English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:29

@Cerberus A bit less rare when spelled with acq- as we now do. It’s been a long time since aquiesce changed its spelling. :) But it’s still a long word.

tchrist

01:17

@Cerberus I'm not sure there's any evidence of a “rise in the present subjunctive in educated speech” that speaks to its “reïntroduction”. My hunch is that, having never gone away in America, it needed no refresh here. I cannot speak for England.

Cerberus

@tchrist Ah, my eyes typoed.

@tchrist I think there is a rise in England.

I don't know about other places.

tchrist

@Cerberus I have heard that said too, but I don't know.

Cerberus

Incidentally, you read everything, don't you??

tchrist

@Cerberus What, on the site?

Cerberus

Yes, there.

tchrist

01:25

Probably.

We here laugh at all the as-per syndromers from the Subcontinent, where they retained an ancient bit of bureaucratese that now to us seems gratuitously and gratingly stuffy. I wonder whether the English similarly laugh at us when we insist that something be done.

Cerberus

I don't think as per was ever nonstuffy anywhere?

tchrist

I don't know. It sounds pretentious now, and perhaps ever has done.

Speaking of thereabouts, my quote on the Starboard is riffing on Kipling in case it wasn't obvious.

> One man in a thousand, Solomon says.
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for 'ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.

But if he finds you and you find him,

You have to read the final quatrain.

If you do a corpus search on the World English database, you'll discover that as per is some fifty times more frequent in India than in England or America.

Something like that.

Anything that disparate in relative frequency will always sound funny to those who so rarely use it.

Then again, station is mind-numblingly important there in a way that we can never fathom. The stuffiness may be a symptom.

At $job[-1] my Anglo team had to stop doing code reviews for the Subcontinentals because they took our comments with such abject mortification that we became concerned that some of them might kill themselves. It was super-bad. Then again, so too was their code.

It's so different a work environment in the East than what the West is used to that the cultural miscues and misunderstandings make it much harder to work together than you might think if you had never attempted to do so.

Apropos:

0

Q: Didn't get this joke. Help me out here

Q: How Do You Make An Elephant Float? A: You Get Two Scoops Of Elephant And Some Rootbeer...

@Cerberus I think I forgot that cujus is a kw- case.

Let alone that it is cognate to whose.

Just as the Romans dispensed with the complex sound when /u/ followed, so did we in whose.

Moreover, we suffered a different dispensation than made in the other hw- words.

Cerberus

01:52

@tchrist Not bad at all.

Only the "feelings" bit is a tad...corny.

tchrist

Schlocking, isn't it?

Cerberus

Quoi?

tchrist

The schmaltz.

Feelings.

But remember his epoch.

Cerberus

Yes, that is surprising.

tchrist

1

Q: Translation for Dutch word 'gunnen'

In Dutch we can say 'ik gun jou de opdracht', meaning 'I ... you the assignment'. It's mixture of allow to have and don't begrudge I guess. If I translate the dictionary, it would be 'to desire or approve that somebody else has or gets something'. A related word would be 'gunfactor', used in bus...

single-word-requests

Grant?

Maybe not.

Cerberus

02:44

@tchrist Yes, that is a good translation of its secondary meaning.

0

A: Translation for Dutch word 'gunnen'

The basic meaning of the word is to not begrudge, which is in fact what Englishmen often use when they want to express this exact sense. I do not believe this can be said in one word in English. A secondary meaning is to grant [a government contract, etc.], which can be translated as grant, awar...

tchrist

03:11

@Cerberus Thanks!

Pissed off layman

05:48

Is it snowing yet? @tchrist

SmokeDetector

06:15

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Shortened URL in body: Which name sounds better in English spoken countries? 1. Daon 2. Shane by Park Chanoh on english.stackexchange.com

SmokeDetector

07:14

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Shortened URL in body: Which name sounds better in English spoken countries? 1. Daon 2. Shane by Park Chanoh on english.stackexchange.com

ktm5124

Is it safe to leave an incense stick burning overnight?

