English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

02:00

maybe some jambon

or sliced egg and capers

Robusto

So it looks like Brexit is going to put paid to London's financial hegemony. Too bad for the Brits.

Mitch

they voted for it.

sighs

if it makes them happy

where would it all go to? Ireland? Frankfurt?

Robusto

@Mitch Ireland is looking like the form horse here.

Frankfurt has like 1% of London's volume, but that could grow.

Mitch

I think it is ironic that the two places that are the centers of language culture for the modern world (English) are intent on not being centers of all other culture.

Robusto

Frankfurt is where I worked in Germany, incidentally.

Færd

02:03

@Mitch Definitions and axioms are the same in that they are all logical statements with is ('=' is not exclusive to definitions). But they are clearly different in that when you define something, you're introducing a new concept, but when you're not defining something, you're making a statement out of concepts we previously agreed upon.

But this is not where I wanted this conversation to go.

Robusto

I love my wife, but oh Euclid!

Mitch

all these countries will be speaking English but without the ... something something... for being able to speak it.

Færd

@Mitch I just wanted to counter the generalized "facts all come with a POV", trying to get you to concede that that means "any fact can be non-fact from some POV", and then prove it wrong by giving obvious counterexamples.

Mitch

@Færd You can make an axiom for which = is not involved, or if it is.... well that certainly goes further afield than what you wanted.

Cerberus

@Robusto How so? Because some multinationals will move certain offices and employees to the Continent?

Mitch

02:06

where did you want this to go?

Albuquerque?

Cerberus

> History of bread in Japan

While the rice has been the principle nourishment for Japanese diet and it has eaten from the 3rd century B.C. [3] , the cultivation of wheat began in the first half of Yayoi Era (3rd century B.C. – 3rd century A.D.). Its production was always limited for its instability compared to the rice and the price of wheat was half of the young hay, which could be used for animal feeds. In this context, wheat was considered as the food for the famine [4] . In the 7th century, Chinese monks introduced “Sakubei” in Japan, a kind of spaghetti made of wheat and the origin of…

Robusto

@Cerberus They will prefer to do business with EU members, simple as that.

Cerberus

It's interesting that/if Japan should really have no traditional staple food based on ground, high-carb plant seeds.

Not even rice bread, apparently?

I'm still not 100% convinced, though.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes, well, this reminds me of Dr. Johnson's remark about a dog dancing on its hind legs: "It's not done well, but you're surprised it can be done at all."

Mitch

@Cerberus I wonder if the high content of simple carbs in rice is the source of the high incidence of adult onset diabetes in non-obese Japanese.

Cerberus

02:08

@Robusto Oh, sure, but it remains to be seen what the exact consequences will be.

Mitch

@Robusto Who's the dog in this situation?

Cerberus

@Robusto Oh? Was that the Japanese opinion on wheat bread?

Robusto

@Cerberus The consequences will absolutely be a reduction in English financial institutions. And influence.

Cerberus

Most probably, but to what extent?

Robusto

@Cerberus Nope. My opinion on what they describe as Japanese bread.

Mitch

02:09

@Færd let's cut out the middle man and just go ahead and give counter examples.

Robusto

@Mitch Full disclosure: He likened a woman preaching to that.

Mitch

@Robusto haha. women.

Cerberus

@Robusto So...what kind of bread is this?

Robusto

@Cerberus Remains to be seen. Right now there are over 700K jobs in London finance. Even if they lose only 10%, that's still a tough nut to swallow.l

Mitch

@Cerberus China similarly wasn't/isn't much into bread

wait.

Robusto

02:10

@Cerberus I honestly don't know. I have never seen Japanese bread. My wife hates regular bread, and she never was served it at home, so ...

Mitch

that can't be right, can it?

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, although they probably won't be missed by non-lobbyists...

@Robusto It seems they have some variations on European bread, and also very European bread like baguettes, nowadays.

Robusto

Brexit is going to prove a disaster for the Brits. Just as Trump is a disaster for us. Let's hope both countries can survive.

Færd

@Mitch You mean examples of facts that are invariably true?

Cerberus

Sure, it will be bad for Britain.

Mitch

02:12

@Robusto forgetting laws and borders and such, since everything is so electronic now, it should be easy to move operations to anywhere in the world.

