English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user227867

00:34

@Tonepoet I see. OK. Well, Bryan Garner who wrote some chapter in there wrote a few other books.

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy Yeah, I think I have one I mentioned to you the other day.

user227867

@Tonepoet Maybe you can change your username too. =)

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy I know I can on this website, but I doubt I will. My email addresses uses my secondary username which I use when Tonepoet is already taken, but otherwise I've been using this name since November of 2004.

I was using the internet one or two years earlier than that, but there's no permanent record of what I wrote since I was mostly just playing Yahoo chess.

tchrist

02:14

@Tonepoet Sprat.

Tonepoet

@tchrist Are you saying I can eat no lean?

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body: how can know on reaching of my ordered product by Archana Khanal on english.stackexchange.com

tchrist

02:36

@Cerberus I wonder why we use post as a preposition in English but not(?) ante.

0

A: Use of hyphen with the prefix "post-"

There are many post words, including not just as nouns and verbs but also more exotic parts of speech such as adverbs. There are also post- combining forms (like prefixes), which is probably what you were thinking here. But it’s not. In this case, post is neither a noun, a verb, nor an adver...

Tonepoet

@tchrist It might have something to do with the fact that we use latin phrases with the word "post" in them often. Post hoc ergo proptor hoc, ex post facto, ect.

tchrist

Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.

Ok, maybe not that one. :)

Tonepoet

Actually, given that I don't really know latin, all I can say is that Google Translate actually output a translation that looks plausible: "Confound those who have said our remarks before us."

tchrist

Perish those who said our stuff before us.

Where "Perish" is a third-person imperative.

Ok, maybe our words.:)

ante meridiem, post meridiem

postprandial, antejentacular

antebellum, postdiluvium.

Færd

@Cerberus Well, standard dialects and informal styles of English are not mutually exclusive, are they?

They're said to be not.

tchrist

02:49

status quo ante

Tonepoet

I just rejected an edit that tried to fix a deferred preposition as conflicting with the author's intent. I feel pain, sorrow and regret, esp. since the sentence in question was already using which.

tchrist

@Tonepoet Yes, dixerunt is a perfect tense here not an imperfect one. I usually just think of it in the preterite.

@Tonepoet Well, it's by Don Anónimo.

Read: a nameless suggester.

That was a mindless attempt at foolish pied-piping.

Tonepoet

That's a clever name.

tchrist

It might actually have been his wife using his account though; you never know when Doña Anónima is going to show up.

Because you can't hear the two fused a's as separate. :)

Also known as Doncha Know Me, Ma?

Tonepoet

@tchrist She sounds like a forgetful mother.

Færd

03:01

It's not November 8th over there in America yet, is it?

Do you want me to tell you what's going to happen in advance?

Tonepoet

@Færd Is somebody going to assassinate Trump and Hillary so that Bernie Sanders has a shot at becoming president again?

tchrist

I don't trust vans.

Færd

@Tonepoet I'm only about 10 hours ahead of you, so, that's not happened yet.

tchrist

The clocks they stole a nour yesterday.

Tonepoet

@tchrist Did you mean sour yesterday?

Because that'd be more of a blessing than a curse. ;-)

tchrist

03:10

@Tonepoet an hour for a napron

Færd

Correction: I'm about 12 hours ahead of Alaska.

tchrist

"About"?

Færd

12 and 30 minutes.

Tonepoet

@Færd Now do Hawaii. =P

Færd

I leave it to you as your homework!

Why did I correct myself? I was right in my first approximation.

@tchrist How could that happen without it being daylight saving time?

tchrist

03:19

@Færd Yesterday was 25 hours long here.

Færd

You set your clocks an hour slow?

tchrist

No, we reran one of the hours. :)

So while 2:30pm happened but once yesterday, 2:30am happened twice.

Pure madness.

Færd

I'm not familiar with that procedure.

tchrist

And which hour it was that was duplicated swept the world from east to west like a slow, fat tidal wave of torture.

Færd

Gotta find out about it.

tchrist

03:21

It’s called shedding daylight saving time.

Færd

Ah, I'll google it.

tchrist

Stephen Fry on the history of Daylight Saving Time - BBC iWonder

►

Færd

We have that too. Here, changes in the time happen at the beginnings of the spring (Farvardin 1st) and autumn (Mehr 1st).

Or so I remember.

tchrist

Here it happens on the first Sunday after Halloween.

I vote for double-summer time year in year out. But they won't let me use that as a write-in candidate.

Færd

I suppose that means no changes.

tchrist

03:31

That's all I want.

Færd

It's easier.

tchrist

I want time to be monotonically increasing, with no jumps nor repeats.

Færd

I just ask mom what time is it or when should I wake up. She does the hard work for me.

tchrist

The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile

►

The sweeping arm of DST means that New York and Los Angeles are not 3 hours apart. They are 2 or 3 or 4 hours apart, depending on what day it is.

And what time.

Good luck with that.

Færd

That's complicated indeed.

tchrist

03:36

Listen to the Tom Scott video above. It's so much worse than you can possibly imagine.