ANeves

10:39

Is it safe to live?

Andrew Leach

@ANeves No. It has a 100% mortality rate.

ANeves

My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me yes...

@AndrewLeach There's a couple of documented cases where people recovered from it.

But yes, generally it seems to be one of the major causes of death.

Arrowfar

12:33

@Abcd That's a different Cerberus there. Same name, different person :-)

Helmar

12:44

@ANeves With a rather loose definition of documented that is.

ANeves

@Helmar There are certainly a lot of documents about it? ;)

Helmar

13:01

@ANeves That's not in question :)

tchrist

13:22

@Pissedofflayman "Blanketing", even.

Helmar

time to unpack the cross-country skis

tchrist

Now is the time for reindeer sleighs.

We've had about a foot way down where I live, and may get another half this morning. Up higher they've had more.

And it's like no degrees out.

We won't hit double digits today.

I’m so glad they told us it’s -0.0, not just 0. Feels so much colder that way.

Helmar

We are hitting -19°C tonight, that's not really colder, but it feels even colder :D

Anonymous

@tchrist Bumped a few minutes ago: ell.stackexchange.com/questions/105696/gerund-vs-participle

Anonymous

People ask questions related to the discussion we had yesterday quite often :-)

Cerberus

13:35

Oh, dear.

tchrist

That's just an adjective.

Anonymous

Yeah.

tchrist

If it were a participle, it would be a verb.

Cerberus

It's still above freezing here, during the day.

No snow yet, this winter.

Anonymous

We can say very enlightening.

Cerberus

13:36

@Arrowfar Ah, I see! Still, I remember seeing @Abcd somewhere. Perhaps I saw him here, then.

tchrist

@Cerberus We’re hoping for it to get above the freezing point here later on today — of salt-water, that is. (0F is the freezing point of brine, chosen for that.)

Anonymous

I'm trying to figure out how to address the answer, which seems somewhat confused.

Anonymous

Or if I should just post my own answer instead.

Cerberus

@tchrist I know. That's...sad.

Except for skating.

And skiing, no doubt.

tchrist

I have an idea. Let's ban the use of the words gerund and participle altogether. If people were constrained to talking about nouns and verb and adjectives, they would have 200% less trouble.

Cerberus

13:38

@snailplane I think it is mostly right, but there are two small bits that are wrong.

1. A verb can have more than one derived form that is a noun.

Anonymous

Three.

Cerberus

2. "Something that enlightens" is a noun: it should be "that enlightens" or similar.

@snailplane Hmm I don't see no three, except that perhaps the conclusion does not follow from the premises entirely.

But the conclusion is correct.

It is a participle–adjective.

tchrist

The enlightening of young minds is to be earnestly desired.

With just nouns, verbs, and adjectives, think of all the confusion that wouldn't be!

And honestly, folks, that's all they really are anyway.

Anonymous

@Cerberus They said that it modifies education.

Anonymous

Predicates don't modify, they predicate.

Helmar

13:44

Allow making proper compounds when you are at it, no need for all that open, hyphenated, closed compound stuff ;)

Cerberus

@snailplane Well, I would say a subject complement modifies the subject.

So I don't agree with you that that is the only possible terminology.

Anonymous

I would dismiss that out of hand.

Anonymous

@Helmar Those are orthographic terms, anyway.

tchrist

> La Befana vien di notte con le scarpe tutte rotte

!!!

Anonymous

They don't relate to the actual status of something as a compound or not a compound in terms of the language itself.

Cerberus

13:45

@snailplane I would recognise your terminology and not call it wrong, but I wouldn't use it.

tchrist

Anonymous

I see a tiny white square.

Cerberus

In any case, the fact that a word can modify a noun strongly suggests that it is itself of an adjectival nature, but this is not necessarily the case.

For subject complements can be nouns, and so can appositions.

tchrist

I seem to have just been epiphanizinged.