Cerberus

But, if their financial sector should be reduced, that might actually be good for the country.

Robusto

@Cerberus I would never put it past the Japanese to mimic something. They have won awards for their "scotch" even.

Mitch

@Færd um, I don't know, you're the one who wanted to give examples of something.

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes, the article mentioned something like that.

Robusto

@Mitch Yes, but you have to consider the infrastructure of a ready-made workforce that does that kind of thing. Why do you think Boston and Silicon Valley have so many high-tech jobs? Because that's where people go who want to work in that field.

Mitch

02:14

@Robusto they could be outsourced. like all your online bank tellers could be EastEnders.

Cerberus

They won't outsource financial types.

Mitch

@Cerberus why not?

Cerberus

Everybody hates having to work with outsourced employees, in most cases.

Mitch

everybody is going that way.

Robusto

@Mitch Seriously, what's a bank teller? If that job is more than .001% of the financial workforce I'll be very surprised.

Cerberus

02:15

@Mitch Not bankers!

Mitch

remote working is slowly taking over

Robusto

@Mitch I hope it never catches up to me. I came out west to escape work.

Mitch

@Robusto true, that's one place where automation has almost entirely replaced humans. so bad choice on my part

Cerberus

Then why is the number of flights increasing continually, also in the West?

Despite remote work.

It shouldn't be necessary.

Mitch

@Cerberus they certainly could. day traders working from their laptops at a coffee shop

Cerberus

02:16

@Mitch They could, but they don't want to.

Mitch

@Robusto You're being recruited as we speak

Cerberus

They want to have their peers close by.

Mitch

when I say that, no, I do not have a job referral for you.

yet

Cerberus

Unnecessary though it might be.

Robusto

@Mitch Noooooooo!

Færd

02:17

@Mitch Forget it then.

Mitch

@Cerberus like the 'paperless' office

Cerberus

Indeed.

Mitch

which is finally becoming true, after years of computers increasing paper usage, it is finally going down

Robusto

@Mitch We'll see the paperless about the same time we see the paperless bathroom.

Cerberus

If you had a choice, would you prefer having to deal with outsourced call centres, as a client?

I think not.

Mitch

02:18

@Færd You didn't have examples in mind? I thought you were trying to get me to concede something. So, yes, I concede.

@Robusto japan has that don't they

Cerberus

Their bosses only outsource call centres because the bosses themselves don't have to deal with them daily.

Mitch

@Cerberus isn't that how it almost entirely works now?

Cerberus

Not here.

But I understand it works that way in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Robusto

@Mitch If it exists and it's weird, Japan has it. You may be sure of that.

Cerberus

But only because the people who have to deal with the outsourced call centres aren't the ones deciding.

Færd

02:20

@Mitch I'm just feeling we're just talking. What's the point of me countering something my interlocutor doesn't know what is.

Mitch

@Cerberus hm...I see that justification but also justification like the prevalence of e-shopping, not even bothering with stores in-real-life

@Robusto tries to think of weird things

Cerberus

Sure, but there are additional advantages to online shopping.

Mitch

searches for it

Yep.

Cerberus

You don't have to leave the house.

And the quality is often the same.

Robusto

Retail is taking quite a hit right now, and will continue to do so.

Cerberus

02:22

Neither applies to outsourced colleagues.

Robusto

Brick and mortar stores are dead as disco.

Mitch

@Færd If you gave the examples you're thinking of it would make all our conversation that much more concrete, as opposed to arbitrary manipulation of words.

Robusto

If I can buy it on Amazon, I usually do. I hate going into stores and finding they don't have my size, or they have my size but not in the color I want, etc.

Cerberus

You're in the building anyway, so it's no great effort to tell them to come to your office. If they're in India, you have to Skype with them.

Mitch

@Cerberus and those advantages (some of them, not knowing hich ones you're thinking of) are shared by online banking

Cerberus

02:24

And the quality is normally worse in poorer countries.

@Mitch Well, for us, consumers, yes, outside help desks. But not for bankers.

Mitch

@Cerberus groceries are harder to do online because the time taken to make all your choices online scanning a huge menu is about the same time as it takes to walk through the grocery store and pull the items off the shelves.

