English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

10:32

Morn!

Cerberus

12:54

This really is a stupid move.

Changing the central visual mark of your product into something entirely different.

Getting rid of the wavy flag I can understand; but the colours are very recognizable.

windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/02/…

Cerberus

13:07

> 1. We wanted the new logo to be both modern and classic

I mean, come on.

> 2. It was important that the new logo carries [sic] our Metro principle of being “Authentically Digital”.

> 3. Our final goal was for the new logo to be humble, yet confident. Welcoming you in with a slight tilt in perspective and when you change your color, the logo changes to reflect you. It is a “Personal” Computer after all.

This must be the lowest of the low even in advertising land. How stupid and meaningless can marketing lingo become?

> — Sam Moreau, Principal Director of User Experience for Windows

Vitaly

@Cerberus how do you feel about “He says that he has witnessed the accident that everybody is talking about”?

Cerberus

@Vitaly Sounds fine to me.

Is this about triple embedding?

No, it's only double.

Vitaly

No, this is about present perfect vs preterite with an indefinite NP.

> [He says that] he {witnessed / *has witnessed} the accident that everybody is talking about. (The relative clause tells the hearer which accident the speaker is referring to. This renders the NP definite: its referent is identifiable. This means that the existence of the accident is presupposed when the speaker makes a statement about it.

> The speaker therefore uses the past tense to talk about the past accident: there is actualization focus on the fact that the speaker saw the accident happen when it did.)

Cerberus

When I first read it, I was considering the simple past, that much is true.

To me, the present perfect does not indicate an indefinite time in the past here (that would indeed be impossible), but a statement about the past that is mainly relevant to the present.

He is saying, "hello people, I am a witness, I have seen the accident, I have information about it now!".

But the situation where you would use the simple past is probably more common, when the accident is simply presented as an account of a past event.

Understand what I mean?

Vitaly

13:26

Uh-huh.

Cerberus

14:30

Wow, an Ipad 2 has a much lower resolution than the latest phones.

So you can see less text on the Ipad's screen.

I just love bashing M$ and Apple. Such easy targets.

Huge and sluggish.

Matt Эллен

like crippled elephants

Cerberus

Yeah!

Matt Эллен

but on the other hand, Apple products are lauded for the aesthetic design

unlike a crippled elephant

or microsoft

Cerberus

That is for people who consider the looks of their devices an important factor and like modernist design.

Matt Эллен

but sometimes excellence in function and good aesthetics go hand in hand

Cerberus

14:39

And sometimes they don't.

Matt Эллен

but when they do, like in user interaction design, then it is important to consider it

Cerberus

@Rob: I strongly doubt whether "mantelpiece" is U.

@MattЭллен What does "user interaction design" mean?

Matt Эллен

the design of how the user interacts with something

Cerberus

Hmm...well, there is some link between functionality and beauty.

Matt Эллен

Indeed

although the new Windows logo doesn't really convey either :D

Cerberus

14:43

But it is often weak in the exteriors of electronic devices, with tiny, flat, colourless buttons that are hard to find.

The Windows logo is extremely plain.

If that is even possible.

It is like the midpoint of mediocrity.

Matt Эллен

there are a lot of places where UID is done badly, especially in older consumer electronics

Cerberus

Sure.

Matt Эллен

I think my current phone's buttons are pretty well designed

although I have got used to it now, so I might be biased

Cerberus

But I hate how modern monitors have tiny buttons that are hard to spot and hard to press.

@MattЭллен What phone do you have?

Matt Эллен

HTC Desire

Cerberus

14:48

I would like an elegantly designed wooden computer.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yes, that is particularly annoying

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmm it looks all right, but the buttons all look the same from a distance.

@MattЭллен It is probably considered elegant by some people.

Matt Эллен

well, I don't use my phone at a distance :D

Cerberus

They would prefer a black cube with no visible features at all.

@MattЭллен How about the yearly phone-throwing contests?

Matt Эллен

my monitors at work have the buttons on the back! I ask you, who came up with such ah foolish design?

@Cerberus I didn't place well at last year's, I'm considering not going again. Probably should have quit when I was ahead.

Cerberus

14:53

@MattЭллен Ahhhh!

@MattЭллен Oh, that sucks. Perhaps you should have tried the new "sling" throw? Or did you fail to hit the wall at all?

