@stack That depends upon what you're trying to do with the punctuation.

Kit Z. Fox's suggestion is fine if you just want to end the sentence. The exclamation point might be appropriate to do the same, but should be especially reserved for a select few emotive sentences. If you want to note that there is an omission at the end of a quoted sentence, you would use a separate ellipsis, a space, then the proper terminal punctuation.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Did the term "multitasking" come from the computer realm? by Todd Gunvaldson on english.SE

We have two community ads for the Language Learning site, one of which is a beauty, and the other rather ugly (IMO). We only need one person to vote on each for the attractive ad to be used instead of the other one: meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/10017/59258 meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/10010/59258

(To be clear, I'm requesting upvotes for the attractive one and downvotes for the ugly one. Use your own judgement to decide which is which ;))

Canadians watching US news

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Present Continuous or Present Simple in a Meeting by Plaisime Yonel on english.SE

Looks like our main site just went "offline for maintenance".

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer: Words or phrases to describe how street beggars typically look? by jkjkjkjkjk on english.SE

... and we're back.

@RegDwigнt You talking about Tрамп?

@Cerberus Yeah. I guess that's generally true.

I only reported the number because I was so baffled by how expendable (human) life is; but yeah, of course Mongol invasions had other important dimensions too. As a teen, I used to flip out red just at the thought of the libraries that were burnt down, and daydream about what would have happened if that hadn't. -- exhales

@Færd But not any more?

I gave up the silly attitude. Shit happens, one way or the other.

I still do that.

As an historian.

Oh, the libraries of Alexandria, Bagdad...

Well. I don't know.

How much evil do I get to wish hadn't existed?

up to a ten litre bucket's worth

That doesn't wash a hundredth of the blood that was shed by Genghis.

You should check for coupons in the local magazine. sometimes they have a 2 for 1

@MattE.Эллен That's better.

@Færd Yeah, well, don't get me started on Alexandria.

Hello! I was wondering if someone could answer a question about the scope of of this site, specifically song lyrics?

I read this meta post meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/995/…

but it is an older post, and it seems the sentiment of the community may have changed over time...

I ask because on the Literature Beta we are discussing the same topic meta.literature.stackexchange.com/q/67/56

and I found the ELU meta post to be helpful

@MetaEd It seems like they have become an area of heated debate, at least judging by some of the comments I have seen on newer questions here.

@Skooba I'm not aware of a heated debate, but I think yes there are multiple opinions about what should be closed or left open.

Can you say that something (like tap dancing, miniature painting, etc) is an art? Ie, can art be countable in this sense?

@Færd yes

Thanks!

@Færd Yes, and sometimes we talk about the arts (plural) and the sciences (plural) too.

Thanks!

Yes, ODO lists the plural arts, but not art (in the sense of 'a branch of art') as a countable noun. Made me wonder.

e.g. the saying "It's more of an art than a science"

Yes.

@MetaEd Maybe, camp fire heated rather than raging inferno :P

not picking on any user, just an example of what I've seen

Here's my opinion

It depends on the question, but usually questions about song lyrics are about interpretation, so there isn't a correct answer, and the answers aren't related to English, but to the psychology of the lyricist.

I see, I hadn't thought of it like that. Which in relation to this Stack's scope would usually mean "too-broad" or "Opinion Based"?

yes. usually opinion based, I'd say

@Skooba There are a few low bars any question has to get over, and sometimes lyrics questions don't make it. Is there an actual problem to be solved? Is it actually answerable, or just a matter of opinion? And will the solution help future visitors?

Would you consider this meta answer to be outdated then? meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/997/148459

I hail from SFF, the king of, "What problem does this solve?"

@Skooba I think that's basically how we still feel about it.

Okay, good. I used an excerpt of that answer on an answer I provided on the Literature Meta.

cool :D

Thanks for the responses. You have been most helpful and kind.

no probs :)

@Skooba It's less clear than I'd like. As the majority answer says, basically it depends. But it's a bit thin about what it depends on.

@Skooba I'd like to learn more about what y'all do with "what problem does this solve".

@MetaEd Well, I am still relatively new to the SE network as a whole, but I hear that Jeff Atwood was hard on SFF because "It did not solve real problems". But it doesn't really matter because it still fits the SE Q&A model, and there are certainly "experts" there.

I just got home after walking three hours at my favourite mall @Matt.

@Skooba We get our share of questions that don't solve real problems. Is the paragraph I read on this web page grammatically correct, that sort of thing.

@JasperLoy well done

@skooba What can I^h^h^h^h^hwould one call a total asshat who insulted my^h^hsomeone's girlfriend?

@MetaEd Yeah, I am sure moderating this site can be, uh... unique... at times

@JasperLoy not pubbing it today?

@Skooba I'll have to go back and read what Atwood said about SFF. I tend to go back to Atwood a lot when I'm trying to keep in mind the point of Stack Exchange.

@MetaEd it's worse than you think. He er that asshat is flirting with your er the girl.

@MattE.Эллен I'm pubbng it as we speak.

If by pubbing you mean plunging a toilet

yes. definitely.

It's onomatopoeic

'Onomatopoeia' is onomatopoeic, but not for onomatopoeia.

Like for maybe a steam engine overheating

Or dropping ball bearings in a glass bowl

I thought that was pung pongly dongly ong

Yeah exactly. Just like 'onomatopoeia'

You cheated by throwing in some more syllables.

you Americans. Always dropping all the important syllables.

John Wick is actually pronounced /dʒɒnɪk/, in BrE

Some authors specify the article of a term and some don't. For example, "For a set S, ~" and "For set S". What's the difference?

@MattE.Эллен Put some Wooster on that and it's done.

@MattE.Эллен wait...that's how we say it too. It's almost like we speak the same fargnoble

@ShinKim in math 'for a set S' means you're about to specify something about this new set or it's an entirely arbitrary new set.

'For set S' implies that S has already been specified.

@Mitch oops I used the U.K. version.

@MattE.Эллен Nope. My friend is tired, so he did not go out with me, and I usually go with him.

@Mitch Dude.

Thanks @Mitch

@JasperLoy it's still yesterday here.

@Mitch, should I add comma right next to 'here' in the following sentence? "Here S is a set."

The sentence will be put between the parentheses "(" and ")".

The full sentence is this: "Here, S is a set, and R and T are relations." Does it look natural?

@ShinKim ya know, you'd think everything would follow strict rules. but here I think it could go either way. comma or no comma either is fine. I think I would choose no comma because you already have enough punctuation with the parentheses (I realize that 'amount of punctuation' is not part of the rules of English orthography but there it is).

Got it, @Mitch.

@Cerberus You are a historian? You must be fun to talk to. Not that I'm a historian or anything, just that history interests me.

Oh I have an on topic question.

It is confusing. To get a good accent I heard that I need to pronounce my /r/ correctly, with tongue pulled slightly back from the alveolar ridge. Is this correct? or just the alveolar ridge is okay? how about with the back of the front teeth?

And about aspiration does it look bad if we don’t aspirate letters?

Because I heard nonaspiration marks the speaker as non-native. Hm.

Bah. I give up on pronunciation. AaaaGGHH.

BTW if I want to use the plural of /r/ should it be: "I want to pronounce my r's correctly" or "I want to pronounce my /r/'s correctly"?

Which one?

I hope I didn't barrage the chat with little questions just now.