English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2016-11-07

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12:02 AM

@snailplane Yes, apparently America uses /ɔ/ and Britain uses /o/. (I’ve given on pretending that [əʊ] and [əʊ] are phonemic distinctions, when clearly there are not.)

12:27 AM

@tchrist: one benefit of spelling-based phonemic transcriptions such as ō, ŏ and ô over IPA-based systems is that people aren't as tempted to fiddle with the system to make it closer to whatever phonetic values they use.

I don't feel like fiddling with /o/.

I simply make a distinction between /o/ and /e/ and their lax versions, and I recognize that minor off-glides happen.

Which are not phonemic and so should not be listed as such.

I'm happy with poke being /pok/ and pore being /por/.

I know that is not exactly a [p] let alone an [r]. I'm okay with that. Phonemics are more important here than phonetics.

Nearly no one needs the narrow phonetics with a unique diacritic on every has-been phoneme.

In other words, I’m embracing Lawler's umich.edu/~jlawler/modestproposal.pdf.

When two native speakers say the same word with different phonetics, it nearly never means that somebody else using a different phonetic system will think there has been a phonemic change and therefore a different word said.

1:13 AM

@Færd My google fu is terrible. I'm sure there are curricula wiht details and examples somewhere on-line, but I can't find it.

1:43 AM

What's a good word for 'bullshit' that is both not vulgar and also is not ... what's the word for it... stupid. Balderdash, hokum, twaddle, bunk ... these words are wither archaic or should be. They're embarassing to use because they sound like an old man smoking a cigar talking to old ladies drinking tea. But bullshit is embarassing for being taboo. WTF. Is there a good alternative?

@Mitch Nonsense?

Absurd?

Depends on context?

Do you have a sentence in mind?

2:17 AM

@Cerberus Quatsch

@Cerberus Hm...I forgot that.

Sigh...bullshit has such ... force.

Okay...

visceral disgust

nonsense is so ...

truthful

That is the right word. But ...

it is so anodyne in comparison.

cesspool has other conotations.

@Cerberus Every time I hear any news I want to say "That is the biggest load of X'

There's the set of logical and relevance fallacies, which assumes a kind of rationality on both parties but the performance is wanting.

Can you give an example of a news item, and explain why you think it's bollocks?

There is the set of descriptions by Schopenhauer, 38 ways..The Art of Being Right, which is like a hlf step below in rationality who to confuse your rhetorical opponents.

There needs to be a taxonomy of 'argumentation' a step below that in rationality. Name calling (as hominem is the rational side of that), distraction, actual physical violence.

@Cerberus Everything!!

Not everything. But a lot.

"Plane down over the ocean" is about the least BS-y

Mitch, I suggest you immediately take a three-day holiday wholly off-grid and dead to the world. I promise you'll be a more peaceful person for having done so.

2:25 AM

user image

(This lizard can drink only through its skin, not through its mouth. And it has a fake head to confuse predators. And it has prickly spines.)

'Russians behind blah blah internet blah blah scandal' is misleading. Doesn't lead to a solution.

@tchrist Exactly.

It is misleading because it doesn't lead to a solution?

@Cerberus You just don’t understand what it's like to be here right now. Everything it 100% bullshit, guaranteed.

That line doesn't help me understand it.

I was just thinking, you know how everybody claims that 1/2 the internet is porn, 1/2 is kitten videos, and the other 1/2 is math-illeterate Nazi skinheads on crack?

I don't think I've ever actually seen a cute cat video.

ashamed

2:28 AM

Does the Nazi 1/2 include the conspiracy part?

You haven't!??

@Cerberus That's bullshit!

@Cerberus Watch or listen to any U.S. news report right now.

well.. bullshit that has been successfully biologically implemented!

I don't think that will help me understand what word Mitch is looking for.

Madness.

2:29 AM

@Cerberus I know! What's wrong with me?

@tchrist That has a little more punch to it.

hallucinations.

but there's no defense against these techniques from the 'irrational' level of argumentation

@tchrist Or most any one for the past year and a half.

all because of one guy.

13 Cute Kittens Video Compilation 2016

Reality is better than youtube.

@Mitch Erase him from the timeline and the fundamental problem remains unaltered.

@tchrist I just watched one. Kittens are stupid. I must be a monster.

You need live ones.

@tchrist reality is boring.

@tchrist no doubt. I keep trying to do that same mental game of 'what if all of X weren't mentioned, what would happen then?'

@tchrist I've had cats before. Dogs too. Animals are great.

wolverines... kind of a handful.

2:38 AM

The nation now conducts its business in the Bizarro world of tawdry tabloids.

We no longer seek to find any other solution to someone disagreeing with our position than destroying them in any way possible.

At least not all of your tabloids are owned by a handful of insane billionaires.

You don't understand.

It isn't the tabloids.

Then again, your presidential "districts" are bigger.

It's that there is nothing but tabloid journalism now.

And that's the least of the problems.

All I'm saying is that the British media are worse.

2:40 AM

The proper measure of man is man.