Matt Эллен

Yeah - I threw my shoulder out in the heats and couldn't make the distance in the final round

Cerberus

Haha aww.

I heard some people tried the illegal earplug spin.

You wrap the phone in the earplug cord, then throw it like a yoyo, except that the cord snaps loose at the last second. The resulting spin is great for balance.

By the way, it's funny how one can wrap [material] around [object] and wrap [object] in [material].

Matt Эллен

brb - eating

Vitaly

Tribute to the new Windows logo.

Robusto

Noted.

@Vit: How did we get steamrolled by two superior factions? Has @Reg gone barmy, attacking FCD?

Vitaly

15:09

Haven't you heard? We are about to get renamed into The Barmy Army.

Robusto

Sounds smarmy.

Cerberus

@Vitaly Haha wtf are you doing...

Robusto

@Cerberus What's funny about that?

Cerberus

How predicate frames that are different in such a complicated way overlap semantically.

That is unusual. The complicated aspect of it is the prepositions.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yep, those semantically overlapping predicate frames are real knee-slappers.

Cerberus

15:14

Funny as in amusingly odd.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes, I know. I was playing off that, you humorless little three-headed doggy.

Cerberus

How droll.

I have to go shopping, later!

Vitaly

15:46

Hey @Reg, can you fight my deck 5 times and tell how it goes?

(With a Rainbow.)

Robusto

@Vitaly I surged with 80% success rate using Draconecrosopras.

Vitaly

Gah. Thanks.

@Robusto Added Gaia as a commander instead. Does it stop the Necrogeddon?

Robusto

@Vitaly I'll check.

But Necro wasn't the big factor in the wins. Maybe one time it helped.

Vitaly

Oh.

Robusto

OK, Gaia loses 100% of the time to my Killah deck.

The rally is critical for your Vigil deck, IMO. Much more important than cleansing.

Vitaly

16:00

Yeah, but I ran out of good Rally Righteous cards.

Wait, there's Acropolis!

Robusto

The SO component + Asylum is what wins for me. Necrogeddon and Prism are there for edge cases. If I get Necro up fast against SO decks or Rainbows or Fear spam, I do well. Otherwise Sundering Ogres + rally are the meat and potatoes.

Vitaly

What about the Acropolis/Empress deck now?

Robusto

100% wins on surge, 5/5.

Acropolis is too slow to activate.

You need rally and you need it fast.

I think Asylum might even be better.

Vitaly

Sigh. Back to the Lucina defense then. @Reg never mind.

Asylum only rallies Bloodthirsty.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hey I'm right in the middle of fighting.

So far three surges, all three won.

Vitaly

16:08

And Adytum (the Rally Righteous structure) is slow as well.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Though this is precisely the kind of deck against which I only win in sparring. In an actual war I'd probably lose six battles out of ten.

It's always like that.

Vitaly

I couldn't win against it reliably with my Lucina.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well your Lucina is different.

Vitaly

But then I never really play Lucina on offense.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I play it a lot, and I used to run an Atlas rainbow before that, and lately I had a lot of training fighting LaO's Righteous deck with it. So yeah.

Plus after fighting your deck just once it's easy to be prepared to fight it again, because it has so few different cards.

It's harder to fight a deck where you just can't know for sure what to expect.

Robusto

16:18

I wonder if there's a better card than Prism I could use in my Killah deck. I almost never play it in a real battle.

Vitaly

Hmm. You don't need the fast universal Cleanse?

Robusto

It hardly ever matters.

I'm toying with trying Bloodpool.

Vitaly

Bulging Mantis then? (I see you have it.)

Robusto

That's a thought.

Vitaly

Or Subterfuge against slowrolls?

Robusto

16:22

The thing is, my main strategy is to activate the first SO with 2xAsylum behind it. That chews up opponent's decks like mad. I really only lose against flying spam (with bad luck) or rally/rush that keeps SO from activating.

Blood Pool would keep the attack down and maybe buy time. But it is still a 3-wait card ...

I also lose against strike/rush, but not as bad.

Harbor Command is a card I hate to see played, though.

Vitaly

Oh, Weaken. Warehouse? And Energy Spiker against strike/rush if you can be bothered to do that raid (I can't).

Robusto

I'm terminally bored with raids.

Warehouse might work, though.