La befana vien di notte con le scarpe tutte rotte.wmv

►

He has nice r’s.

> E la neve scenderà

Oh yes.

Andrew Leach

So what's that? The witch comes in the night, with completely worn-out shoes or something?

What has that to do with a black scarf?

tchrist

13:50

Yeah, all-broken.

Andrew Leach

I tried that on, but I think a doctorate cap fits better.

tchrist

I have no idea what they're intending here.

terdon

Bufanda?

Multilingual pun?

tchrist

Andrew Leach

Arguably, the long white beard and cap is more fitting for a Wise Man, and therefore better for Epiphany anyway.

tchrist

13:55

@terdon Scarf, no?

terdon

@tchrist Yeah.

5 mins ago, by Andrew Leach

What has that to do with a black scarf?

tchrist

They get a black witch not three magi?

Andrew Leach

I think a hat which relies on some obscure pun is not a good hat, especially if it's to mark Epiphany with which kings or wise men are far more widely associated.

Abcd

14:22

@Arrowfar Okay. I got it. Coincidence. That cerebrus certainly talks in a different way.

I am looking for good words or "colour adjectives" that could describe the sun, the sky and the moon.

Instead of the traditional orange, blue, and white respectively

Are there any suitable alternatives ?

Mitch

@snailplane Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence and what the predicate says, he does.

The Tale of Mr. Morton

►

Anonymous

@Abcd I think people say yellow more often than orange.

Abcd

@snailplane ok I 've heard both ... but any alternative to that

ANeves

Well, if you change the scenery you can have different colours.
A red sun at sunset, gray skies in winter.

The moon can be silver.

Anonymous

@Abcd Yeah, I just wouldn't call orange the traditional color, since as far as I know yellow is and has been considerably more common in English.

Anonymous

14:36

Although you can describe the sun any way you wish.

Anonymous

You don't even have to use adjectives. You can use verbs.

Abcd

like?

Anonymous

I don't really know what sort of words you're asking for. Are you looking for uncommon color words?

Anonymous

People probably don't say the sun is chartreuse very often.

Abcd

yes those that will captivate the reader of my essay

Anonymous

14:38

But you want it to mean 'yellow'?

Anonymous

Or, y'know, whatever color you think the sun is.

Abcd

yes

i didnt get your second statement

Anonymous

I don't know if you can really captivate the reader of your essay by sticking in less common words that mean the same thing.

Anonymous

You could call the sun golden.

Anonymous

That sounds nice.

Anonymous

14:40

I don't know. I don't have any good ideas. :-)

Abcd

Yes I thought of that . Will this work :

The golden circular lamp in the sky throwing its beams

?

Anonymous

As a noun phrase?

Abcd

I have no clue what's a noun phrase

Anonymous

Maybe you could start by trying to write whatever you're trying to communicate more plainly.

Abcd

But is that ok?

The golden circular lamp in the sky throwing its beams/ glistening happily

Anonymous

14:43

It's not a complete sentence. It's a grammatical noun phrase. It's kind of, um.

Anonymous

I'm reluctant to really criticize but I think it sounds a bit overdone, personally.

Anonymous

It does at least get the idea of the sun across.

Anonymous

Are you writing a story?

Anonymous

A poem?

Abcd

Can it simply be , I saw the golden lamp glistening brightly. I am writing a descriptive essay describing a morning walk.

Is this one too overdone?

Anonymous

14:46

Well, it's very expressive. I saw the golden circular lamp in the sky throwing its beams, glistening happily.

Anonymous

That's a grammatical sentence.

Abcd

Yes.

Would it work ?

And not sound overdone?

Anonymous

Maybe you should get someone else's opinion :-)

Abcd

Okay.

Anonymous

I don't think I'll be of much help for this sort of writing.

Abcd

14:48

I hope someone here will soon provide me with his/her valuable opinion.

