and denigrating of the foreign language to the learner's ear is actually closer to the real accent. It can be difficult to figure when you're really making fun of someone or being accurate in your accent.

@Arrowfar mostly. there was a recent ELU question about learning speaking and hearing online for free. THere should be one for every language.

Duolingo is a great free start. but there's nothing for the next stage.

I ain't never done no grandma mistake

hi!

@Arrowfar you realize that only twenty-five years ago most people in the US and Europe didn't have the internet.

@MattE.Эллен You don't know the half of your grandmother's mistakes.

must be difficult to sit down

It's not as bad as you think

kneel

@Mitch some things are better left unread

I think we got access to the Internet when I was 17 or maybe 16.

So about 15 years ago.

We got a f. 700 phone bill when I had been chatting a lot.

(Slow, phone-line Internet access.)

Hello.

700 guilders would be like €400 now.

you spell guilders with an f?

crazy Dutch

@MattE.Эллен some things are better left... Well, I just better not then.

but not your vegetable. always eat your greens

@MattE.Эллен them's fancy dutch guilders

Salad is just so ... not filling.

wikipedia tells me it's short for florin. which makes PERFECT SENSE

@MattE.Эллен wikipedia is the worst. they'll tell you anything.

they'll tell me anything I tell them to

like the abbreviation is for pound is lb.

@MattE.Эллен gets idea

I always pronounce that lub

rewrites wikipedia with my facts

just like brands do!

@MattE.Эллен I say 'ilb'

@Mitch you would

different strokes need different surgery

@MattE.Эллен no. I did.

you would if you tried, but I suppose you won't/

so you wouldn't?

No.

@Mitch of course not

I mean yes.

By saying no I mean yes

ah, you're one of those types

stuck in a permanent opposite day

hahaha. I didn't mean that

By which I mean that I meant that

@MattE.Эллен If it's opposite day, you can't say it's opposite day. because that would mean it's not opposite day. so you're lying.

I only just got that the other day.

All these years of playing opposite day. You let down your guard once, and it all falls apart.

@Mitch It's only opposites day for you, so I can say that, but it's not opposites day for me

No one ever says "it's opposite day, for you"

That's just cruelty

@Mitch @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 managed to say something similar to his children

Like placing a half dead mouse in front of a cat.

@Mitch when they refute it, you just say "duh, that's what I just told you"

taunting the cat with your rules of fair play.

@MattE.Эллен Maybe that's where I learned it.

Or TV.

No offense but not terribly different

@MattE.Эллен 'Duh!' People are so dumb.

>! Does this become invisible quoted if I use >! ?

No, I guess not.

spoiler hiding is not a feature of chat

@MattE.Эллен I am distraught at such a lack of foresight.

I need it now for a whim.

you can write a script so that anything typed like that will be hidden from you. although, it's likely only you would know to do it

That's exactly the use case. I want something to be hidden from me and not any body else. It is very disturbing information that would cause me irreparable harm to read it. But I need to tell others about it.

I'll show you

I really don't want to see the fact that I ... that I... this is hard to say... uh oh. I just thought it.

Well, that's ruined now.

oh well. I'm sure it's for the worst.

you have no idea.

If that feature were available, you would have an idea and I wouldn't.

That's what I want!!\

I can keep a secret from you easy. It's teling you a secret I want to keep from myself that I want technology to solve.

like an unprivate key

or a password that is easy to break but I've forgotten already.

that sounds pointless and hard. interesting

an exercise in futility

basically like exercise

it doesn't get you anywhere

what do you call exercise that gets you somewhere?

like why aren't treadmills and walking desks plugged in? You should be creating energy for everyone else.

@MattE.Эллен 'going somewhere', 'getting something done'

weird I know.

Whereas with eating, by itself it's good and good for you.

@Mitch but it also exercises you by doing those things!

@MattE.Эллен I'm tired thinking about it. I'll be sore about it later.

if running while eating a burger means that all the bad of the burger is cancelled out by the running, does running while eating a salad mean you'll live twice as long?

Yes. It's like the wind at your back or going downhill.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Jack Handy's

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. Then when you judge him, you're a mile a way and he has no shoes.

@Arrowfar Cows are like that. fact checks with wikipedia Yes, cows are definitely like that.

@WillHunting I'm reading it. I wonder why do N.O.A.D's. contributors feel the need to note that Woe is often humorous. I mean I know "Oh woe is me, boo-hoo-hoo." is more likely to be an ironic statement than not, but I don't think it's the job of a dictionary to identify irony, except in the definition of the word irony itself. It's hard enough for native speakers to do that in the written word even with a provided context.

Also ironic humor is more or less defined by the ability of a word to be perceived as being contrary to the word's meaning. Defining a word that achieve its humorous effect through irony as being humorous, well, I think The Joker put it best:

@Tonepoet

Lies

Explaining the joke only makes it more funny

My mum told me I'm the funniest man in the world.

She also said she wasn''t disappointed in me but that was a lie

@Demisemihemidemisemiquaver I'd grab a clip of Harley saying "That's so sad." 'cause without any degree of certainty, I think she said something like that, but I can't find it now if she did.

Also, nice to meet you

I'm usually absent over the summer, so you probably came about then

I'm pretty much a regular around the school year if people are talking

@Demisemihemidemisemiquaver I was making posts from June through December of 2015 and I don't recall seeing you at all during the winter months. After that, I took a hiatus.

Yeah that's about when I came in

I mostly just sat around the Writing room before that

@Demisemihemidemisemiquaver Hmm, that must mean by "usually around the school year" just the remainder of winter and spring of this year. I somewhat doubt that's a sufficient sample to indicate your seasonal tendencies.

Granted, if anybody knows, it'd be you though.

@WillHunting Words, they disgust me.

What with their meaning and naming and sounding like things

@WillHunting "Do you think you can tell hot air from a cool breeze?"

@Mitch I've got just the word for you! It's ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious.

@Tonepoet scratches chin

straightens up in recognition!

hits head on burning steam duct work

@WillHunting entirely pointless

@Tonepoet I agree. sarcasm is extra-lexical. its the domain of pragmatism. a dictionary should specify explicit denotations and common connotations. And a metaphorical usage shouldn't get its own entry until there is ample evidence of its conscious usage that way

I'll put that in my list of edicts when I become emperor.

@Demisemihemidemisemiquaver I don't get it

@Demisemihemidemisemiquaver I'm irregular when people are talking.

C'est le cas de le dire...back in a second.

@Will You mean O.D.O?

How strange is that? I always thought of Oxford as being overly inclusive, if any criticism can be made of it.

@WillHunting You might want to consider buying the 4th edition of The American Heritage Dictionary. Amazon reviewers people say it's better than the fifth because it has more usage notes and I just saw a copy in person recently. You can also find it for about 13 bucks used on the amazon marketplace.

Maybe if you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for a dictionary, you won't be so reluctant to buy one. =P

@WillHunting The fourth edition is also lovely, I think. It has color pictures which is something I wasn't expecting since the first and third used grey scale.

@WillHunting All of the paperback dictionaries are quite horrible abridgments of their hardcover counterparts. They're designed to be small and lightweight, rather than comprehensive and detailed.

@WillHunting You have to subscribe to get the unabridged exclusive contents.

@WillHunting It's not that strange actually. Merriam-Webster's bread and butter is the collegiate dictionary. The Third New International Dictionary was first printed in 1961.