Cerberus

@Mitch That's part of it.

Another part is you want it right now, not in two hours.

And individual delivery is expensive.

Robusto

@Cerberus That doesn't stop companies from doing just that. One of the other reasons I retired. I hated Skype calls to the subcontinent, where you're online with 15 strange accents that all sound the same.

Mitch

@Robusto I don't like not holding it in my hand, for color, and feel of fabric. usually fit doesn't matter

Robusto

Jun 9 '15 at 10:53, by Robusto

Possibly one of the worst crimes Britain perpetrated on the world was to give English to the subcontinent.

Mitch

02:26

@Cerberus skype and other virtual meeting methods are getting better and better.

if only we could fix the time zone thing.

I have a solution for that

Færd

@Mitch Maybe later. Gotta go now.

Good local time, all.

Mitch

but 1) nobody is going to like it.

Robusto

Jul 9 '15 at 13:50, by Robusto

The subcontinent just asked me if I locked a certain file in git. I looked at the file and it last got touched before I got here. So I said no. They were insistent. Then they asked me if I was Rob <lastNameHere> I said no. They went away and thought about it for five minutes. Then they came back and said "I think its other Rob it looks like." Seriously.

Mitch

and 2) I want full IP rights

Cerberus

@Robusto Exactly. But would the boss do that with his secretary? No: just like you, he doesn't like having to deal with outsourced employees on a daily basis; and he has the power to not do that. Which is why I don't think bankers would outsource departments they have to deal with themselves.

Mitch

02:27

and 3) I want a plaque

for my office wall.

Cerberus

@Færd Bai!

Mitch

oh. and an office

@Færd later! we're having fun!

Cerberus

@Robusto Hilarious.

Robusto

@Cerberus Agreed, but the president of the company doesn't come into contact with the vast majority of the workforce.

Mitch

@Robusto at 11pm on Friday night.

Cerberus

02:28

@Robusto Indeed not.

But it trickles down to some degree.

Robusto

@Mitch Or 6:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, before dem SC guys go home.

Cerberus

Not to contact with private consumers.

Nor to developers, apparently.

Mitch

@Robusto "Are you sure it's not you?"

Cerberus

But I think it trickles down to bankers quite deeply.

Robusto

@Mitch I checked twice. My name is not <lastNameHere>. Not even close.

Oh, and then there's this:

Apr 2 '15 at 13:33, by Robusto

Will someone please inform the subcontinent that chains of "thank you" messages are poor Skype etiquette.

Mitch

02:31

@Cerberus uh...I've worked for more than one CEO who had a 'secretary' (really event planner/exce assistant that was -entirely remote). Always available by phone.

@Robusto oh. I could never agree to that. That just would not happen

Cerberus

@Mitch And did he like that?

Robusto

Apr 2 '15 at 13:35, by Robusto

Also, if I have learned anything in my lifetime, it's that people who wear a lot of cologne should not be allowed in an office situation. Thank you.

Mitch

@Cerberus it was his choice

Cerberus

Was it a company that was trying to save money?

Mitch

no, that was just how he liked it.

Cerberus

02:33

Interesting.

Mitch

also there are lots of AI chatbot services that are being developed to do meeting coordination/secretary stuff.

Cerberus

Haha.

I'm sure the director of Deutsche would like that...

Mitch

probably more of a startup thing than a big corporation. where the CEO, when they move from company to company drag some staff along with them

Cerberus

It's also a matter of how rich you are, I think, in general.

Mitch

@Cerberus seriously. can 'work' for more than the CEO. secretaries have been almost entirely removed from less than for exec positions, I expect it will go soon.

Cerberus

02:36

If you build lots of very expensive buildings, with ugly modernist marble and whatnot, you're more likely to have lots of high-paid personnel higher up the company, I would expect.

@Mitch I thought that was mainly for the money.

As it was for my parents.

Mitch

@Cerberus I read this article about the CEO of some company who didn't have a cell phone. He just showed up and expected things to happen. Didn't ever pay for taxis, just invited people along and just 'assumed' the other person would cover it.

Cerberus

My mother used to dictate all her letters to her secretary, and she preferred it that way.

