English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:18

@MetaEd you guys are gross for suggesting that cats are meat

SmokeDetector

01:09

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: Alternative term for 'smoke test' by audreybyers4 on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: How can I spell out Pope Francis’s remark on gay priests, ‘Who am I to judge?’ by JERRY on english.SE

Kace36

02:17

Is there anything I can do or anywhere I can go on the help section to report something or someone? Or to get help from mods?

Cerberus

@Kace36 Hello!

You can go to the thing that you felt needed to be dealt with by moderators and flag it.

All comments, questions, answers, and chat lines have little flag buttons that appear when you hover over them.

But use them sparingly: only when it's really necessary.

Of course you can always post a link in chat and ask people what they think, if there's anybody active.

Or post a Meta-question when you feel discussion is wanted.

user288256

12:01

Is this sentence okay? I made it: "All of the knowledge on the internet is mostly in English"

user288256

I am curious because my sentence is using both "All" and "mostly". I could have written it with just "mostly" but I like it this way. Ping me.

terdon

12:29

@Ghalib Not really, no. And for the reason you say. Either it is all or it is most, it can't be both. Just say The knowledge on the internet is mostly in English or Most of the knowledge on the internet is in English.

Las Vegas Raiders

You could use "information" instead of " knowledge."

user288256

@terdon I see, thank you.

Las Vegas Raiders

12:46

The best I could come up with is this: Of all the information on the internet worth knowing most of it is in English.

But that even sounds awkward.

terdon

And changes the meaning. That doesn't suggest that most of the information is in English, but only most of the useful information.

Las Vegas Raiders

Yup, it's tough to mix "all" with "most."

terdon

@LasVegasRaiders Not really: Almost :P

Most all people would agree :P

Cerberus

Fortunately, the sentence is not true...

terdon

@Cerberus It probably is. At least, I'm pretty sure the English speaking sections of the internet will be the greatest minority and wouldn't be surprised if they're a majority.

Cerberus

12:59

"All".

Besides, if you add up all non-English articles on Wikipaedia, will they be fewer than the English articles?

terdon

Dunno, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

But wikipedia is a small part of the sum knowledge available online.

Cerberus

It's just an example.

terdon

And given that many many pages will also have English versions, even if the main site is in another language, I would indeed expect that English be the greatest minority at the very least.

Cerberus

It's really impossible to have any clue as to the true proportions.

The greatest minority, yes, probably.

terdon

So, according to this article I just found, English is a quarter, CHinese is 20.4% and then Spanish at 7.9%

Cerberus

13:02

I have absolutely no idea how "big" the Chinese, Japanese, Korean webs are.

terdon

So greatest minority, at least.

Cerberus

A far cry from "all".

@terdon I think this is about users, not knowledge.

terdon

@Cerberus It was never all, it was most from the beginning. Which is, admittedly, also not true. But it is the greatest minority, apparently.

Cerberus

> "All of the knowledge on the internet is mostly in English"

This tells me that you can divide the Internet into knowledge blocks, and each block is mostly in English.

Or something like that.

Google doesn't even know how many web pages there are.

Besides, I don't think a number of pages corresponds with an "amount" of knowledge.

If it can be counted or measured at all.

Las Vegas Raiders

That's why I opted for information.

Cerberus

13:10

Also hard to count.

Las Vegas Raiders

True.

Cerberus

But less "positive".

user288256

Both of these are correct, right: "Feel free to ask me any question" and "Feel free to ask me any questions"

user288256

Cerberus what do you think?

Cerberus

Yes.

Usually, it would be followed by a modifier: any questions you like, any questions about this project, etc.

user288256

13:17

Okay, thanks. But then why can't we use singular version here:

user288256

(i) "I don't have any English related question now" (no plural)
(ii) "I don't have any English related questions now" (plural)

user288256

I mean (i) is incorrect right?

user288256

This pair of sentences and other one above kind of seem same to me, that's why it is a bit confusing.

Cerberus

Hmm no, I would say (i) is OK.

user288256

Oh I see.

Cerberus

13:20

I do prefer (ii).

terdon

@Cerberus Really?

I would need the plural there.

Cerberus

I would prefer the plural.

terdon

Otherwise, I'd say I don't have an English related question now.

