English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:31 AM

@Tonepoet So why does addend get 2 upvotes when it doesn't answer the question at all?

1:01 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: Is there a word for someone who loves blood but is not a vampire? by melanie wood on english.SE

Tonepoet

2:10 AM

@WillHunting Well, we have relatively nonrestrictive membership. Serious English language enthusiasts is such a vague category of person, that we might suppose that we have an open invitation to anybody English speaker who wants to join. What constitutes an "expert" on Stack Exchange is also vaguely, or perhaps even liberally, defined, as shown in the Good Subjective, Bad Subjective post by Robert Cartaino:

So my assumption is that we have many members who should not be voting on matters they are,
since they have an insufficient amount of expertise on the subject.

There is also a general tendency for reviews to be overrated on most websites, and Stack Exchange's voting system does not help matters because of the reputation penalty for voting against answers.

It is also possible that people are not paying attention to either the question or answer.

2

Mitch

2:55 AM

@WillHunting I thought 'addend' is right. How is it not right?

I distinctly (with gaps) remember from 2nd or 3rd (or was it fourth?) grade, when our teacher was decsribing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Each number had a weird latinate name.

minuend, subtrahend, multiplicand/factor/product, dividend/divisor/quotient... or something like that

or did you think there were other words for it?

Nick

3:42 AM

Hi guys

I need a poem to send to a friend.

He was being mean to me, so I acted mean to him and in then end, it wasn't worth it.

So, know any good poems for that situation? forgive me if this isn't the right place to ask.

Tonepoet

4:10 AM

@Mitch It has almost nothing to do with what's being requested, which is a categorical name for all addition/subtraction problems which have the same sum.

Feeds

4:57 AM

0

Q: Is there a name for the accent that modern British newsreaders use?

This question stems from pure idle curiosity. It seems to me that British newsreaders use a special accent, especially when reading out the headlines or introducing a particularly serious story. Perhaps it would be more properly termed a tone of voice rather than an accent, but in either case I'v...

Feeds

5:28 AM

0

Q: what is the word for a mistake that cause self regret

for instance, say a character does some horrid thing and he/she lives regretting said action. morning for those that he or she has wronged possibly even moved to tears. etc I'm looking for a word to describe this and I can't come up with one.

single-word-requests

Will Hunting

6:41 AM

@Tonepoet Attention is always something I pay a lot.

Feeds

7:55 AM

0

Q: Word for the bottom of the well

Is there a word that describes not the entire well, but only the bottom of it? I've seen some use 'cauldron', but I don't know how common it is. Thanks.

single-word-requests

Will Hunting

8:38 AM

@Nick In this situation, you should not be sending some stupid poem to him. You should just say whatever you wanna say in plain words, not use a poem that isn't even your own words. QED.

skullpatrol

10:11 AM

There's going to be a little black spot on the sun today...

Ahmed

10:21 AM

@WillHunting Yes, I downloaded the same version. I was listening to it in 360p it sounded pretty good on Youtube. I rarely use 720p because my internet can't afford that.

You can experiment it too yourself: listen to a song on Youtube then on VLC. VLC is great for movies so I use it as a default player for audios and videos.

And I'm using Windows 7, Dell laptop Core I3.

I don't use a PC nowadays. PCs have good sound in general even without a sound card.

Will Hunting

@Ahmed The last time I downloaded a song from youtube was 5 years ago, LOL.

@Tonepoet A lot of the word requests are like asking for what you call a yellow spoon put into a blue cup and then removed and put into a green flask. Is there a word for that? And then someone comes along and says it should be posted on Crockeries SE. LOL.

Tonepoet

10:39 AM

@WillHunting A difficult problem about overly specific Single Word Requests is that nobody can honestly have the confidence to say no to the vast majority of them. Individually speaking, our vocabularies simply are not large enough to legitimately object to the existence of a word, and one of the reasons that Single Word Requests are such a compelling question category is that they are nontrivial to research when synonyms are not already provided.

Ahmed

@Tonepoet True, but "paying attention" to things is boring.

=)

Tonepoet

@Ahmed I won't object to that, but if you won't keep your eyes on the road, you don't deserve to drive an automobile.

Ahmed

@Tonepoet I'm a bad driver anyway. I have totaled several cars in my lifetime.

I like recklessness at times. =)

Tonepoet

@Ahmed You are lucky that you are not dead, and more importantly that you have not seriously injured anybody in the process, or at least so I hope.

Ahmed

@Tonepoet Oh that's confidential. Totally.

I don't remember killing anyone. Hmm I guess not.

Tonepoet

10:59 AM

Regardless, the point stands that when people are doing something, they should pay attention to what it is they are doing and the potential consequences. Voting for a bad answer is a majorly fallacious action, so people really should exercise caution, and know what they are voting for and why, before they cast a vote. Being at least somewhat attentive is requisite for that.