Færd

Yeah, I'm listening to it.

tchrist

Don't let the Hopi call you. It will ruin your day.

Blue is PDT/PST. Yellow MDT/MST. Beige is MST. That's the Four Corners area so those dark lines are state boundaries.

Færd

Thank God we have only one official time for all the country.

tchrist

The funny yellow corner is the Navajo Nation, which ignores Arizona's MST (=PDT) and follows the rest of the Four Corner's MST/MDT switches. The little splotches of brown inside are not part of the Navajo Nation but part of the Hopi Nation. The Hopi hate the Navajo.

And so they ignore the surrounding DST obedience.

Færd

Is it so hard to sort out that it had to persist for so long?

tchrist

03:49

Notice there is a yellow splotch inside the brown splotch inside the yellow carve-out of the brown part.

Færd

It's really messed up.

tchrist

Like I said, if the

Hopi call, don't answer that phone. :)

The thing is that driving around there you cannot keep track of what fricking time it is.

The Hopi hate the Navajo because the Hopi believe that all that land was theirs before the Navajo came down from Alaska just a few centuries ago.

Færd

@tchrist Yeah, it can literally change by the mile.

tchrist

Every sovereign state gets to choose its own timezone and DST obedience.

So being different is a way for the Hopi to impose their national sovereignty on the Navajo oppressors.

Færd

And they use it as an advantage to exert their independence.

tchrist

03:54

Their differentness, certainly.

Isn't that the craziest looking time zone you have ever seen?

And it's only different in the summer. In the winter it's all yellow.

As it were.

The brown is blue in summer but yellow in winter.

Færd

So counter-intuitive. Each region might as well define their local measures of space and declare independence (or difference) from the rest of the cosmos.

Tonepoet

04:28

Ah, @tchrist I made a mistake a few moments ago. The silly review queue marks more striken out words than are really changed, so I thought there was no change to this proposed edit but it turns out that it's attempting to fix the title.

You seem to be the closest person able to accept it still. XP

Actually @Færd seems to have more rep. than I remember him having before too.

tchrist

05:09

Fixed.

@Færd Oh like Indian miles instead of standard miles, eh? ;-)

I bet the Hopi would go for it! Well provided the Navajo had not already done so.

Cerberus

@Færd It depends, but certainly not always.

@tchrist Perhaps because we use various Latin phrases with post.

Post mortem, ex post facto...

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

On the other hand, we use ante meridiem...

Hannibal ante portas.

tchrist

Sure if it can be post mortem it can be post something elsem. ;)

Cerberus

Ante hoc ergo propter hoc.

Yes, perhaps post mortem is the source.

Common as it is.

tchrist

@Cerberus I thought of that one on this election eve.

Cerberus

Hah!

Quite so.

He was Roman parents' bogeyman.

tchrist

05:23

But not as orange.

Cerberus

Every people uses its own colours of war paint.

Be it woad, or henna, or yet something else.

tchrist

I never thought we'd see another person of color up for president this soon.

Even less did I imagine that color would be orange.

Cerberus

Progress.

tchrist

Trump wears orange makeup from fake sprayed on tanning. I think he doesn't want us to know he's a lich.

Cerberus

So I gathered.

But look, he's been leaking percentage points all night.

tchrist

05:37

Time will tell.

user227867

05:49

Woof! Meow!

Færd

11:22

@tchrist Yeah, like you're cruising along peacefully and out of nowhere a police car swerves in front of you and fines you for breaking the speed limit, which you swear to all their deities you didn't break, but little did you know that you had to evaluate the speed in the local units of time and space.

RegDwigнt

11:49

OMFG. A @Cerberus impersonator!

stackoverflow.com/election

user227867

Quack! Moo!

Martin AJ

12:37

Is there any English term about "being the air cold"?

For example something like this: what a killer cold it is ( I made that up ofmyself :P )

terdon

It's freezing!

?

Martin AJ

@terdon sounds nice, isn't there anything else?

terdon

Context? What language are you translating from?

Martin AJ

no no, I don't want to translate something .. Just I'm trying to write a ~~store~~ story in English .. and I want to describe a very very cold air ... that's why I'm looking for an idiom about that

Cerberus

13:11

@RegDwigнt Ban!

How dare he misspell my name.

And know what Angular JS is.

Mitch

13:34

@MartinAJ It's so cold, hell has frozen over.

It's so cold, Absolute zero is warm in comparison.

It's so cold...yo momma...walked into a bar...a priest a rabbi and an imam...and God said "Goddammit, I missed."

bows

slumps over

user227867

15:31

I answered the Iranish question and the asker removed the question, sad.

user227867

I even gave him a vote to encourage him to keep it, sad.

user227867

Wow, Italian SE is moving really slowly.

user227867

Like only one question per day.

user227867

Maybe the Italian speakers don't use SE.

user227867

I am afraid that Trump will win.

terdon

16:38

@MartinAJ Sorry, didn't see your reply. Well, the idiom is usually something using the word freezing. Often accompanied by a vulgar intensifier: fucking freezing, bleedin' freezing. Then you have common idioms like freezing your butt/ass/balls off

Then you can get colorful, like cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

user227867

@terdon Is that you playing guitar in the picture?

terdon

Yes

user227867

It is a picture I always forget what it represents until I click to see a larger version.

tchrist

18:16

@terdon If dolphins are kept in a dolphinarium, reptiles in reptilarium, birds in an aviarium, ants in a formicarium, and frogs in a ranarium, then where pray tell are gophers kept?