Vitaly

On the plus side, you only need 1000 damage for Energy Spiker. But then it's a rather difficult raid.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I haven't even tried the new raids. Not one, not once.

And I used to raid like mad. Heck, I have Xeno Overlord.

Robusto

Warehouse seems to fit right in. It comes on fast and performs its tasks patiently and well. It would die against SC spam, but that's a different set of problems.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

16:33

0

Q: Is there a suffix for loathing?

For instance trichomania is a love of hair, and trichophobia is a fear of hair. But what suffix would denote a loathing of hair?

suffixes

Sounds like a question for Greek LU.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 Well, -lagnia is a suffix for liking, so perhaps there is one for loathing.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

New war.

Robusto

HIMUM is getting tougher, or I'm just getting a run of bad luck.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Same here.

Robusto

This is odd. I have a higher tournament rating than @Vitaly but I've lost 2/3 of my tournament battles. Some things just don't make sense in WMT.

Vitaly

16:49

Oh, at least 100 of my tournament losses are intentional. I wanted to get 666 tournament points and kept losing to low-ranked players on purpose. So my losing to low-ranked players resulted in a low global rank.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

So people are ganging up on me today.

2

Q: Do I use the plural or singular when referring to a positive number less than one?

Possible Duplicate: Should we use plural or singular for a fraction of a mile? I've been trying to work out which of the following make best grammatical sense but have been looking at them for so long now that my mind has turned to mush and they both seem wrong. Which is better form...

grammatical-number

Alan Munn

@RegDwight Hi. I'm curious about your reasons for editing the number agreement question so that it looked like the duplicate you thought it was and also for not responding to any of the comments regarding the duplicate status. I'm new here (but not to stackexchange) and this seems uncharacteristic behaviour, especially for a mod. On TeX.sx where I hang out mostly, mods don't usually cast close votes until non-mods have done so.

Robusto

22

A: Will grammar errors become "correct" after enough people use them for long enough?

We are most likely "doomed" in that these changes are more or less inevitable. But we are not "doomed" in the sense that the language is actually breaking or somehow falling apart. Languages have been around for thousands of years, evolving and changing; no language has ever evolved itself into...

It's time for Kosmonaut to come home. Really, it's been long enough.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@AlanMunn I was mislead into closing it as a dupe of the mile question by the title. I immediately noticed my error and edited the title to make it less misleading. Before you even commented. Then I remembered that it was still a dupe but of a different question, and edited the duplicate notice accordingly.

Of course now that my edit has been rolled back it is closed as a dupe of the wrong question again.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 But it's not a duplicate of either of them. The question isn't about 'total' and the question isn't about the plurality of the head noun with fractions, it's about subject verb agreement with fractional amounts. Of course the questions are all related, but I don't think they are duplicates of each other.

Cerberus

16:58

Hey, our favourite mod would be allowed uncharacteristic behaviour, if that it were.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The fractional amounts are irrelevant here.

Robusto

@Cerberus Hey, stop trying to make up yet another language to use in chat.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The fractional amount is expressly regarded as plural by the OP.

Cerberus

@Robusto Exkyooze me?

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 I agree that the fractional amounts are irrelevant to the answer, but not to the question in the OPs eyes. And the question is about the subject verb agreement, and in fact the apparent mismatch between the plural head noun and the required singular verbal agreement.

Robusto

17:00

@AlanMunn This is really a mass noun vs. count noun question, and as such is still a duplicate.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@AlanMunn the thing is, the question in the title simply does not match the question in the body. Which caused this whole confusion to begin with.

In fact leaving the title as is won't get you reopen votes, because people will look at it and remember the same question I remembered, so they won't even bother clicking.

Alan Munn

@Robusto It may well be a duplicate of some question or other here, but it doesn't seem to be of either of the two possibilities that @RegDwight proposed (although the second one is certainly closer). I don't think this is about mass nouns per se, since amounts aren't mass in their internal syntax.

Robusto

@AlanMunn Molar quantities would seem to be mass nouns, though.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 I really don't care about getting reopen votes. I was mainly astonished at the process.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The process goes like this: it's Sunday and nobody is here. So I have to bring the hammer down.

Alan Munn

17:05

@Robusto Not w.r.t their internal syntax. 40 lbs of apples behaves just like 40 litres of water: they are syntactically plural internally, but require singular anaphora and agreement.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I don't know about the TeX site, but we have got quite a bit of flak from TPTB so we tend to err on the side of erring.