Or woman.

Don't talk about Britain.

doesn't

It lowers us to even mention someone else than where the problem is.

Study the thing for itself.

The real problem is that facts no longer matter, truth no longer matters, that what you want things to be creates an impenetrable bubble of twisted reality.

And nobody thinks there's anything wrong with that.

It's probably the result of polarisation.

Which is partly the result of bipartisanity.

Which is the result of the electoral system.

2:44 AM

This is new.

It didn't happen fifty years ago, and the system has not changed during that time.

There was something that held it back.

Its name was rapid economic expansion.

Cf. the military expansion of the Roman Empire and its continuous influx of spoils and power.

It first came to prominence in the 90s, and has exploded in recent years so that there is no longer any attempt at understanding or working towards common goals. The Enemy in the Enemy, and you shall have no truck with the enemy. You will not open the door for him. You will spit in his face every chance you get. You will not decry violent attacks on his person.

As long as the cake gets bigger and bigger, a lot of problems can be solved by buying them off again and again.

I'm actually envious of your unawareness of this shit.

Is that a polite thing to say?

2:48 AM

Shit?

It is not a polite time.

Especially to someone who has read various articles on the subject?

I am envious that you have no visceral reaction to what's happening here, no urge to vomit.

Oh, I have it.

I did not intend to be rude.

I remember my friend was crying when Bush jr was reëlected.

2:50 AM

I am envious that you are less mortified than those of us who have been stuck head-down in the outhouse for a year and a half.

Well, it affects me less, of course.

But you, too, can skip the news bulletins!

@Cerberus I remember being that friend who cried when Bush jr was elected. And more when he was "elected" even.

We were too young when he was first elected.

At any rate, the world did not collapse.

I wept.

I think we were 16 or 17.

She didn't know or care enough.

(Hmm it's interesting how she didn't know or care enough and she didn't know nor care enough mean different things—don't they?)

2:52 AM

That was the beginning of the lying season when it became fashionable to lie to the world and to ourselves. It hasn't stopped yet.

@Cerberus Probably those mean the same. I thought about this the other day.

It's also partly the result of centuries of emancipation.

"centuries of emancipation"?

I'm sure I do not know what that might mean.

She didn't know nor care enough = she didn't know (enough) and she didn't care enough. Agreed?

She didn't know enough. She didn't care enough.

Both or and nor on a coördinated negation lead to that same sense.

@tchrist When people could be cowed into following the upper classes, some rules of play were usually kept up.

She didn't know or care enough = she didn't know (enough) or she didn't care enough. Don't you think this reading is reasonable?

I think nor can mean "and not" and "or not"?

2:56 AM

She neither knew enough nor cared enough.

Especially after neither, it means "or not".

She both didn't know enough and she didn't care enough.

@tchrist You could perhaps read it that way, but I also think my reading is possible?

Only on a circuit board.

Meh.

2:59 AM

Planet Earth II: Official Extended Trailer - BBC Earth

When we're in a ripple, we don't realise yet that it won't be a tsunami.

@Mitch In wildness is the preservation of this world, a balm against the madness.

@Cerberus Not the west but some could say things are horrible in some parts of the ME because of Bush Jr.

Yes.

He did some serious damage.

Then again, someone is always doing some damage somewhere.

@Cerberus Rule of law is more modern, emancipation is part of that. That is, I disagree.

3:04 AM

On a larger scale, it's not so bad.

@Mitch I'm not sure what you mean.

I'm talking about manners and truthfulness in press and parliament.

@tchrist red in tooth and claw.

Strongman (politics)

A strongman is a political leader who rules by force and runs an authoritarian regime or totalitarian regime. The term is often used interchangeably with "dictator" in the western world, but differs from a "warlord" and commonly lacks the negative connotations especially in some Eastern European and Central Asian countries. A strongman is not necessarily always a formal head of state or head of government; sometimes journalists use the term to describe a military or political figure who exercises far more influence over the government than a local constitution allows. General Manuel Noriega, for...

@Cerberus Oh.

I don't really know what manners were like a long time ago except what I see in movies and that's fiction.

Better, mostly, with notable exceptions (Nazi press and parliament, McCarthyism, etc.).

@Mitch and with no language but a cry

3:18 AM

Rawr!

I think the advent of universal suffrage, which let the Socialists/Labour into parliament, at first brought horrible breaches of etiquette, but after a few decades they toned it down and became 100% salonfähig.

@Cerberus There's a difference though. McCarthy could read.

They who? The Lumpenproletariat?

But the evil? That is much in the same tattered vein.

Because raw populism was not as prominent then as it would be after the sixties, when the people emancipated even more (less respect for authority, tradition, rules), and when economic expansion was bridled.

3:20 AM

anti-elitism?

@tchrist Indeed: he was probably not as untruthful and vulgar as Trump.

wasn't the enlightenment anti-elitist?

Yes, anti-elitism, but also just simply vulgar manners and thoughts entering public discourse for the first time.

The enlightenment was anti-elitist at first, and that is one of the earlier stages in the emancipation of the lower classes.