What would be a Habitrail™, for $200?

MetaEd

I'll take Habitrail for $200, Alex.

Mitch

flmurph

That's the sound of trying to fit a gopher into a habitrail. I just don't think they'll fit.

@MetaEd Sometimes Jeopardy has a category where the answer is the question. Not contained or hidden, is. Well, maybe a little hidden.

user227867

18:35

@tchrist A gopherium, QED.

user227867

@MetaEd Alex is RegDwight.

user227867

@Mitch Have you cast your vote for the election? Is it today?

Mitch

@JasperLoy I have

MetaEd

@Mitch Sounds like gopher broke.

user227867

@Mitch I guess you voted for me.

Mitch

18:37

@MetaEd You're out standing in your field.

@JasperLoy You have dual US/Antarctican nationality?

And your mother gave birth to you in a plane flying over Hawaii?

user227867

No, no, I am only Emperor of the World, not just Antarctica now.

Mitch

@JasperLoy Oh. Well then. Why then would you stoop to care about lil ol' US?

MetaEd

@Mitch The World is not as big as you might imagine.

Mitch

Much more could be done with Brazil or Indonesia.

MetaEd

@Mitch That's nuts.

Mitch

18:40

@MetaEd It's about ... yay big?

MetaEd

Yea.

user227867

By the way, does anyone know anything about Josh? He is a mysterious figure...

Mitch

Then it's about as big as I can imagine

@JasperLoy mysterious not as in secretive but more like WTH

user227867

@Mitch Yeah, Josh is just as mysterious as @Tonepoet.

Mitch

haha. yeah. sorta in the same way. sorta

user227867

18:43

Whereas I am not mysterious at all. Everyone knows everything about me in this chat.

Mitch

we're going all out in describing people without describing them in anyway whatsoever

@JasperLoy I didn't know you were king of the World

user227867

Anyway, I am happy I finally found a big bilingual Italian dictionary to buy in future.

Mitch

You'd think that would be pretty out in the open.

@JasperLoy You know what I do for bilingual stuff?

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy All I know is that the King of Antartica is a buddhist potatohead Mathematician with a fondness for dictionaries and a potential singing career ahead of him. =P

Mitch

I use google translate.

and dict.leo

GT for first pass, then dict.leo for nuance.

user227867

18:44

@Tonepoet All I know is that maybe Tonepoet is Alice and lives in Wonderland. =)

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy And a possible descendent of Noah Webster. You can't forget that part! =P

user227867

@Tonepoet I am a descendant of Alice, lol.

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy Does that make me royalty?

Mitch

@JasperLoy I've seen a caterpillar and also someone smoking a hookah. but not at the same time.

user227867

@Tonepoet No, Alice is my mum, lol.

Tonepoet

18:46

@JasperLoy I'm your mother? XP

user227867

@Tonepoet You are the person eating chips on the couch, lol.

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy With hot chocolate on the side apparently.

user227867

I emailed Anthem Press twice, no reply at all.

user227867

I wanted to buy their five volumes of Charles Dickens Complete Novels, scheduled for release earlier this year, but still not published. Maybe they never will be

user227867

But can't they be nice and reply? Or maybe the entire office has closed down...

user227867

18:50

I don't understand these publishers. Aren't they terrible for not replying?

user227867

I think the management needs to fire the email staff and hire new ones.

user227867

@Tonepoet I just ordered New Oxford Annotated Bible and The Qur'an translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, both published by OUP

user227867

I think these might be the most scholarly translations available for these twoo books.

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy Hmm, perhaps they are but if so, I wouldn't know. I haven't done much bible research.

Færd

20:34

Is this a (door) knob? Is it not called a (door) handle or something other than a knob?

Cerberus

I would definitely call that a door handle and not a knob.

There may be regional variation.

Færd

OK. Makes sense.

Now, is it possible to call a door knob a handle?

I guess that possibility doesn't matter that much.

Cerberus

I would say no.

Færd

I'm gonna call a knob a knob and a handle a handle.

Cerberus

Wise.

Færd

20:48

Thanks!

Cerberus

21:06

Oh, dear.

caub

"Email or username doesn't exist" or don't?

and hi

Cerberus

or → doesn't

And hello.

and → don't

caub

yea, ok, thanks

if it's an exclusive or, but that's it usually

Johan Larsson

21:59

@Cerberus nice, gonna try to remember that now

WhatHiFi

22:29

Hi guys! Please help me find a specific word (or a phrase) that describes making final revisions before releasing (or showing) something to the public. For example, hiding some very personal items before hosting an open house or a party. Thanks!

Johan Larsson

staging maybe

but I don't english

user227867

23:35

@Cerberus I don't even know what to call it, because I never needed to name it.

user227867

I wonder who will win the election...

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…