Ahmed

That's true.

Anyway, I have to go. See you on the other side.

Tonepoet

@Ahmed Oh, so the automobile accident really did kill you! =P

Ahmed

@Tonepoet haha. Erm no comment. But you see, you are imagining me here, I am a figment of your imagination so that means... :P

Perhaps we are both dead.

Tonepoet

@Ahmed That obviously can't be true. I did not invent the chicken crossing the road joke, and you are obviously that chicken with your wanton behavior. You must be a figment of somebody else's imagination. =P

However, if that really is true, and I am seeing you regardless, that must mean I am a psychonaut:

Psychonauts Trailer

►

Ahmed

@Tonepoet The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side, and I didn't invent that joke either. You are imagining things like I said.

@Tonepoet You are not a "psychonaut", you are nuts :P

@Tonepoet "Wanton" has two meanings.

Tonepoet

11:17 AM

@Ahmed Your objection is invalid. I was not claiming you are the inventor of the joke, but rather the subject of it.

Ahmed

@Tonepoet I see, okay, well... you know... well... I don't know what to say. You win I guess.

Tonepoet

@Ahmed If you watch the video I provided, you would see that the two are not mutually exclusive. =P

Ahmed

@Tonepoet So you are saying you are "nuts"? haha

Tonepoet

Well, no, or at least not literally. I am more of a legume:

Ahmed

I like peanuts.

Will Hunting

11:31 AM

@Tonepoet Just like ELL is not a dumping ground for basic questions, I think Math is not a dumping ground for word requests, lol. You know who always comments that it should be posted on math instead, lol.

Mitch

12:52 PM

@WillHunting haha, I read it again but not on my phone and it reads entirely differently. Rather, I can actually read it. And then I realize like you that 'addend' is totally wrong. 'Addend' might be used in the answer, but is not the answer.

Feeds

0

Q: Is there a word that could either mean to take a bath or take a shower?

Is there a word like that? Example sentence: With my stomach full, I __. This time using the shower.

single-word-requests

Feeds

1:12 PM

0

Q: one word substitution for "expert of religious matter"

I wish to know the one word subtitution for religious person rather what would be the one word substitution for a religion expert in general.

single-word-requests

Feeds

1:27 PM

0

Q: What's the term for a widely accepted cultural idea?

Example sentence: Racism was a ____ in the Elizabethan Era. I'm looking for a word/phrase that works with "breaking". I was considering "social norms" but it doesn't really mean what I want it to convey. Even if it doesn't work with "breaking", I'd be happy to hear your suggestions anyway!

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Feeds

1:57 PM

0

Q: Word for semi-open structure used for making braais in South Africa

I'm looking for a word for a semi-open structure that is traditionally used for making braais (barbecue) in South Africa. The one I have in mind had a thatched roof, but I reckon that is not necessarily a rule. The building stood in the backyard. The building had one wall on each end, and the spa...

single-word-requests south-african-english

Nick

2:56 PM

@WillHunting ... to a person that doesn't value what i say... can't I be the vessel, voice of another who others claim right?

Tonepoet

3:09 PM

@WillHunting It seems like somebody voted against the addend answer (probably @mitch now that he realizes what's wrong with the answer), and so have I, which brings the score of the answer down to zero. If you would please cast a vote against it, it will have a score of -1 and it will be evident to people that it is a bad suggestion.

Once that's done, I would be able to leave a comment that has some weight to it, requesting further evidence regarding why the answerer thinks it is the right word, and if none can be found, that'll probably be the coup de grace and everything will be in its proper order again. Now normally, I would not make direct a request for somebody to vote against an answer, but since I know we all agree that it is a bad answer anyway, I do think we really should all treat it like one.

This is especially so since a better answer has been suggested by Aparente, which deserves more attention since it could teach us all something of value, or at least less competition.

Speaking of Aparente's answer, I would like to ask @MetaEd something about it later, when he's available, now that the opportunity has presented itself, but he's not here.

Will Hunting

4:39 PM

@Nick I think it is best to have a good talk with your friend, if he is still a friend. I wish you good luck. =D

Feeds

0

Q: Is there a single word for "former but not necessarily non-present"?

Is there a word for saying that object A was an X at some past time, without necessarily implying that A is not X now?

single-word-requests

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet After I deleted the first few accounts, I have never cast downvotes. Philosophically, I am against downvotes myself. Anyway, right now I don't have an Eng account. =D

@Tonepoet I see the other answer, number bonds, at least does answer the question. However, I have never come across the term myself, and I don't know how standard it is. In fact, if you click that link, you will see that the alternative term given is number pairs, which doesn't say very much actually, literally meaning a pair of numbers. This is a very contrived expression whose widespread usage I cannot ascertain. In fact, I think it's best to not have this question at all. =D

@Tonepoet The problem with word requests is, what do you do with a question like what is the name for a blue cat that has fought with a red dog? It is extremely specific, and is it likely to serve a purpose for most people? Even if such a word does exist theoretically, I don't consider this an interesting question. In other words, I would close it as something like too localised, if such an option still exists.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Very well then. I am assuming you already know the reasons we have them, and how you set the criteria for your vote is your own business.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Appa's answer is certainly an answer to me, because it does answer the question, however short it is. In fact, it contains of more than just a quote and a link.