ANeves

Disclaimer: I am not a native speaker.
This new version of the sentence seems good, but the "circular lamp" sounds poetic.

Abcd

Okay but I don't see that why poetry cannot be incorporated in essays,

Cerberus

@Abcd Oh, in what way does he talk?

ANeves

@Abcd I guess there is no reason why poetry can't be used in essays.

Abcd

@Cerberus I feel that he talks more like a young lad. He tried to convince me with some of his beliefs in a strange manner. However, I don't to want speak ill of him behind his back.

But I still feel, he was different from many on Islam.SE

terdon

15:02

@Abcd To me it sounds stilted and overdone. It comes across as clumsy (lamp? glistening? throwing?) and like you're trying to be poetic but, I'm afraid, failing.

Glistening, for example carries the connotation of a wet surface. Glittering might be closer but I still wouldn't use that to describe the sun.

And I certainly wouldn't call it a lamp which is a very mundane term and hardly does the sun justice. It needs to be at least a beacon or something.

Abcd

Thanks @terdon. Finally, I wrote this : The golden circular lamp rises and glistens happily enlightening everyone’s day and providing its priceless shine in the frosty winters.

terdon

Um

ANeves

*its

terdon

At least change it's to its and Winters to winters

Abcd

Oh really sorry about that

terdon

15:06

@Abcd Heh, don't worry, everyone gets that wrong every now and then. Native speakers included.

Seriously though, glistening is just wrong and lamp really doesn't fit.

Abcd

@terdon okay. Glisten doesnt fit but then the contrast created by lamp and the mighty sun , does leave an impression and captures the attention, doesn't it ?

terdon

In my case, it leaves a bad impression.

Abcd

Oh I see.

terdon

I also wouldn't use enlightening there. That usually means informing, imparting information. I'm not sure if it can even mean "bringing light" any more.

It might, but it is rarely if ever used that way.

Yeah, its meaning of "illuminate" is archaic.

Abcd

So can I use illuminating instead of enlightening

flame instead of lamp

shining instead of glistening

terdon

15:14

Yes, those would certainly be improvements.

You could also use something like burning orb, for example. If you must. But beware flowery prose, it is too often a sign of a bad writer.

Cerberus

@Abcd Ah, I see.

What kinds of beliefs were those?

Liberal or fundamentalist?

@terdon The sun has been compared to a lamp before.

Abcd

The golden circular flame burns in the azure sky and shines happily illuminating everyone’s day and providing its priceless shine in the frosty winter.

terdon

@Cerberus Many crimes have been committed before.

:P

Cerberus

Hah.

By Tolkien?

ANeves

Certainly.

terdon

15:17

@Cerberus Hi I'm terdon. I think you might be confusing me with tchrist.

Abcd

@Cerberus Those beliefs were neither fundamentalist nor liberal. They were entirely different from what I have ever heard. They were new but not convincing at all.

terdon

I can't quote the entire Tolkien library verbatim.

That said, I would be very, very surprised if you could find an example of Tolkien referring to the sun as a lamp.

Cerberus

@terdon Oh, you look almost the same.

terdon

:)

Cerberus

In fact, Tolkien made the sun an actual lamp.

terdon

15:20

?

Cerberus

In the beginning.

It was a big lamp on a lamp-post.

terdon

That's C. S. Lewis.

Cerberus

Illuin, I think?

terdon

Illúvatar?

Cerberus

> Illuin ('sky-blue') and Ormal ('high-gold') were great lamps which stood respectively at the northern and southern ends of Arda during the Years of the Lamps. By extension, the names of the Lamps can also mean the vast pillars on which the Lamps were set.

After the Valar entered the world, there was a misty light veiling the barren ground. The Valar concentrated this light into two large lamps, Illuin and Ormal; meanwhile Aulë forged two great mountain[31]-pillars, one in the north of Middle-earth, the other in the south; these pillars were far taller than any natural mountains. Illuin w…

terdon

15:22

OK, but those are lamps. Not gigantic nuclear fusion reactors in the sky.