Cerberus

Yeah.

terdon

But any implies many.

Cerberus

13:21

The singular sounds it bite like an echo sentence:

> So you can ask me a question about English now.
- I didn't prepare any question about English, teacher.

Hmm.

terdon

@Ghalib those are two different meanings of the word any. In I don't have any questions, any is acting in a similar way to many: I have many questions*/*I don't have any questions While in ask my any question it is acting like a: Ask me a question.

@Cerberus I'd still use questions there.

user288256

@terdon Okay.

terdon

I can't express this well, I'm sure @Cerberus can do it better, but it's something about any acting as one thing in Do you have any questions? and as something else in Any question is fine.

I think.

user288256

@terdon I see. And I thought "Feel free to ask me any question" (no plural) was incorrect English. If you say in "ask me any question" any is acting like a then how come "Feel free to ask my any questions" is correct?

user288256

It is just that "any" can be quite confusing sometimes.

user288256

13:31

But it is a minor issue so no big deal.

user288256

I guess.

terdon

13:52

@Ghalib They mean slightly different things: Feel free to ask me any question means you can ask any question on any subject, no matter what the question may be.

Feel free to ask me any questions means Feel free to ask any questions you have. Here, there are specific questions that you have and I am giving you permission to ask them.

In the first example, there are no specific questions and I am just giving you permissions to ask me whatever you like.

M.A.R.

14:06

It's really awesome that time's slower near big things

user288256

@terdon That's good explanation. Thanks a lot.

M.A.R.

Today I was reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time

And still wrapping my head around some things I read

Even if we don't consider general relativity and all that, considering it takes some 80 milliseconds for our brains to process stuff, we're literally living in the past

Hello @KernelPanic! Welcome to this chat!

KernelPanic

Hello @M.A.R.! Just lurking to kill some time :)

M.A.R.

We're all time killers here

Also we learn something in the process

caub

14:49

time is the most valuable thing

and the cheapest at the same time

Cerberus

15:07

@terdon So would I, probably, but I don't think I it's 100% wrong?

MetaEd

Inversnecky.

caub

I count 11

terdon

@Cerberus It feels off. "Wrong"? You'll have to ask one of the more knowledgeable grammarians. Maybe @cerb. . . Ah, right.

user288256

@caub What -- 4. Sometimes -- 9. Never -- 5

caub

I'm more a urban-grammarian

@Ghalib congrats

user288256

15:11

Nice joke by the way. I was reading it like a question.

user288256

heh

caub

yea, the final period makes this

user288256

Yeah

Cerberus

15:22

@terdon I'll ask expert grammarian Terdon.

caub

Don Ter

terdon

@Cerberus Uhm. I'm almost certainly the least expert of the regulars here.

When I said more knowledgeable grammarians I wasn't implying that I was among the "grammarians" group.

And if you don't know, I certainly won't.

user288256

Do we follow "I was thinking" with past or present tense?

user288256

For example, I am talking to someone and assuming they like "tea", however they casually mention they never drink tea. So should I say "I was thinking you like tea" Or "I was thinking you liked tea"?

Cerberus

Past.

user288256

15:36

Okay, thanks!

Cerberus

Present sounds very informal to me.

Maybe some people would use the present tense.

user288256

"Past" sounds good to me as well.

Cerberus

Yay.

user288256

:)

terdon

15:57

@Cerberus I just flagged a comment as obsolete on Latin Language and it magically disappeared! Did you or one of the other mods delete it and I just happened to have flagged at the same moment?

4

A: About αὐτόματος

The answer to your question is no. *matos does not exist as a word on its own in any Greek dialect. But it can confidently be posited for proto-Greek, where it is cognate of Latin -mentus. *mato- is the expected Greek representative of IE *mnto-.

Cerberus

@terdon It says you deleted the comment!

Maybe Nathaniel honoured your flag immediately.

And maybe the deletion is 'credited' to the flagger in such a situation.

terdon

Huh, yes apparently so. He must have been in the flags page just as I submitted mine. Weird.

