English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

01:44

> Part I: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Part II: Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Part III: Cogs, Demagogues, and Gyros: How the West Was Lost

tchrist

05:44

Please cast the fifth reöpen vote here.

tchrist

05:56

@suməlic Thank you for defending the grace of mercy so eloquently.

user227867

06:08

@Tonepoet Do you mean to say that you are neither a musician nor a poet?

user227867

@Cerberus I just read that article, lol. Doesn't say much, just giving other people's opinions, lol.

RegDwigнt

11:05

@Cerberus well yes, haven't you heard, there's a Rapture scheduled every other month, and Trump is just yet another one. And just like the 1000 times before, no Rapture will actually happen.

For which people will be so thankful, they'll re-elect him.

Matt E. Эллен

11:29

Manfred Mann Mighty Quinn

►

@tchrist would you say the use "He is within" is prepositional?

tchrist

11:54

@MattE.Эллен No, I call those ones adverbs, but the Young Turks call them intransitive prepositions.

Færd

12:47

@tchrist Hi! I was wondering, why is this question not listed among the unanswered? Its only answer is not accepted or upvoted by the asker.

tchrist

@Færd I don't know.

Færd

Ah, OK.

terdon

13:16

@Færd It has an upvoted answer.

Arrowfar

hi

Cerberus

14:26

@tchrist I've heard someone on ELU use that ridiculous terminology.

Some linguists are crazy.

2

tchrist

14:48

Duly noted.

tchrist

14:59

What’s our hardest badge to earn?

This particular glass feels more half empty than it feels half full.

Færd

15:14

@terdon I thought if it wasn't upvoted by the asker ... . Silly thought.

@Cerberus What I don't like about that categorization is the name they give that class; because they end up with prepositions that are never preposed, or are always postposed.

I think some of them have addressed this problem and come up with other names, like adposition (which still suggest juxtaposition) or adp (I wouldn't mind using this one).

tchrist

posers :)

Færd

Aside from the name, maybe the method isn't too illogical: they see that those words act similarly and put them in one class.

Although I'm not the one to judge.

Cerberus

@Færd Exactly: sometimes it seems as though a certain branch of Anglo-Saxon linguistics is deliberately trying to use terms in counter-intuitive ways.

One would expect more from linguists.

@Færd Yes, but the 'acting' is not at the word level, but at the constituent level.

And we already have a name for that: adverbial phrase.

Or adverbial constituent.

So you shouldn't change the meaning of a term at the word level against intuition for that.

Færd

@Cerberus To be fair to them preposition is not pronounced pre-position; maybe doesn't remind an average person of position at all. It does annoy me, however.

Cerberus

Uhh.

That doesn't seem relevant at all.

Sorry.

Færd

15:26

Don't be. I just wanted to report the argument that I'd heard some of them made.

@Cerberus They want to avoid the word adverb I guess. And have reasons for that.

As for the name they gave the new category, there's a saying in Farsi that goes: he came out of the pit and fell into the well.

As for the linguistic reasons, I'd rather be silent about that until know more.

(some of them made ➔ some of them make)

terdon

@Færd Nah, I think it just needs an upvoted answer for it to be considere answered when counting.

Færd

Yeah, that's better.

Cerberus

@Færd The mere fact that the word adverb is not always used how they like it doesn't mean that they should abandon it and use terms in ways that are indisputably 1000% worse!

growls

@Færd Excellent.

Are you familiar with out of the frying pan, into the fire?

The main Cooking.SE chat room is called the Frying Pan.

tchrist

@Cerberus The Hobbit, chapter six.

Cerberus

We have another saying in Dutch:

> Throw away the baby with the bath water.

Which is slightly different but close.

Færd

15:41

@Cerberus Nice one. No, but I'm familiar with wanted to groom the eyebrow and blinded the eye.

Cerberus

I think the baby one is also used in English.

tchrist

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water! Throw the baby out the window a new toy!

Cerberus

@Færd Ah, another nice one.

tchrist

haha

Færd

Faulty joke it was.

I don't imagine you can groom an eyebrow?

is looking for a better word

tchrist

15:47

swr.english.stackexchange.com
gerunds.english.stackexchange.com

@Færd Hm.

-1

Q: What do you call the gay bestfriend?

That lone feminine gay guy in a group of girls in school?

Ok, I’m out. :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

out and about? out of time? out of the closet?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

16:13

I guess the answer was "out of here"

user227867

17:09

I uninstalled Office 365 to install Office 2016. I tried doing the latter twice and failed. Now I am running some Microsoft program to properly uninstall the wrongly installed Office 2016 before trying to install it for the third time.

user227867

So much hassle after paying so much, lol.

user227867

If anyone here knows what went wrong, please enlighten me!

user227867

Ah, it turns out that there is an Office 2013 component somewhere inside my computer, no idea how it got there, that caused the problem, and this program has removed it. Phew! I hope my 2016 install will work now!

user227867

17:27

I am now installing Office 2016 for the third time, hope it works!

user227867

Everyone should read Kit's meta post if you have not.

terdon

@JasperLoy Which one? The one about the research close reason?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The one where she says she's taking a leave of absence to have cancer surgery

user227867

It would be mean to downvote the meta post, and I checked that nobody it. =)

terdon

Oh. I thought she did that already a few days ago.

user227867

17:33

Some people don't read meta posts anymore, like me. =)

terdon

I wonder if we could set up something with SE which would allow us to win hats for her.

Oooh! No, there should be a new secret hat this yeah: a get well Kit hat.

user227867

Hmm, well, hats aren't very important in the grand scheme of things, so I doubt anyone would set that up

Erin A

Hi all, does anyone here have experience building out an enterprise search?

terdon

Are you looking for Stack Overflow chat maybe?