Robusto

@Cerberus Secretaries are few and quite far between these days.

Mitch

That takes mental skill to be able to compose without seeing the whole narrative.

a lost art

Cerberus

@Mitch Right, so he probably wouldn't have wanted to have to fiddle with Skype sessions unless it was absolutely necessary?

Mitch

02:38

dictation software does it for most docs nowadays

Cerberus

@Robusto My mother did have a secretary in her new company, but shared with more people. She had to type her own letters from then on.

Mitch

@Cerberus maybe it would be OK if somebody ran it for him on their own laptop? the article didn't get into all the details.

Robusto

@Mitch Sounds like Being There:

imdb.com/title/tt0078841

Mitch

@Robusto I think the guy was just considered a kind of a dick.

Robusto

What, no one-box for IMDB?

Cerberus

02:40

@Mitch Wouldn't it have been even more convenient for him if people just showed up at his office?

Robusto

yesterday, by Robusto

Still, it feels cold as a Republican's heart right now.

I don't think that got enough attention. So I'm bringing it back.

Cerberus

@Robusto Hmm apparently not.

Mitch

@Cerberus look man I'm just telling you half remembered things filtered through what someone else wrote from a couple hours meeting

Cerberus

I know.

Mitch

@Robusto I laughed

Cerberus

02:41

Why didn't you have your secretary keep minutes?

Mitch

until I stopped

@Cerberus exactly.

when I get my plaque I'll let you know

wait...when I get an office wall for it.

just the wall. the rest doesn't have to be there yet

Cerberus

You shouldn't stick dental plaque on your walls.

Robusto

@Cerberus Maybe because Europe is on metric time? Duh.

Mitch

@Cerberus it's surprisingly adhesive

Cerberus

@Robusto I don't know what you mean. Surely a hundred minutes go into everyone's hour?

@Mitch Lovely.

Robusto

02:45

@Cerberus No, it only seems that way since Trump got into the White House.

Cerberus

Ah, how time plods by.

Mitch

suivre (F) is a derivative of sequere (L) right?

Robusto

Everybody ready for a dance-off?

i.imgur.com/QjQKinJ.gifv

You've been served.

Mitch

haha

what's with the shirt thing at the end?

doing a michael jackson crotch grab?

Robusto

@Mitch Wise beyond his years.

Cerberus

02:52

@Mitch Most probably; pourquoi?

Mitch

@Cerberus 1) I cant read this because they don't know how to format. 2) I was thinking about 'second' and found it cognate to sequere.

before second, English seems to have used 'other'.

which is somewhat dismissive.

Cerberus

Just as Latin normally used alter for "second".

Mitch

"What comes after first?"

Cerberus

Primus, alter, tertius.

Mitch

"Oh who cares, they're other"

@Cerberus huh. L didn't use secundus?

nobody ever uses 'oneth'

Cerberus

02:59

It did.

Mitch

their loss

Cerberus

But alter was more "normal".

Mitch

Oh

Cerberus

It depends on the exact context/use.

Mitch

?? people vs animals?

Cerberus

03:00

@Mitch Control-F, then "latin" or "lat" or "lat.".

> Du lat. pop. sĕquĕre

@Mitch Mm it's complicated, I have forgotten.

Except that alter is commoner.

Mitch

@Cerberus holy crap...all the way at the end? for an etymological dictionary? My eyes hurt

Cerberus

Yeah.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'll use that in all my Latin track and field announcing gigs

Cerberus

Yay.

Mitch

dude..is the sun coming up for you?

Robusto

03:02

Mine just went down.

Well, an hour ago.

Mitch

I'm presuming Cerb is further east than either of us.

Robusto

What time is it in Amsterdam right now? Like 5:00 a.m.?

Survey says ... 5:03!

Mitch

nice

and that's my reverse alarm clock.

later dudes and dudettes

Robusto

laterz

@Cerb, you oughta like that one.

Cerberus

@Mitch This is a nice summary of the use of alter v. secundus, if you read German: books.google.nl/…

@Robusto Hah.

I think I shouldn't comment!

Robusto

03:19

Night all. Gotta run.

Cerberus

Ciao!

Scrooble

04:49

Are any of you out there familiar with the game LinguiSHTIK? It is quite a fun English game, one you all should at least check out.