Cerberus

Latin's a machine.

user288256

17:42

@Tonepoet Morning. Have you played this game called "Mirror's Edge"? It is based on parkour and pretty good.

user288256

Oh, you are not in chats here.

caub

Do you say "2 halfs" or "2 halves" ?

user288256

I say "halves"

user288256

A non native speaker here though.

caub

sounds like "calves"

but ok

user288256

17:44

So are you really a mosquitoes' hunter?

caub

main source of food for lizards

user288256

Hm makes sense.

user288256

I didn't know it was. Cool.

caub

I just invented that fact ;), could be though

user288256

heh okay. I was too lazy to Google so I believed it on the spot. :)

terdon

17:49

@caub forvo.com/word/halves/#en

haves

caub

oh

user288256

@terdon But that's pronunciation. The word is "halves" right?

terdon

@Ghalib Yes, sorry, I don't speak IPA.

The word is halves.

user288256

Heh

user288256

Yeah

Tonepoet

18:04

@Ghalib I've heard of it, but I haven't played it.

user288256

@Tonepoet Oh hey, where did you come from all of a sudden, professor? :P

user288256

I see

user288256

I have played its single player though.

Tonepoet

@Ghalib The same place anything comes from all of the sudden: Thin Air. My knowledge regarding that place is a little insubstantial though.

user288256

@Tonepoet That reminds me of these two expressions "out of thin air" and "out of the blue" but we don't use "out of the blue" to talk about a person right? That idiom is only used for events I reckon.

user288256

18:15

But on reading its meaning again in a dictionary I guess it can be used to talk about a person as well.

user288256

Like this example from Cambridge Dictionary "One day, out of the blue, she announced that she was leaving."

Tonepoet

@Ghalib I'm not sure entirely. I think we might use it in reference to persons who fell out of the sky.

Which does happen in fiction at least.

user288256

hah, that's funny.

Robusto

18:40

@Cerberus "I was thinking it would be fun to go swimming." Not past, and it works fine.

Færd

I hate periods in abbreviations. There has to be either none in them or a distinct type of dot exclusively used in abbreviations; e.g. e·g·.

M.A.R.

No thanks

That's creepily high

Also the dots aren't in the same level

cringes

Færd

@M.A.R. Not my fault.

That's just an example. leaner dots on the ground level would work too.

I just don't want to use the same thing to finish a sentence and to indicate abbreviation.

M.A.R.

e.

g.

Well, M.A.R. looks only slightly bad

Hmm,

Oh, that didn't work

Færd

M·A·R·

That looks better to me. But I'm open to cuter choices.

M.A.R.

18:45

It seems I have no way to type a multi line message

Færd

@M.A.R. A nice optical illusion.

On your phone?

M.A.R.

@Færd I zoomed in. Not an illusion

@Færd yep

Færd

@M.A.R. It only proves how nice a one it is.

I zoomed in too.

M.A.R.

Your illusion is an illusion

Which brings us to the question: What is real?

Færd

You need some disillusionment.

Heh.

M.A.R.

18:48

What if there is no true reality for some things?

Let's all take a moment to have a rush of existential crisis

Robusto

@M.A.R. What if you're only making an allusion to disillusion. I used to know, but now it eludes me.

Færd

M.A.R.

@Færd does I.stack.imgur work for you?

Because it's blocked for me

Færd

@M.A.R. For me too.

M.A.R.

Stupid censorship :(

I.stack.imgur hosts 'cleaner' images than most Iranian sites

Færd

18:55

@Robusto The only conclusion is he's under a delusion.

@M.A.R. I don't survey image hosting sites, but I don't think cleanness is their priority.

Not a question of pollusion.

.

What’s it called when you praise someone dishonestly, and perhaps undeservedly, just in order that they do you a favor or that you could somehow take advantage of them?

Suck up to and such don’t work because of the unwanted inferior-superior connotation.

An example situation would be "OMG, you’re so tall and muscular! Now, can you please put this box in the top closet for me?".

M.A.R.

19:36

@Færd what about bow and scrape?

Or kissing a$%

Mitch

@Robusto if you refer obliquely to avoiding giving off appearances then ...

you're alluding to eluding eluting illusions

M.A.R.

@Færd still a little unclear why "suck up to" doesn't describe your situation

Mitch

And if you have many parcels of these then ...

You have a lot of allotments of eluding eluting illusion allusions

M.A.R.

@Færd so, you mean you're looking for a proverb for when a king kisses arse? O.o

Mitch

And if a small raptor does the parceling, you have ....