Erin A

@terdon should i go there instead?

user227867

17:36

Yes, this is the English Language chat.

Erin A

Oops, thanks all

terdon

@ErinA If you're looking for a bunch of programmers, yes.

Mind you, a lot of the people here are also programmers, but they are here in their capacity as language geeks.

You know, people who find this sort of thing funny:

Oct 25 at 22:22, by MetaEd

@WillHunting Chlorination is a radical idea.

Of course, that's at least two different kinds of geek together, but you see what I'm getting at.

user227867

Mind you, a lot of people in this room just talk whatever they want, like me

Arrowfar

Hello @terdon :)

And Jasper.

terdon

Hey Arrow!

user227867

17:38

Hey Far!

Arrowfar

:)

Btw "Far" is part of my real name.

"Farooq".

user227867

(removed)

Arrowfar

I chatted here in the beginning with my real name then I changed it.

'Arrowfar' kind of sounds cool, also everyone thinks I am English, lol.

Aww I hope Kit gets well soon enough.

user227867

If my Office 2016 installation fails for the third time I am going to scold people, lol.

user227867

I expect a product worth hundreds of dollars to work the first time, lol.

Arrowfar

17:48

I need a haircut. I look like crap today.

Mitch

18:03

@JasperLoy I don't even read my own meta posts.

SmokeDetector

18:21

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating characters in answer: Should one say "for forever" or "forever"? by billy on english.stackexchange.com

Mitch

18:52

@Arrowfar I need a bath. I look like carp today.

Arrowfar

:)

I read that as "crap" btw.

By the way what's the word for this effect where we read the word differently like "carp" above. hmm... I forgot.

See ya. It is midnight here.

user227867

19:18

Ladies and gentlemen, after three attempts, I finally managed to install Office 2016!

M.A.R.

@Arrowfar So craps take haircuts and become not-craps?

@JasperLoy My condolences

Now you can enjoy adding a space to a paragraph and introducing 6 extra pages to the document.

M.A.R.

19:44

in Language Overflow, Nov 30 '15 at 18:36, by snailboat

Calling there a preposition is non-traditional and follows the great Otto Jespersen's analysis of some things that are traditionally called adverbs as "intransitive prepositions"

Matt E. Эллен

19:57

@tchrist tumbleweed, I think

M.A.R.

@tchrist Illuminator, reversal and legendary. They get easier as the site gets bigger though.

Tumbleweed is easy in a very young site, hard in a seasoned site, and again easy in an old site.

in 2016 Stack Overflow Moderator Election on Stack Overflow Chat, 4 mins ago, by SmokeDetector

Unofficial results: Winners are deceze, Aaron Hall, and Bhargav Rao.

For whoever's interested

Mitch

20:24

@Arrowfar Dyslexics of the world, untie!

And of course I had to redo this like three times because I kept writing 'UNTIE'; I kept doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with a link in answer: What's the difference between "roe" and "caviar"? by Eric Troy on english.stackexchange.com

Mitch

Of course everybody mixes up letters every so often. Serious dyslexia can lead to real difficulties reading.

M.A.R.

@Mitch Now I can't unsee ''untie'' in the shirt.

tchrist

@M.A.R. Can't see how Illuminator ever gets any easier as the site gets bigger.

M.A.R.

20:39

@tchrist As the site gets bigger, there are more questions to edit and ask.

tchrist

@M.A.R. So what's ELU's excuse here?

M.A.R.

@tchrist That you don't see most questions deserving of an answer.

And they really aren't.

tchrist

@M.A.R. data.stackexchange.com/english/query/529928/top-illuminators

No, it means that people don't fricking edit.

M.A.R.

That too.

I guess on a language site, if you're not thinking about the badge, you would either edit the question or answer it. There's not much sense in doing both.

tchrist

21:37

I do not think the existence of that type of word is necessary or beneficial to the world. It has way too high of a chance of being used in an offensive manner, regardless of how you intend to use it. — Hank 5 hours ago

Although I have to agree with that comment, we have hundreds maybe thousands of those questions.

Proof: english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…

M.A.R.

@tchrist People prefer to have words to look down on someone so they could look ''kewl'' whenever needed.

tchrist

I've always hated that we do this.

M.A.R.

That's sick, but the amount of people who're too high and cool is too little compared to those who want to drag other people down.

As Vsauce put it, we live in an age where being anti-social and breaking all the 'chains' etiquette holds us in in most of the times considered cool.

But the moral codes are much more and usually way more easily broken than the superfluous ones you'd look ''cool'' by stepping on

That's what the world needs to realize today IMO.

Conservatives are compared to nazis and suchlike in ridiculous conversations all around the internet.

And sadly, those conversations are made by real people.

The conversations themselves don't matter, but the people that make them do.

They change tides. They elect Trump.

They vote for Brexit.

They prefer to develop a newer form of fascism with isolationism as the excuse.

tchrist

@M.A.R. It might help stave off the Nazi calls if only Trump's people weren't citing American WW2 concentration camps of Americans of Japanese descent as a legal precedent for a country-wide "Muslim" registry.

M.A.R.

Oh wow. That's a long monologue now.

@tchrist TBH as every day passes on, I keep realizing that the world is being governed by idiots and really smart people just stand aside and don't get their hands dirty.

tchrist

21:50

@M.A.R. There are places where that's true, but the world is too big to say it is always like that everywhere.

M.A.R.

@tchrist Government officials follow the Pareto principle. 20 of them do 80 of the nice things, and 20 percent of them are responsible for 80 percent of the crap.

Mitch

23:45

> The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…