Cerberus

They were later modified to become the sun and the moon, I believe.

They were basically the early sun and moon.

terdon

I don't think so. I mean sure, they're obviously based on them, but they were destroyed:

> The lamps were destroyed by an assault by Melkor. Their fall was cataclysmic: The symmetry of Arda was destroyed as the weight of the lamps broke continents and their fire burned the land, such that the original design of the Valar was undone forever, including Almaren. The Valar did what they could to hinder the damage and their Enemy and his hosts fled back to Utumno. As they didn't know the time and place of the Children of Eru, they were afraid to rend the Earth again.[1]

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Two_Lamps

ANeves

(Nuclear fusion, you mean. Hidrogen into Helium, and later helium into e.g. carbon.)

terdon

@ANeves Indeed I did. That's why I specified fission instead of just saying nuclear reactor. And then I went and made precisely the mistake I was trying to avoid. Sigh

@ANeves I take it you are a Spanish speaker?

ANeves

I can manage it.
But I'm Portuguese.

terdon

15:31

Or maybe portuguese?

Ah

:)

ANeves

Sim sim.

terdon

In English it's Hydrogen. The Iberic languages have this wonderful habit of simplifying spelling :)

ANeves

Oh, woops!

@terdon It's ridiculously impossible to tell i and y apart...

We have no "y" in our alphabet, you see?

terdon

@ANeves It usually comes down to etymology. That comes from the Greek ύδωρ -> ydor -> hydrogen

@ANeves No? None at all?

No i griego?

ANeves

No k or w, either. Just from borrowed words like whys... whiskey.

terdon

15:34

Ah, yes, but it is there in the alphabet, just not often used, right?

ANeves

Not the portuguese one, no.

No, wait. I must investigate.

terdon

> A ortografia do português usa o alfabeto latino de 26 letras complementado por sinais diacríticos.

Ortografia da língua portuguesa

A ortografia da língua portuguesa é o sistema de escrita padrão usado para representar a língua portuguesa. A ortografia do português usa o alfabeto latino de 26 letras complementado por sinais diacríticos. Atualmente, a ortografia oficial da língua portuguesa é aquela consubstanciada no Acordo Ortográfico de 1990, que entrou em vigor no ano de 2009 e é a norma legal que rege a ortografia oficial em Portugal, desde maio de 2015, em Cabo Verde desde outubro de 2015 e no Brasil, a partir de 31 de dezembro de 2015. == Princípios ortográficos: fonético vs. etimológico == O princípio fonético ...

Andrew Leach

@terdon The letter y is remarkably uncommon in that article.

terdon

It doesn't even occur in any actual Portuguese words. It can be found in the page but only in the names of authors or institutions from non-pt speaking countries.

Still, it does seem to exist in the alphabet itself.

Kinda like x which is virtually non-existant in Spanish, but is still there in the alphabet.

I bet there will be some few Pt words with y. Where's @tchrist when you need him?

Andrew Leach

It occurs in aya, oye and estylo in the article, but they appear to be archaic.

ANeves

15:40

Curious.
It seems that the... "official" alphabet does include k/y/w.
But in school I leaned it without those letters.

@tchrist is not a native speaker. ;) But he manages pretty well. :)

Andrew Leach

Portuguese is not the only language like that. Polish includes f and only loanwords or words based on foreign words use that letter.

Cerberus

0

Q: What we we know about the source of the light in the Two Trees of Valinor?

The sun and the moon were created from the light of the trees of light, Laurelin and Telperion, after they had been destroyed; some parts of them survived the destruction and could thus be used for that purpose. This makes sense. It would also make sense if the light that the Valar gave to the t...

tolkien middle-earth silmarillion mythology valar

ANeves

@AndrewLeach «(aya por haja, iulgar por julgar, oye por hoje)» means "(aya [replaced] by haja, iulgar [replaced] by julgar, oye [replaced] by hoje".
The Portuguese words don't have the y.