We still have our meta and chat, though, where issues can be raised.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 We get none. And I understand that you get a lot more crap here than we do. I was also curious why you didn't respond in the comments at all (even to say "bring this to chat".)

Cerberus

I think there are two issues: 1. does the head noun (total) determine the number of the verb? 2. Does total normally take a singular or a plural verb?

Alan Munn

@Cerberus Since the facts are the same independent of 'total', this is a red herring.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@AlanMunn because I only just saw the comments 19 minutes ago, at which point I actually posted the question here, going to ask Rob for his opinion.

You know, I'm not on the site 24/7, especially not on a Sunday.

Cerberus

17:10

@AlanMunn That bit of information you provide there should also be part of the answer.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I know commit and run is a crime, but it happens.

Matt Эллен

it's why I'm doing 25-life

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 Ok. My apologies. You seemed to be around when I posted them, which is why I asked. And I never remember whether the @ notification works for contacting in this case.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Nah no sweat.

Alan Munn

@Cerberus It is.

Cerberus

17:12

OK, so then it is relevant.

Alan Munn

@Cerberus ? It's relevant only in its irrelevance.

Robusto

Well, I'm off to a trivia party. The quadrivia parties are more fun, of course, but this is what's on the docket for today. Laters.

Cerberus

Everything on this site is just that, IF you know it.

Bye!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Damn he leaves right when I was going to ask his opinion on "40 litres of water fills the tank to the brim".

Which would've been my original question 23 minutes ago.

Alan Munn

@RegDwight Although I still don't think it's a duplicate of the 'total of' question, that is certainly the closer duplicate, so if you're going to continue to keep it closed, it would make sense to change the linked question to that one.

@RegDwightѬſ道 As in, can you say that? For me, yes, definitely.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

17:17

The second example is easier, "200lbs is too much" is certainly grammatical.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 You're not a native speaker, though, right?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Ayup.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 So you don't get an opinion. :-)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Shrug.

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 I see you've reopened the question. Thanks. And don't take my last comment too seriously. (Although it's what I tell my non-native speaker students, too.)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

17:23

Nah I know my GMAT score would be abysmal.

Cerberus

Unlike....

By the way, Americans should not be considered native speakers of English either.

Alan Munn

@Cerberus Was that a verb or a preposition?

Matt Эллен

indeed

Cerberus

They are more like people from India.

Matt Эллен

they should get their own language

RegDwight Ѭſ道

17:26

I must insist that the title be changed, though. Otherwise you will start getting close-votes again.

Cerberus

They have their weird dialect influenced by local circumstances.

@MattЭллен Hear, hear!

Matt Эллен

unlike British English ;)

Alan Munn

@RegDwightѬſ道 So make it about amounts then.

Cerberus

@AlanMunn Is that Facebookese or something?

@MattЭллен I.e. you win and they suck.

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

17:27

Although of course you must speak RP.

Or the Queen will cry out, "off with your head!".

Alan Munn

@Cerberus With one word, it wasn't clear. 'unlike' as a verb is Facebookese. I take it you're not a speaker.

Cerberus

@AlanMunn I sometimes navigate betwixt the blue islands of Facebookia, but I do not call from there, no.

Matt Эллен

in your face John Stewart

@Cerberus it's true. we have 3 beheadings a day down to bad grammar alone

Cerberus

Only three?

Well.

Alan Munn

@RegDwight And nice job of editing my comments. That's much more helpful now, I think.

Cerberus

17:32

Then the Privy Council must be doing its work.

Matt Эллен

most go undetected, or get argued away by descriptivist lawyers

Cerberus

Abomination!

They are so glaring and incongruous!

Matt Эллен

lol

I'm surprised Her Majesty hasn't done away with them on principle

Cerberus

Yes, it is about time.

@MattЭллен Poor Belgians.

That guy is really grating, by the the way.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I know. getting talked down to by an American is a harrowing experience at the best of times

It's not like the British treat the Belgian with any more respect ;)

Cerberus

17:36

Well, if it had been Frasier or Jessica Fletcher...

@MattЭллен Of course, but that is because you guys hate the continent.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus So I hear. I like it, but I keep that to myself

Cerberus

Wise.

Or Cameron will send MI5 on your tail.

Matt Эллен

he'll think I'm a euro-sympathiser

Cerberus

Or is it MI6?