SmokeDetector

06:19

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in body: Hidden or disguised subordinate conjunctions by Chandrasekhar Dwarakanath on english.SE

RegDwigнt

09:40

0

Q: Single word for 'single-word-request'?

Edit: Perhaps I was not clear enough or maybe some readers are literal in their understanding: my question is not about the request itself; I am curious to know if there is a single-word synonym for 'a single word that can express a multi-word description of something' which is what we summarise ...

single-word-requests

Dafuq

englishstudent

18:00

erm that user has the same name as mine. Awkward.

Matt E. Эллен

that isn't you? well, that's good news :D

englishstudent

No, that's not me. :D

Matt E. Эллен

any unicode buffs here? 🎧 is putting an extra character (0020) in the title of webpages in firefox

the character code is 1F3A7

it looks fine in the tab header, just the window title has a problem

possibly an ubuntu problem

Cerberus

18:18

On my computer, it seems the Window titles can't display Unicode at all.

Because the standard font that I chose doesn't support it.

Times New Roman doesn't have most Unicode characters.

Matt E. Эллен

but how do you view emoji if you don't have a font that supports them?!!??!?!?!?

Cerberus

You can't.

As far as I know.

But many web pages let you temporarily load a font in the browser, a web font.

So you can still view them in web pages.

But apparently the title of the browser window cannot access web fonts.

englishstudent

@Mitch Oh hey Mitchy by the way, I'm not that user from the main site that asked "Single word for 'single-word-request'" question, thought I'd let you know so you don't mix me up with someone else.

= )

Cerberus

As an experiment, you could copy-paste the Unicode into the name of a file, see whether the OS can display that.

Matt E. Эллен

😧

it displays fine everywhere except the title bar of the windows

Cerberus

18:21

I can't see it.

Matt E. Эллен

you don't have the right fonts.

Cerberus

Yeah.

Matt E. Эллен

so it displays fine for everyone who's up to date :p

it even works in the terminal

Cerberus

Matt E. Эллен

ah well

Cerberus

18:28

So it's probably different from your case.

But it does show that there is an essential difference between tab titles and window titles in Firefox.

Matt E. Эллен

probably, since you don't necessarily have the fonts required to display all the characters you're trying to display

Cerberus

Yes, but I do have the font for this.

Matt E. Эллен

ah. I see now

Cerberus

For the linguistic character.

But the OS doesn't supply them to window titles, unless I explicitly choose that font as the (only) window-title font.

Matt E. Эллен

the problem I'm having is that the window title bar is adding an extra character next to the one I'm giving it

Cerberus

18:31

Chrome.

Right, it's somewhat different.

englishstudent

18:42

@Cerberus Do you download videos from Youtube? If yes, then with which software? I'm looking for one but it has to be free of course.

Cerberus

@englishstudent I think I used this one the last time I needed to do that:

addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/…

You could try it.

englishstudent

OK. Thanks!

Mitch

19:01

@englishstudent It didn't sound like you (but then chat is different). You both have similar backgrounds, but if backgrounds determined us, we'd all be robots.

Do you, as someone who is not them, understand the question?

Matt E. Эллен

I wish the USA had been banned from using names from Europe to name their places. Dublin, California sounds so wrong.

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен Versailles, Illinois pronounced Ver-sell-iss, ilinoy

Matt E. Эллен

smh

Mitch

The area where I grew up has either englishy names like Windsor Gardens and Prince of Exeter (is that even a thing), or Indian tribe names that were never ever ever even near the area (Comanche Rd, Arapahoe St)

Matt E. Эллен

I mean, I guess there could have been a Prince of Exeter, before Alfred unified the Britons

more likely an alderman

Mitch

19:09

In the Boston area everything is English. Like some weird scrambling of a British Gazetteer.

Matt E. Эллен

I think "cape cod" is unique

but Plymouth isn't

not even "new Plymouth"

Mitch

All the names on Cape Cod: Truro, Wellfleet, uh

Matt E. Эллен

Province Town?

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен New New York

Cerberus

@MattE.Эллен We got back at them.