M.A.R.

19:45

The higher authority being obsequious

Mitch

A lot of owlet allotments of eluding eluting illusion allusions

M.A.R.

@Mitch would you cut that out? I'm tired of pinging Fard

Your awesomeness shields my responses

Mitch

And if those hard working raptors need to wipe themselves off afterwards you have...

A lot of toiling owlet towel allotments of eluding eluting illusion allusions

And if those are handles for bigger raptors then you have...

A lot of taller toiling owlet towel rattle allotments of eluding eluting illusion allusions

@M.A.R. I'm done now. Go ahead uninterrupted

caub

20:03

toilet owls, oh lol that's a thing

Færd

@M.A.R. It's not about ass kissing and trying to ingratiate yourself with someone. It's just about pleasing someone so they do something for you; you know, the equivalent of هندوانه زیر بغل کسی گذاشتن. Although I don't know if kids these days use this idiom.

And there's no telling whether English has an equivalent for any given idiom in any language. Just a shot in the dark. Someone asked me and I just passed the question here.

Another example would be when parents compliment their child on a random thing to get him to shut up and stop nagging them about dinner (I don't eat this; I wanted that; etc).

ab2

@Mari-Lou A My guess is, poster was on something when he posted.

Tonepoet

20:44

@Ghalib Was is past tense, but strictly speaking anything you report began happening in the past and I suppose the present participle indicates continual action. In consideration of these factors, it almost seems like an acceptable method of indicating a thought that started moments ago that continues into the present. However something seems to be missing. Maybe it would be better to further clarify by appending just now to the end of the sentence, or a just after the "was".

@ab2 She hasn't been in chat recently enough to be pinged.

Færd

Bernie Sanders' accent, explained

►

user288256

@Tonepoet I see, thanks.

Tonepoet

21:10

@terdon If enough people flag a comment, it goes away automatically.

terdon

21:28

@Tonepoet only with rude/offensive flags and when certain keywords are present. Not with obsolete flags.

Tonepoet

@terdon Are you sure about that? I've never seen that mentioned in the meta threads before. Take this post by Grace Note for example. She just says enough flags make it disappear. Now beneath hers, Jeff hints at certain conditions making it easier to flag comments away, but he doesn't go so far as to reveal what those are and the comparative word suggests that more types of comments than what he insinuates are also possible to flag away.

Also, given the immediacy of the deletion, and the fact that you're accredited with it, it really does seem to me as if your flag ended up directly deleting the comment.

And I just noticed that Grace Note also mentioned "Accept Rate" comments. Would those really warrant an "offensive/rude" flag?

terdon

@Tonepoet Pretty sure. Checking now, but I've never seen that. And that meta post is from 2011, might not be relevant anymore.

@Tonepoet That could happen if the mod were looking at the flag list just as I flagged.

@Tonepoet No. But there's a special system in place to delete "+1" comments.

Well dang! Looks like you're right:

> If a comment is flagged by three users, it will be auto-soft-deleted. There is no penalty for this. Flagged comments will be surfaced to moderators, so if you have a problem with a comment, flag it.

86

A: How does comment voting and flagging work?

Some parts of this answer are taken from the 2009 Stack Overflow blog post Comments: Now with Flags and Votes. Note that flagging has changed considerably since that blog post. Comment votes You need 15 reputation to upvote comments. Upvote a comment by clicking on the up arrow that appe...

I stand corrected @Tonepoet.

Tonepoet

21:47

@terdon That seems strange to me. If I was designing a system to record who deleted a comment, I would design it to record who actually deleted the comment.

terdon

@Tonepoet What do you mean? The mod who deleted is always shown as having deleted the comment.

I guess if it were deleted via flagging, it would show as deleted by the community user, but I haven't seen that (but it's easy to miss).

Tonepoet

@terdon The problem is a mod. isn't shown as having deleted the comment. Cerb. said it was you who deleted the comment:

6 hours ago, by Cerberus

@terdon It says you deleted the comment!

terdon

@Tonepoet Oh.

Which would suggest mine was the Nth flag which pushed it over the edge, I guess. Huh.

Tonepoet

Yes indeed.

Until otherwise is proven, I am going to assume such is the case because nothing else makes sense. XP

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…