Scotland Yard?

Matt Эллен

I'll be sent to some detention centre

Cerberus

17:38

A camp?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus MI5 for internal spying

Cerberus

Ah OK.

Matt Эллен

MI6 for external

Cerberus

And James Bond was with MI6?

Matt Эллен

aye

Cerberus

17:38

OK.

Matt Эллен

MI5/GCHQ

Cerberus

Quoi?

Matt Эллен

General Central Head Quarters?

Cerberus

Ah.

Matt Эллен

something like that

Alan Munn

17:39

I have no idea whose side I should be on in all this: born in the UK, grew up in Canada, live in the US, professional linguist. That probably makes me the devil incarnate.

Matt Эллен

another internal spying mechanism

Cerberus

@AlanMunn Oh, dear. You must feel torn. Maybe side with the Australians?

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

Yes, if you leave the island, you're done for.

Do you have the boot, by the way?

Alan Munn

@Cerberus The boot?

Cerberus

17:41

I'm trying to figure out what percentage of Canadians have it.

Matt Эллен

oh, at least 100%

Cerberus

@AlanMunn Do you say what sounds like a boot for about?

@MattЭллен The fat ones count double?

Alan Munn

@Cerberus You mean as in a car? Not really.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus minimum

Cerberus

Sounds fair.

@AlanMunn No no, aboot.

Alan Munn

17:42

@Cerberus Yes. This is called Canadian Raising. And it's not really an [u], although I'm sure you know that.

Cerberus

I don't know what the exact IPA symbol is, but it does sound much like u to me...?

Or ʊ, then?

Alan Munn

@Cerberus Yes, that's the perception by non-linguists. It's actually [ʌʊ] in lieu of [aʊ] before voiceless consonants.

Cerberus

Hmm really?

When I say it in my mind it doesn't sound quite the way ʌ should sound...but I am not familiar with ʌʊ at all.

Is there any other word that has ʌʊ?

I mean, outside the Canadian accent.

Alan Munn

@Cerberus They're both diphthongs. The pronunciation is actually closest to BrEng 'boat', although not identical.

Cerberus

Hmm yes, that actually rings a bell. "A boat" sounds much like Canadian "about" to me.

But a bit more rounded.

If that's what it is.

I believe "boat" is /bəʊt/?

Alan Munn

17:54

@Cerberus Right. And the difference between [ə] and [ʌ] as the first part of the diphthong isn't very much. For N. Americans, that difference is simply one of stress. For non-rhotic dialects like BrEng, the distinction is clearer: the difference between 'bird' and 'bud'.

Cerberus

@AlanMunn Hmm but isn't bird also longer?

Like /bɜːd/?

Whereas bud is just /bʌd/.

Alan Munn

@Cerberus Yes, it is (because of the the missing /r/).

Cerberus

Yes, compensatory lengthening, or what is it called?

Alan Munn

@Cerberus Yes, exactly.

Cerberus

A pretty universal phenomenon, I should say.

Do you know, does it occur outside the IE languages?

Theta30

18:18

14

Q: Where is this building in Amsterdam with a façade looking like a bookshelf?

A friend of mine was in Amsterdam this weekend, and he made an awesome photo of a building with a wall that looks like a book shelf: Unfortunately he has no idea the of the address, and he doesn't have a picture of the building as a whole, nor its purpose. He wants to go back there again next ...

amsterdam identify-this architecture locate-this

Cerberus

Hah funny.

I work 5 minutes from there.

Theta30

have you seen it?

Cerberus

Nope!

Theta30

18:37

I tend to use ʌ more than ə. ə is the most common sound in English

and it takes confidence to say an unstressed sound, paradoxically

did you know tilde is pronounced tildə?

simchona

18:54

0

Q: Should I capitalize twitter links?

Should I capitalize twitter links? If yes and no, give examples of both. The direct example in question is the http://twitter.com/XonaGames bio. I could set it one of the following three ways. I have used real hyperlinks to approximate the best of how it looks and feels: Award-winning ind...

capitalization

Are we really keeping this?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

19:21

0

Q: genitive case - help

Possible Duplicate: Is using the possessive 's correct in “the car's antenna”? I was looking for a thorough explanation of the genitive case and how to use it. Despite the amount of sources it is still not clear whether it is correct to use it with inanimate things ...