America, Limburg

America (Dutch pronunciation: [ɑˈmeːrikaː]) is a town in the Dutch province of Limburg, originated in the late 19th century. It is a part of the municipality of Horst aan de Maas, and lies about 16 km northwest of Venlo. In 2001, the town of America had 991 inhabitants. The built-up area of the town was 0.21 km², and had 397 residences. Including the surrounding countryside, America had 2190 inhabitants as of 2006. == See also == Amerika, Saxony == References == === Notes... ===

Mitch

19:11

Westward Ho!

Matt E. Эллен

lol

Mitch

The exclamation not the town.

Cerberus

Besides, it's not just the Yanks.

Santiago (disambiguation)

Santiago (pop. 5 million) is the capital city of Chile, named in honour of Saint James. Four other notable cities are also often referred to simply as "Santiago": Santiago de Compostela, Spain (pop. 100,000), to which the Way of St. James (El Camino de Santiago) leads. Santiago de Cuba, Cuba (pop. 500,000) Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic (pop. 690,000) Santiago, Philippines (pop. 132,000) Santiago may also refer to: Santiago, Spanish name for James, son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Santiago (surname) Santiago (name), a Spanish given name Santiago!, a shortened...

Look at "other places".

Mitch

haha..looking at a map of Cape Cod, it's like I said, like the guy who wa typesetting a British map dropped it on the floor scattering all the names around and picked up randomly.

@Cerberus The Russians too

Cerberus

Oh?

Mitch

19:14

Novosibirsk - New Siberia, like the old needed improving.

Cerberus

Oh, sure.

Mitch

Actually, they do seem like everything east of the Urals is an indigenous name

Cerberus

And the various Novgorods.

But from different countries?

Mitch

Well, for that matter, every other town in England is 'Newtown' or 'Newton'

Or Featherstonehaugh

Matt E. Эллен

Cape Cod has an Orleans

Orleans????

That's not even British

Mitch

19:16

Yeah.

maybe a long time ago?

France was once part of England, or the other way around depending.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Cerberus

> Novgorod is one of the most important historic cities in Russia... On August 15, 1941, during World War II, the city was occupied by the German Army. Its historic monuments were systematically annihilated. The Red Army liberated the city on January 19, 1944. Out of 2,536 stone buildings, fewer than forty remained standing.

Mitch

Everybody thinks they're so original

M.A.R.

I'm original

As original as it gets

Cerberus

The Nazis were just unimaginably terrible, even more terrible than IS, I think.

Mitch

19:19

in France every other (small) town is called Belleville.

Cerberus

Or Ville Neuf.

Mitch

or Neuilly

M.A.R.

Or Paris

Matt E. Эллен

The only French town I know is La Rochelle

Mitch

@Cerberus and the people who founded it thought they were coming up with something so new.

@M.A.R. there's a ton of them in the US

Matt E. Эллен

19:20

(I guess I'm the only one who did GCSE French)

Mitch

@MattE.Эллен which level is that? O? A? Z?

Matt E. Эллен

(Everyone one in our textbook was from La Rochelle)

Mitch

Oh!

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch O

Mitch

my book it was Neuilly

Matt E. Эллен

19:21

Don't be Neuilly

Mitch

Or was that Madeleine?

Cerberus

@Mitch Well, it is new.

Mitch

new but not original

No one calls their new town OriginalTown

Cerberus

Non.

Mitch

That would be weird

In Germany they do seem to be al called Neustadt

but a large number of Reichenbach's

Matt E. Эллен

19:23

Originalcester, that's what I'll call it

pronounced "orjster"

Mitch

That is original

Cerberus

Reichenbach?

What does bach mean anyway?

Mitch

Did I say that?

Or was I thinking really loud?

bach = brook or stream

Cerberus

Probably neither.

Ah, I was going to say brook!

Because it's beek in Dutch.

And German -ch is often Dutch -k.

Kerk = Kirche.

Greek cyriacos, or something.

Matt E. Эллен

I guess I have Webster to blame for naming a town Glocester (Rhode Island), dropping the u

Mitch

19:27

they write Gloucester here but pronounce it glawstuh

(massachusetts)

stupid writing

Matt E. Эллен

that's pretty close

to how we pronounce it

Cerberus

Just like Wooster.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…