Which is good and bad.

Democracy and emancipation are the lesser evils, you know.

emancipation also included education formerly only for the upper-class

I like the youtbue video of the cats that won't let the dogs past.

that's funny

the dog is always trying to follow rules, but the cat just stands there.

It is those who saw the evil yet said nought against it all the while hoping to hold their nose while riding in its putrid wake in a hellride to victory who deserve the greatest blame and the hottest flame.

3:27 AM

Yeah I know. I blame the cat

Man I love daylight saving time changing to standard. Should be done in the spring too.

@Mitch Exactly.

@Mitch That's what my life feels like.

> two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets.

@tchrist Indeed, it is good to fight it.

@Cerberus which are you? The dog? The cat? or the human goading on both of them?

I'm the stairway.

But it is also good not become despondent and remember it's not as terribly important as it may seem now.

@Mitch The dog!

3:35 AM

Things are getting better.

@Mitch So emancipation and education gave the common people more of a voice.

except in those instances where it's not.

And this voice does not always speak what the educated want to hear.

It changed the discourse.

@Cerberus and also more rationalism supposedly.

Somewhat more. But don't overestimate all but those who have benefited from higher education.

They're smart and independened enough to write, but what they write is often poor.

Or shout, etc.

But, then, it will blow over.

3:38 AM

I have to submit to the irrationalism of my own neural chemical bag random firings. Later!

There used to be a Flemish populist-discriminatory party.

They contained it with a cordon sanitaire for decades: they were not allowed to take part in government.

hello people, I just took the SAT! :)

In the end, that worked, more or less, and they're basically gone now.

Hello, how did it go?

it went pretty GOOD

ha r u triggered

it went well

k

@WidowMaven Waaaaahhh!

Good for you!

Do use capitals and punctuation here.

3:40 AM

But, I have a question about the difference between "on the other hand" and "to that end".

On the other hand = I'm mentioning two semi-contradictory statements, and now I stating the second one.

To that end = for that purpose.

3 hours later…

6:19 AM

@WidowMaven Figurative use of "on the other hand" is typically used to introduce the second of two competing considerations. As Cerberus mentioned, these can be semi-contradictory statements, such as in the case where we are trying to form a hypothesis, but I'd say it's a little broader in overall application, like we might list two different sets of pros/cons when trying to make a decision.

6:34 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer: Is "discuss about" grammatically incorrect? by sundarrajp on english.stackexchange.com

1 hour later…

7:52 AM

@AndrewLeach I like what you think!

@Cerberus I see. Thanks.

6 hours later…

2:03 PM

it´s not in english? — Joao Gomes 54 mins ago

Good thing he didn't post us his php question in Portuguese, eh!

user227867

2:48 PM

@Tonepoet I went for the interview today, and I said some things which shocked her, lol.

@JasperLoy Let's hope that doesn't hurt your chances of getting a fair tuition. XP

user227867

@Tonepoet I don't really need it. I only really need to get well. Other things are just tangential. She asked how I finished my degree even though I had gotten sick then. I said I used only 1 per cent of my abilities, which is why I did not do very well...

user227867

@Tonepoet You might be interested in this question, lol:

user227867

2

Q: Bidirectional Italian-English dictionary with more than 400,000 translations

I am looking for a large Italian-English bidirectional dictionary. Currently, the Oxford Paravia Italian Dictionary (third edition) with 450,000 translations is out of print, and the Collins Italian Dictionary (third edition) only has 230,000 translations. What paper dictionary can I use if I wan...

@JasperLoy Itallian Stack Exchange allows that sort of question on the main website?

How strange, since the Japanese and English ones don't.

3:57 PM

These style guides sure do drop in price quickly. I just got the Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition recently at a thrift store.

Mkay so I wasn't aware of this:

Google Translate Sings: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

4:17 PM

@RegDwigнt I'm crying

She does a version of Frozen's "Let It Go" which becomes "Give Up"

user227867

5:05 PM

@Tonepoet Why didn't you get the sixteenth? Why?

user227867

@Tonepoet Anyway, CMOS uses MW Collegiate as its primary dict.

7:56 PM

> So let's embrace turtle power and take it slow.
> If you're willing to respect her boundaries, take it slow with her
> I'm just saying take it slowly, you don't have to move real fast.
> Take it slowly and try delaying orgasm until you can't hold out anymore.

(All from COCA)

So, take it slow or slowly?

"Yes"

Thanks.

I think slow would work well as an object complement sort of thing.

And slowly too as an adverb modifying take.

I like slow better, but I'm not sure if it's considered correct in Standard English.

8:38 PM

I'd say take it slow/easy is colloquial anyway.

> colloquial

does not look like dutch

Indeed not.

Should it?

8:58 PM

dunno, looks very fancy

@JasperLoy Mostly 'cause I don't have a need to strictly adhere to Chicago style, new copies of the 16th would cost ten times as much as I paid for the 15th and most importantly, it wasn't at the secondhand store anyway.

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