@Tonepoet A comment is so much better than a downvote, which doesn't say anything. Anyone can just click downvote. =D It doesn't improve the quality of answers at all, and in fact pisses off many people.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Too localized was too problematically broad as a close reason, and it was discontinued in 2013. Too narrow was proposed as a better alternative for cases like that, but it was considered too subjective. What we got instead were custom close reasons, but we only get up to three.

Will Hunting

4:54 PM

@Tonepoet To live and let live, one can always just leave the question open on this site. That's another possibility! It is also up to the asker if he wants to post it on Math, though I already think there is no point in the question.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Improving the answers is only half of the picture though. Votes also have an informative effect.

An answer with -1 is deemed to be wrong, (or at least otherwise useless), by more people than those which have 0, and so people who don't know any better may be persuaded by that fact to not use the answer.

Will Hunting

@Mitch Exactly, and the same goes for other mathy answers on this site, including one which says 'metric space' when the asker might not be asking for a metric space. I was also pissed with someone for providing a wrong answer to that 'increasing sequence of integers' question.

@Tonepoet One problem with word requests I noticed is that any answer using a difficult word gets upvoted very fast, eg the latest addend. So if I had used a word there like say locally convex topological vector space, it would have ten votes even if it has nothing to do with what is asked, LOL.

Tonepoet

Addend isn't that difficult of a word, is it? I believe addend is the root form of addendum, which is a word often used in legalistic contexts.

Will Hunting

I mean relatively speaking. You are talking to a person whose vocabulary size is only 18,000 lol.

Do you know what? I have never read a textbook with the word addend in it for school and I have never used the word myself.

But I have come across the term in some elementary math books I have browsed.

In fact, to teach children addition, we don't even need the term. Just teach them to add, LOL.

I think all the school needs to teach children is three things: language for daily communication, arithmetic for daily calculation, and life skills. Unfortunately they teach kids so many useless things these days in school and so few useful things, which is why so many people's lives get messed up along the way because of the lack of life skills.

I have never ever needed to solve a quadratic equation in my entire life in daily life. Why pretend that quadratic equations are important to a 13 year old kid with no interest in math?

Tonepoet

5:12 PM

I am the wrong person to be asked that question Jasper: I think we could have gotten along perfectly well if we had no compulsory education at all. We did not even have it in English speaking culture until the mid to late 19th century.

Will Hunting

In some sense, I went mad in my teens because there were important things about life that nobody taught me.

I would rather learn those things than quadratic equations.

Tonepoet

Such as?

Will Hunting

I would rather not mention. It is too painful for me. But in general, just life skills you know.

Even learning how to cook is better than learning a quadratic equation, LOL.

Needless to say, it is not cooking that made me mad, LOL.

Tonepoet

Hmm, well, I am not going to claim it is never too late to learn, since we are aging mortals, but I will suggest that I think you probably have plenty of opportunity left in your life to make desired self-improvements.

Will Hunting

There are some things which might be too late. I can't easily get well now, you know.

@Tonepoet I can't believe I came to this room to say so much regarding one addend, LOL.

Tonepoet

5:22 PM

@WillHunting Nobody ever said it would be easy. Overcoming our personal defects is quite difficult actually. However, it is also worth noting that you are a talented individual. You might suggest that your vocabulary is small because it is only around, 18,000 words (how did you arrive at that number anyway?) and perhaps that would be true if English was your first language, but this is in a secondary language.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet No, English is considered my first language actually, and Chinese maybe my second, lol. I came to 18000 from the site testyourvocab.com.

Tonepoet

Despite whatever impression English Language & Usage leaves, most people are not polyglots.

@WillHunting Well let me correct myself then: If it was your vernacular language. I doubt Antarctica is England, Britain, Canada, the U.S.A., New Zealand or even India, so your opportunity to learn it is probably limited by means of comparison.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet No no, English is used everywhere in Antarctica, LOL, maybe more so than in India.

By the way why don't you test yourself now using that site?

@Tonepoet Hey, that day you told someone in chat you had an Antarctican accent like me? WTF, LOL

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Oh, that? Obviously its because I am also secretive about my actual location, and also because I interact with you often.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Tell me your test result on testyourvocab.com, I am curious LOL

Tonepoet

5:32 PM

@WillHunting I'll take screenshots of my answers and post my score in another chatroom.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Why can't you say your test result here? That's not revealing any secret?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I don't want to flood the chatroom.

