English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2017-04-10

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2:16 AM

@Tonepoet My gut feeling was that if you can't see two things being face to face looking in each other's eyes, so to speak, or opposing each other in some locational way, then they're not opposite each other. And I couldn't see the bed and the chest of drawers that way, at least not without straining my vision.

But, still, that's a better choice than the wall, I must admit. Maybe it's, only technically, correct, too.

@Færd The perspective is a little strange in that picture.

And I think that's a closet wardrobe, so you weren't off that far. ;)

@Tonepoet Yeah. Inappropriate illustration for a learner.

@Færd My concern isn't that I'm wrong, or I'd be more apologetic about it. My concern is that maybe I don't think about the language in the same manner as the person who distributed the illustration. =P

@Tonepoet No problem. That's your authority, to some extent.

@Færd I think it'd be more idiomatic to say prerogative, in that case.

2:24 AM

OK. Thanks.

2 hours later…

4:04 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted username, blacklisted website in body: a person must be large radley purse interested in understanding by radlelgl on english.SE

@Cerberus: I accidentally broke my G4's screen. Got a G6 to replace it. Pretty fast and lots of nice features, but I'm hoping I won't miss the removable battery ...

4 hours later…

7:56 AM

@Robusto Hmm. Batteries are generally removable because the SIM needs to be guaranteed to be unpowered when removed (so SIMs are underneath the battery which you need to remove to get at them); and because the battery may need to be replaced. How does the G6 deal with those?

For those interested in a failed mathematician's life.

8:52 AM

> I have had professors lecture with one foot in a wastebasket for half an hour, or blush when talking about “osculating functions,” or fail to even notice a student kicking in a glass door when it was stuck.

9:05 AM

Yeah, that was...strange

3 hours later…

11:57 AM

@AndrewLeach The G6 is waterproof (-resistant?) but I haven't tried that and won't if I can help it. But it does have a little door on the side for the SD and SIM cards, opened via a pinhole.

@skullpetrol For those interested in an excellent math teacher:

Intermediate Algebra Lecture 13.2: A Study of Conic Sections -- Ellipse and Hyperbola.

12:47 PM

@MetaEd I'd like to know what your opinion on the matter is, since it concerns a question you have answered.

1:42 PM

> “Reality” is vastly overrated.

2:16 PM

Hello room. Can you tell me the convention for capitalising the first letter (or not) new nouns, appropriated from proper nouns such as 'Photoshopper' or, I guess, googler / Googler.

Thanks

2:26 PM

@Jdoh Same as any other. If you're using them as proper nouns, capitalize. If not, don't. Their origin is not relevant here.

well, that was easy! Thanks

np

does that apply even if you are coing the word yourself, such as 'photoshopper'?

^coining

Matt E. Эллен

(push up to edit)

@Jdoh Yes, it has nothing to do with the specific word being used. It's a general rule.

2:28 PM

thanks again

@MattE.Эллен out of breath. Are you sure? I've been doing push ups for the past 10 minutes and haven't edited a damn thing!

Matt E. Эллен

@terdon there is a three minute window. silly terdon ;)

@MattE.Эллен Argh. I am so out of shape :(

Matt E. Эллен

me too!

Need to edit more. Obviously.

Matt E. Эллен

2:30 PM

I think I will get a unpowered lawn mower and see if working out once per week helps :p

Yeah. I moved to the first floor. That's how dedicated I am.

Matt E. Эллен

@terdon yes. edit my health records to say I'm healthy

Cheator!

(no, I wasn't making a horrible pun about Cheetos, whatever gave you that idea?)

Matt E. Эллен

(are you comparing me to Donald Trump?)

(I will admit I let foreign dignitaries stay in my hotels for political favours)

@MattE.Эллен I knew it!

Matt E. Эллен

2:33 PM

(sadly none of the dignitaries are interested)

(did you try bribing them with Cheetos? That usually works.)

(and even if it fails, at least they're stuck now since they can't turn the doorknobs with their greasy fingers)

Matt E. Эллен

(interesting plan. I'll have to confiscate the soap, too)

3:06 PM

@Tonepoet Looks like it was already reopened.

@Tonepoet Very interesting new answer, too, from @sumelic.

@MetaEd I don't see an answer other than mine.

@Tonepoet Are we talking about this question?

-2

Q: Is "hangman" a gender neutral term?

And if not, is there an adequate gender-neutral term that isn't 'executioner'? I'm studying the poem "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden, the opening line of which is "Into the town, the Hangman came." The word has loaded connotations, so I'm wondering if there's any suitable replacement.

single-word-requests gender-neutral

Oh that.