You are right.

Andrew Leach

I've set the entire Mass text in Polish, and the only word with f is Ofiare, sacrifice.

Cerberus

Offeren?

terdon

15:44

@AndrewLeach Are there any non-latin words in English with a Q?

Cerberus

German opfern, no doubt.

terdon

Offal?

Cerberus

Could be!

Andrew Leach

@terdon Ha. I wonder if that is actually related.

terdon

Certainly sounds like it might be :)

Cerberus

15:45

Offal can be used in sacrificial rituals, can it not?

Andrew Leach

@terdon Queen, possibly.

Cerberus

Either as a sacrifice, or for haruspicion.

terdon

> Old English cwen "queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife," from Proto-Germanic *kwoeniz (source also of Old Saxon quan "wife," Old Norse kvaen, Gothic quens), ablaut variant of *kwenon (source of quean), from PIE *gwen- "woman, wife" supposedly originally "honored woman" (source also of Greek gyné "a woman, a wife;" Gaelic bean "woman;" Sanskrit janis "a woman," gná "wife of a god,
a goddess;" Avestan jainish "wife;" Armenian kin "woman;" Old Church Slavonic zena, Old Prussian genna "woman;" Gothic qino "a woman, wife; qéns "a queen").

So yes, queen doesn't seem to come from Latin. I wonder why the c -> q change then?

Cerberus

Yeah, queen is a good example.

terdon

Also, @ANeves could this be a Br/Pt difference? Where are you from? I see there were two different spelling reforms in Brazil and Portugal.

> Comparação de palavras com a grafia vigente em Portugal, antes da Reforma Ortográfica de 1911, e no Brasil, antes do Formulário Ortográfico de 1943, com o acordo ortográfico de 1990.

Cerberus

15:47

@terdon What c?

terdon

@Cerberus Old English cwen

Cerberus

Oh, that.

Well, that may be a Latinisation.

The sequence que for the sound /kw/ is extremely common in English.

terdon

Yeah, I was expecting to see a path through French at some point, but etymonline doesn't mention one.

Cerberus

So the same sound may at some point come to be written in that way where it used not to be.

terdon

@Cerberus Yes, but I would have bet (before @AndrewLeach popped my bubble) that those are all Latin in origin.

Cerberus

15:49

I don't think French ever used the word queen/king?

Right.

Dutch has koning/koningin.

German, similar.

All k's.

terdon

Not that I know of. The Latin ones tend to be variant of renne, reina etc.

Cerberus

The same thing can happen in Dutch sometimes.

The past tense of kom "come" is kwam.

Very Germanic.

But in some manuscripts, you will see it spelled quam.

terdon

Really? An added w? What does that do to the sound?

Cerberus

/kw/

I actually suspect this /kw/ is original in the Germanic root of come.

But I don't know.

Fact is, the /kw/ is all Germanic in this word.

Andrew Leach

@Cerberus Really? kw is /kw/ and not /kv/?

Cerberus

15:51

And yet the spelling was not infrequently qu.

terdon

Could you clarify that for the IPA-ignorant?

Cerberus

@AndrewLeach W can be pronounced in different ways, and Dutch w is closer to v than English w is; but it is still nowhere near v.

terdon

/kw/ is the que in queen, right?

Cerberus

Yes.

terdon

So kwam would sound like swam?

Cerberus

15:53

Yes, the consonants would, more or less.

Andrew Leach

Rather like qualm, for those of us who don't sound the l in that.

Cerberus

@AndrewLeach For example, Dutch west and vest (same words as in English) are minimal pairs and don't ever cause confusion: they're easy to distinguish for us.

V is voiced f; w is different from either.

Andrew Leach

I think I'd need to hear it.

Cerberus

@AndrewLeach Yes. Except with a shorter a.

@AndrewLeach forvo.com/search/west/nl

forvo.com/search/vest/nl

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…