Will Hunting

LOL, OK, though I only asked for the final number, not the full results. It's just a number.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Yes, but posting my answers makes a reproducible result that ensures the number is honest, and not artificially inflated. Verification is priority no. 1 for me.

Will Hunting

I think there was someone in chat with 180,000, ten times my size.

@Tonepoet Reproducible, methinks

Tonepoet

5:35 PM

@WillHunting Corrected.

Tonepoet

5:55 PM

@WillHunting 22,300. That's still much rather too low for my liking, given that a typical vocabulary is usually at least 35,000 words, but I suppose I should not really be surprised by my results.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Why do you say typical?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting The number range I typically see reported is 35,000-75,000, such as in this B.B.C. news report.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet LOL. Why is your so small? I thought you read a lot.

Tonepoet

75,000 is also the sum total of words in the second edition of An American Dictionary of the English language, so I know it is an achievable number by a mortal man.

Will Hunting

I basically stopped reading fiction after elementary school, lol.

Tonepoet

6:01 PM

@WillHunting One test or the other is probably inaccurate. Based upon Test Your Vocabulary's F.A.Q. I think the test is more conservative than what the usual reports use:

"Why do you only test up to 45,000 words?

Because honestly, there really aren't any more generally-used words than that. The Oxford English Dictionary may list 300,000 words, but after 45,000, they're pretty much all either archaic, scientific/technical, or otherwise inapplicable to any kind of "general" vocabulary test. In fact, finding such general words beyond 35,000 was a real challenge."

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet Do you watch a lot of youtube?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting I watch video game commentary on Youtube often enough.

Will Hunting

Oh every time I visit youtube I switch the content location to US, because I don't wanna see anything from Antarctica.

Anonymous

Sorry to disturb. But I think my question will be too trivial for the ELL site. Does this sentence sound correct: "We saw the fatal cliff more than once, from which the climber fell to his death." ? Is there any grammatical error in the quoted sentence? Is the comma necessary?

Tonepoet

@WillHunting There's also a 10% margin of error in the test, and truth be told, I am not currently well read.

Feeds

6:12 PM

0

Q: A word to describe simple, ugly solutions that work well

I am looking for a word to describe the products or solutions to problems that are made at a very low cost, often home-made or by a very small organization. The products or solutions perform their function very well, but lack the aesthetics found in major brands or finished products at retail sto...

single-word-requests

Tonepoet

6:24 PM

@WillHunting Also worth note is that testyourvocabulary does not count word derivations, only dictionary headwords. Another test may very well count double the words. So while it might read 18,000 and 23,000, another test may very well rate us at 36,000 or 44,600 for the same answers.

Feeds

7:01 PM

1

Q: Proper term for going through something (an audio) quickly

I know that when you go through a book quickly you skim through it. What is the exact term when I go through an interview i recorded quickly? listening different steps just to get the general idea and jot down a few notes before proceeding to the actual activity of transcription. I've looked on...

single-word-requests phrase-requests

Tonepoet

@WillHunting And it took me a while to find this, because I would not have expected this information to be on the website's blog, but its survey results from May 10th, 2013 indicate this much: "Most adult native test-takers range from 20,000–35,000 words" so, it seems like my earlier suspicions are correct. It only indicates about half of the range of the other tests.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet I see. I am very proud of my small vocab actually. It means I can express whatever I want using as few words as possible, LOL.

Tonepoet

7:18 PM

@WillHunting I'd argue that having fewer words means you need to use more of them to make effectively the same statement, but given how much I more I write in each statement than other people, it would be hypocritical for me to do so.

Then again, I just write what most people would omit though.

caub

8:38 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 imgur.com/gallery/SYba7

well to anyone actually

Tonepoet

9:06 PM

@caub What are the benchmarks for it running Lego Batman like?

Will Hunting

10:14 PM

@Tonepoet You can always leave a comment on that append answer and on the question itself to inform the asker and the answerer of the matter.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Just because something can be done, does not mean it should be done. My experience with commentary is that it is unpersuasive, so I would rather not unless the conditions are right.

Will Hunting

@Tonepoet LOL, and yet you told me to downvote. To me, a comment says more than a downvote.

Tonepoet

@WillHunting Yes, well, a -1 score would make it more evident that there is a problem, and increase the likelihood that the answerer would notice a problem and be receptive to criticism.

I'm not going to do it at 0 or higher in this case.

Will Hunting

In fact, a downvote says absolutely nothing, LOL.

Tonepoet

Not all communication needs to be said. Sometimes tacitness is more effective.

If people are not in the right mood to receive criticism, they shall not respond well to it.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…