I was just looking at the meta-question. It [had] his answer in it.

@MetaEd As you can see in rev. 5. So I was already considering the type of answer he was thinking of posting when I wrote my answer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:32 PM

@Robusto You'll miss it if you're the type of person who had two batteries for your old phone. Otherwise, it'll be fine until you've had the phone long enough that the battery won't charge - then you'll be faced with a repair or replacement.

@AndrewLeach When was the last time you bought a cell phone? Just curious. Most high end phones these days don't have removable batteries.

4:14 PM

Would a question about if there's an equivalent of a foreign idiom in English be on-topic?

With enough background context, it would seem like one of your clickbait HNQs, no?

We have loads of those

english.stackexchange.com/questions/298548/…, english.stackexchange.com/questions/73388/…, english.stackexchange.com/questions/270696/…, english.stackexchange.com/questions/287230/…

@terdon Exactly

They're the same thing as any other word or phrase request, really.

How can I say X in English?

@terdon Which is on-topic?

Very much so.

4:21 PM

Alrighty, lemme post it

Although many regulars hate them, single-word-requests are a significant percentage of the site's content.

@terdon They have a reason to do so

I know. I'm not too fond of your average single-word-request either. Although I am guilty of posting one or two.

And they are, sometimes, quite fun and interesting.

Actually, mine is strictly a [proverb-request]

4:58 PM

OK, now I dunno what tags to use

english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/phrase-requests

makes self-reflective comment

@M.A.R. There are other request tags. phrase-requests might be more suitable.

@Tonepoet But the original foreign proverb is a sentence

That's OK. It's phrase as in "common phrase" not as opposed to a sentence.

5:05 PM

@M.A.R. That's translation. Most of Yoichi Ooishi's questions set a good example to follow for that sort of question.

Yeah, I'd go with both of those.

55

Q: What is the English equivalent to the Chinese/Japanese saying, “塞翁失馬— Life is like Old Sai’s horse”?

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, 2012 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, the initiator of all-around (iPS) cells told a recently-held public symposium, quote: “I’m often asked by many people: ‘You are happy that you've won the Nobel Prize, aren’t you?’ But I tell them that everything in life...

@M.A.R. Apparently we have a proverbs tag too.

Oh wait...

@M.A.R. Actually, maybe it's not translation I'm getting mixed up. Translation is the other way around. We help you find the equivalent for an original phrase you translate for us in English. In fact, I don't think we do the reverse come to think of it, except perhaps as a etymology question.

I'm going to stop talking now.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I bought a Lumia 640LTE just over 18 months ago.

@Robusto That's tragic!

And phoenical.

5:33 PM

@Tonepoet What?

My question is pretty similar to that up there

An English equivalent of a non-English proverb

@M.A.R. Oh, okay, It's definitely translation then.

I'd go with proverbs, translation and phrase-requests

Posted

@Robusto You once had the G2, and now you fear your irreplaceable battery will cause you discomfort?

> Therefore death to us
Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least,
Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
And just as in the ages gone before
We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round
To battle came the Carthaginian host,
And the times, shaken by tumultuous war,
Under the aery coasts of arching heaven
Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind
Doubted to which the empery should fall
By land and sea, thus when we are no more,
When comes that sundering of our body and soul
Through which we're fashioned to a single state,

@M.A.R. It looks good to me.

5:38 PM

Yay

125 rep, here I come

Hopefully

@M.A.R. I'm surprised at how low your rep. is given how often I've seen you in chat. XD

@Tonepoet IKR, this amount of participation amounts to scores of thousands of rep

And yet my most is 5850-something on ELL

@M.A.R. That's more than I have here, or anywhere since this is the only website I use on the network. XP

@Tonepoet Well, slackers not included

-5

Q: Can I write this? Can I say this? Can I speak like this? and e.t.c

I'm starting to notice these questions of a kind more and more often. It seems to me that what most people want is ask us to allow them to do whatever they want to do but not exactly answer their questions. They ask us whether they can do/say/write/speak something instead of asking whether it is...

O.O

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:00 PM

@AndrewLeach My condolonces

@M.A.R. And et cetera.

@Tonepoet And ET Cetera

@M.A.R. I really just want to replace the whole e.t.c. thing with &c, and eliminate the redundant And, but I can't. =P

Not to mention the erroneous full stops.

Hilarious.

6:34 PM

Laugh O. Loud

@Mitch Lauolou

How about 'One bad apple spoils the bunch'? (are you familiar with that one?)

@Mitch That's not the one I'm looking for

The actors do not have the same correspondence but it may end up applying to the same situation.

By a stretch

6:41 PM

oh...'Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.'?

That sounds like a good answer!

is the essence 'false positives'?

or is it more about who did what to whom?

@Mitch Something good being sacrificed for something bad is the essence of the saying

@M.A.R. hm... the baby/bathwater difficulty is very close.

I mean babies are cute and all.

but... the bathwater didn't get all dirty by itself if you know what I'm sayin

Which reminds me...

@Mitch Yeah, that's why I said that's a good answer

6:45 PM

If someone says:

"Imma let you continue but..."

They're probably not gonna let you continue.

@Mitch We could theorize that the good not warning the bad about the consequences would make them less good

Babies: worlds cutest poop machines.

BBL dinner

@M.A.R. The good are complicit in distinguishing the bad, so they're also dirty.

So they all need a bath.

@M.A.R. BBQ dinner

@Mitch We did have kebab for dinner

Good answer. Have an upvote for now

I'll accept in a couple of days, if I remember.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:14 PM

To me, that proverb is more like a negative version of "A rising tide lifts all boats", where the consequences are felt by all even if only a few seem to deserve it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That sounds apt, yeah

That sounds REALLY apt

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I just learned that it's most famously used in the US when politicians justify economic policies.

Principals in schools are just small-scale politicians

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But "wet and dry burn together" sounds more negative....

It kinda is

7:20 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Is there a word that combines aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial? by Tom on english.SE

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's more like everyone getting the same punishment, than everyone getting the same treatment

So yours is more general, I think

Or it seems like that

One context where the Persian equivalent is apt

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer: English pronunciation of "charade" as in Pink Floyd song Pigs by user230620 on english.SE

Aw yiss, finally I can downvote.

. . .

>:D

The Aesop's fable of the stork and the cranes (discussed here) offers much the same lesson that your proverb suggests. An expression that has some similarities to your expression is "It rains on the just and on the unjust"—although in that case the notion is more of the indifference of Fate to the merits of those whose lives it touches than (as here) of crude and indiscriminate punishment sweeping up the innocent with the guilty. — Sven Yargs 1 min ago

@Mr.Shiny Could you post that proverb as an answer?

I was already expecting the English variant won't cover all the nuances and connotations

But yours is close enough to constitute a good answer

7:37 PM

>:D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

posted, even though I'm not really sure it's the best answer

Proverbial questions are pretty much subjective by nature.

@M.A.R. Oh dear, maybe I should not have helped to weaponize you. XP

Aha! So you're the one :P

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "I'm not really sure it's the best answer" Welcome to the HNQ!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:47 PM

heh

If you have any questions about how clickbait titles work, visit the tour.

If you're not proud of one highly upvoted answer because it made it to HNQ and now you feel it's gonna be shaming your profile by sticking to the top, visit the help center to learn more.

Burn baby, burn :P

@M.A.R. Pshaw, the help center, like anybody cares about that... It doesn't stop them from using comments to answer. It doesn't stop them from overhauling questions to their own preferences. It's only a tool for conking new users over the head with a mallet! v_v

It's amusing how everyone is so sensitive about comment-answers on language sites.

I mean, come on

Whenever is that the main issue?

"Disco Inferno" is a song by American disco band The Trammps from their 1976 fourth studio album of the same name. With two other cuts by the group it reached number-one on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart in early 1977, but had limited mainstream success until 1978, after being included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, when a re-release hit number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was also notably covered in 1993 by American-born singer Tina Turner on the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack, and in 1999 by American singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper on the...

7:53 PM

@skullpetrol The Trummps?

Gah, that guy is all over my mind now

burn baby, burn

@M.A.R. Oh don't get me started on it. They have the same character as the S.L.As., obstruct the comments' intended purpose, bypass all of the good any closure reason can compel, defeat the sorting mechanisms of the website, are often P.O.B. &c.

I wish people would post community wiki answers instead if they want to forfeit rep. gains and have people build on their answers...

Trammps

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

donuld tramp?

@M.A.R. Some of the others (maybe in comments) are as good (or maybe better).

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How about 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

8:08 PM

@Mitch yeah... that's more like punishing yourself.

@M.A.R. Was that usage intended to mean that when the police try to stop looters and rioters, they may accidentally also arrest innocent bystanders?

@M.A.R. Yeah I don't get it. If I wanted to make a real answer I would have...as it is the question is not worth a real answer but I don't want them to go away with nothing.

2 hours later…

9:46 PM

敔

2 hours later…

11:57 PM

@MetaEd No, yü

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Transcript for

Apr '1710

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…

Not for the faint of heart or those easily triggered by Englis...

phrase-requests pronunciation single-word-requests synonyms

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